Small Traditions LLC/SCANDAL UPDATE

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I just don't understand how you guys see this as PWCC's (or insert any consignment company here) responsibility though. They don't have access to the data. This is ebay's platform, ebay's data, and ebay's responsibility. Are you really expecting consignment companies to crawl through all of their listings and webscrape user ID data (which is against ebay's TOS) and bid history and follow who bids on what, and try to track people down? You think they should have their own internal BODA team? Do you really not realize how ridiculous these expectations are in practice? I'll repeat: they don't have access to the database where all of this information is stored! Only eBay does. How does this point never land with you guys?

Because it is a nonsensical point.

You know who also doesn't have access to eBay's databases? Everyone else. Including laymen who can, based on publicly available information, easily point to circumstances that strongly indicate illegitimate (and likely illegal) bidding behavior. And guess what? While those laymen only have access to anonymized bidder IDs, PWCC has access to the full bidder ID. And, if PWCC is as important to eBay as you like to tell us ad nauseum that they are, then they are one phone call away from knowing the bidders name and address that can be checked against the consigner's.

PWCC forces you to enter your eBay user ID on your vault account, and they send you a stern warning email if that account ID bids on one of its own listings, and then they will ban you if you do it again.

What percentage of PWCC's sales are associated with the vault?

They also block all non paying bidders. And even then, they are limited to just 5,000 user IDs. What more can they do?

Let's review three random facts:

1. There is strong (albeit potentially circumstantial evidence) that illegitimate bidding behavior driving up realized prices on PWCC auctions.
2. PWCC apparently doesn't have an audit function to review sales for said illegitimate behavior.
3. PWCC bans non-paying bidders.

These three random facts have a common thread between them. Can you determine what that is?

[Peter_Spaeth]

As I've pointed out many times when I see idiocy like PWCC can't possibly monitor its own business, it takes a few minutes at most to sort your auctions by highest bid price and look through a given number for unusual activity.

Incidentally Brent was keenly aware of who was bidding at least on his big ticket cards. When we were on speaking terms he always knew who varous masked IDs were, and would also know who various serial retractors were.

[Johnny630]

People are victims of their own ignorance and or laziness. All kinda of information is out their on PWCC. You can chose what you believe and what you don’t believe what you bid/but what you don’t it’s ok either way. Either way I think it’s cool to see how people think 🤔

[Johnny630]

People are victims of their own ignorance and or laziness. All kinda of information is out their on PWCC. You can chose what you believe and what you don’t believe what you bid/buy on along with what you don’t, it’s ok either way. Either way I think it’s cool to see how people think 🤔

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

Because it is a nonsensical point.

You know who also doesn't have access to eBay's databases? Everyone else. Including laymen who can, based on publicly available information, easily point to circumstances that strongly indicate illegitimate (and likely illegal) bidding behavior. And guess what? While those laymen only have access to anonymized bidder IDs, PWCC has access to the full bidder ID. And, if PWCC is as important to eBay as you like to tell us ad nauseum that they are, then they are one phone call away from knowing the bidders name and address that can be checked against the consigner's.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

As I've pointed out many times when I see idiocy like PWCC can't possibly monitor its own business, it takes a few minutes at most to sort your auctions by highest bid price and look through a given number for unusual activity.

Clearly, you guys don't understand the scale of what you are asking them to do or what it would take for them to "monitor their business" as you put it.

It's one thing to have an entire internet forum of free crowd-sourced resources with endless time on their hands and nothing better to do than clicking through random eBay listings in an effort to find someone who *might* be shill bidding their auctions. But it's something else entirely for a consignment company to be expected to hire a team to crawl through over 10,000 listings per week, mapping out eBay user IDs and cross-checking them to see which users might be shilling their consignments. This is an absolutely ridiculous expectation. Do you have any idea how much this would cost? Do you know how much it would cost just to set up and maintain a database alone to handle this, let alone the manpower? They've sold well in excess of a million eBay listings lol. Perhaps you don't realize that clicking on a 'bid history' link that shows eBay user IDs is not "access to the data". There's a huge difference between clicking links and seeing names and having the access to the data required to monitor something like this at scale and to be able to write code that enables you to intervene when necessary. When I say "they don't have access to the data", clearly this point has not landed with you guys. You clearly are not data people. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about here. You couldn't possibly have ever spent a day in your life in the tech industry if you actually expect them to do this. Meanwhile, this is an easy problem for eBay to solve. They already have the database set up with all the relevant data at their fingertips and the resources (data analysts & data scientists) to do it, not to mention the responsibility to do this. And let's not forget, they also already claim to do this on their website (even though they clearly do a shit job of it).

