PWCC & eBay - help us improve the hobby

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

John, while I agree with you that most posters are not "wrecked" over this, there is certainly a disproportionate level of anger by many considering the nature of the original post. As Matt said, everyone has a different sense of proportion.

If people want to get upset over this, that's their purgative.

Jason, the nature of the original post -- the righteous indignation over people raising questions, the "not in my DNA" choirboy shtick -- is precisely why people are reacting as they do.

[chaddurbin]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Seems all you have to do to win most people over is ship their card quickly and securely.

i'm happy with the free catalog that i didn't have to provide two hobby references for.

[Brent Huigens]

Fellow collectors,

Thank you for your responses to this thread and for providing suggestions for both improving eBay and for improving PWCC Auctions. I have separated our responses into two sections. The first provides my responses to your feedback about improving PWCC Auctions. The second provides my approach to incorporating your feedback in my conversations with eBay later this week.

I have said before that I try to limit my involvement in message boards in order to ensure an open, uninfluenced discussion. As such, I don’t plan to revisit this thread. If you have follow up questions or feedback, please send to me by email (brent@pwccauctions.com).

Thank you,

Brent Huigens
PWCC Auctions
brent@pwccauctions.com


Section 1: Feedback to improve PWCC Auctions:

Concerns over consignor-issued reserves in 2009-10

Raised by swarmee, wonkaticket, calvindog, Jantz, ullmandds

This was first discussed several years ago on this and the Net54 message boards. The reserve option was a highly restrictive service we offered over a narrow period of time, ending in 2010. It was used by very few consignors because our requirements were strict:

1. Consignors had to get PWCC approval to place reserve bids in advance
2. The reserve amount had to be conservative relative to the market value (also required approval)
3. The consignor still had to pay our fees, as well as eBay, in the event that the reserve was not met.

I estimate that no more than 100 (perhaps has few as 50) reserves were ever placed in 2009-10 and the vast majority were eclipsed by the bidding. Not making excuses for this program because we regret having it, but it was never used to wrong bidders, eBay, or the hobby.

Concerns over the cost of shipping, our approach to packaging, and recommendations to use FedEx rather than USPS

Raised by begsu1013

In order to keep shipping costs low, we use a packaging approach which includes multiple layers of envelopes. This includes a bubble mailer and a rigid outer envelope. This approach was developed over a decade of optimizing our shipping. We feel this approach results in not only an appropriate cost but also is very effective in protecting cards. Complaints of damage in shipping are extraordinarily rare.

We ship USPS because they offer the lowest rates. Generally speaking, most buyers prefer low cost over speed. We offer shipping through FedEx if buyers request it. Items over $3k are shipped USPS registered due to its unmatched safety and security.

Suggestions that we stop selling Christmas Rack Packs in our Auctions due to concerns over their legitimacy

Raised by Bbeck

We have discussed this internally and ultimately agree with the feedback from this and other boards. As such, we will no longer broker Christmas Rack Packs in our auctions, starting with Auction #6. Out of respect for our consignors who have already submitted these items to our current auction, we will sell the items we have already in house.

Concerns about bid manipulation (shilling)

Raised by Peter_Spaeth, Swarmee, Calvindog

9 times out of 10, bidding behavior that appears suspicious is actually legitimate, and just the result of eccentric bid behavior by trusted and proven users. However, we acknowledge there is still room for improvement which was the reason I started this thread; please refer to the next section of this post which summarizes the recommendations I intend to make to eBay to increase transparency in bidding and seller’s ability to limit bids from eBay users with prior bad behavior.

I encourage folks to contact me regarding any auction which they feel shows signs of suspicious behavior at brent@pwccauctions.com. I will always investigate and respond to these inquires. We very much appreciate everyone’s time in helping us police the market place.

Questions about the settings we use in our scanning process

Raised by Sean1125, Bbcemporium, Peter_Spaeth

Our goal with scanning is to make the card appear as close to its actual appearance as possible. We are not trying to enhance the appearance of the cards – this would not be in our best interest because we would end up with unhappy buyers, returned items, and a damaged brand.

