ComicLink 'Raw'

[fantastic_four]

By the way, I've publicly speculated that Josh "snipes" stuff myself, but in the end, I couldn't come up with any evidence of it. Here's the thread where I brought up the possibility:

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=353438&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

[jkrk]

I've been looking through the comic link site for the last week or so and I am getting a bit fatigued. With a few key sales they obviously have the "hot site". Their listings are growing but here is what I am seeing from my own perspective. With free listings I am observing that sellers are posting books that have recently been purchased on E-Bay and simply marking up the books. Others are placing stale inventory on the site not caring if the books sell or not. The increase in postings means I am going through a greater volume of books and have little interest in vast numbers. I simply am beginning to find that I will go onto his site less and less. I am not a 9.0+ buyer so you have to understand my view. There is not enough of a return for my effort to peruse his site. Someone asked, what would be an improvement to the site? Here is my suggestion. Every week, Josh should auction say 20 books (gold and Silver) or more with the stipulation that the reserve is 70% of guide. He should offer an incentive to sellers (say a 5% fee rather than 10%) in order to attract listings for the auctions. Whether the auctions are every week or once a month, or every quarter remains to be seen. The point is that the buyers would know that these books will sell to the highest bidder after the reserve is met. Right now, the CL site benefits only the sellers as the buyers seem to be paying Heritage prices netting the sellers a higher markup. In time the model will fail as the "fools and their money are soon parted". A consistent auction might be one additional drawing card. Any other views?

[jbud73]

I think the point thats being articulated is that if you list too high he pulls them down, if you list o low he buys them and they never hi topn market. Nice circular buying tactic hes got going on there. Anyway for me this has really few ramifications as I said I won't buy off CL just over the principle of the CC surcharge. But I think it important to let collectors know whether they buy or sell on CL exactly what they are up against don't you?

 

Yea, I do wish I knew for sure, but I've seen no evidence that he "snipes" listings...did someone present some in another thread somewhere?

 

 

Come on this is the same "point the finger due to circumstantial evidence although there is no proof" logic at work here as it is in the Heritage thread where I believe you were opposed to my holding out for evidence before I cast aspersions on Heritage. what is the difference here that you need a quote or some testimonial about foul play with josh of comiclink bidding and sniping his consignments? The way Heritage is set up facilitates foul play - I think the peanut gallery here is doing the same thing and just accusing Josh of foul play becuase his site is set up to give him the ability to do what he is accused of, although there is no known instance where he has done this for certain.

 

I;m sorry that fantasy football got screwed on the AF15... I'm just using FF's post here to point out the irony in his "wanting proof" of Josh's foul play but basically insinuates I have place on the Heritage thread since I don't commiserate with the "victims" of big bad Heritage John

 

Again its Darth to the defense it looks like. Okay I DO NOT begrudge Josh setting up his site so that it has the most advantageous format for him - that is his perogative. Hey if he can break the law and get ppl to pay the Credit Card Fee more power too him. It just seems unlikely doesnt it that a book has never been consigned through Comic Link that he said, thats a great deal Ill buy that........ Its his site like I said Carpe Diem. However, its, just like Heritage a prescreening mechanism, just like the dealers who cherry pick each other before the doors open? This is nothing new, or even but I think that the discourse is important for the collecting at large to understand don't you? I'm not sitting here thinking up conspiracy theories left right and center, but I don't have blinders on eiher. Im just looking at process, form and function in the comic market place and positing ideas..... What a novel concept....

[LordRahl]

O.K. book gets listed on CL for x amount. Listings don't get held up for approval by Josh. So as soon as I list x book it goes up on the site immediately and can be bought by anyone. Josh happens to see the book and thinks "hmm that's a good deal, I think I'll buy it" and so he buys it. I see nothing wrong with that. He has the same chance as anyone else browsing the site. If people are implying that he buys books after buy orders have been put in by other people that's a different story. Could this be done, probably. But until someone provides some evidence to this effect I think accusing Josh of impropriety is slanderous or premature at best.

[Darthdiesel]

But until someone provides some evidence to this effect I think accusing Josh of impropriety is slanderous or premature at best.

 

 

 

My point exactly. It seems most of the guys here have already fallen down the greasy chute to condemning Josh sans proof, based on hunches and the way his system is set up to allow/facilitate "foul play" Now fantasyfootball may have enough personal experience based on his AF15 buy attempt to swear off ComicLink forever

 

Jbud, I'm just playing devil's advocate for the most part. I only popped in because of what FF had to say in that one post about asking for proof before coming down on ComicLink. When I had the same thing to ask when it came to Heritage, I got shot down for even suggesting the notion that hard evidence is necessary. Since then FF posted a reply where he suggest that comiclink is able to do what you guys are accusing him of with sniping underpriced books

[sfilosa]

O.K. book gets listed on CL for x amount. Listings don't get held up for approval by Josh. So as soon as I list x book it goes up on the site immediately and can be bought by anyone. Josh happens to see the book and thinks "hmm that's a good deal, I think I'll buy it" and so he buys it. I see nothing wrong with that. He has the same chance as anyone else browsing the site. If people are implying that he buys books after buy orders have been put in by other people that's a different story. Could this be done, probably. But until someone provides some evidence to this effect I think accusing Josh of impropriety is slanderous or premature at best.

