PWCC & eBay - help us improve the hobby

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by swarmee

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.

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.

[nolemmings]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

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

[Peter_Spaeth]

Touche.

[calvindog]

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

2007

[swarmee]

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.

[111gecko]

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....

[glchen]

Originally Posted by swarmee

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.

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.

[swarmee]

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

[wonkaticket]

Originally Posted by calvindog

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

2007

Chuckle