PWCC Auction Archive vs. eBay Market Price Research for "Unpaid" items

[ninjacookies]

Originally Posted by pspa123

Hmmm... I was always told it was just people spending up for nice cards, and all those bidding histories were not suspicious.

Sadly so many people fell into this utopian mindstate and chose to turn a blind eye to the obvious just because the easy cash was rolling in.

Or the all-too-familiar 'no such thing as shilling since your high bid is as much as you're willing to pay.' lol.

Originally Posted by superdan49

I'm sure a subpoena for these eBay records is in the works. All true identities for the masked eBay ID's found on Vintage Card Prices for the unpaid auctions listed here in Post #27 will be the key to determining the criminality of this.

Also, could this also constitute fraud against eBay? After all, they wouldn't get their commission for any unpaid auctions, right?

IP records may be more revealing than the info on the accounts themselves, considering how many people use bogus accounts just for this purpose.


Yep. The most disgusting part of this entire equation is PWCC is practically in bed with Ebay, and has been for awhile now. They are their top card consignor and get all the special perks from giant front page banner ads to special pricing structures. People can say that baseball cards make up such a small segment of Ebay's total revenue, but that's a load of wash. PWCC moves millions of dollars a year, and Ebay certainly cares, as a nice chunk of that is going into their pockets.

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by pspa123

And let's not overlook the possibility of shill bidding running up items that actually were paid for. Much to consider here.

Yeah... Also consider the opportunity cost. People on a budget not purchasing cards they otherwise could have afforded if they either: 1) won and paid for a shilled card; or 2) saved their money in order to attempt to pay a price they didn’t know was already artificially inflated.

[Bruins1993]

Note: It is my understanding any eBay seller has the ability to manually update a sold item as payment received. This manual option would be used for example if a PayPal payment is not received that automatically marks the transaction as payment received.

So there is no confusion:

I do not know if PWCC was or was not manually marking sold items as payment received on eBay if payment was received (in any form) outside of PayPal.


I am going by items flagged as "unpaid" by the eBay Market Price Research tool.



Additionally, I do not know how many items on that list were requested to be cancelled by either the seller or buyer through eBay's system.

[Bruins1993]

This is interesting:

"PWCC Capital

SIGN IN TO CONTACT CAPITAL STAFF
Trading cards are a tangible asset class. The mandate of PWCC Capital is to leverage assets to better monetize trading card investing. PWCC Capital was announced for the first time in early 2018 and is a rapidly growing sector of the PWCC brand.

PWCC Capital supports the collateral-backed lending needs of both buyers and sellers. Collateral-backed lending is provided to PWCC clients against assets in possession of PWCC through either the Vault or Marketplace services.

Capital Services
Cash Advances
PWCC Capital offers Auction Marketplace sellers up to 50% of the conservative market value of their assets in the form of a cash advance. This is a free service and is offered based on availability of funds at that time.

Payment Plan
PWCC Capital offers buyers in the PWCC Auction Marketplace the option of a 3-month payment plan. The plan requires a down payment of at least 50% of the invoice amount at the close of the auction, after which the buyer is provided 30 days interest free to pay the remaining 50% balance. Months two and three will carry a 1% per month interest fee. Invoices of at least $1,000 are eligible for the Payment Plan.

Submit in Lieu of Payment
Buyers in the PWCC Auction Marketplace can elect to submit to a future auction in place of sending cash payment. Proceeds from that submission are used to pay the balance from prior purchases. If the submission is conservatively valued at 200% the current balance owed, the purchases is shipped ASAP upon receipt of the submission. If the submission is valued at less than 200% of the purchase amount or can not be easily appraised, PWCC will hold the purchase until the submission sells. PWCC Capital funds the initial purchase on behalf of the Auction Marketplace in order to provide this service.

Collateral Backed Lending
Coming soon! As an added benefit to placing items in archival through the PWCC Vault, clients can leverage a Line of Credit against the conservative market value of their assets in storage. Average market value is determined through our in-house algorithm which leverages recent auction sale prices. We multiply the current market price by 0.8 to create the conservative market value and Capital will lend up to 50% of this amount. Collateral backed loans are issued on a 6-month term limit with optional renewal, and fees will be 1% per month with a 1% origination fee."

(https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/capital)

Screen shots:

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by Bruins1993

This is interesting:



"PWCC Capital



SIGN IN TO CONTACT CAPITAL STAFF

Trading cards are a tangible asset class. The mandate of PWCC Capital is to leverage assets to better monetize trading card investing. PWCC Capital was announced for the first time in early 2018 and is a rapidly growing sector of the PWCC brand.



PWCC Capital supports the collateral-backed lending needs of both buyers and sellers. Collateral-backed lending is provided to PWCC clients against assets in possession of PWCC through either the Vault or Marketplace services.



