Bidding on your own auction
 

I don't understand this, unless to drive up the bid prices..? Look at this Probstein123 listing which ends tonight...

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=380538844655

y***y (private) bid $189 on 12/18 - - only issue is y***y (private) won this very card on 12/2/12 for $355! (see below link)

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=251189941256

So he winds winning the card, consigns with Rick - and bids on his own card to drive more bids/up the price..?

Just asking because I have no clue
 

Since eBay went to the whole bidder privacy thing years ago, and your bids no longer show up under your eBay name, do you always have the same cryptic handle no matter what you bid on? Guess I've never paid that much attention, but if I bid on something last year, and someone saw I was bidder A****Z, would I still be bidder A****Z a year later when I bid on something again, or are those things randomly generated?

Sorry, just don't have a clue about this.

Yes your ebay scrambled ID shows up the same, mine is always the same even when checking VCP on cards I purchased.

I think they are random but not 100% sure.

+1, same goes for card target

Shill
 

Good question - I know I always come up as o***o along with my feedback score (I don't know what people do to get listed as "private"?)

Now, they may assign "o***o" to others as well, I'm not sure..? But this is too much of a coincidence -- y***y (private) wins the card on 12/2, consigns the card for re-sell to Probstein123 and then y***y (private) shows up bidding on it..? Wow.

I've reported it, called eBay - they did confirm that y***y (private) won the card on 12/2 and has now bid on that very same card in this current auction Probstein123 has. Unknown if Rick is aware, that's why I called eBay instead of just reporting it as a shill bid.

Somebody should probably contact Probstein about it. I doubt he keeps track of all of his consignors ID's, or checks the bid history of every one of his auctions.

It's been mentioned before, this guy is highly suspicious. He's bid on every T206 and any other card type.


Bidding Details


Bidder Information
Bidder: s***s( 442)
Feedback: 100%Positive
Item description: T206 Miller Huggins Portrait Cincinnati HOF PSA 2 GOOD
Bids on this item: 3

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 1041
Items bid on: 469
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 78%
Bid retractions: 3
Bid retractions (6 months): 42

78% of all his bids are with that seller?

is that correct?

Bidding
 

I have contacted Probstein to advise as suggested, he may indeed not be aware - that's why I didn't just report it as shilling (as that may suggest he's aware, instigating, etc).

FYI - y***y (private) seller/bidder is "myboydannyroy67"

Seems quite possible that this account is a shill account, it "accidentally" won for him the first time, so now he is re-listing the card.

"30-Day Summary
Total bids: 1041
Items bid on: 469
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 78%
Bid retractions: 3
Bid retractions (6 months): 42"

This is not a normal ebay account. At least from what I can see.

He has retracted 42 bids in the last 6 months. How is this allowed?

Didnt do a very good job as he still lost a few hundred on the sale no?

edited I see it has NOT yet ended

I don't know. Seems to me, all bids are good bids according to Ebay.

Does anybody think it's a coincidence that about the same time Ebay made bidding accounts largely anonymous, they also lifted restrictions on bid retractions?

When a bidder has that many retractions it means one of two things. They are shilling auctions or they are tampering with auctions. Not good for buyers or sellers in the overall scheme of things.

I don't mind making bidders names anonymous, because many bidders prefer to stay anonymous if possible...........that generally holds for any type of auction.

However, to make the habitual act of retracting bids an accepted part of the auction process, strikes me as Ebay putting their head in the sand as a way of defending themselves by telling people "we didn't know these types of practices were going on." It's their way of not having to deal with the problem.

Sure, they have rules against "shilling" and "tampering with auctions", but they rarely ever acknowledge it, except in very extreme and blatant circumstances.

Trivia, just for the record:

-- "masked" eBay IDs do not always come up the same for the same bidder (although they're consistent within any single auction).
Our eBay ID has shown up masked a couple of different ways.

-- a "masked" ID can represent any number of eBay bidders -- there are only about 1,600 possible two-character combinations.

Well all I can say is mine show up the same and have so for a long time (and I checked about 20 more purchases too) -


2/4/10 eBay Image macbruce11 y***t 12 $261.00

11/28/10 eBay Image davidbvintage y***t 1 $22.00

10/23/11 eBay Image cardsandbrowns y***t 9 $47.00

12/8/12 eBay Auction | Image dslsports y***t 9 $5.50

looks like Y****Y is bidding on many Probsteins 1914's...usually one of the early bidders...

why would someone bid 69.99 or 89.99? does this person like losing by .01
?
i have been on ebay many many years and never bid this amount (.99) when trying to win a card, i cant figure it out...

never have seen a different masked id for one particular buyer, and it is the sames ones who keep outbidding me!