We use an image size of 150 dpi because we feel this size is most representative of how the card looks when you are actually holding it in your hand. In special circumstances (high value, unique issues, etc.) we can and do provide higher resolution scans upon request.

Suggestion to list who consigned each item

Raised by glchen, Swarmee

This would deviate from the basic principles of a consignment-based business, though we understand the logic behind the suggestion.

Suggestion to ask the collecting community to police our auctions for bid manipulation and inauthentic items

Raised by Glchen

Yes! I often ask the hobby community to help us police our auctions, and welcome anyone who identifies perceived impropriety to bring it to our attention by email (brent@pwccauctions.com). In fact, a recent post on the Blowout Cards message board alerted us to an inauthentic item we had listed in Auction #5 yesterday. Based in part from the feedback from this message board, we ended the auction.

Suggestion to develop our own auction platform for PWCC and detach from eBay

Raised by irishdenny, swarmee

eBay is the largest market in the world. It is not broken, but we agree with many of the contributors to this post that there is room for improvement. We want to focus on improving an already highly functional venue rather than starting from scratch on our own platform. That said, should eBay make policy changes that we all feel undermine the needs of the hobby, we will absolutely make the move towards independence.

Question about whether we ever offered to waive sales tax for California auction winners if they paid by check?

Raised by calvindog

Yes, we offered this option to CA buyers in 2013/2014 until our move to Oregon at the start of this year. The State of CA was always paid the sales tax they were owed for all items shipped to CA buyers. This program was very expensive at times for us, but in 2013 our plans to relocate to Oregon were already in place, so we knew the program would be temporary. Bottom line, CA is a large market and we wanted CA based bidders involved in our auctions.

Because of our volume, we were audited by the CA Board of Equalization who reviewed all our transactions to CA buyers since 2009. It was concluded that we were in full compliance.


Section 2: Feedback to improve the service provided by eBay:

Suggestions to restore bidder usernames in bid history and enabling sellers to restrict bidding for things like unpaid items, bid retractions, and low feedback

Raised by swarmee, glchen

We agree about restoring bid history and usernames. It makes it difficult to ask the community to police bidding when usernames are truncated. In our opinion, more important than providing bidder IDs is providing a Bidder Defect Report, summarizing things like number of bid retractions, number of unpaid items, etc.

If such a report is created, eBay should also put in place the ability for sellers to enable or disable bidders based on certain metrics in the Bidder Defect Report. For example, sellers could then prohibit bidders who have a certain number of bid retractions, prohibit bidders who have a certain number of unpaid items, restrict buyers who have low feedback from bidding on all items or on selected items.

Right now, eBay does not have the functionality to allow sellers to do these things. This is one of my main suggestions to eBay.

Comments about seller’s ability to address negative feedback

Raised by Slidekellyslide

We agree that the feedback system needs revision, and the good news is that eBay agrees wholeheartedly. We will all soon see improvements to how feedback is treated. Generally speaking it is the belief of eBay that feedback should play a smaller role in marketplace.

Suggestion that eBay consider offering extended auction durations to enable more potential bidders to see items

Raised by glchen

We agree that the short durations can be a limitation. To address these concerns, eBay recently enabled 10-day duration auctions for free. It’s possible that they would consider longer auction durations in the future, but ultimately the need for long durations is a Catalog Auction invention, needed because auctions on those platforms are infrequent and bidders need time to find the items. Ebay has items closing 24 hours a day so the need for long auctions is less pronounced in our opinion.

Suggestion that eBay consider limiting the number of bids placed on an item by an individual bidder

Raised by tombocombo, DerekMichael

This is an interesting suggestion and worth discussing. In our experience, 9 times out of 10, mass bidding is not a sign of manipulation, but rather a symptom of competitive and often eccentric good bidders. So while mass bidding on a single item is certainly annoying, it’s rarely a sign of fraud.

Regardless, we agree this is a good suggestion and there may be some limits eBay could consider. We will bring it up.

