Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
My understanding is that there are some well-to-do individuals who wish to increase the value of their portfolios of high end cards (one could use the euphemism "protect their investment" but it's more than that), and more generally to foster an environment where at least at the high end cards are perceived as investment-quality goods. One of the ways they are trying to accomplish this is to try to “push” the prices of big ticket items both on ebay and in catalog auctions such as Heritage, etc. On ebay, at least, where one has some visibility into bidding histories, one can see that their M.O. is to very aggressively bid up ongoing auctions, trying to find the top and hoping to push others to bid higher. Thus, one sees many of these high ticket auctions where the bidding history reveals that the same underbidder has placed a very high number of bids, most of them consecutive, but stops short of taking the lead. Other times, of course, the "pusher" will take the lead and even win the item.
I have communicated with PWCC about this. Brent informs me that he has three rules in place to address what clearly is happening in today's market. One, a bidder cannot bid on items he has consigned. Two, a bidder cannot retract if he does cross the threshold and become the high bidder. Three, a winning bidder must pay.
So my question for the group is whether this activity by the "pushers" in the context of Brent's rules (I don't know what rules others may have) is an unethical variant of shill bidding, or just aggressive but ethical conduct. The argument for it being unethical of course is that the "pushers" are not bidding (at least in many cases) in an effort to win items but rather with the goal of increasing the price someone else pays, in order to protect their investments/drive the market higher. And almost certainly, people are paying higher prices than they would in the absence of these bids, which is the quintessential concern about shill bidding. Not to mention overall market and trickle down effects. (Yeah, I am not neutral here.) On the other hand, assuming Brent's rules are followed, people are not retracting to discover high bids, are paying if they win, and are not running up their own cards which of course is the more traditional shill bidding situation.
An interesting issue and one on which I suspect there will be a variety of opinions.
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