Hmmm...this isn't looking so good?! Time will reveal all!

In my mind there is only one reason for someone to consistently bid .01 lower than a round figure and that is because in most situations someone else has bid an exact amount and you want to extract maximum value. As mentioned you bid 89.99 because more than likely someone has bid $90.00. If you are a true buyer and want to win a card you bid $90.01 not 89.99. It would be interesting to see if this pattern occurred with other sales from that same seller. Hope we don't find out this is another "black eye" for an ebay seller.

Butch,

Can you provide an example?

lol I have also never bid adding a .99, it does make a lot of sense if you were to shill you would want to bid just under whole numbers as most are probably like me bidding whats easy- $70 or 90

Hmmm the plot thickens, I see one consistent bidder on this sellers auctions is i***g. I just quickly looked at 3 of this sellers active t206 auctions and see that i***g has bid on all three.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Miller-...item5899e35a62

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Josh-De...item53f23b8b30

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=380542032273



That in itself means absolutely nothing i***g could be bidding on every t206 out there for all I know. However, looking a bit further I see that in the past 6 months i***g has 133 bid retractions. Here are the stats I see for that bidder:

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 72
Items bid on: 72
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 25%
Bid retractions: 8
Bid retractions (6 months): 133

Something is starting to smell a bit fishy.

one of the many perks of paying someone else to sell your lower valued cards...so you can shill the hell out of it. otherwise why would anyone consign $50-$100 cards to these places?

Whats new....another supposedly reputable vintage card seller with really high feedback is caught shilling or having his friends or relatives shill his auctions ...wow stop the presses:D Collecting cards is becoming kind of depressing these days

This one does not look like a straight out shiller to me.

Looks more like a tamperer

A few possibilities:

He pulls his bids when he finds out something else he likes, since he's usually only putting in one bid per auction.

He is really, really interested for some reason in seeing a stable market for T206's, and is misguidedly throwing in bids he thinks the cards should go for (thereby protecting the value of his own collection) and pulling them back when it looks like he might actually win.

Lastly, he is a bit of a shiller. He's not running up auctions but he has consignments with this seller and is placing a single bid on his own cards as sort of a reserve.

Whatever it is, it shouldn't be allowed by Ebay. I'm not sure it's something I would crucify the seller for without knowing more.

If I was Probstein and the same guy was retracting bids in my auctions on a regular basis, he'd be on the blocked bidder list very quickly. It's not hard to keep track of...........you get an e-mail from Ebay every time it happens.

I only stated what I saw don't think I crucified anyone. I have bot from this seller in the past both on eBay and in person and have enjoyed the interactions. I hope some of the things pointed out are proven to be coincidences.

Started smelling fishy in the Art Shell thread a few months ago (pank21). Now just downright rotten!!!

These are exactly the reasons why I will never bid with Rick Probstein.

Shady.

Just making a general observation. I didn't mean to imply you yourself, were "crucifying" the seller in question.

It does merit being pointed out. Whether there's anything untoward going on with Probstein or not, these type of bidding practices are ultimately damaging to the marketplace. I'd like to see these types of bidders taking some flack for this.

It's becoming a common trend nowadays, whether it involves actual shilling or not.

My masked ID has not changed. Just about all of my purchases have been captured by Card Target and the prices paid are accurate. Now who am I?

The encryption masking involves several algorithms depending on the number of characters in your username. I haven't figured it all out, but I have a pretty good idea. It isn't rocket science IMO.

If Probstein were an honest seller, he wouldn't want shill bidders continually manipulating his auctions...assuming he himself isn't the shill bidder.

That's a good point. Retractions happen from time to time, but if it is frequent from the same bidder, or worse, from a consignor.........he should be blocking that bidder and/or refusing those consignments.

He does have a somewhat huge operation going and I understand some things can get overlooked, but these are somewhat easy to notice things.

Retractions are the key. The Bid %'s Ebay gives, really means nothing IMO, unless it is in tandem with other fishy practices.

Again, just tangential trivia, but since you asked --
MW1, all we can tell ya is basically what we already said and what we've seen in auctions in which we've bid.
-- our bids have shown up as both "u***u" and "u***7"
-- we've also seen the bids of a friend and fellow Net54 member showing up with two specific characters in several auctions
(we decline to specify the characters without his permission) and those same two characters transposed in other auctions.

