@ArtVandelay said:
I'm pretty surprised we have not seen anyone yet on this forum trying to spin it. PWCC had a few employee accounts where they would always try to spin their fraud and then Salt of the Earth Betsy would pop in and attempt to sway people.
The Probstein left ebay thread had a few alt accounts pop up to defend probstein. It was pretty obvious they were alt accounts, especially based on them posting back to back like that.
Llamas and alpacas are camels. They aren't like camels, or related. They are camels. When was anyone going to tell me this?! How long had Bill Nye been holding out on us?
@BBBrkrr said:
Hold on. I thought he left Ebay because they forced him off the platform, or did he leave for greener pastures all on his own?
Did he leave because word was out on him (not to mention the negative feedback) so he could erase all that from customers on his own platform?
That had to be an expensive month or so for his business.
He left eBay because he could see how much easier it would be to control his shill bids. When you have complete control over the auction platform, it allows you to see what the pre-bids are, which makes it simple to bid it up to just under the max pre-bid.
He didn't even bother to try and hide it on his site by stating that Snype had complete authority to bid on items (basically, verbage to state he had the right to shill without saying the word shill).
It was stated on the website? That's wild. I didn't catch that when I was registering any of my 20 accounts!
@galaxy27 said:
if you deal with probe and not if, but when it goes completely sideways, you officially have no one to blame but yourself at this very unabridged stage of this conspicuously deleterious game
Totally Agree!
Any reading this thread have more than enough knowledge of the ilk they are dealing with, thus when they get taken they are getting what they deserve!
As for me, NO trading card is worth my dignity
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972) Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
@craig44 said:
I am sure you have all heard about the giant egg Rick Probsteins new platform layed as the first round of auctions were about to end. Just read this on X from Sports Card News:
"Rick Probstein spent 21 years on eBay, selling nearly $1 billion worth of cards. Last month, he took the leap & launched his own auction platform: Snype.
On Monday, as the first auctions closed, everything fell apart.
"We're experiencing a system-wide technical issue due to high volume," the official statement read.
But that wasn't the real story.
A Pokemon forum user discovered something far worse: Snype's entire backend database was exposed to the open web. No authentication required.
Anyone with basic technical knowledge could access:
Full bidder & consignor information
Names, emails, addresses
Birthdates & payment information
Complete bid histories
All of it. Just sitting there.
But the security breach wasn't even the worst part. The exposed database revealed something damning: multiple accounts shared addresses linked to Probstein, his wife, & known scammer Kevin Burge.
One account placed 11,277 bids. The username? "Hunny Bunny." The email address? Rick Probstein's.
In total, 1,331 auctions were allegedly impacted. Total bids placed across them: 29,000, totaling $1.28M in bids. 96 auction “wins” are attributed to the flagged accounts.
Every suspicious account was verified as a "Super Bidder"—a status requiring eBay feedback and industry references.
But the eBay usernames provided? They don't exist. The industry references appear fabricated.
The hobby is in the middle of a shill bidding crisis. Pryan. Dr. Beckett. Fanatics Collect marketplace. All under fire for auction manipulation.
And now Rick Probstein—appears to have launched a platform specifically designed to facilitate shill bidding while leaving customer data completely exposed."
@craig44 said:
1,114 negative ebay feedback in the last 12 months. yet people still bid. this should be a HUGE scandal. the data breach. the obvious schilling. yet none of that was addressed by Ricks message yesterday. and i am sure it will not be addressed. just like the trimming scandal from 5-6 years ago, this too will quickly fade away and be forgotten about by most.
@craig44 said:
1,114 negative ebay feedback in the last 12 months. yet people still bid. this should be a HUGE scandal. the data breach. the obvious schilling. yet none of that was addressed by Ricks message yesterday. and i am sure it will not be addressed. just like the trimming scandal from 5-6 years ago, this too will quickly fade away and be forgotten about by most.
imagine that.
I have yet to bid on a Probstein ebay listing since he returned, but i likely will at some point. I have a few on watch right now, but most get driven up beyond what I would pay anyways.
You can look at it this way. If you are willing to pay $200 for something at auction and you win it for $200, then you should at least be be satisfied you won it at your price. Sure, winning it for $100 is better but you still didn't pay more than you were willing to pay.
