PWCC & eBay - help us improve the hobby
 

Dear Fellow Collectors,

I need to get something off my chest. My general policy is to let the message boards run free, but occasionally I need to make a post where I defend accusations, otherwise some folks may consider our lack of response as sign of guilt.

Do some folks really believe that we manipulate our scans?
Do some believe we orchestrate and/or tolerate shill bidding in our auctions?

For those who know us, or know me personally, it’s clear that these acts of fraud are simply not in my DNA. For those who don’t know me or PWCC and who choose the conspiracy theory approach, I offer logic to refute these claims. The logic is this… we only clear a couple % on each sale, so we simply don’t have the time or resources to manipulate individual auctions. Not to mention that the risk associated with trying to manipulate an auction is immeasurable; it would destroy our brand and everything I’ve worked hard to accomplish.

Our Scans:
Regarding our scanning, all I can say is that we use the same settings for every card we scan in each auction. Never do we go in and adjust the settings for an individual card. If you don’t like our scans, I suppose you can accuse us of having bad scans, but please forgo the accusation that we are manipulating them artificially. We never receive returns from buyers who felt our scans were inaccurate. In fact, I just checked our return history over the last 12 months and there’s not a single instance where the bidder sights the scan as having been enhanced artificially. What does that tell you? I admit that the settings we used in prior years with old equipment was simply were not universally accurate (in my opinion); sometimes making some issues appear ‘hot’ or overly bright. In our defense, it’s hard to make one group of settings that optimize every card issue from 1888-2014. As technology has improved, so have our scanners and we feel that our current images are extremely accurate. If folks are upset with past images, I sincerely apologize and perhaps those folks prefer our current representations more.

Policing Bidders:
On the topic of bid behavior it’s particularly frustrating to be accused of auction manipulation when I actually feel we are working to improve bidder behavior more than anyone else. It's impossible to watch every auction, but we police the bid as much as we can and have blocked more bidder ids for bad behavior than anyone else I know. As our company has matured we have had various policies come and go, some of which have proven more intelligent than others. For example one program I regret most was from 2009/2010 when we allowed consignors to place a single ‘reserve bid’ on a consigned lot if they received approval from us. This sort of thing was more-or-less accepted back in 2009 and we didn't think anything of it at the time (hidden reserves are still part of the hobby with many auction houses). In hindsight this wasn’t a smart program to have engaged in because it opened the door to abuse. We made a mistake offering this as a service and ended it in 2010. We certainly didn’t want to hurt the hobby and we have not offered this option for over 5 years. This is just an example of where we admit to being imperfect and we sincerely hope folks don’t hold this against us. Every business goes through a maturation and we continue to mature alongside the hobby at large.

eBay & the Hobby
It’s important to remember that eBay is a public auction venue, so when dealing with the public, bidding isn’t always squeaky clean. There are a lot of eccentric behavior in the hobby and it’s not fair to accuse every instance of manipulation. In my experience, 8/10 times something that looks fishy is actually legitimate. Obviously bidder behavior on eBay isn’t perfect, but we are absolutely doing all we can to help improve the marketplace. We hope folks can view accusations that PWCC is somehow the source any bad bidder behavior as illogical; we have nothing to gain and everything to lose from such acts.

So what is PWCC doing to help?
Two weeks ago I was at the 2015 West Coast Seller Summit hosted by eBay where I spoke at length with the eBay’s Trust & Safety team regarding bidder behavior and buyer quality. I am also attending a panel discussion on 6/11 with eBay where I will again be pressing for more seller tools that help us filter and police bidding. This panel discussion will be among 200 eBay employees and I’m one of only 4 sellers who’ve been invited to offer their opinions. In particular I am working to get the following tools implemented:

a) Stricter penalties for bid retractors who don’t follow the prescribed rules
b) Much stricter penalties for users with unpaid items on their record
c) IP address monitoring to ensure two or more accounts are never placing bids on the same item
d) Contact information cross checks to ensure bad users are not able to create new accounts
e) Stricter policies on how bidders with prior bad behavior are allowed to return to bidding (.i.e. forced instant payment with vetted credit cards on file, etc)
f) Seller tools that allow us to specify which bidders are allowed to bid (relative to the number and type of infraction listed above).

