PWCC – Announcing Formal Policy Concerning eBay Bidder & Buyer Integrity

[Peter_Spaeth]

I fail to see the "issue" with sniping.

[irv]

Originally Posted by irv

I was going to comment on this "String bidding" scenario when it was first posted but I wasn't sure, nor am I still, what exactly it means?

If I am wrong, please correct me.

My take is, it means bidding on cards incrementally until you find out what the highest bid is in order to become the highest bidder?

If that is the case, I do not understand the need for this to be regulated/policed. Numerous times, when I see a card I want that already has bids placed for it, I will enter the minimum higher to become the top bidder. Sometimes/most of the times, my initial bid is not enough to become the highest bidder so I enter/choose/opt for the next $ amount until I beat the current bidder therefore becoming the highest bidder.

If the card later gets bid up again, I will either choose to beat it again or walk away if it is more than I want to bid or can afford. Am I now labeled as a "String Bidder"?

I also agree, 25 retractions is excessive in that time frame. I believe I have 2-3 total since I began bidding on E-Bay and my last one months and months ago but those were rookie mistakes and I am much more careful/thorough before I decide to bid on something now.

Can someone please tell me if I have this correct or if I am out in left field with what I think "String bidding" is?

Thanks

Dale

[Paul S]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Never understand why ebay doesn't institute dynamic endings for their auctions. Would certainly eliminate the sniping issue. sellers and therefore ebay would also make more money.

I just did an ebay search for "dynamic endings". Got the same results as Frank's suggestion for "string".

[ALR-bishop]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I fail to see the "issue" with sniping.

+ 1

I almost always snipe, but have on occasion bid in increments until I am the high bidder or find that the high bid is higher than I want to pay. If I never retract ( and I don't), I would think that should be ok

25 retractions is too high a threshold , by at least 20... unless the purpose is to give folks who have clearly been bidding inappropriately a second chance going forward with the new criteria.

Still, I view this as a positive development

[jim]

hi Brent, currently, in your auction (http://www.ebay.com/itm/1935-Goudey-...-/351861695474), your high bidder has 3 bid retractions in the last 6 months while the underbidder has 9 bid retractions in the last 6 months. Does anything need to be done with these two bidders? thanks,
Jim Loewke

[JRO$!(]

I often get outbid in the final 3 seconds of auctions. So be it.
I did not bid High enough, and someone

else was willing to bid higher than my highest bid.
Simple.

I almost always snipe manually,
(have never used a snipe program).

[tschock]

Originally Posted by jim

hi Brent, currently, in your auction (http://www.ebay.com/itm/1935-Goudey-...-/351861695474), your high bidder has 3 bid retractions in the last 6 months while the underbidder has 9 bid retractions in the last 6 months. Does anything need to be done with these two bidders? thanks,
Jim Loewke

"We have to establish a starting point, so to start any user ID we identify that has greater than 25 bid retractions over the last six months will be blocked from participating in PWCC auctions. Any user ID we identify with between 10 and 25 retractions will be notified of our policy and warned. In time, we plan to reduce the allowed number of retractions to 10, and perhaps as low as 5. Note: a user’s bid retraction count is not a statistic we can automatically filter; we appreciate the help of the collecting community in identifying user IDs which show quantities beyond our defined limits."

Not to jump on your post as not useful (it is), but I think you provided a good example to support PWCC's position of STARTING with 25 and reducing over time. I would expect that for PWCC to start at 5 (as some would suggest) would become an administrative nightmare and the whole impetus would become a non-starter.

It seems to me that PWCC is doing much of the 'heavy lifting' here with the 'blessing' of ebay. Just because PWCC is taking the initiative doesn't mean that the retract-a-holics won't be going elsewhere.

[jim]

you are right Taylor; thanks for the note. i will not be bidding in this auction going forward though.
jim

[D. Bergin]

Let's be blunt with the bid retractions. You can't control these people on the rest of Ebay, you can only stop them in their tracks from doing it in your own auctions.

