I know this was not directed at me, but I am working on at least getting Rick suspended from ebay if not also arrested. He ripped off the wrong person. All routes I will use to get him banned and/or arrested are legal means of doing it. He will end up the Bill Mastro of ebay if I have anything to do with it.


I wonder if Problemstein actually has a sinister cartoon laugh when he types something like that. I can see it. "This happens in everyone's auctions. Everyone's indeed. HA HA HA HA HA HA,"

If it's not shilling then what's wrong with these people?

Total bids:378
Bid retractions (6 months): 87

I have been a seller on eBay, off and on, since 1999. I have over 2500 feed back and during all of this time, I have probably had 10 (or fewer) bid retractions in my auctions.

If someone bids and then retracts their bid in my auction more than twice, I am going to ban them. I don't need the headache.

Also, I have NEVER shilled ANY of my auctions. Not only is that greedy but also illegal and against eBay rules. I price items where I am comfortable with selling them. If they don't sell, too bad for me. I am NOT going to play the game of "start something with a low opening bid and then shill some sucker to the price I actually want to achieve.".

David

Agree.

I have retracted a bid twice in all my years on eBay both were mistake bids i.e. entering 1000 instead of 100 etc. of those retractions I immediately reentered the correct bid.

Can’t see why anyone would have dozens upon dozens of retracted bids unless up to no good. :confused:

The only logical explanation, Chris, is fat fingers.


:rolleyes:

I sell hundreds of items per week on ebay...I don't get as many retractions as Probstein...probably only about 1/100th the amount he gets, but I believe some of these people with huge numbers of retractions are trying to see the high bid of the current high bidder...they bid up to it and then retract hoping to snipe it at the end. I don't watch my auctions 24/7 so sometimes I will see after an item has ended that someone has retracted a bid, and that same person won the auction.

There can be honest reasons for placing a majority of bids with one seller and for retracting bids. As Adrian showed us, some people are more OCD than others.

When I was an active bidder, there were always a few sellers who I regularly checked on to see what the had-- because they always had good stuff and I trusted them. I'm sure a large percentage of my bids were with them.

I don't recall ever retracting a bid once. In fact, I don't know that I even knew I could retract. I may have assumed you couldn't do that.

My one good story is years back when Mastro had weekly auctions and you typed in your bids, I accidentally typed in $15,000 instead of $1,1500 with about ten minutes left. I didn't know what to do-- I wasn't planning on paying $15,000, but my bid wasn't raised so there was no issue.

I've never shilled, I've never ended an auction when there was one or more bids, but have ended early auctions where there were no bids. I felt it was always my right to end an auction where no one had placed the minimum bid.

OCD is a legitimate reason, but no honest reason I can think of for a seller not blocking such bidders from their auctions. I too have accidentally added an extra '0' to a bid, but I don't recall ever retracting one, even for a legitimate mistake.

Some hobbyists can live in their own skin with what others would consider to be huge integrity problems. Those same people are amazed when the rest of us consider them to be lacking in integrity. Tough luck - they can't blame us for trying to help maintain a higher level of integrity in our hobby through threads like this. The idea that we basically have to keep our mouth shut unless we can prove guilt in a court of law, is absurd.

Ebay has found a loophole where they think they can legally allow cheating by manipulating their rules, thus increasing their profits. For now it's working, but it's wrong, and our best recourse is this forum...public exposure.

It's not everyday that I agree w/Scott F...but I totally...agree with his last post!!!!

You just summed it all up for me in one sentence.

It is not yours, mine or our only recourse.

The problem is that everyone on these threads whole heartedly believes it is.

Kevin

Thanks for admitting that - I have quoted you, just in case I need to use it in my internet discussion forum resume.

When I see news stories about unethical Enron-types who will do anything to further pad their 8 figure bank accounts, I say "There are worse things than being poor."

I believe most people are honest and fair and have no desire to cheat or trick others out of money. I believe that for most people who find on the sidewalk a wallet with fifty bucks in it, they will try and return it whole to the owner.

I also find most teenagers these days to be polite.

I don't sell hundreds of items per week, but yes, I've said it before. Many are now using retractions as a bid strategy to scare off other bidders.

Last guy who retracted a bid from one of my auctions, had a lot of retractions, so I blocked him. Got a message from him a day later, "I don't understand, I tried to bid and it said I'm blocked".

