Small Traditions LLC/SCANDAL UPDATE

[Peter_Spaeth]

LOL but I am the arrogant one. What a piece of work you are. And it's all a straw man, I never proposed a solution to all the fraud on ebay, so you are attacking something that never was offered for that purpose. Buffoon indeed. Maybe a little reading comprehension would be in order for you. And how long before your massive ego problem causes you to self-destruct here as it did on BO?

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

LOL but I am the arrogant one. What a piece of work you are. And it's all a straw man, I never proposed a solution to all the fraud on ebay, so you are attacking something that never was offered for that purpose. Buffoon indeed. Maybe a little reading comprehension would be in order for you. And how long before your massive ego problem causes you to self-destruct here as it did on BO?

Yet with all your wisdom and humility, you still somehow cannot seem to grasp the simple fact that eBay is the only entity that houses the keys to the door you wish to unlock.

You honestly think that PWCC could and should just hire a team of BODA-like researchers to go on an eBay bidder hunting spree, clicking away at random links (sorry, 'sorted' links, perhaps just the top 10 or 20 ought to do) and suddenly all is well in shill bidding land. Perhaps Brent himself could get this all done over a coffee break or two?

I've pointed out numerous very specific problems to every solution you guys have put forward here. None of you have addressed a single one of them. I have pointed out the scale of how many auctions they're doing (over 10,000 listings per month, and millions in total). I have asked what you propose they should do even if they could find a way to compile this magic list of 100,000+ naughty eBay userIDs for free. Again, you provided no answers. I asked how much manpower you thought it would take to research and address this problem. Again, crickets. You're not here for an honest conversation or dialogue. You're just here to sling mud. At PWCC, at Probstein, at me. You have no interest in listening to someone with real-world experience in what it actually takes to solve a problem like this. Nope. You're the expert!

"Just sort by the top 10 to 20 listings and look at the bid histories. You don't need a data scientist for that."
- Peter S., September, 2021

[Peter_Spaeth]

You're completely missing my point -- you just keep mischaracterizing it and making it much bigger than it is in order to knock it down -- so I'll give up. I haven't said a word about Probstein, by the way, so stop falsely accusing me.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

You're completely missing my point -- you just keep mischaracterizing it and making it much bigger than it is in order to knock it down -- so I'll give up. I haven't said a word about Probstein, by the way, so stop falsely accusing me.

OK, so since you think I'm mischaracterizing it, please explain it as you see it then. I'll be civil. I'm honestly open to other solutions if you have one to propose. Here are some questions that I think we can probably agree would be important to ask when considering any solutions one might put forward.

1. What, specifically, is the shill bidding problem that you think PWCC should be responsible for preventing?
2. What do you think the scale of that problem is?
3. How do you think PWCC can solve this problem?
4. How much do you think your proposed solution would cost to implement?
5. How effective do you believe your solution would be with respect to the percentage of reduction in shilled listings?

[steve B]

Well, I'll take a try at it.

1. What, specifically, is the shill bidding problem that you think PWCC should be responsible for preventing?

That they do as little as possible to prevent it. It is a complex problem, as there are at least a few ways to shill. Some more stoppable than others.
Bidding up to a max then retracting- Either to ensure a shill bid won't win, or to gain an advantage. They claim they were blocking people with more than a certain number of retractions with Ebays help. (Point one against the idea that they have no access to the data, which in this instance is publicly available anyway)

Bidding in increments for the same reason. This is a bit harder, since the mobile app encourages it, just keep hitting the bid button until you're winning. But someone who bids that was but doesn't ever end up with the high bid is at least a bit suspect.

The one off bid from a bidder who isn't easily connected to the seller of consignor. Like having a friend put a bid on something as a sort of reserve. (Did it once, because I actually wanted the item and did win, pay and get it. ) I'm not sure something like that could be detected at all, and it's probably not easy if it is.

The first two can be figured out from information that's available to the seller.