It's obvious a lot of the heavy hitters have been using bid retractions as part of their bidding strategy for awhile now. This is not a myth, it's not a unicorn...it has been happening, and frequently.

One guy has admitted here on Net54, and there's tons out there who won't say a word about it, but also do the same.

PWCC doesn't want to throw these guys out with the bathwater and crater their own auctions in the process. They are creating a starting point, to hopefully get the word out, help curtail their practices outside of PWCC and maybe reign them in a little at a time down the road.

It's great to see them doing any kind of policing. The absolute simplest thing would be for Ebay to do it on a software level, sitewide.......but that might cost the bosses at the top a few pennies off their bonus checks, so we will likely never see it from them.

It's sad that Ebay is making one of their best customers do their police work for them.......and I'm saying this as somebody who has never, ever bid in a PWCC auction.

[D.P.Johnson]

Originally Posted by irv

Can someone please tell me if I have this correct or if I am out in left field with what I think "String bidding" is?

Thanks

Dale

No Dale. What you're doing isn't "string" bidding. "String" bidding is when someone is "fishing" to see if they can find out where the maximum bid is by continuously bidding with minimum increments. When someone does that, they can sometimes see what the high bid is before they actually reach it because the incremental bid amount will suddenly change. Hope that makes sense. It's kinda hard to explain...
That being said, I always snipe...

[Baseball Bob]

I applaud ebay and PWCC for at least giving recognition to the issues plaguing this industry. However, the concept of sellers policing themselves has forever failed. Here I mean sellers as a community, not singling anyone out. This is an unregulated and in most cases privately held industry which has vitually no business transparency. If the sellers truly want to earn or restore trust, they need to subject themselves to independent financial audits to assure their business integrity, and report those results to the community. Those with the best audit results would be the most trusted sellers. Tweedling around with little facets of an auction like the ones discussed here are addressing the symptoms, not the illness.

[glchen]

I agree with some of the others in that PWCC should give bidders advance notice of the # of retractions that they will allow, and give bidders time to "wind down" the number of retractions that they use as part of their bidding strategies. I've only had 2-3 retractions in nearly 20 years on ebay, but some bidders do use it more frequently, some for nefarious purposes, others not. If PWCC does not give bidders time to wind down their retractions, then these bidders would need to create new user id's, or not bid at all.

Here are some retraction reasons that I have heard, some of which may be legitimate:

(1) Honest error. You meant to bid $30, but accidentally entered $300. Personally, this has happened to me a couple of times.

(2) Retracting a Best Offer. You are interested in an ebay listing with Best Offer, but the price is a little high. However, ebay comes out with a 10% ebay bucks promotion, which will make the listing worth it, but only if the seller accepts your best offer price. You submit your best offer, but the seller does not respond to it before the ebay bucks promotion expires. Since your offer took into account the promotion, you retract your best offer.

(3) You agree to an off-ebay deal with the seller on which you have the high bid. For example, you see a card that you are interested in with a Start Price of $500 for a 7 day ebay auction. You put down a bid on that card for $500. However, then you chat with the seller, and you agree to purchase that card off-ebay for $750. Since you've agreed to this deal, you retract your bid on the ebay listing, so that the ebay seller will not be hit with an ebay Final Value Fee for ending the ebay listing early.

(4) You retract your high bid on an ebay auction because you've already purchased the same item elsewhere (or have spent the money that you planned to purchase that card on another item). Obviously, this is sketchy, unethical territory where you really should honor your bid. You put the bid down, so even if you bought the same card at a better price elsewhere, you should be prepared to honor that bid you placed.

