I guess I would want to know if those making that argument even have the ability to see an alteration that is pointed out to them let alone one that is not. And how much of their argument is based on the fact that a TPG slabbed the altered card.

I think materiality would be assessed in terms of the customers of the seller, not the world at large. So I do think it's a question of how the hobby views the particular alteration, not the New York City collective phonebook. In other words, context matters. Think of Magie and Magee. Who the hell outside the hobby would care? But that alteration clearly would be material in context.

As to part one, generally I would agree with that. I would define a material alteration as one a significant portion of potential buyers would deem important to their buying decision. It's not precise, but the law rarely is. So if most people wouldn't care if they weren't told about putting down a corner, not material. If we reach a point where most people don't care if a card has been trimmed, well, I would give up on the criminal law at that point.

And in vintage there are a large number of submitters who take time to prepare their cards making them look as nice as possible short of trimming, recoloring, rebuilding corners. My guess is that in both of our examples fraud is being committed if there is not disclosure at the time of sale, even if whatever steps were taken are not detectable.

I think that's a fair argument to make. I would be guessing at how well received it might be to a jury, but I do think that the onus is on the prosecuting attorney to make the case that it is a material fact that trimming cards for profit without disclosure equates to fraud. I do not think this is just a given. However, I do believe the fact that a perhaps surprisingly large percentage of the hobby still views this as a nothing burger is a significant hurdle to overcome when attempting to establish this as a material fact. Perhaps there is some precedent already established for the percentage of a population needed to sign off on something for it to be accepted as a material fact, but I think you're likely to find yourself rowing upstream if something like one-third of hobbyists disagree with this claim. If it were more like 3% of hobbyists, then it would be much easier to make that case. But I do think the percentage of people who see this as a nothing burger would matter to a jury.

I think that's fair.

So Travis, if trimming is a nothingburger, why don't people like Brent disclose it? I would think the fact that it is so widespread but universally concealed almost per se shows materiality. But I would put on lots of witnesses too.

Great points! And to take it a step further...............

Wouldn't/shouldn't that go for cards that have been soaked as well then. Last I looked, water is a chemical - H2O. Or what about people who erase light pencil marks. I've heard people who think doing those things are okay, and rationalize like heck to justify (in their own minds at least) what they are doing is technically not an alteration or type of restoration to a card, so they believe there is nothing they need to disclose. I've got news for people who believe doing things like that are okay, but then criticize others for not always disclosing other types of alterations or restorations they may have done to cards. No one appointed you to be in charge of deciding what is or isn't considered a card alteration or restoration for the rest of us. So for those of you who pick and choose what YOU want to believe is or is not an alteration or restoration that needs to be disclosed, yet complain about others that don't disclose everything either, you can end up coming across to many people as nothing but hypocrites.

I don't see Brent as someone who is in a position of needing to disclose what he may or may not think about a card. If I were running an auction house, I would make every effort possible to be a neutral third party. I would recognize that I am not a professional grader and would leave all grading and authenticity issues to the "professionals", regardless of my own personal views on them. If someone consigns a PSA 7 Hank Aaron RC, I list it as a PSA 7 Hank Aaron RC, no questions asked even if I think that left edge looks a bit suspect. If someone has an issue with that card, they can take it up with PSA. It's not my problem as it's not my job to "grade the graders". I could refer a card to PSA if the consignor agrees to it, but it's not my property either, so I can't just intercept it and confiscate the card just because BODA thinks they've found an issue with it. I also wouldn't ban a consignor for having sent me a card that later proved to be trimmed. Imagine being the guy who says, "I'm sorry Mr. Gretzky (or now, Mr. Seigel), but I cannot accept your Honus Wagner consignment. That card has been trimmed!" You might as well just pack your bags now if that's how you'd run your business. Someone would have to become a significant thorn in my side for me to want to cut them off. I suspect this is also why Brent eventually cut ties with Moser.

