Originally Posted by cincyredlegs (Post 1196484)

"Frankly, this is the first time we have heard anybody suggest our scans were misleading."

Ummmmm, er, ahhhh, I meant the 2ND time I heard about it.

LMAO..............this is classic.

Mark

Originally Posted by Brent Huigens (Post 1196475)

Thanks to everyone who has written here in a fair manner. These message boards provide a valuable check & balance to the hobby and we are not exempt from harsh (accurate or inaccurate) criticism.

From reading the comments and concerns on this thread it appears that there are two primary issues raised:

1) some folks feel scans sometimes appear inaccurate to how the card appears in person.

Scanning is something we take pride in doing right. Obviously we have no interest in misrepresenting a card as it would only hurt our buyer satisfaction. Frankly, this is the first time we have heard anybody suggest our scans were misleading. On that note, I can confirm that we've recently introduced some new scanners and that our settings have fluctuated somewhat over the last 90 days. However, the images we are now producing are exactly as we'd like them to appear so I ask that folks consider the images in current auctions and forward any examples that you feel are inaccurate. Please also remember that much of how a scan appears is as affected by the settings on the monitor you're using and if the scans appear overly bright (for example) you may want to consider lowering the brightness on your monitor.

Just to confirm, our scans are never enhanced artificially. We do have to specify certain parameters when the image is captured but all items sold receive the same settings and never is a single item isolated and adjusted in any way. Even if you don't like our scans, at least you be assured that they are 100% consistent from card to card.

Lastly, we have dedicated more time and effort to the scanning process than perhaps any other auction house. Yes, our images SHOULD appear brighter and clearer than your average scanner which often produce a grayish, sometimes foggy filter over the image. Our goal is have the card appear as it does in-person under quality lighting... nothing more, and nothing less.

2) questions surrounding bid retractions, etc

This is a valid concern and one we take very seriously. In fact, we are the only seller I'm aware of that actually prosecutes bid retractors. Anyone who retracts a bid in our auction is flagged by eBay trust and safety and their account is labeled with the improper action. Buyers will receive notices from eBay specifying their improper action and after a few retractions their account will be suspended. Furthermore, anyone who retracts a bid in a manner which we feel is highly unethical (i.e. perceived as possibly manipulating an auction) with have their account immediately blocked from future bidding with PWCC.

eBay has a weak policy on bid retractors and we are working with them to strengthen their position and issue more account restrictions when retractions occur.

Our policy on bid manipulation is firm, and has teeth. Any ID felt to be participating in an improper manner is blocked from bidding and reported to eBay. Any consignor who we feel may be manipulating their own auctions is also blocked from doing business with us and will have their IDs block and reported; this latter scenario is rare but has occurred. We have zero patience for this sort of activity and will pursue improper behavior with every resource we have available.

-------------------------------------

A couple comments that we ask all auction participants to consider as they help us police the eBay marketplace:
1) just because a bidder places 50% or more of their bids with PWCC does not suggest they are manipulating an auction. We have over 15,000 unique past buyers and many of these past customers appreciate the service we provide and choose to bid with us for the majority of their eBay bids. We have some clients who bid exclusively with us and will show bid percentages of 80% or higher. The critical detail to research is whether or not these bidders have received feedback from us for past purchases. A flag for us is any bidder with a high % of bids but little to no feedback; statistically it is unlikely that a bidder would place many bids, perhaps largely with only our account, and not win any items. Bidders with this sort of track record are usually blocked.

2) just because a bidder places multiple bids (even 10+ bids) on a single item is not automatically label that bidder as a shill participant. In researching countless situations like this, it has become abundantly clear that many eBay bidders choose to bid in ways that some would consider eccentric... they feel it's part of the fun of bidding on eBay. Until eBay changes its minimum bid increment, this sort of behavior may continue. What is important to look for are bidders who place multiple bids until becoming the high bidder and then retract their bid. Bidders who bid in this fashion are quickly blocked by us and are reported to eBay.