I had a similar case happen to me a couple of years ago on PWCC. I was interested in purchasing a 1975 mid-high grade complete set, and PWCC had a number of these in that auction. I put snipes on 2-3 of these sets. I lost all of them. After I lost these sets, I looked at the bidding history and I saw that for two of the sets, I was the immediate underbidder, and that the same bidder had won both of those sets. The very next day, I received a second chance offer for one of those sets (which I declined). I highly suspect that the winning bidder didn't want both sets, so he just picked the better one, and told PWCC that he didn't want the other one (or made a mistake, some other excuse). This is because I received the second chance offer the day after the auction ended, and not a couple of weeks due to typical non-paying bidder case. I would hope that in this case, PWCC will in the future ban this bidder as a non-paying bidder from their auctions.

(5) You retract a bid in order to see a seller's hidden reserve. As a seller you can place reserves in your auction listings. If a buyer wants to see the seller's reserve, they can place a very high bid, where the seller's reserve is exposed, and then retract that bid after they consider whether the reserve is reasonable. However, ebay expressly forbids this type of bid retraction (although some bidders do it anyway).

(6) You retract after seeing the high bidders max bid. Again, another illegal bid retraction. This is the case where the bidder is not related to the seller in any way, but wants to see what the current high bidder's max bid is. You bid to a very high level, and then retract it. Again, although this is not shill bidding, this type of bidding/retraction is unethical and forbidden by ebay.

[sushihotwings]

Banning string bidding is like killing a mosquito with a bazooka. Banning the bid retractors and those fail to pay will take care of the dishonest bidders no matter what method of bidding they use. Period. If you use string bidding or small bid increments and win and pay why does it matter what increments you use. Where do you draw the line on what is illegal string bidding? How long between subsequent bids is acceptable? 5 seconds? 5 minutes? 5 hours? What if it is the end the auction and your bid falls short and you want to bid again and again in a short period of time without placing a nuclear bid and take the chance of getting into a sniping war that ends up making you pay 2-3 times what you wanted? String bidding gives you more control over the final price and the ability to adjust price on the fly.

[drmondobueno]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

I try very hard to avoid rushing to judgement on any issue. So further investigation was needed on the issue of "string bidding". As a logical first step in my investigation, I went to my EBay summary page and typed "string" in the Search box. I suggest that you do the same. I strongly support "string" bidding as a result of my investigation.

Well, I guess I have become a fan of string bidding! Altho my wife will have a little to say about that. Told her it was recommended by a Dr I know!

Seriously. I have bid on several items thru PWCC where one or more bidders have placed 20 or so incremental bids. Normally these bids are far short of final prices. Cant blame a guy for trying, altho several had multiple retractions in their history. Looks to me like dealing with one may deal with a bunch of the other.

Oh yeah, I've made a few "string bids". Like two or three small incrementals when the bids are larger than I have expectd, having blown past my max bid and I have no clue where they are going. Usually on higher end graded cards I need to upgrade a set.....will I do this again? Probably. Just being honest.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by smallpaul2002

It would be nice if Ebay (or PWCC for that matter) would block sniper software so auction items would be won in a fair bidding process, as compared to losing an item you have been winning for 6 days and losing it with one second to go in the auction. That is my biggest issue, who has not lost an item with seconds to go and felt "ripped off "by some high-tech computer sniper software that is nothing short "illegal". Only solution..if you can't beat em..join em.
One solution to this problem ......, you should be "blocked" from bidding, if you have never bid on the item in the last 10 minutes before the auction ends.
This solution at the very least,would allow the seller get higher prices for items for sale, as opposed to a prospective bidder getting "blocked out" by the bidding ending with 1 second left in the auction due to sniper software.

Nope, gotta call BS on this one. Blocking late bidders doesn't raise prices; at most it makes people bid earlier. If you snipe you put in a max bid that is executed in the last several seconds of the auction. That max bid is your choice, and that doesn't change regardless of the closing time.

