Quote:
Originally Posted by Bored5000
I understand the point you are making, but I think at least some of that phenomenon is because eBay is lot more dicey than dealing with an auction house. I am certainly not a big fish, but if I was buying a real premium card, I would feel much more secure buying from an auction house than off of eBay. The chance of receiving an empty box or a reprint that was depicted as a real card in the listing is pretty much zero with an auction house.
The auction houses are not perfect by any means, but they also weed out the blatant scammers and rip off artists that are so common on eBay. How much of what you cited is people paying for peace of mind and not having to deal with the riff raff of sellers on eBay?
|
I agree there are definitely scam and rip off artists on ebay, but at least you have buyer (and seller) protection if something goes wrong. With AHs you have no buyer protection at all. I've read stories of people receiving items NAD from AHs and then having to go through hell just to get a response.
Personally, I don't find any peace of mind bidding blindly and having no financial recourse if something goes wrong.
As for those who suggest just bid what you feel comfortable with, well, where do you get that comfort level from? Is it from research into what things have sold for recently in the past? If that research came from AH hammer prices then your own feeling of comfort might be coming from a shilled auction where you have no way of knowing what happened. Just because you feel something is right doesn't make it so.
Like I have said before, transparency is the only way to make it more difficult for people to cheat and scam. As long as humans exist there will always be those trying to take advantage through immoral means, but that doesn't mean you give up and say there is nothing you can do. It means you evolve, and if you don't, you get left in the dust. Adaptability is why humans have prevailed as the dominant species on this planet, and change is a good thing.
IMO, if you're afraid of people knowing what you're bidding on or buying, then you shouldn't be buying it. And I think the whole extended bidding system is nonsense. The system on ebay where it ends at an exact time and you drop in your bid at the last second to protect against any shill bidders works very well.
It's always better to have more information, that's how you get to the truth of situations by making informed decisions, it's how credibility is built and it's really the only way to get the closest to everyone winning.