ebay finds that PWCC engaged in shill bidding?

[Jersey City Giants]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

sure seems curious that some people that claim to have spoken to ebay told them this message did not originate from them...while others say the oposite?

Someone's lying?

Nope I am not lying that they said it was not their email. However, this was just a service Rep who called me back (I did not click the link in the email I went straight to eBay's site in the Help section as I was unsure if it was a real email or not - it took them ~35 min to call me back). She said eBay would not out a member (buyer or seller) in a mass email. That being said, she had not heard about anything so was just reacting to what I told her I received. Hope that helps.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by Jersey City Giants

Nope I am not lying that they said it was not their email. However, this was just a service Rep who called me back (I did not click the link in the email I went straight to eBay's site in the Help section as I was unsure if it was a real email or not - it took them ~35 min to call me back). She said eBay would not out a member (buyer or seller) in a mass email. That being said, she had not heard about anything so was just reacting to what I told her I received. Hope that helps.

This.....it makes no sense. Sounds more like a disgruntled card collector with an axe to grind. I had some experience with some of those on the PSA boards many years ago. They are out there.

[JollyElm]

Two things:

1. I can't believe how many collectors here buy things from these scum merchants.
2. If they truly become 'vanished,' what's going to fill up all the space dedicated to screaming about them every day on net54???

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Two things:

1. I can't believe how many collectors here buy things from these scum merchants.
2. If they truly become 'vanished,' what's going to fill up all the space dedicated to screaming about them every day on net54???

1. and openly admit it
2. Dont worry we will find something

I didn't get the email but I can proudly say I don't ever remember buying anything from PWWC.

Since I have seen a serious lack of cards in this thread. Here is my favorite Tim Carroll cut card art work.

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by bnorth

1. and openly admit it
2. Dont worry we will find something

I didn't get the email but I can proudly say I don't ever remember buying anything from PWWC.

Some of us can only aspire to have such blanket moral superiority and ironclad discipline.

Maybe someday!

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by cardsagain74

Some of us can only aspire to have such blanket moral superiority and ironclad discipline.

Maybe someday!

It's only in cards, life is much different.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Guess ebay has built up enough business over the past 18 months that they can now do w/o PWCC's $150M/yr in sales. Ebay is clearly in the driver's seat to dump one of their largest "clients" like this....their stock closed at over $75 yesterday, but was down 3% today. My guess is that it will rebound tomorrow. Ebay's stock price in March 2020 was around $30.

My guess is that this was not a move ebay could afford to make just 15 months ago.

[buymycards]

Quote ) As one of the world’s largest marketplaces, eBay has policies in place to protect our buyers and sellers. eBay was founded on trust, and we work every day to ensure a fair and positive experience for the entire eBay community.
Recently, it was determined that individuals associated with a trading card seller, PWCC, have engaged in “shill bidding,” which is prohibited on eBay. As a result, eBay has restricted PWCC’s selling privileges and listings, effective today. eBay’s policies and standards were designed to ensure a trusted marketplace where our community can transact with confidence. If we determine that a buyer or seller is not acting in good faith, eBay takes this seriously and takes action. Our customer service team will work directly with anyone who has a question about a recent PWCC transaction [link].

eBay is the destination for buying and selling trading cards - built over 25 years with our passionate community of collectors and sellers, as partners, on that journey. Trust is the cornerstone of eBay, which is why we felt it was important to share this information with our community. We assure you that eBay will continue to take actions to deliver on our commitment. (Quote)

This statement from eBay is hilarious. It is coming from a company that allows tens of thousands of fake cards to be listed and sold, and from a company that allows bidders to have 100's of bid retractions, and from a company that allows scammers to cheat buyers and sellers of sports cards.

Shutting down one company is a step in the right direction, but they have a long way to go if they want to regain our trust.

[bobbyw8469]

Now PWCC seems to be proactively closing listings out too!! Darn it!!! I was trying to get that Bird rookie PSA 9 for $50k!