Sniping software is popular because it prevents shilling: if I don't bid until the last few seconds, no one can shill me because there is nothing to run up. Also, I bid on stuff from all over the world, with closing times in various zones. And I have a business to run. I don't have the opportunity to sit on an auction close, especially if it is on the East Coast or overseas, so a snipe program frees me from having to pay attention to specific closes. I lodge my snipe with the service and forget about it until the auction ends.

[jmb]

The only bid retraction I remember making was due to different computer screens. I bid on an item at work one day thinking nice card but when I got home the flaws on the card were much more visible on my home screen and it wasn't so nice after all.

[Mikehealer]

25 bid retractions is a ridiculous number. Any amount over 2 or 3 every 10-15 years is too many much less 25 in a six month span. I can't imagine someone being stupid enough to make the same mistake that many times in such a short time. They are obviously dishonest so ban/block them and be done with it.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

In American English, judgement is generally considered a misspelling of judgment for all uses of the word, notwithstanding individual preferences

Judgment is a legal term and I stand corrected by the honorable attorney. Long live your medulla oblongata, Peter.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by D.P.Johnson

No Dale. What you're doing isn't "string" bidding. "String" bidding is when someone is "fishing" to see if they can find out where the maximum bid is by continuously bidding with minimum increments. When someone does that, they can sometimes see what the high bid is before they actually reach it because the incremental bid amount will suddenly change. Hope that makes sense. It's kinda hard to explain...
That being said, I always snipe...

I like string bidding as well....I mean...Ebay is allowing you to bid that minimum. That almost reminds me of the scene on the movie Office Space. Do you really want just the bare minimum of 15 pins? Or do you want to be like Brian and wear 47 pins?? If you want me to wear 47 pins, just make 47 pins the minimum.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

I like string bidding as well....I mean...Ebay is allowing you to bid that minimum. That almost reminds me of the scene on the movie Office Space. Do you really want just the bare minimum of 15 pins? Or do you want to be like Brian and wear 47 pins?? If you want me to wear 47 pins, just make 47 pins the minimum.

My guess is that string bidding will be analysed and dealt with accordingly. I doubt Brent and Team will prohibit any legitimate bidding. This policy is a great start to helping the hobby rid itself of some of ebay's ills...

[pbspelly]

I don't really understand the string bid theory (not to be confused with string theory).

Is the theory that a sham string bidder is trying to drive the price up but then quit just before he becomes the high bidder?

Or that the sham string bidder will drive the price up until they actually become the high bidder, but hope someone else will then outbid their last incremental bid?

Or is it that they drive the price up and then retract their last winning bid?

Or maybe some combination of the three?

I always just thought string bidders were inexperienced with eBay and didn't know what they were doing.

[bobbyw8469]

String bidders bid like $1 at a time. About 20 times in a row....rather than just one bid that is $20 higher.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by pbspelly

I don't really understand the string bid theory (not to be confused with string theory).

Is the theory that a sham string bidder is trying to drive the price up but then quit just before he becomes the high bidder?

Or that the sham string bidder will drive the price up until they actually become the high bidder, but hope someone else will then outbid their last incremental bid?

Or is it that they drive the price up and then retract their last winning bid?

Or maybe some combination of the three?

I always just thought string bidders were inexperienced with eBay and didn't know what they were doing.

What we saw over the early half of the year was the same guys trying to drive up the price without winning.

[irv]

Originally Posted by D.P.Johnson

No Dale. What you're doing isn't "string" bidding. "String" bidding is when someone is "fishing" to see if they can find out where the maximum bid is by continuously bidding with minimum increments. When someone does that, they can sometimes see what the high bid is before they actually reach it because the incremental bid amount will suddenly change. Hope that makes sense. It's kinda hard to explain...
That being said, I always snipe...

Thanks for the reply, Daniel. I appreciate it.

[icollectDCsports]

Originally Posted by irv

Thanks for the reply, Daniel. I appreciate it.

I see, so a string bidder who's not really intending to win knows when to stop. That's the part that I was not understanding before this explanation.