Answers to specific questions raised by Swarmee

Raised by swarmee

1. How often are items for certain sellers not paid for? If that number is over 10% (or on large $$ items), that would be a sign to me that shill accounts are being used and then stiffed, so that the “buyer” doesn’t have to fork over cash to buy back their own card. They know you’ll relist the card during your next auction.

Great question, and a great metric to track. We do track this particularly for new consignors. In our opinion, a threshold of 10% is actually far too high. Returns and unpaid items are very rare. From an entire monthly auction, we only have about 1% of items go unpaid. For us, if a single consignor has more than 2 unpaid items, we research the buyers and bid history in search of suspicious behavior.

2. Does your staff actively cross-check buyer addresses with consignor addresses of the same cards? Are they kept in the same line on your spreadsheet/database where they could be easily queried to see if your consigners are winning back their items?

Yes, we absolutely cross-check buyer addresses with consignor addresses for all items. This is an easy check for us with the tools we use.

3. If the top bidder does not pay, do you offer to underbidders? If so, this would also spur shill bidding. You could make a policy that you will never make offers to underbidders. Most bidders are wary of receiving “2nd chance” offers, figuring they were bid up in the first place.

No, we don’t offer items to underbidders because the second-chance offer process is highly inefficient and rarely honored by underbidders (partly for reasons you highlight). Important to note that these items are then relisted in the next auction. All bidders who fail to pay for an item in our auctions are blocked from bidding on our account.

4. Can you block/suspend all user accounts with over 5 bid retractions in the course of 6 months and all related (same IP, address) accounts? This would help cut down on overbidding to identify someone’s top bid, and then backing out.

We will be asking eBay to formulate a Bidder Defect Report (see description above) and ask them to start policing IP addresses to identify suspicious bid behavior. Bid retractions can be both legal and illegal, and it’s the illegal type which don’t follow eBay guidelines that we’d like to see treated more harshly.

[Peter_Spaeth]

"Yes, we offered this option to CA buyers in 2013/2014 until our move to Oregon at the start of this year. The State of CA was always paid the sales tax they were owed for all items shipped to CA buyers. This program was very expensive at times for us, but in 2013 our plans to relocate to Oregon were already in place, so we knew the program would be temporary. Bottom line, CA is a large market and we wanted CA based bidders involved in our auctions."

I am glad to hear you paid 8.25 percent sales tax even if you didn't collect it, meaning you must have lost money on each of those transactions ("we only clear a couple % on each sale"), but curiously the invoice I have seen instructing the winner how to avoid sales tax is dated 2011.

[calvindog]

PWCC tells us that it was so concerned about losing California bidders because of the law which requires the CA auction winners to pay 8.25% sales tax -- that because PWCC was planning on moving to Oregon at the beginning of 2015 anyway, PWCC would offer to pay the 8.25% sales tax on any auction wins by CA residents in 2013-14, thus losing money on sales to any CA resident for this relatively short period of time (1-2 years).

Except PWCC never advertised this in its listings, never telling CA bidders it wanted to keep their business by paying the sales tax for the auction winners -- thus the very bidders PWCC wanted to keep were never told of this wonderful program in place courtesy of PWCC's generosity;

Except PWCC was sending out invoices in 2011, not 2013-14, telling CA winners it could avoid CA sales tax -- which means Brent would have us believe that he took a loss on every single win by a CA resident from 2011 through 2014 (and putting the lie to what Brent wrote last night, that he offered to pay the sales tax starting in 2013);

Except PWCC never told CA winners that PWCC would be paying the CA sales tax for them -- instead it included in its invoices the language that CA winners could avoid sales tax if they would "1) Provide a valid CA resale license, or 2) Pay by check or money order." If I'm a CA auction winner who is paying by check or money order how am I not still liable for the sales tax? Nowhere did Brent say in his listings or invoices that HE would be paying the sales tax, thus removing the liability to the auction winners.

This story is ludicrous.

[Peter_Spaeth]

From a 2011 auction listing.

"Sales Tax 8.25% charged to some California buyers. We encourage CA buyers to contact us before bidding.

brent@pwccauctions.com 805-440-8903"

I guess you can draw whatever inference you want.

