Worthpoint removes 30 million sports card listings

[Johnny630]

Very Suspicious......

[Peter_Spaeth]

It would be great if someone could post this to CU. I would do it myself but I was banned lol.

[D. Bergin]

"Normal Optimization" LOL!!!


Your entire business is designed on providing data to your customers. You then redact a large percentage of that data?

Nothing normal about that.

There's a multitude of different reasons why they would do something like that. Without getting into possible conspiracies (which may or may not be valid), the most obvious would be some kind of a cost cutting measure.

Cost of additional servers to archive that data. Cost of licensing to provide that data from Ebay or other sources. Cost of additional employees to corral, corroborate and archive that data, however they might be doing it.

It would be nice if they were upfront about it one way or another. The fact they cloak it in a phrase like "Normal Optimization", is what makes people think their explanation is likely suspect.

The idea of Worthpoint has always intrigued me. Been tempted to dip my toes past the paywall, but couldn't ever seem to justify the cost to myself. This pretty much settles it.

[samosa4u]

Do you think that Worthpoint received a letter from a lawyer threatening legal action unless they took the listings down?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Do you think that Worthpoint received a letter from a lawyer threatening legal action unless they took the listings down?

If it's a licensing issue, that's possible.

[griffon512]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If it's a licensing issue, that's possible.

Thanks for the head's up on this. I cancelled my subscription and they are giving me a pro rated refund. As expected, the representative I talked to had no explanation for the change but said corporate was having a meeting about it today.

[samosa4u]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If it's a licensing issue, that's possible.

No, that's not what I'm talking about. Imagine being in Brent's shoes here. A group of guys, who have nothing else to do, spend hours each day browsing through Worthpoint listings. They find so many altered cards, which you've sold, and now you have to refund everything, or most of them, from your own pocket. This is something that can go on forever, right? Are you not going to try and put a stop to this?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

No, that's not what I'm talking about. Imagine being in Brent's shoes here. A group of guys, who have nothing else to do, spend hours each day browsing through Worthpoint listings. They find so many altered cards, which you've sold, and now you have to refund everything, or most of them, from your own pocket. This is something that can go on forever, right? Are you not going to try and put a stop to this?

What basis would Brent have to demand that Worthpoint take down its listings? I mean we can speculate all we want but that doesn't make sense to me.

[swarmee]

Nat Turner, the new part-owner of Collector's Universe, would be a better bogeyman for the tin foil hat crowd. Obviously with PSA's liability in their Grade Guarantee and Turner's ability to buy companies at whim, it would at least be a more plausible conspiracy theory.

The same type of data is available for free through Brent's PWCC Marketplace with a free login for sports cards, maybe not every single listing that Worthpoint had, but a lion's share of it I'd guess.

It certainly seems bizarre that Worthpoint would go, "Man, we're getting a lot of people consistently searching for historical baseball cards and items! We should really clear them out!"

Another possibility is that eBay itself restricted the data feed, or tried to strong arm Worthpoint to remove it so eBay could charge more for its historical data. We know they're restricting sites like watchcount and 130point to run as many queries as they usually do.

Kind of reminds me of the VCP image quality "improvements" a couple of years ago where making lower fidelity images available was considered "optimization." Hopefully Worthpoint reverses their decision, because if PSA and PWCC are the only arbiters of historical images and pricing data, then the fox is guarding the henhouse again.

[Bigdaddy]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

What basis would Brent have to demand that Worthpoint take down its listings? I mean we can speculate all we want but that doesn't make sense to me.

You wouldn't have to demand it, just pay them to do it.

[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It would be great if someone could post this to CU. I would do it myself but I was banned lol.

Myself as well! Per their moderator " they wont be reactivating my account"


I'm crushed

[chalupacollects]

Maybe the FBI folks running the trimming scandal can make a phone call and ask?

[wnp22]

Edit: Whoops saw this info was already given earlier in the thread. My bad. Still recommend these for your price research.

If you’re looking for something to fill the gap, PWCC has a free database of sold listings going back to like 2008ish and of course VCP is the best for tracking graded sales. (I have no part in either of these, just putting the info out there for people that don’t know)

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

Myself as well! Per their moderator " they wont be reactivating my account"


I'm crushed

I had the temerity to ask at the beginning of the BODA stuff something along the lines of, how are we to understand this? It really wasn't inflammatory at all. My account went poof within minutes. This after I had been told how the new mod was a great guy.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I had the temerity to ask at the beginning of the BODA stuff something along the lines of, how are we to understand this? It really wasn't inflammatory at all. My account went poof within minutes. This after I had been told how the new mod was a great guy.

Peter:

I will vouch the moderator is a good guy, we've known each other for at least a decade and I finally met him at either the 2017 or 2018 NSCC.

However, being a good guy and having to follow corporate dictates are two very different things. Let's say his boss said your account has to go for that post, then he has no real option but to poof your account

Rich

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Peter:

I will vouch the moderator is a good guy, we've known each other for at least a decade and I finally met him at either the 2017 or 2018 NSCC.

However, being a good guy and having to follow corporate dictates are two very different things. Let's say his boss said your account has to go for that post, then he has no real option but to poof your account

Rich

While obviously not remotely equivalent to the defense raised at Nuremberg, I am not sure I always buy the "my boss made me do it" rationale for doing something one doesn't believe is right. In any event, I would be surprised if the decision was made at a higher level, it was almost instant.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

The defendants at Nuremberg said the same thing, and I would be surprised if the decision was made at a higher level, it was almost instant.

Peter:

That comment is beneath you, this is baseball cards not something more serious. FYI my wife is the daughter of a survivor so I take all those references very seriously

Rich