Not trying to defend PWCC by any means but it is up to the collector to bid accordingly. Like the game Leon so graciously has on the board. Take a guess at the price of the card/items you want. Then when it's time to bid don't bid more then that. That's what I do haha sure you lose some , but you also win some. For me getting that card at the price I like is just as important as the card to me.

Know your cards! Know your prices ! Snipe!snipe! snipe! And that should put a end to YOU being shilled.

Agreed...centering is boss of the 4 traits. Surface and edges is like a red headed stepchild.

No. It will not.

Stop using facts.

Is there shilling with PWCC? Yep, but there's shilling with every AH. Sub par results are not a given if no shilling is involved. My last consignment with PWCC included about 100 cards, and I estimated a 9k hammer altogether. I didn't shill any of them, and the total hammer was over 11k.

Having said that, there's things I would never auction with Brent. I tested out some modern unopened and was not happy at all with the results. I've been handling those myself ever since.

I'm actually surprised I've never seen anyone complain about his shipping fees. I wouldn't be surprised if a large amount of his profits come from shipping.

Obviously if you don't bid more than you're willing to pay you won't have to pay more than you're willing to pay. The problem is that the prices we are willing to pay are, quite reasonably, a function of what others have paid for the same or similar cards in the past. And what others have paid for the same or similar cards in the past is a function of the prevalence of shilling in the hobby.

It's scary how many people do not grasp this.

Shilling & Sniping Don't Mix
 

Do you know why every "timed" auction house other than eBay....

(1) requires an initial bid prior to a standard closing time; and

(2) extends its auction based on bids after the standard closing time?

Because they are consignor-friendly policies that drive prices up, and they do not want to encourage sniping, which keeps prices low.

If you are bidding in an eBay auction with a fixed end time, why would you make an "initial bid" prior to closing time? Are you intentionally trying to give more money to the consignor?

In this respect, eBay is one place where shilling shouldn't work. If everyone snipes, the shiller has a tougher time pegging his "shill snipe" high enough to lose, but low enough to drive prices up illegitimately.

Indeed, if sniping was good for shilling behavior, don't you think eBay would endorse a sniping service, or provide one internally? The fact that they don't tells you everything you need to know about why sniping is good for buyers and bad for consignors and shillers.

Add me to the list. I view shilling as a "hidden reserve" in every auction I participate in. I pay what I am comfortable paying, and I do not view the history of prices in the market as decided by a pure, free market -- and instead, only an approximation of what one person may have been willing to pay at a certain time for an item.

I do think shilling is an unfortunate, market distorting side effect of the historical baseball card valuation process. But, I do not think there really is anything to be done about it except discourage the practice by prosecuting offenders as they occasionally become identified through their own criminal ineptitude.

So all cards in the hobby are now price gouged due to many years of shilling? So all cards should be priced at what they were before EBay or any auction house was invented? I really don't believe that is the case . And if this is the case then we have to make a decision on what we value a card at. Like I said originally not so hard to grasp.

Perhaps the better formulation is that outlier prices are likely the result of shilling.

I never said that, you are putting words in my mouth.

It can be considered a violation of the Sherman anti-trust Act, it is also fraud and if you are in one state and the item is for sale in another that's Federal.

I know you never said that,but if we are to believe that the current value of the cards we are bidding on have all been pre shilled( I coined this term all rights reserved on preshilled lol) by many years of shill bidding giving us a inflated current market price then what are they worth?

I still believe that a experienced collector can be the judge of a cards value they are in pursuit of.

I was bidding on a card last year in one of the auctions they had and I bid early just so it was on my radar. With half the time left the price reach was already more then I was willing to pay for that card in that condition. So I stopped bidding and the next week I found a better example for less( else where)

Probstein
 

How does Probstein get to put his contact information in his auction listings? eBay doesn't let me do that. In fact I get warning messages about completing deals off eBay if I correspond too much with eBay members. I guess eBay is willing to look the other way if you're generating massive fee revenue for them.

According to eBay policy. This is Not Allowed:

"Posting or displaying contact information in a listing, including email, phone number, and mailing address, without the permission of eBay or except as required by law"

I guess he got permission.

Some sellers are more equal than others.

