PWCC and eBay: Commitment to an Honest Bidding Environment
PWCCAuctions
Posts: 15 ✭✭
My name is Brent Huigens, founder and owner of PWCC Auctions. I tend to detach myself from reading and posting to message boards as I believe they offer the hobby a forum for discussing issues openly without the influence of businesses like ours.
Let me be clear. My entire business, and in fact my personal pride as a business owner, hinges upon buyers feeling confident that they are participating in an honest, legitimate bidding environment. We have three rules at PWCC:
1. Consignors cannot bid on their own items. This includes collaborating with others to bid on their items on their behalf.
2. Winning bidders must pay for the items they win.
3. Bids cannot be retracted; any honest bid errors should be brought to us to handling personally.
While the overwhelming majority of bidders obey the rules, I find myself in a calm but constant battle to monitor bidding behavior. I truly appreciate those members of the collecting community who bring suspicious behavior to my attention and I am committed to investigating each instance of improper bidding and will take action when necessary.
Our auctions are run on the eBay platform, and we strongly believe that eBay’s software offers the most transparent, impartial bidding software in the industry. For example, neither PWCC, our consignors, or anyone else has the ability to know maximum bids. This ensures that folks don’t have the ability to drive up prices up to another bidder’s maximum and essentially eliminates the possibility of shill bidding as it’s classically defined in reference to past bad behavior in our industry (i.e. Mastro, etc.).
Having said this, there are still a number of opportunities for improvement. PWCC has developed a close partnership with eBay, and through relationships with eBay Trust & Safety and the eBay Collectibles Team we’ve been able to raise important issues around bid legitimacy to eBay executives. We’ve described to them the vulnerabilities that eBay has, and how bidders can potentially cause harm to the bidding environment. Issues such as artificially driving up prices, improper bid retractions, and other forms of manipulation are now being viewed as legitimate issues within eBay management.
We applaud eBay for cultivating a free marketplace with limited restrictions. Within this context however, PWCC is a unique eBay user and requires additional oversight due to our position in the industry. PWCC has now empowered eBay to monitor our account, using the tools they have available, to help us police the venue and ensure our auctions are the most trusted in the industry.
The exact tools that eBay plans to employ will remain confidential, but we can say with confidence that they are indeed powerful tools that we fully believe will help ensure an honest and trusted marketplace. Please spread the word that starting with Auction #7 of this year, eBay will begin their increased oversight. We are proud of the action both we and eBay are taking on this matter.
Here is a letter from eBay outlining their plan to address these issues.
Thank you for your continued support of an honest bidding environment.
P.S. PWCC will be attending the National Sports Collectors Convention this week in Atlantic City (booth 1700). If you plan to also attend and have any questions about this new approach to monitoring bid behavior in partnership with eBay, please don’t hesitate to come discuss in person. I am also available by phone and email at any time should you have any concerns, suggestions, or questions.
Brent Huigens
PWCC Auctions
Let me be clear. My entire business, and in fact my personal pride as a business owner, hinges upon buyers feeling confident that they are participating in an honest, legitimate bidding environment. We have three rules at PWCC:
1. Consignors cannot bid on their own items. This includes collaborating with others to bid on their items on their behalf.
2. Winning bidders must pay for the items they win.
3. Bids cannot be retracted; any honest bid errors should be brought to us to handling personally.
While the overwhelming majority of bidders obey the rules, I find myself in a calm but constant battle to monitor bidding behavior. I truly appreciate those members of the collecting community who bring suspicious behavior to my attention and I am committed to investigating each instance of improper bidding and will take action when necessary.
Our auctions are run on the eBay platform, and we strongly believe that eBay’s software offers the most transparent, impartial bidding software in the industry. For example, neither PWCC, our consignors, or anyone else has the ability to know maximum bids. This ensures that folks don’t have the ability to drive up prices up to another bidder’s maximum and essentially eliminates the possibility of shill bidding as it’s classically defined in reference to past bad behavior in our industry (i.e. Mastro, etc.).
Having said this, there are still a number of opportunities for improvement. PWCC has developed a close partnership with eBay, and through relationships with eBay Trust & Safety and the eBay Collectibles Team we’ve been able to raise important issues around bid legitimacy to eBay executives. We’ve described to them the vulnerabilities that eBay has, and how bidders can potentially cause harm to the bidding environment. Issues such as artificially driving up prices, improper bid retractions, and other forms of manipulation are now being viewed as legitimate issues within eBay management.
We applaud eBay for cultivating a free marketplace with limited restrictions. Within this context however, PWCC is a unique eBay user and requires additional oversight due to our position in the industry. PWCC has now empowered eBay to monitor our account, using the tools they have available, to help us police the venue and ensure our auctions are the most trusted in the industry.