I realize there have been a lot of accusations thrown around about Brent, but none of them have been proven and much of it is quite clearly nonsense in my opinion. Again, I'll let the actual detectives sort that out. Until then, he's innocent until proven guilty in my book. I do business with PWCC because they have BY FAR the best platform available for buying and selling cards. I don't really care what conspiracy theories anyone else is into. If you think they are corrupt to high hell, then by all means, stop doing business with them. I'm not going to criticize you for it. But if you start preaching to me about why I too must sign off on your conspiracy theories and calling me "immoral" if I continue to do business with them, well then we have a problem and I'm probably going to tell you to go hump a cactus.

I agree with you Bob. I think the honesty in fully disclosing what one did to a card prior to it being submitted would be great. If a seller is ok with taking out a wrinkle then tell us and let us decide if we care. Not sure I have ever seen anyone disclose anything. Everyone defers or relies on the holder to cleanse whatever steps were taken. I guess to some, as Travis pointed out, it does exactly that.

That sort of negates a major point of grading and authentication doesn't it?
If I know I'm probably not sending it in, if I have no clue, that's what I'd pay an expert for.

That PWCC’s trimming and fraud ring did NOT exist is the conspiracy theory, the one that flies in the face of mountains of evidence. Finally we get to the actual point, pretending PWCC is innocent and the thousands of provably trimmed cards from his buddy Gary and others, many of which Brent himself bought before trimming, are a frame up.

Authentication is part of it...however with the proliferation of altered cards it seems like it is all a TPG is supposed to address however they other part of the process is assigning the grade.

Travis has made it known that some of his positions are not popular. I respect that. Obviously he benefits from the relationship with PWCC, which is his choice and I am certainly not condemning him for it, but it is going out there when you call 3 years of uncovering thousands of obviously altered cards by a few guys by means of hunting and pecking. What Brent has been accused of could not be further from a conspiracy.

As I have posted countless times, Brent admitted, both in emails and conversations, to knowing what Gary does. They had a decades long partnership dating way back to when Brent was just a kid in Northern California with the ID huigenser and Gary was looking for someone to sell his cards on ebay. Just ignore Travis he is willfully clueless at this point and knows nothing about the history here. I am done arguing with someone who thinks the earth is flat.

I'm not saying that these things did not happened. What I question is the extent to which we actually know what many think we know. Much of what is believed to be true from BODA and crew has been built on top of unproven assumptions (some of which are demonstrably faulty). I'm not talking about the cards or alterations themselves. Most of the cards they posted were clear examples of cards that have indeed been trimmed. I'm talking about the logic they use in tying the various parties involved to each other and to those sales.

I have posted this elsewhere before, but eBay's masked user ID algorithm randomizes your masked ID. BODA's method of tying sales to particular users is flawed. Saying they know a card was purchased by Moser because the buyer ID is listed as 'm***1' is a GIANT assumption. I web scraped all of PWCC's and Probstein's eBay feedback profiles and created a database of all the different user IDs that show up there (if anyone wants the data, send me a PM, I'd be happy to share it). There are countless disparate 'm***1' masked eBay IDs buying cards on eBay. In addition, the username 'garymoser123' would have 132 different permutations that eBay uses at random for their purchases (12 Permute 2 = 132). I believe at one point in time, they did use permutations of the characters in usernames for this (however, as noted below, at some point in time, at least 3+ years ago, they switched to using completely random characters for everyone). Moser purchases a card and it shows as 'm***1' today, but it's 'g***e' tomorrow and '2***y' the next day. If you don't believe me, just go to eBay and log out, then look up your own eBay purchases and see what masked IDs eBay lists you as. You'll have a different masked buyer ID for each purchase. I demonstrated this fact in another thread here regarding a shill bidding operation that I uncovered a while back (here's the link to that thread if you care to read about it: https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?p=2132185). The relevant portion of those posts is that the shill bidding account I found had the numerous masked eBay IDs that all pointed to the same user account ('rywag5421') when you clicked on them (note that the revealed characters in the masked ID aren't even always present in the ID itself - in other words, they are completely random characters):
y***y (357)
6***r (357)
8***0 (357)
r***g (357)
1***4 (357)
5***1 (357)
3***w (357)
1***g (357)
a***6 (357)
5***9 (357)
4***w (357)
0***4 (357)
1***1 (357)
4***a (357)
4***y (357)
0***1 (357)
r***y (357)
y***9 (357)
1***0 (357)
5***8 (357)
8***w (357)
5***2 (357)
3***a (357)
g***4 (357)
g***2 (357)
9***1 (357)
1***y (357)