[tessiepants]

I called eBay earlier today and just got this email:

Hello Kevin ,

Thanks for reaching out to Concierge Support regarding the email that you received about the purchases from seller pwcc_auctions and

pwcc_vault. We are more than happy to help clarify what has happened.

The seller is no longer allowed to sell on eBay. When something like that happens we remove all listings and bids. If the items show as being shipped you are still covered if you do not get the items. You can open a case just like you normally would if the item does not arrive after the estimated delivery date.

So as a high value buyer who has made a large purchase with the seller, we are notifying you due to the seller no longer being active on eBay. For security and privacy reasons, I am not able to tell you why the seller’s listing was removed or why the seller is no longer an active eBay seller. The email we sent is meant to reinforce our commitment to create a fair and trusted marketplace for all members. No action is required on your part.

However, like I stated If there is any issues with the items that have already been purchased and you need some help with buyer protection cases please let us know and we will be here for you.

Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions or concerns you may have. Thanks again for allowing the Concierge Support Team the opportunity to assist you.

Thank you,

Clark

eBay Concierge Support

[BobC]

Interesting timing, just got duplicate emails from Goldin offering free lifetime "vault" submissions if consigning to them.

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by BobC

Interesting timing, just got duplicate emails from Goldin offering free lifetime "vault" submissions if consigning to them.

Got it also

Interesting timing and trying to grow their vault business.

Could be a double whammy for PWCC

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

Now PWCC seems to be proactively closing listings out too!! Darn it!!! I was trying to get that Bird rookie PSA 9 for $50k!

You done good...They would have bid you up to 100K Private shill bidding you the trimmed card anyway. You were lucky

[Golf History]

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blo...ePfPjaqu0zxCXY

[Snowman]

Wow! Pretty crazy turn of events today. I've read a lot of conspiracy theories so far, some rather comical. I think a few observations are probably worth noting though, if trying to figure out what's actually happening behind the scenes. I'm just speculating and exercising my critical thinking skills though here, so take this with a grain of salt. I don't know anyone on the inside at either company who is in charge of making these decisions.

A few observations:

1 - PWCC has been working on their own separate platform to compete against eBay. Their Premier Auction in July was the first launch of part of their new independent platform. This is just the tip of the iceburg. As they've stated in their response to the eBay letter, they have much bigger ambitions that are soon to launch.

2 - Thus far, eBay has only banned PWCC. They didn't ban Probstein, which has gotten just as much heat on the forums as PWCC regarding this topic.

3 - PWCC's definition of "shill bidding" is perhaps peculiarly worded on their website. "Shill bidding is a bid placed without the intention to honor it - regardless of who placed the bid." https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/faq

4 - I believe it is rather common for many auction houses to expressly allow shill bidding in their TOS (or so I've read)

5 - In the past, eBay has repeatedly demonstrated that they couldn't care less about shill bidding (I recently created a thread on this topic).

6 - Historically, eBay has not taken well to competition over the years, nor criticism. They have bought out numerous start-up auction sites over the years in an effort to maintain their monopoly, and I'm sure everyone here is familiar with the recent news articles about former eBay employees who were recently sentenced to prison for cyberstalking a couple from Massachusetts who published articles criticizing eBay.


What does this all mean? What's actually going on here?

I don't buy for a second that this is eBay's attempt at cracking down on shill bidding. That's bullshit. If eBay wanted to crack down on this, they would have done so a long time ago, and they would have done it from the inside. They are the ones with all of the relevant bidding behavior and user data. Not the sellers. They can easily crack down on shill bidding, but they've chosen not to, likely because it's a project that would take money out of their pockets.