I told him it made me look like I was shilling the auction when he did that. He responded with apologies and told me he had no idea that's how it looked to others. I have a feeling he knew exactly how it looked.

I can't control how others behave on the rest of Ebay, and I'm not going to weed out everybody who is putting in retracting bids in other places, but I can somewhat control how bidders are behaving in MY auctions.

This is clearly the dumbest guy on Net 54 -- and that says a lot. He shows up a month ago and has convinced himself that the only things being done to stop fraud in the hobby are what exists on this board. He reads nothing, knows nothing, makes no effort to learn about anything -- and does all that he can to stop any discourse about fraud here -- so that he can work in private on some insane 'initiatives' that we all know are the figments of his imagination.

Damn Jeff does this mean I lost my title? I thought I was the dumbest…guess I’m going to have to up my game these are tough times some serious competition. :)

I was bidding on a Dewalt rotary hammer for some work I needed to do on my house, so I started bidding on one. Suddenly this zero feedback, less than a month old account outbids me. I outbid before I looked at the bidding history. Both times the outbidding was almost immediately after mine i.e. less than a minute. I went and bid a third time and it happened to be the limit. I was testing to see if it was a shill, and at the same time that was the most I was going to pay, which was under what they were normally selling, so I said what the hell, let's see what happens. If I win, I get it at the level I was going to go anyway and will buy it. I get outbid a 3rd time by that same account. I left it at that. About 30 minutes after the auction ended, surprise, surprise, the seller emails me saying the buyer changed his mind and left me a second chance offer at my highest bid. The winner was that zero feedback bidder. Normally I say to someone that sends me a second chance offer, "why should I have to pay my highest bid, when if that guy who didn't pay hadn't bid, I would have won at a lower price?" I looked at this zero bidder and he had about 50 bids and 100% of them with this seller. I told the seller to run that shill scam with someone stupid enough to fall for it. He never responded. Does his not responding to an incriminating accusation sound familiar? Hint, we have been talking about someone similar that ignores incriminating questions. Shill bidding and lowlife sellers don't only exist in sports collectible auctions unfortunately. They are everywhere.

There was probably shill bidding in the Agora.

I could see someone from Crete shill bidding someone from Athens because the Athenian kept winning everything.

Carthage shillenda est!

Is there a way for sellers to see how many times bidders have retracted bids in their auctions?

Also, do get an email from ebay when someone retracts a bid?

Veni, vidi, schillichi!

The retracting bidder, the other bidders and the seller all get an email from ebay that a bid was retracted.

The sellers would get an email for each retraction that bidder had, and it would show the retractions in the bid history.

Of course some sellers are far too busy to have time to pay much attention to such e-mails.

maybe some sellers could train someone in their migrant worker army to take note of such activity?

That would require them hiring Americans that speak English. That would also require them paying them a decent wage, so no.

Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur :D:D:D

Not the entire world. :D

Petronius was probably shilled in the Forum.

Maybe at a david blaine special!

Certainly the registry dudes.

Julius probably shilled Brutus for the Coliseum naming rights. Zues (woops, I mean Jupiter, Zeus was the Greek parallel set of Gods) won the auction though I think.

delete

what r u trying to say Kevin? WTF? 1?

He's shilling the thread

now that rick commented and those comments were appended, everyone got their resolve.

...the thread goes quiet. issue is over with.

just like the rest of them.

kevin

Every month more auction house principals are being indicted, convicted, sentenced to jail or receiving grand jury subpoenas in fraud investigations -- and yet one sole idiot seemingly misses all of this as he is busy, hunkered down, working hard on his double secret initiatives.

Shhh Jeff you're going to blow his cover...besides he only has so much "dick" to go around to offer everyone this evening. :)

Happy Thanksgiving

How ironic! The thread goes quiet for 4 days and drifts towards the bottom of page one, perhaps to disappear from page 1 list of threads, then you decide to come back and post a reply trumpeting what exactly? Your own ego-maniacal Pyrrhic victory?

In the end you've done nothing more than refresh the thread to to top of page 1 and allow additional forum users the opportunity to read the thread, become a little better educated about looking out for, dealing with, and staying away from these unethical bidding/consigning/consignment practices on Ebay.

