So, every Pokemon auction on this PWCC block is private bidders. This is unlikely to affect the high end, but I see historically shilled/trolled auctions such as Goldstars being messed with - with no oversight.
PWCC has an extremely trash track record with actually handling meddled with auctions in the past, so we’ll see where this gets us.
Ebay should IP ban people who shill auctions; at least for higher end auctions like PWCC if they dont have the manpower or balls to do so for the whole website.
IP banning in 2020
better than doing nothing.
Probably not something that would ever happen but it would be amazing if eBay would start charging people to retract bids and non pay after winning. 1-2% of bid amount to retract after using up something like 1 free retraction a month. 5-10% charge of winning amount for non pay. This would be achieved by requiring a deposit ~10% of your max bid. Perhaps this would be a new/young account requirement that could be overcome with successful transactions and positive history. E.g. start a new account and deposit $5k to get unrestricted bidding up to $50k. Can be used to pay for auctions and can be withdrawn as long as you arent winning any auctions at the time and it adjusts your bid limit.
I know I’m just dreaming though as it would deter new customers and that isn’t their business model.
Nah IP banning is pretty much the same as doing nothing. Anyone can use a VPN, with there even being several free options out there, and ISP’s often including them in network subscriptions.
And that’s ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of IPV4 addresses these days are dynamic since it’s limited to ~4 billion addresses. All they would have to do is restart their router. It’s not worth the effort from ebay’s/pwcc’s side.
eBay have more sophisticated ban methods than simply IP, including browser and device fingerprinting. Of course, we can probably all provide examples where it has not been 100% effective based on the existence of repeat offenders.
Pros: Protect winner privacy
Cons: Now there’s absolutely no way to tell if someone is shill bidding up a card.
Overall: Given how bad PWCC auctions were shilled historically, I’d say the cons outweigh the pros.
StockX supposedly charges sellers who reneg 15% of the total deal
Safe to say we will see a lot of these cards again come next block…
All eBay needs is a company like Muddy Waters to do some “investigative” research on the company to send their stock tanking for the million and one reasons why the company is garbage and over valued, too bad they only focus on Chinese companies. But that would start getting eBay to innovate a bit and listen a bit more…
Keep your eyes peeled for StockX —> soon to be the new gold standard for pricing and real market value as well as the best marketplace in the world to trade collectibles. Going to take a few years, but they will win this one I have no doubt.
Tbf all consignment auction houses don’t state who is bidding. Anonymity is part of the value. PWCC is one of the largest consignment options for pokemon. Plus PWCC aggressively removes suspicious bids; shill, string, and requiring special bidding for high end items. Also most of their auction blocks are paid.
I think the telling sign will be if more items end up unpaid after the switch.
That’s what I’m watching for. All that really matters in the end is how many of the items actually get paid for.
If there are many more unpaid items than usual, then perhaps we can say that the anonymous bids are a problem. Until then, I will reserve judgment.
I’m sure these PWCC auctions will smash previous prices, just like last month’s auction did. Last month, the items actually got paid for (despite skepticism around the final prices when the auction closed). We’ll see if that holds true again this time.
It may take a couple of weeks until after the auction block ends to really know what’s up.
All else equal I would have expected more shill bids this month than last just due to market activity. No valuable determinations in private bidding success could be made until about a year of it IMO. I mean unless they see historical high 5x more than ever before or something crazy. The amount of non pays per block probably fluctuates a lot as one “buyer” can take down a lot single handedly.
My understanding is that pwcc bans people after 1 not paid bill. Do you know if that is correct Scott?
Yeah it is such an impossible thing to accurately measure or track. I feel like shill bidding was actually more of an issue before Logan Paul, I felt like the market had plateued and actually people had started getting worried and trying to shill bid their cards up to keep the appearance of held value. (Certainly all speculation, but I had more buyers coming to me saying people kept not paying for their items and made up lots of excuses, although some just flat out would say, I thought it would go higher and I didn’t actually want to buy the item lol. Where as now the demand is just intense on the high end at least, people are jumping over each other to buy these booster boxes and low pop Wotc Set cards!
I’ve head the same thing but don’t know for sure.
I speak to the guys at PWCC often - they ban after one unpaid item.
However, ebay only allows for 5,000 banned accounts (they may have changed it since I last spoke about it with them), they would absolutely love to ban more people, but they simply can’t.
So, when a new person gets banned, someone back in the day gets unbanned
Yup its still 5000
Also, the cost for getting a new eBay account is very, very low. The shillers can always create one-time shilling account for each month’s PWCC auction.