Capital Services

Cash Advances

PWCC Capital offers Auction Marketplace sellers up to 50% of the conservative market value of their assets in the form of a cash advance. This is a free service and is offered based on availability of funds at that time.



Payment Plan

PWCC Capital offers buyers in the PWCC Auction Marketplace the option of a 3-month payment plan. The plan requires a down payment of at least 50% of the invoice amount at the close of the auction, after which the buyer is provided 30 days interest free to pay the remaining 50% balance. Months two and three will carry a 1% per month interest fee. Invoices of at least $1,000 are eligible for the Payment Plan.



Submit in Lieu of Payment

Buyers in the PWCC Auction Marketplace can elect to submit to a future auction in place of sending cash payment. Proceeds from that submission are used to pay the balance from prior purchases. If the submission is conservatively valued at 200% the current balance owed, the purchases is shipped ASAP upon receipt of the submission. If the submission is valued at less than 200% of the purchase amount or can not be easily appraised, PWCC will hold the purchase until the submission sells. PWCC Capital funds the initial purchase on behalf of the Auction Marketplace in order to provide this service.



Collateral Backed Lending

Coming soon! As an added benefit to placing items in archival through the PWCC Vault, clients can leverage a Line of Credit against the conservative market value of their assets in storage. Average market value is determined through our in-house algorithm which leverages recent auction sale prices. We multiply the current market price by 0.8 to create the conservative market value and Capital will lend up to 50% of this amount. Collateral backed loans are issued on a 6-month term limit with optional renewal, and fees will be 1% per month with a 1% origination fee."



(https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/capital)



Screen shots:

Wow. So someone can submit an item to a future auction and use the proceeds from that auction to pay down what is owed from a previous auction. Seems sketchy and ripe for abuse...can partially explain the shill bidding and abnormally high prices...and how Moser was able to win so many auctions.

It seems like this PWCC Capital could have been used as a mechanism to provide funding to Moser and crew...but if so, it should’ve been even more obvious to PWCC that Moser was altering cards as there’d be another record of auction buys and sells by Moser, et al.

[Bruins1993]

Per one Net54 post quoted:

"OK, as a follow-up to my first post here, I just looked at the Marketplace Research Tool on PWCC's website, and the cards I won in January, and paid for via submission to their April auction, do appear on it."

Anyone use the above PWCC service in 2015 - 2016 that can check their purchase/s versus consignments on items displayed in the eBay Market Price Research tool?

[signed79]

Are these sales in VCP?

[rcmb3220]

To the OP or anyone else that can answer. Did you find these discrepancies by going through the two tools one by one and looking for ones that didn’t show up on the eBay tool? Or is there a faster way?

[Chrisyork33]

When you scroll 5x and you are not even close to the bottom of the list

[HarryLime]

Originally Posted by Bruins1993

Note: It is my understanding any eBay seller has the ability to manually update a sold item as payment received. This manual option would be used for example if a PayPal payment is not received that automatically marks the transaction as payment received.

So there is no confusion:

I do not know if PWCC was or was not manually marking sold items as payment received on eBay if payment was received (in any form) outside of PayPal.


I am going by items flagged as "unpaid" by the eBay Market Price Research tool.



Additionally, I do not know how many items on that list were requested to be cancelled by either the seller or buyer through eBay's system.

I don't think this would matter. Any time I've hit Mark As Payment Received it's always played out the same as if I received a Paypal payment. eBay still takes their slice of the pie no matter how you got paid. So I don't think this would cause any inaccuracies in your work.

Arthur

[pspa123]

Originally Posted by signed79

Are these sales in VCP?

He posted his findings about that. See above post 27 and maybe elsewhere.

[mrdallas]

Hey, did BO remove the PWCC thread about them hiring the attorney? I can't see it anymore. Or maybe I am just blind. I was trying to send a link to my buddy.

[HarryLime]

Originally Posted by mrdallas

Hey, did BO remove the PWCC thread about them hiring the attorney? I can't see it anymore. Or maybe I am just blind. I was trying to send a link to my buddy.

Pretty sure it got merged into the main thread. There's just too many developments to have an individual thread about each one.

Arthur

[Big35Hurt]

Originally Posted by mrdallas

Hey, did BO remove the PWCC thread about them hiring the attorney? I can't see it anymore. Or maybe I am just blind. I was trying to send a link to my buddy.

Originally Posted by HarryLime

Pretty sure it got merged into the main thread. There's just too many developments to have an individual thread about each one.

Arthur

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showth...light=attorney

[corndog]

Originally Posted by mrdallas

Hey, did BO remove the PWCC thread about them hiring the attorney? I can't see it anymore. Or maybe I am just blind. I was trying to send a link to my buddy.

Moved to the Off Topic section of the forum.

[mrdallas]

Great. Thanks guys!!

[auburn35]

Bruins, fantastic work.

Now we need to try and match up the masked usernames.

