Small Traditions LLC/SCANDAL UPDATE

[SteveS]

For legal, business, and practical reasons, I don't think that eBay would ban PWCC without having sufficient evidence that they were involved in the shill bidding and/or they knew or it was brought to their attention that consignors were engaged in shill bidding and they did nothing about it.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by SteveS

For legal, business, and practical reasons, I don't think that eBay would ban PWCC without having sufficient evidence that they were involved in the shill bidding and/or they knew or it was brought to their attention that consignors were engaged in shill bidding and they did nothing about it.

I agree, although the counterpoint has been raised by several that ebay is a vindictive ruthless company and may have done this solely because PWCC was threatening to move to its own platform.

[SteveS]

Oh, I don't think it's unreasonable at all to think that eBay knew exactly what was going on and rode the wave while the bucks were pouring in, then took action when it looked as though the money train was about to go off the tracks. But still, I have to think that they have evidence of wrongdoing by PWCC, as banning them solely out of vindictiveness would have costly consequences.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by SteveS

For legal, business, and practical reasons, I don't think that eBay would ban PWCC without having sufficient evidence that they were involved in the shill bidding and/or they knew or it was brought to their attention that consignors were engaged in shill bidding and they did nothing about it.

In general, I think that would be a pretty safe assumption to make. What complicates this issue for me though, is that both eBay and PWCC have demonstrated having questionable integrity at best in the past.

Neither outcome would be all that surprising to me (the 'individuals associated with PWCC' being actual employees or just consignors). Although if it ever does get shown that PWCC employees themselves placed these shill bids, my money would be on that being something like Brent shilling his own cards or someone on the inside shilling a close friend's cards or something like that. I just can't imagine a scenario where PWCC was involved in widespread shilling of auctions in general. From a game theory perspective, it would be remarkably stupid (with a 'risk of ruin' very near 100%). It would be acting against their own best interests. Although, stranger things have happened, and people do dumb shit every day, so who knows.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

In general, I think that would be a pretty safe assumption to make. What complicates this issue for me though, is that both eBay and PWCC have demonstrated having questionable integrity at best in the past.

Neither outcome would be all that surprising to me (the 'individuals associated with PWCC' being actual employees or just consignors). Although if it ever does get shown that PWCC employees themselves placed these shill bids, my money would be on that being something like Brent shilling his own cards or someone on the inside shilling a close friend's cards or something like that. I just can't imagine a scenario where PWCC was involved in widespread shilling of auctions in general. From a game theory perspective, it would be remarkably stupid (with a 'risk of ruin' very near 100%). It would be acting against their own best interests. Although, stranger things have happened, and people do dumb shit every day, so who knows.

Hubris explains more than stupidity sometimes. From my dealings with him he did not believe he was at any risk.