Hunting the 6 variants of Batman 457 (1st Tim Drake ROBIN) 8 8

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, Cpt Kirk said:

Thanks for pointing this out.   Dumb question... how can you tell these other bidders have re-tracted in the past?  I just looked up their feedback rating and I can't see anything about retractions.

I wouldn't put too much stock into it. I've bid on 302 items in the last 30 days, and I guarantee you, I neither won them all, nor did I shill bid any of them.

In fact, here is an item that had a cancelled bid:

https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/332689717817?item=332689717817&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565

This was because the coin was not a 1913 key, but a standard 1911 coin. 

If you place a couple thousand bids in the last 6 months, I don't think 5 retractions is cause for concern.

As far as seeing them...you may have to sign out. You get there by clicking the "scrambled" bidders, which takes you to the page which shows you that info. Since you're the seller, you may not be able to get there while signed in for this particular listing.

[ygogolak]

15 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I'm the "3377" bidder, but you knew that. Where do you see a bid retraction in this listing, hmmmm? 

This isn't "garbage data." Bid retractions can happen for a number of legitimate reasons, not just to "expose" a high bid (which DID NOT happen in this listing.)

Yes, I have 5 bid retractions in the last six months.

Care to guess how many bids I've made, or how many listings I've bid on, in the last 6 months....?

The second high bidder has made 151 bids, on 94 DIFFERENT ITEMS, in the last 30 days...but you see 4 retractions in SIX MONTHS, and you see red flags...?

Do you know what "shill bidding" is...? Because, from your use here, it looks like you do not. Do you realize that you're accusing the seller of fraudulently manipulating his own auction...?

Perhaps your moral compass is wound a bit too tight...

Shill bidding is not restricted to only the selling bidding up their own items.

And eBay agrees with that on this one.

[bababooey]

15 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I'm the "3377" bidder, but you knew that. Where do you see a bid retraction in this listing, hmmmm? 

This isn't "garbage data." Bid retractions can happen for a number of legitimate reasons, not just to "expose" a high bid (which DID NOT happen in this listing.)

Yes, I have 5 bid retractions in the last six months.

Care to guess how many bids I've made, or how many listings I've bid on, in the last 6 months....?

The second high bidder has made 151 bids, on 94 DIFFERENT ITEMS, in the last 30 days...but you see 4 retractions in SIX MONTHS, and you see red flags...?

Do you know what "shill bidding" is...? Because, from your use here, it looks like you do not. Do you realize that you're accusing the seller of fraudulently manipulating his own auction...?

Perhaps your moral compass is wound a bit too tight...

I'm not accusing the seller of being involved with the shill bidder, I think suggesting a second chance or lower winning bid ($200 +) is laying the accusation of shilling solely on the guy who ran it up and retracted a bid in this auction, I didn't accuse you of retracting in this auction, reread my earlier post and stop at the period.    My use of shill fits your definition from two pages ago.  Four retractions in six months for someone with a lot of bid activity and few purchases IS probably a red flag for me.  

[Cpt Kirk]

20 hours ago, bababooey said:

I'm not accusing the seller of being involved with the shill bidder, I think suggesting a second chance or lower winning bid ($200 +) is laying the accusation of shilling solely on the guy who ran it up and retracted a bid in this auction, I didn't accuse you of retracting in this auction, reread my earlier post and stop at the period.    My use of shill fits your definition from two pages ago.  Four retractions in six months for someone with a lot of bid activity and few purchases IS probably a red flag for me.  

I agree.   I think you can throw out the high bid of approx $250 as invalid.

It looks like it is way too early to establish a value for this comic book.   The only thing I can say for sure is that there appeared to be much more desire for it than I expected.   I really did not expect it to sell for more than $50, which is what one friend offered to pay for it before I put it up for auction (I put it up for bid to see what it was worth to help settle the argument, and also to show my friend that $50 would probably be a good deal... neither of us expected it to go north of $100).    If we don't count the high bidder  (and we should not count it in my opinion),  It looks to me that at least 2 people were willing to spend about $200 for it and another $150.   But I really can't say if any of those bidders planned to put it in their collection for that much money.   I know that my friend would have bought it for $50 and placed it permanently in his collection.  I still might just sell it to him for that price if no one is interested in paying appox $200 for it.   To me the money is not that big of a deal... I would rather just help friends find stuff for their collection in exchange for them helping me find comic books that I'm looking for.

CarlElvis/RockyMyAmadeus/CooperAgekids -- would you have kept it or flipped it if you bought it in the $150 to $200 range?