I don't buy some of the tells others have mentioned, like "bought widely different cards" - I have bought T206s and modern junk wax on the same day, along with stamps and bicycle parts... so no, that's not a reliable indicator.


2. What do you think the scale of that problem is?

Lets go with the old fashioned "90% of the problems are due to 1% of the people" It may be right or wrong, but it's a place to start.

3. How do you think PWCC can solve this problem?

Having at least rudimentary software that looked at the readily available information and at least flagged it for a closer look. From their own announcements Ebay was letting them do that, and helping probably by making a slightly better dataset available.

Limiting it by setting a floor value for the item bids looked at would also make it quicker.

4. How much do you think your proposed solution would cost to implement?

I suspect it would be either much more or much less than my best guess. A few years ago we were discussing something here that I didn't think would scale, and one of the software guys provided the info in less than a couple hours. I guess it did scale easily after all....
On the other hand, I've asked my wife about setting up a database for me for a card project that's way beyond what I can do myself. The response has been anywhere from "Ummm.... maybe?" to "you'll have to learn that stuff yourself. It would take too much time"

5. How effective do you believe your solution would be with respect to the percentage of reduction in shilled listings?

In the short term, probably somewhat effective. Mid term and long term, less effective since as you point out the shills can just start up another account. If it's automated, maybe more effective than I'd believe.

Now if Ebay was serious about limiting that problem across all their auctions, they could probably prevent the replacement accounts pretty easily. I'm locked out of one website that won't allow multiple accounts since I use it maybe once every few years and can't recall my username or password and starting a new account ends with "you already have an account attached to that email, log in here"

Originally Posted by Snowman

OK, so since you think I'm mischaracterizing it, please explain it as you see it then. I'll be civil. I'm honestly open to other solutions if you have one to propose. Here are some questions that I think we can probably agree would be important to ask when considering any solutions one might put forward.

1. What, specifically, is the shill bidding problem that you think PWCC should be responsible for preventing?
2. What do you think the scale of that problem is?
3. How do you think PWCC can solve this problem?
4. How much do you think your proposed solution would cost to implement?
5. How effective do you believe your solution would be with respect to the percentage of reduction in shilled listings?

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by steve B

Well, I'll take a try at it.

1. What, specifically, is the shill bidding problem that you think PWCC should be responsible for preventing?

That they do as little as possible to prevent it. It is a complex problem, as there are at least a few ways to shill. Some more stoppable than others.
Bidding up to a max then retracting- Either to ensure a shill bid won't win, or to gain an advantage. They claim they were blocking people with more than a certain number of retractions with Ebays help. (Point one against the idea that they have no access to the data, which in this instance is publicly available anyway)

Bidding in increments for the same reason. This is a bit harder, since the mobile app encourages it, just keep hitting the bid button until you're winning. But someone who bids that was but doesn't ever end up with the high bid is at least a bit suspect.

The one off bid from a bidder who isn't easily connected to the seller of consignor. Like having a friend put a bid on something as a sort of reserve. (Did it once, because I actually wanted the item and did win, pay and get it. ) I'm not sure something like that could be detected at all, and it's probably not easy if it is.

The first two can be figured out from information that's available to the seller.

I don't buy some of the tells others have mentioned, like "bought widely different cards" - I have bought T206s and modern junk wax on the same day, along with stamps and bicycle parts... so no, that's not a reliable indicator.


2. What do you think the scale of that problem is?

Lets go with the old fashioned "90% of the problems are due to 1% of the people" It may be right or wrong, but it's a place to start.

3. How do you think PWCC can solve this problem?

Having at least rudimentary software that looked at the readily available information and at least flagged it for a closer look. From their own announcements Ebay was letting them do that, and helping probably by making a slightly better dataset available.

Limiting it by setting a floor value for the item bids looked at would also make it quicker.

