All I want to do is talk about COMC

[sthoemke]

Originally Posted by orion9578

Something to look out for if you're auctioning cards through COMC...

https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/33....m145235.l2565

This was my card and ended on 7/1/2024. With a little less than an hour left it shot up from $200+ to $1,100+ ... I surely wasn't expecting that much on it but figured $300 was probably a worst case and $500 a best case. I'll take it though, right? Wrong, I will not take it .

With about 5~ seconds left it went from $1,100+ to $227.50. What? I didn't quite understand, so I went to the bid history. Someone retracted their $1,200 bid with 5~ seconds left, thus literally no one else bidding was probably going to be bidding(save auto-bids I suspect). With about an hour left, once that bid came in, about 50%~ of the watchers dropped. The retracted bid was place at 5:10PM PST and retracted at 6:07:25PM PST. "Oddly" enough eBay now has a rule in place that you can retract a bid, no matter how much time is left, if it's within an hour of placing said bid.

So I start to thinking that it seems fishy. Scared away potential bidders, IMO. So I decide to get ahold of eBay, with it being a 6 feedback winner and a 14 feedback retractor. I explain the situation to eBay and the lady was very nice and actually turned out to be very helpful. She puts me on hold, comes back and says the first thing she found "odd" is all bids were from the US, save the 6 feedback winner and 14 feedback retractor. Asks to put me on hold again. Comes back, both 6 feedback bidder and 14 feedback retactor have the same IP address(in the UK). She says she'll forward all this to the correct person to look into more carefully but says for anything to really "happen" she needs the seller, COMC, to message them. I emailed regular CS and my rep and have basically been ghosted. Card got paid for, nothing I can do. Would it have gotten more bids? I'll never know but I think it was probably worth more than it sold for. Beware when auctioning through COMC. I'd never seen this one before .

If that can happen to COMC auctions, why couldn't it happen to anyone's auctions?

I believe some foreign ebay sites have different rules, so maybe UK bidders (or if you are logged on throught the UK site) are able to retract bids(?)

[mjohnatgt]

Originally Posted by sthoemke

If that can happen to COMC auctions, why couldn't it happen to anyone's auctions?

It can, but I think he's saying that COMC isn't going to fight for you if it happens. If you auction it yourself or through another consignment firm, they might.

Yeah, that's dirty pool. Sorry it happened to you.

[Bosoxfan5990]

Originally Posted by sthoemke

If that can happen to COMC auctions, why couldn't it happen to anyone's auctions?

I believe some foreign ebay sites have different rules, so maybe UK bidders (or if you are logged on throught the UK site) are able to retract bids(?)

I was under the impression that bidders could no longer retract their own bids and the seller is now the only person that can retract a bid on behalf of a buyer.

I was also under the impression bids could not be retracted within a short time prior to auction end...

[Sonnys88]

Originally Posted by Bosoxfan5990

I was under the impression that bidders could no longer retract their own bids and the seller is now the only person that can retract a bid on behalf of a buyer.

I was also under the impression bids could not be retracted within a short time prior to auction end...

Yeah, there is no way for a bidder to retract their own bid in the "Trading Cards" category for any reason at any time.

The bidder could have had their account flagged and all their bids retracted by eBay and the timing just happened to coincide with that one auction closing.

Or COMC noticed strange high bidding on their end and cancelled all bids by that eBay id. An $1,100 bid for a Sammy Guevara auto would definitely raise some red flags.

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by sthoemke

If that can happen to COMC auctions, why couldn't it happen to anyone's auctions?

I believe some foreign ebay sites have different rules, so maybe UK bidders (or if you are logged on throught the UK site) are able to retract bids(?)

The eBay CS lady stated only the seller can cancel the sale/report the bidders for colluding.

Originally Posted by mjohnatgt

It can, but I think he's saying that COMC isn't going to fight for you if it happens. If you auction it yourself or through another consignment firm, they might.

Yeah, that's dirty pool. Sorry it happened to you.

All good!

Originally Posted by Bosoxfan5990

I was under the impression that bidders could no longer retract their own bids and the seller is now the only person that can retract a bid on behalf of a buyer.

I was also under the impression bids could not be retracted within a short time prior to auction end...

I was under the same impression. I guess the rule has changed to if the bid is cancelled within an hour of placing it, it can be retracted.

Originally Posted by Sonnys88

Yeah, there is no way for a bidder to retract their own bid in the "Trading Cards" category for any reason at any time.

