Probstein123 Still amazed he is in business

[Matthew H]

Originally Posted by Sean1125

I will sort through my previous listings and see what I can come up with.

I DO NOT and WILL NOT EVER bid on my own auctions. I had 2 Dan Marinos and 2 Elway Rookies end for $160... I was only asking $60 for the 4 cards locally. I also have had some partial sets that I estimate in the 1500-1800 range end 2500-3200

Thank you for sharing that.

[iwantitiwinit]

I read both of Rick P's posts and I do not see anywhere where he declared that he is NOT shilling. did I miss something? If I am wrong mea culpa but I didnt see it. If I was going to refute something I would state it directly. I am not accusing anyone of anytihng just stating I dont see that statement anywhere.

[probstein123]

iwantitiwinit , I'm not shilling

[iwantitiwinit]

Thank you Rick. I will take you at your word. I have bought from you in the past both on EBAY and in person. I do however find many of the bids on many of your auctions suspicious and I cited several of those in a past post. However, I will take you at your word.

[probstein123]

hello, here we go again, another moron making an accusations,
==> a) we leave feedback for every buyer, take a look, its 3 unique buyers, and yes, I have 20 of these, I bought the remaining inventory....

if you have enough keyboard strength to trash me, go take 5 minutes and you'll see its 3 different winners...

I own 20 of these...

[lsutigers1973]

Originally Posted by probstein123

hello, here we go again, another moron making an accusations,
==> a) we leave feedback for every buyer, take a look, its 3 unique buyers, and yes, I have 20 of these, I bought the remaining inventory....

if you have enough keyboard strength to trash me, go take 5 minutes and you'll see its 3 different winners...

I own 20 of these...

You own 20 of them that are all numbered 171/400?

[npa589]

So much drama on NET54 recently...

[MattyC]

So I pretty much stopped contributing to the PSA boards because of all the keyboard-courage fueled snide remarks, the allegations bordering on slander, the reality-disconnected expectations that people need to somehow be aware of every post about them on a website, and then appear immediately to defend themselves, and a failure to do so implies guilt. The inability of threads to stay focused and debates to stay reasonable and rational, and the overall uncivil, nasty tenor of the discourse. The constant complaining about possible shilling, inconsistent grades, outrageous conspiracy theories, the list goes on ad nauseum.

It's enough to sour someone on the hobby, to see what others who collect are like-- on the internet. Whenever I attend a show, which is infrequent, I have such fun meeting card enthusiasts in person and talking with them. Is it the anonymity of the internet what makes people so nasty toward each other?

All I know is that I'd heard for a long time that the Net54 forum was a place with a much more civil, mature vibe and was where one could go to learn more about cards, and talk cards with fellow collectors.

We all know shilling exists. We all know that the degree of transparency on ebay vs AH's IN EFFECT means nothing, because there is NOTHING stopping random accounts on ebay from shilling.

It seems that anytime anyone loses an auction and gets salty, they can dig up a bidder on ebay and scream SHILL, and then take the utterly unfounded and slanderous leap of implicating the seller as well as the card's owner. What a leap that is.

These days I tend to most trust the customer service of the two main sellers on ebay, Probstein and PWCC. If one were to look at my bidding history in some 30-day windows, they'd see 100% of my bids with those sellers. Does this make me a shiller?

Anyway, I think the internet is a great thing for the hobby, in terms of opening up the market so we can buy cards from all over. But the internet's affect on the social interaction part of our hobby is another thing altogether. Who wants to go somewhere to read about cards and see all this Sturm und Drang?

You see a card you want at auction, bid what you'd like to pay for it. You win it, great, you lose it, whatever. You don't like auctions, buy elsewhere. It's so simple.

No one can stop shilling. That's not defeatist. It's a fact. Human avarice will always find a way. But the individual can render it a moot issue by choosing to pay their price. I've never lost an auction and then went into the auction bidding data to hunt for shillers. I bid, I lost it, I move on in the hunt.

For me, I think the answer is to use the internet only to buy for a while.

I'm going to go look at my cards and remember that they are the hobby, not this thread.

[t206blogcom]

Originally Posted by npa589

So much drama on NET54 recently...

+1

[probstein123]

once more, this card was sold 3 times and returned 3 times , to 3 different winners...returned each time, cause people thought the card was misgraded ( which it was )

go research my feedbacks and you'll see its 3 different winners....

you think I'm shilling a nolan ryan psa 8...

I'm a nice guy, but get bent, your way off base

[Sean1125]

Originally Posted by probstein123

once more, this card was sold 3 times and returned 3 times , to 3 different winners...returned each time, cause people thought the card was misgraded ( which it was )

go research my feedbacks and you'll see its 3 different winners....

you think I'm shilling a nolan ryan psa 8...

I'm a nice guy, but get bent, your way off base

High five. Lay down the law. Also I will be back later to post the examples I mentioned earlier. I will show both ends of the spectrum as well. (I've gotten $300 on a lot where one ended $2000 the week before)

[sbfinley]

I've been away from the boards for an extended period (back to school), but I've been checking in the past few weeks to catch up. A couple of notes:

1. I've purchased from Rick before in the past. No complaints. Nothing I have read here would persuade me from not bidding in future auctions.

