Blatant eBay stealing, shilling or coincidence? ...discussion, opinions?
Steelernation
Posts: 362 ✭
I didnt want to hijack itzagoner's "SETBREACK Is a $612 word" but it has me thinking and wondering what methods these shillers use.
I Don't know how to post a link (itzagoner has the link on his thread) so click the $625 link. But to summarize. Basically it's a 1969 common Jim Britton PSA 9 baseball card, previous sold for $13, that now has sold on eBay for $625 by PWCC.
To summarize, if u look closely at the "Bid History Section" there were only two bidders. The winner enters first bid at 6:59 on march 6th. The shillers enters a $1000 bid at 11:21 on march 6th. Which drives up the price. So the winner keeps bidding until outbid at $603 at 1:11 on march 7. Or was his last bid at 1:33? The shill has top bid of $615 at 1:33PM on march 7. He retracted his bid at 1:32PM on march 7. One minute difference. Then the winner makes his final $10 increment bid an hour later to win it for $625.
The shills retraction can be seen in the "retraction cancellation history" at the bottom of the page. I did not know this was available to see.
I may be reading this completely wrong and may be legit. It just seems really odd. And to itzagoner's point, may be the reason why a common PSA 9 goes for $625.
This may be a snapshot of a classic shill bidder or much ado about nothing. I'm not at all familiar with their techniques so was wondering what you guys thought? But retracting ur bid within a minute of what he thinks is the max that the winner will bid seems more suspicious than coincidence
....can someone post the "$625" link to this thread to make it easier for readers? Thanks.
I Don't know how to post a link (itzagoner has the link on his thread) so click the $625 link. But to summarize. Basically it's a 1969 common Jim Britton PSA 9 baseball card, previous sold for $13, that now has sold on eBay for $625 by PWCC.
To summarize, if u look closely at the "Bid History Section" there were only two bidders. The winner enters first bid at 6:59 on march 6th. The shillers enters a $1000 bid at 11:21 on march 6th. Which drives up the price. So the winner keeps bidding until outbid at $603 at 1:11 on march 7. Or was his last bid at 1:33? The shill has top bid of $615 at 1:33PM on march 7. He retracted his bid at 1:32PM on march 7. One minute difference. Then the winner makes his final $10 increment bid an hour later to win it for $625.
The shills retraction can be seen in the "retraction cancellation history" at the bottom of the page. I did not know this was available to see.
I may be reading this completely wrong and may be legit. It just seems really odd. And to itzagoner's point, may be the reason why a common PSA 9 goes for $625.
This may be a snapshot of a classic shill bidder or much ado about nothing. I'm not at all familiar with their techniques so was wondering what you guys thought? But retracting ur bid within a minute of what he thinks is the max that the winner will bid seems more suspicious than coincidence
....can someone post the "$625" link to this thread to make it easier for readers? Thanks.
0
Comments
~WalterSobchak
While I agree these bid retractions are getting out of hand and are inexcusable, it looks like the under bidder on the PWCC Britton did come back and win the next one offered shown in the link.
~WalterSobchak
But doesnt the winner come back to ultimately win AFTER the shill retracts his offer? Which I would think is the classic method
<< <i>As we've seen play out with the ebay sellers on this board many times just because someone wins an auction doesn't mean they pay for the item. >>
this assumption is not correct in this particular case. the person responsible for the high priced victories has been paying his bills, receiving tons of positive feedback, and continues to buy with the same frenetic intentions.
After I posted I went to check for feedback and sure enough positive feedback was left for the item and as you say "he continues to buy with the same frenetic intentions."
<< <i>Itzagoner, also the winner was not the shiller. I never made reference he didn't pay. Don't think it applies in this case. >>
there was no shiller. at no time have i ever implied that there was. my reply about non-payment was for dennis07.
the underbidder on the high priced Britton was one of 2 guys waging war over a baseball card. simple as that. timing stepped in and made it compelling, to say the least. compelling enough that someone would even consider $1000 as a potential ceiling which needed to be reached.
nuclear bidding. it is a VERY risky move. and people do it.
the system allows them to retract if they want to, so blame the system.
Just seems suspicious to me but what do I know. Because I've never retracted a bid. Can u retract while u have the winning bid?
<< <i>I gotcha. I didnt mean to abs accuse him of shilling. Just easier to refer him as such. My confusion is if he was willing to bid $1000 seems odd that he wouldn't bid $650 for example if he wanted it that bad at one point. But he can def change his mind.