[calvindog]

Why would it be charged at all if PWCC was paying it?

[Peter_Spaeth]

I assume, if PWCC is to be believed, it would only pick up the tab where the buyer paid by check. If the buyer paid by paypal, sales tax was added automatically.

Still, assuming 10 percent or more of PWCC's business was California (based on population that seems certain), and assuming a reasonable percentage of people took advantage of the offer (who would want to pay an extra 8.25 percent?), that's a lot of money for a business with razor-thin margins to be paying out of pocket.

[pokerplyr80]

I had just noticed the conversation was pretty one sided and thought I'd say something positive. I thought it was harsh to call him a tax fraud when most of us buy online or pay cash at shows to avoid paying sales tax. If he's saying he paid the sales tax for CA customers who paid with checks, I'm sure he would have taken a loss on those transactions as the rate out here is 8-9% depending on the county.

Brent certainly doesn't need me to speak for him and seems to have provided a reasonable explanation for most negative comments. Whether or not everything he said is true is up for debate, but I have no reason to doubt him from my limited personal experience dealing with him.

[swarmee]

I thought his shrugging off of revealing even a seller ID number was disappointing, and it took about 20 guys on the CU/PSA board for him to decide it was a bad idea to continue selling aftermarket (by about 50 years) Christmas rack packs.
Some also set off my BS alarms, but he did actively respond to most of the feedback (not so much the overly bright scans pictured here).

[Leon]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

I had just noticed the conversation was pretty one sided and thought I'd say something positive. I thought it was harsh to call him a tax fraud when most of us buy online or pay cash at shows to avoid paying sales tax. If he's saying he paid the sales tax for CA customers who paid with checks, I'm sure he would have taken a loss on those transactions as the rate out here is 8-9% depending on the county.

Brent certainly doesn't need me to speak for him and seems to have provided a reasonable explanation for most negative comments. Whether or not everything he said is true is up for debate, but I have no reason to doubt him from my limited personal experience dealing with him.

We have rules about giving opinions. At the top of every page it says if you give an opinion your full name needs to be in your post... so your name is Je.sse Arn.ot (nothing personal, it's the rule) thanks

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

I had just noticed the conversation was pretty one sided and thought I'd say something positive. I thought it was harsh to call him a tax fraud when most of us buy online or pay cash at shows to avoid paying sales tax. If he's saying he paid the sales tax for CA customers who paid with checks, I'm sure he would have taken a loss on those transactions as the rate out here is 8-9% depending on the county.

Brent certainly doesn't need me to speak for him and seems to have provided a reasonable explanation for most negative comments. Whether or not everything he said is true is up for debate, but I have no reason to doubt him from my limited personal experience dealing with him.

We all have our opinions but I do have reason to doubt him given that he said he started the sales tax avoidance program in 2013 in contemplation of moving to Oregon but I am looking at an ebay invoice from 2011 instructing the California winner how to avoid sales tax. And an auction from 2011 asking California bidders to contact him regarding sales tax. I also find it hard to believe, although it's just an opinion, that he took a loss on that many transactions rather than just collect the sales tax. My two cents, on which I will pay sales tax.

And he never responded to the fact that he had claimed that a post on Net 54 was the first time anyone had ever raised a question about his scans, when just a couple of months before he had posted at length on CU about the same topic. To me, once you burn credibility, I have a hard time believing anything else you might say. Just my opinion.

[pokerplyr80]

Sorry Leon I thought my full name was on my profile. I have no problem with anyone knowing my real name in here. I just made the change. Is that sufficient or do I need to include it into every post that includes an opinion?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

Sorry Leon I thought my full name was on my profile. I have no problem with anyone knowing my real name in here. I just made the change. Is that sufficient or do I need to include it into every post that includes an opinion?

That is very good. Thank you.

