New Hobby Term Just Dropped: “Self-Bidding”
 

In recent weeks, we have been introduced to two new hobby terms: “offensive shill-bidding” and “defensive shill-bidding.” This morning a third new term entered the hobby lexicon: “self-bidding.” I am having a difficult time keeping up.

Beginning at 7:00 -

“… Here’s the catch, all shill bidding is wrong. But is all self-bidding wrong? Is all self-bidding illegal? And the answer to that, Geoff, is no. …”

https://youtu.be/RwwJMMYEWJk?si=jK1R9roZz4cbZLbx

I'll never understand why the concept is so confusing. The auction law is fairly straightforward:

§ 2-328. Sale by Auction.

(4) If the auctioneer knowingly receives a bid on the seller's behalf or the seller makes or procures such a bid, and notice has not been given that liberty for such bidding is reserved, the buyer may at his option avoid the sale or take the goods at the price of the last good faith bid prior to the completion of the sale. This subsection shall not apply to any bid at a forced sale.


So there you have it, if in clause 21 of their terms and conditions Auction House X reserves the right for consignors to bid on their own items it is perfectly legal.

If they don't reserve that right and it happens anyway, and by some miracle the winning bidder, who got bid up, finds out, the sum total of their redress is they can cancel their bid or require the auction to sell them the item at the level the item would've achieved without the shill bidding.

I find allowing consignors to bid on their own items unethical, despite it's legality, and we have a policy against it. I'm sure some consignor has used a buddy to bid something up, but if we catch you (and we have) those bids are canceled and that's your last auction with us.

I recently bid on an Ohtani RC just to see if I could raise the price a bit. I own an exact copy, and it’s fun seeing the value go up on the one I own (it’s worth several thousand). However, much to my chagrin, I ended up the high bidder! Now I own two expensive Ohtani RCs!

I wonder how many shill bidders / self bidders end up paying for the item they never intended to buy? Also, they may try to get out of paying by making up some excuse!

EDIT: I guess I got what I deserved! LoL

I think buying more cards we already have is as old as the hobby. Some call it price averaging! I usually buy more than 1 because I like them.

And one of the best looking baseball cards ever made.

As to the subject, I think I will leave that for others to debate publicly.

Sort of related, I always assume that 90% of the people watching an item on eBay already have one and have no intention of buying another . . . . just trying to gauge where the market is and whether they should sell theirs or not.

Right. eBay for awhile now has constantly been trying to sell me '63 Rose rookies because I bookmark a lot of listings to see where they sell.

While I don't have the hatred for that card that some do, I don't need two of them...

I didn't have the knee jerk on this video (before reading the comments at least) that many did, because I have just more or less always assumed this is how the big AH's work. It's a huge old boys club, and the rules decades ago were if possible even more lax than they are now. Not that I generally can afford much that usually appears in auctions like that, another reason I've never really tried them out is my perhaps my high level assumption of how things work and situations I don't want to get into.

I think Dr. Beckett perhaps lacked some self-awareness of how his comments would be perceived. Yes, clearly shill bidding is wrong / illegal - but it's also something that is related as he said (correctly) to intent, and in any event it's usually pretty difficult to prove in a criminal proceeding. At least to my understanding.

The other guy came off much worse to me, especially the comment about shill bidding just so some other "idiot" wouldn't get a deal on something. That was painful. And the other thought that was running through my head was along the lines of "just because you were stupid enough to post publicly about bidding on your own items doesn't necessarily mean that you lacked intent." Clearly if he were formally accused of something based on that one incident (he won't be) - then intent would still have to be investigated.

I'm sure both will be given a pass (to be clear, I don't think Beckett did anything wrong) in the world we live in today where conflicts of interest are routinely glossed over, and especially in a hobby that loves money at the end of the day over all else.

Good policy, Scott...

Wish more auctions would follow suit with you, LOTG, CIA and the like.

My (super unpopular) opinion is shilling should always just be considered fair and legal and explicitly allowed in all auction platform terms of service. If everyone knows the rules of engagement then we can deal with it and adjust our buying strategies and price thresholds accordingly. Shilling is obviously endemic to the hobby and this won't change anytime soon; why pretend that it can or will be prevented? Edit - to be clear, I believe that a winning 'shilled' bid should always require payment/fees/taxes/shipping/re-insertion fees, even if the buyer and seller are the same party.

A seller bidding to bring a price higher functions the same as buyers having a hidden 'max reserve bid' and last-minute sniping (both designed to depress the price). Early on Ebay decided to forbid shilling while programmatically favouring the buyer's side; this was likely because it still wanted to charge for failed auctions when seller's reserves are set.

I understand the sentiment, but nobody is stopping you from treating every auction that way now, so I'm not sure what the point would be in changing the law.

The bigger issue is when the auction house knows the ceiling bids of the leading bidder on lots and bids up the price until the rung below the high bid. That's one of the reasons why Bill Mastro and Doug Allen went to jail.

Yes, that's 'straight to jail do not pass go' behaviour

I do assume every auction platform is shilling or looking the other way. Not saying the 'law' should be changed but suggesting it should be industry standard to allow shilling in terms and conditions.

No.

Sorry I'm not going to change my standards to some lowest common denominator.

What is the true price of cards? Cause I can tell you I ain’t getting ah prices when I sell privately.

IF that were to be the case, then bid history information should be allowed (ebay style, specifics hidden, but individuals differentiated) to help spot shady stuff.

Bid histories should be viewable already, but...

It’s somewhere in between maybe or maybe it’s not…honestly I have no idea….all I’ll say is the seller is in the driver seat. So many auctions to choose from that allow the stuff talked about in this thread…idk it’s almost like get the price you want if you use us. Idk 🤷*♂️

Agreed and/or even identify sellers bids explicitly.

Lowering standards for the lowest common denominator. Please. . . .political posts are banned. . . . .