Presumably, there's something in the eBay encryption programme that will change the "standard" masked ID for a second bidder
if another bidder, whose masked ID appears as the same two characters as those normally used to mask the second bidder,
has already bid in that same auction.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Butch7999
Trivia, just for the record:
-- "masked" eBay IDs do not always come up the same for the same bidder (although they're consistent within any single auction).
Our eBay ID has shown up masked a couple of different ways.
-- a "masked" ID can represent any number of eBay bidders -- there are only about 1,600 possible two-character combinations.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MW1
Butch,
Can you provide an example?

question:
 

in todays day of hidden ebay bidder's IDs, why do some bidders show up as "private" still?

what is the benefit of this? y*****y is listed as "private"...

I have a couple regulars who are "Private". I know from speaking to one of them, It's so they can leave feedback and others can't see what they have been bidding on through their own feedback history.

The ID's aren't always a mystery either. If you already know somebody's Ebay handle you pretty much have free reign to track what they have been bidding on.

Help me out with this?
 

Ok - so I've purchased some items from this seller in the past. I looked up this item that I've purchased, and look at the underbidder's activity with this seller...

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

It says that there is 100% bidding activity with this seller. Am I reading this right? Does this mean that this buyer only bids on items from this seller, or am I missing out on something?

This card went for more that what I expected it to go, but I guess that doesn't mean anything!?!

that buyer really likes that seller :eek:

Honestly, these shill bidders do a terrible job covering their tracks. I mean, if you don't want to be seen only bidding on items from one seller, why not just put in a bid on items from different sellers that they are positive they won't win! That's make it look less fishy honestly, they just do a poor job.

It means he hasn't bid on/with anyone else in the last 30 days. This may have cost you a few bucks on this auction (assuming it was shilled) as you may have otherwise won the card for the next increment over $26 and change.

What's more suspicious about this is another under bidder s***s (445) with 43 bid retractions in the last 6 months! This was brought up before by other members and in previous replies - I don't get this at all - - I've never had any! 1 or 2 seems like a lot - 43..?! :eek:

s***s (445)
30-Day Summary
Total bids: 967
Items bid on: 416
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 76% Help
Bid retractions: 4
Bid retractions (6 months): 43

that looks really suspicious. I wonder how many of those bids he placed were winning bids.

You're assuming they care, I'd be surprised of they do. It seems that ebay doesn't care and neither do the preponderance of bidders, as most don't know. Ebay provides a nearly perfect playground for miscreants. I hate to say it but I would assume I'm shilled on anything that I do anything but snipe on. I would bet I'm right more often than I'm wrong.

As for this seller, I'm not sure what he could do other than to refuse consignments from anyone he has confirmed bid on their own items.

Chasing Classic Cars
 

Have you guys seen Wayne Carini on his show "Chasing Classic Cars"? He's the winner and the loser and the consignor and the consignee. Good show.

In Texas, it's perfectly fine to point to the back of the room at no one in particular and say "Hoah!" at an imaginary bidder to git the auction going.

Just looked at my feedback. One purchase from Probstein123 this year.
One underbidder (y***s) with a feedback over 1200 bid with a price ending in .99 also. Feedback percentage with seller: 79%! Zero bid retractions.
A quick search reveals this bidder's ID. I won't post it.
Odd to say the least.
Looking at the variety of stuff y***s has won from him - just weird.

A friend of mine just won an unrelated card from him this week. The under bidder has private FB and nearly 90% with this seller... Funny .99 bid amounts again.

Interesting is that I would read several threads like this on the Collectors Universe forum. Those threads would quickly disappear. The cult like following threads endure though.

sounds like a friend or relative of the seller. Some of the shill accounts that big sellers use have high enough feedback of their own that it can throw off the casual observer and have them believing that nothing suspicious is going on when a guy bids .99 increments loads of times in one auction and has 75%-100% bidding history with one seller. Remember...there are flea marketers that have 7,8,9,10 different accounts on ebay why should it be any different for a dishonest baseball card dealer who is struggling to make a dime the Honest way. The fact that Ebay allows them to shill with impunity is no excuse for them doing it , I think it sucks and they ruin a neat hobby and discourage newbies from getting involved at all. This discusion has been had over and over though on this board about shilling at auction houses and on Ebay by supposed reputable sellers with great reputations in the hobby. Shilling has only gotten worse and some cases more brazen...if we really wanted to a bunch of people who know what they are doing could probably put a list together of Ebay sellers thay believe engage in nefarious activity, or we could just start telling people why we don't or won't bid with certain sellers
*signed fuming mad Dave in Ohio *

It was easy to spot shilling ten years ago. Not so easy anymore, and that's the way ebay wants it. Consignors and sellers are happy, customers also - as long as they can add cool stuff to their collections, they'll turn a blind eye. That leaves no one upset with the situation other than the smaller sellers, and ebay doesn't want smaller sellers.