Mark, if this moron had a Pyrrhic victory it would be his first. He has no idea what if anything is going on behind the scenes regarding the fraud in these auctions -- but of course, that doesn't stop him from opening his hole and allowing more stupidity to come out. At least he didn't make any racist or homophobic remarks in that post so I suppose for him that's a big victory.

76 bids on a T3 Rube Waddell with 6 days to go? Seems reasonable to me...


http://www.ebay.com/itm/1911-T3-Turk...item5401813a3e

But only 72 of those are from the same bidder.:eek::rolleyes:

This Thread is evidence of the deception that this hobby has in it. Shilling is much more than Probstein and PWCC. The majority of Ruth cards over $1,000 have it going on now. There are 2 ending tonight that have it taking place. The auction option is something that I will no longer do. Give me a buy it now or I will not buy it. Human nature (greed) seems to always take advantage of whatever it can. If you looked at this board in 2009 versus 2013, you could see that the collectors are leaving and more flippers joining. Dont get me wrong there are some quality people on this board but many more trying to make a quick buck. This hobby would be much more fun if it had more collectors and less flippers but this seems to have the opposite taking place now.

It's OK. He stopped when he realized his next bid was going to be the high bid. Must have reached his limit.

I totally agree with you Steve...this board is changing. IT's not the safe haven it once was...definitely turning into the wild west...along with the hobby!

Problem is, that when a Ruth goes off in a PWCC or Probstein auction, the price is inflated -- which influences the value that you would place on the card when you make a best offer.

I think it all boils down to unrealistic expectations. Just because a card sold for $1,000 last week from a seller other than PWCC or Probstein DOES NOT make that exact same card worth $1,500 or more one week later with PWCC or Probstein as the seller!!!! Or does it??!?!??!?!?!??!!

There are a lot more people on the board, no doubt. Wild Wild west? Far from it in my opinion. That doesn't mean you can just do things blindly. But I personally think that if you do your homework it's as close to perfectly safe as I know of, on such a venue. I am biased of course. :)

This is what happened to me the one time I bid in a "123" auction, back sometime around '05-'07 or so. I was of course suspicious and decided I would never bid on an auction of his again Anyway, the threads regarding these actions are great to shine the light on this. Per some of the posts it has prevented others from dealing with the guy.

I'm going to have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you on that. Yeah. Sure, there are a few trolls here and there on N54. That said, there are lots of solid, committed, friendly collectors here who've got many years into the Hobby and are as passionate about their collections as can be. Everyone who shows up at our shows is evidence of that. If you're around SoCal in May when we do our next show, come on out and meet the gang. Or attend the National if you haven't and meet up with everyone there. Lots of good people...

I don't think flipping is bad. I think we're all flippers to some extent--I know I try to finance my collection that way--but the prevalence of auction houses as the means of selling cards with mass lotting that lumps dozens or even hundreds of cards into 'dealer friendly' lots increasingly dictates that we all end up flipping stuff.

The answer to shilling on eBay is not simple but there are mitigating measures that can be taken, which we've kicked around ad nauseum here already. First and foremost is exposure, which N54 does very well indeed.

I agree their are a lot of really good people on this board but as it grows like everything else in this world the scammers and let's make a quick buck people have grown in multiples and are just a turn-off in the hobby. They will come and go on this board and hopefully the quality collectors will stick it out. This hobby was built on collectors trading and purchasing cards they really want and exploited by people trying to make a quick buck or selling fake/counterfeit items. The TPG's have included themselves in the deception in the hobby by grading cards that are known to be trimmed and giving them a grade of 8. The accountability is just not there. Dealers using one price guide to buy from and a second to sell from? We are not going to grow the hobby with these actions. I have enjoyed this hobby and this forum but I made my original post because I really don't like what I have been seeing over the last year or so. I hate negativity and look forward to discussing the excitement of someone getting a card they really wanted.

Steve

Follow the money.
When the dollars get big (and they have) along come the folks allergic to a honest day's work.

There are PLENTY of fine folks on this board but it is different than it used to be. And that's not all bad either.

We will all be flippers at some point.