[pokerplyr80]

And he never responded to the fact that he had claimed that a post on Net 54 was the first time anyone had ever raised a question about his scans, when just a couple of months before he had posted at length on CU about the same topic. To me, once you burn credibility, I have a hard time believing anything else you might say. Just my opinion.[/QUOTE]

I probably shouldn't have gotten involved in this one since it's obvious others on the forum have some strong opinions and I'm not even aware of all the facts in dispute. I was just trying to say there could be a reasonable explanation and not an attempt to defraud. As for the scans I took his response as that he hadn't had customers complain about them or return cards because they were misleading. Not that he hadn't answered someone in a forum about it.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

And he never responded to the fact that he had claimed that a post on Net 54 was the first time anyone had ever raised a question about his scans, when just a couple of months before he had posted at length on CU about the same topic. To me, once you burn credibility, I have a hard time believing anything else you might say. Just my opinion.

I probably shouldn't have gotten involved in this one since it's obvious others on the forum have some strong opinions and I'm not even aware of all the facts in dispute. I was just trying to say there could be a reasonable explanation and not an attempt to defraud. As for the scans I took his response as that he hadn't had customers complain about them or return cards because they were misleading. Not that he hadn't answered someone in a forum about it.[/QUOTE]

No, you're wrong, you need to go back and read the thread I referenced in a prior post, if you are interested.

[pokerplyr80]

I will check it out.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

I was not actively collecting in 2010 and don't know if letting consignors place a bid was an announced policy or against Ebay rules. Since it seems everyone was unaware he had this policy I'm surprised he mentioned it. At least he's willing to admit they made a mistake.

It has ALWAYS been against the rules on eBay.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by Tabe

It has ALWAYS been against the rules on eBay.

It's strange that he would mention that on this forum then. With everything people were already unhappy about here no one was mentioning that. I see what you guys are saying about him claiming to not have heard anyone complaining about his scans. It seems he may have done himself a disservice posting in this forum. It certainly doesn't seem to be hurting his auction results though.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

It's strange that he would mention that on this forum then. With everything people were already unhappy about here no one was mentioning that. I see what you guys are saying about him claiming to not have heard anyone complaining about his scans. It seems he may have done himself a disservice posting in this forum. It certainly doesn't seem to be hurting his auction results though.

He did himself a disservice when he admitted committing fraud -- and now you're wondering why the admitted fraudster's auction results are not hurt as a result of his fraud? Is this the slow learners class?

[Joshchisox08]

I just won a pretty good card for a very good price. I've yet to receive it but I will say that all the other PWCC auctions I bid on soared well over where I tried to bid for them.

I didn't know about the extent of shill bidding and letting co-signers bid on their own items is total BS.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by calvindog

He did himself a disservice when he admitted committing fraud -- and now you're wondering why the admitted fraudster's auction results are not hurt as a result of his fraud? Is this the slow learners class?

I think what Jesse means is that no matter what gets revealed about an auction house, people continue to do business with them. We see that time and again. Stuff trumps all.

And yes, Brent should have left well enough alone, if it ain't broke don't try to fix it.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by calvindog

He did himself a disservice when he admitted committing fraud -- and now you're wondering why the admitted fraudster's auction results are not hurt as a result of his fraud? Is this the slow learners class?

He also claims that his consignor's shill bidding did not cause any negative to a bidder or eBay. Seems unlikely.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by swarmee

He also claims that his consignor's shill bidding did not cause any negative to a bidder or eBay. Seems unlikely.

Of course not. He broke eBay's rules by allowing consignors to bid on their own lots -- but naturally eBay wasn't affected, bidders weren't affected and the hobby wasn't affected. Brent's pockets, I'm guessing, were affected.

He lies, he cheats, he gets caught lying and cheating, the shill bidding in his auctions is extraordinary -- yet he comes on here with his righteous indignation about how dishonesty is not "in his DNA" and then admits fraud almost immediately. What bothers me more about the fraudsters is their ability to delude themselves into thinking they can fool everyone. Doug, Bill, Rogers all did the same thing, usually on this board. I suspect Mastro would have as well if he knew how to use the computer for purposes other than to run up Mastro Auction lots.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Yet another example of Hamlet's "the lady doth protest too much, methinks."