4. How much do you think your proposed solution would cost to implement?

I suspect it would be either much more or much less than my best guess. A few years ago we were discussing something here that I didn't think would scale, and one of the software guys provided the info in less than a couple hours. I guess it did scale easily after all....
On the other hand, I've asked my wife about setting up a database for me for a card project that's way beyond what I can do myself. The response has been anywhere from "Ummm.... maybe?" to "you'll have to learn that stuff yourself. It would take too much time"

5. How effective do you believe your solution would be with respect to the percentage of reduction in shilled listings?

In the short term, probably somewhat effective. Mid term and long term, less effective since as you point out the shills can just start up another account. If it's automated, maybe more effective than I'd believe.

Now if Ebay was serious about limiting that problem across all their auctions, they could probably prevent the replacement accounts pretty easily. I'm locked out of one website that won't allow multiple accounts since I use it maybe once every few years and can't recall my username or password and starting a new account ends with "you already have an account attached to that email, log in here"

Thank you for making an honest attempt at answering my questions.

I think I will have to make a fairly lengthy post to better explain why I see this problem of how to identify and prevent shill bidding differently than everyone else in this thread, and why believe it is primarily eBay's responsibility as opposed to PWCC's. However, I don't have the bandwidth right now to explain it in detail, and anything short of that will just resort to more name calling, so I will follow up with a well explained post instead once I have the time.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Thank you for making an honest attempt at answering my questions.

I think I will have to make a fairly lengthy post to better explain why I see this problem of how to identify and prevent shill bidding differently than everyone else in this thread, and why believe it is primarily eBay's responsibility as opposed to PWCC's. However, I don't have the bandwidth right now to explain it in detail, and anything short of that will just resort to more name calling, so I will follow up with a well explained post instead once I have the time.

It is a complex topic, and waiting to do it justice seems fair.

[packs]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Yet with all your wisdom and humility, you still somehow cannot seem to grasp the simple fact that eBay is the only entity that houses the keys to the door you wish to unlock.

You honestly think that PWCC could and should just hire a team of BODA-like researchers to go on an eBay bidder hunting spree, clicking away at random links (sorry, 'sorted' links, perhaps just the top 10 or 20 ought to do) and suddenly all is well in shill bidding land. Perhaps Brent himself could get this all done over a coffee break or two?

I've pointed out numerous very specific problems to every solution you guys have put forward here. None of you have addressed a single one of them. I have pointed out the scale of how many auctions they're doing (over 10,000 listings per month, and millions in total). I have asked what you propose they should do even if they could find a way to compile this magic list of 100,000+ naughty eBay userIDs for free. Again, you provided no answers. I asked how much manpower you thought it would take to research and address this problem. Again, crickets. You're not here for an honest conversation or dialogue. You're just here to sling mud. At PWCC, at Probstein, at me. You have no interest in listening to someone with real-world experience in what it actually takes to solve a problem like this. Nope. You're the expert!

"Just sort by the top 10 to 20 listings and look at the bid histories. You don't need a data scientist for that."
- Peter S., September, 2021

Nobody really wants to know how eBay runs it's business. The issue the board has with certain sellers is that THEY have no control over their own auctions re: shill bidding. Or at least that is the claim we're supposed to believe.

But it becomes obvious that if one seller is selling their cards for more than any other seller gets on the same platform using the same search terminology, it is because something is different about how that seller is running their auctions, not because that seller has the right audience. All the sales take place in front of the same audience.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by packs

Nobody really wants to know how eBay runs it's business. The issue the board has with certain sellers is that THEY have no control over their own auctions re: shill bidding. Or at least that is the claim we're supposed to believe.

I agree with you here. It is certainly frustrating that the consignment companies have almost no control over who bids on their listings (other than adding someone to their blocked bidders list, which as has been pointed above caps out at 5,000 users and is insufficient for resolving this issue).

Originally Posted by packs

But it becomes obvious that if one seller is selling their cards for more than any other seller gets on the same platform using the same search terminology, it is because something is different about how that seller is running their auctions, not because that seller has the right audience. All the sales take place in front of the same audience.