Just seems suspicious to me but what do I know. Because I've never retracted a bid. Can u retract while u have the winning bid? >>
the "retractor" came back and eliminated his $1000 bid. he then placed another bid immediately thereafter with a lower ceiling. the winning bidder came in at the end to secure it with a higher bid. maybe the "retractor" had a change of heart. or a magical vision which appeared in time to advise him that the next available example was only 4 days away and would wind up costing him almost $500 LESS.
edited to add: just for clarification, my statement about the winning bidders price came at the end of a "bid war" which took place at the beginning of the auction. you should notice that the final price of the card stood for 6 days after they were finished.
Eventual winner comes back the next day and bids three times quickly bringing up the bid to about $565.00 and stops, waits an hour and bids just over $600.00. 20 minutes later high bid is retracted and immediately rebid with a bid of $615.00. This seems like a rather unusual way to bid. Eventual winner almost immediately bids again, (I wonder how high he was willing to go?) and wins item.
Bidding was all done in first couple of days of auction and nothing at the end, which is a little unusual. Seems the underbidder COULD have been stuck with the card at $615.00 Would he have retracted THAT bid as well if eventual winner didn't fire back so quickly?
My thoughts; the guy that won this auction is either wealthy, stupid or wealthy AND stupid. He should certainly join a snipe service. I am curious as to how high underbidder guy would have bid without knowing there was someone else aggressively bidding on the same item AND figuring out how to see what the other bidder was bidding.
I for one don't think it's right, even if ebay allows this. Underbidder should be required to honor his $1,000.00 bid and if he is allowed to retract, all previous bids on that item should be cancelled. he should not be allowed to bid on the same item again.
He knew the winner's high bid all along, and even though he did gamble a bit when he bid the $615.00 he knew one more bid and he would be outbid. Who tries to WIN a card that way. Looks like he was bidding to lose the card, but at the highest price possible. He has a couple of bid retractions in the last 6 months, so while he doesn't do it a lot, he is doing it.
My opinion is he was either shilling (32% of his bids are for the seller), or at least he was manipulating the auction, almost like he figured out who the other bidder was and tried to make him pay as much as he could to win the item.
EBAY STOP ALLOWING RETRACTIONS! Some lawyer is going to file a lawsuit on this and it's going to get ugly for ebay if it's determined they are allowing unethical bidding to artificially inflate the final values and make more fees.
Edited to add; with 32% of his bids being with PWCC does anyone think underbidder could have been/could be bidding on his own cards? He then cleverly bids on a similar card and wins it later.
i will opine that the constant discussion about bidders with high percentages towards one specific seller is becoming more defined to me, at least.
there are A LOT of people out there who are dedicated to buying from the big dogs, it's undeniable. they won't look elsewhere, even if there's a bargain to be had. call 'em what you want. if you want to call 'em stupid, then you need to ask yourself how they got all that money in the first place.
<< <i>Looks to me like the underbidder put in his $1000.00 bid on 3-6 after the eventual winner had bid once. The bid would have then been at about $344.00 eventual bidders bid amount is now revealed, but he is not high bidder.
Eventual winner comes back the next day and bids three times quickly bringing up the bid to about $565.00 and stops, waits an hour and bids just over $600.00. 20 minutes later high bid is retracted and immediately rebid with a bid of $615.00. This seems like a rather unusual way to bid. Eventual winner almost immediately bids again, (I wonder how high he was willing to go?) and wins item.
Bidding was all done in first couple of days of auction and nothing at the end, which is a little unusual. Seems the underbidder COULD have been stuck with the card at $615.00 Would he have retracted THAT bid as well if eventual winner didn't fire back so quickly?
My thoughts; the guy that won this auction is either wealthy, stupid or wealthy AND stupid. He should certainly join a snipe service. I am curious as to how high underbidder guy would have bid without knowing there was someone else aggressively bidding on the same item AND figuring out how to see what the other bidder was bidding.
I for one don't think it's right, even if ebay allows this. Underbidder should be required to honor his $1,000.00 bid and if he is allowed to retract, all previous bids on that item should be cancelled. he should not be allowed to bid on the same item again.
He knew the winner's high bid all along, and even though he did gamble a bit when he bid the $615.00 he knew one more bid and he would be outbid. Who tries to WIN a card that way. Looks like he was bidding to lose the card, but at the highest price possible. He has a couple of bid retractions in the last 6 months, so while he doesn't do it a lot, he is doing it.