*Does anyone have other ideas that I could forward on to eBay? How can we make eBay the most trusted sale environment on the internet? Please help us make it better and post your thoughts to this thread.

I again ask that folks be constructive in their comments and I will indeed follow up in a week to review all posts and issue replies where needed. We appreciate everyone’s feedback.

Brent Huigens
PWCC Auctions, LLC
brent@pwccauctions.com

Brent,

Do you use factory scanner settings?

Are you adjusting or using extra features on the technology that you have purchased?

-Contrast
-Brightness
-Dust Removal
-Threshhold
-Gamma Editor

Do you use 8, 24, or 256 bit color when scanning?

I am sure with such advanced scanners you could scan above 200-240 dpi. If not why are the scans resized?

Are you willing to scan cards at 300 dpi with factory defaults and allow zoom on your scans? If not, why not?

Invest In Baseball is committed to using factory settings on all of our scanners making very sure even a stray print mark or piece of dust is visible and uploading our original un-resized images. Does PWCC have this same level of commitment? I believe you would benefit from proper scans that allow users to zoom and view the card as if it were being louped in hand.

Edited for grammar.

Also:
You are right. I have found after years of selling you need two settings. One for cards that have holo-foil of any sort and one that is for non-holofoil classic gloss cards. I recently checked your website and see that you break up your auctions by era. You can set up multiple profiles on any modern scanning technology and seamlessly switch back and forth with one click. You should never be using the same settings for vintage as you do with modern.

I would be happy to help if you have any questions with volume technology in an effort to keep your quality constant and maintain the current level of volume you have.

Thanks
 

Brent,
Thanks for your attempt to do everything you can to be above reproach. It is much appreciated. I have purchased through PWCC before and have been very pleased.
Eric

+1

Sean, does it matter if the scanner settings are factory default? Shouldn't the settings be set to provide a scan that most accurately represents the card?

Wow didn't know the owner of PWCC was on this site haha. I've got a couple of things from PWCC. Always seem to go a little higher than market value but I've never even had the thought cross my mind of fals scanning or shid billing.

I personally think it's the branding that drives the higher prices. People see PWCC and they trust the name.

I've bought numerous items from Brent, and have consigned perhaps over a hundred cards. I've never had any problems and will continue to buy from him, and consign to his auctions.

Brent, when your scans were previously questioned here at a time when in my opinion and many others' opinions they were sometimes bordering on thermonuclear (they are OK now as I have said), why did you come on here and claim that that was the first you had ever heard of your scans being questioned, when in fact you yourself had responded at length to a CU thread about the same topic not too long before? Just wondering? Had you somehow forgotten?

76 and 78 in this thread.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=177348

As for whether you tolerate shill bidding by consignors, only you can know that for sure, but I and several people I know have on many occasions observed bidders with high percentages of bidding activity with you and high numbers of retractions bidding on a wide spectrum of high dollar items in your auctions. You can tell it's the same bidder by the abbreviation and feedback number. It sure looks suspicious even if it isn't.

I never realized in 2009-10 that PWCC permitted consignors to have a secret reserve bid, presumably against eBay's Terms of Service. Interesting.

Well, an easy thing for the people who identify shilling in his/any other auctions, is for people to report the listings to eBay and PWCC via the "Report Item" link at the right side under the box and select "Listing Practices", then "Fraudulent Listing Activities," then "Seller is using other accounts to inflate price." If people who care and are being shilled in these auctions would report it every time, eBay will be flooded with Report Item notifications. I am not sure if this would hurt Brent and his business directly; maybe he can chime in again and tell us. If it does, then it may be a solid topic of discussion at the meeting coming up with eBay's employees.

But, once reported, eBay and PWCC can check the auction history since they're being given a pointer to specific instances of presumed shill bidding.