If we knew the feedback scores along with those masked IDs, that could be helpful, but most of the purchases BODA digs up were from years ago and are taken from VCP, which stores the buyers' masked eBay IDs from the corresponding sales on their website. BODA finds a trimmed card, looks up the masked IDs, then starts connecting the dots. Then they post their "findings" and it just builds and builds. Mountains of evidence built on top of completely random eBay user IDs. If you don't see how this is problematic, then I can't help you. Perhaps at one point in time eBay's masking algorithm used to be less random, using only characters from the actual user ID instead of truly random characters, but even if that were true (which it most definitely has not been true since at least the time that this case was broken wide open by BODA) then we still would have far too many disparate users with the same masked IDs to be able to narrow them down without the feedback scores, which VCP does not track.

Here's what we know: thousands of trimmed cards have been sold/laundered through PWCC over the years. We know that Brent accepted consignments from Gary for a long time until he severed that relationship due to blowback (or I accept that to be true rather). But everything you think you know about which cards were bought by whom, prior to them being trimmed, is all built on the demonstrably false assumption that eBay buyer ID 'x***y' = eBayUserXYZ. And all of these accusations about Brent having bought some specific card and then Moser having trimmed it on his behalf and then resold it through PWCC are built on top of these faulty assumptions of tying random eBay IDs together in some network graph that doesn't actually exist. It reminds me of how schizophrenia often gets portrayed in movies by showing these massive network graphs with photos and news clippings all strung together with push pins and strings on walls.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that EVERYTHING they've uncovered is completely random nonsense. Some of it is not. There are other ways to tie some of this stuff together, and they've definitely uncovered stuff that is worth looking into further. But MUCH of what BODA and everyone who follows those threads believe to be true is in fact built upon truly random masked eBay IDs. This is one of the main reasons that I dismiss the majority of accusations about certain individuals that stem from those threads, and why I don't take people at their word when they tell me what they think I *should* know from what BODA has "uncovered".

This is why I say I will wait for the results of the actual investigation from the actual detectives. The FBI can get their hands on the real underlying data behind all of these transactions, not just some random masked user IDs. Then they can begin to sort out who actually did what. But without this data, all we have are conspiracy theories. Sometimes conspiracy theories turn out to be true. But I need better evidence than "this card was bought by 'b***h' which means Brent Huigens bought it and we know he had Gary Moser trim it because this other card was bought by 'g***m' and as you can see, it was trimmed, and that's Gary Moser's masked eBay ID, and those two serial numbers are only 53 digits apart, so we know Brent bought cards for Gary to trim!" Note, this isn't a strawman depiction of the arguments made in those threads. This is quite literally how many of the arguments/connections are presented by BODA. Such arguments are complete and utter nonsense without the actual user IDs behind those completely random masked IDs.

That type of question probably has little to do in terms of actual grading, and is more likely there as a type of CYA protection for the TPG asking it. Think about it, if the FBI decides to investigate a TPG for the possibility of their acting in collusion with others to potentially defraud the public, they (the TPG) can simply point the FBI, or whomever may be investigating, to that question and the submitter's response. While certainly not 100% conclusive, it does document that the supposed party the TPG may have been thought to possibly be colluding with was specifically asked, and affirmatively denied, knowingly giving altered or doctored items to that TPG to grade. It helps to substantiate a TPG's position that they are not knowingly working with anyone to intentionally defraud the public.

