Can't fight City Hall- eBay protecting their large sellers (probstein content)
 

I purchased 7 cards from Probstein on the 10th of December. They were all from a modern set and clearly from the same consigner as they all were the same player, same set and very low serial numbered.


I won all 7, two for a very low price and the other 5 for about market average. I paid not thinking too much about it. Fair play-service and shipping was quick and Probstein had delivered my cards in a few short days. It needed a signature and was returned to my main HUB and it took a sweek for me to retrieve the package. Cards were packed well and were in good shape.

As I was entering my new cards into spreadsheets (date acquired, price paid, ect...I do enjoy this part) I poked through and low and behold I was shilled. The bidder o***l with 11 feedback. This person has 100% bidding activity with the seller. Every bid was on these cards within the last few minutes.

So I contact Probstein and explained in a well thought out and polite email that these cards were clearly shilled. I was hopeful that he had not paid the consigner the fees yet and we could reach an agreement. He replied with this:

He knew darn well I would run into a big, fat wall.

I called them, I emailed them, I reported the auctions, I waited on hold with them, I spoke with eBay employees that I could literally just barely understand a word they were saying. eBay customer service is basically useless and so I resigned myself to that there would be no recourse.

Well the only recourse left would be to leave appropriate feedback, right?

Well the last kick in the teeth was all the negatives have been removed.


Probstein makes eBay a lot of money...as long as he says he's against shilling it's good enough for them. FWIW I was shilled for $62.00

Ter.ry Lew.is

Sorry to hear you fell victim to Probsteins well documented shilling...I'd say a $62 lesson could have been much worse!

With all the problems associated with Problemstien I am at the point that I blame the problem 100% on anybody stupid enough to bid on his auctions. JMHO

I agree with you 100%

I was unaware of how institutional it really was and that is why I have posted this thread. I will never bid on a Probstein card ever again

Ben- Well said my friend. These threads go back to when Moby Dick was a minnow. Hello!, dont bid on his freaking auctions!!

I would guess that a large percentage of his buyers aren't members of this forum and thus have no idea that there's a problem. I actually threw a bid in on a card last week, didn't get shilled. Got it for less than market value. That happens occasionally.

Mention that you intend to document the incident and file a complaint report with your state's district attorney's office. ebay will connect you to a manager and you should get some satisfaction then, depending on how your wish to resolve the matter.

I have won several Probstein auctions and may have been shilled but I don't sweat it. I do my homework before I bid so that I only bid the maximum that I am willing to pay. If I win great. If I lose, I'll get the card from other sellers, sources, etc. I understand your angst but $62.00 is a small price to pay for a lesson learned. Good luck in your future collecting endeavors.

Duane Clark

I would exhaust every avenue to nail this guy, believe me. It's not the $62, it is the principle and I am willing to stand up to this crook.

The problem is I can't get on the phone with someone to make this threat!

"I can assure you, doctor, that I can make things unpleasant for you and your staff, if you have one."-- Kramer

To achieve the same result, if you aren't shilled in an auction do you flush a $20 bill down the toilet? Most collectors would prefer to keep the $20 and use it towards purchasing something else. Let's just hope that by 'homework' you don't mean following past shilled auction results.

Yup!

Shilling is everyone's problem

just bid under market value like guys keep saying...........

I suspect this may get interesting.

How so? Not sure what last two post mean or allude too.....

A couple posts seem to imply that fraud is ok as long as I keep my bids less than market value. No such thing as a true market value if fraud is inherent in the price.

I try to avoid his auctions as much as possible because of this problem but occasionally I get suckered into bidding. Sometimes it works out without a problem other times you can tell something isn't right. I personally try to set a limit on what I'm willing to pay for a card and not even look at the bidding history if I win the card for lower than my set limit just to avoid any problems. Sure some may say you are still feeding into the fraud of the auction by willing to pay more because someone is shilling but at the end of the day Im happy if I won for lower than my limit.

The ebay seller could really care less about the shilling going on because he profits from it and so does ebay. At the end of the day either bid with caution and a limit or just don't bid on any of his auctions anymore.

-Nick

Agreed. I stopped bidding in Probstein auctions years ago. Even if you set a limit and get the item for that amount or less, you still lose money due to shilling and ultimately become part of the problem.

If that's the way you feel do what I do. And I've never lost a single dollar:

I pay with paypal using my American Express card. When I have a problem, I go directly to American express, not paypal or Ebay. Occasionally American express will ask why I don't go to paypal or Ebay and I tell them that the American Express customer service is responsive and it's difficult or impossible to get an Ebay or a paypal rep on the phone.

American express places a hold on the money through Paypal and then Paypal freezes the money or takes the money from the sellers bank account. (Not sure how Paypal is allowed to do this but they do).

You would be surprised how much more helpful and willing to work out a problem the seller becomes when he no longer has your money and needs to resolve this.

