its not the auction houses fault its the bidders

[sflayank]

i dont care if every auction house is involved in shill bidding
its upto the bidder to place an initial bid so they can bid at the end....and when the auction is near the end bid the next interval up
ALL THE BIDDERS WHO PUT IN A MAX BID ARE MORONS...OBVIOUSLY THE AUCTION HOUSE CAN SEE YOUR MAX BID AND IF THEY CHOOSE CAN PUMP YOU UP....JUST BID THE NEXT INTERVAL, IF YOU GET OUTBID AND YOU WANT TO BID MORE BID THE NEXT INTERVAL AGAIN...while shill bidding is illegal and unscrupulous..the bidder can easily stop it...whether its mastro or ebay or REA
so while auction houses may screw the bidders, ultimately its the bidders fault...if u bid 5000 on item thats at 2000 so u can goto sleep ...dont be surprised if u end up winning it for 5000

[tiger8mush]

but what if you bid $2k, then the auction house shills it up to $2.2k, then you bid $2.4k, then the auction house $2.6k, all the way up to your intended max of $5k? you are ok with that?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by sflayank

.OBVIOUSLY THE AUCTION HOUSE CAN SEE YOUR MAX BID AND IF THEY CHOOSE CAN PUMP YOU UP....

With regards to this statement you are absolutely wrong. I don't believe REA can see up to bids and I know that B & L has never seen an up to bid, ever. I can prove it if I need to. If you get your facts straight then your story might sound better. That being said if you don't care if you get shill bid then that is your prerogative. Most people prefer that would not happen. Some of your other diatribe makes some sense and I would agree it's a little bit on the bidder to be smart. Regardless of that there should not be fraud involved in the bidding so it shouldn't need to be a worry. It's that easy.

[sflayank]

as to the 1st reply if you bid 2000 the auction house will not shill bid you to 2200 if they dont know youre willing to pay 5000
if you put in a 5000 max then they know...as for the 2nd reply...im not implying any auction house shills...just showing how easy it is if you put in a max....all im saying is stay up and bid the next interval....and if you put in a maximum bid...dont be surprised when you wake up and you win it at your max...also EVERY auction house CAN see your max bid..the honest ones and the dishonest ones... dont let anyone tell u otherwise

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by sflayank

i dont care if every auction house is involved in shill bidding
its upto the bidder to place an initial bid so they can bid at the end....and when the auction is near the end bid the next interval up
ALL THE BIDDERS WHO PUT IN A MAX BID ARE MORONS...OBVIOUSLY THE AUCTION HOUSE CAN SEE YOUR MAX BID AND IF THEY CHOOSE CAN PUMP YOU UP....JUST BID THE NEXT INTERVAL, IF YOU GET OUTBID AND YOU WANT TO BID MORE BID THE NEXT INTERVAL AGAIN...while shill bidding is illegal and unscrupulous..the bidder can easily stop it...whether its mastro or ebay or REA
so while auction houses may screw the bidders, ultimately its the bidders fault...if u bid 5000 on item thats at 2000 so u can goto sleep ...dont be surprised if u end up winning it for 5000

You sound like you'd be a great addition to Doug Allen's legal team. Hope he can afford you.

[3-2-count]

This post makes no sense what so ever. If I'm being taken advantage of and there's wrong doing going on, should it really matter how one bid's.
Why the heck should that fall back onto me as my fault?

[sflayank]

all im saying is the bidder can prevent it by being smart
i agree 100% that shill bidding should be stopped and prosecuted if necessary
however the bidder needs to be smart...if you call the auction house and say im willing to go upto 10000 on that lot..they may cheat you but whose fault is it?

[teetwoohsix]

I do not bid in auction houses' (yet),I've only bid on Ebay,and not in awhile.One thing I think you are forgetting is some of the reasons people place max bids.For instance-there is an item I've been after for a long time,and it's up for auction.But I have to put in a 12 hour shift at work,and won't be home when the auction ends-I put in a max bid,and hope it doesn't hit max-but if it does-that's ok-UNLESS THE HOUSE SHILLS ME UP TO MY MAX.
There are many scenarios for why people place max bids-placing a max bid doesn't mean HEY!!!!RIP ME OFF PLEASE!!!!!

[sflayank]

a max bid doesnt say hey rip me off...but it does give them the opportunity to do so
from the greek...let the buyer(bidder) beware

[Robextend]

Originally Posted by sflayank

ultimately its the bidders fault...if u bid 5000 on item thats at 2000 so u can goto sleep ...dont be surprised if u end up winning it for 5000

Winning an item for the max amount is one thing, however why wouldn't I care that I am ultimately bidding against the auction house? If I could have won an item for 2k and end up winning it for 5k based on the unethical practices of an auction house, how is that really the bidders fault?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. There is something to the poster's point -- to leave a top all with an auction house knowing or suspecting it will shill you to your max bid is not smart. Does that excuse it? Of course not. But buyers have to protect themselves too.