The exact tools that eBay plans to employ will remain confidential, but we can say with confidence that they are indeed powerful tools that we fully believe will help ensure an honest and trusted marketplace. Please spread the word that starting with Auction #7 of this year, eBay will begin their increased oversight. We are proud of the action both we and eBay are taking on this matter.
Here is a letter from eBay outlining their plan to address these issues.
Thank you for your continued support of an honest bidding environment.
P.S. PWCC will be attending the National Sports Collectors Convention this week in Atlantic City (booth 1700). If you plan to also attend and have any questions about this new approach to monitoring bid behavior in partnership with eBay, please don’t hesitate to come discuss in person. I am also available by phone and email at any time should you have any concerns, suggestions, or questions.
Brent Huigens
PWCC Auctions
PWCC Marketplace
market@pwccmarketplace.com
833-333-7922
0
Comments
Donato
Donato's Complete US Type Set ---- Donato's Dansco 7070 Modified Type Set ---- Donato's Basic U.S. Coin Design Set
Successful transactions: Shrub68 (Jim), MWallace (Mike)
James
It almost sounds like this may be a test run for eBay using just PWCC Auctions to implement these new procedures. Then if it works out or after all the bugs are worked out it may be the standard for all of eBay. I think it's great and at the very least it sounds like eBay is going in the right direction to try and minimize shill bidding.
Donato
What I got out of it is that eBay will use existing tools and dats to finally start enforcing existing policies and use pwcc as a test case.
Good luck at the National!
TheClockworkAngelCollection
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'm curious to what people think would happen if ebay were able to control (I doubt they could completely eliminate it) the suspect practices? Do you think prices would fall to pre-spike levels? How about the auctions ran on private sites like Heritage and the other large AHs?
I tried bidding on some PWCC cards a few days ago using one of my newer buying accounts and was only allowed to bid on one of their auctions. Hats off to PWCC for going to eBay ('cause we all know eBay didn't go to PWCC) to get shilling under control.
What is the advantage of multiple new buying accounts? I ask because we've only had one account for 15 years which has always worked. Although we never get ebay promotions that people post about. I imagine we can get one for her but that would just result in more headaches to keep track of. I want to make sure were maximizing our ebay benefits because we don't really see many.
I tried bidding on some PWCC cards a few days ago using one of my newer buying accounts and was only allowed to bid on one of their auctions. Hats off to PWCC for going to eBay ('cause we all know eBay didn't go to PWCC) to get shilling under control.
What is the advantage of multiple new buying accounts? I ask because we've only had one account for 15 years which has always worked. Although we never get ebay promotions that people post about. I imagine we can get one for her but that would just result in more headaches to keep track of. I want to make sure were maximizing our ebay benefits because we don't really see many.
I sell books for a living and get a lot of inventory off eBay. When I use my primary account I run into the problem of having sellers cancel a transaction because they know I'm just going to relist it for more. This actually happened to me today on an item I had planned to have a custom cut made from, but the seller canceled and refunded me because I used my main account, they googled my store, and put the pieces together.
Having multiple accounts isn't as important as it was a few months ago when anybody could look at your exact bidding history through Goofbay, but it helps when those eBay coupons come along and you can use them more than once.
I tried bidding on some PWCC cards a few days ago using one of my newer buying accounts and was only allowed to bid on one of their auctions. Hats off to PWCC for going to eBay ('cause we all know eBay didn't go to PWCC) to get shilling under control.
I don't understand this. How can PWCC (or any seller, for that matter) permit bidding on one auction but not on another? As far as I know, the ebay platform does not offer such a restrictive setting for a seller to employ. In addition, the problem here is not bidding on multiple auction items, but shill bidding and bid retracting on specific items that are the primary issues, so what is the point of preventing a buyer from bidding on multiple items, whether he/she has a lower feedback rating or not?
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 tried bidding on some PWCC cards a few days ago using one of my newer buying accounts and was only allowed to bid on one of their auctions. Hats off to PWCC for going to eBay ('cause we all know eBay didn't go to PWCC) to get shilling under control.
I don't understand this. How can PWCC (or any seller, for that matter) permit bidding on one auction but not on another? As far as I know, the ebay platform does not offer such a restrictive setting for a seller to employ. In addition, the problem here is not bidding on multiple auction items, but bid retracting that is the primary issue.
I have no idea. Maybe it's something between eBay and PWCC? Maybe Brent can expound on this restriction here? I was certainly glad to see I couldn't bid on more than one item because (I think) that's how a lot of shilling occurs (using a newer account). I can't really add anything to the discussion on bid retractions.
I tried bidding on some PWCC cards a few days ago using one of my newer buying accounts and was only allowed to bid on one of their auctions. Hats off to PWCC for going to eBay ('cause we all know eBay didn't go to PWCC) to get shilling under control.
I don't understand this. How can PWCC (or any seller, for that matter) permit bidding on one auction but not on another? As far as I know, the ebay platform does not offer such a restrictive setting for a seller to employ. In addition, the problem here is not bidding on multiple auction items, but bid retracting that is the primary issue.