There is a fair point hidden in this simping for Brent. Probability is not absolute truth. It's possible that some of the thousands are actually innocuous coincidence. That all of them are, well, it's hard being a ride or die PWCC shill these days. May we all have such strong supporters as Brent has in you.

'It's not a crime or wrong, and even if it was, he didn't do it'. I suppose the 'innocent and it's not even wrong anyways' has probably been true at some point in time for someone. Usually it's an indicator of falsehood. We know that you will not "wait for the results of the actual investigation from the actual detectives", as you were just arguing that there's nothing wrong about what he's been accused of anyways. Why do you have to defend trimming, alteration, and fraud if he's innocent?

Something is not a conspiracy theory because there isn't an indictment. Just calling anything counter to ones story a conspiracy theory is lying. We all know where the mountains of evidence clearly point. We all know that, while a small number of these cards may have matched the accounts via eBay's masking randomly doing so, the odds are astronomically low that thousands of trimmed cards just all happened to magically match up. It's also completely ignoring all of the other evidence, as you well know. You know the tons of serial numbered cards all had the same serials, provably the exact same card.

We all know exactly why Brent had to drop Moser after the evidence became insurmountable. If it wasn't Moser consigning his trimmings, and all of those thousands of cards weren't their fraud ring (the odds of which are beyond minuscule), Brent, of course, wouldn't have had to drop his old buddy Moser. We all know Moser (with a long hobby history of fraud and alteration) was absolutely routing his altered cards through his old buddy, many of which just coincidentally happen to match up with Brent's second eBay account. But I'm sure all of those matches are just the eBay masking coincidentally making them match. Thousands of times, over and over and over again.

One could just say they don't give a crap if he ripped off a bunch of people, business is good and so they will keep doing business with that person. Conspiracy theories aren't needed.

To me this is like arguing Seattle isn't a rainy city because some of the days counted as rainy were actually just cloudy.

Even worse, it's like arguing Seattle isn't a rainy city because some of the days counted as rainy were actually just cloudy, and that it's a conspiracy theory to consider it raining as the water hits your face.

If it helps to convince you, we refuse to use umbrellas up here in the pacific northwest, because we refuse to concede that it rains enough to require them.

I don't think you're quite grasping the scale of the errors being made by BODA that I'm accusing them of making. It's not as if most of the cards bought by a 'b***h' masked user ID are probably Brent's with a few random purchases here or there being possibly misattributed. What I have proven is that EVERY SINGLE MASKED EBAY USER ID IS COMPLETELY RANDOM ON EVERY SINGLE LISTING. In other words, you cannot attribute ANYTHING to ANYONE on ANY purchase simply by having the masked buyer ID of a sale. Do you understand this? Do you understand the implications of this?

Let's back engineer what's happened here... BODA looks up Brent's known account on eBay. They find a card purchased by that account and can accurately trace it to a sale because of feedback that Brent left for that transaction. On the other party's feedback page, BODA finds Brent's exact feedback post and sees that it is attributed to masked eBay user ID 'b***h' (or whatever it is). BODA then says, "AHA! Now I know Brent's secret masked eBay user ID!!!" and then they start hunting. They scour sold listings and VCP for all purchases made by 'b***h' and then they look for matches for those cards to see if they can find any that have been trimmed. The problem is that only 1 in a million of those listings they scour are actually Brent's. These are COMPLETELY RANDOM eBay IDs. 'b***h' will be attributed to you just as often as it is to me, to Peter, and to Brent. These codes are literally assigned at random.

I'm not saying Brent has never trimmed cards or that he is not involved in some sort of way whatsoever. I'm saying you cannot arrive at these conclusions using masked eBay IDs. That matters.

