Bidding on your own auction

[iwantitiwinit]

Hmmm the plot thickens, I see one consistent bidder on this sellers auctions is i***g. I just quickly looked at 3 of this sellers active t206 auctions and see that i***g has bid on all three.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Miller-...item5899e35a62

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Josh-De...item53f23b8b30

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=380542032273



That in itself means absolutely nothing i***g could be bidding on every t206 out there for all I know. However, looking a bit further I see that in the past 6 months i***g has 133 bid retractions. Here are the stats I see for that bidder:

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 72
Items bid on: 72
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 25%
Bid retractions: 8
Bid retractions (6 months): 133

Something is starting to smell a bit fishy.

[chaddurbin]

one of the many perks of paying someone else to sell your lower valued cards...so you can shill the hell out of it. otherwise why would anyone consign $50-$100 cards to these places?

[T206DK]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

Hmmm the plot thickens, I see one consistent bidder on this sellers auctions is i***g. I just quickly looked at 3 of this sellers active t206 auctions and see that i***g has bid on all three.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Miller-...item5899e35a62

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Josh-De...item53f23b8b30

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=380542032273



That in itself means absolutely nothing i***g could be bidding on every t206 out there for all I know. However, looking a bit further I see that in the past 6 months i***g has 133 bid retractions. Here are the stats I see for that bidder:

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 72
Items bid on: 72
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 25%
Bid retractions: 8
Bid retractions (6 months): 133

Something is starting to smell a bit fishy.

Whats new....another supposedly reputable vintage card seller with really high feedback is caught shilling or having his friends or relatives shill his auctions ...wow stop the presses Collecting cards is becoming kind of depressing these days

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

Hmmm the plot thickens, I see one consistent bidder on this sellers auctions is i***g. I just quickly looked at 3 of this sellers active t206 auctions and see that i***g has bid on all three.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Miller-...item5899e35a62

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Josh-De...item53f23b8b30

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=380542032273



That in itself means absolutely nothing i***g could be bidding on every t206 out there for all I know. However, looking a bit further I see that in the past 6 months i***g has 133 bid retractions. Here are the stats I see for that bidder:

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 72
Items bid on: 72
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 25%
Bid retractions: 8
Bid retractions (6 months): 133

Something is starting to smell a bit fishy.

This one does not look like a straight out shiller to me.

Looks more like a tamperer

A few possibilities:

He pulls his bids when he finds out something else he likes, since he's usually only putting in one bid per auction.

He is really, really interested for some reason in seeing a stable market for T206's, and is misguidedly throwing in bids he thinks the cards should go for (thereby protecting the value of his own collection) and pulling them back when it looks like he might actually win.

Lastly, he is a bit of a shiller. He's not running up auctions but he has consignments with this seller and is placing a single bid on his own cards as sort of a reserve.

Whatever it is, it shouldn't be allowed by Ebay. I'm not sure it's something I would crucify the seller for without knowing more.

If I was Probstein and the same guy was retracting bids in my auctions on a regular basis, he'd be on the blocked bidder list very quickly. It's not hard to keep track of...........you get an e-mail from Ebay every time it happens.

[iwantitiwinit]

I only stated what I saw don't think I crucified anyone. I have bot from this seller in the past both on eBay and in person and have enjoyed the interactions. I hope some of the things pointed out are proven to be coincidences.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

I only stated what I saw don't think I crucified anyone. I have bot from this seller in the past both on eBay and in person and have enjoyed the interactions. I hope some of the things pointed out are proven to be coincidences.

Just making a general observation. I didn't mean to imply you yourself, were "crucifying" the seller in question.

It does merit being pointed out. Whether there's anything untoward going on with Probstein or not, these type of bidding practices are ultimately damaging to the marketplace. I'd like to see these types of bidders taking some flack for this.

It's becoming a common trend nowadays, whether it involves actual shilling or not.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

Something is starting to smell a bit fishy.

Started smelling fishy in the Art Shell thread a few months ago (pank21). Now just downright rotten!!!

[asoriano]

These are exactly the reasons why I will never bid with Rick Probstein.

Shady.

[frankbmd]

My masked ID has not changed. Just about all of my purchases have been captured by Card Target and the prices paid are accurate. Now who am I?

The encryption masking involves several algorithms depending on the number of characters in your username. I haven't figured it all out, but I have a pretty good idea. It isn't rocket science IMO.

[Bugsy]

If Probstein were an honest seller, he wouldn't want shill bidders continually manipulating his auctions...assuming he himself isn't the shill bidder.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Bugsy

If Probstein were an honest seller, he wouldn't want shill bidders continually manipulating his auctions...assuming he himself isn't the shill bidder.

That's a good point. Retractions happen from time to time, but if it is frequent from the same bidder, or worse, from a consignor.........he should be blocking that bidder and/or refusing those consignments.

He does have a somewhat huge operation going and I understand some things can get overlooked, but these are somewhat easy to notice things.

Retractions are the key. The Bid %'s Ebay gives, really means nothing IMO, unless it is in tandem with other fishy practices.

[Butch7999]

Again, just tangential trivia, but since you asked --
MW1, all we can tell ya is basically what we already said and what we've seen in auctions in which we've bid.
-- our bids have shown up as both "u***u" and "u***7"
-- we've also seen the bids of a friend and fellow Net54 member showing up with two specific characters in several auctions
(we decline to specify the characters without his permission) and those same two characters transposed in other auctions.

Presumably, there's something in the eBay encryption programme that will change the "standard" masked ID for a second bidder
if another bidder, whose masked ID appears as the same two characters as those normally used to mask the second bidder,
has already bid in that same auction.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Butch7999
Trivia, just for the record:
-- "masked" eBay IDs do not always come up the same for the same bidder (although they're consistent within any single auction).
Our eBay ID has shown up masked a couple of different ways.
-- a "masked" ID can represent any number of eBay bidders -- there are only about 1,600 possible two-character combinations.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MW1
Butch,
Can you provide an example?

[ScottFandango]

in todays day of hidden ebay bidder's IDs, why do some bidders show up as "private" still?

what is the benefit of this? y*****y is listed as "private"...