I have to disagree with you here. Your statement assumes that everyone is searching eBay the same way - i.e., they're all typing in '1955 Topps Roberto Clemente' into the search bar and when one shows up that they like, they just bid on it, and that furthermore, they are every bit as willing to bid the same amount regardless of who the seller is. But in practice, this is not how it works. People use eBay in very different ways.

First, there's the issue of buyer's confidence. Having nice clear images that you can zoom in on will always outsell another listing of the same card with blurry pics. Buying from a seller with supernova feedback of 100,000+ ratings will always outsell 'jimbob007' with his (18) feedback score. Obviously there's no shortage of other reputable sellers on eBay, but if you compare a company who does all of those little things right against the overall market, they're going to outsell the competition for those reasons alone. But the biggest factor in how much an item sells for is hands down the number of eyes a seller can get on that auction. And this is where sellers like PWCC and Probstein far outweigh the competition. Just click on the user name of a given seller and you can see how many followers they have. I build predictive models for a living, and I can guarantee you if I were to build a model to predict card prices on eBay, that not only would this factor correlate to auction prices realized, it would probably be the #1 most relevant factor in the model outside of the card itself and the slab it's in. Here's a quick comparison of a few consigment companies:

PWCC (312295) - 43,944 followers still today, despite no longer selling on eBay
Probstein123 (893960) - 57,861 followers
quickconsignment_802 (37054) - 2,682 followers
gregmorriscards (312064) - 13,665 followers
4sharpcorners (312086) - 9,321 followers
sportscardauctionscom (91092) - 4,046 followers
bigboydsportscards (345236) - 12,816 followers
pcsportscards (45465) - 6,371 followers

Note that PWCC, 4sharpcorners, and gregmorriscards all have ~312,000 feedback (a fun coincidence) yet PWCC has more than 3x the number of followers as GM and 4x that of 4SC! And they certainly had even more than that before being banned from eBay. Marketing matters, and PWCC has learned this far better than their competition. Many other consignment companies have not. People in social media even do live PWCC auction watch parties. I just received a PWCC auction catalog in the mail this weekend. I get notifications from Probstein and PWCC on social media all the time, showing me cards that are up for auction that I never even would have thought to look for. I get email blasts from them as well. And PWCC organized thier listings intelligently. All 1950s baseball ending together around the same time, all 1990s basketball cards together, etc. People would log in and just sort PWCC listings by themselves and see what else was up for sale. This doesn't happen with other random sellers. And most sellers have next to zero followers, or just a few dozen. The only way their cards get seen is if someone specifically searches for that card and finds their listing.

Followers matter. Setting up your auctions in an organized manner matters as well. It's all about getting the most eyes on that listing. Say what you want about PWCC, but they were masters of this aspect of selling. Everyone else should be taking notes.

[frankbmd]

Tweet, tweet

I signed up for Twitter, before I realized I would never use it. I have followed no one. I doubt that anyone is following me, nor should they.

I don't think I have missed much.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

Tweet, tweet

I signed up for Twitter, before I realized I would never use it. I have followed no one. I doubt that anyone is following me, nor should they.

I don't think I have missed much.

I only do anti-social media.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

Tweet, tweet

I signed up for Twitter, before I realized I would never use it. I have followed no one. I doubt that anyone is following me, nor should they.

I don't think I have missed much.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I only do anti-social media.

I definitely understand the sentiment and avoid social media as well for the most part. I never use Twitter or Facebook. But I definitely think there is a disconnect on these forums that correspond to the age gap between the user base here and that of the broader market as a whole. Box "breakers" on Instagram and YouTube is all the rage these days with the younger generations. I've bought and sold some relatively expensive cards recently just from random people I met on Instagram (some random guy just wired me $20k last week for a modern basketball card). It's a different world out there. Most of the growth of this hobby in recent years is from people in their teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s. They experience the hobby in remarkably different ways than most who are in their 50s and above. The consignment companies who recognize this and find creative ways to market to them are the ones who are going to benefit the most. You'd be amazed how many people under the age of 25 that have 6 and even 7 figure collections and who are out there bidding on $20k+ cards.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I have to disagree with you here. Your statement assumes that everyone is searching eBay the same way - i.e., they're all typing in '1955 Topps Roberto Clemente' into the search bar and when one shows up that they like, they just bid on it, and that furthermore, they are every bit as willing to bid the same amount regardless of who the seller is. But in practice, this is not how it works. People use eBay in very different ways.