To me, this smells like it's one of two things.
1) The most likely scenario to me is that eBay is pissed off at PWCC because PWCC basically built their brand on eBay's platform and now they think they are big enough that they can just create their own platform to compete against eBay, taking hundreds of millions of dollars of business along with them, so eBay decided to tarnish their brand on their way out the door. Sort of the "you can't quit, you're fired!" approach.
2) The not-so-recent FBI investigation into the sports card market has begun to finally shown its teeth after dragging along for many years in silence, and they are somehow just now knocking on eBay's door, asking for records on PWCC's bidding activity. I find this to be a rather low likelihood though for a multitude of reasons, the least of which is eBay's otherwise couldn't-care-less approach to shill bidding in general. If eBay were feeling heat from the FBI, they would have tightened up shill bidding long before now.

Also note that eBay's wording is rather suspect to me. "Individuals associated with PWCC"... Really? That's the best they could do? Notice what they didn't say. "PWCC is engaged in shill bidding." or "PWCC personnel is engaged with shill bidding." or "PWCC employees have engaged in shill bidding". This email was without question, carefully crafted by eBay's legal team and likely signed off on by the CEO prior to being sent out. This is a strategically worded email. "Individuals associated with PWCC" to me reads as "people who consigned with PWCC", not PWCC employees. It's reads like a cleverly worded lawyer trick that has the intention of misleading its audience into believing that PWCC employees are shill bidding their eBay listings, but is worded just soft enough that if challenged in court (which it will be) they can simply say that they meant the people who consigned with PWCC were doing the shill bidding, not PWCC themselves.

Based on PWCC's response, this came out of left field. If eBay were truly just concerned about shill bidding, they wouldn't have just blindsided one of their top sellers on the entire platform. PWCC sold hundreds of millions of dollars last year alone on eBay. They would have had a meeting with Brentsy to discuss how serious they are about preventing shill bidding at the very least. They would have coordinated on this effort if preventing shill bidding was the goal. And if they had done that already, then this wouldn't have come out of left field for PWCC (which appears to be clearly the case here).

And as far as preventing shill bidding goes, PWCC has actually done far more than eBay or any other consigner I've encountered to combat this. They send you emails warning you to confirm that you intend to actually purchase an item after placing a bid if you haven't bought from them previously (I have this very email in my inbox somewhere). Otherwise they will cancel your bid. You must be vetted by thier finance team in order to participate in their Premier Auctions (I've been through this too), and if you win an item in any of their auctions but don't pay for it, they will ban your account and you won't be able to bid on their aucitons again. These are all steps to prevent shill bidding. What more can you really expect them to do? They are a consignment company. They're not eBay themselves. They don't have access to all the user data and bid history of everyone like eBay does. There's only so much they can actually do to prevent shill bidding. Most of what can be done is and should be eBay's responsibility, not PWCC's.

That said, if it were to come out that PWCC has some top-secret operation in place to where they've hired an army of North Korean hackers to create thousands of fake eBay accounts who shill bid all of their auctions for them, or Brentsy and crew have shill bidding sessions themselves at the office, then that'd be something rather extraordinary, but I highly doubt this is the case. At best, they might have a disagreement on what the definition of "shill bidding" is to begin with. Remember, Brentsy defines a shill bid as a bid with no intention of making payment if you win regardless of who you are or if you have any association with the consigner, whereas maybe eBay thinks it's a bid placed on behalf of the consigner regardless of whether or not they plan to proceed with payment, should they happen to win.

[Jersey City Giants]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

This.....it makes no sense. Sounds more like a disgruntled card collector with an axe to grind. I had some experience with some of those on the PSA boards many years ago. They are out there.

What makes no sense? I didn't trust the initial email (in other words I was worried it was a scam and didn't want to follow the link). Hence, I went right to eBay's site to have them call me back (the safe way to do it). I was called back in just over a half hour. The Rep had not heard about the email and told me that in all her years there eBay had not "outed a seller or buyer like that." She then told me it was (in her view) a fake email. Of course now we know it was real. My guess is that eBay did not inform all their reps.

I have zero ax to grind. I am not blaming the rep but will blame the job eBay did in getting the info out internally.