BarryAllen Posted June 29, 2013 Share Posted June 29, 2013 (edited) But I just contacted SC and they said if they don't hear from the dude today, his bids will be canceled. Good job PeeWee ! Still, whether legitimate or not, I think SC should ban him. His newbie strategy of immediately outbidding everyone is annoying. It's not fair to the consignor as I think legitimate bidders will walk away. What's the upside to letting him bid ? SC has the right to refuse service to anyone (provided its not racist, ageist or sexist in nature). But your point is pretty bad nonetheless. At current you have to assume it is a legitimate bidder (nothing has been proven otherwise) and in this case their strategy is working (i.e. scaring away other "legitimate" bidders). You are just unhappy because you do not want to compete with them (or would not if you were involved in the auction). For SC to ban them based solely on the fact that they are willing to bid at higher prices early and aggressively is bad business. As long as they are not breaking the rules and have provided the required upfront information to bid (i.e. credit card or bank account), there isn't any reason to ban them. In fact to ban them based on your criteria alone is blatantly unfair. I would view this as "fixing" auctions from the seller side and if performed consistently would be the basis of unethical business practices and potential law suits. Bottom line, you cannot argue that someone should be banned just because they are not bidding consistent with what you consider "good" strategy. Edited June 29, 2013 by rfoiii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryAllen Posted June 29, 2013 Share Posted June 29, 2013 But I just contacted SC and they said if they don't hear from the dude today, his bids will be canceled. Good job PeeWee ! Still, whether legitimate or not, I think SC should ban him. His newbie strategy of immediately outbidding everyone is annoying. It's not fair to the consignor as I think legitimate bidders will walk away. What's the upside to letting him bid ? FYI - deeming someone "annoying" is not a good reason to prevent them from doing just about anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent 007 Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 I'm not bidding due to the 0 feedback, tis a shame. been looking for a 28 for sometime but just cant get the one i like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomber-Bob Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 But I just contacted SC and they said if they don't hear from the dude today, his bids will be canceled. Good job PeeWee ! Still, whether legitimate or not, I think SC should ban him. His newbie strategy of immediately outbidding everyone is annoying. It's not fair to the consignor as I think legitimate bidders will walk away. What's the upside to letting him bid ? You are just unhappy because you do not want to compete with them (or would not if you were involved in the auction). Bottom line, you cannot argue that someone should be banned just because they are not bidding consistent with what you consider "good" strategy. For the record, my comments were not made for self serving reasons, I have no horse in this race = I do not need another copy of BB28. I am not being critical of his bidding strategy alone, only when it is combined with zero feedback. It gives the appearance of shilling and scares away bidders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmazingSaul Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 If he's legit. He can email SC or vise versa. SC most likely emailed the bidder. Anyone willing to drop over 15k and can't get phone emails now days...seriously... I use my phone to email back and forth every day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bronze johnny Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 bomber-bob, I was looking at your books on MySlabbedComics- beautiful collection! (thumbs u John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomber-Bob Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 bomber-bob, I was looking at your books on MySlabbedComics- beautiful collection! (thumbs u John Thank You. For anyone interested, the website Myslabbedcomics.com is a great place to visit and/or display your collection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryAllen Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 (edited) But I just contacted SC and they said if they don't hear from the dude today, his bids will be canceled. Good job PeeWee ! Still, whether legitimate or not, I think SC should ban him. His newbie strategy of immediately outbidding everyone is annoying. It's not fair to the consignor as I think legitimate bidders will walk away. What's the upside to letting him bid ? You are just unhappy because you do not want to compete with them (or would not if you were involved in the auction). Bottom line, you cannot argue that someone should be banned just because they are not bidding consistent with what you consider "good" strategy. For the record, my comments were not made for self serving reasons, I have no horse in this race = I do not need another copy of BB28. I am not being critical of his bidding strategy alone, only when it is combined with zero feedback. It gives the appearance of shilling and scares away bidders. I figured as much, telegraphing you were including in an auction wouldn't benefit you much. However, I appreciate that you clarified your position. I still don't support banning or removing bids that are based on suspicion factors alone. I do agree that individuals can be suspect when aggressive bidding and zero feedback are combined. If shilling is suspected