Another shill? You tell me.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Bugsy

Have I ever placed 42 bids on 23 lots exclusively with a single seller? No, I have not. I have never bid that way nor heard of anyone else following that pattern. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Well, you titled the thread with a "?" mark. I gave my opinion. You should contact the seller if you are concerned.

What about an auction house? You've never placed 42 bids on 23 lots?

I don't know. It really doesn't seem too excessive to me. Especially with a seller with this many lots up.

[Bugsy]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Well, you titled the thread with a "?" mark. I gave my opinion. You should contact the seller if you are concerned.

What about an auction house? You've never placed 42 bids on 23 lots?

I don't know. It really doesn't seem too excessive to me. Especially with a seller with this many lots up.

I guess the question was rhetorical. I meant this as a public service annoucement for potential bidders to be aware of several red flags. I actually chose not to bid on a few lots after I saw this pattern.

And no, I have NEVER bid exclusively with anyone.

[Runscott]

Chris, I think most everyone got it.

I'm not taking anything away from Dave - I believe that generally the people who will defend questionable things like this are just very honest people who are also very trusting. Nothing wrong with being a 'cup half filled' person.

Personally, I think this example looks so much like blatant shilling that if PWCC doesn't retract the bids, or at least explain them, it might as well be shilling. And being 'busy' with thousands of auctions isn't really an excuse. Big sellers of vintage cards need to be watching the only vintage board that is worth watching - we are the pulse of the hobby and I'm sure he's aware of that.

I once complained about ridiculous shipping charges, but left out the auction house name. Within an hour I had an email from the head of the company, apologizing for the mistake and sending a revised invoice. This was someone who doesn't EVER comment here. Yes, they are reading our posts.

But let's see if the +1 guy actually wins anything, and if so, where that stuff ends up. I'm sure there are a few crime dogs aground who will take up the chase.

[wolf441]

I wasn't aware of the seller until the last post because I can't log onto ebay from work, but having watched quite a few of the PWCC T206 auctions over the past week, the ending prices don't seem to be out of line with what I'd expect for cards with the grades presented. A few of them seemed high, but there were some that finished lower than I thought they would. I didn't see any evidence of the type of obvious shilling that has been evident on some other large ebay sellers' auctions...

[smtjoy]

42 bids on 23 items. 100% of the activity, pretty much says it all.

I find it funny that some just gloss over stats like that or just dont care. I am guessing those are the collectors who only plan to part with their collection when they die so the price they pay makes no difference to them.

It does matter to me as someone who buys and sells various parts of my collection. I didnt really understand how much the whole shilling thing is a factor till I tried to sell some of my cards and well I got crushed. Then looking over my purchase log of who and when I purchased the cards and the ones I was losing the most money on all seemed to come from a couple of the big sellers. If it had happened on a few cards then fine its just a bad day selling but after selling over 500 cards and these trends were still going strong you realize just how much shilling is affecting prices. Also I really think shilling is used more to prop up the value of cards vs to increase value, so a comment like I though prices were normal or near VCP can also be very misleading. Like I said sell a couple cards and see how you do, it was an eye opening experience. Also when I sell cards I can hardly get any early bidding at all but somehow certain consignment houses initial bidding always seem to be run up to near 80% of VCP on every card. Again if it happened here and there fine but not nearly everything they sell.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by smtjoy

42 bids on 23 items. 100% of the activity, pretty much says it all.

I find it funny that some just gloss over stats like that or just dont care. I am guessing those are the collectors who only plan to part with their collection when they die so the price they pay makes no difference to them.

It does matter to me as someone who buys and sells various parts of my collection. I didnt really understand how much the whole shilling thing is a factor till I tried to sell some of my cards and well I got crushed. Then looking over my purchase log of who and when I purchased the cards and the ones I was losing the most money on all seemed to come from a couple of the big sellers. If it had happened on a few cards then fine its just a bad day selling but after selling over 500 cards and these trends were still going strong you realize just how much stilling is affecting prices. Also I really think shilling is used more to prop up the value of cards vs to increase value, so a comment like I though prices were normal or near VCP can also be very misleading. Like I said sell a couple cards and see how you do, it was an eye opening experience. Also when I sell cards I can hardly get any early bidding at all but somehow certain consignment houses initial bidding always seem to be run up to near 80% of VCP on every card. Again if it happened here and there fine but not nearly everything they sell.