The bidder could have had their account flagged and all their bids retracted by eBay and the timing just happened to coincide with that one auction closing.

Or COMC noticed strange high bidding on their end and cancelled all bids by that eBay id. An $1,100 bid for a Sammy Guevara auto would definitely raise some red flags.

According to eBay CS, it was retracted by the bidder. Maybe the rules are different on the ebay.co.uk site? I have no idea. I seriously doubt it was COMC, as they pay almost no attention to their eBay and/or messages about eBay issues(See https://www.ebay.com/itm/33546684408...Bk9SR-62mv6SZA ... Another item of mine that I have emailed regular CS and my rep about... Obviously the title is wrong... Been 4 business days since I emailed both)...). I can't see them monitoring ending auctions, past when regular staff is in the building and waiting till 5 seconds was left in the auction, almost at the end of that hour long window you have to cancel. Plus the account has 8, yes 8, bid retractions.

Maybe the eBay CS person has no clue what they're talking about? Maybe it was COMC or eBay. The timing is impeccable though, if it was them and she was mistaken. Plus...both from the UK, same IP address. Obviously some colluding was going on, no matter who retracted the bid. Something to watch out for!

[checkoutmydeals]

The regular speed shipment I requested on 6/12 and was estimated to ship on 8/11 actually shipped today! It appears they have gotten the shipping times under control. I don't know if that comes at the expense of another area, receiving, processing, etc. I sure hope not.

Shipping times seem to be back to "normal" (under a month or so for standard shipping). They mentioned something about adding an extra shift a while back. Plus, it's possible that a lot of people were holding off on having cards shipped because of how slow it was earlier in the year.

If someone has been holding off on getting cards shipped from COMC because of the slow shipping times, it's probably a good time to pull the trigger on a shipment.

Processing has also been unusually quick. They've already processed about 600 of 1,000 cards I sent in for the recent special, about 14 weeks earlier than the deadline.

[dlangley2]

Originally Posted by checkoutmydeals

[I]

If someone has been holding off on getting cards shipped from COMC because of the slow shipping times, it's probably a good time to pull the trigger on a shipment.

Processing has also been unusually quick. They've already processed about 600 of 1,000 cards I sent in for the recent special, about 14 weeks earlier than the deadline.

Shipping definitely has gotten a lot quicker. Processing has been a little bit slower at least for me though. I sent in 2 standard packages marked received on 5/23 and 6/7 respectively and have had nothing pop up yet from either and neither marked as progressed beyond 10%. Not really a big issue since they have 16 weeks, but in previous submissions, I generally start to see them pop around 1 month and was kind of surprised that nothing has hit yet from at least the first batch since it was received before the special.

[elektrokuter]

Processing has been weird for me in that they are nearly finished with my standard submission but are neglecting the select and fresh pulls

[RustyGreerFan]

Here's another example. Be very careful when pricing your cards, guys. You cannot trust the ID process. So if you can, try to notice every card you send in or have a list or something. Or pop every photo LOL sheesh.

This is the Orange /25. It even says so on the PSA label. Not that you can read it. I guess making it bigger didn't help LOL

[IMG][/IMG]

[boxbuster7]

Love users like Zoldania who just constantly lowball on desirable cards then try to guilt trip you by sending a weird number like thats all the store credit they have available. Get a life.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by orion9578

Maybe the eBay CS person has no clue what they're talking about? Maybe it was COMC or eBay. The timing is impeccable though, if it was them and she was mistaken. Plus...both from the UK, same IP address. Obviously some colluding was going on, no matter who retracted the bid. Something to watch out for!

Yea sounds like classic bid shielding….sorry that happened.

Stupid policy on ebays part to even allow a bidder to self retract. They may as well be begging for these shenanigans to happen. I’m really surprised eBay CS went into that kind of detail…they don’t usually do that even if the you are the seller, much less another account selling.

Very important to keep in mind if auctioning something through COMC, especially anything higher end. I guess that’s one major adv of selling an item yourself…if the fraud is this obvious you can simply choose to not send the item and cancel the transaction.

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Yea sounds like classic bid shielding….sorry that happened.

Stupid policy on ebays part to even allow a bidder to self retract. They may as well be begging for these shenanigans to happen. I’m really surprised eBay CS went into that kind of detail…they don’t usually do that even if the you are the seller, much less another account selling.

Very important to keep in mind if auctioning something through COMC, especially anything higher end. I guess that’s one major adv of selling an item yourself…if the fraud is this obvious you can simply choose to not send the item and cancel the transaction.