How many lawyers do you think wrote their rules and regulations?
:)

Not one more than they can afford.;)

I also think the effects of just two buyers who really want a card..forms an outlier price versus the general public that creates a 'shilled' like historical price.... What is nice on ebay is you can see sometimes that a card was really bid up to a certain amount between 4-7 guys for example..but then the rest of the way was 2 guys..... when a winning bid is the result of 2 guys bidding up a card more than 50% of the value, using that past price as historical value is the same as using a shilled bid in my book

I have been apart of many two person bidding wars. None of the auctions were shilled. It generally happens on low pop cards from sets that are competitive on the PSA set registry. I too look at the "pack" and use those bids as my baseline for value realizing that gap between the pack and our bids is not real value. Overtime the pack may move closer to the winning bid and if so then the real value has increased.

I now stay clear of any auction in which a bidder with multiple retractions OR has close to 0 feedback is involved. If PWCC won't adequately police these obvious shillers / crooks, I will. Somebody else can get taken.

jeff

I like the term 'the pack'. I also have bid on a card and i see the same 2 people bidding on it on ebay past sales and when one wins the card, the other one snags the later card. Then on the third time around it sells for a lot cheaper. Obviously if its a POP 2 card that wont happen, but lets say it was for a Babe Ruth PSA 3 goudey card.. would be plenty of opportunities as long as its not being hoarded etc..

Iacard with worth what someone is willing to pay for it but historical prices with suspect bidding (not shilled but only interest between 2 bidders) above 'the pack' i would change that expression to what someone NOW would be willing to pay for it

What I don’t get is this. Shill bidding or not is irrelevant. They couldn’t have a viable business unless someone at the end of the chain is paying. It might be the second chance offer, but someone is paying a highly inflated price in the end.

Why?

PWCC auctions routinely close higher than many BIN listings, who the hell is bidding above the BIN from other sellers?

That’s insanely stupid!

Case in point 4 sharp corners had a 1984 Fleer Update Puckett PSA 9 for $147, the PWCC auction closed at $202, what morons are bidding up that extra $60? It can’t just be shill bids, or they wouldn’t have a business.

PWCC has very high visibility and they do a very nice job with their auctions and have a loyal following, so it doesn't surprise me at all that they get strong prices relative to other ebay sellers. What I have never really grasped, though, is some of the crazy premiums they seem to get for commodity cards. I get irrational exuberance on genuinely difficult cards, we're all guilty of that.

I, and a couple of friends, have sold some higher end "commodity" cards through PWCC. 1965 Mantle in PSA 8, Gretzky and Jordan Rookies in 8, Seaver Rookie in 7 etc...

We didn't shill bid.

We received as much as 35% less for the exact same card in the exact same auction.

You do the math.

I will say I hate the title of this thread as I seriously doubt PWCC is actually doing the shilling.

Also what is the difference with PWCC versus any of the other online auction houses? How are they magically stopping shilling?

Poker, U agree and let me add that it is no one's XXXXX business if I spend and how much I spend!! That was an asinine blanket statement but yes an opinion..

It's not rocket science,. It boils down to fleecing new consignors Into sending items that do sell for real bids, much lower than last sales.

I agree :)

My experience with them has been the opposite. The last higher end card I sent Brent I first listed here, dropped the price and would have accepted a slightly lower offer, and it ended up selling for more than my original ask. Without being shilled.

With that many cards on the auction block, experiences are going to vary. I don't think the fact that some guys did relatively poorly means that every strong price is shilled. At the same time, I have seen some that leave me shaking my head and some bidding patterns that looked pretty damn suspicious and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were consignors running up their own.

Some thoughts without mentioning company names so I don’t get in trouble:

-the sniping service I use is authorized by eBay - about a year or so ago, I had to reregister with them as they are now an “eBay service” so I had to agree to let them place bids for me - if eBay was trying to prevent sniping, they wouldn't allow these services. I'm surprised how many savvy eBay buyers are out there - I've bid on mundane (non collectables) stuff like old gaming systems - not super old (Wii and PS3) and all the real bidding still takes place at the end

-eBay bidding history is pretty transparent, so its not hard to look at schilling on a case by case basis. Sometimes if I win a card I want, I don’t look at the history - it doesn’t do much good to see the underbidder has 0 feedback and 96% with the same seller.

-When I do look, I believe I have seen cases where the schillers were brazen enough to snipe. It doesn’t make it right to call it a “hidden reserve”. According to the rules I’m bidding under, there is no reserve, so if a card sells lower than I’m willing to pay - I’m supposed to get the benefit of that "saving" - its fraud if I'm cheated out of that.