and can be proven or the bidder is not prompt in communication, I am 100% supportive of banning them (or removing their bids at a minimum). However, I had not joined eBay until recently and only did so to make a large first purchase. Which means that I created the very situation we are discussing... I am certainly not special in terms of liquid cash flow or a love of comics - so I assume innocent until proven guilty. Net, I am sensitive to the concept of people immediately dismissing others based on the possibility of dishonesty (suspicion only, not proven fact based). Particularly on this site, where good or bad, I hold established members to a high standard of business ethics. In this instance, asking them to confirm a bidder is a good Idea and I guess we will see if SC removes the bids. Edited June 30, 2013 by rfoiii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boba Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 The zero feedback bidders bids still stand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparkleCityComics Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 (edited) We understand the concerns of some board members concerning the zero feedback bidder on the Brave and the Bold #28 auction. We cannot simply block or retract bids simply because the bidder has zero feedback. One of our initiatives with EBAY is to bring new bidders to the site and this would be contradictory to the larger marketplace we are trying to create. However, we do actively and responsibly police our auctions to ensure the integrity of them. We are currently in the process of investigating this matter and we are working with EBAY to determine if the bids are legitimate. We will post later today and take any necessary action once our investigation has concluded. We appreciate the concerns and opinions of board members and our EBAY customers and welcome any direct questions or comments on this matter or any other. Edited June 30, 2013 by SparkleCityComics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparkleCityComics Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 (edited) We have concluded our investigation and we have determined that the bids placed by the zero-feedback bidder are not legitimate. The bidder has been blocked and all bids have been removed. Thank you to everyone for your continued support. Best of luck to all bidders in this auction! Edited June 30, 2013 by SparkleCityComics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam I am Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 Thank you for addressing the issue so professionally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peewee22 Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 But I just contacted SC and they said if they don't hear from the dude today, his bids will be canceled. Good job PeeWee ! Still, whether legitimate or not, I think SC should ban him. His newbie strategy of immediately outbidding everyone is annoying. It's not fair to the consignor as I think legitimate bidders will walk away. What's the upside to letting him bid ? You are just unhappy because you do not want to compete with them (or would not if you were involved in the auction). Bottom line, you cannot argue that someone should be banned just because they are not bidding consistent with what you consider "good" strategy. For the record, my comments were not made for self serving reasons, I have no horse in this race = I do not need another copy of BB28. I am not being critical of his bidding strategy alone, only when it is combined with zero feedback. It gives the appearance of shilling and scares away bidders. I figured as much, telegraphing you were including in an auction wouldn't benefit you much. However, I appreciate that you clarified your position. I still don't support banning or removing bids that are based on suspicion factors alone. I do agree that individuals can be suspect when aggressive bidding and zero feedback are combined. If shilling is suspected and can be proven or the bidder is not prompt in communication, I am 100% supportive of banning them (or removing their bids at a minimum). However, I had not joined eBay until recently and only did so to make a large first purchase. Which means that I created the very situation we are discussing... I am certainly not special in terms of liquid cash flow or a love of comics - so I assume innocent until proven guilty. Net, I am sensitive to the concept of people immediately dismissing others based on the possibility of dishonesty (suspicion only, not proven fact based). Particularly on this site, where good or bad, I hold established members to a high standard of business ethics. In this instance, asking them to confirm a bidder is a good Idea and I guess we will see if SC removes the bids. In defense of bomber-bob, he is correct in his assessment. Once you get some experience on ebay, you will see that many of the zero bidders are not real, esp on large auctions. Glad to have you aboard. (thumbs u Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryAllen Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 (edited) But I just contacted SC and they said if they don't hear from the dude today, his bids will be canceled. Good job PeeWee ! Still, whether legitimate or not, I think SC should ban him. His newbie strategy of immediately outbidding everyone is annoying. It's not fair to the consignor as I think legitimate bidders will walk away. What's the upside to letting him bid ? You are just unhappy because you do not want to compete with them (or would not if you were involved in the auction). Bottom line, you cannot argue that someone should be banned just because they are not bidding