PWCC – Announcing Formal Policy Concerning eBay Bidder & Buyer Integrity

[Exhibitman]

If the bidders risk buying the item it doesn't matter what bid increment they use or how often they bid. The retraction is the sin here. It allows the bidder to fish for the high bid with no risk of getting stuck with the card. That is why 25 strikes is asinine, fake pseudo-security. I mean that's "my toddler BINed my entire watch list" level error.

If the purpose of these changes is to stop shill bidding it won't work. If I represented a class of aggrieved card buyers suing PWCC for unfair trade practices that 25 number would need to be explained and I don't think it would go over well.

[Leon]

Easily explained. I made 25 mistakes. Now do I win?

I agree, the 25 retractions should leave off the 5 part.....2-3 seems about right.

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Completely irrelevant if the bids were not retracted. If the bidders risk buying the item it doesn't matter what bid increment they use or how often they bid. The retraction is the sin here. It allows the bidder to fish for the high bid with no risk of getting stuck with the card. That is why 25 strikes is asinine, fake pseudo-security. If I represented a class of aggrieved card buyers suing PWCC for unfair trade practices that 25 number would need to be explained and I don't think it would go over well.

[frankbmd]

I try very hard to avoid rushing to judgment on any issue. So further investigation was needed on the issue of "string bidding". As a logical first step in my investigation, I went to my EBay summary page and typed "string" in the Search box. I suggest that you do the same. I strongly support "string" bidding as a result of my investigation.

[Leon]

String in the search box had some interesting returns ..

Originally Posted by frankbmd

I try very hard to avoid rushing to judgement on any issue. So further investigation was needed on the issue of "string bidding". As a logical first step in my investigation, I went to my EBay summary page and typed "string" in the Search box. I suggest that you do the same. I strongly support "string" bidding as a result of my investigation.

[Mdmtx]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

I try very hard to avoid rushing to judgement on any issue. So further investigation was needed on the issue of "string bidding". As a logical first step in my investigation, I went to my EBay summary page and typed "string" in the Search box. I suggest that you do the same. I strongly support "string" bidding as a result of my investigation.

Quite eye-opening frank. I may be forced to study this issue for an extended time.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

I try very hard to avoid rushing to judgement on any issue. So further investigation was needed on the issue of "string bidding". As a logical first step in my investigation, I went to my EBay summary page and typed "string" in the Search box. I suggest that you do the same. I strongly support "string" bidding as a result of my investigation.

In American English, judgement is generally considered a misspelling of judgment for all uses of the word, notwithstanding individual preferences

[docpatlv]

Agree with some others regarding string bidding, I didn't really appreciate being told how to bid or that I need to bid in larger increments. If this is going to be a problem moving forward, you can go ahead and block me from bidding in your auctions.

Mike.Pugeda

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

In American English, judgement is generally considered a misspelling of judgment for all uses of the word, notwithstanding individual preferences

Judgment is a legal term and I stand corrected by the honorable attorney. Long live your medulla oblongata, Peter.

[drmondobueno]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

I try very hard to avoid rushing to judgement on any issue. So further investigation was needed on the issue of "string bidding". As a logical first step in my investigation, I went to my EBay summary page and typed "string" in the Search box. I suggest that you do the same. I strongly support "string" bidding as a result of my investigation.

Well, I guess I have become a fan of string bidding! Altho my wife will have a little to say about that. Told her it was recommended by a Dr I know!

Seriously. I have bid on several items thru PWCC where one or more bidders have placed 20 or so incremental bids. Normally these bids are far short of final prices. Cant blame a guy for trying, altho several had multiple retractions in their history. Looks to me like dealing with one may deal with a bunch of the other.

Oh yeah, I've made a few "string bids". Like two or three small incrementals when the bids are larger than I have expectd, having blown past my max bid and I have no clue where they are going. Usually on higher end graded cards I need to upgrade a set.....will I do this again? Probably. Just being honest.

[irv]

Originally Posted by Brent Huigens

String Bidding:

• String Bidding is a new term we’ve coined to define a series of sequential bids at the eBay minimum bid increment. This practice can be perceived as bid manipulation because it increases the odds of a bidder exposing the maximum bid of another bidder without becoming the high bidder him or herself. Any instances of string bidding will be flagged and bidders warned and logged. Subsequent infractions may result in that user ID being blocked.

Thank you for your kind assistance in this process.

