PWCC and Bid Retractions

[Peter_Spaeth]

The high bidder on the Mike Trout refractor has 26 retractions. Found this in two minutes looking through the highest price auctions.

Bidder Information
Bidder: l***n( 128Feedback score is 100 to 499)
Feedback: 100%Positive
Item description:
Item Title:
2009 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor Mike Trout ROOKIE RC AUTO /50 BGS 9.5 (PWCC)
Bids on this item: 1

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 4
Items bid on: 3
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 50% Help
Bid retractions: 0
Bid retractions (6 months): 26

Sure it's not realistic to monitor every auction. But at the same time it would not take that much effort to check the most expensive auctions or to do a reasonably thorough spot check. Imagine if Ford said, we produce thousands of cars, we can't possibly do quality control. In my opinion if you are serious about a policy, you need to put in some time and effort to enforce it, not just sit back passively and react if someone calls something to your attention.

[Leon]

I agree the high bidder should be blocked and his bid retracted. 26 retractions in 6 months....the guy should be in jail (almost serious)..

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

The high bidder on the Mike Trout refractor has 26 retractions. Found this in two minutes looking through the highest price auctions.

Bidder Information
Bidder: l***n( 128Feedback score is 100 to 499)
Feedback: 100%Positive
Item description:
Item Title:
2009 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor Mike Trout ROOKIE RC AUTO /50 BGS 9.5 (PWCC)
Bids on this item: 1

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 4
Items bid on: 3
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 50% Help
Bid retractions: 0
Bid retractions (6 months): 26

Sure it's not realistic to monitor every auction. But at the same time it would not take that much effort to check the most expensive auctions or to do a reasonably thorough spot check. Imagine if Ford said, we produce thousands of cars, we can't possibly do quality control. In my opinion if you are serious about a policy, you need to put in some time and effort to enforce it, not just sit back passively and react if someone calls something to your attention.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Leon

I agree the high bidder should be blocked and his bid retracted. 26 retractions in 6 months....the guy should be in jail (almost serious)..

So why am I finding it and not PWCC? Even five minutes of due diligence would have uncovered it. I can only wonder how many I would turn up if I took an hour.

[dariushou]

Leon, apparently you don't know anything about data scrapping. PWCC could easily hire a programmer that could data scrape their auctions to know who is bidding. The programmer would create a program to do this. It really is that easy and in my opinion, PWCC owes it to their real bidders.

Not to mention, as previously posted, it takes all of 5 minutes to catch this manually too. There simply is no due diligence. Why did PWCC even come up with the "policy" if they don't even try to monitor their auctions.

Good Day!

[Exhibitman]

It's called "public relations" aka lying.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

It's called "public relations" aka lying.

I guess when you're that successful you don't need to worry too much about a few skeptics.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I guess when you're that successful you don't need to worry too much about a few skeptics.

Not in this hobby. You can be the biggest scumbag ever and the sheeple will line up in droves to buy a baseball card from you if they think they can save a penny. It is a fact that is proven on a daily basis.

[Brent Huigens]

Historically, our process for identifying bidders with a high number of bid retractions has been to 1) investigate bidders who retract a bid on our auctions, and 2) spot check bidders on a range of items we have for sale. We have a database of almost 4000 instances of a bid retraction, a bidder with a high number of retractions, string bidding, and unpaid items. We have over 2000 user IDs blocked.

It is true that there is significant opportunity to improve our practices, and we have taken the necessary steps to take our monitoring to the next level.

First, we hired a full-time customer service and bid monitoring representative. Her job is to promptly answer email, phone calls, and review bid activity on our auctions. She takes action on all notifications of bid retractions that we receive from eBay real time as well as spot checks our listings for bidders with a high number of bid retractions, zero-feedback bidders, and low-feedback bidders. I am also assisting in this process. She started working with PWCC in the second week of January and is now fully engaged in her role in monitoring auctions.

Second, we hired a full-time web developer. He is responsible for managing and optimizing our website, which has a significant role in our operations. Some of you may have noticed recent updates to our Client Portal. He is currently exploring the information provided through eBay's API and has the task of identifying a way to automate our bid monitoring procedures. We are hopeful that he can take the human component out of bid monitoring - or at least help us do our job better.

As always, thank you for the feedback!

Betsy Huigens

[Republicaninmass]

I've never had one bid retraction on any item for sale, and probably only have retracted a handful in my ebay 10 year term.

Just a microcosm of the real world of shill free ebay

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Brent Huigens

Historically, our process for identifying bidders with a high number of bid retractions has been to 1) investigate bidders who retract a bid on our auctions, and 2) spot check bidders on a range of items we have for sale. We have a database of almost 4000 instances of a bid retraction, a bidder with a high number of retractions, string bidding, and unpaid items. We have over 2000 user IDs blocked.

It is true that there is significant opportunity to improve our practices, and we have taken the necessary steps to take our monitoring to the next level.

First, we hired a full-time customer service and bid monitoring representative. Her job is to promptly answer email, phone calls, and review bid activity on our auctions. She takes action on all notifications of bid retractions that we receive from eBay real time as well as spot checks our listings for bidders with a high number of bid retractions, zero-feedback bidders, and low-feedback bidders. I am also assisting in this process. She started working with PWCC in the second week of January and is now fully engaged in her role in monitoring auctions.

Second, we hired a full-time web developer. He is responsible for managing and optimizing our website, which has a significant role in our operations. Some of you may have noticed recent updates to our Client Portal. He is currently exploring the information provided through eBay's API and has the task of identifying a way to automate our bid monitoring procedures. We are hopeful that he can take the human component out of bid monitoring - or at least help us do our job better.

As always, thank you for the feedback!

Betsy Huigens

I would suggest your employee prioritize the highest value auctions which is where the most suspicious activity, or at least the most impactful, is going to occur. I found the Trout 26 retraction bidder in about two minutes, as I said.