Why do Est. dealers let 0 feedback bidders outbid us on high $ items

chrisrenaud

Have just been outbid by 0 feedback bidders on two 71 PSA 9's (Toppsgal71) and on two 72 packs (by of all people forgodsolovedtheworldhegavehisonlybegotten son) - i kid you not on the last name.

Are these dealers with high feedback using schill bidders or is some too deeply born again christian trying to rain fire down on my New York parade.

zardoz51

Welcome to the board,

Why? because they can always run the lot again if the "0" buyer stiffs them. As for shill bidders, certainly not in Starx case. Not his style.

mcastaldi

Also. . .let's not forget we all started with a feedback of 0.

Besides, there seems to be a lot of time left in both the auctions you mention. Anything can happen.

I will also agree with Zardoz - I've done a bit of business through Starx Cards and Paul has always been extremely honest and fair. I can't imagine him doing anything like shill bidding.

Mike

chrisrenaud

I also remember that a lot of dealers do not let people bid at all with less than 10 feedback and when I started on EBAY (granted not years ago as I was living overseas when EBAY took off and it was damn near impossible to close a transaction with only UK bank accounts) that meant you started small, learnt how to close transactions without problems and then moved on.

I also think that it is a good idea for dealers in many cases because I presume that there are other people like me who do not like to be outbid by 0 feedback bidders on high priced items only to be asked by the dealer if you would go back to your original bid some weeks afterwards because they did not get their money - sometimes I just do not continue to bother bidding or bid at all in those cases (I know that is my decision to take).

I take your word on the fact that he is an honest dealer, although I have had the impression a few times there are a few bidders with high feedback who still use schills (I am not saying that at all in this case).

Thanks for your thoughts as well.

theBobs

I know some collectors that start up new names from time to time so that people don't track their bidding patterns.

brucemo

When I sell stuff, all of the contact stuff is automatic, so if someone has zero feeback, I probably won't notice. If they pay me, they are at the apex of the evolutionary scale as far as I am concerned.

It is very difficult to stop low-feedbackers from bidding unless you pay careful attention, and even then, low-feedback snipers sometimes win.

If any of you have any zero-feedbackers that you don't want, please direct them to my auctions.

bruce

zardoz51

"If they pay me, they are at the apex of the evolutionary scale as far as I am concerned."

You're a funny guy Bruce! LOL Five stars for that line

acowa

<Also. . .let's not forget we all started with a feedback of 0.>

Not me...I gave myself lots of great feedback early on. Remember the good old days when you could give someone feedback without even having it tied to a transaction? There was a guy called "Stinkey" that had a huge feedback rating with absolutely zero transactions.


Regards,


Alan

theBobs

Those good Ol'Stinkey days...

mcastaldi

Chris> I do know sellers who will require bidders with feedback of less than 10 - or - anyone with multiple negative feedbacks to e-mail the seller prior to placing their bid. I have no problem with this.

But it's not just low-feedback bidders who can renege on their winning bids. And when it comes down to it, when you are outbid for an item does it really matter what their feedback rating is?

Mike

mikeschmidt

There really is no system available by which a seller can stop someone with zero or better feedback from bidding on an auction -- especially if you consider the number of these <10 feedback bidders who are essentially sniping auctions.

MS

Bailey

If you are running 100 or more auctions at a time, it is very hard to monitor who is bidding on your auctions and what their feedback looks like. If I ran an auction for a card worth say $10,000, then I would be checking it, but for two and three digit auctions, that would be a very labor intensive project!

Bailey

mikeschmidt

The bottom line, I think, is that you have to trust the system. I know new sellers and long-time established sellers that abuse the system -- and it eventually becomes a matter of trust. The same thing goes with the auction houses, where it can even be more dubious with mysterious outside sellers bidding 1/1 cards up into the stratosphere.

Buyers can protect themselves by a) hiding their registry sets, b) sniping and not establishing "easy to track" bidding patterns (e.g. bidding same amounts, sniping stuff you have an initial bid on, etc.) and c) having hobby friends win your lots in auction houses. Though the last point seems kind of silly, I know a few people, myself included, that seemed to get a few prized possessions for less than expected when we let a "new player" come in and bid, and our first bids were outbid very early in the auction.

MS

chrisrenaud

Thanks everyone for the advice.

I think I will take most of it other than hiding my set registry, at least for now, although I will start to do that if I get burned on a few auctions where people look into whether or not I need a card. As I am collecting a lot of different sets for fun, I am not even over 50% on any of them, so the risk is less now.

Thanks Again

Chris

1954

Paul Starks with starxcards is great. He is probably the nicest and most honest dealer out there. I have done many of deals with him and he is one of the best.

Leo

zardoz51

Yes, he's a good good guy, but he did cross over to the GAI side. He seems to have come to his senses and returned to the light. I wonder what he's going to do with all that stuff he slabbed with the others? I guess keep trying to push them on ebay under starxcards2