If it makes you feel any better, ebay is squeezing out the auction format in favor of the Amazon model, but no telling how long that will take.

Haha. Try that and you'll make more enemies than friends.

Scott, I suspect you are right on all points made. I think Ebay will soon be a buy it now web site with no real auctions at all.
I think discussing the shilling activity we have experienced on Ebay is a good thing in that it alerts others to what may be going on and may make people pay more attention to who is bidding against them. Some of these sellers read this forum and may even be members so one might think that they would reply to these posts. The only seller I remember replying to posts about shilling was the guy who sells the Helmar cards that are made to look old.

This stinks

This guy is a Legend on the PSA boards..

There was a recent thread " why doesn't everyone consign with probstein?"..agh

First of all, on this forum, these threads won't go poof. Secondly, make sure your name is in your post if you are making negative (or positive) claims concerning a person or business. Otherwise, on that front, we are wide open.

I don't think it's Probstein doing anything himself (or their self). I do think he could be more diligent on watching for this shady bidding that seems to be going on and helping to avoid it. He might get so many consignments that he can't keep up with the shilling of his consignors? Maybe this is one of the reasons some of the biggest ebay sellers get so many consignments AND their prices often seem to be above market. This is also a reason you can't just use VCP blindly. You really need to look at the auction, other historical sales and the card characteristics to make a valuation decision.

Just seems odd that a bidder can have 80-90% with the same seller. Assuming the bidder is also the cosigner (trying to drive up or reserve a certain price) - the seller should be able to recognize that he is mailing the card to the same guy that cosigned it with him. Does he include a check for the % of sale in the same package?

Jon- the sellers see all bidders full details concerning their USER ID. They know who is bidding or can certainly find out very easily, I would think.

Maybe, maybe not. But the fact that this guy's got 43 bid retractions, and 78% or whatever it was bids with this seller - seems like more is going on than just a consignor bidding on his own items.

I mean, come on... This bidder has bid on 469 different auctions, 78% of them probstein's. That's bidding on almost 400 different probstein auctions! Surely that cannot be chalked up to just a shilling consignor. It's intentional, deliberate, and very clear what this bidder is doing.

That being said, shill bidding aside, nobody can ever force you to pay more for a card than you are willing to bid and pay for it.

Exactly. The seller would know about the continuous retractions. My thinking is that an honest seller wouldn't want a shill screwing with their auctions. More importantly, an honest seller would quickly and vigorously respond to allegations of underhanded activities. If I were accused of these things, I would be outraged and would certainly respond.

Now I don't feel so bad about taking his free carry-all at the National this year.

It's not free -- you paid for it.

Yep, so if there IS shilling going on, the sellers are complicit in the arrangement. Or they are great businessmen who just don't pay attention to who their customers or consignors are :confused:

As an aside, it's hard to imagine a successful business model that relies purely on straight ebay auctions. I don't want to get sued for libel, so please don't give me examples.

Probstein on ebay
 

Guys,

Probstein is one of a handful of dealers that list at no reserve. I have one purchase from him and it was a very rare n172 at under $200. Insane.

I list at no reserve, but I don't sell baseball cards for a living. I do it for fun and don't care if I make or lose money on an ebay lot.

When I first saw baseball cards on ebay in 1998 almost all sales were $1 and no reserve. I remember uncatalogued T214's going for 89 bucks.

This guy sold a PSA 2 1914 Meyers for under $100 the other day. His auctions are bad? Others good. C'mon.

In Texas, what you guys are calling egregious and nefarious shilling is known as an accepted, legal practice to getting an item to a reserve below market value.

You guys keep it up and no-one will sell on ebay at no reserve except for people like me who don't care what the cards sell for.

