Small Traditions LLC/SCANDAL UPDATE

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

As I've pointed out many times when I see idiocy like PWCC can't possibly monitor its own business, it takes a few minutes at most to sort your auctions by highest bid price and look through a given number for unusual activity.

This is perhaps the single most ignorant post I've ever seen you make. You are miles out of your element here Peter. This is tantamount to me telling you how easy it should be to litigate one of your cases despite me never having spent even 5 minutes of my life in a law office.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I did it myself frequently, sort his auctions by price that is and look through the bidding on 10 or 20. It took no time at all. How arrogant of me.

This sort of sample was more than enough to identify certain types of recurring issues on expensive cards. You're missing the forest for the trees. You're also missing the human element, he knew who was doing what, and I base that on conversations as well as observation.

It's you who is out of your element, playing contrarian for some undisclosed purpose.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It's you who is out of your element, playing contrarian for some undisclosed purpose.

Here you go with your conspiracy theories again and my "undisclosed purpose".

I assure you I am not the one who is out of his element here. I'm a data scientist. You're a lawyer. This is a data problem that requires data solutions.

[Peter_Spaeth]

No, it requires judgment and common sense more than anything, you're wrong again.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

No, it requires judgment and common sense more than anything, you're wrong again.

And data! Perhaps you forgot about that part.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Most fraud cases do not require data scientists to prove, sorry.

Nor will this one, should it happen.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Most fraud cases do not require data scientists to prove, sorry.

Nor will this one, should it happen.

Of course, individual cases of fraud can often be discovered without the need for a data scientist or someone with similar data skills.

But that's not what we're talking about here. You don't get to move the goalposts. We're talking about preventing fraud at the enterprise level. Eliminating, or at least significantly reducing, to whatever extent possible, the problem of shill bidding. Not just catching a few bad actors here and there. If all they did was implement your "solution", nothing would change. You guys would still latch on to the other 99% of the people doing this and still say PWCC isn't clamping down on shill bidding. And those same bad actors would just pop up a new eBay account and do it again anyhow. They need access to a database of these users and their activity. They need bid history data and IP addresses in addition to numerous other relevant fields of data. Any solution to this problem worth its salt is an enterprise-level solution that definitely requires the skills that a data scientist possesses. But it sounds like you've got it solved. Perhaps you could sell your "solution" to eBay? I bet they'd love to hear you pitch.

It's funny that people keep posting that PM between Brent and Courtney where Courtney says, "I'm not doing anything 10m other people don't do." While the number probably isn't 10 million people in just this hobby, his point is still valid. This is a massive scale problem and there are millions of eBay users engaged in this sort of activity daily. You're not even going to make a dent by spot-checking listings one by one. This is just a remarkably inefficient and ignorant solution to much, much larger problem.

[Yoda]

Just to lighten up things here, I would seek others' opinions about PWCC's vault situation. How many cards have fled since their bad news broke? Of those that fled how many have already been consigned to auction houses, such as REA and Goldin who have actively solicited them? Or how many cards are back in the arms of their loving owners who are waiting for the dust to settle? Or how many cards have stayed in the vault and will make an appearance in PWCC's first independent auction? Much pondering.