Small Traditions LLC/SCANDAL UPDATE

[packs]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I think it's more than I'm struggling with whether or not people are being disingenuous and just trying to get under my skin, or if they honestly believe what they're saying sometimes. My above claim that more eyes on a listing leads to higher prices is a prime example. I don't know if people are just messing with me when they challenge that claim or if they honestly believe that it's not true.

I care more about whether or not I'm making my points clearly than I do about whether or not they are understood clearly. But I do at least attempt to speak with intention and I try not to mince words so that there is no confusion about what I'm trying to say. I do get frustrated, however, when someone takes something I've said and completely twists it around and then puts their own words back into my mouth which I then have to spit back out because they want to manipulate my viewpoint.

I will try to be more clear about why I believe something is true in the future rather than just claiming it's true and expecting everyone to believe me.

I don't think there's general disagreement that more eyes equal more bids. The disagreement comes in that being a real explanation for what's going on. It has been pointed out that ever since a seller appeared on the scene, as far back as 2013, the same conversation has been had the entire time that seller has been active. Before the followers and before the vault the same issue existed and the same questions were asked.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Incidentally an interesting point was made on another forum where we were discussing what ebay meant by shill bidding by "persons associated with PWCC." Some think it only means consignors were running up their own cards, not that employees or house accounts of PWCC were involved. But as someone asked, how would ebay know who his consignors were?

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Incidentally an interesting point was made on another forum where we were discussing what ebay meant by shill bidding by "persons associated with PWCC." Some think it only means consignors were running up their own cards, not that employees or house accounts of PWCC were involved. But as someone asked, how would ebay know who his consignors were?

There are third party providers that provide store management capabilities that complement eBay's service. Without actually checking, it does seem reasonable that those services would include the capability to associate specific listings with the consignor. And, if eBay had been subpoenaed, you can pretty much bet whomever was PWCC's store provider was also.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

There are third party providers that provide store management capabilities that complement eBay's service. Without actually checking, it does seem reasonable that those services would include the capability to associate specific listings with the consignor. And, if eBay had been subpoenaed, you can pretty much bet whomever was PWCC's store provider was also.

That still doesn't explain I don't think how EBAY would know the information so as to accuse PWCC of allowing consignors to bid on their own items.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

That still doesn't explain I don't think how EBAY would know the information so as to accuse PWCC of allowing consignors to bid on their own items.

It isn't a direct analogy, but the company I work for uses a lot of software. A fair amount is just purchased, but there is a fair amount that is Software as a Service (Saas) Even within SaaS, there are programs that require their own login credentials and others that can be accessed through single sign-on. I do negotiate contracts, though not those associated with software. But, it is my understanding that as the level of integration increases, so does the level of complexity in the agreements. It is not unreasonable to expect that in any agreement between eBay and a third party company, there is a provision that eBay must be notified of any fraud or criminal activity associated with their service.

I realize this is just speculation, but that does seem to be the currency here, so....

[Peter_Spaeth]

Fair enough but I still think ebay was referring to employees or house accounts.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Incidentally an interesting point was made on another forum where we were discussing what ebay meant by shill bidding by "persons associated with PWCC." Some think it only means consignors were running up their own cards, not that employees or house accounts of PWCC were involved. But as someone asked, how would ebay know who his consignors were?

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

That still doesn't explain I don't think how EBAY would know the information so as to accuse PWCC of allowing consignors to bid on their own items.

They likely wouldn't know in all cases, or perhaps even most cases, who the consigners were without some level of cooperation with the consignment companies. However, they can be reasonably certain in many cases. Here's one example of how they could predict who might be shill bidding on their own items.

Let's say eBay user 'goneFishing64 (18)' had 7 PSA graded cards for sale as 'buy-it-now' listings with his PSA certification numbers entered in the listings but wasn't getting any bites. He decides he really needs the money but knows that if he auctions them off himself, he wouldn't do as well since he only has a feedback score of (18), so he ends the listings and sends the cards off for consignment. Two weeks later, those same certification numbers get entered by the consignment company and one week after that, his eBay ID places a bid on all 7 listings, or a different eBay ID that shares an IP address with 'goneFishing64' places bids on those 7 listings. eBay would have all of this data at their fingertips and it would be easy to write a query to flag all similar cases. It would also probably find a lot of people doing this (albeit a small percentage of the total pool of shill bidders). But that's at least one way that eBay could be reasonably certain that a consignor has placed shill bids on their consignments with a company like PWCC.

[Peter_Spaeth]

The hypothetical makes sense, thank you, although I still don't think that's what they are referring to.

[SteveS]

For legal, business, and practical reasons, I don't think that eBay would ban PWCC without having sufficient evidence that they were involved in the shill bidding and/or they knew or it was brought to their attention that consignors were engaged in shill bidding and they did nothing about it.

[SteveS]

Peter, that phrasing by eBay does leave it open to interpretation. But there's another interesting phrase they used: "If we determine that a buyer or seller is not acting in good faith, eBay takes this seriously and takes action." To me, that would seem to indicate that they believe PWCC is complicit in the shill bidding, as the action they took was to ban them. I would also think that if they felt the consignors were behind the shilling, they would at least attempt to work with a seller that large to resolve the issue. It will be interesting to find out whether eBay ever contacted PWCC to say something like, "Hey, we're noticing some suspicious activity in your auctions involving shill bidding. Let's try to figure this out and stop it." But based on PWCC's response to the ban, it seems as though they were completely surprised by it, which would seem to indicate that eBay feels that PWCC are the ones acting in bad faith.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by SteveS

Peter, that phrasing by eBay does leave it open to interpretation. But there's another interesting phrase they used: "If we determine that a buyer or seller is not acting in good faith, eBay takes this seriously and takes action." To me, that would seem to indicate that they believe PWCC is complicit in the shill bidding, as the action they took was to ban them. I would also think that if they felt the consignors were behind the shilling, they would at least attempt to work with a seller that large to resolve the issue. It will be interesting to find out whether eBay ever contacted PWCC to say something like, "Hey, we're noticing some suspicious activity in your auctions involving shill bidding. Let's try to figure this out and stop it." But based on PWCC's response to the ban, it seems as though they were completely surprised by it, which would seem to indicate that eBay feels that PWCC are the ones acting in bad faith.

Hopefully somehow we'll find out what it all means. As to your last point, I wouldn't take anything PWCC says at face value. Anything. This is a man who claimed on this forum I was the first one ever to raise a question about his scans (many years ago when they were thermonuclear), when just a few months before he himself had responded at length to such a claim on CU. This is a man who told me flat out in 2016 or 2017 that Gary M. had retired. I could go on and on and on. His public statements are all self-serving spin IMO.