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by calvindog

He did himself a disservice when he admitted committing fraud -- and now you're wondering why the admitted fraudster's auction results are not hurt as a result of his fraud? Is this the slow learners class?

What I meant is that it since that there are a relatively small number of people buying very high end sports cards, I'm surprised they are still willing to pay such a premium for his cards if this stuff is common knowledge. I was unaware of most of it myself.

My other point was it seemed most on this forum, myself included, had no idea he used to allow people to bid on their own auctions against Ebay rules. I don't know why he would have brought that up, although he did say he only mentioned it to point out that they have learned from their mistakes and no longer engage in those practices.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Brian Van Horn

I hate to pile on, but the Standard Biscuit fiasco in February is still a relevant topic. The cards were faked and still passed through SGC and were then auctioned through PWCC.

I don't think we can blame PWCC for accepting SGC graded cards on consignment, unless the consignor was inherently suspicious, but you do raise the very important question of who was able to get these through SGC and how.

For reference:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=201147

[Exhibitman]

I agree with Peter re the counterfeit cards in SGC holders; no one should expect an auctioneer or consignment seller to second-guess the TPGs.

As for the shilling and fraud admission, first thought I had about the OP was "how stupid was that?" Had a client of mine wanted to make a similar post I'd have told him to STFU because he will win over no one who wasn't already OK with his business and he might step in the doo-doo by accident, as happened here. What leads someone to think they can BS around stuff like that I will never understand. Nixonian hubris? brain lesions? Alien mind control beams?

An interesting thing that got short shrift here is the 2nd PWCC post discussing the inside game with eBay reps. I thought that was fascinating, esp. how eBay might actually change the feedback system to something more transparent, as it used to be. 90% of the shilling crap would end if the system still allowed for the outing and tracking of shill bidders. A return to that standard would be nice and I hope it happens. Or should I just go ahead and cancel that ice skating lesson in Hell?

Frankly, I love the idea of tracked consignor ID's right in the listing. Easily done, and easily checked.

Despite all of the negatives, personally, I have no issue with anyone who chooses to bid with PWCC or Probstein. We're all card sluts to one extent or another. I've danced with those devils more than once, but always eyes wide open and aware of the pitfalls of wading into the cesspool. Anyone who doesn't know what these middlemen are about and act accordingly at this point is akin to someone taking up smoking: it says right on the damned box the stuff is bad for you, so ignore the warnings at your own peril.

Time to move on to other dead horses to beat?

[calvindog]

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...p2047675.l2565

Here is an interesting underbidder on PWCC's auctions: 104 total bids in the past 30 days on 102 items -- and 97 percent of the bids are with PWCC. Gee. If you spend 10 mins perusing PWCC auctions you will find 10 more underbidders just like this one.

[Peter_Spaeth]

And then, there are people who make fake Magie errors and put fake stamps on blank backed cards. What a world, eh?

[Peter_Spaeth]

And in the meantime, these results are pretty hard to believe on 59 Mantles. Then again, the winner of the one that went 50 percent over the prior record price is the underbidder on the PSA 10 Jordan rookie, so he must have money to burn.

Latest Auction Prices for: PSA 8 - Average Price: $2,700.63



6/11/15 eBay Auction | Image pwcc_auctions -***o 44 $4,100.00
5/31/15 eBay Auction | Image pwcc_auctions 6***6 35 $3,105.00
5/29/15 eBay Listing | Image vintagescards s***o BIN $2,695.00 8
5/29/15 eBay Listing | Image vintagescards s***o BIN $2,695.00 8
5/26/15 eBay Auction | Image probstein123 s***i 39 $2,350.00
5/14/15 eBay Auction | Image pwcc_auctions n***a 26 $2,300.71
4/10/15 Greg Bussineau Auction | Image 7 $2,820.00
3/29/15 eBay Auction | Image higradecards10 a***g 18 $2,550.00
1/24/15 eBay Listing | Image buddysbaseball h***7 Best Offer $2,695.00 8
1/24/15 eBay Listing | Image buddysbaseball h***7 Best Offer $2,695.00 8
1/11/15 Memory Lane Auction | Image 9 $1,922.76
1/11/15 Memory Lane Auction | Image 7 $2,815.42
1/9/15 eBay Listing | Image vintagescards 9***n BIN $2,595.00 8
12/16/14 eBay Auction | Image prewarcardcollector 5***f 24 $2,225.00
12/5/14 Greg Bussineau Image 7 $2,100.00