[Snapolit1]

If a string bidder knows to stop at $1499, why does he want to waste his time bidding in dollar intervals to jack the price up? If it's sitting at $1000, just bid once at $1499 and go to bed. Why bother wasting time with interim bids.

[Luke]

Because if the leading bidder entered an odd amount like $1475.85, the string bidder might find that out $1 at a time.

He bids $1471, the high bid goes to $1472

He then bids $1473, and the high bid goes to $1474

He then bids $1475 and the high bid goes to $1475.85.

Now he knows to stop.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by LukeLyon

Because if the leading bidder entered an odd amount like $1475.85, the string bidder might find that out $1 at a time.

He bids $1471, the high bid goes to $1472

He then bids $1473, and the high bid goes to $1474

He then bids $1475 and the high bid goes to $1475.85.

Now he knows to stop.

I saw that time and again just randomly looking at bidding histories in certain types of auctions.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Quoting eBay's policy on shill bidding:

"Policy overview

Shill bidding happens when anyone—including family, friends, roommates, employees, or online connections—bids on an item with the intent to artificially increase its price or desirability. "


IMO, based on eBay's definition of shill bidding, a "string" bidder is nothing more than a shill bidder when their sole intent as a bidder is to "artificially increase" an item's by price by placing consecutive but small increment bids only to reveal the high bidders top bid while they have no intention of bidding to win the item.

In other words, per eBay's definition of shill bidding, string bidding is shill bidding due to the bidders intent to artificially increase an item's price.

[Exhibitman]

Yeah but without a retraction you cannot tell whether a bid is legit. My view is that if a bidder always risks winning then the bid is legit. Solution: prohibit a retraction. Put the bidder in jeopardy of becoming high bidder and he won't risk it on a high priced item.

[pbspelly]

Originally Posted by LukeLyon

Because if the leading bidder entered an odd amount like $1475.85, the string bidder might find that out $1 at a time.

He bids $1471, the high bid goes to $1472

He then bids $1473, and the high bid goes to $1474

He then bids $1475 and the high bid goes to $1475.85.

Now he knows to stop.

This explains a lot. Thanks

[Peter_Spaeth]

Prior discussion of whether some string bidding is shilling or not.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...hlight=pushing

[Snapolit1]

I still don't get it. Who is the croooked string bidder? Is he a friend of the guy who consigned the item? Is he the seller himself? And why does he care so much about 85 cents in the above example if he's spending over 1000 on a card?

If someone bids $1000 on an item but puts a max bid of $1200, who cares if that gab is closed in $1 intervals or $100.

I'm nowhere near smart enough to make sense of this.

[Snapolit1]

Thread Peter posted was useful.

[Luke]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

I still don't get it. Who is the croooked string bidder? Is he a friend of the guy who consigned the item? Is he the seller himself? And why does he care so much about 85 cents in the above example if he's spending over 1000 on a card?

If someone bids $1000 on an item but puts a max bid of $1200, who cares if that gab is closed in $1 intervals or $100.

I'm nowhere near smart enough to make sense of this.

The reason tiny incremental bids is worse is because the string bidder can "find out" where the max bid is without exceeding it. In your example, the shill bidder has no idea that the max is $1200, so they would rather bid it up at the smallest increment in hopes of finding the max than just bid $1100 and risk becoming high bidder because the previous max was only $1050.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by Leon

My guess is that string bidding will be analysed and dealt with accordingly. I doubt Brent and Team will prohibit any legitimate bidding. This policy is a great start to helping the hobby rid itself of some of ebay's ills...

Agreed. This is a significant change that many members here have been suggesting for quite a while. The fact that those who retract bids in pwcc auctions will be banned from their auctions and Ebay all together should go a long way towards improving auction integrity. I think this is a great step and hope to see others follow.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by LukeLyon

Because if the leading bidder entered an odd amount like $1475.85, the string bidder might find that out $1 at a time.