Questions I'm interested in:
1) How often are items for certain sellers not paid for? If that number is over 10% (or on large $$ items), that would be a sign to me that shill accounts are being used and then stiffed, so that the "buyer" doesn't have to fork over cash to buy back their own card. They know you'll relist the card during your next auction.
2) Does your staff actively cross-check buyer addresses with consignor addresses of the same cards? Are they kept in the same line on your spreadsheet/database where they could be easily queried to see if your consigners are winning back their items?
3) If the top bidder does not pay, do you offer to underbidders? If so, this would also spur shill bidding. You could make a policy that you will never make offers to underbidders. Most bidders are wary of receiving "2nd chance" offers, figuring they were bid up in the first place.
4) Can you block/suspend all user accounts with over 5 bid retractions in the course of 6 months and all related (same IP, address) accounts? This would help cut down on overbidding to identify someone's top bid, and then backing out.

So, these are a few of my constructive comments for your discussion with your own team and eBay.

Brent - I have always been very satisfied with my dealings with PWCC. I count you as a dealer I can trust and I certainly don't understand why anyone would say otherwise...unless they have unrealistic expectations...which is probably true.

Thanks again,
Raymond
EBAY user ID: clydepeppper

So you used to allow bidders to bid on their lots, and you used to enhance your scans, but you don't do that anymore. Good to know. :rolleyes:

At least you haven't announced finding god to a courtroom, or been charged with any crimes. So as a dealer/AH addressing concerns go your way ahead of the curve...I guess. :)

With due respect, ebay doesn't give a damn. I have reported completely obvious shills when there was no possible innocent explanation (to be clear, not on any PWCC auction), and they politely did nothing.

That's because you've never been very persuasive :)

Touche.

"Doug, Your honesty is refreshing, but I'm concerned with the Mastro bidding policy."

2007

Another recommendation: list a consignor's number/identifier on every card you list. That way bidding patterns from consignor's shill bidding accounts can be readily identified. If f****9 (258) is always bidding on consignor #456's cards but nobody elses, you have a very likely shill bidding account.

"Unlike proprietary auction software, eBay's platform is equally transparent to both the buyer and the seller."

This is copied from your listings. I disagree with your statement, since eBay is constantly finding ways to remove the ability to detect shill bidding accounts or problem bidders/sellers, first by removing full bidding identifiers, and secondly by replacing/improving negative feedback ratings for no reason.

Pwcc
 

Bought multiple high end cards from Brent and he has sold a number of items for me over the years.

Class act as far as I am concerned....

Agreed. If anyone believes factory default settings on any scanner represents a cards true look I strongly disagree. Slight adjustment is usually if not always necessary.

I just won my first card from PWCC. It looks better live than on the scan...and I bought it for much less than it cost the seller.

Chuckle

I've bought some items from PWCC and been happy with my experiences. I only win a small percentage of the items I bid on as his auctions generally get higher prices than other auctions. There are many bidders like myself that search their auctions and save them as a seller to view these items. I did have one issue on one high priced card which was incorrectly graded by PSA (graded VG with paper loss) and Brent took it back with no problem.
Cory

No pre press house would even use factory settings, nor would anyone that understands how to properly use a scanner. Scans are supposed to be a little flat in order to get detail in shadow and highlights, and always need a little tweeking.
The key is to make that tweeking match the image or object being scanned, and to know when to stop pushing it past accuracy.

Yes, please get them to be more flexible in removing unwarranted negative feedback. I turned a guy over for non-payment after two weeks of trying to get him to pay for his item, he finally paid shortly after me turning him over and immediately left me a negative feedback...like within a minute of paying. I could not get anyone to listen to how unfair this was to me, they even promised me that a supervisor would call me. No call ever came.

I like the suggestion of providing the consigner number. About your second part, I think what Brent is saying is that ebay is still more transparent than major auction houses. At least you have a rough idea of the bidder id even if its mostly scrambled. You have no clue for major auction houses. It'd be nice if major auction houses also followed this, where they provide the consigner id with each lot, and then provide full bidder id for every one who bids on a lot with a % of how often the bidder bids with the same consigner. I doubt that will ever happen however.

For ideas to forward to ebay, I would ask them to unscramble the bidder and feedback id's so that it's easier to detect shilling. I'd also ask ebay to allow an option where you can ban bidders who have a over certain # of retractions. Then I would say PWCC should ban bidders who have over 5 retractions.