[pokerplyr80]

I'm surprised it went that high since it wasn't even PWCC certified high end

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by calvindog

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...p2047675.l2565

Here is an interesting underbidder on PWCC's auctions: 104 total bids in the past 30 days on 102 items -- and 97 percent of the bids are with PWCC. Gee. If you spend 10 mins perusing PWCC auctions you will find 10 more underbidders just like this one.

That looks more like one of those strange bidders to me. Bidder has feedback of 1649 with only 104 bids last month.

Now this looks more like a shill bidder to me. Only 201 feedback with 547 bids in 30 days on 173 items. Not a PWCC auction jus an example.

Bidder: t***7( 201Feedback score is 100 to 499)
Feedback: 100%Positive
Item description:
Item Title:
Bids on this item: 12

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 547
Items bid on: 173
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 98% Help
Bid retractions: 0
Bid retractions (6 months): 0

[calvindog]

A bidder who bids on 102 items with 104 bids, with 97% of the auctions belonging to PWCC is a shill bidder.

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

I'm surprised it went that high since it wasn't even PWCC certified high end

POTY candidate

[calvindog]

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d..._None_ViewLink

It's definitely in this PWCC underbidder's DNA to be a shill.

[Jantz]

This thread is definitely a good read and seems to be a hot topic lately.

[kmac32]

I sent a group of cards (T207) to SGC and one card I bought from PWCC which was in a PSA slab graded vg ex 4 came back from SGC as authentic. It was not a high dollar card but I need to call SGC and find out why the card did not cross over into a SGC slab from PSA. My guess is that it was trimming as the card looked good in my opinion but then I am not a grader. I have heard rumors and talk of PWCC having influence on how PSA grades cards submitted by them. I may have been a victim in this case.

[MattyC]

Two graders can have very different opinions on the same card. Often a card can be graded EOT then the next time get a grade.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Two graders can have very different opinions on the same card. Often a card can be graded EOT then the next time get a grade.

I would guess most slabbed cards in PWCC were consigned in the slabs and not submitted by PWCC. Plus what Matt said, multiple opinions on the same card is very common.

[kmac32]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Two graders can have very different opinions on the same card. Often a card can be graded EOT then the next time get a grade.

I am not upset about the grade as I could care less what a card comes back as. My function in getting cards slabbed is more for display than value and the card was only a $60 card so in the big scheme of things, the grade really did not hurt the value of the card in my opinion but it is hard to see why something would go from being a PSA 4 to only authentic in a SGC slab. I do not plan on resubmitting it as it would not be worth the time and effort. Fortunately on the submission I also submittted my E121-80 Frank Baker and it came back a SGC 40 which I was happy with. I would have been really pissed if that one had not crossed over as this version is very rare and it is a high dollar card. I did have to call SGC and tell them that this is the Frank Baker version of the card and not the J Franklin Baker version as they had originally had listed in my submission. I would not have been happy if the card came back mislabled.

[turtleguy64]

Jeff,you've made my night on the forum.I've added purgative to my new vocabulary list in the DuckHunter Dynasty folder.Thanks !

[conor912]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

I agree with Peter re the counterfeit cards in SGC holders; no one should expect an auctioneer or consignment seller to second-guess the TPGs.

I hear what you're saying, but why not? It burns may ass when an AH takes no responsibility for what they're selling. It's a total cop out. They're just slinging these things into auctions without even looking at the card. It's amazing how many people don't even look at the effing card anymore. The flip is all that matters to the AH, period.

Sorry. This is my "two drinks on an empty stomach" rant. Carry on.