Edited July 14, 2018 by Cpt Kirk

[RockMyAmadeus]

19 hours ago, ygogolak said:

Shill bidding is not restricted to only the selling bidding up their own items.

And eBay agrees with that on this one.

You...and others...have a fundamental misunderstanding of what shill bidding is, so much so that I'm considering starting a thread about it in Comics General.

Shill bidding IS NOT someone driving up the price of an item because they can. Shill bidding is someone driving up the price, with no intention of buying the item if they win.

This listing WAS NOT shill bid.

[RockMyAmadeus]

19 hours ago, bababooey said:

On 7/12/2018 at 9:57 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

I'm the "3377" bidder, but you knew that. Where do you see a bid retraction in this listing, hmmmm? 

This isn't "garbage data." Bid retractions can happen for a number of legitimate reasons, not just to "expose" a high bid (which DID NOT happen in this listing.)

Yes, I have 5 bid retractions in the last six months.

Care to guess how many bids I've made, or how many listings I've bid on, in the last 6 months....?

The second high bidder has made 151 bids, on 94 DIFFERENT ITEMS, in the last 30 days...but you see 4 retractions in SIX MONTHS, and you see red flags...?

Do you know what "shill bidding" is...? Because, from your use here, it looks like you do not. Do you realize that you're accusing the seller of fraudulently manipulating his own auction...?

Perhaps your moral compass is wound a bit too tight...

I'm not accusing the seller of being involved with the shill bidder, I think suggesting a second chance or lower winning bid ($200 +) is laying the accusation of shilling solely on the guy who ran it up and retracted a bid in this auction,

There were no bids retracted in this auction. Please point to the bid retraction you are seeing. Here's the bidding history for the listing:

https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/163133148040?item=163133148040&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565&rmvSB=true

19 hours ago, bababooey said:

I didn't accuse you of retracting in this auction, reread my earlier post and stop at the period.  

I didn't suggest you did, reread my post...quoted above for your convenience...and stop at the end. Also, please answer the question already asked, and asked again: where do you see a bid retraction in this listing...?

19 hours ago, bababooey said:

My use of shill fits your definition from two pages ago.

No, it doesn't. Driving up the bid is not shill bidding, unless the buyer has no intention of buying the item if they win it. Since you don't know that to be the case here, and have no way of proving that on the face of it, you can't claim there was shill bidding here.

*I* think that your comments have spoiled a legitimate deal for Kirk. Ok, so it doesn't bother him, but this careless tossing around of accusations of "shill bidding" will certainly hurt SOMEONE eventually, if it hasn't already. There are a LOT of "shill bidding" accusations around here lately, and I suspect that some of those accusations are unfounded, AND some of those accusations are made by people angry at being "bid up" legitimately. 

19 hours ago, bababooey said:

Four retractions in six months for someone with a lot of bid activity and few purchases IS probably a red flag for me.

1. What does "few purchases" mean? How many purchases do you think the second high bidder has made?

2. Feedback is not mandatory. You cannot tell how many purchases someone has made by their feedback. You can only tell how many people have left feedback.

3. You have no idea why those retractions were made. As I mentioned before, I have FIVE retractions in the last six months. Bid retractions are allowed on eBay, within a certain limited range of reasons. They are not indicative of shady behavior, in and of themselves (and no, I'm not saying that's what you said.) For example, at least two of my retractions were because I entered some stupid price...$1067 or something, when I meant to enter $10.67. 

Four retractions in 6 months, when the bidder has bid on 94 separate items in the last 30 days, is not, in itself, indicative of anything. I'm NOT suggesting this bidder isn't shady. I'm saying that you can't know, and therefore, saying this auction was shill bid is a not a legitimate conclusion to make at this time.

One more time: unless the buyer has NO INTENTION of buying the item if they're the high bidder, there is no shill bidding, even if the second high bidder succeeds in exposing your high bid (as in this auction) but doesn't outbid you. Driving up the price is a function of live auctions: if one doesn't like one's bid being driven up, one ought to learn how to snipe, to lower the risk. 

[ygogolak]

49 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

You...and others...have a fundamental misunderstanding of what shill bidding is, so much so that I'm considering starting a thread about it in Comics General.

Shill bidding IS NOT someone driving up the price of an item because they can. Shill bidding is someone driving up the price, with no intention of buying the item if they win.

This listing WAS NOT shill bid.

You've defined it in a way which could never be proven in any way. How convenient.

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, Cpt Kirk said:

I agree.   I think you can throw out the high bid of approx $250 as invalid.