American Express has an investigation process and most of the time they claim they don't receive the proper paperwork from the seller and therefore they often close their investigation and reward you a refund. In the event the seller does supply paperwork, American Express still gets you a refund.

Like I said before, I have never lost a case using this method.

You cannot police it. Some auctions that may seem shilled, may actually be legitimate auctions. You can never prove this. Like others have said, just don't bid on his auctions, or if you do, have a firm price that you want to pay(possible using completed auction comparables).

Sellers
 

I go into any auction believing the seller has a price below which he does not want to sell the card, or a price he wants to get for the card. He may do it with a BIN, a reserve, a high opener, or by shilling. While the ethics of those methods obviously vary, I do not see it mattering in the end to me. On ebay, or in a house auction I set a snipe or place a max bid in the amount I am willing to pay, and that 's it. If I lose, I lose. if I win I don't check the bid history unless I later get a 2nd chance offer. I never pay more than what I thought the card was worth to me

I understand your view on this. I used it to buy the only item I ever purchased from Problemstein. That was about 6 months ago and every time I see it I wish I had spent the extra $40 and bought it from someone else.

Blue 58 Topps Hank Aarons are selling at all time highs. I can get you one at a slight discount, any interest?;)

No it isn't. It isn't Probstein's problem. He keeps getting record prices.
It isn't ebay's problem. They keep getting more fees.

I don't understand. If I set a snipe for a max bid in the amount I am willing to pay, how can anyone or anything force me to spend more than that ?

Because the amount you bid could be influenced by previously shilled auctions making the current market price inflated from the shilling.

Let me make it simple to understand. Lets say you have a snipe set of $100. There is a legitimate bidder at $50. Then there is a snipe shill bid by the sellers friend at $95. That shiller isn't going to buy it he just wants to run up the price. His snipe (fraudulent shill) goes off at $95. So your snipe goes off and you win at $100. How would you feel now?

Now I understand. Thanks. :eek:

If recent history of all completed auctions revealed a price around 100(hence your snipe bid max), then I would only be bothered by the fact that I didn't get a steal, and not that I was shilled up to what I felt was going rate. If I had put in a snipe 100.00 over recent completed auctions, and I was bid up to 195, then I would be pissed, but once again it comes back to being a smart buyer/bidder.

Me too, and as Al said, I don't bid more than what I believe the card is worth to me.

Well if you guys don't mind being ripped off by shill bidders could you just send the extra money to me? I guess if you have something and don't know it, and I steal it, it's ok? Sounds good to me.

Todd, with all due respect (I like you and know you are very smart), I find your sentiments on this subject to be idiotic. Again, nothing personal.

I would feel the same as if I did a Buy It Now for $100 only to see a similar item sell for $50 the next week. I would feel like I overpaid. But I'm with Al - it doesn't matter to me if the price was driven up by a shill or a hidden reserve - in my mind, an item shilled to $100 was never really available at $50, and if I paid $100 for it, that's what it's value was to me at the time.

That really wasn't my point. I was giving you a counter to your example, which I think is fairly logical, no?

Oh yeah, it's logical and I understand the comments about the fraud being a reserve. I get it.

ps...I should add almost all of my comments aren't pertaining to Probstein, they are how I feel about shill bidding.

If the sales venue has that shill bidding IS allowed in their sales, then I guess I have no issue with it. But that isn't the way most sales venues in our hobby operate.

and from my good friend wiki- so we are on the same page-

"A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization."

.

I think it would start mattering to you if you ever decided to sell your collection, and you ended up only receiving 50% of what you paid minus seller's commission and buyer's premium. So if you had a collection that you paid $10,000 for, and it ended up selling for $5000, and then the auction house takes out the BP of 20% for $1000, and seller's commission of 10% for $400, and therefore your net is only $3600, you would be shaking your head.

The point here is why did you think that $100 was a reasonable price to pay for that card? Perhaps it was because you saw past sales for that card (or similar cards) for $100. However, what if all of those past sales that you saw were all shilled up. Then you would be basing what you thought were completely reasonable prices to pay for cards based upon fraudulent data.

I am not a fan of shill bidding either, but any card or item sold on eBay/auction site has the same chance of being shilled, as an item by Probstein. You can say any cards sales data are fraudulent. He takes the brunt, because he is a big target, but a lot of people complaining about his auctions, have probably been shilled on other seller's auctions, and they don't even know it. This brings me back to my point of being an educated bidder, which to me makes shilling an afterthought.

Regarding ANY crooked seller…

Interesting that when these discussions take place there is always an argument that it is okay to support a crooked seller, as long as you are paying what you consider to be a fair price. Then it devolves into examples of where a lower than 'fair' price was paid for something, which by some twisted logic indicates that, because not ALL of the seller's auctions are shilled, NONE of them are shilled. If you want to support a crooked seller, just support the guy, but don't make excuses as to why it is okay, because it isn't.