My opinion is he was either shilling (32% of his bids are for the seller), or at least he was manipulating the auction, almost like he figured out who the other bidder was and tried to make him pay as much as he could to win the item.
EBAY STOP ALLOWING RETRACTIONS! Some lawyer is going to file a lawsuit on this and it's going to get ugly for ebay if it's determined they are allowing unethical bidding to artificially inflate the final values and make more fees.
Edited to add; with 32% of his bids being with PWCC does anyone think underbidder could have been/could be bidding on his own cards? He then cleverly bids on a similar card and wins it later. >>
I like the idea that bid retractions be allowed, but it cancels all that person's bids for that item and they are no longer allowed to bid on that item.
You make an interesting point about legal ramifications from bids not being made "in good faith", so to speak, and how allowing that to happen can give eBay artificially high fees as a result. Maybe they will finally tick off the wrong bidder who is wealthy and/or has the right legal connections.
<< <i>He then cleverly bids on a similar card and wins it later. >>
what's so clever about spending $127.50 on a $13 card?
Long story short; I bid foolishly high on an item I liked, underbidder bid up the price using $2.00 dollar increments and became high bidder, then retracted his "winning" bid and I won the auction at my high bid. Had that bidders entire bidding been cancelled, I would have won at about 1/3 the price. I complained but I honored my bid and paid for the item. To make matters worse it came back from PSA as a fake!!!!!!
Re-tractor claimed he "entered wrong bid amount" how can this be true if he bid 20 times in small increments? Oh yeah, when he saw he was high bidder that's when he figured his last bid was "wrong".
There is no legitimate reason for retractions, you are asked to confirm your bid before it is applied to the auction.
<< <i>
<< <i>He then cleverly bids on a similar card and wins it later. >>
what's so clever about spending $127.50 on a $13 card? >>
Makes him look innocent of bidding on his own item. If asked he could simply say "bidding got too high so I still wanted that card and bought the next one".
Why does he bid $1,000.00 then $615.00 in the first place on a card that is worth $13.00?
If he was the owner of the $600.00 card re-buying one at $127.00 makes him look innocent and still leaves him with a $500.00 profit.
I am not claiming he did this. Just saying it would be a possibility.
You're exactly right. If a bidder retracts, then all of his bids should be cancelled.
I'm in another collecting community. And this happens with a particular auction house, in which I think that house shills it's own items. My example use to happen like clockwork....
It would come down to me and bidder #2. Just an ex. We would go back and forth at hundred dollar increments starting at $1000, just me and his unique bidder number that was available on the site and I would note. Say he would top me at $6000 and I would bow out. My last bid being $5900. Like clock work (a least 5 times over 2 yrs) they would call the next morning saying he couldn't pay, made a mistake, no funds blah blah and that they're going down to the next bid and it was mine for $5900. My response, "no, I can get it for $1000." or whichever my bid was over the last non-involved bidder. at first I paid the $5900. The AH had abs nothing to lose and would keep pushing the bid until I quit. Then would call.
And they new what items I would be interested in and my bidding habits, history, about my max bid for particular items.
The units used were for example, it would be more like $4500...4950...n+10% etc. But long story short, sorry..too late...If retracts one bid, all of his bids should be...they're not on eBay?
<< <i>My opinion is he was either shilling (32% of his bids are for the seller), or at least he was manipulating the auction, almost like he figured out who the other bidder was and tried to make him pay as much as he could to win the item.
EBAY STOP ALLOWING RETRACTIONS! Some lawyer is going to file a lawsuit on this and it's going to get ugly for ebay if it's determined they are allowing unethical bidding to artificially inflate the final values and make more fees.
Edited to add; with 32% of his bids being with PWCC does anyone think underbidder could have been/could be bidding on his own cards? He then cleverly bids on a similar card and wins it later. >>
^^This
As long as eBay's policies remain the same there is a reasonable, though not necessarily rational, logical or ethical, explanation for observed bidding patterns. People are just taking advantage of any loopholes. Draining your competition is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this bidding pattern, just watch any of the storage unit auction shows. eBay takes the risk away from being 'stuck' with the high bid when running up your competition.
Out of about 12 auctions I won, 10 of them were at my "Top All Bid"!! WOW I am such a genius that I know JUST EXACTLY how high to bid on this stuff!!! To make it worse, I was a novice and usually bid in even amounts like $200.00 instead of $202.01 and still the other bidders simply stopped just short of my bid, but RARELY even one increment less!
Finally simply quit bidding on those auctions, or tried to bid late (phone bidding yuck) so as not to get ripped off.
