PWCC Part Deux
 

I am disappointed that the previous PWCC thread was locked. I am not a defender of Courtney. I think he is part of the problem in our collecting world as he cares more about how much money he makes vs "most" of us who are purely collectors.

However, he has shown us some pretty damning evidence where PWCC (Brent and company) is participating in the same BS which a lot of us has believed that is occurring. I, along with a lot of people were waiting for Brent to refute the evidence. The only response was to come back at Courtney that he was "un-stable."

Sorry, if I were Brent and I was innocent, I would vehomently deny his accusations. Because he didn't, my gut tells me what most of us believe that he is part of the problem.

I believe Brent should respond back and communicate to us that he did not ask Courtney to shill bid the auction. Not lawyer is needed. If he didn't, then he should respond. No response speaks volumes in my opinion.

Again, I am not defending Courtney. Sammy the Bull wasn't a good person either but he did spill the beans on John Gotti.

Mark

In fairness I believe they did offer an explanation, although one that certainly did not impress everyone. They said they asked him to become the high bidder because he had placed a string of earlier bids without becoming the high bidder and they thought it would look better if he became the high bidder.

LMAO.......EXACTLY why my gut tells me something isn't right with this entire situation.

Yeah, but the guarantee that his bid won't hold as high bid says all I need to know about the real reason for asking him to shill, and it isn't making it look good.

And I too am disappointed the other thread was shut down. It was entertaining (mostly) and involves an issue of significant concern to collectors. Should've been allowed to run its course.

I think he could have meant the bid wouldn't hold anyway because it would still be way too low, but maybe I am misreading it?
If Courtney has more he can post what he wants to. I think we need to be cognizant to how a text can be physically manipulated too. I am not saying any that were shown were. Just that there is always at least a possibility of it. The other thread was shut down because we weren't even talking about the original subject any longer. I quoted a 3 day old quote as the last post, which questioned it's longevity too. I can assure everyone that no one is being protected. In fact, if I had to guess, there is probably more being done than meets the eye.

Once the name calling started, the little tidbit that Brent had asked him to bid, fell by the wayside.

Any person running an auction contacting a bidder other than to let them know that the auction is over and they have won the item is showing an immense conflict of interest.

The #'s PWCC gets for some of it's items makes no sense what-so-ever.

I guess you can rationalize just about anything. My rationalization is maybe he meant that he is a greedy, unethical fraudster and he wanted to shill the auction to higher level. No matter what you believe, the fact that an auctioneer is telling a bidder how to bid and how much to bid is certainly unethical and borderline against the law. And I don't think I'm misreading anything.

Speaking of which this one blew my mind -- 8s go in the 4s and 5s.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1965-Topps-R...cAAOSw5cNYlPWJ

I will repeat what I have said for years. PWCC's auctions don't look like anyone else's, in my opinion. Among the things I have noticed, over and over again:

1. On big cards, a very high percentage of early bidding activity, right out of the gate. Within a day or two many of the big ticket cards seem to be pretty close to the top already. I rarely see that with other auctions.

2. On big cards, lots and lots of string bidding, often by the same bidders.

3. A high percentage of bidders who seem to do a high percentage of their bidding in PWCC.

4. Improving of late, but lots of bidders with high numbers of retractions.

and

5. Crazy prices, although obviously not on most cards.

Good points!

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1965-Topps-1...615?rmvSB=true

I must not understand this whole thing.

If this guy admits asking someone to bid on his own cosigned cards, doesn't that bring into question the integrity of the whole operation? Whatever the reason he did it, isn't that a key thing in auctions? Not to bid up your own cards?

Based on eye-appeal, I much prefer the PSA 7 from PWCC, over the PSA 8 in your link. The 8 is OC and it has that spot in the lower right corner. The PSA 7 appears to only have slightly softer corners, but the centering and eye-appeal are outstanding.

Steve

The WWG DiMaggio was not consigned by Cortney to Brent's auction. However, as I pointed out in the locked thread, Brent should not be having discussions with any bidders about what to bid let alone assuring Cortney repeatedly he will be out bid when the card was well over 40K.

Irv's was a bad example there are plenty of nicely centered 8s that have sold for far less than that 7. Not to mention nicely centered 7s that have sold for one third of that one.