Betsy Huigens
PWCC Auctions, LLC
website: www.pwccauctions.com
betsy@pwccauctions.com

Originally Posted by sushihotwings

I applaud the efforts made by Brent and Betsy. The one change I am somewhat concerned about in regards to discouraging legitimate bidders would be the "string bidder policy". I often use smaller bid increments for various reasons. As long as the bidder has no bid retractions (which I don't), I am not sure why I should be told how many times or how often I can bid and in what increment. I would rather not have my maximum bid amount hanging out there regardless of how confidential it is. Bidding smaller increments allows me to get a sense of what the winning bid might need to be in making a strategy for my top bid or a last second snipe. Most of the time so called "string bidding" doesn't result in matching the top bid, but actually puts you as top bidder at the smallest possible increment. As long as you pay for all your auctions without retractions, it seems unnecessary to regulate this part of the process and could result in discouraging legitimate bidders like myself resulting in lower auction prices and fewer participants.

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

.Especially in light of the string bidding policy, which mistakenly targets a legitimate activity. I don't know if anyone at PWCC actually bids on items, but eBay (and especially the mobile app) offers one-touch incremental bidding. When I am on the road or it is close to the end of an auction I will often just hit the button repeatedly rather than trying to type in a number. I don't see how you separate the one-touch legit bidders from those fishing for a top bid. Now, if you blocked all bidders with 2 or more retractions in six months, you'd deter the retractors from playing a fishing game while allowing legit bidding activity with the one-touch platforms.

I was going to comment on this "String bidding" scenario when it was first posted but I wasn't sure, nor am I still, what exactly it means?

If I am wrong, please correct me.

My take is, it means bidding on cards incrementally until you find out what the highest bid is in order to become the highest bidder?

If that is the case, I do not understand the need for this to be regulated/policed. Numerous times, when I see a card I want that already has bids placed for it, I will enter the minimum higher to become the top bidder. Sometimes/most of the times, my initial bid is not enough to become the highest bidder so I enter/choose/opt for the next $ amount until I beat the current bidder therefore becoming the highest bidder.

If the card later gets bid up again, I will either choose to beat it again or walk away if it is more than I want to bid or can afford. Am I now labeled as a "String Bidder"?

I also agree, 25 retractions is excessive in that time frame. I believe I have 2-3 total since I began bidding on E-Bay and my last one months and months ago but those were rookie mistakes and I am much more careful/thorough before I decide to bid on something now.

[irv]

Originally Posted by irv

I was going to comment on this "String bidding" scenario when it was first posted but I wasn't sure, nor am I still, what exactly it means?

If I am wrong, please correct me.

My take is, it means bidding on cards incrementally until you find out what the highest bid is in order to become the highest bidder?

If that is the case, I do not understand the need for this to be regulated/policed. Numerous times, when I see a card I want that already has bids placed for it, I will enter the minimum higher to become the top bidder. Sometimes/most of the times, my initial bid is not enough to become the highest bidder so I enter/choose/opt for the next $ amount until I beat the current bidder therefore becoming the highest bidder.

If the card later gets bid up again, I will either choose to beat it again or walk away if it is more than I want to bid or can afford. Am I now labeled as a "String Bidder"?

I also agree, 25 retractions is excessive in that time frame. I believe I have 2-3 total since I began bidding on E-Bay and my last one months and months ago but those were rookie mistakes and I am much more careful/thorough before I decide to bid on something now.

Can someone please tell me if I have this correct or if I am out in left field with what I think "String bidding" is?

Thanks

Dale

[D.P.Johnson]

Originally Posted by irv

Can someone please tell me if I have this correct or if I am out in left field with what I think "String bidding" is?

Thanks

Dale

No Dale. What you're doing isn't "string" bidding. "String" bidding is when someone is "fishing" to see if they can find out where the maximum bid is by continuously bidding with minimum increments. When someone does that, they can sometimes see what the high bid is before they actually reach it because the incremental bid amount will suddenly change. Hope that makes sense. It's kinda hard to explain...
That being said, I always snipe...

[Baseball Bob]

I applaud ebay and PWCC for at least giving recognition to the issues plaguing this industry. However, the concept of sellers policing themselves has forever failed. Here I mean sellers as a community, not singling anyone out. This is an unregulated and in most cases privately held industry which has vitually no business transparency. If the sellers truly want to earn or restore trust, they need to subject themselves to independent financial audits to assure their business integrity, and report those results to the community. Those with the best audit results would be the most trusted sellers. Tweedling around with little facets of an auction like the ones discussed here are addressing the symptoms, not the illness.

[glchen]

I agree with some of the others in that PWCC should give bidders advance notice of the # of retractions that they will allow, and give bidders time to "wind down" the number of retractions that they use as part of their bidding strategies. I've only had 2-3 retractions in nearly 20 years on ebay, but some bidders do use it more frequently, some for nefarious purposes, others not. If PWCC does not give bidders time to wind down their retractions, then these bidders would need to create new user id's, or not bid at all.

