Can't fight City Hall- eBay protecting their large sellers (probstein content)

[glchen]

Originally Posted by 1952boyntoncollector

people aren't really talking about ebay ..they are talking about the AH's that charge 20 percent..you cant keep paying 20% when winning your own items..makes no sense ..

as to ebay....yes the bid retraction feature is there up to 24 hours before the item is to sell....you will know which sellers have lots of bid retractions..

plus once you have a 'terrible' result..then why don't bidders price accordingly to the lowest card..why do they value cards with the high bids....we control what we bid....if ebay is terrible in terms of not punishing bidders that win their own items than don't factor in ebay on VCP pricing...lots of ways to deal with shilling...there are so many other things that are wrong that we cant control in life..i don't see shilling as a problem..the major major buys are usually with auctions houses not ebay...if a seller wants 20k on a 1952 mantle..and its at 17k .you really think he will shill it to the next bidding slot lets say 19k....if he 'wins' he will pay 4k with an auction house...no way he bids to that with that risk

This thread is talking mostly about ebay as probstein is one of the largest ebay sellers of sportscards.

You know how many bid retractions that a bidder has on ebay, but not necessarily how many non payment strikes. A shiller can "win" an auction on ebay, and simply not pay, and the card would go to the next highest bidder or be re-listed again where the same process happens.

It's true that you control what you bid, but people usually base their bids upon past auction sales (of the same card or similar cards). However, if the prices of those cards that you are using as your value basis were shilled up, then the entire foundation that you are using to base your bids upon is flawed.

About issues with auction houses, you want to remember what happened to Mastronet...