PWCC green cobb psa 5.5 going through the roof

[iwantitiwinit]

The current second place bidder only has bid activity with PWCC on 19 different items over the past 6 months. Just saying.

[iwantitiwinit]

Also just noticed the Plank offered by PWCC has several of the top bidders with 80%+ bid history only with this seller. Hmmm. To me that seems strange. Just saying.

[ctownboy]

Why would someone shill a card waaaaay above a record price?

Hypothetical -- A card is worth/valued at $6,000. It gets sent to an auction where it is shilled to the stratosphere. The "auction" ends with a "record" sales price that goes into the VCP.

Six months to a year later, the same card goes to a large but different auction house. Some of the bidders with that auction house don't know the card has a "history" and only look at the VCP reports. They bid on and win the card for $10,000 which they think they got for a bargain since it last sold for $14,000.

So now, because of the shill bids to the stratosphere, a $6,000 card becomes a $10,000 dollar card and the new buyer has no clue they have been cheated.

David

[bobfreedman]

It is not the amount of times that a bidder bids with a specific seller that bothers me, it is the number of bid retractions that a bidder has on the same lot:

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 277
Items bid on: 60
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 81% Help
Bid retractions: 4
Bid retractions (6 months): 12

4 bid retractions on the same lot? 12 in past six months? Why is this guy still able to bid on this lot? SMH

[Peter_Spaeth]

It doesn't mean 4 on the same lot it means 4 total in the last 30 days.

[1952boyntoncollector]

Originally Posted by ctownboy

Why would someone shill a card waaaaay above a record price?

Hypothetical -- A card is worth/valued at $6,000. It gets sent to an auction where it is shilled to the stratosphere. The "auction" ends with a "record" sales price that goes into the VCP.

Six months to a year later, the same card goes to a large but different auction house. Some of the bidders with that auction house don't know the card has a "history" and only look at the VCP reports. They bid on and win the card for $10,000 which they think they got for a bargain since it last sold for $14,000.

So now, because of the shill bids to the stratosphere, a $6,000 card becomes a $10,000 dollar card and the new buyer has no clue they have been cheated.

David

People tend to do their homework on $10,000 dollar cards...one lone sale isn't all the rage on ebay..they also look at other auction houses.....also you cant shill against your yours..in your situation....the card that sold for $14,000 probably had many underbidders between $10,000-$14,000 unless all of them are shilled...seems like a loot of work..plus since its a PWCC auction you cant just cancel the sale...you will have to eat 6-14% on your win.....

How many times has that 1952 PSA 8 mantle been shilled..the same type of card grade wise.. sold at multiple auction houses for over $400k...but for some reason on ebay its all fake?

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

I could see a number of bidders who only use eBay to bid on pwcc auctions but am in agreement on the bid retractions. I've used eBay since late 90's and don't think I've ever had a bid retraction. Serious question, why else would someone have that many retractions unless for shady dealings?

[bxb]

Winning bidder:

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 201
Items bid on: 148
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 87% Help
Bid retractions: 0
Bid retractions (6 months): 18

[iwantitiwinit]

18 bid retractions wtf? Is it possible this could be retracted after the auction and the card gets re-offerred to the 1st real bidder? Honestly I don't understand why someone no matter how satisfied they are with a particular seller would be willing to pay 150% of recent market value. It makes no sense.

[mechanicalman]

The winning bidder is cleaning up on all the nicely centered T206s. Same dude has bought 4 other cards I was looking at and also has a $3100 bid on the Cy Young Polar Bear. Must be nice to have significant funds and very little price sensitivity.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

The current second place bidder only has bid activity with PWCC on 19 different items over the past 6 months. Just saying.

Agreed....I would think other sellers besides PWCC has nice stuff as well. I know, speaking for myself, I have nice cards every once in awhile!

[JustinD]

The top bidders only having bids with PWCC is strange.

Bid retractions are strange.

14 years on my current account (over 3k feedback and have left over 4k) and my prior acct was from the Wild West days starting in 97'. Never retracted a bid and never stiffed a seller.

I was ripped off several times in the money order days, but never for too much. Never bought a big ticket item till paypal.

I have 23 different sellers in 30 days on my history snippet. That seems a little more normal.

I bought a lot from PWCC today, and have in the past. I almost grabbed the Delong Gehrig as well...till my son asked me to cut a check for drivers training yesterday, lol.

I'll buy from them again, but yes I admit these things certainly bother me.

Another sales pitch for sniping software. It does not solve the problem, but it helps a 1000% more than letting someone peck away at a max bid for a week and then withdrawing their bid the moment they find it.

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

Would love to hear from Brent at PWCC who does this for a living what he thinks about these bid retractions. Why so many for some of these bidders? What are the circumstances around using them? Just trying to get my head around justifying the legitimacy of both bidders with super high percentage of bids with one seller AND lots of retractions.

[1952boyntoncollector]

Originally Posted by ajjohnsonsoxfan

Would love to hear from Brent at PWCC who does this for a living what he thinks about these bid retractions. Why so many for some of these bidders? What are the circumstances around using them? Just trying to get my head around justifying the legitimacy of both bidders with super high percentage of bids with one seller AND lots of retractions.

I am bothered by bid retractions..i think ebay bans you if you do too many but who knows...

I admit I have retracted maybe 3 bids this year but that was when someone bid retracted a bid over my bid and then I became the 'new' high bidder...so I said goodbye my bid......I rarely bid anything close to what I want to pay until people are not allowed to bid retract because of how close the auction is....I wait till last hour...I think they ban all bid retractions a few hours before but I not sure when exactly..

[Stonepony]

Originally Posted by ajjohnsonsoxfan

Would love to hear from Brent at PWCC who does this for a living what he thinks about these bid retractions. Why so many for some of these bidders? What are the circumstances around using them? Just trying to get my head around justifying the legitimacy of both bidders with super high percentage of bids with one seller AND lots of retractions.

We've heard from him before. He's all over it...I think.

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by Stonepony

We've heard from him before. He's all over it...I think.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ons+legitimate

[pkaufman]

Laughable !

[Brent Huigens]

Originally Posted by ajjohnsonsoxfan

Would love to hear from Brent at PWCC who does this for a living what he thinks about these bid retractions. Why so many for some of these bidders? What are the circumstances around using them? Just trying to get my head around justifying the legitimacy of both bidders with super high percentage of bids with one seller AND lots of retractions.

I've posted a few times on bid retractions in the past and also posted again on the T206 Plank thread to discuss it further. For those who are not reading every thread I'll comment here again:

Bottom line, bid retractions are a simple but serious problem with the eBay system and we are working as hard as is humanly possible with eBay to have them update their software and bring about better control. Ebay has rules, and they simply don't enforce them.

For us, we report each and every bid retraction we receive to eBay Trust & Safety. Those in violation are warned and then suspended by eBay if the action occurs again. This is nowhere near good enough.

One point I want to convey is while some bidders may have 5, 10, 20+ bid retractions over the last year, none or at least very very few of those are with PWCC Auctions. We monitor the IDs of members who inappropriately retract bids if we see that act more than once the bid is blocked. if the bid retraction appears to be manipulative (i.e. to expose a high bid, etc) we block that user immediately on the first offense.

The biggest problem is that most users don't know they are breaking the rules. Sure, they probably regret retracting a bid, but without any punishment the act of bid retractions becomes something of a habit. I frequently get the 'I didn't know I was breaking any rules' response when we confront a bidder on their first offense.

Again, we are working with eBay on this topic and hope to have some positive progress later this year. Once we have something concrete we'll announce it on the boards.

Regards,

Brent Huigens
PWCC Auctions