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

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Peter, it might seem like I'm saying that, but I'm not. I think MOST ebay sellers run their auctions EXACTLY like I do. I disagree with the apologists' view that 'Everyone is probably doing it'. The problem is that the few who are certainly doing it, represent a massive amount of the card sales on ebay, so volume-wise it's a worse problem than 'a few sellers are cheating'.

+1


Everyone is most certainly NOT probably doing it. Judge individual sellers on Ebay on their own merits, not the entirety of Ebay as a single juggernaut.

It's like saying Mastro is crooked, Mastro is an auction house..........therefore, all auction houses are crooked.

[Exhibitman]

Much of what I am reading in this thread is either naive or appallingly ignorant. The one salient fact on shilling is this: shilling an auction is illegal. It is the e-quivalent of mugging the buyer. End of debate over its legitimacy: as a matter of law that it is never OK.

Shilling is not placing a reserve on an item. Placing a reserve on an item is a legitimate option on eBay but many bidders don't like to see that little "reserve not met" line on the listing, so many sellers balk at using them.

Dress it up all you like but shilling is a fraud on the buyer, who is lulled into believing that the auction started at the opening price and was honestly bid by legitimate bidders to a price one bid increment below the winning price, when it was not.

Shilling corrupts the database of value research. VCP and every price report of actual results is skewed by the overblown and/or fake results reported on shilled auctions.

As for Probstein bidders who bid only with him, how realistic does that seem? I don't know of any active card buyer who bids only with one eBay seller. Does anyone here confine their bidding to one seller? If so, let's hear it.

[sbfinley]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

As for Probstein bidders who bid only with him, how realistic does that seem? I don't know of any active card buyer who bids only with one eBay seller. Does anyone here confine their bidding to one seller? If so, let's hear it.

Adam, I gave a real example in a previous post. I purchased very little, in terms of cards, this year when compared to previous years. At most 2-3 items a month through eBay and probably 75% of those items were BIN or BO. Later in the year I changed my focus and began buying more. Around October/November I noticed and bid on several (7-9) cards in the same week with Probstein. I won 3-4 and was the underbidder on the rest. Had the winners of the other cards checked the bid history I could almost guarantee my bid history with Probstein would have 90%+ because eBay only tracks bid history for 30 days and because of how little I've bid on in the recent past. What should a seller like Probstein, who already offers a 14 no hassles return policy, do if one of the other winners saw my bid history and though he/she was shilled? Give them all a partial refund? For every person here who makes dozens of bids a day on objects of their hobby there are hundreds to thousands who pick of cards in prolonged intervals, usually multiple purchases at once when funds have been saved.

Nobody disagreeing with the main points of this thread and countless others like it believe shilling is acceptable, just that it's a fact of the system. Even if Probstein, PWCC, or whomever else took every feasible step to try and stop it any a-h@le can find a way to consign and shill a card anonymously. I've never done it, but I'd imagine it can't be that freaking difficult. Some people here call that idealism silly. I call it common sense, but whatever.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by sbfinley

Nobody disagreeing with the main points of this thread and countless others like it believe shilling is acceptable.

Of course they are. If they are contributing to the problem by bidding on items sold by sellers such as the ones described here, then they are saying that shilling is acceptable.

Some of the logic in this thread is flabbergasting. To the guy who says if we are not going to patronize known shillers, we should not patronize ebay: If you have a broken arm, do you want your doctor to put you down, or would you rather he fixed your arm?

Okay, this has gotten silly - you guys carry on.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by sbfinley

Adam, I gave a real example in a previous post. I purchased very little, in terms of cards, this year when compared to previous years. At most 2-3 items a month through eBay and probably 75% of those items were BIN or BO. Later in the year I changed my focus and began buying more. Around October/November I noticed and bid on several (7-9) cards in the same week with Probstein. I won 3-4 and was the underbidder on the rest. Had the winners of the other cards checked the bid history I could almost guarantee my bid history with Probstein would have 90%+ because eBay only tracks bid history for 30 days and because of how little I've bid on in the recent past. What should a seller like Probstein, who already offers a 14 no hassles return policy, do if one of the other winners saw my bid history and though he/she was shilled? Give them all a partial refund? For every person here who makes dozens of bids a day on objects of their hobby there are hundreds to thousands who pick of cards in prolonged intervals, usually multiple purchases at once when funds have been saved.