I have personally written fraud detection algorithms and have coded out large-scale projects just like this for my previous employer (a large insurance company). I know what it would take to accomplish what you guys are proposing. This is a huge undertaking. It's not just asking Billy and Sally to spot-check a few listings over their lunch break.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Clearly, you guys don't understand the scale of what you are asking them to do or what it would take for them to "monitor their business" as you put it.

Actually, we do. It is called internal auditing and virtually all major corporations have a department dedicated to it.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

Actually, we do. It is called internal auditing and virtually all major corporations have a department dedicated to it.

But PWCC is sooooooooooooooo huge and vast and sprawling they couldn't possibly do it.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

But PWCC is sooooooooooooooo huge and vast and sprawling they couldn't possibly do it.

I just double-checked for you. Looks like they still don't have access to the data behind the listings!.

Your proposal to sort through the top 10-20 listings does nothing to solve this problem. That's 10 grains of sand on an entire beach. And they already ban those users if they don't pay or if they bid from their known eBay accounts. You don't know what you're talking about here.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Actually it's not 20 grains of sand at all, because the bigger cards are where most of the problems were. But you seem incapable of understanding that. Also with all PWCC's employees they could have sorted through many more than 20 without much of a time commitment.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

But PWCC is sooooooooooooooo huge and vast and sprawling they couldn't possibly do it.

Originally Posted by Snowman

I just double-checked for you. Looks like they still don't have access to the data behind the listings!.

Your proposal to sort through the top 10-20 listings does nothing to solve this problem. That's 10 grains of sand on an entire beach. And they already ban those users if they don't pay or if they bid from their known eBay accounts. You don't know what you're talking about here.

Let me help you out a bit here. There is more (way more) to the functioning of a company than database analyses and program algorithms. I have no doubt that you can speak authoritatively on those topics. But, you need to understand that even a marginally competent accountant can suss out anomalous transactions in their sleep. Anyone with advanced training in corporate auditing would be all over it like a hobo on a ham sandwich. The fact that you cannot grok this isn't the proof that you think it is. It isn't proof at all.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

Actually, we do. It is called internal auditing and virtually all major corporations have a department dedicated to it.

I guess I'll just keep repeating myself then.

They don't have access to the data behind the listings! Only eBay does. This is eBay's problem to solve. Not theirs.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

As I've pointed out many times when I see idiocy like PWCC can't possibly monitor its own business, it takes a few minutes at most to sort your auctions by highest bid price and look through a given number for unusual activity.

This is perhaps the single most ignorant post I've ever seen you make. You are miles out of your element here Peter. This is tantamount to me telling you how easy it should be to litigate one of your cases despite me never having spent even 5 minutes of my life in a law office.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I did it myself frequently, sort his auctions by price that is and look through the bidding on 10 or 20. It took no time at all. How arrogant of me.

This sort of sample was more than enough to identify certain types of recurring issues on expensive cards. You're missing the forest for the trees. You're also missing the human element, he knew who was doing what, and I base that on conversations as well as observation.

It's you who is out of your element, playing contrarian for some undisclosed purpose.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It's you who is out of your element, playing contrarian for some undisclosed purpose.

Here you go with your conspiracy theories again and my "undisclosed purpose".

I assure you I am not the one who is out of his element here. I'm a data scientist. You're a lawyer. This is a data problem that requires data solutions.

[Peter_Spaeth]

No, it requires judgment and common sense more than anything, you're wrong again.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

No, it requires judgment and common sense more than anything, you're wrong again.

And data! Perhaps you forgot about that part.

[Yoda]

Just to lighten up things here, I would seek others' opinions about PWCC's vault situation. How many cards have fled since their bad news broke? Of those that fled how many have already been consigned to auction houses, such as REA and Goldin who have actively solicited them? Or how many cards are back in the arms of their loving owners who are waiting for the dust to settle? Or how many cards have stayed in the vault and will make an appearance in PWCC's first independent auction? Much pondering.