He bids $1471, the high bid goes to $1472

He then bids $1473, and the high bid goes to $1474

He then bids $1475 and the high bid goes to $1475.85.

Now he knows to stop.

Not likely. According to eBay, you cannot bid a dollar increment on a $1200 item. That requires a $25 increment. A buck will only get you to $99.

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Leon

Very good. Thanks PWCC folks !! I wish all sellers would institute your policy.

A big +1!

Thanks,

Larry

[Snapolit1]

The only thing that makes any sense is the idea posted in the string Peter cited: someone is trying to run the price up - but not win it - because they have the same card and are in effect trying to protect their investment buy making sure a card doesn't sell for too low a price. If I paid 160,000 for a Rose rookie card, I might be a little concerned if one was about to close at 90,000. So I pump the gas a little hoping to move up the price, not really hoping to be the buyer at the end of the day. Still think this is a dangerous strategy if you don't really want the cRd, particularly at AHs with a 10% step up on bids. Of course if you are a real dirt bag you just renege on the deal f you are accidentally the winner and don't pay at all. Or use 1 of your 25 retractions.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

The only thing that makes any sense is the idea posted in the string Peter cited: someone is trying to run the price up - but not win it - because they have the same card and are in effect trying to protect their investment buy making sure a card doesn't sell for too low a price. If I paid 160,000 for a Rose rookie card, I might be a little concerned if one was about to close at 90,000. So I pump the gas a little hoping to move up the price, not really hoping to be the buyer at the end of the day. Still think this is a dangerous strategy if you don't really want the cRd, particularly at AHs with a 10% step up on bids. Of course if you are a real dirt bag you just renege on the deal f you are accidentally the winner and don't pay at all. Or use 1 of your 25 retractions.

There is no visibility into auctions that don't get paid for. There never has been in AHs (except when you see the same card available for less within a week LOL). On ebay, there isn't any now, particularly with the removal of IDs and the inability of a seller to leave negative feedback.

[Beastmode]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

There is no visibility into auctions that don't get paid for. There never has been in AHs (except when you see the same card available for less within a week LOL). On ebay, there isn't any now, particularly with the removal of IDs and the inability of a seller to leave negative feedback.

Which leads us to the real strategy of the buyers group. Pump up a bunch of high end vintage cards to 3-6X average price through string bidding or shilling, while never paying for the cards and retracting all those bids. Watch VCP swallow the data and recalculate inordinately high average prices; then sell your own supply that you bought last year at the new fictitious VCP average.


IMO, the real issue here is VCP needs to find a way to eliminate any auction that hasn't been completed (paid for). Start with ebay, then go from there to AH's. I know easier said than done, but maybe ebay and VCP can partner up.

[Snapolit1]

I am sure this has happened, I'd be surprised if it was an epidemic. Have to say the recent machinations around that Rose rookie card have been interesting to say the least.

In a few short months we've gone from a cabal of filthy rich hedge fund guys who don't care about how much money they spend on anything, to what sounds like a sophisticated group of criminals intent on rigging the auction market and third tracking party tracking services. Maybe a third theory will surface before long.

Wherever there is big money there is fraud. You can count on that.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

I am sure this has happened, I'd be surprised if it was an epidemic. Have to say the recent machinations around that Rose rookie card have been interesting to say the least.

In a few short months we've gone from a cabal of filthy rich hedge fund guys who don't care about how much money they spend on anything, to what sounds like a sophisticated group of criminals intent on rigging the auction market and third tracking party tracking services. Maybe a third theory will surface before long.

Wherever there is big money there is fraud. You can count on that.

Lets don't forget, a few who have committed fraud are wearing jumpsuits in prison right about now. I wish more fraudsters, especially Peter Nash., were there too.....