First, there's the issue of buyer's confidence. Having nice clear images that you can zoom in on will always outsell another listing of the same card with blurry pics. Buying from a seller with supernova feedback of 100,000+ ratings will always outsell 'jimbob007' with his (18) feedback score. Obviously there's no shortage of other reputable sellers on eBay, but if you compare a company who does all of those little things right against the overall market, they're going to outsell the competition for those reasons alone. But the biggest factor in how much an item sells for is hands down the number of eyes a seller can get on that auction. And this is where sellers like PWCC and Probstein far outweigh the competition. Just click on the user name of a given seller and you can see how many followers they have. I build predictive models for a living, and I can guarantee you if I were to build a model to predict card prices on eBay, that not only would this factor correlate to auction prices realized, it would probably be the #1 most relevant factor in the model outside of the card itself and the slab it's in. Here's a quick comparison of a few consigment companies:

PWCC (312295) - 43,944 followers still today, despite no longer selling on eBay
Probstein123 (893960) - 57,861 followers
quickconsignment_802 (37054) - 2,682 followers
gregmorriscards (312064) - 13,665 followers
4sharpcorners (312086) - 9,321 followers
sportscardauctionscom (91092) - 4,046 followers
bigboydsportscards (345236) - 12,816 followers
pcsportscards (45465) - 6,371 followers

Note that PWCC, 4sharpcorners, and gregmorriscards all have ~312,000 feedback (a fun coincidence) yet PWCC has more than 3x the number of followers as GM and 4x that of 4SC! And they certainly had even more than that before being banned from eBay. Marketing matters, and PWCC has learned this far better than their competition. Many other consignment companies have not. People in social media even do live PWCC auction watch parties. I just received a PWCC auction catalog in the mail this weekend. I get notifications from Probstein and PWCC on social media all the time, showing me cards that are up for auction that I never even would have thought to look for. I get email blasts from them as well. And PWCC organized thier listings intelligently. All 1950s baseball ending together around the same time, all 1990s basketball cards together, etc. People would log in and just sort PWCC listings by themselves and see what else was up for sale. This doesn't happen with other random sellers. And most sellers have next to zero followers, or just a few dozen. The only way their cards get seen is if someone specifically searches for that card and finds their listing.

Followers matter. Setting up your auctions in an organized manner matters as well. It's all about getting the most eyes on that listing. Say what you want about PWCC, but they were masters of this aspect of selling. Everyone else should be taking notes.

I do agree with you and you are not even taking into account the amount of independent advertising PWCC did to drive people to THEIR ebay site.

[packs]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I agree with you here. It is certainly frustrating that the consignment companies have almost no control over who bids on their listings (other than adding someone to their blocked bidders list, which as has been pointed above caps out at 5,000 users and is insufficient for resolving this issue).



I have to disagree with you here. Your statement assumes that everyone is searching eBay the same way - i.e., they're all typing in '1955 Topps Roberto Clemente' into the search bar and when one shows up that they like, they just bid on it, and that furthermore, they are every bit as willing to bid the same amount regardless of who the seller is. But in practice, this is not how it works. People use eBay in very different ways.

