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

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Lancemountain

Active member
Apr 11, 2009
8,313
5
Philadelphia
I posted this over on net54 which is truly a treasure for card collectors. There's a lot of probstein talk there and the more I thought about it, and the madder I got, I decided to post it here. This is not libel or slander or whatever......I was shilled and eBay and probstein did nothing about it. Here is my story


I purchased 7 cards from Probstein on the 10th of December. They were all from a modern set and clearly from the same consigner as they all were the same player, same set and very low serial numbered.



I won all 7, two for a very low price and the other 5 for about market average. I paid not thinking too much about it. Fair play-service and shipping was quick and Probstein had delivered my cards in a few short days. It needed a signature and was returned to my main HUB and it took a sweek for me to retrieve the package. Cards were packed well and were in good shape.

As I was entering my new cards into spreadsheets (date acquired, price paid, ect...I do enjoy this part) I poked through and low and behold I was shilled. The bidder o***l with 11 feedback. This person has 100% bidding activity with the seller. Every bid was on these cards within the last few minutes.

Quote:
30-Day Summary
Total bids: 10
Items bid on: 5
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 100%
Bid retractions: 0
Bid retractions (6 months): 0

Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Baseball 4 Seller 1 <1h
Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Baseball 3 Seller 1 <1h
Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Baseball 2 Seller 1 <1h
Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Baseball 2 Seller 1 <1h
Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Baseball 1 Seller 1 <1h

So I contact Probstein and explained in a well thought out and polite email that these cards were clearly shilled. I was hopeful that he had not paid the consigner the fees yet and we could reach an agreement. He replied with this:

Quote:
hi, best thing it to contact ebay trust and safety and let them determine if anything happened
thanks
rick

He knew darn well I would run into a big, fat wall.

I called them, I emailed them, I reported the auctions, I waited on hold with them, I spoke with eBay employees that I could literally just barely understand a word they were saying. eBay customer service is basically useless and so I resigned myself to that there would be no recourse.

Well the only recourse left would be to leave appropriate feedback, right?

Well the last kick in the teeth was all the negatives have been removed.


Probstein makes eBay a lot of money...as long as he says he's against shilling it's good enough for them. FWIW I was shilled for $62.00
 

A_Pharis

Active member
Hard to prove shilling when the buyer isn't repeatedly bumping auctions from a common IP as the seller. If you are consigning with him from states away, eBay won't second guess you bidding on items he's selling for you. What incentive does probstein have to tell the truth - much less change?

You won't be able to pin it on him via eBay, and you can't really prove the shillers are associated with him short of knowing someone doing it.
 

Y4NK335

New member
Aug 7, 2008
3,130
0
TBD
Age old question of how does he stop it?

Probstein has 25,000-30,000 auctions running at a time, how do you police each and every auction to try and squash the shilling when it does take place?
 

A_Pharis

Active member
You'd have to expect that most people consigning through him use eBay.

-Step 1: Present a form with a request for eBay username and registered email.
-Step 2: Block all presented usernames.
-Step 3: Block new bidders
-Step 4: Actually take concerns from buyers seriously by checking information of suspicious bidders.
 

Lancemountain

Active member
Apr 11, 2009
8,313
5
Philadelphia
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.
 

gamecockfanatic

Active member
Jun 17, 2009
945
25
Gamecock Country
maybe it's just me , but i don't think the bidding summary you displayed is proof of any shilling anyway....

i often do lot's of bidding with a single seller....also at times i have to seriously limit my buying so i may only bid on 5-10 items in a 30-day period and that may be all from one seller so i can take advantge of combiend shipping or hit several similar items in one batch....also , unless i'm putting in a place-holder bid just to keep an eye on an item when all my watchlists are full , virtually ALL of my bids are entered manually in the last 3 seconds of a listing....

using your criteria , if i happen to be in a "i'm-too-broke-to-buy-as-normal" hiatus , but had bid on 3-4 items (from a single seller) that you also tried for , then i MUST be a shill bidder....

sorry if i sound irritated , but frankly it DOES annoy me when i see so many people run to the message boards crying foul (or in this case shill) just because they see bidding activity that does fall into their own pattern........
 

