Something Fishy Going on Here?
 

Ran across this yesterday and struck me as very strange. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but this raised a bit of a flag for me. Take a look at the two cards below - both have sold within the last month (one bought by me yesterday in full disclosure and I noticed this after the fact).

Anyone else think it is curious that the PSA certification numbers are only one off? Especially for such a high grade card with a qualifier that overall should be a pretty rare submission shouldn't it?

One step further, 43072565 is ALSO a '67 Aaron graded at an 8. This wouldn't seem too abnormal to me if these were '89 Donruss Griffeys or something that someone submitted a whole bunch at a time hoping for one to grade out a 10.

That actually makes sense. 3 of the same card in a row for the grader to compare and say "ok there is a 10 here somewhere". I've tried it before, never works though

Nothing fishy. Big collectors/investors may have many raw copies of the same card that they submit at the same time.

Probstein = Fishy.
C'mon, someone had to say it...:)

Yeah Daniel glad you brought them up. One thing I've noticed, hopefully just my paranoia, is every time I've won an auction with probstein it just so happens to be exactly the max bid I put in. Like if a card is currently sitting at $20 and I'm winning with an hour to go, but my max bid submitted may be $45.50, as time ticks down sure enough I end up winning for exactly $45.50.

Now I know there's a rush at the end of auctions as people are sitting on the sidelines and pounce at the last minute, but almost seems to me these big consignment houses have hacked eBay and know exactly what the highest bid submitted is out there then bid right up to that point with dummy accounts or something.

Is this a thing?

Do a google search for shill bidding.

Dirtbags. But how do they know exactly when to stop and not push it over everyone's max? Or do they not care because it's all a volume game and they'll just relist it?

1) It's not normally the consignment company: it's the owners of the cards or their friends.
2) Say the current bid is $25 and you set your max bid at $101.44 . eBay will continue to bump your bid to the highest for any bid up to your max. So if the owner of the card bids $50, yours will show $51. Then they bid $60, you bid $61, etc. But if they bid $100, and the minimum increment (additional bid amount) is like $2.50, your $101.44 bid will now show. Then they stop bidding.
3) This is why people don't bid large numbers until a few seconds before the auction ends; this is called a snipe bid. It makes it harder for you to be shill bid if you bid your number only at the end.

Interesting! I did not know that. :(

Thanks for sharing that, John!

Oh gotcha. So in other words with the set it and forget it approach I can pretty much guarantee I am going to pay that max bid unless I throw it in at the last second and there's no time for them to bid up to my max because they always have the ability to do so by the nature of the min bid increment?

I feel like a moron, guess this is all eBay 101.

Here's a helpful tool for setting those snipe bids, or last second bids:

https://www.gavelsnipe.com/

Under the "my account" setting you can find a "my gavelsnipe preferences". On that page you will want to set your buffer to 6 or 7 seconds.

Nice thanks CW. So I’m straight- the idea is say a card is currently at $30 with 4 hours to go. I would be willing to spend $50 for it but if I could get for $40 obviously that would be better. If I set a traditional bid at $50 now with that much time left I could definitely get bid up to my max by shill bidding. If I submit my $50 last minute and everyone else’s max is $40 I would win it for $41? With this tool I can still set my max but it waits for the last few seconds do to submit it? Genius.

That helps but some of the shill bidders are now also setting snipe bids.

Much rarer. If that happens and the seller offers you a second chance when the buyer "backs out", you tell them no.

Yeah, the shill bidding happens/happened with the sports auction houses as well. That's what brought down Mastro; their software did not mask high bid amounts from the company, and the employees would place bids up to your max to make you pay more by bidding against yourself.
That tactic is legal in some states as long as the auction houses inform you. So when you create an account with Heritage, REA, Mile High, etc., make sure you read the fine print on their auction rules. (Not sure which ones allow it, and which don't)
Or just bid one increment at a time at the end of the auction.

Correct, if they do make a mistake and 'win' then it just ends up re-listed one way or another, whether the first 'win' ever gets paid for or not. Then they're just less optimistic with the shills next time. Happened to me a few weeks ago (same seller).

These Aarons are nearly guaranteed to be from the
same wax/vending box. This means they came off
the same print runs so they seem identical. I send
runs of cards like this in all the time. Fairly common
occurrence.

One other thing regarding ebay and shills: Don't go back and increase your bid when you are already winning. A shill bidder will check the bid history and if they see you are the high bidder and have made the 2 most recent bids, they know they can safely increase the bid until they beat the first (lower) of your 2 bids. You are telling them that you have already made a bid that is higher than your original max, so they can nudge the bid in between.

Great tips guys, thanks! Mark - I was actually doing that all the time not realizing I was a sitting duck!

I always make a placeholder bid and a snipe via auctionstealer. Saved me thousands over the years. it is the only way I will bid on stuff from Probstein: either I get it for the minimum or my snipe.

I can tell you as an honest seller that I hate seeing two bids from the same sole bidder because I know there is money on the table I won't get if the item sells for that initial bid, but that's the price of integrity. Well worth it IMO.

Yeah I guess philosophically you can look at it from both sides. If as the buyer my max bid is truly how much I am ultimately willing to pay for something then maybe that should always be the amount of the sale. Anything under feels good to me as a “discount” but actually represents an imperfect market. When you look at an item the questions isn’t “what’s the most someone else is willing to pay for that and I’ll pay a dollar more” it should be “what am I willing to pay for it”, shouldn’t it?

Given an unlimited budget perhaps.

For those of us who have to choose between items, knowing what someone else might pay is only part of the equation in figuring out what to bid, or so move on and not waste my time on something I'm sure to loose.

You definitely sound like an easy mark. Don't buy magic beans.