Nobody disagreeing with the main points of this thread and countless others like it believe shilling is acceptable, just that it's a fact of the system. Even if Probstein, PWCC, or whomever else took every feasible step to try and stop it any a-h@le can find a way to consign and shill a card anonymously. I've never done it, but I'd imagine it can't be that freaking difficult. Some people here call that idealism silly. I call it common sense, but whatever.

Your bid history might be 100% with 1 seller but is only a few bids.

You also have to look at the sellers feedback total.
This bidder only has 50 feedback on ebay total.
Put in 788 bids in 1 month with 88% with 1 seller. With that many bids they sure don't win much with the 1 bidder most of their bids are with. Not saying this is a shilling account but I don't buy from this seller because they have several bidders like this in their auctions.

Bidder Information
Bidder: j***m( 50Feedback score is 50 to 99)
Feedback: 100%Positive
Item description:
Item Title:
Removed to protect sellers ID
Bids on this item: 10

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 788
Items bid on: 133
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 88% Help
Bid retractions: 0
Bid retractions (6 months): 3

[VoodooChild]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Shilling corrupts the database of value research. VCP and every price report of actual results is skewed by the overblown and/or fake results reported on shilled auctions.

So how/where am I supposed to buy cards for prices that are not influenced by ebay shill bidding? Can we as a card collecting community file a class action lawsuit against ebay for turning a blind-eye? What is the solution? Or is this just something we have to live with in this digital auction world?

I can tell you that shilling is happening for a lot more than sports card/collectible ebay auctions. My wife wanted to buy a roll of fabric. She put in a max bid an lost at auction close. She said "I can't believe there's somebody else in this world who wanted that ugly fabric". A couple days later, she said that same fabric is listed as an auction by the same seller. We checked the previous auction she lost...the winner had 90% bidding history with the seller and tons of retractions.

I'm not saying that I condone it, but what are we supposed to do when the market value of the cards we want are set by shilled ebay auctions? We can boycott certain ebay sellers and ebay itself, but what about respected auction houses and the BST here? Aren't the "market value" prices we pay there also determined by shilled sales?

[nolemmings]

I'm not saying that I condone it, but what are we supposed to do when the market value of the cards we want are set by shilled ebay auctions? We can boycott certain ebay sellers and ebay itself, but what about respected auction houses and the BST here? Aren't the "market value" prices we pay there also determined by shilled sales?

Of course not Jason. Stop being appallingly ignorant.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

Of course not Jason. Stop being appallingly ignorant.

Thank you, Todd. That gave me my first outward laugh of the day, and I needed it.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by VoodooChild

I'm not saying that I condone it, but what are we supposed to do when the market value of the cards we want are set by shilled ebay auctions? We can boycott certain ebay sellers and ebay itself, but what about respected auction houses and the BST here? Aren't the "market value" prices we pay there also determined by shilled sales?

It isn't easy to fix this mess, no one said we could wave a magic wand and make it so. However, a good start is to acknowledge the problem and refuse to be part of it rather than just throwing up your hands and surrendering. I used to think that I was smart enough to simply snipe my price and that would be OK, but since reading more about what happened with Mastro and what is happening on eBay I realized that it is causing real damage. When I see a probstein auction now I don't bid. Simple enough. If enough people refuse to patronize probstein auctions, they will close. It all starts with personal accountability.