I disagree entirely. I think, based on the public evidence, that the high bidder wanted the item, was well aware of the existence of the underbidder and, despite the incremental bidding that the underbidder made, still decided to bid again. 

The high bidder...m***h(1565)...bid on Jul 10 at about 5:30 PM PDT. If he/she looked at the bidding history, they would have seen that the underbidder had been involved in this listing long before...since Jul 4. They also would have seen that the underbidder had an already established pattern in this listing of driving up the bid, as demonstrated by the bidding activity on July 5 and 7. Bidder o***c(825) (which I think Carl Elvis said was him) outbid me on July 5 at 7:37 PM PDT, and then bidder c***m(28) STOPPED when he exposed o***c(825)'s high bid of $200. 

That's where the bidding stalled until July 10, when m***h(1565) placed a bid of $245.82. Then, c***m(28) came along and drove the bidding up again, and managed to expose...but not go over...the high bidder's max bid of $245.82.

But the high bidder, who already had all of this information available to him/her, decided to bid again themselves, with a new high bid that could have been any amount over their old high bid of $245.82. We don't know, because no one else came along to bid. But, with nearly a day between their first bid and their second, and several hours after their initial high bid was exposed, the high bidder came back and bid again, because they wanted the item.

The only way you can PROVE shill bidding...aside from a confession...is if a bidder bids some ridiculous amount to expose the high bid, retracts that, and then bids (either immediately or later) some amount just under the high bid. That's the only way to prove shill bidding. Even if a shill bidder wins an item and then backs out, that's still not proof of shill bidding, because there are legitimate reasons to win and back out, few though they may be.

It's awful hard to prove intent. And, if a bidder ends up being the high bidder and actually completes the transaction, no shill bidding...by definition...has taken place by that bidder.

Driving up the price...as annoying as that can be to other bidders...is not automatically shill bidding. It's simply a fact of live auctions, and happens every day, all around the globe.

 

Edited July 14, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[RockMyAmadeus]

8 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

You've defined it in a way which could never be proven in any way. How convenient.

Incorrect. See my post directly above this one.

And I would recommend keeping the implications of malfeasance to yourself.

Edited July 14, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[ygogolak]

1 minute ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Incorrect. See my post directly above this one.

I see a word wall. Do you have a condensed version?

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 minute ago, ygogolak said:

I see a word wall. Do you have a condensed version?

Learn how to read. I know it's tough, but you can do it.

[ygogolak]

Just now, RockMyAmadeus said:

Learn how to read. I know it's tough, but you can do it.

Practice brevity.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Just now, ygogolak said:

Practice brevity.

Practice literacy.

[Cpt Kirk]

4 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I disagree entirely. I think, based on the public evidence, that the high bidder wanted the item, was well aware of the existence of the underbidder and, despite the incremental bidding that the underbidder made, still decided to bid again. 

The high bidder...m***h(1565)...bid on Jul 10 at about 5:30 PM PDT. If he/she looked at the bidding history, they would have seen that the underbidder had been involved in this listing long before...since Jul 4. The also would have seen that the underbidder had an already established pattern in this listing of driving up the bid, as demonstrated by the bidding activity on July 5 and 7. Bidder o***c(825) (which I think Carl Elvis said was him) outbid me on July 5 at 7:37 PM PDT, and then bidder c***m(28) STOPPED when he exposed o***c(825)'s high bid of $200. 

That's where the bidding stalled until July 10, when m***h(1565) placed a bid of $245.82. Then, c***m(28) came along and drove the bidding up again, and managed to expose...but not go over...the high bidder's max bid of $245.82.

But the high bidder, who already had all of this information available to him/her, decided to bid again themselves, with a new high bid that could have been any amount over their old high bid of $245.82. We don't know, because no one else came along to bid. But, with nearly a day between their first bid and their second, and several hours after their initial high bid was exposed, the high bidder came back and bid again, because they wanted the item.

The only way you can PROVE shill bidding...aside from a confession...is if a bidder bids some ridiculous amount to expose the high bid, retracts that, and then bids (either immediately or later) some amount just under the high bid. That's the only way to prove shill bidding. Even if a shill bidder wins an item and then backs out, that's still not proof of shill bidding, because there are legitimate reasons to win and back out, few though they may be.

It's awful hard to prove intent. And, if a bidder ends up being the high bidder and actually completes the transaction, no shill bidding...by definition...has taken place by that bidder.

Driving up the price...as annoying as that can be to other bidders...is not automatically shill bidding. It's simply a fact of live auctions, and happens every day, all around the globe.