Here's a conspiracy theory for you that I think is at least equally as likely, if not more so, as Brent being some sort of trimming operation ring leader. I think it's quite likely that the vast majority of all high-end vintage cards graded by PSA in the early days (serial numbers beginning with 0s or 1s) have been trimmed and furthermore that the graders at PSA knew about it. I'm talking *almost all of them*. I think that it's quite possible that nearly all of PSA's business in the early years came from card trimmers. They were the early super adopters, and they sent floods of cards their way. There are countless stories posted across the internet of PSA graders meeting with card trimmers at shows in the early days and discussing how to improve their alterations so that they looked as accurate as possible. I haven't seen proof of these conversations, but I do believe they most likely did occur in some form or another. I don't think PSA was ever above board until scandals started landing on their doorsteps and they found themselves under a spotlight. Out of the many thousands of cards I've seen that had serial numbers starting with a 0 or 1 and a grade of EX or better, I don't think I can ever recall a single one of them being either accurately graded or unaltered. It really is that bad. The early days of PSA were an absolute joke. How many years did they allow Moser (and other known trimmers) to continue to submit cards to them? I think that there are so many altered cards in all of these slabs that you could probably find an altered card almost half the time simply by playing 'pin the tail on the donkey' with high-end or high-grade vintage slabs. I think that you could take ANY random masked eBay user ID and find a trail of altered cards associated with that random ID. That's how widespread I think this problem is. I openly acknowledge that I have no proof of this and that it is in fact a conspiracy theory. But based on my observations, I think this is very plausible. I think everyone on this board, including myself, with high-end or high-grade vintage cards likely has a plethora of altered cards in their collections. Maybe Brent was involved in this too in the early days? I don't know. But I honestly think it's all such a mess that almost none of this shit matters anyhow. This entire hobby is absolutely FLOODED with altered cards. Literally millions of them. That's what I think.

I cannot speak to the process of randomized scrambled user ids on eBay. When I have looked at my own as a buyer it always appears the same scrambled letters in VCP but does have different scrambled letters when viewing purchases in feedback but in all of those instances the scrambled letters are the same.

So even if the Moser id is was inaccurately attributed to the before images the cards compared clearly showed cards which were altered and sold by PWCC.

If this were a nothing burger as Travis believes why is the FBI still digging into PWCC's business? Are we to believe that this is merely a witch hunt? And if so, was it not suggested that PWCC has written a bunch of checks to buy back altered cards?

ultimately the only thing they will get Brent on is he over inflated the value of his Vault to get bank loans, paid all the loans back and no banks complaining but then charged civilly for overstating the value of his Vault............

I want to know how eBay, acting against their own best interest in kicking out their biggest moneymaker in cards, was wrong when they very publicly accused Brent of shilling and kicked him to the curb. I'm sure there is also a conspiracy afoot here to dupe the card collecting public into believing the mountains of evidence.

I don't think Brent attempted to overthrow the government though, so he might be safe?

They very much did not accuse Brent of shilling. Read their statement again. eBay couldn't give two shits about shill bidding. There are numerous reasons why eBay might have pulled this move. But going after PWCC for "shill bidding" could not possibly have been one of them.

Maybe all of the reporting is wrong, but they all seem to refer to shill bidding.

Here's an example:

https://www.oregonlive.com/business/...l-bidding.html

A Pre-War Card , :
 

..[IMG]http:/http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/204295...NGLING_NEW.JPG imagehost.vendio.com/a/2042957/view/YUENGLING_NEW.JPG[/IMG]

..The Yuengling family switched from beer to , among other things , ice cream , after "Prohibition "....... This is "Swede" , who attended The Hill School , ( very pricey ) , which was made famous disguised as " Pencey Prep" by Holden Caulfield and J.D, Salinger.


..Every thread needs an obscure post card once every 4 million words.

..

In an email to buyers Tuesday, the marketplace said “it was determined that individuals associated with a trading card seller, PWCC, have engaged in ‘shill bidding,’ which is prohibited on eBay. As a result, eBay has restricted PWCC’s selling privileges and listings, effective today.” The company declined to elaborate on its statement. PWCC also denied the accusation which Travis says was never made.

In a statement to its clients, first reported by the website Action Network, PWCC accused eBay of making a “defamatory” accusation and acting in “bad faith.” PWCC said it is considering “all available legal options.”