As a seller on ebay, I've hit record low prices selling cards that start at 99 cents w/ no reserve. (33 Goudey 92 Gehrig SGC 40/3 for $550, T206 Mathewson PSA 4 for $450, 33 Sport Kings Cobb PSA 3 for $300, and more where those came from.) I personally think it's nuts for the average seller to start auctions at 99 cents these days, so I never do that anymore unless I just want to get rid of the card and am willing to take whatever loss comes my way. However, I also think shilling is wrong, and it's obviously going on in the case listed in this thread. Rick Probstein runs a lot of auctions. There's no way he could keep track of it if some of his consignors wanted to shill their own items. However, once someone points out to him that it's happening, he should come down hard to them by ending the listings, outing the consignor, and banning those folks from consigning w/ him again.

BTW, if you want ebay to get rid of BINs and go back to regular auctions, mail ebay and tell them to implement the following 3 things: (1) raise BIN fees to 5% of the BIN price, with the max length of BINs still at one month, (2) remove all promotions relating to free insertion fees for listings, (3) remove insertion fees for any auction listing that starts at 99 cents or less. There would be a huge outcry among sellers, including myself, but I think if ebay did this, you'd see a lot more regular auctions again and less BINs.

If it walks like a shill and quacks like a shill, it's a shill. Freakin' ridiculous!!!

key word "HONEST"

So if we demand honesty from card sellers then you are saying the baseball card market will dry up and blow away basically....okay - good riddance then. I have other hobbies.
I will remember not to bid on any auctions originating from Texas if this is the "accepted practice" down there. Why bother with an auction, just state your price and se what happens. Baseball cards are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them please remember they have no real value. I can't trade a t206 for my dinner tonight or go to Krogers and buy milk and eggs with some old T207's I don't want anymore. In order to be able to turn over these precious cards there has to be an interest in them. If people keep getting ripped off and keep hearing and reading about rip off artists on Ebay in in auction houses there will be no interest in collecting cards. I know I have curtailed my buyng and refuse to bid on ebay with certain sellers because of suspicious activity I have observed

That's kind of a new twist, condemning a whole state for one person's thoughts. For the record I am in no way condoning shilling or the ignoring of shilling. Its fraud and it's ethically wrong too. It certainly looks like the seller needs to be asking questions and possibly booting some consignors.

and a nice video on shilling....R rated for language

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqJew...layer_embedded


.

nice video...pretty f'in funny...the accent definitely increases it's comedic value!!!!

I think it's great that people on drugs can make videos. Very funny.

Cookies and bidding
 

Geez, I actually laughed out loud during that video! A true LOL is much rarer than the typed out trio of letters...

Cookies are good.
Shilling sux.

I only bid on 3-4 different sellers on ebay. That's because I have had sucessful transactions with them, and i created a saved search for those dealers. I typically only look through their offerings, not the whole ebay enterprise. I am not a seller. Sure that limits what I see and probably keeps my glasses colored in rose.

This leads me to several disjointed conclusions:

EBAY ain't what it used to be. You may not find as many "steals" as in the older days.

Sellers hate steals almost as much as buyers like them.

Every time I bid higher than a shiller , or any other under bidder, I win.

Shilling sux.

We should embrace ebay turning into strictly marketplace-based. Eventually, high BIN prices for *every* listing will slow the ebay income machine enough where they will be forced to make some adjustments. Ebay never appears to be afraid to change. Hit 'em in the wallet, you'll see quick change.

In the meantime, we card collectors have plenty of other outlets to buy cards.
Even sellers have a big network of selling outlets.
Who needs eBay?

I spelled e-bay 5 different ways.
Ebay still sux.

Happy New Year!!

Come by the bicycle shop I work for. I'll take T206s and T207s as payment. Probably a bunch of other cards as well. :D

Steve B

1914 Cracker Jacks
 

Bidding on your own auction
I don't understand this, unless to drive up the bid prices..? Look at this Probstein123 listing which ends tonight...

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=380538844655

y***y (private) bid $189 on 12/18 - - only issue is y***y (private) won this very card on 12/2/12 for $355! (see below link)

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=251189941256

So he winds winning the card, consigns with Rick - and bids on his own card to drive more bids/up the price..?

==> hey ed, how are you ? I went back and looked at that auction...the winning bidder is not one of active 300 consignors...

If you're referring to the winning bidder of the recently-ended auction, then you're not answering the question, Rick. The concern is that the person who won the first auction then consigned the card with you and subsequently ended up as one of the underbidders, more popularly known as a shill bidder.