Lancemountain

Active member
Apr 11, 2009
8,313
5
Philadelphia
He can with hold payments for 30 days to consigners.
.

Just to highlight this point.

I contacted him within 30 days. The shilling was obvious. To allude to Adam's post above, in a court of law.....no I could not prove it without eBay's assistance with IP tracking and even that not sure. Bit the circumstantial evidence is too large to ignore. Probstein should have contracts where the shilled amount was returned to me....taken out of the consigners profit.
 

RStadlerASU22

Active member
Jan 2, 2013
8,881
11
A majority of his auctions / sales are probably 100% legit , but the last one I see as fishy is the Andre Dawson Knob 1/1. No way does a 10k+ feedback winner not pay , then it gets relisted and same bidder is bidding that one up to. So after the first auction , even if P didn't know someone was bidding it up, that ID should of at least been blocked from bidding again. I try and put myself in place of the seller , and as Adam mentioned and others in previous threads, it's very had to prove they know anything is going on. And in most cases I actually think they wouldn't know if it's getting shilled. I think those who consign to them are taking it upon themselves.

Ryan
 

Y4NK335

New member
Aug 7, 2008
3,130
0
TBD
You'd have to expect that most people consigning through him use eBay.

-Step 1: Present a form with a request for eBay username and registered email.
-Step 2: Block all presented usernames.
-Step 3: Block new bidders
-Step 4: Actually take concerns from buyers seriously by checking information of suspicious bidders.

Ok. What about the people that consign with him but are also avid collector's? They're no longer entitled to bid on his auctions? Simply blocking the usernames is insufficient in my opinion because one could just ask a friend/relative to bid.

Agree with step 4, sounds like his CS is definitely lacking, but maybe overwhelmed with volume/understaffed, I don't know.

Obviously I am against shilling and it sucks to see the OP driven up by $62, I honestly just don't know what would be the best course of action to take. His customer service can be better and he should actually take these inquires seriously, but he must be weighing the cost/benefit of it.

Doesn't seem like there is one right answer to this issue. I've seen countless threads on shilling at this point and this one is as clear cut as it can be.
 

phillyfan0417

Well-known member
Administrator
Aug 7, 2008
43,551
43
Greenfield, Wisconsin, United States
Feel free to highly doubt. That's projecting evidence and much more circumstantial than you claim I am doing. :)

his auctions are shilled. more than likely at the request of the person who sent the cards and probably by someone other than that person. probstein, i'm 99.9% sure has no idea who is doing it and almost no way to stop it. I would assume a person gets his friends to do it unless they are just idiots to bid on cards or opens a spoof account with a different set of information but unfortunately, its the pitfall of his line of work and will probably lead to his demise...
 

Hawk8

Well-known member
Jul 13, 2013
8,400
268
Louisiana
A majority of his auctions / sales are probably 100% legit , but the last one I see as fishy is the Andre Dawson Knob 1/1. No way does a 10k+ feedback winner not pay , then it gets relisted and same bidder is bidding that one up to. So after the first auction , even if P didn't know someone was bidding it up, that ID should of at least been blocked from bidding again. I try and put myself in place of the seller , and as Adam mentioned and others in previous threads, it's very had to prove they know anything is going on. And in most cases I actually think they wouldn't know if it's getting shilled. I think those who consign to them are taking it upon themselves.

Ryan

Stupid bat knob lol
 

Lancemountain

Active member
Apr 11, 2009
8,313
5
Philadelphia
his auctions are shilled. more than likely at the request of the person who sent the cards and probably by someone other than that person. probstein, i'm 99.9% sure has no idea who is doing it and almost no way to stop it. I would assume a person gets his friends to do it unless they are just idiots to bid on cards or opens a spoof account with a different set of information but unfortunately, its the pitfall of his line of work and will probably lead to his demise...

As far as I can tell he does nothing to proactively stop it and I do know for certain he does nothing to fix the issue once it's happened.
 

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