Here are some retraction reasons that I have heard, some of which may be legitimate:

(1) Honest error. You meant to bid $30, but accidentally entered $300. Personally, this has happened to me a couple of times.

(2) Retracting a Best Offer. You are interested in an ebay listing with Best Offer, but the price is a little high. However, ebay comes out with a 10% ebay bucks promotion, which will make the listing worth it, but only if the seller accepts your best offer price. You submit your best offer, but the seller does not respond to it before the ebay bucks promotion expires. Since your offer took into account the promotion, you retract your best offer.

(3) You agree to an off-ebay deal with the seller on which you have the high bid. For example, you see a card that you are interested in with a Start Price of $500 for a 7 day ebay auction. You put down a bid on that card for $500. However, then you chat with the seller, and you agree to purchase that card off-ebay for $750. Since you've agreed to this deal, you retract your bid on the ebay listing, so that the ebay seller will not be hit with an ebay Final Value Fee for ending the ebay listing early.

(4) You retract your high bid on an ebay auction because you've already purchased the same item elsewhere (or have spent the money that you planned to purchase that card on another item). Obviously, this is sketchy, unethical territory where you really should honor your bid. You put the bid down, so even if you bought the same card at a better price elsewhere, you should be prepared to honor that bid you placed.

I had a similar case happen to me a couple of years ago on PWCC. I was interested in purchasing a 1975 mid-high grade complete set, and PWCC had a number of these in that auction. I put snipes on 2-3 of these sets. I lost all of them. After I lost these sets, I looked at the bidding history and I saw that for two of the sets, I was the immediate underbidder, and that the same bidder had won both of those sets. The very next day, I received a second chance offer for one of those sets (which I declined). I highly suspect that the winning bidder didn't want both sets, so he just picked the better one, and told PWCC that he didn't want the other one (or made a mistake, some other excuse). This is because I received the second chance offer the day after the auction ended, and not a couple of weeks due to typical non-paying bidder case. I would hope that in this case, PWCC will in the future ban this bidder as a non-paying bidder from their auctions.

(5) You retract a bid in order to see a seller's hidden reserve. As a seller you can place reserves in your auction listings. If a buyer wants to see the seller's reserve, they can place a very high bid, where the seller's reserve is exposed, and then retract that bid after they consider whether the reserve is reasonable. However, ebay expressly forbids this type of bid retraction (although some bidders do it anyway).

(6) You retract after seeing the high bidders max bid. Again, another illegal bid retraction. This is the case where the bidder is not related to the seller in any way, but wants to see what the current high bidder's max bid is. You bid to a very high level, and then retract it. Again, although this is not shill bidding, this type of bidding/retraction is unethical and forbidden by ebay.

[sushihotwings]

Banning string bidding is like killing a mosquito with a bazooka. Banning the bid retractors and those fail to pay will take care of the dishonest bidders no matter what method of bidding they use. Period. If you use string bidding or small bid increments and win and pay why does it matter what increments you use. Where do you draw the line on what is illegal string bidding? How long between subsequent bids is acceptable? 5 seconds? 5 minutes? 5 hours? What if it is the end the auction and your bid falls short and you want to bid again and again in a short period of time without placing a nuclear bid and take the chance of getting into a sniping war that ends up making you pay 2-3 times what you wanted? String bidding gives you more control over the final price and the ability to adjust price on the fly.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by D.P.Johnson

No Dale. What you're doing isn't "string" bidding. "String" bidding is when someone is "fishing" to see if they can find out where the maximum bid is by continuously bidding with minimum increments. When someone does that, they can sometimes see what the high bid is before they actually reach it because the incremental bid amount will suddenly change. Hope that makes sense. It's kinda hard to explain...
That being said, I always snipe...

I like string bidding as well....I mean...Ebay is allowing you to bid that minimum. That almost reminds me of the scene on the movie Office Space. Do you really want just the bare minimum of 15 pins? Or do you want to be like Brian and wear 47 pins?? If you want me to wear 47 pins, just make 47 pins the minimum.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

I like string bidding as well....I mean...Ebay is allowing you to bid that minimum. That almost reminds me of the scene on the movie Office Space. Do you really want just the bare minimum of 15 pins? Or do you want to be like Brian and wear 47 pins?? If you want me to wear 47 pins, just make 47 pins the minimum.

My guess is that string bidding will be analysed and dealt with accordingly. I doubt Brent and Team will prohibit any legitimate bidding. This policy is a great start to helping the hobby rid itself of some of ebay's ills...