For detecting shilling, it's a lot of work, so I would say, don't look for it yourself. However, ask the community to look for shilling in your auctions, and then if someone thinks they see something then look into it. I think this would allow others to do a lot of the work for you. If a consigner is proven to have shilled, then ban the consigner.

Another topic for your eBay meetings: inform them of battlefield selling sports cards that are creased/chipped/otherwise damaged and editing those out of the pictures they post to eBay. Tell them that it has been going on for years and yet battlefield continues to sell cards. Tell them that sellers that have a high number of returns for issues like this should be banned, and that their negative feedbacks/DSRs should not just disappear in the name of "Protecting their selling accounts."

battlefield's improved scans amounted to fraud. Check out the most recent thread concerning T206s and T205s, but notice that the thread also discussed actions from 3-4 years ago with the same seller.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ht=battlefield

Another thing about shilling. What seems to occur sometime is that the seller has a friend (or another account) do the bidding for him, and then if the other account wins, he just cancels the transaction. Not sure if this already occurs, but cancelling the transaction if it's due to the buyer should count similarly to a bid retraction. Cancelling it due to the seller should be a strike, and as part of a seller's DSR, ebay should show how many cancelled transactions.

Other things for the ebay meeting may be to see how ebay can match auction houses in certain respects. For example, one reason that some sellers are afraid of using ebay where the auctions start at 99 cents is due to fear that the "right" eyes won't see the auction. Perhaps allow auctions of greater length to match what auction houses do such as 14 days or even 21 days or perhaps even auction previews where buyers can see listings ever before they can start bidding. Also perhaps allow sellers to have the option of ending lots using the 15 or even 30 minute rule that auction houses have where if there is a bid during the "extended" time of the auction, the auction is extended another 15 or 30 minutes. I know a lot of ebay buyers won't like this b/c they use snipe services, but that could be a decent option for some sellers.

Which auction houses still have hidden reserves?

eBay tried the extended bidding thing, it sucked and they canceled it for good reason.

+1.

Happy collecting, guys!

Larry

Brent-I spoke to you a few months back regarding the 1975 mini cello pack on ebay that was an impossible combination, Brett on top/ Ryan on bottom (Brett on top never could exist on mini cello packs), and you were very professional regarding your response and I hope the eventual buyer received a refund. I think you should take a hard look at discontinuing the sale of the fabricated Christmas racks that have surfaced for years now on ebay. Possibly, you should discuss with the executives at ebay, the idea of banning this item altogether. They continue to give the unopened market a black eye as they are duping collectors into thinking they have something that is truly vintage when they are nothing but basement after market garbage fantasy packs.

Brent,

I have a question for you.

Is Ebay aware of the fact that you allowed your consignors to "reserve bid" their own auctions for two years?

Jantz Morey

http://www.network54.com/Forum/52660...s+in+heritage-

http://www.legendaryauctions.com/rules.aspx
"20. Lots with hidden reserves will be marked as such in our catalog and on our website. Estimates will also be listed—and the reserves will never be higher than the low estimate."

And then there are the auctionhouses where people have posted that they thought they won an item as it closed, to wake up the next morning without it being on their invoice, and when they went to check the website, the listings *poofed.*

Mr. Huigens,

The only thought that has come to mind, is...

If PWCC is so concerned with cleaning up the Our Hobby, then why doesn't PWCC create it's own Auction House away from ebay's format?

Then PWCC wouldn't have to concern themselves with eBay's rules, just their own!

PWCC is certainly a Major player today, why do You stay with what some believe is where the problem exists?

It's a "conspiracy theory" and "not in [his] DNA" to commit fraud. Except when he allowed consignors to bid on their own lots which was against ebay rules (and also fraudulent). Or when the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that shill bidding occurs daily in his auctions. And by "overwhelming" I mean that it dwarfs the available circumstantial evidence which made it obvious to me 8 years ago that Mastro was shilling their auctions.

But as Brent told a client of mine the other day when asking him to convince me to lay off him, "what incentive do I have to shill my own auctions?" Gee, who can even think of a single such incentive?

What percentage of consignors AND customers would follow them to a different site, even if they stood up their own? 40%? Not worth the risk of pulling away from the LARGEST and MOST DIVERSE group of bidders in the world, right?