Leon,

IMO, you cut short the crux of the matter.

"Shilling is illegal in many circumstances and in many jurisdictions[1] because of the potential for fraud and damage; however if a shill does not place uninformed parties at a risk of loss, but merely generates "buzz," the shill's actions may be legal. For example, a person planted in an audience to laugh and applaud when desired (see claque), or to participate in on-stage activities as a "random member of the audience," is a type of legal shill."

Not once did I say shilling is ok. I just don't let it affect me buying baseball cards, bc I pay what I am willing to pay. People having problems with particular sellers have the freedom to either buy from someone else or don't blow money on cards.

So if your belief is ‘only bid up to what you’re willing to spend’, then let me ask you this. Let’s say you budget $250 a month for your electric bill and it's consistently under that amount. However, you find out that the meter reader has been misreading it for months, and not in your favor. Does it bother you enough to do something about it, or do you just keep stroking that check every month and tell yourself, "Well, at least it’s under my monthly budget”?

Actually that is exactly the crux of the matter. The crux is that without a shill the buyer IS at risk of paying more and will therefore lose. I agree there needs to be a victim and there is one, the buyer.

And like I said, I am aware of some instances outside of our hobby where shilling is permitted and done all of the time. So be it and forewarned is fair-warned.

IF we all want to applaud for him, nah, no harm done.

Agree 100%, other than I've only won one of his auction. It was for a lesser known 1921 Zbyszko Exhibit. I was willing to pay $100 for it (tough wrestler), but I knew I would be probably shilled up to that. So I sniped at 50 something and won, happy. If I lost, no big deal, I'd rather wait and even pay a bit more down the line.

Secondly, GREAT for him (sarcastically, of course) for shilling OP out of $62 !!!!! Hope it's worth losing a customer that might potentially spend hundreds in the future !!!!

Alright, I'll be the elephant in the room here. The guy has only bid on 5 items in the last month........he has zero bid retractions in the last 6 months.

Is the 100% figure (on 5 items) the only evidence you have that this guy is an actual shill?

Is there a prior history of Probstein selling these exact same cards, that somebody else might have won, prior to your winning them?

Could it actually be that he saw a card from a set he was looking for and threw in his obligatory few bids for the month?

.....another possibility, and I've heard of several OCD type collectors who do this. He may have already had the card, but saw it was going for a low price and raised the ceiling on them, figuring he was protecting the market. If he wins, no biggy, it's a card he likes anyways.......if he loses, no biggy, he thinks he kept the market from crashing on a card he likes.

Thenextlevel - every time you bid in an auction run by a crooked seller, you are saying "shilling is okay".

Or how many with the same belief would INSIST on paying market price to someone who KNOWINGLY provides the item at a discount? "Please, take my extra $50 since VCP says you are giving it to me below market price."

Personally I think those that don't have a problem with shilling fall into 2 categories. Those trying to justify that it doesn't matter (the "market price" crowd), and those that don't care (the "don't worry, be happy" crowd).

That reminds me of today's article on rent increases - renters cry when rent increases to approach market value, but demand a decrease when market value for rentals drops.

In my opinion hidden reserves are bogus. If you want to put a reserve on your item, then put a reserve on it. Bidding on your own items to hit some hidden reserve is lame.

I will not bid on some items if there is a reserve. It has nothing to do with what I'm willing to pay. I'm not willing to play that game at all. So if someone has a hidden reserve, that to me is a misrepresentation. Some people call that a lie, others a hidden truth. Either way I don't want to be involved and failing to be upfront about it is not cool in my opinion, regardless of what I'm willing to pay.

Please excuse my ignorance on this, but where does current card market price come from and where did it come from before the internet/ebay?

Even though I assume every ebay auction is shilled, it appears to me that the sold listings set the market price. I've won cards from respected auction houses that advertise here and have paid around what they have sold for on ebay. So what am I supposed to do? Where do I buy cards for prices that are not affected by ebay shills? Even cards I buy here on the BST are not that much cheaper than ebay sold listing prices minus the ebay/paypal fee percentages.

Sorry, poorly worded on my part. I realized you knew that. Just (for others) that it is illegal in many jurisdictions and there is a reason for that.

Do I have the "option" of paying the electric bill or not, as I have the "option" of paying for a card. I get the example that you are trying to make, but as I stated, don't bid blindly. Once again, I do not condone shillers, but I do buy what I want for my collection, at the price I wish to pay. Whether that be from a shilling seller or not, by following this rule of thumb, I never beat myself up over any purchase.

Child, when caught with hand in cookie jar: "But Mom, everyone in our house has the same chance of having stolen a cookie! You are just picking on me because I'm the biggest cookie eater!" (hand in jar during entire discourse)