3) Please keep eBay in perspective with the other non-eBay auction venues. The beauty of eBay is that it's impartial and transparent. This transparency affords a wealth of information pertaining to bidder activity and information will naturally lead to conspiracy theories. If any impropriety is believed to have occurred, please contact us so we can take action. Please avoid jumping to emotional conclusions and let the data determine what’s right or wrong. Nobody cares more about the auction integrity than us. I assure you your time will not be wasted and we will research your claim. Help us make it better!

Thanks again to all who help make this hobby honest. Collector confidence is our #1 priority; without trust, we don't have much to offer our clients.

Brent Huigens
PWCC Auctions, LLC
brent@pwccauctions.com
510-725-7853

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1196491)

"At any rate, I greatly appreciate Brent responding and that is a major, MAJOR first step that I think everyone here can respect."

Given that he started his post with a blatant lie (saying he had never heard the concern about scans before, when he had made a lengthy response to a thread on CU on precisely that point just a few months ago, as posted above), I respectfullly dissent from that assessment.

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1196492)

Fair enough, but the disclosure that he was indeed changing the settings of the scanner was really the more pertinent information that we have been looking for. About that, he was direct, so I do respect that.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1196491)

"At any rate, I greatly appreciate Brent responding and that is a major, MAJOR first step that I think everyone here can respect."

Given that he started his post with a blatant lie (saying he had never heard the concern about scans before, when he had made a lengthy response to a thread on CU on precisely that point just a few months ago, as posted above), I respectfullly dissent from that assessment.

Originally Posted by Leon (Post 1196500)

Actually, to me, except for making the mistake of 1 or 2 times hearing about it, the whole post from Brent was spot on. I hope if someone sends him a report of a major bid retractor bidding in his auctions that he will take action. On the scanner settings, I always leave them at their defaults. It's just the best way and it seems to be the most accurate scans, all in all.

Originally Posted by calvindog (Post 1196503)

Edited to add: why is it only suspect auction houses which have difficulty wth their scanners? And why is the gosh darned settings errors always such that the scans are too bright to capture any wrinkles or creases in the cards?

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1196509)

I don't know, but the obvious solution is that auction houses ought to disclose in their terms exactly which scanner it is that they're using and what exactly the settings are.

Originally Posted by tschock (Post 1196507)

Leon,

Not sure he is planning on doing anything though about the general bid retractions outside of his auctions. But at the same time, as long as they aren't retracting bids on his auctions, why should it matter to him?

"Anyone who retracts a bid in our auction is flagged by eBay trust and safety and their account is labeled with the improper action."

Can we actual tell if someone retracted a bid in one of HIS auctions (or any SPECIFIC auction)? Ebay reports retraction totals, but I'll leave it to one of the experts to answer this.

Obviously that is a "bigger picture" problem. And if it doesn't matter to ebay, why should it matter to any particular seller (beyond their own auctions)?

Originally Posted by calvindog (Post 1196510)

Or they could simply stop screwing around with the scans in an effort to hide the flaws of the cards they're selling.

Originally Posted by calvindog (Post 1196516)

I don't know any of my scanner settings -- but I know which cards I've tweaked to make them look brighter. This isn't rocket science. Brent knows exactly what he's doing.

Originally Posted by Leon (Post 1196500)

Actually, to me, except for making the mistake of 1 or 2 times hearing about it, the whole post from Brent was spot on. I hope if someone sends him a report of a major bid retractor bidding in his auctions that he will take action. On the scanner settings, I always leave them at their defaults. It's just the best way and it seems to be the most accurate scans, all in all.

Originally Posted by calvindog (Post 1196503)

Edited to add: why is it only suspect auction houses which have difficulty wth their scanners? And why is the gosh darned settings errors always such that the scans are too bright to capture any wrinkles or creases in the cards?

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1196526)

Brent stepped forward and became accountable.

Originally Posted by calvindog (Post 1196536)

Respectfully, I disagree completely. Brent responded with a bullshit lie because he felt pressured to respond. Blaming it on our monitors? Please. For some reason my monitor works fine when viewing Rob Lifson's scans, not so fine when viewing Brent's.