Travis seems to inhabit an alternate universe sometimes.

Happens Often.
 

;;.. You can decriminalize shill bidding by just thinking about it.

..

This. It was surprising when it happened, that eBay not only kicked them off but very publicly made such an accusation that could bring liability to them if it wasn't true.

Claiming they did not do this is, simply, straight up lying. Which, to be fair, is about the only way one can pretend PWCC is the victim and there's no problem.

Not sure it should shock anyone that Travis is a staunch denier of information that has been put out there about PWCC and their business model. He has openly admitted that he benefits from doing business with them. They are not for me but lots of people feel the way about PWCC that Travis does. Travis seems more accepting or tolerant of some things in the hobby that more traditional collectors are not ok with.

They did not specifically accuse BRENT is probably what we'll hear back, so what he said was literally partially true. Of course harder to defend the lie that shill bidding had nothing to do with the press release since it mentions it specifically. Unless part two of the BS spin is that Travis somehow knows that was all a pretext.

:rolleyes:

I think you’ve got his schtick mastered. How many posts until he challenges to a vague wager?

Of course that's what you'll hear back because that's OBVIOUSLY what I said. We've been sitting here discussing Brent specifically and what he may or may not have done for two pages now. Then someone who lacks reading comprehension skills pipes in with "ebay said BRENT was shill bidding". I responded with, "no they didn't", and you clowns run with it like you always do. Then somehow you guys turns into me denying that ebay sent out a letter stating "individuals associated with PWCC engaged in shill bidding."

Most of your post was denying the statement had anything to do with shill bidding. That was certainly what you implied, not the wordsmithing parsing spin you are putting on it now. You're a bullshit artist. It's like me proclaiming, the Declaration of Independence never said all men were created equal.

🤣

So now reading comprehension is a "shtick"?

First, let's be clear. eBay's letter makes zero accusations against anyone beyond its own users, let alone any PWCC employee. The wording is intentionally vague. If you want to try to argue that it was in reference to a known PWCC employee, have at it. But if you want to twist it into any specific individual, let alone Brent himself, then you're just straight up lying now.

This is exactly the type of conversation that I find so irritating around here. You guys just twist everything anyone says and this nonsense just builds and builds.

Well Peter, you nailed it 100% exact.

I don't know the details on the ebay/PWCC fiasco.....
 

but from what I've seen on various social media platforms/forums, if a seller uses any of the words bro/brah/sir/yessir/boss excessively, or claims that they'll send tracking later in the day because they're at work and the wife/girlfriend sent it out a couple of days before and they have the receipt, then you're probably not getting the card.

At no point did I ever state or even suggest that ebays statement had nothing to do with shill bidding. I know exactly what they said, and so do you.

What I said is that the letter eBay sent out is bullshit because they CLEARLY do not care about shill bidding. If you'd like to challenge this claim, be my guest. But please stop attacking strawmen.

Just for fun, could you unpack this for me a bit? Are you suggesting that they don't care about shill bidding because it happens all day every day on their site and they do nothing about it? Or something else?

the Declaration of Independence never said all men were created equal.

Would you think I was disputing the substance or just quibbling about were vs. are?

I mean, the fact that they kicked off and publicly lambasted the biggest seller in a very profitable category, to their fiscal detriment, would suggest, obviously, that they in fact do care to at least some extent.

Again, one could simply say "I don't care about the ethics, I'm here for money and PWCC makes me money" and be fine. The complete baloney made up while accusing the facts as straw men and conspiracy theories is where this goes completely off the edge.

Hey Nicolo,

Not exactly 100% sure, but if you look back at some of those statements attributed to Ebay, like in the Oregonlive link you posted, it states that Ebay accused "individuals associated" with the seller of engaging in shill bidding. Your debating adversary may be using that specific wording to then be able to claim they never specifically named and accused the company's owner, Brent. Which, and I hate to admit this, is technically correct then. That may be the rack your adversary is trying to hang at least one of their hats on then.