He did not ask someone to bid on their own card. The card belonged to another member here.
James

Thank you.

So it's OK to ask someone to bid on someone else's card?

Where the hell did you see me say that?
James

It was the only 8 example I could find quickly, but I thought it still got the point across?

Either that 7 should be an 8 or higher or the 8 I posted be a 7 or lower.

Ironic, another questionable PSA card in a PWCC auction. :D

I was asking, because you seemed to be making the distinction.

I don't really care who owned the card, who was the bidder or who put the card up for auction. If a person who is consigning an auction asks a 3rd party to bid up the auction, that is unethical and a serious problem for the hobby.

I was correcting what BruinsFan said about PWCC asking someone to bid on their own card. How you came up with this meaning that I thought it was ok for someone to bid on their own card is beyond me.
James

Now I am confused, because my question concerned bidding at the request of the auction house on someone ELSE's card not one's own.

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding you, James. My only point is that NO ONE who profits off an auction should be speaking to any 3rd party to bid up that auction.

No, you were confused when you responded to my first comment. I mis-read the part about someone else's card but I still don't see how you thought I was condoning any auction house asking anyone to bid on any card they have listed. Let's see if this confuses you, I'M DONE WITH THIS CONVERSATION.
James

This is a great point that is often not discussed. I've also noticed this with PWCC as compared to other ebay auctions.

Why would collectors bid one way on PWCC items and another way on everything else?

Inquiring minds want to know ...

jeff

I think everyone knows the answer although no one wishes to say.

I'm not going to defend PWCC because I think the real scandal is that Brent purchased the DiMaggio and had it cleaned, but I think it's clear that Cortney was one of his problem bidders that Net54 had been talking about for years, I'm sure at one point Brent and Cortney were probably very close allies, but because of places like Net54 pointing out the shady bidding practices that people like Cortney employ Brent was forced to police some of that stuff.

String bidding is done to find the top bid and to also make it appear one has been shilled. It is quite clear that Cortney who was likely warned about doing that type of bidding had once again done it on the DiMaggio card. The text message was clearly telling him that he was out of bounds and that he needs to top the bid if he's going to bid like that. Make no mistake, string bidding is a strategy to make the top bidder believe he's been shilled and try and scare him off of the auction. Looks to me like Brent was trying to avoid the appearance of shilling in one of his auctions.

Interesting theory. Although highly plausible, would lead me to believe, why would Brent do something like this?? He is making money hand over fist!! It begs the question, "How much is enough"? Not denying or supporting your theory. It definitely makes you think though.

That is my thinking, too, and of course, like the ancient saying goes, "Friends and Business don't mix" so it was only a matter of time before something like this we have before us, was going to happen.

Yeah but...Asking a bidder to bid and reassuring him he won't be the top bidder for long is asking him to run up the price in a way that conceals the shilling. No matter how you slice it this is still baloney. And if that bid had held would he have had to pay for the card or would it be a case of a renege and resale? We won't be able to see that but I have a pretty good idea of what would happen.

I don't necessarily disagree. At very best it has the perception of impropriety. The whole "games that were being played" is a really bad thing.

My thoughts exactly.

I think it would be wrong if the auction house asked you to bid on ANY cards, not just your own

lol.

You do not ask someone to change their bidding habits and ask them to bid higher on a card because it will be overtaken by the next bid. You explain to them that you will block them if they continue what they are doing.

They warn for bid retractions. Why wouldn't they warn him? To me the request from Brent is not open to interpretation based on how they handle other warnings and other bidders. Warn and Block. This is not warn and block. Period.

Exactly Phillip, my memory may not be exact here and I'm not going to search the previous thread again, but as I recall Betsy indicated they had bidding issues with Courtney in the past had discussed them with him and he reverted back to his old ways on this auction. So why not ban him and restart the auction? He had already been warned and if we can believe the text messages they clearly knew he did not want to win the auction. Had they done that they would have shown a real commitment to cleaning up the bidding in their auctions, they also might get more bidders into the next auction that were staying away due to the "strange" bidding in the current auction. Win -win for PWCC - but nope, makes more sense to start texting a bidder in your auctions whom you know has been a problem in the past.