Ebay is still HANDS DOWN the best place to buy and sell, but there are a few improvements that could be made!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<< <i>If you win an item on eBay then don't pay, what action does eBay use to get you to pay? >>
Email/Message reminders and non-payer strikes on your account.
Ur right again. No bids for 2 days until I bid at 2:30 am on the final night (morning) then all of the sudden someone outbid me at 2:35 a.m.
If I didnt outbid him that night. I'd get a call the next day that "guess what the other guy couldnt pay, so I can still have it!! Boy, I was so lucky so many times! My good fortune.
And i agree on don't get me started, should start another thread with stories....NO bids at my high bid of $20 for a non-used practice tshirt for 2 weeks...then in the middle of the night 7 separate $5 bids right up to my $55 "hidden maximum bid". Then he stopped. Again, my good fortune even for cheap items.
So even for a $20 T-shirt, auction houses have no self respect.
I know that the 1969 Topps BB set is very popular but why someone would even bid over $600 to win a pop 26 card is beyond me. The fact that there are 26 Jim Briitton PSA 9s at this time seems to indicate that there are more to come as grading continues into the future. I know it is all relevant to supply and demand but this is not a real "condition sensitive" card in my opinion. It takes at least two bidders to raise the stakes to such a high price level as this card reached regardless if one bidder was shilling or not.
I'm not excusing "shilling" as I am sure even with my being careful with my bids, I have no doubt won cards where I paid more that I should have because someone shilled up the price. But I believe we could minimize the impact of shilling to some degree simply by not bidding amounts that far exceed the current or possible future value of the card.
Beyond this I would add that the prices that PWCC and Probstein auctions bring in are quite impressive. Their bidding base is amazing. I have placed bids that for me were much higher than normal and exceeded SMR and recent VCP prices, yet lost the auctions. In my mind I was pushing the envelope as to what was reasonable for me to pay, yet in some cases I wasn't even close. All this compounds the issue of shilling or not as there are a lot of legitimate bidders out there who simply want certain cards and are willing to pay considerably for them.
All this to say....bid realistically based on a card's value and its value to you and perhaps you can minimize the impact of shilling on your pocketbook. Until sellers and eBay manage bidding better we are all susceptible to being victimized.
I for one haven't the slightest most microscopic clue as to why I (or anyone for that matter) would pay more money for the same exact card because either Probstein or PWCC was offering it.
Can someone give me an explanation, other than the owners of these cards are bidding on them if the prices aren't high enough? I wonder what the percentage of bid retractions are on their auctions as opposed to sellers like me that are selling their personal items. I can't remember too many "bidding wars" on thins I have sold! LOL
I remember when we used to be a little more sympathetic towards novice collectors and protective of the "hobby" in general.
If we are seeing newbies or uneducated bidders being screwed out of their hard earned cash we should all be ashamed.
There should simply be a stronger effort to halt the EASY ways for people to manipulate these auctions, eliminating, or at least severely restricting bid retractions, would be a good first step.
As usual, in today's world, a lawsuit will probably be what it takes to change things........................sad.
Robb
Looking for 1970 MLB Photostamps
- uncut
Positive Transactions - tennesseebanker, Ahmanfan, Donruss, Colebear, CDsNuts, rbdjr1, Downtown1974, yankeeno7, drewsef, mnolan, mrbud60, msassin, RipublicaninMass, AkbarClone, rustywilly, lsutigers1973, julen23 and nam812, plus many others...
<< <i>Those claiming "shilling" for the auction in question by the card owner have no idea what they are talking about.
Robb >>
Are you the owner? If so, then YOU know if you were bidding on your own item. If not, you don't know anything more than anyone else here.
If you read my posts I never said I KNEW who was bidding. I offered up a few different ideas. It could be a complete moron who lowers his bids when bidding, could be a drunk who thought he was bidding on something that had value (more than $125 or $13 or whatever), could be someone who figured out (or thought they did) who the other bidder was by their feedback number and wanted to make him pay more, could be a friend of the cards owner, could be the cards owner. Could be someone who thinks a cards value is higher if he buys it from a good consignor.
OBVIOUSLY SOME STRANGE BIDDING GOING ON! People are going to speculate, that's one of the things we do on a message board.
I will ask again, why would anyone offer more for a PSA graded card from PWCC or Probstein? Maybe I am out of the loop, but I search for cards that I want by the cards description, not by sellers.
Seems odd to me that it's said over and over the two biggest consignors get prices much higher than others. WHY?