Flippers and profit seekers
 

Are not new to this business and there are far less of both than in the late 1980s-mid 1990s when there were far more people attempting to make a buck selling cards. I also do not think there is more but actually less fraud than back then, in terms of counterfeits and alterations. Do these things still exist absolutely and they always will. That does not mean we should not expose fraud when we see it. There is more fraud in terms of shilling mainly because far more cards are now sold via auction then at any other time. Ps there are a ton of good people on this board and a few p.i.t.as.

You guys are wasting your time, shill bidding is allowed if you are bringing in the big money, aka BRSZ!

Unfortunately you are 100% right.

Guess what I bid on a probstein auction (yes my mistake) and long and behold I was subsequently outbid. Now today with about a day and a half left I become the top bidder as the person bidding more than me has retracted or cancelled their bid. Since I don't want to cast dispersions on anyone you can draw your own conclusions. The ebay email is copied below. What do you think?



Dear eBay Community Member,
The following item, on which you placed a bid has had a bid retraction or cancellation, and you are now the high bidder. Congratulations! You can view the retraction/cancellation and the reason provided by selecting the (bid history) link from the individual item page. As a result of this retraction/cancellation, there is a possibility that the high bid amount and the current high bidder have changed. You can always view the current status of any item by going to the individual item page. (Be sure to refresh or reload the page to view the most up-to-date information.)

Regards,
eBay

It's a t206 chesboro sgc 50 with sovereign back if u care to look at bid history.

Congratulations!

Thank you

Auction - http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Jack-Ch...item54018ab179

details of bidder who retracted $150 bid ...

Bid History: Details
Bidding Details

Bidder Information
Bidder: 0***a ( 53Feedback score is 50 to 99)
Feedback: 100% Positive
Item description: Item Title: T206 Jack Chesbro New York HOF SOVEREIGN 150 Back SGC 50 VG-EX 4
Bids on this item: 0

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 2
Items bid on: 2
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 0% Help
Bid retractions: 2
Bid retractions (6 months): 4
30-Day Bid History
Category No. of Bids Seller Help Last Bid Help
Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Baseball 1 Seller 1 <1h
Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Hockey-NHL 1 Seller 2 3d

So couldn't the seller, every time he gets a bid retraction email, ban the bidder from his auctions?

So he's bid on 2 items in 30 days and retracted both bids.
This one could just be a squirrel.

Just sent out a double-secret, triple-coded transmission. Some of my operatives are on the case.

The rabbit howls at midnight.

Over and out.

I feel better already.

I suspect not.

What's in the pocket? I'm genuinely freaked out.

Triple-Coding Transmittor

Was going to post this in the monthly pickups thread, but it's more appropriate here. Got a half-dozen of them, to be issued ASAP to agents in the field. Confident this is the final piece to end the war on fraud.

The green grass on the leaky bucket speaks no ill will to the man from Nantucket.

Signing off.

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/i...5djvddG3ZfkIXw

Every bidder in that auction has a high % of bids on Ricks items, 1 of them must have some really fat fingers with 27 bid retractions.

Ten feet tall and bulletproof

IwantitIwinit,

I would call eBay and complain. Tell them you now know about the questionable things that go on with this sellers' auctions and that you do not appreciate the fact that you might be shilled.

If they don't do anything then I would wait and retract your bid and leave somebody else holding the bag.

David

I guess I am the only sucker then since this is one of the few cards he autions that I have bid on. This will be the last time. If I win it so be it, but I doubt it.

Very initiatives of you.

Last night and in the last few minutes I have been emailing with Rick P about this auction of his. That bid retracting person hasn't won anything from him in over 90 days, he says, and ebay allows bid retractions, so he doesn't see an issue. I kindly told him that there is an issue and just because ebay allows it doesn't make it right. He did share literally hundreds of biddrers id's he has blocked. He says he does take action many times and many times it's because of what is said on the forum....and I would imagine other forums too. I told him that I know there are issues with someone retracting multilple times, he knows and the whole world knows it. Just because he denies culpability and no ebay rules are being broken doesn't make it right...

So he doesn't have time to monitor his auctions, yet he has found reason to block hundreds of bidders? :confused:

He says he does 20000 auctions a month and doesn't monitor them unless it's brought to his attention.

It was brought to his attention over a year ago that Joe Panky was shilling his own consgnments and yet some how he didn't get blocked (as a bidder or consignor). Leon, if you speak to him again, please ask Rick why he took no action with Panky.

I wonder how the Probstein apologists will try to spin that little anecdote.