Update on PWCC Bid Monitoring Program

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

I don't understand the hostility directed at PWCC for at least trying something. I have had real issues with them in the past unrelated to this issue, but it seems like some of you are expecting them to solve eBay weaknesses and cure a few diseases at the same time.

It may be a surprise to some of you, but PWCC can't tell eBay how to run their business. Yes, there is a problem with apparent shill bidding and BS bid retractions on some of their items. Maybe a not insignificant number of their items. There are consignors out there who will have friends and family, and maybe even themselves with alternative accounts, pump up the price of their auction items. This is an auction fact of life. Happens on eBay and happens everywhere else. Could happen at the church auction down the street. The guy bidding against you may have no interest other than helping someone else make more money. Deal with it. It's reality.

As far as bid retractions go, I have no evidence that they are worse for PWCC than any other major card seller. Nor do I have any belief that they are any worse than say some dude selling 10,000 hummels or 10,000 watches a month on ebay. Game playing will go on. If eBay allows people to retract bids with impunity, and PWCC reaches out to them to do something, I take this as both a tacit admission that there is a problem here that should be addressed and a positive sign that Brent thinks his company's credibility is taking a meaningful hit.

My final point is that I DO NOT find 5 bid retractions a day high for an outfit that often has 5,000+ items listed at a time. That might get 25,000+ bids in a day I'd guess. 5 or 10 or even 20 of those bids are retracted. I'd say at least 50% of those could have been genuine errors. Doesn't seem overly crazy to me.

Long winded way of saying that it seems many of you have real problems with eBay and blame PWCC for them.

If someone is retracting more than 5 times on PWCC in a 3 or 6 month period they should be barred from any PWCC auctions for 6 months. Although that probably wouldn't solve the problem anyway, as a person who wants to defraud others can just open a new account.

For what it's worth, I tend to agree with Steve. As a lawyer involved in litigation, I constantly see the worst in people--it often seems that whenever money is at stake, morals and ethical behavior get thrown by the wayside, and the more bucks that are at stake, the more the behavior tends towards "anything goes!" I used to get mad as an appellate lawyer when my insurance company retained opponent would write a brief twisting the facts and law and making as many misrepresentations as possible within the allotted page limit. But then I would cool down and simply dismantle these concoctions in my reply brief, and it almost always went badly for opposing counsel who engaged in such tactics at oral argument before a 3-judge panel. But back to the main point: wherever and whenever there is money to be made through unethical behavior, honor and integrity serve as no barrier at all to a substantial portion of the population. It appears to me that Brent is at least trying to do something to head some of this BS off, and as determined as the scammers are, it's like Ringo Starr said way back in 1971: "It don't come easy."

Best regards,

Larry

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

FWIW I just sorted all their listings by "Rookie" and Highest Price. Went through the first dozen or so and was pleasantly surprised to see almost no retractions. Worst was 6 (which is still concerning) but I checked the top 5 bidders (not bids, but distinct bidders) of each auction and the vast majority were zero, with a couple of 2's and 3's and the one 6. I know it's fashionable to bash PWCC, but this does look like improvement to me.

PS. Brent, until you can pull the data from ebay directly sorting by highest price or number of bids and then examining bid histories would be more productive then random, or trying to focus on one type of card.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

FWIW I just sorted all their listings by "Rookie" and Highest Price. Went through the first dozen or so and was pleasantly surprised to see almost no retractions. Worst was 6 (which is still concerning) but I checked the top 5 bidders (not bids, but distinct bidders) of each auction and the vast majority were zero, with a couple of 2's and 3's and the one 6. I know it's fashionable to bash PWCC, but this does look like improvement to me.

PS. Brent, until you can pull the data from ebay directly sorting by highest price or number of bids and then examining bid histories would be more productive then random, or trying to focus on one type of card.

Just for comparison if you look through your own listings do your bidders have that type of bid retraction rate? I would guess they don't but am curious.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

I run very few auctions anymore, so not a great basis for comparison. That being said, I was more pointing out the progress within his auctions. 6 months ago the numbers would've looked nothing like what I discovered. Again I think there were 4 bidders out of about 48 that I checked that had ANY retractions and only one of those had more than 3. These were the top bidders on the most expensive items he has going.

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

FWIW I just sorted all their listings by "Rookie" and Highest Price. Went through the first dozen or so and was pleasantly surprised to see almost no retractions. Worst was 6 (which is still concerning) but I checked the top 5 bidders (not bids, but distinct bidders) of each auction and the vast majority were zero, with a couple of 2's and 3's and the one 6. I know it's fashionable to bash PWCC, but this does look like improvement to me.

PS. Brent, until you can pull the data from ebay directly sorting by highest price or number of bids and then examining bid histories would be more productive then random, or trying to focus on one type of card.

When I was looking at the Jordan listings, I put his name in into the search of PWCC auctions, then sorted by most bids. I expected to find a couple auctions here and there that looked a bit shady, but was a bit surprised when I really looked at how rampant the retractions/shilling was.