Now as for Ebay not caring about shill bidding, ask your debating adversary to then come forward with what other logical and intelligent reasons Ebay had to remove one of their largest sellers from their site for then. Typically, you'll get some hemming and hawing, but never any actual or credible direct response, and without really any supporting facts or information whatsoever. It is usually the classic "I'm right, and you're wrong!" defense and attack mode they'll throw at you. I saw and realized there are some like that on here long ago, and quit wasting my time even responding to such people, and just threw them on my "Ignore" list. Unfortunately, when others quote them when posting, the "Ignore" list feature doesn't stop me from seeing their comments. Oh well. Good luck with your debate.

Double post.

If you post twice is it the Bob C. twins?:eek:

In all honesty, I'm not really invested in this enough to even rise to the level of a debate. Maybe a mild intellectual inquiry?

Just trying to understand the inference behind why eBay clearly doesn't care about shill bidding.

Yes, I'm suggesting that eBay's actions speak louder than their words. The problem of shill bidding has plagued their entire platform for decades. It is probably at least an order of magnitude worse on ebay than it is on any other auction website. Furthermore, it is not a difficult problem to solve, if solving means to reduce shill bidding activity by something like 95% or more. I could code it myself in less than a week. I also know that it's not an issue of competency, but rather one of priorities and self interests, as I have many data geek friends who either work there currently or have in the recent past (I used to live a few blocks from eBay headquarters here in San Jose). I wouldn't even be surprised to learn that someone has in fact already solved this problem but that their CFO, Steve Priest, chose not to implement it because it is something that they benefit from greatly. Whatever actions they do take toward this effort are merely done to save face, or as I believe is the case with PWCC, to tarnish the reputation of a very soon to be competitor.

LOL

Internet issues, I think.

Much as I hate agreeing with Travis, he is right that eBay does not care about shilling. But they clearly do when they are pushed or embarrassed. Sort of like PSA and SGC not caring a heck of a lot how many bad cards they have slabbed until they are called out in a way where they cannot spin it. Then they go after the exact people who they know who were participating in the shenanigans and they ban em.

And as Bob C points out the notice from eBay said people associated with PWCC. Could have been consignors but since we have not seen a formal complaint filed by PWCC against ebay, their banning from selling suggests they were involved in the shill bidding to some extent and the banning was justified.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing those details. Always helpful to better understand some of the insider baseball behind the curtain.

I just wish I could get more shill bidders to bid up my items when I sell my items using the auction format on eBay. But I suppose they would only be shill bidders if I was making it happen myself, which I suppose is my problem.

Good for you. Not worth the waste of your time. LOL

This has been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, but for the sake of continuity in this thread, I will attempt to restate the Cliff Notes, as there have been multiple reasons stated for why eBay might have sent out that letter, several of which have garnered significant support among those paying attention.

The most common arguments are, in no particular order:

A) "Yay! ebay is finally cracking down on shill bidding! And Probstein is next!"... any day now, any day now...
B) The FBI came knocking on their door, asking for any and all records pertaining to PWCC as a result of the card trimming scandal/investigation.
C) eBay execs were pissed off when they learned that after many years of building their brand off of eBay's back, PWCC, their largest seller of sports cards, would be launching their own platform and stealing business from them (a fairly reasonable viewpoint for eBay to have, if you ask me). Thus, they wrote this very public letter and sent it to all of PWCC's customers in an effort to tarnish their reputation a mere few weeks before the launch of PWCC's new platform. Or what some might refer to as the, "you can't quit, you're fired!" approach.

Personally, while I acknowledge that option A is plausible, I see it as highly unlikely given their history of allowing shill bidding to permeate their entire platform prior to cutting off PWCC, and their otherwise continued lack of interest on this front since then. I think that some combination of B) and C) is what led to their decision to cut ties with PWCC, and that they intentionally scripted a very vague letter about "individuals associated with PWCC" that they hoped would damage PWCC's reputation. The timing of when this letter was sent out with respect to the launch of PWCC's new platform should not be lost on anyone. This was not a coincidence.