Bottom line for me at least. You come out on a public forum admitting you played fast and loose with rules. You allowed consignors to bid on their items and tweaked scans. However that's all behind you now wink wink.

Now you want to survey the community who is raising eyebrows, to help "you" fix the problem. When in fact you admitted you were part of the very problem with past actions. Too many folks have come here over the years that were rule breakers who claimed to be converted hobby white knights or innocent.

History has shown that almost never is the case. I say best of luck with your business but please spare me the song and dance. I'm actually a little shocked at how many folks here have just glazed past your admissions. I've said it before and I'll say it again it's hard to feel sorry for this hobby and some of it's collectors because so many are so easy and willing to be duped and keep coming back for more.

Sorry if I don't rush to help or applaud your new found integrity. I would prefer to put that effort and attention with the honest players vs. the admitted coming clean players. Just my take....nothing personal in fact I don't think I've ever really done much with you in the way of business etc.

Cheers,

John

fedex.com

vs.

usps.com

especially on top tier items...

still waiting on the 59 mantle. been over a week and has been across the country twice and has been in everyone else's hands but mine.

Three bid
 

If only three bids were allowed it would level the playing field quickly. I had a clown bid $2.00 increments til my bid showed, Brent (PWCC) cancelled the clown expeditiously. Who has time to bid 60 times in low increments? Three bid limit potentially could make people place more strategic bids. Sellers and consignors most likely lose money, as serious bidders back off on the 60 time bidder with the obligatory feedback rating of (1) The zero fating bidder just happens to be hitting a $1,000.00 multiple upon multiple times. Best to sit and laugh, however when it's a want-list item it is very testing to say the least. Call Brent when you see a problem, he will rectify quicker than you expect.

A three bid limit is actually a really intriguing idea to me. It eliminates people placing tiny consecutive bids over and over and over which to be honest is just a bit annoying (no offense intended to anyone, I guess I am just stating personal preference).

Nice light bulb Tom.

The inevitable "I've never had a problem with him" posts are pretty familiar, aren't they? But they're really beside the point, because it has never been suggested that PWCC has less than stellar customer service. I received every card I ever won from Mastro or Legendary quickly and well-packaged. So?

I do hope Brent is being sincere and that all the anomalies one sees in his auctions have innocent explanations. I would also like to believe he doesn't accept consignments from people with reputations as card doctors, although I guess that would be naïve because who doesn't? But just to loudly proclaim one's innocence is not enough in some folks' book. And I still would like to understand why Brent came on here and claimed he had never heard complaints about his scans when he had only recently posted a long rebuttal to exactly such a claim on CU. If he lied about that, and it does seem he did, why should we believe him about other things?

I hate to say it...but I believe in the term..."once a cheater always a cheater!"

Any AH/seller who has proven to exhibit unfair/unethical business practices has lost me as a bidder/consigner...forever!

And to the unnamed AH who is constantly asking me why I continue to talk smack about them on here...this is why! You used to allow your employees/consigners to bid on auction items but no longer...but you only came clean after you were caught on numerous occasions...Bullshit I say!

Sad how some who made a career livelihood out of a hobby they must have loved at some point in their lives...have worked so hard to destroy it!

Brent, have you ever offered to waive sales tax for Calfornia auction winners if they paid by check?

Is it true that a good lawyer never asks a question he/she doesn't know the answer to?

Did a good lawyer just ask a question, I must have missed it. :D

I am not a lawyer, but actively encouraging shill bidding in 2010 when the wire fraud statute of limitations is five years seems iffy to mention in multiple public settings (this board and Collector's Universe).

I am one, and I agree. Those paper trails can undo you sometimes.

Saving for posterity just so there can be no question as to what John was referring to.

Joke of the Day.
 

Imagine ... a thread where a plethora of lawyers all espousing to be the holiest of thou ... !

- Why does California have the most lawyers, and New Jersey, the most toxic waste dumps?

........ New Jersey got first pick!

:)

Hèrb K@nê

Not sure if I can say this but, AMEN! :D

17. A few lots are subject to a reserve; these will be clearly noted on our web site and the auctioneer may bid up to the bid below the reserve amount.
http://www.cleansweepauctions.com/html/faq.html