[griffon512]

nice to see the large amount of responses to the pwcc new policy, especially in light of the bid retraction issue was something i proposed a change in recently and the response from board members was mixed: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=224524

i started that post after a conversation with brent highlighting this issue and learned that they had policy changes in process. now that we see the culmination of this process, a couple of thoughts on how to improve it:

1) a starting point of 25 bid retractions on the ebay platform over the last 6 months is much too high imo. an ending point of potentially 5 is also too high. i have read the posts on legitimate bid retractions and find all of them underwhelming. i would suggest starting with 4 as a trial balloon and within a few months at most ending with 2. the actual number is less relevant, thankfully, if the first part of the policy change is rigidly enforced -- if someone has 2 bid retractions on pwcc's site the user's account will be suspended from further bidding on their site.

2) string bidding does not bother me because every bid the user makes could be the winning bid...unless they retract the bid. the intention of the bid is not very relevant to me as long as the user is willing to pay the bid price. no one can police intentions. we can police non-payments/bid retractions. what's relevant for all of us is that a "real" market price is reflected by their bid given the expectation they maintain the bid and pay for the item if they win!

i think this is a very good start from pwcc, would just like to see more teeth on the bid retraction number and reconsidering string bidding.

[Brent Huigens]

Thank you all for your thoughts, comments, and questions. I have been closely watching your reactions to our original post and I’m replying now to answer the questions that were raised. This will be our last post on this thread. If you have further questions, or have feedback you’d like to share, please send an email directly to me (betsy@pwccauctions.com) or to our bid monitoring email address (bidmonitoring@pwccauctions.com).

Questions concerning our ability to enforce our Bid Retraction Policy

Retractions on PWCC items:

Just like other sellers on eBay, we are notified real-time when a bid is retracted on our auctions. We review the issue and take action daily.

• First Offense: When a bidder retracts their first bid with PWCC, we report it and a warning is issued by eBay.
• Second Offense: Should a second retraction occur on our account, that bidder will have their bidding privileges revoked by eBay for a period of 14 days.
• Third Offense: Should a third retraction occur on our account, that bidder will have their account suspended by eBay.

Total number of bid retractions eBay-wide:

For each occurrence of a bid retraction, as well as through various spot checks of our listings, we take note of the total number of bid retractions that a particular user ID has on their account eBay-wide. We take action based on the following approach:

• When a bidder has between 0-9 bid retractions in the last six months, we log When a bidder has between 10-24 bid retractions in the last six months, we send a warning message outlining the fact that bidders who show 25+ bid retractions in the last six months will be blocked from participating in PWCC auctions
• When a bidder has 25 or more bid retractions in the last six months, we block that user ID from participating in PWCC auctions

As pointed out by many of you, 25 is indeed a very high number of bid retractions to be considered reasonable in a six-month period. It stands to reason that any bidder who is bidding with discipline and control should have very few justifiable retractions. Brent and I put great consideration on how we would roll out this process. Truly, if we placed the threshold at something lower like 10 or 5, we feared it would be too much of a drastic change. Ultimately, our goal is not to punish bidders, but rather to inform users of the rules as we believe in due time bid retractions will diminish.

We are starting with 25 as the threshold to help get the word out. Starting in Q1 2017 it will be reduced to 10, and later in 2017 it may be reduced to 5.

Questions about the definition of String Bidding:

As highlighted by many of you, simply placing a series of sequential bids is not string bidding. We understand the logistics of bidding on eBay, particularly using eBay’s app which actually makes it easiest to place minimum bids, and we understand that many bidders place a series of sequential bids for completely legitimate reasons.

Here’s why placing a series of bids at the minimum bid increment can be problematic:

Let's assume there are two bidders interested in a listing. Bidder A is the high bidder at $6,000, but has a maximum bid of $7350. Bidder B places a bid of $6,100, and eBay raises the bid to $6,200. Bidder B bids $6,300 and eBay raises the bid to $6,400, and so on. Finally, when Bidder B bids $7,300, eBay raises the bid to $7,350 (not $7,400) thereby ‘outing’ bidder A’s max bid. This essentially allowed Bidder B to increase the bidding to Bidder A’s max bid while greatly reducing the likelihood that they became the high bidder themselves (50/50 odds). We will remain patient on this topic as it’s NOT our primary concern (bid retractions and unpaid items are far larger issues), but we do hope to limit string bidding and will contact users who seem to employ this behavior.