Originally Posted by ScottFandango (Post 1196485)

getting popcorn....................

Originally Posted by tschock (Post 1196398)

Steve,

Just to clarify. My comment wasn't directed at you (or anyone in particular). :)

And you are correct about needing to follow up with specific items/bidders. My "sample" shows 8 retractions as the highest, but my sample only grabbed 150 bidders (and I didn't filter out which completed items, so it could have been grabbing $20 sales as well, meaning there are other things that can be tweaked). When you start grabbing more, you only need to start at the highest # and work down. I think there were those here that "found" bidders in the 50s for retractions. But even double digit retractions alone should start to give one pause. That is, if the seller actually wants to deal with this.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1196491)

"At any rate, I greatly appreciate Brent responding and that is a major, MAJOR first step that I think everyone here can respect."

Given that he started his post with a blatant lie (saying he had never heard the concern about scans before, when he had made a lengthy response to a thread on CU on precisely that point just a few months ago, as posted above), I respectfullly dissent from that assessment.

Originally Posted by thehoodedcoder (Post 1196624)

all of this is important and with all due respect.... your posts are every other reply on every schill bidding thread in the forum. you must have a day job or something right?

of course you disagree. every other reply as i am reading this. and on every other thread.

id have to dig back through your posts to find out the last time you made a post about something other than corruption in the hobby?


i think we need a fraud section so people that want to continue to harp on the same topic 17 hours a day can do it in a section all its own. every time i turn around there is another one of these and its the same 5 people pounding it every 10 minutes to the top of the topic list.

kevin

Originally Posted by toledo_mudhen (Post 1196636)

Anathema was originally used as a term for exile from the church, but evolved to mean "set apart, banished, denounced". The word comes from Koine Greek ἀνάθεμα,[1] meaning "something dedicated, especially dedicated to evil", from ἀνατίθημι (anatithēmi), meaning "offer as a votive gift", from ἀνά (ana), meaning "on", and τίθημι (tithēmi), meaning "I put". It originally meant something lifted up as an offering to the gods; it later evolved to mean:

to be formally set apart;
banished, exiled, excommunicated;
denounced, sometimes accursed

"Anathema" is a word used mainly in the English language to describe vehement disagreement to something. It is not a commonly used word, particularly in spoken language, perhaps because its meaning is often confused.

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1196566)

Nevermind Brent, then - what do you plan to do about the problem? As far as I can tell, Jeff, you are long on complaints, as legitimate as they may be, and short on solutions. Whether Brent wins Boy Scout Trooper of the Year is not the issue - the greater issue is, how do we stop AH's from jacking up their scans?

Originally Posted by ullmandds (Post 1196650)

What I'd like to know is are these consignment based ebay clearing houses providing the shillers...or are the consigners doing the shilling?

I'm guessing a little of both?

Originally Posted by thehoodedcoder (Post 1196624)

all of this is important and with all due respect.... your posts are every other reply on every schill bidding thread in the forum. you must have a day job or something right?

of course you disagree. every other reply as i am reading this. and on every other thread.

id have to dig back through your posts to find out the last time you made a post about something other than corruption in the hobby?


i think we need a fraud section so people that want to continue to harp on the same topic 17 hours a day can do it in a section all its own. every time i turn around there is another one of these and its the same 5 people pounding it every 10 minutes to the top of the topic list.

kevin

Originally Posted by ullmandds (Post 1196650)

What I'd like to know is are these consignment based ebay clearing houses providing the shillers...or are the consigners doing the shilling?

I'm guessing a little of both?

Originally Posted by CobbvLajoie1910 (Post 1196656)

Says he who has been a member of this board for a year.

Peter has been a regular poster well prior to the current incarnation of Net54.
I'm pretty sure he's earned some latitude to speak up about it.

I think he, Jeff, and many others, have grown quite tired (and understandably so) of having to check their back pocket at every turn -- to make sure their wallet is still there.

I miss these boards (and it's core posters) circa 2006, 2007. Those were good days.

