ebay finds that PWCC engaged in shill bidding?

[Andrew1975]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Does anyone have an idea of what the maximum amount of time the FBI might spend would be before bringing charges in a case like the PWCC/PSA/BGS/Probstein/eBay card trimmers and shill bidding scandal?

Also, when did it start? Wasn't it about 3 years ago now?

At some point, we should get to close the door on whether or not PWCC was engaged in illegal activities. If they were/are guilty of what their detractors claim, then Brent, and likely others, will be charged with crimes. At some point we no longer have to guess whether it not they were engaged in illegal activity. We'll know, because we know the FBI looked into it.

If charges are brought against PWCC and/or its owners, then I think it's likely that this ebay email cutting ties with them has something to do with it. However, on the other hand, if charges are not brought against PWCC within the next 6 months? 1 year? 2 years? Then it would be safe to assume that the detractors were wrong all along and that ebay's email likely was defamatory and an attempt to tarnish the reputation of a competitor.

I honestly don't know which direction I'd lean here in terms of who is and isn't guilty and what they might be guilty of. I wouldn't be surprised be either outcome (PWCC collapsing and Brent ending up behind bars or PWCC/PSA/BGS/Probstein all being exonerated). But being 3 years into this with still no charges being brought at all? That's not looking good for the haters. And with every day that passes, it looks less and less likely that they were right. How much time is left in the hourglass of this investigation? When I think about other recent FBI investigations that have been in the news, they were all wrapped up in much sooner than this one and multiple charges were brought against people at different points in time throughout the course of those investigations. Yet we still have no charges from this investigation. Could it be that it was delayed because of the pandemic perhaps? Maybe it's now just heating back up again and that's why ebay cut ties with PWCC? How much longer do we give this? At some point we either need to see some charges or we need to see some apologies.

If there are still no charges by this time next year, I think I'll be pretty firmly in the "they're not guilty" camp. I think 4 years seems like it should be enough time to make that conclusion, but I don't really know. That's just a guess. Maybe these things can take 7+ years for all I know. But it sure seems unlikely to me.

Covid brought US District Court GJ's to a grinding halt, with only the most serious cases getting any GJ time at all (and not much even for those). I'm not surprised in the least that we haven't seen indictments yet. Wouldn't be surprised if eBay thought they might be coming and decided to kick PWCC to the curb before it happened. Just a guess... maybe just wishful thinking.