[botn]

Made the point yesterday in the Legendary thread that buyers do not seem to want to mitigate their damages. Much could be prevented if each of us took the time to look out for ourselves. On the other hand if you leave the door to your house unlocked that does not mean it is ok for someone to come in and rob you.

And as to the author's point as to auction houses being able to see Top All bids, my limited knowledge on this is that if push comes to shove that info is easily made accessible. This is software we are talking about, not physical bids which are left on pieces of paper and protected by the Pentagon.

[barrysloate]

Sflayank- it's fair to say a bidder should be responsible for his actions, that is true in all aspects of life. But what you are doing is blaming the victim. Probably not the best way to look at shill bidding.

[teetwoohsix]

I agree with you Peter-I also felt Rob G. made a great point.
In all of the threads going about auction houses,there are a few auction houses(from what I've read) that seem to be "on the up-and-up".

I think more people who have had positive experiences should let everyone know about them,as to not let the "crooked" auction houses cast a shadow on the ones who are doing people right.

Seems as though I've read good things about B&L,REA,and Huggins & Scott--if I missed any others,it wasn't intentional.

[sflayank]

im not blaming the victim...simply stating if bidders are smart they wont become victims...if you send your account #s to someone in nigeria and expect that million $ return...whose fault is it? youve been warned and still do it...its your fault
if u suspect an auction house shill bidding dont put in a max bid
thats all im saying...if you do you have no right to complain

[DanP]

As someone who wrote software for over 20 years, here's how easy it is to see the max bid.

Let's assume that the max bid is an encrypted field (similar to passwords).
No doubt, it can be proved that virtually no one can "figure out" what the
true value in the field is. That's why if you lose your password they always
ask you to create a new one.

However, with just 1 or 2 lines of "hidden" code someone can take the value entered in the online screen and store it in another field, let's say the field is
called: User Comments. With a little more code they can move some #'s around so it's not so obvious that it is really the max bid (maybe even store it in another database).

Now if auditors come in to review the code you could easily copy the original (non-tampered with) program object code back to "production". So when they review it, everything looks perfect. The auditors I've worked with would not known how to look for stuff like this and even if they did, it's so easy to move programs around with no audit history of what happened.

I find it hard to believe that this couldn't happen in any environment. Unless the programs are stored in a 3rd party environment (i.e. the auditors) and they are responsible for releasing programs to production (even then unless they're programmers they may not know how to look for "hidden code").

I would never trust a MAX BID because I really believe if any of these companies wanted to know bad enough, they could find out what they are.

Dan

[barrysloate]

I would hope that an auction house could be held to a higher standard than some scammer from Nigeria.

[bobfreedman]

I currently run the software for Legendary Auctions and at their request we have disabled anyone from Legendary Auctions the ability to view any of the Max bids. They do not ask me or anyone within my company to view or manipulate any bids whatsoever. This has been the case since they began using our software.

This will probably not satisfy some cynics but I thought that at least the facts be known.

Bob Freedman
CEO, SimpleAuctionSite

Our clients cannot turn this feature on or off.

[Jim VB]

Did you have the same agreement with Mastro, or were they able to view the bids?


And, would you be able to tell us if that's how it works with each and every one of your auction house clients?

[Mr. Mitt]

Thanks Bob... I'm not here to start a pissing match, but I bid the way I do, incrementally without using the "max bid" feature, because if viewing maximum bids must be disabled, then there is a way of enabling it. I'm not saying you or your clients misuse this feature, but I feel more comfortable with straight bids. Just a personal preference that I'm entitled to.

[barrysloate]

Hi Bob- hope you are well. For the record, Bob did my software too during my last few years of doing auctions. But he did not do Mastro's software, that was a different company.

In my case I did have access to max bids, but I never considered it an issue, since I never fooled around with them.

[oriolesbb6]

I guess anything can happen at anytime with an auction, It comes back to using your own judgment and only paying what You deem to be the price. I work with various auction houses on the local level-antiques/estates, etc. Each house has there own policies-where to open an item, reserve/no reserve, dealers prohibited from bidding on their own items, etc. I have seen shill bidding take place(I don't buy there) and I have not seen it. Is there an ultimate solution? The only one is to bid what you are comfortable, if you are not sure of a company then don't bid.