consistent with what you consider "good" strategy. For the record, my comments were not made for self serving reasons, I have no horse in this race = I do not need another copy of BB28. I am not being critical of his bidding strategy alone, only when it is combined with zero feedback. It gives the appearance of shilling and scares away bidders. I figured as much, telegraphing you were including in an auction wouldn't benefit you much. However, I appreciate that you clarified your position. I still don't support banning or removing bids that are based on suspicion factors alone. I do agree that individuals can be suspect when aggressive bidding and zero feedback are combined. If shilling is suspected and can be proven or the bidder is not prompt in communication, I am 100% supportive of banning them (or removing their bids at a minimum). However, I had not joined eBay until recently and only did so to make a large first purchase. Which means that I created the very situation we are discussing... I am certainly not special in terms of liquid cash flow or a love of comics - so I assume innocent until proven guilty. Net, I am sensitive to the concept of people immediately dismissing others based on the possibility of dishonesty (suspicion only, not proven fact based). Particularly on this site, where good or bad, I hold established members to a high standard of business ethics. In this instance, asking them to confirm a bidder is a good Idea and I guess we will see if SC removes the bids. In defense of bomber-bob, he is correct in his assessment. Once you get some experience on ebay, you will see that many of the zero bidders are not real, esp on large auctions. Glad to have you aboard. (thumbs u You are honestly telling me that you believe a large percentage ("many") of the population bidding on high value auctions are schilling or dishonest? That is a pretty big generalization and cannot possibly be true. In the first place you have no actual way of ever proving that they are schilling or dishonest without asking the seller to contact and confirm EVERY single low or zero feedback bidder. I don't doubt that there are some out there, but to posit that there are "many" is just not an accurate representation. If that were true, eBay's business would implode. Guys (and gals) I understand that this is a problem. But making sweeping statements and accusatory generalizations is not a productive way of approaching and solving the problem. Edited June 30, 2013 by rfoiii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryAllen Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 FYI - it is far more likely that sellers/dealers create partnerships and commit to bid up each other's auctions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomber-Bob Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 Thanks PeeWee. Now, what about damage control ? Does the current high bidder get notified he is now the high bidder ? What about the other bidders that may have walked away in discouragement ? At least there are still a few days left in the auction to recover. Kudos to Sparklecity for checking into this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accessndx Posted June 30, 2013 Author Share Posted June 30, 2013 If someone's shilling with zero feedback they're immediately getting a high degree of scrutinization....so it can't always be that successful a strategy. That said, there are certainly shillers out there and if they want to go about their business unobserved they've more likely carved out a few higher feedback accts. with which to do it. You're never going to weed out every bad guy and I'm sure shilling will exist as long as auctions do. They have most probably been there ever since the first bid in history. I'm glad that Sparklecity has done due dilligence and enabled the false high bid to be eliminated. As far as other bidders, in spite of the low feedback individual they bid as high or low as they felt appropriate I'm sure. I'm also fairly certain that the bidding isn't going to be where it is now in 2 days time. That book isn't close to the end bid IMHO. So FWIW that zero feedback bidder has little or no impact on what's going to happen. We all know in the 11th hour that bidding will happen again, in the interim there's no reason to be dropping huge numbers only to be caught up in the crossfire of bidding wars. That'll happen, but it's not happening this far out FTR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peewee22 Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 Thanks PeeWee. Now, what about damage control ? Does the current high bidder get notified he is now the high bidder ? What about the other bidders that may have walked away in discouragement ? At least there are still a few days left in the auction to recover. Kudos to Sparklecity for checking into this. I've heard there are over 200 watchers on this auction. Probably will break a record with or without the zero dude. (thumbs u Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roulette44 Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 What I want to know is if the 0 feedback buyer was the same account as the zero feedback seller of the 7.0.... Ross/Brian? As has been discussed on here many times, the amount of shilling that goes on eBay is ridiculous.......but shilling using a zero feedback account......well that's just silly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mishmashman Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 I just found it automatically suspicious that th 0 feedback bidder has primarily bid on LEGOs in the last 30 days. LEGOs and a $11000 comc book. Very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
