Small Traditions LLC/SCANDAL UPDATE

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

There are third party providers that provide store management capabilities that complement eBay's service. Without actually checking, it does seem reasonable that those services would include the capability to associate specific listings with the consignor. And, if eBay had been subpoenaed, you can pretty much bet whomever was PWCC's store provider was also.

That still doesn't explain I don't think how EBAY would know the information so as to accuse PWCC of allowing consignors to bid on their own items.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

That still doesn't explain I don't think how EBAY would know the information so as to accuse PWCC of allowing consignors to bid on their own items.

It isn't a direct analogy, but the company I work for uses a lot of software. A fair amount is just purchased, but there is a fair amount that is Software as a Service (Saas) Even within SaaS, there are programs that require their own login credentials and others that can be accessed through single sign-on. I do negotiate contracts, though not those associated with software. But, it is my understanding that as the level of integration increases, so does the level of complexity in the agreements. It is not unreasonable to expect that in any agreement between eBay and a third party company, there is a provision that eBay must be notified of any fraud or criminal activity associated with their service.

I realize this is just speculation, but that does seem to be the currency here, so....

[Peter_Spaeth]

Fair enough but I still think ebay was referring to employees or house accounts.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Incidentally an interesting point was made on another forum where we were discussing what ebay meant by shill bidding by "persons associated with PWCC." Some think it only means consignors were running up their own cards, not that employees or house accounts of PWCC were involved. But as someone asked, how would ebay know who his consignors were?

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

That still doesn't explain I don't think how EBAY would know the information so as to accuse PWCC of allowing consignors to bid on their own items.

They likely wouldn't know in all cases, or perhaps even most cases, who the consigners were without some level of cooperation with the consignment companies. However, they can be reasonably certain in many cases. Here's one example of how they could predict who might be shill bidding on their own items.

Let's say eBay user 'goneFishing64 (18)' had 7 PSA graded cards for sale as 'buy-it-now' listings with his PSA certification numbers entered in the listings but wasn't getting any bites. He decides he really needs the money but knows that if he auctions them off himself, he wouldn't do as well since he only has a feedback score of (18), so he ends the listings and sends the cards off for consignment. Two weeks later, those same certification numbers get entered by the consignment company and one week after that, his eBay ID places a bid on all 7 listings, or a different eBay ID that shares an IP address with 'goneFishing64' places bids on those 7 listings. eBay would have all of this data at their fingertips and it would be easy to write a query to flag all similar cases. It would also probably find a lot of people doing this (albeit a small percentage of the total pool of shill bidders). But that's at least one way that eBay could be reasonably certain that a consignor has placed shill bids on their consignments with a company like PWCC.

[Peter_Spaeth]

The hypothetical makes sense, thank you, although I still don't think that's what they are referring to.

[SteveS]

For legal, business, and practical reasons, I don't think that eBay would ban PWCC without having sufficient evidence that they were involved in the shill bidding and/or they knew or it was brought to their attention that consignors were engaged in shill bidding and they did nothing about it.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by SteveS

For legal, business, and practical reasons, I don't think that eBay would ban PWCC without having sufficient evidence that they were involved in the shill bidding and/or they knew or it was brought to their attention that consignors were engaged in shill bidding and they did nothing about it.

I agree, although the counterpoint has been raised by several that ebay is a vindictive ruthless company and may have done this solely because PWCC was threatening to move to its own platform.

[SteveS]

Oh, I don't think it's unreasonable at all to think that eBay knew exactly what was going on and rode the wave while the bucks were pouring in, then took action when it looked as though the money train was about to go off the tracks. But still, I have to think that they have evidence of wrongdoing by PWCC, as banning them solely out of vindictiveness would have costly consequences.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by SteveS

For legal, business, and practical reasons, I don't think that eBay would ban PWCC without having sufficient evidence that they were involved in the shill bidding and/or they knew or it was brought to their attention that consignors were engaged in shill bidding and they did nothing about it.

In general, I think that would be a pretty safe assumption to make. What complicates this issue for me though, is that both eBay and PWCC have demonstrated having questionable integrity at best in the past.

Neither outcome would be all that surprising to me (the 'individuals associated with PWCC' being actual employees or just consignors). Although if it ever does get shown that PWCC employees themselves placed these shill bids, my money would be on that being something like Brent shilling his own cards or someone on the inside shilling a close friend's cards or something like that. I just can't imagine a scenario where PWCC was involved in widespread shilling of auctions in general. From a game theory perspective, it would be remarkably stupid (with a 'risk of ruin' very near 100%). It would be acting against their own best interests. Although, stranger things have happened, and people do dumb shit every day, so who knows.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

In general, I think that would be a pretty safe assumption to make. What complicates this issue for me though, is that both eBay and PWCC have demonstrated having questionable integrity at best in the past.

Neither outcome would be all that surprising to me (the 'individuals associated with PWCC' being actual employees or just consignors). Although if it ever does get shown that PWCC employees themselves placed these shill bids, my money would be on that being something like Brent shilling his own cards or someone on the inside shilling a close friend's cards or something like that. I just can't imagine a scenario where PWCC was involved in widespread shilling of auctions in general. From a game theory perspective, it would be remarkably stupid (with a 'risk of ruin' very near 100%). It would be acting against their own best interests. Although, stranger things have happened, and people do dumb shit every day, so who knows.

Hubris explains more than stupidity sometimes. From my dealings with him he did not believe he was at any risk.