[rcmb3220]

Based on the OP's numbers, here is the dollar value by month for the discrepancies between the two price search tools from 10/1/15 to 3/31/17. Notice the big climb starting in May 2016, the peak in June and the steep, but still elevated drop off for the next few months. Again this is only from auctions ending at +$7K.

2015 Oct $32,877
2015 Nov $179,571
2015 Dec $78,390
2016 Jan $44,300
2016 Feb $174,386
2016 Mar $372,440
2016 Apr $200,540
2016 May $222,549
2016 Jun $592,797
2016 Jul $971,827
2016 Aug $421,232
2016 Sep $408,881
2016 Oct $386,016
2016 Nov $320,748
2016 Dec $159,733
2017 Jan $0
2017 Feb $130,324
2017 Mar $52,613

Brent posts this on net54 and also CU at the end of June 2016:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=224662

[pspa123]

Originally Posted by rcmb3220

To the OP or anyone else that can answer. Did you find these discrepancies by going through the two tools one by one and looking for ones that didn’t show up on the eBay tool? Or is there a faster way?

Since the OP did not answer yet, yes, this is what he did, laboriously do searches using each of the two tools and compare the output. He deserves a tremendous amount of credit for unearthing this potentially important information.

[skurtis]

When I go down a rabbit hole, I like to dive deep and I get obsessed. However, I never think I am infallable, so I always want someone to check my work. I won’t out anyone, because as a former journalism major in college, my information takes someone at their word who posted on a message board about a card a few years back who I cannot corroborate with a second source. I did not see the proof with my own eyes. So I unfortunately have to sit on the name.

With that as the prelude, I am pretty darn certain I know who bidder

_***d

Is. He is a big player and always has some amazing vintage at The National. Top notch grades, a must see table for me every year. And I have bought a card from him in the past at The National in 2016, a lower graded psa 3 1934 Gehrig green. I have been trying this entire time to connect him to PWCC as he was a passive defender of him in the past, but I always thought this guy was on the up-and-up but also VERY savvy. It’s actually kind of painful for me to find a connection here. A letdown, I guess.

I will leave it at that, as I don’t quite 100% understand what this ebay list means. I have seen this ebay buyer’s inventory in the past, and he does have the expensive cards in his cases that would confirm purchases in price ranges like this. But at this stage, I guess that doesn’t mean much. I just know his collection matches the price tags, so that’s why I am not totally positive what this all means.

Anyway, I think if he is clean, he should come out and state his case because his name will most certainly be linked to this ID soon. It didn’t take me long.

[Rooftop]

Originally Posted by skurtis

When I go down a rabbit hole, I like to dive deep and I get obsessed. However, I never think I am infallable, so I always want someone to check my work. I won’t out anyone, because as a former journalism major in college, my information takes someone at their word who posted on a message board about a card a few years back who I cannot corroborate with a second source. I did not see the proof with my own eyes. So I unfortunately have to sit on the name.

With that as the prelude, I am pretty darn certain I know who bidder

_***d

Is. He is a big player and always has some amazing vintage at The National. Top notch grades, a must see table for me every year. And I have bought a card from him in the past at The National in 2016, a lower graded psa 3 1934 Gehrig green. I have been trying this entire time to connect him to PWCC as he was a passive defender of him in the past, but I always thought this guy was on the up-and-up but also VERY savvy. It’s actually kind of painful for me to find a connection here. A letdown, I guess.

I will leave it at that, as I don’t quite 100% understand what this ebay list means. I have seen this ebay buyer’s inventory in the past, and he does have the expensive cards in his cases that would confirm purchases in price ranges like this. But at this stage, I guess that doesn’t mean much. I just know his collection matches the price tags, so that’s why I am not totally positive what this all means.

Anyway, I think if he is clean, he should come out and state his case because his name will most certainly be linked to this ID soon. It didn’t take me long.

[pspa123]

If there's an innocent explanation for all this, why does the distribution of these transactions square up so neatly with the timing of the market runup in 2016, and why are a number of the IDs apparently those of major players in the hobby?

At another level, if these items in fact were paid for, why didn't PWCC mark them as paid? it apparently did just that when Steve on 54 paid for his winnings through consignments.

I don't get it.

[superdan49]

Originally Posted by pspa123

If there's an innocent explanation for all this, why does the distribution of these transactions square up so neatly with the timing of the market runup in 2016, and why are a number of the IDs apparently those of major players in the hobby?

At another level, if these items in fact were paid for, why didn't PWCC mark them as paid? it apparently did just that when Steve on 54 paid for his winnings through consignments.

I don't get it.

I did not know this. That is an extremely pertinent fact.

[pspa123]

Originally Posted by superdan49

I did not know this. That is an extremely pertinent fact.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showpos...0&postcount=16

[Bruins1993]

I took a sample of twenty auction line items on the first page and I DO NOT see any of those being reported on the "AUCTION PRICES" section of PSA's site (https://www.psacard.com/auctionprices/).