See, this is your pattern. When there is a thread praising you, you're Johnny-on-the-spot. When there is a thread (and there have been many) that call into question sketchy bidding activity on your auctions, or your blatant spamming of the SC&MF on CU, or anything else negative, well then it's crickets. When you do bother to respond, you give some nebulous answer that's not an answer at all. Usually you give an answer that had nothing to do with the question. Heck, why respond when there's a darn good chance then thread will be locked, or posts selectively deleted, or best yet the whole thread disappears? Duck the tough but fair questions and wait for the Moderator-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named to simply delete the offending question and ban the asker.

I guess I have figured out how he gets 20%-35% over VCP for alot of auctions.....just consign and bid your stuff up. There are to many smoking guns that have been uncovered on the boards to convince me otherwise.

Geordie you are right though, whenever we uncover shilling on Rick's auctions, you never hear from him or he doesn't answer your question. That speaks volumes to me.

Also to add, this seems like the next generation of selling. Send your stuff to consigment houses (whether ebay or auction houses) and bid your stuff up.

This is why I much rather prefer to buy off the boards or in person vs ebay if I can help it.

Mark

Shilling
 

Hello all,

My question/issue in starting this thread was simply noting that the person who had recently won that card - y***y (private) or eBay ID "myboydannyroy67", appeared to have consigned that same card with Rick shortly thereafter and was then bidding on it - presumably to drive up bids.

I reported it to eBay and sent Rick a message at the time with the assumption he was unaware.

Obviously, whether or not myboydannyroy67 won the card was not the issue.

hi Ed
 

whats the item # ? I'd like to go back and look at the bidders on that auction
thanks
rick

I guess I would also like to know the reasoning behind this as well. If the same bidder had retracted 43 bids on my auctions, I wouldn't want them bidding on my listings. With such a high number of retractions by the same person, it certainly looks like the artificial manipulation of prices.

Shilling
 

links and information are in the beginning of this thread.

honestly
 

hi,

i will honestly say, i have bought a ton of cards from this guy. i have always felt i was over paying for the cards. all high grade t206s 5 and higher.

after reading this i just don't know how i can buy anything from this seller again. i actually would not want to bid on anything this seller may be consigning to someone else.

there were some higher dollar cards that went off at REA which are coming into question. im aware that they were owned by the seller prior to making their way into that auction.

is there any good way to determine that?

kevin

Please also look into this bidder, since my original post his % has dropped but he is still bidding on a good majority of your cards.

He has bids in 26/27 of your current auction T206 listings. Same with n***n(270)


Bidder Information
Bidder: s***s( 442)
Feedback: 100%Positive
Bids on this item: 3

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 1041
Items bid on: 469
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 78%
Bid retractions: 3
Bid retractions (6 months): 42

My question is why are we doing all the detective work for Rick and he is not doing it himself. It's not like we haven't provided him dozens of examples (shill bidding and fake packs). It really isn't that hard and doesn't take as much work as some may think.

If I am running a business, the first time I hear of shady practices, I would put a process in place immediately to make sure it doesn't happen or limit to a bear minimum (understand you won't catch everyone everytime). That may be adding a person to monitor the bidding activity of my auctions. My reputation is worth more than a couple extra dollars in fees that I would make on ebay.

Mark

Less than 10% of Rick's auctions are true auctions - the rest of his listings ate fixed price. Monitoring even those "few" auctions is probably more daunting than we think, but it would still be nice to see immediate emphatic action taken when shilling is exposed. Maybe Rick does take that action immediately, maybe not. It does seem that controversy swirls for quite some time before an appearance is made letting the board know it's been handled.

I've said it before across the street - Rick can run his business any way he darn well pleases. He's obviously doing something right, or a whole lot of somethings. Were it my business, though, I'd be all over it the instant improprieties became known, and I'd be vigorously informing my current and potential client base that I was doing everything possible to safeguard the integrity of my auctions.

I consign with Rick and the last thing I want is his items not getting bids because some consignors are not honest, but I don't think there is an EASY way to do it. I know there is a way but it will take Rick time and resources to get it figured out.

How do you propose he browses 2k listings at any one time cycling probably 10-20k a month? I'm being objective, you say he needs to do something but do not propose anything.

Edit*

Why not help to find a solution? I think it would benefit much more than just Rick and the consignor's if there was an easier, quicker way to figure out shill bidders. It would get items true prices and bidders would be more happy as well due to real deals every now and then.

In my opinion his posts on this thread are meant to show fake concern. Just say NO to shill bidding and these guys will have to go back to their real jobs