You can't fight city hall- eBay protecting large sellers and shillers (probstein content)

Pinbreaker said:

Did you have the Gixen Mirror site or just the free one?

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just the regular Gixen, maybe I should look into it again haha

phillyfan0417 said:

So if you have a friend bidding on the auctions, how do you defend or stop that?

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He can with hold payments for 30 days to consigners.
He can make consigners sign a legally binding contract that they or their agents will not shill the auctions.
He can block all bids from bidders under a certain number of feedback or date of joining.
If shilling is found, the consigner surrenders all funds.

Lancemountain said:

He can with hold payments for 30 days to consigners.
He can make consigners sign a legally binding contract that they or their agents will not shill the auctions.
He can block all bids from bidders under a certain number of feedback or date of joining.
If shilling is found, the consigner surrenders all funds.

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That all makes alot of sense but I'm still stuck on how he proves it.

Other than your third suggestion, the rest can be done and he still wont be able to prove anything. All the talk about him has made me stop bidding on his auctions but i still dont see how he can defend it if the paper trail is not there...

phillyfan0417 said:

So if you have a friend bidding on the auctions, how do you defend or stop that?

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And a follow up....don't pay the consigner in situations like mine that are beyond obvious and return shilled funds to the customer.

Put this all in writing before the consignment. Be honest and not turning a blind eye. Because no matter how this is sliced, Probstein turned a blind eye. He was paid a higher amount then he would have, he was not and will not be held accountable and tomorrow he'll list another few hundred cards and go along with his business

Other idea for consigners listing higher end cards. And I know this may or not be leaving money on the table but it will make the process HONEST.

BIN with BO. I think many of us here, and most certainly Probstein knows what he's selling. Cards consigned with a perceived value over $40 are listed with what the consigner has the card valued. The BO will be trigged with what the consigner considers his lowest price acceptable

Anyone can consign with him, meaning there are probably thousands upon thousands of ebay accounts linked to his consignees. Firstly, there is absolutely no way he can police them. Secondly, it's not even his job to do so.

sportscardtheory said:

Secondly, it's not even his job to do so.

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Sure it is. It's his job to be as proactive as possible to stop the shilling and it's most certainly his job to fix the situation after the shilling has happened.

Lancemountain said:

He can with hold payments for 30 days to consigners.
He can make consigners sign a legally binding contract that they or their agents will not shill the auctions.
He can block all bids from bidders under a certain number of feedback or date of joining.
If shilling is found, the consigner surrenders all funds.

He could have emailed me, called, attempted to make it right. He swept it under the rug because he knew it would all go away. And he was right.

Probstein does not shill but he allows it to happen and does nothing to stop it.

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Why would he. The more cards sell for the more he gets from the consignee......He charges a percentage and that is why he will not say he knows it is done for sure, nor well he ever stop it.

Pine Tar said:

Why would he.

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The reasoning here would be to be an honest business person. Would that be a motive that you would support?

Lancemountain said:

The reasoning here would be to be an honest business person. Would that be a motive that you would support?

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Maybe so. But again it is not going to happen anytime soon.

Pine Tar said:

Maybe so. But again it is not going to happen anytime soon.

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just doing my part to speed that process up!

Lancemountain said:

just doing my part to speed that process up!

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While I get that it would be nice to save extra money, what's the big deal here? You agreed that spending X on Y was acceptable to you. How that price was reached is irrelevant, either you want it for that price or not. If not, don't bid that much. Is it ideal? No. But on eBay you never have to pay more than you want to put in the box.

His auctions are known and proven as shilled, he likely also knows that his auctions are getting shilled but does not proactively stop them, nor should he be as proactive as you're suggesting.
Your main point at addressing this behavior is to suspend payments for 30 days to consignee, but do you think that would be pretty bad for business for him. If I was co-signing and I had a few options I would not choose one where I have to wait 30 days to get part of the money the item sold for. Whether or not he wants to stop it, he does not have the recourse to do so as the policies you've suggested are fine on paper, but when you make your living this way you're not going to do something to jeopardize this. I'm sure you got shilled and it sucks, but at the end of the day you were satisfied with your purchase before you found out about the shilling so at the end of the day little harm was ultimately caused.

Edit to add: Just because little harm was ultimately caused, that does not make it ok; I understand why you may feel robbed of $62. The responsibility here is on eBay to fix this problem and they choose to have none of it and I'm not saying I have any good ideas on how they can fix it.

If auctions are several thousand years old, then auction shills are several thousand years old.

It's not exactly accepted, but expected when you're going to a legitimate auction.

i have no idea why people dont snipe.

ThoseBackPages said:

i have no idea why people dont snipe.

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The 1% of the time that the program fails (has happened to me only once) you lose complete trust in the program.

homerun28aa said:

The 1% of the time that the program fails (has happened to me only once) you lose complete trust in the program.

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so every time something doesnt go the way it's expected, give it up completely?

Like Wes mentioned, nobody's forced to bid more then they are willing to pay.

ThoseBackPages said:

so every time something doesnt go the way it's expected, give it up completely?

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When it comes to things I regard as incredibly important you're damn right (i.e. pieces of cardboard with used cloth or scribbles on it) . It's just one of those technologies that's good to have, but not necessary if it completely f***s you over you give up and revert back to the old method. The last thing I want to happen in a big ticket auction is a bid not getting placed so I'll usually place a bid near the start of the auction (way lower than I expect it to go for) just so it's on my radar and I don't forget about it.