I have not placed manual bids for items on ebay in many years (15+ easily), other than to make them for easy viewing later. I will always have a snipe bid loaded for something I want. I only bid what I would be OK with paying if I won. I lose most of what I bid on mainly because I am quite budget conscious. Maybe that takes me out of the majority of the typical shilling auctions anyways. I still have a mental dilemma making high priced purchases, even if I can afford them and am OK with my bargain collection. When I win, I do tend to win a lot of my items at close to my max bids which is frustrating, but sometimes I get a steal here and there and in the end I am still not exceeding my price. Is it all shill bidding or am I just pretty good at pricing the stuff I do win? Who knows. I am not saying that I am immune to shill bidding that way or that I condone it happening. However, sniping is still probably the best way to counter the effects of shill bidding, aside from avoiding any suspected shill sellers entirely. As you said though, if they have something you want or need, most people are at least going to give it a shot.
Anyone still manually bidding their max up front on a platform like ebay and hoping their proxy bids hold out though are literally asking to have their bids driven up. It's like leaving your car unlocked at night and then complaining that someone "broke in" and took your ashtray change.
I collect Steve Garvey, Dodgers and signed cards. Collector since 1978.
Anyone still manually bidding their max up front on a platform like ebay and hoping their proxy bids hold out though are literally asking to have their bids driven up. It's like leaving your car unlocked at night and then complaining that someone "broke in" and took your ashtray change.
yep!
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972) Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
Comments
The Probstein left ebay thread had a few alt accounts pop up to defend probstein. It was pretty obvious they were alt accounts, especially based on them posting back to back like that.
Llamas and alpacas are camels. They aren't like camels, or related. They are camels. When was anyone going to tell me this?! How long had Bill Nye been holding out on us?
It was stated on the website? That's wild. I didn't catch that when I was registering any of my 20 accounts!
Too bad. They got some nice football sets up for bid. I don't think that I can compete with Hunny Bunny.
test
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
Totally Agree!
Any reading this thread have more than enough knowledge of the ilk they are dealing with, thus when they get taken they are getting what they deserve!
As for me, NO trading card is worth my dignity
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
Happy Thanksgiving! ~From Rick and friends on board the ....Hunny Bunny.
Who writes a 7 line positive feedback? That’s seems odd.
Its Mr Ernest goes to Camp to you ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_from_Panama
Insane !!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_from_Panama
The choices weren't that all great lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_from_Panama
PEGGY SUE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_from_Panama
I have yet to bid on a Probstein ebay listing since he returned, but i likely will at some point. I have a few on watch right now, but most get driven up beyond what I would pay anyways.
You can look at it this way. If you are willing to pay $200 for something at auction and you win it for $200, then you should at least be be satisfied you won it at your price. Sure, winning it for $100 is better but you still didn't pay more than you were willing to pay.
I have not placed manual bids for items on ebay in many years (15+ easily), other than to make them for easy viewing later. I will always have a snipe bid loaded for something I want. I only bid what I would be OK with paying if I won. I lose most of what I bid on mainly because I am quite budget conscious. Maybe that takes me out of the majority of the typical shilling auctions anyways. I still have a mental dilemma making high priced purchases, even if I can afford them and am OK with my bargain collection. When I win, I do tend to win a lot of my items at close to my max bids which is frustrating, but sometimes I get a steal here and there and in the end I am still not exceeding my price. Is it all shill bidding or am I just pretty good at pricing the stuff I do win? Who knows. I am not saying that I am immune to shill bidding that way or that I condone it happening. However, sniping is still probably the best way to counter the effects of shill bidding, aside from avoiding any suspected shill sellers entirely. As you said though, if they have something you want or need, most people are at least going to give it a shot.
Anyone still manually bidding their max up front on a platform like ebay and hoping their proxy bids hold out though are literally asking to have their bids driven up. It's like leaving your car unlocked at night and then complaining that someone "broke in" and took your ashtray change.
Anyone still manually bidding their max up front on a platform like ebay and hoping their proxy bids hold out though are literally asking to have their bids driven up. It's like leaving your car unlocked at night and then complaining that someone "broke in" and took your ashtray change.
yep!
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)