Originally Posted by ullmandds (Post 1196679)

with all due respect...after thousands of posts and decades of collecting vintage...you run out of things to discuss. i mean there aren't many cards I haven't seen in my life?!

this is a timely subject that affects us all. just because many of you want to just continue to live in your own little bubbles...continue to sweep the shit under the rug...protect your "investments" or ignore because you are benefitting from this corruption...eventually the shit pile will become overwhelming to the point it must be cleaned up.

housing bubble, banking debacle, gov't clusterf&ck...I realize this is just baseball cards...but if we continue to ignore...and let the crooks continue their crookery...nothing will ever change.

keeping this topic at the forefront is the only way that things could possibly change!

Originally Posted by Ease (Post 1196657)

I feel like its gotta be predominately consignors doing the shilling, the big ebay clearing houses just provide the open door/avenue for shilling.

Originally Posted by calvindog (Post 1196646)

How do the victims stop the fraud? Is that what you're asking?

Simple: we can make complaints to law enforcement or we can sue them. That's the only thing that seems to slow the fraud down it seems. Outing them here publicly just causes numerous sheep and others financially aligned with the crooked auction houses to jump up and try to silence those who point out the fraud. You should go look at the threads from 2006 and 2007 and see how many Net 54 stalwarts defended Doug Allen and Bill Mastro from fraud allegations.

Originally Posted by ullmandds (Post 1196683)

pete...i'd much rather talk about how to go about beginning to collect T206...now that's interesting!

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1196686)

Which background color is your favorite?

Originally Posted by calvindog (Post 1196693)

How do you display your T206s?

Originally Posted by Leon (Post 1196694)

Why do people collect T206s?

Originally Posted by thehoodedcoder (Post 1196712)

instead of complaining about it day in and day out with ...eh...some proof...

how about change your approach since clearly that is not working.

how about someone just start testing the limits, recording what they are doing with dates, times, auction houses and auctions, such as winning their own auctions

...and seeing if what if anything is done about it by the auction house, then reporting that here first hand with screen shots, email conversations etc.

....much like the the secret shopper theives.

when someone confronts with, undeniable evidence where they have ALL of the facts it will be much more credible than sitting around, speculating and waiting for the auction houses to happen upon a thread and give some lame middle of the road answer so everyone can move on from the conversation.

do some evidence gathering and recon instead just bitching about what is wrong. in the long run if you feel that strongly about it you can then turn that evidence over to someone that can do something about it.

hell, even start a donation bin where you can donate items for consignment or dollars to go towards bidding for anyone that is so inclined to clean up the hobby. i will guess is that no one will go so far as to become johnny justice at their own expense for the good of the hobby.

stop bitching and start doing if you plan to make a difference. talking does nothing expcept spur argument and debate about something that will NEVER change until something is DONE about it.

kevin

Originally Posted by thehoodedcoder (Post 1196624)

id have to dig back through your posts to find out the last time you made a post about something other than corruption in the hobby?

Originally Posted by deucetwins (Post 1196634)

+1. Getting kinda old. Shilling is just part of the auction biz. Same as sniping.

Originally Posted by slipk1068 (Post 1196931)

Are you seriously comparing shilling to sniping?

Originally Posted by steve B (Post 1196620)

For what it's worth my scanner - Epson perfection 2400, with the updated version of the twain driver/scanning software - Auto corrects brightness depending on the object and background. It usually comes out accurate to what I see. The only thing I adjust is the DPI, but using different settings like document or and I'm probably off on the numbers, 16 or 24 bit color will produce slightly different results.

Steve B

Originally Posted by Runscott (Post 1197563)

Steve, some people don't seem to understand technology. If you take a photo and it doesn't look like what you saw, you 'fix' it to be more accurate - you are trying to capture an image of real life, not of what the technology thinks it looks like. Scanners can be the same way. If the resulting contrast or color is not representative of what the item actually looks like, then you should change it.

I've heard people state that an item "looks even better than it did in the auction scan". My thinking is that the auction scan should have been modified to more accurately reflect the item's image.

