Something Fishy Here

joestalin

Check out this feedback, notice anything odd?

Hmmmmm


JS

DeutscherGeist

Either he just liked what the TheToppsVault had to sell. or he may be a shill for the seller.

joestalin

if you really want to see something impressive, check out the feedback for thetoppsvault

over 7000 positives,but their feedback # is one thousand something..dang can you be anymore
obvious?

pretzel

<< <i>Check out this feedback, notice anything odd? >>



no

WinPitcher

The guy like to buy from the toppsvault, which is owned and operated by the topps company if I am not mistaken. So no I do not see anything wrong.

CON40

Man... that guy's one loyal customer!

AkbarClone

I hate shillers as much as anybody--but some of you guys take the most circumstantial evidence and judge/condemn anyone who doesn't have typical/normal feedback patterns. Prime example: MYSELF.

I have over 3500 feedbacks (all positive)--but my feedback rating is only 126. Why--because I found several dealers who were so outstanding (accurate descriptions, super fast and secure shipping, great prices and a huge inventory) that I bought most of my 3500 auctions from the same 3-4 sellers. These sellers not only were great with prices/shipping--but they also allowed me to win multiple auctions over 2-4 weeks at a time before settling up--and they would only charge "actual" shipping costs. So I would win as many as 70-80 auctions from one seller each month--and they would only charge $10-$15 shipping (which comes out to only 20 cents shipping per auction) AND, several of them would always send freebies--not one or two cards, but as many 50-60 free cards, sometime even one year old beckett guides when they got new ones in. I was a loyal and dependable buyer--they took care of me in return--and then I continued to bid.

I would imagine that all of you would condemn me a shiller if you looked at my feedback. But Paypal records would confirm that I sent monthly payments every month for many hundreds of dollars, and if the sellers kept their postal records, they could confirm that they sent monthly shipments to my address (and since I reuse the shipping boxes to store my hordes of cards--I still have the boxes that have my address, their return address, and the postage markings which show when and how much the postage fees were.

So--while several shillers are easily discovered--just seeing that someone has a disproportional feedback rating as opposed to their total feedback count--does not mean squat. I've seen shillers exposed on these boards--and I hope they rot in hell for their unethical conduct--but I've also seen these accusations posted with just circumstantial evidence. Please have proof whenever you condemn someone you don't know.

I've been wanting to say this for many months--whenever there is "Check out this shiller" thread. There are LOYAL customers out there, and I've found that the sellers I have dealt with always appreciated me. Especially since they knew I was 100% guaranteed to pay, and they also got to send one single big box to me each month (as opposed to possibly 50-80 seperate packagaes to all the different winners that would have existed if I was not the big winner of all the auctions I won from them.)

Just something to think about.

toppsgun

Stalin just can't believe that some people in the ebay/CU/collector community are honest. Coming from his tiny world, I'm sure you can see why.

joestalin

toppsgun...why did you run and hide from that other thread? LMK

I don't understand these mass dealings. it would seem that after a certain point you would
approach the seller and deal one on one, why waste the money on the fees and everything? I can
see 10 maybe 20 times, but after a point don't you email a guy and ask for a list? It seems much more
economical. If you scroll through 10 pages of the same user id and the same exact feedback it
just looks like you are padding your resume.

JS

AkbarClone

My best dealer used to help me out with wantlists from time to time--but in the end--he still preferred to put them on eBay anyway--I guess because he knew there would be cases where someone would pay more than me for cards. I didn't hold it against it him at all. He helped me so much, that I didn't begrudge him chance to get the most money for his cards. Plus, he was the one paying the listing fees--not me, so I didn't care at all if I had to win it on ebay. Plus, anytime I was the only bidder--I got the cards for substantially less than what he would have probably sold to me direct. He listed 99% of his auctions with a starting bid of 99 cents.

joestalin

you see that is what I don't get, it cost roughly 40 cents in fees to list and sell a card......selling a bunch
at 99 cents just doesn't seem worth it to me.

100 toppsvault auctions cost the winner minimum 700 bucks in shipping charges.....that just seems like a
waste to me. Funny that if you leave a negative for the vault they block your bidding...maybe they have
weeded out all the "troubled" buyers. To think they once had a shipping time or 4-6 weeks on items. I
think if I won a bunch of auctions from them I would have better things to do than leave them a single
feedback for every auction....100 or 150 auctions has to take some time......that just seems fishy.

JS

BugOnTheRug

Joe,
You just added one more notch to the 'are-you-for-real' belt.

BOTR

Tightwad

Akbar. Bravo.