Hi all, had my eyes on a few auctions that ended at insane prices:
www.ebay.com/itm/263117451670?_trksid=p2471758.m4704
www.ebay.com/itm/263117463809?_trksid=p2471758.m4704
There were probably more that I missed. My gut tells me these were shilled, but the bid histories seem to check out. Would love to hear opinions on what the heck happened.
Seems pretty shady to me. A lot of his cards sold for prices way above the norm. He’s also recently got a negative feedback (8/4) from his crystal ho-oh auction saying he wouldn’t accept PayPal???
I bought one of his cards last week and had no issue paying with paypal.
this is @deaddarkrai on instragram. He is known for having rare cards in Mint/Gem Mint condition, so people who know him might be willing to pay high prices because they think the card will grade a 10. On another note many people have been having issues with him on instagram not shipping cards they purchased and ignoring there messages. So i would just stay away from him.
I think the card prices can lie at most above PSA 9 and below PSA to 10. If the card is Mint and the math checks out, then it should be fine.
ebay’s feedback system is a joke anyways, one call and they can have their negative feedback removed…
Ah, that makes sense. I’ve interacted with him a few times, and he’s usually very responsive up until purchase. After that it seems he’s not very proactive in updating buyers on shipping/delays/etc. He only responded when multiple people called him out, claiming he was busy with school. One of the mods on r/pkmntcgtrades banned him outright. I don’t think he’s a bad guy, just not very mindful of his buyers.
Ive had a few instances where say I have max bid 50 on an item…current bid is mine at 16 highest bidder.all of a sudden the bid jumps to 52…then an email comes through saying the bid has been retracted and I am the highest bidder at 16 again. its happened maybe 3 times to me. could be nothing but …yea??
I see these e-mails a lot and with how many items I bid on it is such a pain to go through and investigate every single one for shill bidding. Especially considering it is easy to hide if someone wanted to know how to. I pretty much just bid somewhere I am happy paying and very likely have been shilled higher in many instances. I say “many” just due to my sheer volume. I don’t think it is extremely common to happen and overall probably adds a very small fraction to my overall item costs.
It is the only silver lining that I can find when I have inevitable “buyers” bid my items up that I am selling and then retract or refuse to pay. I know that happens quite a lot and I can just make myself believe this to be the case in those instances that I get that e-mail.
Doesn’t look like shilling with different winners on the cards and with high feedback scores. If it’s the same guy from instagram he actually messaged me yesterday and said he’s been having issues with paypal and it took a few days to resolve with them. That being said Iv’e also been waiting over a week for a simple 30 second refund for cards that never arrived to me from him. Not very professional seller imo
Yea I dont mind but it just seems like someone tested the water then retracted after seeing highest bid? whether a potential buyer or other…i dont know.Hope that makes some sense 
just strange it jumped up 2 quid over my highest then vanished.not willign to pay that much or a friend.other of the lister to see max bid…to try get the most from the auction? complete speculation 
but yea .