The answer is not to say that a seller must deal with the technology he is given, without using it's settings - the answer is for sellers to be honest.

Originally Posted by Runscott (Post 1197563)

The answer is not to say that a seller must deal with the technology he is given, without using it's settings - the answer is for sellers to be honest.

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1197639)

Personally, I really don't like the idea of changing the scanner settings. A photograph is a work of art - the photographer is the artist and entitled to fix it however they wish. But a scan is really something that is a matter of record in the sense that it is representing something else, which itself is a work of art (or memorabilia). It's a subtle difference, but it's a major difference. Auctioneers aren't artists whom ought to be figuring their own interpretation of a card.

Sometimes cards do look better in real life than in a scan, but if an auction house is having that issue, they really ought to replace their scanner. Scanners these days do extraordinary work at capturing an image, especially with the new technology available. Anyone with a strong knowledge of technology will realize that there is no need to adjust the scanner settings at all.

Look at Just Collect, for instance. They have very nice scans of their OJ's on ebay right now, and you can tell that the hue is not adjusted, because if you look at the sgc flips, they show as a rich, dark green that they are in real life. That's one barometer for telling that the scanner settings have not been adjusted to enhance the image of the card. In some other auction houses, those very same flips would show up a light, bright green.

So it doesn't really have to do with any attempt realism - it has to do with enhancing an image to make a bidder believe that the card is brighter, cleaner, and more attractive than it is in real life in order to proffer a better price on the card.

Originally Posted by jhs5120 (Post 1197642)

Can someone please post a misrepresented scan from their most recent auction? I have been under the impression the problem was fixed.

Originally Posted by D. Bergin (Post 1197649)

Are you saying it's best to just use the standard factory setting on every scan you make?

If so, I disagree pretty strongly.

Maybe you have some super-intuitive scanner in your possession but most don't. Most scanners I have ever owned, and I have owned many, need to be tweaked in the professional setting in order to reflect what type of item you are scanning whether it be a real photo, lithograph, printed photo, old paper stock, new paper stock. They are all scanned somewhat differently in order to look as close to the approximation they look in real life.

A scanner will play all kinds of havoc with off white's, just depending on where you crop it sometimes, and you have to adjust to either remove or keep the brightness factor the automatic settings apply.

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1197682)

The proof is in the pudding - look at the cards, and you will see the difference. You can see that the scans are coming out brighter than they really are.

Originally Posted by ullmandds (Post 1197686)

jamie...you mean when a scan is juiced...you'll know it after you've received the item...right?

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy (Post 1197694)

Attachment 118855

You're assuming that just because the scans are brighter, he's adjusting the settings. This may not be so. I work for an engineering company and I use a lot of different reproduction equipment. One scanner I use very often is designed to enhance colors (mostly reds and blues) and minimize black (factory settings). We mark-up vendor drawings with red and blue pencils and this scanner enhances our marks and comments so when we send them back to the vendor, our marks really stand out for easy identification.

My point is that you have no idea what kind of scanner he is using and are only assuming that he is adjusting the colors because of the brightness of the scans. If you like, I can scan a card with my scanner at work and then scan the same card with my scanner at home and you will see a noticeable difference in the brightness of the two cards (using only factory settings on each).

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1197697)

Okay, David, please read Brent's post. Brent himself said that he was adjusting the settings.

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1197697)

Okay, David, please read Brent's post. Brent himself said that he was adjusting the settings.

Originally Posted by Brent Huigens (Post 1196475)

Frankly, this is the first time we have heard anybody suggest our scans were misleading. On that note, I can confirm that we've recently introduced some new scanners and that our settings have fluctuated somewhat over the last 90 days.

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy (Post 1197708)

It can also mean adjusting the size, the output format (PDF, JPEG), etc.

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1197709)

Here it is... it is located in the paragraph above what you quoted.

Originally Posted by cyseymour (Post 1197717)

He meant that he bought new scanners and has been adjusting the settings on the new scanners to get the best scan. That much should be obvious to anyone. It is the only thing that makes any sense within the context of the discussion.