 

First of all, this would be IMPOSSIBLE to prove.

 

Two, so what if he does jump ahead of another buyer. As long as he pays the full value for the book, the seller shouldn't care. Does it give him an advantage? Sure.

 

Now if he was telling seller's what price they SHOULD list a book at, then he buys it, that could be a conflict of interested.

[FFB]

I guess I have to disagree with you. I think it is a huge conflict of interest for the host of an auction site to be able to buy books listed on the auction. Josh owes a duty of good faith not just to his sellers, but also to his buyers. Without buyers, he would not have a business to run. Whether or not he actually does snipe other buyers by buying the book out from under them after they've submitted a buy order, the fact is that he has left himself the *opportunity* to do so, and as long as he controls the mechanism of the auction, there is no way for anyone to catch him if he does it. This is what people mean when they say that one must "avoid the appearance of impropriety."

 

O.K. book gets listed on CL for x amount. Listings don't get held up for approval by Josh. So as soon as I list x book it goes up on the site immediately and can be bought by anyone. Josh happens to see the book and thinks "hmm that's a good deal, I think I'll buy it" and so he buys it. I see nothing wrong with that. He has the same chance as anyone else browsing the site. If people are implying that he buys books after buy orders have been put in by other people that's a different story. Could this be done, probably. But until someone provides some evidence to this effect I think accusing Josh of impropriety is slanderous or premature at best.

 

First of all, this would be IMPOSSIBLE to prove.

 

Two, so what if he does jump ahead of another buyer. As long as he pays the full value for the book, the seller shouldn't care. Does it give him an advantage? Sure.

 

Now if he was telling seller's what price they SHOULD list a book at, then he buys it, that could be a conflict of interested.

[fantastic_four]

When I had the same thing to ask when it came to Heritage, I got shot down for even suggesting the notion that hard evidence is necessary.

 

I never suggested that hard evidence isn't necessary with respect to Heritage. What I said was that the circumstantial evidence is compelling. We still don't have hard evidence that comic-keys knows the books he sells are restored, but the circumstantial evidence there also is just too compelling to ignore.

 

I haven't seen any evidence at all--circumstantial or otherwise--that Josh is doing what we think he might be, but I do agree that the motive to do it is strong enough to look into it to the extent that we're able. The post you over-reacted to was just me asking whether or not some had been found yet. I don't have time to read 500 posts a day in these forums, so I asked to see if some had been presented in a thread I may have missed.

[fantastic_four]

I guess I have to disagree with you. I think it is a huge conflict of interest for the host of an auction site to be able to buy books listed on the auction. Josh owes a duty of good faith not just to his sellers, but also to his buyers. Without buyers, he would not have a business to run. Whether or not he actually does snipe other buyers by buying the book out from under them after they've submitted a buy order, the fact is that he has left himself the *opportunity* to do so, and as long as he controls the mechanism of the auction, there is no way for anyone to catch him if he does it. This is what people mean when they say that one must "avoid the appearance of impropriety."

 

Why do you keep calling his listing format an "auction"? He has an auction section on his site, but it hasn't been popular, and it currently is completely empty. The format you're referring to is a standard Internet shopping cart-type interface. You can place "bids" on books for sale, but that's a "haggle" interface, not an auction interface. It's the exact same thing that sellers and buyers do at conventions.

 

Even with the current way his site works, I've got a small reason to believe he doesn't insert his own buy orders ahead of other people's. I bought a copy of FF #14 CGC 9.6 from his site in early January that was VERY well-priced at $4500. This is only the second 9.6 copy of FF that's ever been up for public sale; the other one was a CGC 9.6 copy of FF #6 that Josh bought off of e-bay back in 2001. Because it's such a rare book, I wondered whether he would end up saying somebody else beat me to the punch just so he could take the book for himself (I put my buy order in about 1.5 to 2 hours after the initial listing). The end result was that he didn't, and I got my book. I'm fairly certain he could have flipped that book for $6000 or more by taking it from me, but he didn't. This doesn't prove to me that he never places his own buy orders above everybody else's, but it suggests that he didn't do it in at least that one case.

 

However, I agree with you that he needs to avoid the appearance of impropriety. When someone places a buy order on a book, that should be IT, game over, you should know immediately that yours is the only buy order and the web site shouldn't let other people place subsequent buy orders. If the web site exhibited this behavior, I don't see why Josh being able to buy books would be a problem since he would have to compete with everybody else.

[LordRahl]

First of all, this would be IMPOSSIBLE to prove.

 

IMPOSSIBLE is such a strong word. How about if 2 people play this game. One lists a bunch of high grade keys for ridiculously low prices and the second buys them the second they come up. Then mysteriously they are "bought" by someone else. That would be proof in my eyes.

 

Two, so what if he does jump ahead of another buyer. As long as he pays the full value for the book, the seller shouldn't care. Does it give him an advantage? Sure.

 

I'm sure the seller wouldn't care. But this is abusing the system as far as I'm concerned. It's not just an advantage as in a dealer having more opportunity to buy collections, it's outright cheating.

[Timely]

As a seller on Comiclink, to me a sale is a sale, whether it's Josh buying them for a client or someone else buying them.

 

I've bought from Comiclink also and have gotten some nice deals.

 

Timely