2. Someone once taught me to never bid more than you are willing to pay. Anything less is icing.

3. Shilling is an evil of the market we frequent, but implying that Rick is root cause, agent of, or enabler of it is grossly inaccurate.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by sbfinley

I've been away from the boards for an extended period (back to school), but I've been checking in the past few weeks to catch up. A couple of notes:

1. I've purchased from Rick before in the past. No complaints. Nothing I have read here would persuade me from not bidding in future auctions.

2. Someone once taught me to never bid more than you are willing to pay. Anything less is icing.

3. Shilling is an evil of the market we frequent, but implying that Rick is root cause, agent of, or enabler of it is grossly inaccurate.

Perhaps you've forgotten the rules here Steve, but this is N54; you can't go around just making logical, well-reasoned, polite posts. What if we all did that???

[lsutigers1973]

It's funny how every single thread on PSA exposing Rick has been deleted. Real forums may lock the thread but never delete them. Guess it's to hide full transparency.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Since an ebay seller cannot see a max bid it is impossible to shill in the strictest sense of the word namely placing a bid forvthe purpose of bumping up the high bid. This leaves two other practices to discuss. One is bidding up incrementally until the high bidder is topped then retracting. This is clearly wrong and should not be tolerated. The second is placement of a safety bid by the consignor or a proxy which to me is akin to a hidden reserve and next to impossible to police. It might be cleaner if there was a reserve but i wont fret it.

[lsutigers1973]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Since an ebay seller cannot see a max bid it is impossible to shill in the strictest sense of the word namely placing a bid forvthe purpose of bumping up the high bid. This leaves two other practices to discuss. One is bidding up incrementally until the high bidder is topped then retracting. This is clearly wrong and should not be tolerated. The second is placement of a safety bid by the consignor or a proxy which to me is akin to a hidden reserve and next to impossible to police. It might be cleaner if there was a reserve but i wont fret it.

Feel free to go through Rick's feedback and look at bid history on any random auction over $100. Most have at least one bidder with 10-15 bid retractions in last 6 months with a high percentage of Rick's auctions bid on.

In 12 years on eBay I have had a total of 2 retractions.

Rick, I think the reality is that once people consign something to you, they can then bid on it via themselves (or if you actually monitor that) via proxy.

Now at least on ebay people can semi-see who is bidding, analyze patterns, and try and sniff out the shills.

The reason why AHs offebay don't allow any transparency is because this same thing would happen, people would see some funny business and then call it out.

I submit that it's actually a good thing that people are as vigilante as they are with your auctions, and frankly I wish ebay would have FULL transparency like they used to.

The way things are now, I think it's up to the masses to police auctions they are interested in and to speak out if something seems off. Rick can't do that himself, and I don't think it's fair to expect that he does.

Furthermore, I think it's commendable that Rick takes the time to actually post on these forums and react to the concerns of people. That's more than many other big time sellers do, and I think it speaks volumes to his credibility and willingness to keep things as clean as he can.

[T206DK]

Originally Posted by lsutigers1973

Feel free to go through Rick's feedback and look at bid history on any random auction over $100. Most have at least one bidder with 10-15 bid retractions in last 6 months with a high percentage of Rick's auctions bid on.

In 12 years on eBay I have had a total of 2 retractions.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed this

[Matthew H]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Since an ebay seller cannot see a max bid it is impossible to shill in the strictest sense of the word namely placing a bid forvthe purpose of bumping up the high bid. This leaves two other practices to discuss. One is bidding up incrementally until the high bidder is topped then retracting. This is clearly wrong and should not be tolerated. The second is placement of a safety bid by the consignor or a proxy which to me is akin to a hidden reserve and next to impossible to police. It might be cleaner if there was a reserve but i wont fret it.

Could you come up with a different word for "safety bid"? Starting a .99 "no reserve" auction then placing a "safety bid" is a f---ing scumbag move and doesn't deserve such a cute name.

[Republicaninmass]

Member since: Jan-09-04 0 bid retractions

[rajah424]

I recently consigned about 40 cards to Rick, including 25 midgrade T202's, that ended on 1/27. One buyer won three cards (paying $82, $82 and $51.66)and immediately relisted them for auction. The auction ended on 2/11 and sold for $76, $90 and $64.75. This gave him a profit of $15.09 before ebay fees.

Don't know that this really adds anything to the discussion, other than Rick doesn't always get the highest prices, just thought i would add my experience with Rick. I did not bid on my own items and based on the prices i don't think anyone ran the prices up higher than what these cards normally sell for.

Stuart

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by rajah424

I recently consigned about 40 cards to Rick, including 25 midgrade T202's, that ended on 1/27. One buyer won three cards (paying $82, $82 and $51.66)and immediately relisted them for auction. The auction ended on 2/11 and sold for $76, $90 and $64.75. This gave him a profit of $15.09 before ebay fees.

Don't know that this really adds anything to the discussion, other than Rick doesn't always get the highest prices, just thought i would add my experience with Rick. I did not bid on my own items and based on the prices i don't think anyone ran the prices up higher than what these cards normally sell for.

Stuart

Hi Stuart, It adds a lot to the discussion. I'm assuming you paid Rick something to consign your cards. It sounds like you didn't do so well overall (you could have gotten higher prices - plus covered the consignment fees - by selling them yourself), right? So, given that you didn't do so well, I guess you won't be consigning through Rick in the future, right?