[Jim VB]

Originally Posted by Jim VB

Did you have the same agreement with Mastro, or were they able to view the bids?


And, would you be able to tell us if that's how it works with each and every one of your auction house clients?

Jeff,

In defense of Bob, I asked a question about 4 minutes after his post and he hasn't responded yet. You'll have to wait.

Bob has a history of coming on the board briefly. Defending one of his paying customers and then disappearing again for long periods of time.

[Jim VB]

And while we're at it, while I understand the point the original poster was trying to make, the title of this thread is ridiculous. That's like saying "It's not poor Jeffrey Dahmer's fault! It's those 17 stupid people who allowed themselves to be killed and eaten."

[ElCabron]

Originally Posted by Jim VB

And while we're at it, while I understand the point the original poster was trying to make, the title of this thread is ridiculous. That's like saying "It's not poor Jeffrey Dahmer's fault! It's those 17 stupid people who allowed themselves to be killed and eaten."

This explains why my "Blame the children, not the pedophiles" bumper stickers haven't been selling. Another failed business venture.

Maybe I should get into the auction business. I hear it's pretty lucrative if you do it right.

-Ryan

[JP]

Originally Posted by Jim VB

And while we're at it, while I understand the point the original poster was trying to make, the title of this thread is ridiculous. That's like saying "It's not poor Jeffrey Dahmer's fault! It's those 17 stupid people who allowed themselves to be killed and eaten."

That and the lack of punctuation makes it look like an e.e. cummings' poem or a line from "Flowers for Algernon."

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Jim VB

And while we're at it, while I understand the point the original poster was trying to make, the title of this thread is ridiculous. That's like saying "It's not poor Jeffrey Dahmer's fault! It's those 17 stupid people who allowed themselves to be killed and eaten."

Jeffrey Dahmer did not kill ME or anyone I know. Therefore I have no problem with him.

[Wymers Auction]

In fairness to Bob Freedman, he only provides the vehicle or software. The auctioneer makes the choice to be honest or misuse bidder's trust. A dishonest auctioneer could pay someone to create whatever code he wants.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by bobfreedman

I currently run the software for Legendary Auctions and at their request we have disabled anyone from Legendary Auctions the ability to view any of the Max bids. They do not ask me or anyone within my company to view or manipulate any bids whatsoever. This has been the case since they began using our software.

This will probably not satisfy some cynics but I thought that at least the facts be known.

Bob Freedman
CEO, SimpleAuctionSite

Our clients cannot turn this feature on or off.

Bob, I hate to be a cynic but I do have a simple question: does your software allow the customer, i.e. the auction house principal, to have access to the bidders' passwords?

[Rob D.]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Bob, I hate to be a cynic ...

Sure you do.

[Rich Klein]

This is a quote from MVSNYC

"i agree, some very strong prices, but there were also some deals to be had...i was watching that Elberfeld, but forgot to bid, as i was out the other night...looks like someone did get a great deal on it."

You realize; if he had put in a max bid in advance of let's say 60 percent of the current price; he might have the card right now. And if he were "Shilled" to that level; but had put that bid in earlier; he might be the winner of that card at a nice price point lower than current market levels. So, is not putting in a max bid ever the answer. I'd say no. because if something comes up and you can't bid on an item during the conclusion of an auction, well then,... you have not allowed yourself the back-up and am marrying yourself to having to sit at the screen all night.

So, by not putting in a max bid; he actually cost himself a decent card at a good level -- so I don't know if not putting in a bid is always the answer either.

Regards
Rich

[barrysloate]

Jeff- I can answer your question since Bob did my software: yes, I had access to bidders' passwords. Now that doesn't mean it is impossible to implement a different system, but I can't speak for Bob.

[Boomer]

Don't forget Legendary did not change passwords. Mastro is still a collector and has all the passwords. He can look at all bids and bid himself knowing the other bidders max

[calvindog]

What if Mastro was a consignor in this auction? Like a significant consignor?

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Bob, I hate to be a cynic but I do have a simple question: does your software allow the customer, i.e. Legendary Auctions, to have access to the bidders' passwords?

I'm sure that some of the cynics on the board believe that Bob hasn't answered this question yet because, in fact, his software does not prevent his customers from learning the passwords of the bidders in their auctions and, thereby, learning all of their bids. I would rather believe that he has just been super-busy on this holiday and stuff.

[murcerfan]

^^great point

[Wymers Auction]

Murcerfan who are you telling to shut up?

[rainier2004]

I put my max bid in with 24 hrs to go and it sold for 1 increment less than my max. After I put in my max bid there was only 1 additional bid until the end of the auction.