The way people use 'market price' bugs me. People act like there is an entity called 'market' who sets a price like a giant grocery clerk with a tagging gun, and then we have to abide by Market's price on the tag. That is just magical thinking. A card is worth whatever a willing buyer and seller are willing to transact for it at a given time, and that number is subject to indefinite variables that are never quite the same, whether it is someone filling out a set, someone with a big consignment offset available, etc. The 'market price' construct bothers me because if the last sale on the card was $100 but there are no cards available for $100, then the market price for the card isn't $100.

My comment on price distortions dovetails with the market price construct issue: because people insist on creating a 'market price' to rely on, the inflated sales results become the raw data from which people who like to follow the herd will distill their 'market price'. I have been assembling data on boxing cards for my guides for over a decade. I gather data from various sources: eBay, auctioneers, private sales I become aware of, etc. If some of those reported outcomes are skewed by illegal activities like shilling then I end up reporting inaccurate information, and the people who rely on that data to create their price points will be relying on unrealistic data. Uncertainty kills commerce. Unreliable price data generates uncertainty in the sense that collectors see a card selling for $100 and wonder why they can't sell theirs for $90, or they wonder why even though no one has stepped up to pay $90 for the card no seller will take $75 for it.

I have decided that until the python passes the puppy, so to speak--until I feel realistic steps have been taken to stem the tide of shilling and market manipulation--I am not going to offer price research again.

[CMIZ5290]

This is just incredible being discussed yet again in a lengthy thread. I wish someone would go back to the archives and post these same type of complaints. I will say it again, if Probstein is guilty of obvious, and consistant bid shilling, Why in Hell can't Ebay be involved in it? Money is one thing, but if they are attacked publicly and legally, how can they not be held accountable? Before any other bullshit posts, please someone answer this....

[Sean1125]

Originally Posted by CMIZ5290

This is just incredible being discussed yet again in a lengthy thread. I wish someone would go back to the archives and post these same type of complaints. I will say it again, if Probstein is guilty of obvious, and consistant bid shilling, Why in Hell can't Ebay be involved in it? Money is one thing, but if they are attacked publicly and legally, how can they not be held accountable? Before any other bullshit posts, please someone answer this....

They are attacked publicly, but no one has the money to attack them legally.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by CMIZ5290

This is just incredible being discussed yet again in a lengthy thread. I wish someone would go back to the archives and post these same type of complaints. I will say it again, if Probstein is guilty of obvious, and consistant bid shilling, Why in Hell can't Ebay be involved in it? Money is one thing, but if they are attacked publicly and legally, how can they not be held accountable? Before any other bullshit posts, please someone answer this....

Most likely because Probstein is not doing any actual shilling, his consignors are. Ebay does not have Probsteins consignors lists.

It's a grey area, that complicates what many see as a black & white issue.

It's that grey area that probably allows companies like Coach's Corner to still exist. Blame it on the consignors/authenticators/peoples opinions.

At least Probstein sells actual tangible items and not worthless pieces of scrap paper, uniforms and baseballs grafitti'd over with nonsense.

It is a little ironic, that this thread blew up based on a shill accusation that was probably not a shill at all..........when there seems to be so many better examples out there to go by.

[lancemountain]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

It is a little ironic, that this thread blew up based on a shill accusation that was probably not a shill at all..........when there seems to be so many better examples out there to go by.

There are better examples but that does not mean this was not most certainly shilling. These cards were certainly shilled

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by CMIZ5290

This is just incredible being discussed yet again in a lengthy thread. I wish someone would go back to the archives and post these same type of complaints. I will say it again, if Probstein is guilty of obvious, and consistant bid shilling, Why in Hell can't Ebay be involved in it? Money is one thing, but if they are attacked publicly and legally, how can they not be held accountable? Before any other bullshit posts, please someone answer this....

Careful Kevin - you could be accused of violating your own request

Did you read the very first post in the thread - it gives you a detailed description of ebay's involvement.

[CMIZ5290]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Careful Kevin - you could be accused of violating your own request

Did you read the very first post in the thread - it gives you a detailed description of ebay's involvement.

How about a big fat letter from an attorney?? Where's Jeff?