Bueller, anyone????????
i don't really believe that the winner of the $625 example purchased it because PWCC was selling it. the perception of it being a tough find is found within the recent pricing for the card......which had not seen a high grade example in the online market for a period of almost 2 years.
<< <i>The "set break" and larger sellers offer many similar cards at one time. Collectors like the idea of being able to pick up a whole lot of cards all at once from one seller and will pay more for that convenience. Or you could pick up one or two here and there from different unknown sellers with different rules and regulations and hope your card doesn't arrived busted in half in a PWE. >>
I appreciate that a good reputation has value, but I for one haven't had many problems with poorly packaged cards.
Certainly not going to pay significantly more until that changes.
same winner, different underbidder.
1969 Topps #106 Jim Hannon PSA 9
<< <i>here's another example of a common '69 Topps card which achieved 10X historical value in the PWCC auction.
same winner, different underbidder.
1969 Topps #106 Jim Hannon PSA 9 >>
Is that print defect above his cap evident on all Hannon cards?
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>Seems odd to me that it's said over and over the two biggest consignors get prices much higher than others. WHY? >>
That has always bothered me too. As long as that trend continues, the other sellers will disappear after they see their items sell for peanuts, and PWCC/ Probstein will get bigger and bigger. And there is your monopoly folks......
<< <i>
<< <i>here's another example of a common '69 Topps card which achieved 10X historical value in the PWCC auction.
same winner, different underbidder.
1969 Topps #106 Jim Hannon PSA 9 >>
Is that print defect above his cap evident on all Hannon cards? >>
i looked a bunch of raw examples on eBay and they all have the same little purplish blotch above his head.
BS move
The person bid late in the auction, retracted, and then came back in at a lower level. I reported it to eBay knowing full well they'd do nothing about it. The bottom line is that eBay hasn't cared one iota about shill bidding for years now. That's not gonna change. It's the Wild West folks. And there is no Sheriff.
<< <i> Seems odd to me that it's said over and over the two biggest consignors get prices much higher than others. WHY? >> >>
I'm not going to disagree that both Rick and Brent get good money for their listings, PWCC probably more. But I recently had two set breaks that did over 150% of VCP, one was 178%. I think KbKards nailed it, a set break where a buyer can amass quite a few cards from a set at one time brings in more $$, as does many of the auctions where the bidding starts out at $.99. Starting a card at $.99 is a gamble and I've given my fair share of cards away, but the winners out number the losers by a wide margin.
~WalterSobchak
<< <i>A similar thing happened to me with a PWCC auction back in February >>
shagrotn77, that's about as blatant as it can get.
~WalterSobchak
July 2013 nolan opc psa 9 sells for $75 (and there were probably 10 or more sells before that one over a span of 12 - 18 months, in the same area)
December 2013 one sells for $275
February 2014 two of these sell for around $450.
why?? i have two of these so i guess i am happy but really skeptical. by the way there are 28 of these and 1 nine.
Robb
<< <i>I still maintain that as a responsible bidder you must be realistic as to what a card is worth to you and bid accordingly. If you win you should be pleased you got the card at a price you can live with, if you lose at least you can feel that you didn't overpay. I know this doesn't resolve the problem of whether a shill bid did or not took place, but at least it can protect you from overpaying. >>
The lone voice of reason in this thread. I've said it before. Be a responsible adult and you'll be able to live with the results no matter how it turns out.
As far as time vs money. Ill def pay more to save time and avoid a hassle. Hundreds? Im not so sure. But eBay is def in favor of the buyer so prob would be easy to get ur money back. Also, so is the credit card. Paypal...I'm not sure who they favor. They Def favor themselves!!
True, to accumulate a lot of cards in the same auction is convenient. Not several hundreds of dollars convenient. Nor is the damage risk.
Not saying it's the owner but something doesn't sit right with this one.
1) I recently consigned an SGC 6 card with PWCC/Probstein (don't even need to say which one) and there was a BIN card out there in the same holder for $105, so I said to myself - well there is my ceiling. The card sold for $126. It's baffling to me - only thing I could think of is maybe some collectors filter out anything that isn't an auction? It was my auction so I know I didn't schill it - could the consigner have done so? I really don't see it - to earn what? a nickel?
2) Different auctions have different rules - I don't know the technical name for it, but the only rational way to bid on an "eBay style" auction is to snipe. If you do anything else, you are basically asking to pay a higher price - anyone can nibble up your bid. There is no reason to give away that information.