Two important notes:

1. Most troubling is when there is an instance of string bidding paired with a bid retraction. A bidder that engages in this behavior has and will be blocked from participating in PWCC auctions and will be reported to eBay. We have a zero tolerance on obviously manipulative behavior and string bidding paired with a retraction is considered highly manipulative.

2. String bidding which ultimately results in that user ID becoming the high bidder (eventually) will not be flagged by PWCC as this clearly suggests that the string bidder has real intention to win the item.

Since implementing our policies here are some statistics:

• PWCC has blocked 92 user IDs for having 25+ bid retractions in the last six months and contacted those bidders in hopes they will refrain from retracting bids moving forward
• PWCC has reached out to 62 user IDs for having between 10-24 bid retractions in the last six months
• PWCC has reached out to 54 user IDs to explain our position on string bidding
• PWCC has blocked 16 user IDs due to malicious string bidding combined with a retraction
• eBay has sent warning messages to 375 user IDs (we've been logging bid retractions for the past 8 months)
• eBay has suspended bidding across eBay for 14 days for three user IDs for their second bid retraction
• To date eBay has not taken the step to suspend any IDs but will do so for a bidder who retracts their third bid with PWCC

Please contact me directly (betsy@pwccauctions.com) with any questions, comments, or feedback. Thank you!

[Stonepony]

All sounds very reasonable to me. Thank you for these efforts!!

[Mikehealer]

Originally Posted by Brent Huigens

[/LIST]As pointed out by many of you, 25 is indeed a very high number of bid retractions to be considered reasonable in a six-month period. It stands to reason that any bidder who is bidding with discipline and control should have very few justifiable retractions. Brent and I put great consideration on how we would roll out this process. Truly, if we placed the threshold at something lower like 10 or 5, we feared it would be too much of a drastic change. Ultimately, our goal is not to punish bidders, but rather to inform users of the rules as we believe in due time bid retractions will diminish.

We are starting with 25 as the threshold to help get the word out. Starting in Q1 2017 it will be reduced to 10, and later in 2017 it may be reduced to 5.

If a bidder should have very few justifiable retractions, as you state, then why start at 25? Drastic change! Don't want to punish! They should be punished, they are crooks for goodness sakes.

Couldn't you send out 1 more email, I get multiple emails from you every month, as I guess most of the people that bid or have bid in your auctions.
It wouldn't take much, just a sentence or two. You are welcome to use the following.

If you have 10 bid retractions in the last 6 months you can't bid in our auctions, effective immediately.

[Snapolit1]

Thanks for taking a leadership position on this in the industry. Would be nice if some of the other AHs weighed in with their reaction and efforts in this regard. Let's say I'm not holding my breath.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Would be nice if some of the other AHs weighed in with their reaction and efforts in this regard.

One already has. Probstein was alerted of shill bidders (by name) and still continued to let them consign AND shill their own auctions.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Mikehealer

If a bidder should have very few justifiable retractions, as you state, then why start at 25? Drastic change! Don't want to punish! They should be punished, they are crooks for goodness sakes.

Couldn't you send out 1 more email, I get multiple emails from you every month, as I guess most of the people that bid or have bid in your auctions.
It wouldn't take much, just a sentence or two. You are welcome to use the following.

If you have 10 bid retractions in the last 6 months you can't bid in our auctions, effective immediately.

I agree with Mike. I applaud the effort in general, but there is no reason in my opinion to phase this in so gradually insofar as the bid retractions go. To me it's like giving people three months' notice that robbing banks won't be tolerated.