I have no idea. Maybe it's something between eBay and PWCC? Maybe Brent can expound on this restriction here? I was certainly glad to see I couldn't bid on more than one item because (I think) that's how a lot of shilling occurs (using a newer account). I can't really add anything to the discussion on bid retractions.
Perhaps. But I don't see how preventing a potential buyer with a lower feedback rating from bidding legitimately on multiple auction items is a remedy for the issues being discussed within this thread. You can bid on one item worth 2K, but not on 2 $20 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 tried bidding on some PWCC cards a few days ago using one of my newer buying accounts and was only allowed to bid on one of their auctions. Hats off to PWCC for going to eBay ('cause we all know eBay didn't go to PWCC) to get shilling under control.
What is the advantage of multiple new buying accounts? I ask because we've only had one account for 15 years which has always worked. Although we never get ebay promotions that people post about. I imagine we can get one for her but that would just result in more headaches to keep track of. I want to make sure were maximizing our ebay benefits because we don't really see many.
I sell books for a living and get a lot of inventory off eBay. When I use my primary account I run into the problem of having sellers cancel a transaction because they know I'm just going to relist it for more. This actually happened to me today on an item I had planned to have a custom cut made from, but the seller canceled and refunded me because I used my main account, they googled my store, and put the pieces together.
Having multiple accounts isn't as important as it was a few months ago when anybody could look at your exact bidding history through Goofbay, but it helps when those eBay coupons come along and you can use them more than once.
Ok thanks. That all makes sense and doesn't describe us. We rarely if ever sell. For some reason we still have never received a coupon while everyone is posting about theirs.We would like at least one. LOL. That was the only reason I could think of to getting another account. Thank you.
I tried bidding on some PWCC cards a few days ago using one of my newer buying accounts and was only allowed to bid on one of their auctions. Hats off to PWCC for going to eBay ('cause we all know eBay didn't go to PWCC) to get shilling under control.
I don't understand this. How can PWCC (or any seller, for that matter) permit bidding on one auction but not on another? As far as I know, the ebay platform does not offer such a restrictive setting for a seller to employ. In addition, the problem here is not bidding on multiple auction items, but bid retracting that is the primary issue.
I have no idea. Maybe it's something between eBay and PWCC? Maybe Brent can expound on this restriction here? I was certainly glad to see I couldn't bid on more than one item because (I think) that's how a lot of shilling occurs (using a newer account). I can't really add anything to the discussion on bid retractions.
Perhaps. But I don't see how preventing a potential buyer with a lower feedback rating from bidding legitimately on multiple auction items is a remedy for the issues being discussed within this thread. You can bid on one item worth 2K, but not on 2 $20 cards?
I think someone who is going to shill will create a new account (or more than one) to bid on their items. By restricting new accounts it gives Brent an opportunity to screen the user (I was told in an automated message to contact the seller to be approved). It may prevent a few honest bids, but imo, it's worth it. I bid on a $30 card, then a $100 card but couldn't. When I was outbid on the $30 card it let me bid on the $100 one (which I won for about $191).
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 tried bidding on some PWCC cards a few days ago using one of my newer buying accounts and was only allowed to bid on one of their auctions. Hats off to PWCC for going to eBay ('cause we all know eBay didn't go to PWCC) to get shilling under control.
I don't understand this. How can PWCC (or any seller, for that matter) permit bidding on one auction but not on another? As far as I know, the ebay platform does not offer such a restrictive setting for a seller to employ. In addition, the problem here is not bidding on multiple auction items, but bid retracting that is the primary issue.
I have no idea. Maybe it's something between eBay and PWCC? Maybe Brent can expound on this restriction here? I was certainly glad to see I couldn't bid on more than one item because (I think) that's how a lot of shilling occurs (using a newer account). I can't really add anything to the discussion on bid retractions.
Perhaps. But I don't see how preventing a potential buyer with a lower feedback rating from bidding legitimately on multiple auction items is a remedy for the issues being discussed within this thread. You can bid on one item worth 2K, but not on 2 $20 cards?
I don't see how this stops shilling since the bid retractions are the bigger problem. I'm guessing that ebay is reluctant to do anything that is perceived to be anti-bidder.
If you can restrict new bidders, then this option should be made available to all sellers. Almost all of my NPB are new bidders.
I tried bidding on some PWCC cards a few days ago using one of my newer buying accounts and was only allowed to bid on one of their auctions. Hats off to PWCC for going to eBay ('cause we all know eBay didn't go to PWCC) to get shilling under control.
This shouldn't have anything to do with the new policies. According to Brent above, they aren't starting with the new enforcement until Auction #7 and what's up now is late entries for Auction #6.
I have been on eBay 13 years and have retracted one bid, many years ago. It really should rarely, if ever, happen.
12 years and zero. I'm appalled by your criminal behavior.