the reverse-shill scam
blurryface
Posts: 5,136 ✭✭✭✭✭
buyer has 2 accounts.
buyer sees .99 auction. (card vcp avg is $2500)
buyer places $3500 bid w account A.
buyer then places $3600 bid w account B, driving price to $3501 eliminating the possibility of any underbids to be placed, thwarting off any snipes or other interest naturally w outrageous price. after all, an "obv shilled auction", right?
buyer THEN retracts account A bid w seconds left
this retraction allows buyers B account to win the auction for basically nothing since there are no underbids or snipes in place.
good news though. you can now send that massive loss via pwe w tracking for only .75 cents.
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Is it possible to retract bids in the last several hours of an auction? I don't sell and I don't retract bids, but I was under that impression.
So if I follow correctly, Bidder B won the card for $0.99 cents?
pretty much. laid out that scenario for ease...but usually incorporated to where $1100 or so would be the bottom bid. not much harder to induce if you throw in another step of bid matching by the accounts. just didn't want to over-complicate the description.
just happened to a well known luka collector where 5 big cards "sold" for about 1/3 of their true value. all were sitting about 30% higher from the last previous sales.
It used to be, not sure anything has changed. If you retracted in the last 15 minutes (I think it was 15 minutes) it didn't automatically cancel your earlier bids, which it certainly should.
That was the first and last time I got shilled and paid too much. Now, I either put in a bid/snipe I am comfortable with.
You can't retract bids in the last minute unless your bid was within the previous hour... any earlier bids have to be retracted 12 hours before bidding closes.
eBay’s full policy..
https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bidding/retracting-bid?id=4013
If there are 12 hours or more left before the listing ends, all of your bids can be retracted
If the listing is ending in less than 12 hours, you can retract your most recent bid if it's been less than an hour since you placed it
Nic
Guides Authored - Graded Card Scanning Guide PDF | History of the PSA Label PDF
That makes a reasonable amount of sense, though 15 seconds would be better than one hour. I guess this is a disadvantage for sniping.
after a phone call the guy built up an account to a 50 feedback account then deleted his account. and apparently this was done on a rash of pwcc and probstein auctions last month.
eta: ebay is not requiring him to fill the orders on any of these
apparently something very similar happening w other luka cards as well. was just directed here and another "buyer" w feedback rating of 7 pulled the same thing. placed a bid first thing, then deregistered 7 days later. other folks bid w/i last hour then retracted.
https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1271884&page=540
There is simply no valid reason to retract a bid. If you can't grasp the concept of an auction you should not be bidding.
Ebay obviously allows it because it makes them more money. This does not make it right.
I have never retracted a bid. In fact I don’t even know how.
Yaz Master Set
#1 Gino Cappelletti master set
#1 John Hannah master set
Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, Dwight Evans, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
I agree, but I can kind of see it within 15 seconds if you really bid by accident, like forgot a decimal point. People should be careful. How does allowing bid retractions make eBay money?
The rules for retracting are clear and technically only for errors in bidding or if you can not contact the seller. If you error, you are supposed to reenter the correct bid amount immediately after a retraction. obviously this does not happen and ebay allows people to freely retract, sometimes 100s of them in a short period of time.
I tend to have 1 every once in a while. in fact, I just had 2 and were my first in at least 1-2 years. I had impulsively bid on a couple autographed cards, then went back and looked at the sellers other items when I had time and saw a lot of bad fakes. I got nervous on those I was top bidder on and even talked myself into the fact that they were both probably OK fakes. I even briefly thought about just taking the hits if I won them. Keep in mind I had only bid I think $6 and $8 respectively and might have been outbid anyway. I decided to protect myself, not help a seller of bad goods and take the possibility of a small hit to my reputation. on the other hand, I have 10000+ feedback as a buyer over 20+ years on ebay and I don't think 2 retractions in 6 months would scare anyone who even had half a brain.