Bidding Strangeness - More Probstein123

[T206Collector]

Don't get me wrong, I love that I finally won a nice T206 Hal Chase Trophy SGC 60 for what I believe to be a very good price last night - $170.50. But check this out....

05/25/2014

Same card sold for $252.00 to "O***B (945)"

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...p2047675.l2565

Last night, the same dude "O***B (945)" bid $135 for the same card I just won last night:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...p2047675.l2565

And here's a kicker -- in the first auction in May, "O***B (945)" also started his bidding activity with a $135 bid.

The easy money is on this being a shill. Frankly, I'd love to hear plausible alternative explanations. But, if it is indeed a shill, it certainly isn't a very good job. He left bids of $216.55 and $260 on the table from last time.

Not sure there is anything formal to be done about this, but I would certainly take final prices seen in Probstein123 auctions with a grain of salt. And, I would adjust my final bids accordingly, as I did successfully in this case.

Oh, and my name is P.au1 M.if5u.d.

[markf31]

Never mind the man behind the curtain.

I'm willing to take wagers on how long it takes the usual apologists to defend yet another Probstein auction and about how these threads are useless because they "accomplish nothing".

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by markf31

Never mind the man behind the curtain.

I'm willing to take wagers on how long it takes the usual apologists to defend yet another Probstein auction and about how these threads are useless because they "accomplish nothing".

yup

Bidding on a probstein auction is like swimming with sharks...you may not get bitten...but there is a good chance you will!

[jhs5120]

It certainly looks like the guy placed a bid on his own consignment. It's peculiar that he placed such a low amount that wouldn't have won the auction in any case. As if he wanted to still be a shilling jerk, but wanted to be a useless shilling jerk.

If you look at other items he's bid on it seems as though he placed a few other "safety" bids on Probstein auctions and didn't win any of them. I guess this is the risk of bidding in an auction :/

It would be interesting to know if this was a forum member.

[T206Collector]

How do you see the other items he's bid on?

[Peter_Spaeth]

At that price level, he was just bumping it along, not seriously shilling it.

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

How do you see the other items he's bid on?

Right now all you can see is his bid history: Link


Probstein should be "Seller 10" on this list and you can see he placed a single bid on several items early in the auction and none of them won.

If you want to find specific items you need to go to Probstein's completed listings (last night's listings aren't available at the time of this post). I have consigned with Probstein on a couple occasions and he will always lists/ends your items within a minute of each other. So, you can look at the completed listings immediately before the Hal Chase and immediately after and find the other items this particular person consigned. Then, you can find out if he shilled any of them (which his bid history indicates he might have).

Once you know what cards he consigned and what cards he bought it may be fairly easy to find out the name of the person. Especially if they're all tobacco cards.

Hopefully it isn't a forum member!

[sbfinley]

I'm not trying to be an apologist for Probstein (although sometimes I am), but I try to look at it this way:

If I ran my own eBay consignment company that had 500-1000 auctions going off weekly and almost a million in sales quarterly how many of these questions would I honestly answer yes to?

1. I would myself or salary someone to check all completed auctions for suspicious bidding.

2. I would alert bidders/auction winners about suspicious bidding.

3. I would prevent cosigners I believe are shilling from consigning in the future.

4. I would prevent auction winners from immediately consigning their winnings with me.

5. I would not provide my top customers with additional information such as scans or opinions on which cards might be worth a crack and re-submit.

Personally,

1. Probably not. It's a waste of time and resources to police a problem eBay poured gas on by instituting anonymous bidding.

2. Yes would be the ethical thing to say, but the can of worms opened in the process would probably be to much deal with.

3. The only question I could unequivocally agree I would do.

4. No, I'm in the business of selling cards and making money.

5. I would not go out of the way to do so, but if a customer who payed my mortgage the month before requested additional information I would make sure he/she received it.