 

Interesting... I didn't even think to look at it that way.   The high bidder told me that he got over-enthusiastic with his bidding and then decided he would like to back out.   Since I had other bids that were $200 and more, I had no problem letting him off the hook.   I value my ebay feedback too much to cause any waves.

Again, I think we can say that there was a lot of interest in this comic book, which was the subject of the original debate.  Someone was trying to say there would be no interest in this comic book, but RockyMyAmadeus was correct when he said that it was a significant variant.

[ygogolak]

1 minute ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Practice literacy.

You've resulted to multiple insults now. This conversation is over.

[RockMyAmadeus]

2 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

You've resulted to multiple insults now. This conversation is over.

Your definition of the word "insult" is overly broad, and includes statements which are not remotely insulting, but, by that "definition", would include your retorts and comments as well,

Worse, you've implied suspect motives on my part with your "how convenient" comment, which I have not done to you.

But if you mean it, that this conversation is over...a conversation I wish never started...I would be thrilled.

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, Cpt Kirk said:

RockyMyAmadeus -- would you have kept it or flipped it if you bought it in the $150 to $200 range?

I would have kept it until such time as their actual scarcity was determined, which could take many years (a la Maxx Ashcans.)

I have absolutely no problem with "protecting my investment", either, even though some take issue with that and erroneously refer to it as "pumping and dumping."

[fastballspecial]

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

21 hours ago, ygogolak said:

Shill bidding is not restricted to only the selling bidding up their own items.

And eBay agrees with that on this one.

You...and others...have a fundamental misunderstanding of what shill bidding is, so much so that I'm considering starting a thread about it in Comics General.

Shill bidding IS NOT someone driving up the price of an item because they can. Shill bidding is someone driving up the price, with no intention of buying the item if they win.

I think he lays that out pretty concrete right there. Some think that shill bidding has some sort of different interpretation then this above? When did this change?

Love the short summary too. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

10 minutes ago, Cpt Kirk said:

The high bidder told me that he got over-enthusiastic with his bidding and then decided he would like to back out. 

I think, based on the evidence, that the high bidder isn't being completely honest with you. I can't prove it, but that's what I suspect. But I totally understand your unwillingness to make waves, and I probably would have done the same thing.

But I also suspect that the comments by people here influenced that decision, and I don't think that's fair to anyone, and needs to be said.

After all...who's to say the high bidder isn't the one who was shill bidding...?

Consider this equally plausible scenario: the high bidder has one to sell waiting in the wings, unknown to all but them. They see the listing, notice the pattern that Mr. 28 feedback has of driving up the bid, and they place what they consider a worthwhile value on the book, knowing the 28 guy will probably bid it up.

So they bid, Mr 28 comes along, bids it up, they get excited and put in ANOTHER, even higher bid, hoping someone drives it up some more...and when they win, they back out...except now the book has an established "high" price, which they can then use to justify their selling price in a week, or a month, or even two. 

And because the high bidder backed out, there's MORE evidence for the high bidder being a shill bidder than there is for the underbidder.

Is this the case? I doubt it. I suspect both bidders were acting in good faith with their bids. But there's no way to prove it either way, and that's the real issue: making accusations of shilling when there's little evidence of it. Multiple bids is not evidence. Multiple bids up to and just under the high bid is SOME evidence, but not very compelling. The fact that the underbidder didn't return to try and expose the new high bid, with a little less than 2 hours left on the auction, is fairly compelling evidence that they weren't shill bidding, but just driving up the price, which is a perfectly legitimate practice. 

Without proof, or very compelling evidence, accusations of shill bidding should be made with caution, not tossed around with abandon, as they have been on this board in recent years, driven by, I suspect, the entitled attitudes of some people who think it's not fair that other people legitimately drive up the prices of things they want. They stomp their feet and cry "SHILL BIDDING!!" when it's not.

To that, I say: tough noogies.

[ygogolak]

2 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:

I think he lays that out pretty concrete right there. Some think that shill bidding has some sort of different interpretation then this above? When did this change?

Love the short summary too. 

 

Shill bidding is when someone bids on an item to artificially increase its price, desirability, or search standing.

Shill bidding can happen regardless of whether the bidder knows the seller. However, when someone bidding on an item knows the seller, they might have information about the seller's item that other shoppers aren't aware of. This could create an unfair advantage, or cause another bidder to pay more than they should. We want to maintain a fair marketplace for all our users, and as such, shill bidding is prohibited on eBay. For more details on what constitutes shill bidding, please see our full policy guidelines below.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/selling-practices-policy/shill-bidding-policy?id=4353