Posted By:
tbobFirst off, I have never shut down an auction of mine that had bids and rarely sold a card on ebay and shut it down when there were no bids. Secondly, I have contacted sellers to ask if they would end an auction early when it was something I desperately needed, if there were no bids or only my bid.
All that said, I think there is a lot of hypocrisy going on here and it makes me sick. I had someone once pull the same stunt on me 3 years ago when I won a rare card by making the seller a reasonable offer on a card I needed badly and didn't want to lose on a snipe. The seller was contacted and told he would be kicked off ebay (a blatant lie) if he completed the deal. He got scared, cancelled our contract (and yes I am an attorney too and believe that there was tortious conduct on the part of this interferer) and the card was re-listed. I was sniped and the card sold for not much more than I offered. I was able a year later to win the exact same card in Barry Sloate's auction (Barry had nothing to do with any of this by the way) and paid about $20 more than I would have paid originally, no big deal as the card is rare. The bottom line is the lying scum who intimidated the seller with intentionally false and baseless threats about having him kicked off ebay forever. The fact he is a member of the 54Forum really disappointed me. I have since forgiven but not forgotten this.
The bottom line is that although I consider almost everyone here a friend, I don't like the hypocrisy going on. I will tell you right now that if I spot a card I need to complete a set which I have worked on 5 years, I am going to make a generous offer to buy the card and have him end the auction. I am not going to be a hypocrite and say I won't do it. I hope the card has no bids but regardless I will make the effort. Maybe you can draw a distinction between that situation and Dan's jumping on a real deal when he saw it but if not, just label me as one of the bad guys too. I always try to avoid bidding on cards where friends are bidding also, if I can, and try to treat everyone fairly with deals and trades. But I will not take the easy road and say I would never do this.