Courtney appears to be no saint, but PWCC appears to have known the card was doctored and said nothing and appears to have been shown to contact bidders and tell them to bid while assuring them they wont win the auction while the auction is live.

I went back and read the whole original thread. To a relative newcomer, it was very educational and very scary. Mostly, it made me glad I'm not involved in big-ticket cards.

Dan, I'll take it one step further, that Brent purchased the DiMaggio and had it cleaned AND DID NOT DISCLOSE THIS!

I have a problem with this.....

Not sure if this helps piece anything together but supposedly the person who consigned the WWG DiMaggio to Goldin purchased it at the 2015 National, which would have been after it sold in the REA as an SGC 4.

Yes you need to read the other thread this already was chronicled at length. :)

Right, I'm thinking everything surrounding the purchase, cleaning and somehow getting it into a PSA 7 holder...all of that stinks to high heaven.

One point not being made is at least PWCC's auction allow for some things to be seen behind the curtain. Do you know anything that goes on with mile high, REA, heritage and the like? You receive ZERO information about the bidders basically. Yes there is no bid retractions it appears. But who knows what goes on with texts. When tens to hundreds of thousands are on the line i cant assume everything is fair to everyone. Just like i dont assume cracker jack cards with no stains on them werent cleaned.

Just saying that people are picking on pwcc but at least you get a little transperacy in their auctions and some information on bidding behavior and you dont have to bid. You have ZERO idea whats going in the other auction houses. I have bid on auctions on ebay by the way and the seller doesnt have the card or halfway through the auction the listing is pulled or the card gets lost in the mail. None of those things ever happened on an pwcc auction in listings i have won.

Talk about damning someone with faint praise. :rolleyes:

I understand what you're saying about auctions in general but I specifically said eBay auctions. I have the same transparency with other eBay auctions as I do with PWCC. Bidding patterns are typically much different with PWCC. Many, many more bids early in the process. Many, many more bids by those that have a significant number of retractions. Many, many more bids by accounts that only bid (or mostly bid) on PWCC items. Why does this happen?

jeff

I hear all the time that the auction houses dont know the max bids, it is a type of software. If I ever received an outbid notice, and then went to check the auction and I was th high bidder again, I'd be suspicious.

One time I hit straight bid by accident and called the auction house to have it changed to max bid. They were willing to back up my bid to make me the high bidder and place my max bid.

100% agree. PWCC said they blocked his user names which means they knew he had multiple user names, and then said they blocked him period - all ID's as well as him as a person. I would like to know how they had all of this info on him and is it typical for eBay sellers to know that much about their customers. Seemed to me they were aware of a lot more info than a typical seller/buyer relationship which makes everyone wonder how much they were in cahoots.

A few things were abundantly clear:

PWCC asked him to shill bid on their auctions and the text asking him to bid up the DiMaggio and he won't be the high bidder is self explanatory.

Most people were aware of Courtney a long time ago and his multiple user names and which cards he was shilling. As many could see by his posts not the smartest guy out there, and probably should use some of his money he saved with his 60+ Retractions to get some anger management lessons.

His little spat on here with anyone and everyone pretty much assures that his days in the hobby are limited. Not hard to drive up prices when you are working with a large online seller and stating "you were bidding to protect prices" is garbage. If you were protecting prices why have more retractions than half of the population of Alabama in a 6 month time period? Not hard to bid and retract to drive prices when the seller is not stopping you.

The hobby will survive, there are a lot of good buyers and sellers out there which make the hobby fun, and people like to pull shenanigans like this will lose business and maybe get to talk to some Feds about fraud and doing it across state lines.:D

I concur 100%! I'm sure we're just grazing the tip of the ice-berg. Hopefully big brother is "watching". :)

I've been saying this here and on other boards for a long time. Anyone with some rudimentary SQL skills and experience in database development can find out what the maximum bid is from anyone on any item. Even if there is data level security, some DBA somewhere has admin privileges to find the number.

If you believe auction houses either develop or purchase auction software, and purposely ignore efforts to determine the values in a "MaxBid" type field, you're nuts. But hang tight, as the tooth fairy, Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus will all be coming to your place tonight.