A bunch of responses, in no particular order.
As far as the discussion about shilling and where the line must be drawn, I can see some merits to both arguments. My wife and I disagree similarly about a few issues- we agree at the core things are not what they should be, I tend to be more vocal about complaining, while she'll let stuff slide.
So.
Shilling is wrong.
Shilling is a crime.
Shilling happens - probably a lot more than we'd all like to think.
Sometimes it's allowed to happen, either by design or by circumstances.
But.
"We" are often very quick to see shilling everywhere (Perhaps correctly)
I've had instances where I believed shilling was going on, but was later proven wrong. (Happily so, I got a second chance offer on a cycling jersey I thought was unique, passed, then later won the second one which happened to be nicer from the same seller. )
I used to think policing thousands of auctions for odd patterns and bidders with a lot of retractions was an expensive and difficult task. Then someone here wrote a tiny bit of software and found a number of odd patterns in minutes. So it's not an impossible task for shills or simply odd patterns that happen early.
I'm not so sure about the same events if they're within the last few minutes. Ebay probably doesn't allow automated refusal of bids in any way. If they do, someone write that app, and get it out there!
For those who don't see the problem or don't believe it has possibly altered the prices of all cards.
I believe it has. And here's why.
Lets say that only fairly expensive cards get shilled (Don't get on this, it's a false over simplification)
So maybe a card that's in high grade becomes worth shilling. And they sell fairly often in auctions. Maybe its a $500 card. But in an auction it gets shilled to 750, That becomes the new value for a similar copy. After a few have sold at 750, maybe a bit higher since it's "on its way up" 750 really becomes the value. And maybe the shillers reach a bit farther. ..........eventually it becomes a $1500 card. And because it's valuable, the price of the lesser condition copies go up as well. Many people assign value to lower condition examples based on what the better examples are worth. say the 1500 card is EX. but I figure a VG might be worth 50%.
The shilling of the EX card has essentially cost anyone buying a VG version an extra $250.
Even without shilling - say I have a friend of mine actually buy the card. Or, we get together and buy as many VG cards as we can for 350 when they're going for 250. Then we shill or simply buy and sell the same EX card a few times to establish a higher market price. And make claims that all of that card are going up -way up since it's had huge increases. Then we sell off the VG cards at 500, making a tidy profit.
That's exactly why the stock market has rules against people actively dealing in stocks they promote, and against certain buying and selling patterns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running
Some similar things don't always work out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_brothers
If you take the market for cards and other collectibles as a commodity market, which is part of the point of grading. All of that applies.
Whether someone takes the high road of abandoning any market or seller that encourages or condones that stuff
Or The middle road of only participating in some auctions.
Or Ignores it all and only bids what they think is fair
Is up to them.
And I guess that will have to be ok, fraud has been an always will be with us.
I'd like to think that those ignoring it at least do so knowing that even without active participation the cost of their collectibles might be artificially inflated beyond what would be normal.
Steve B