-I suspect if the schillers do successfully win a snipe, they don't pay which I think is unique to eBay because I think for auction houses, the bid is binding. Why can't eBay do that? Why is it so easy to get out of paying? If it wasn't, it may cut down on shady behavior.

-I had a eBay seller once tell me that they can’t block “new bidders”. I can see that for small time sellers, but for the larger sellers, you would think requiring a minimum feedback would at least discourage “small time” schilling

Cards are not fungible. The 4SC 9 may have been more obviously defective than the PWCC card.

However, I do agree with the first part of your post. Shilling isn't a viable business model. If you guys are so convinced that they shill and push the value of the auctions artificially high, then the answer is simple. Buy from somewhere else and then consign your cards with PCCC to exploit what you think is their unfair advantage.

Exactly. I both buy from and sell with PWCC. I set my buy price at my comfort level and forget about it. With selling, most of the cards sell for what I expect. However, you do get a few outliers both high and low. It's the nature of the auction format, the fact that these cards aren't a commodity, and a myriad of other factors.

4SC cards are often priced low …. and are BUY IT NOWS (like most everything)

PWCC are true auctions, which is rare nowadays. PWCC always auctions great stuff - so of course the bid percentage is very high with them as they are one of the only games in town

Not defending them, but like many, will continue to buy from them

Bid percentage isn't the best indication of foul play. I am sure I have a really high bid percentage with Greg Morris. I'll buy starter lots from the 50's and 60's and then at some point I need to start buying singles. They do so many set breaks of the years in my wheelhouse I could place 2-3 bids on 30-40 items in one night maybe win 10-15 of them. I always go this route because buying singles from multiple sources creates way too many shipping charges. Their format is perfect for what I am doing.

But then look at my bid retractions and I've never had a single one.

I buy from plenty of other sellers but when I am on a GM run I bid a lot in a short period of time.

For me, the best sign to avoid an auction is when it runs up to 80 or 90 percent right out of the gate. That suggests to me people are probably running up their own, or at least it seems like a good possiblity. It NEVER happens when I list cards. Usually stuff is below 50 percent with a day to go or even an hour to go. It rarely happens with certain sellers I trust and know.

Exactly...I have sold cards that are like at 10-20% with an hour to go. It's scary....but at least my concious is clear.

Haha! Yeah, no matter how many times that happens, I still sit there biting my nails and hitting refresh.

I have bought many things from PWCC and never had any issues. I pay what I think something is worth. If I get outbid, oh well. They also happen to be somewhat local, so I know anything I win won't take long to arrive and doesn't have far to travel.

Do you enjoy the 4SC and PWCC office Christmas parties?

:d:d:d

never invited …. oh well

but a small percentage of my collection comes from PWCC, and probably close to half of my 80s to 90s slabs come from 4SC


I think for myself, set numbers in my head, and don't whine like a bitch about either company ….

On most "commodity" cards from the 70s and up 4SC's BIN prices are usually at the more reasonable end of the scale and often the lowest. And you can buy for 10 percent less than that usually off their website. They've been a good resource as I expanded my rookie card runs.

Sometimes when I really want to win a card, I will bid high right at the start in hopes of discouraging others from getting in on it. Idk if it works, but I’ve done it, even with pwcc. In fact, one time I bid so high with my first bid that the auction house (not an eBay seller) called and asked if I made a mistake. Lol.

Jeff

Twelve years later and people still think it's ok if an auction house shills you as long as you pay the price you wanted for the card.

And lawyers saying committing fraud is no big deal? It's the times we live in. Selective angst is I believe what it is called.

Jeff, no doubt some of the high bidding out of the gate is legit. But when I see the same patterns over and over again that I don't see with other sellers -- especially combined with the string bidding -- I just prefer to stay away and focus on auctions that behave more normally. As many PWCC auctions do, I should add. There are very few cards on ebay that can't be found again, either the next week or worst case with a little patience.

How many times is the same card relisted by these "consignment companies" until the desired price is obtained? I sometimes get a good laugh looking at vcp and see the last 3 or 4 sales of the same card, from the same seller. They should offer the option to send it to the "other" one if the desired price is not met.

2 Ebayers that were blantenty shilled, who subsequently didnt pay, were blocked immediately from further auctions.

Selective blocking?

What auction house is aware of your max bid price?

you may be the only one who find this funny! you and maybe jerry seinfeld who loves to overpay for things.