Well said Scott. It is quite obvious what the bidder is up to shown in the first post of this thread. There is almost 0% chance a person with a feedback of 1, and all of those other bad signs, is just a coincidence. Sorry, I am not buying it. If that bidder were bidding on my stuff he would have a lot of explaining to do.

[sdkammeyer]

Yup, smells fishy to me as well.

Also, having too many auctions to keep track of who is who and what is going on is NOT a viable excuse. (Probstein posted something about that in another thread, and it's popped up again concerning this seller).

I had to call eBay the other day to have my limits raised ..... again .... 3rd time in 3 months. I understand this because I am new. But one is only "new" for so long. This time I asked what these limits were all about and when would they be lifted. I have had over 400 transactions in the last 3 months with 100% positive feedback, a GREAT DSR, and I just got the "power seller" icon (which means, amongst other things, that I have shipped over 90% of items within 24 hours of payment receipt). So I am thinking that I don't need limits. I have paid eBay over $2,000 in fees in the last 90 days, my poop is in a group, let's just lift the limits altogether.

They told me that EVERYONE has limits. No matter who you are. Their explanation was "so that we can be sure that you are not getting overwhelmed and you can keep everything under control as your eBay transactions rise". Ok, I get that ......

If I sell too much stuff this month and cannot keep things straight, forget to ship items, or start sending items to the wrong people (you get the idea) then maybe I really am selling too much on eBay and the limits are in place to help keep that from happening. The same should apply for shilling. If I'm selling so many items that I cannot see that my auctions are being shilled by one particular person then I have probably overstepped my boundries, I am selling too many things, and my limits need to be lowered.

IMO if it's not up to eBay to make sure all my packages get sent out in a timely manner to the right people, then it's not SOLELY their responsibility to make sure my auctions aren't being shilled.

I don't take consignments so obviously I am using myself as an example there .... but I hope my point came across.

[D. Bergin]

Has anybody contacted the seller to find out if the bidder is also a consignor of the items he is bidding on?

I don't think I recall ever saying it was a valid excuse to ignore a consignor shilling your auctions, because a particular seller is too big. I think I alluded that because the seller has such a large number of items up for auction at any given time, It's very possible a newbie never left that sellers page to bid elsewhere. Maybe because of budget, time, trust issues, familiarity or any number of other issues.

I do have a hard time believing nobody on here has picked one particular auction or seller to buy from in a one month period and not bid anywhere else. Must be a lot of deeeep pockets.

That's assuming this guy hasn't bought anywhere else. That is just one seller on Ebay he is following. Ebay is only one venue that happens to have lots of different sellers.

I've funneled lots of buyers to Ebay through my two retail websites, who were not previously Ebay bidders. It probably hurt me in the long run, but a lot of them started bidding on MY auctions first, because they were familiar with me, or my material.

I don't have a horse in the race, and I don't know if this seller is a serial shiller, he may very well be. If he is you should be making very loud noises about it and getting his attention.

I know I'm just small fry, but I would be very upset if somebody publicly accused ME of shilling. It's a serious accusation but the word seems to be thrown around at the slightest hint of a particular bidder not fitting into whatever a persons pre-conceived notions of what a bidders psychology should be.

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by wolf441

I wasn't aware of the seller until the last post because I can't log onto ebay from work, but having watched quite a few of the PWCC T206 auctions over the past week, the ending prices don't seem to be out of line with what I'd expect for cards with the grades presented. A few of them seemed high, but there were some that finished lower than I thought they would. I didn't see any evidence of the type of obvious shilling that has been evident on some other large ebay sellers' auctions...

Shilling involves the artificial raising of a bid price. Regardless of where the item ends up selling (relative to historical sales), it is illegal in some jurisdictions and unethical everywhere.

[cobblove]

Does the bidding on the 1965 PSA 8 namath look ok? Same bidding with the 1961 Fleer Bill Russell PSA 9, he stoped bidding now that the head is maxed? And on a few other 1961s, he stops once the high bidder is maxed?
Great cards for sure.

0***n( 335)

[tschock]

Do you think the amount of sniping has any effect on shill bidding? If no one sniped, then the shill bidder has more of a chance to up the bid without getting stuck. If everyone sniped, then I would think the shill bidder's risk of getting stuck would be much greater since they have less information in which to gauge the amount of interest. Assuming of course that the shill bidder doesn't want to get stuck with the item.

[cobblove]

I think you can stick it to the guy bidding on the 1961 fleers by putting in a large bid right now and then just wait 1 hour for him to put his 10 bids in bidding you up. And then just retract your bid after he does that.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1961-Fleer-B...item20cf04162b