We are all free to call it how we see it, but this is how I see it, and I'm very much not alone. In fact, I believe my opinion is, by far, the majority opinion in this hobby.

I don't think there's any doubt that the two principal players in this saga deserve each other, and probably deserve the cloud of suspicion that comes with it.

It might be a wee aggressive to suggest that yours is the majority opinion, simply because none of us are doing public opinion polls, so it's anyone's guess exactly what the hobby thinks.

But if your assertion is that a large number of people are still buying from PWCC's auctions, so they must not be viewed as guilty by the hobby, then I suppose that's possible. It's also possible that a good slice of us aren't willing to let our morals get in the way of our collecting. And I suppose in that way, we deserve what we get just as much.

I should let the lawyers on the board speak to this but if eBay was at all attempting to damage PWCC's reputation because they were pissed off learning that PWCC would languish...I mean move...to their own platform, Brent should have and could have sued. eBay has already forgotten that PWCC was a leader in selling sports cards on their site. Does not impact their bottom line in any meaningful way.

Stuff trumps all. I used to say it in a somewhat moralistic, disapproving way. Now, I say it just as fact, in a resigned way. The generation of collectors to which I and many of us here belong, has been pushed aside by Travis' generation of collectors. If you care about altered cards, do your best to protect yourself but don't count on the hobby to do shit.

What a brilliant strategy it was. Trim enough cards, get them in holders, and eventually most people won't care.

LOL

Peter, so right you are.

It is the same with many things in life. Keep saying the same lies and half-truths over and over again and eventually people will somehow start to believe you.

And as for marketplaces like Ebay not caring about shilling, they actually do care about it. Just not necessarily to the point where they proactively go out of their way to search out and remove such perpetrators. But they do include it as being against their rules so that when an instance does get publicly outed and pushed in their faces, they can act and ban such perpetrators from their selling formats. Do they care that shilling doesn't negatively impact their reputations and customer bases, absolutely. But they also all know that can't possibly police and stop everyone that may try to shill bid an auction. When people point fingers at large sellers on such online marketplaces as facilitating and supposedly being involved with this shill bidding, isn't it possible that these sellers aren't actually involved, but that their customers/consignors are the ones really responsible for doing the shilling themselves, without these seller's direct knowledge? I am not saying any of these sellers are or are not complicit, I'll leave that to others to decide for themselves. Because these sellers are usually the biggest card sellers on these marketplaces, and thus tend to get the most auction views and repeat customers, spending the most money, the shill bidding customers/consignors might just be picking them to sell and shill bid their cards through. And somehow everyone thinks or feels that because these sellers don't then go out of their way to actively investigate and ban all these shill bidders, they are accused of actively supporting and being involved with them. God forbid they don't already have more than enough work to do in running and handling all the auctions and items they handle and process. So why doesn't the actual marketplace itself get the same level of blame and corrupt involvement leveled at it, like some of these sellers do? Maybe it is because they do have a specific written rule against shill bidding, and when pushed, they do appear to enforce it to some extent. And before one of the typical butt-holes comes on here and then tries to accuse me of defending shill bidding, or the sellers that are then accused of facilitating and colluding with the shill bidders, or actively involved with it themselves, I am not in any way for shill bidding and those that knowingly do it. So don't even start!!!

Was shill bidding the sole reason that PWCC get bounced from Ebay, probably not? But was it the basis or at least one of the significant reasons ultimately behind the decision, I would guess that is a big yes.

There are certainly generational differences in how people approach the hobby and the world in general. I think the majority of the harm/trimming issues began decades ago though. As I mentioned earlier, the percentage of trimmed cards in early PSA holders is staggering. Most of the well known trimmers are on the "other side of the hill". The vast majority of the younger collectors with the "meh, is what it is" mindset probably aren't the ones trimming cards. I think those people are sitting on the sidelines, completely silent, with a bucket of popcorn.