First, there's the issue of buyer's confidence. Having nice clear images that you can zoom in on will always outsell another listing of the same card with blurry pics. Buying from a seller with supernova feedback of 100,000+ ratings will always outsell 'jimbob007' with his (18) feedback score. Obviously there's no shortage of other reputable sellers on eBay, but if you compare a company who does all of those little things right against the overall market, they're going to outsell the competition for those reasons alone. But the biggest factor in how much an item sells for is hands down the number of eyes a seller can get on that auction. And this is where sellers like PWCC and Probstein far outweigh the competition. Just click on the user name of a given seller and you can see how many followers they have. I build predictive models for a living, and I can guarantee you if I were to build a model to predict card prices on eBay, that not only would this factor correlate to auction prices realized, it would probably be the #1 most relevant factor in the model outside of the card itself and the slab it's in. Here's a quick comparison of a few consigment companies:

PWCC (312295) - 43,944 followers still today, despite no longer selling on eBay
Probstein123 (893960) - 57,861 followers
quickconsignment_802 (37054) - 2,682 followers
gregmorriscards (312064) - 13,665 followers
4sharpcorners (312086) - 9,321 followers
sportscardauctionscom (91092) - 4,046 followers
bigboydsportscards (345236) - 12,816 followers
pcsportscards (45465) - 6,371 followers

Note that PWCC, 4sharpcorners, and gregmorriscards all have ~312,000 feedback (a fun coincidence) yet PWCC has more than 3x the number of followers as GM and 4x that of 4SC! And they certainly had even more than that before being banned from eBay. Marketing matters, and PWCC has learned this far better than their competition. Many other consignment companies have not. People in social media even do live PWCC auction watch parties. I just received a PWCC auction catalog in the mail this weekend. I get notifications from Probstein and PWCC on social media all the time, showing me cards that are up for auction that I never even would have thought to look for. I get email blasts from them as well. And PWCC organized thier listings intelligently. All 1950s baseball ending together around the same time, all 1990s basketball cards together, etc. People would log in and just sort PWCC listings by themselves and see what else was up for sale. This doesn't happen with other random sellers. And most sellers have next to zero followers, or just a few dozen. The only way their cards get seen is if someone specifically searches for that card and finds their listing.

Followers matter. Setting up your auctions in an organized manner matters as well. It's all about getting the most eyes on that listing. Say what you want about PWCC, but they were masters of this aspect of selling. Everyone else should be taking notes.

All due respect but you're talking about pre-war collectors who have been on eBay for 20 years. They are not strangers to the search and they've been around since the days when you misspelled words on purpose hoping a seller did too.

Modern collectors are a different story and maybe there is something to Twitter and marketing when it comes to their tastes.

But this is the pre-war board and the issues raised have been centered on pre-war cards.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by packs

All due respect but you're talking about pre-war collectors who have been on eBay for 20 years. They are not strangers to the search and they've been around since the days when you misspelled words on purpose hoping a seller did too.

Modern collectors are a different story and maybe there is something to Twitter and marketing when it comes to their tastes.

But this is the pre-war board and the issues raised have been centered on pre-war cards.

I was talking about why PWCC listings sold for more than their competition on average. My comment didn't have anything to do with members of any specific forums. And I'm not sure how that would be relevant.

[packs]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I was talking about why PWCC listings sold for more than their competition on average. My comment didn't have anything to do with members of any specific forums. And I'm not sure how that would be relevant.

It's relevant because you keep talking about followers, like Twitter or Instagram means anything to a pre-war focused audience (which, by the way, is what this page is dedicated to). These are not explanations for why one card sells for multiples of another by virtue of who's selling it. There are much more plausible explanations, none of which you will accept. This phenomenon is not new nor is it the product of some new marketing blitz or the pandemic. The same two sellers have had thread after thread posted about them for years, all which share a common theme: why did this card sell for this much? These questions date back to a time before your Twitter follower explanation. So it cannot be that and it must be something else.

The earliest threads relating to the same tired topic on this board date to 2013. I'd love to see a screenshot of the Twitter numbers then.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I was talking about why PWCC listings sold for more than their competition on average. My comment didn't have anything to do with members of any specific forums. And I'm not sure how that would be relevant.

Maybe because you are posting all this on what is specifically a, wait a second......pre-war card forum?