There was a definite language barrier when we were having our conversation, haha. She was very polite, nice etc., but spoke very broken English. She was actually walking me through the steps of reporting it as if it was my account. I then told her, like I mentioned from the start of my conversation with her, that it was an item I had sold via consignment.

And just so I'm clear here, I'm just repeating what she told me. I see it noted in many places that there are no self retractions in the trading card category but then I also see the "new" retraction rule saying you can self retract within an hour. Not sure if that supersedes the no retractions in said category or not. Again, just keep an eye out on high end. I don't normally hawk my auctions so closely, save it being a high end card, like this one was(ish). Lastly, I will say I just ran about 100~ auctions over the past few weeks and literally no other snags except this one.

[Bosoxfan5990]

Originally Posted by orion9578

There was a definite language barrier when we were having our conversation, haha. She was very polite, nice etc., but spoke very broken English. She was actually walking me through the steps of reporting it as if it was my account. I then told her, like I mentioned from the start of my conversation with her, that it was an item I had sold via consignment.

And just so I'm clear here, I'm just repeating what she told me. I see it noted in many places that there are no self retractions in the trading card category but then I also see the "new" retraction rule saying you can self retract within an hour. Not sure if that supersedes the no retractions in said category or not. Again, just keep an eye out on high end. I don't normally hawk my auctions so closely, save it being a high end card, like this one was(ish). Lastly, I will say I just ran about 100~ auctions over the past few weeks and literally no other snags except this one.

Can you link where you see this?

[elektrokuter]

So about 2 weeks ago I mentioned here that upon receiving my comc submission for the promo, comc added a weird extra submission of 15 cards they added to my order that I did not send- and was entered into their system as a separate batch.
I believe one other person said this happened to them as well.

Well that batch was just processed- and it was 15 pokemon base energy cards that I did in no way send them and they charged me 70 cents each to process lol.

Anyone ever dealt with this and have experience with how comc responds? Obviously will contact service and all but just curious what to expect as they arent always the fastest to respond.
Thanks!

[mjohnatgt]

They should put them in the right person's account and reverse your charges.

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by Bosoxfan5990

Can you link where you see this?

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bid...ng-bid?id=4013

When you can retract a bid
You can retract a bid if (Note: these options are only applicable for up to 1 hour after making the bid when the listing is ending in less than 12 hours):

The seller significantly changed the description of the item

You accidentally bid the wrong amount. For example, you meant to bid $20, not $200. In this case, enter the price you intended to bid as soon as you've retracted the incorrect bid

Quoted the important parts. Again, I'm not sure if this even applies to the trading card category or not, as it's stated many, many times that you can't retract a bid in that category. But according to eBay CS, and I 100% didn't mishear her etc., the bidder who self retracted their bid & had the same IP address as the winner....was the one who retracted the bid. Not eBay and not COMC.

PS. I still haven't heard back from COMC. 5+ days since I emailed about this issue and an eBay item with an incorrect title. I did hear that I got a "returned to seller" though and according to the email conversation I just had with Jeff, that request was from Saturday(2-3 days after I emailed about my issues). So it seems CS picks and chooses who and what they respond to.

[DynaEtch]

Yea but the tricky thing is on that same page it says you can’t retract a bid in trading card categories. So that makes me think those scenarios of when you can retract a bid they are giving are meant when it’s not Trading cards. Otherwise it’s directly contradicted by their own words on that same page that in Trading cards, bids cannot be retracted.

This actually shouldn’t be a difficult thing to figure out- next time someone makes a bid in an auction in trading card singles, see if there is an option to retract (within an hour, say). Like is there a button on listing screen after you make a bid. Or check by doing it through the help menu….on that page you linked there is a button for retract bid. (I’m not saying actually retract a bid, just see if it’s an option).

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Yea but the tricky thing is on that same page it says you can’t retract a bid in trading card categories. So that makes me think those scenarios of when you can retract a bid they are giving are meant when it’s not Trading cards. Otherwise it’s directly contradicted by their own words on that same page that in Trading cards, bids cannot be retracted.

This actually shouldn’t be a difficult thing to figure out- next time someone makes a bid in an auction in trading card singles, see if there is an option to retract (within an hour, say). Like is there a button on listing screen after you make a bid. Or check by doing it through the help menu….on that page you linked there is a button for retract bid. (I’m not saying actually retract a bid, just see if it’s an option).

Might be worth a shot for someone who doesn't use a "sniper" to try. I only bid once and I only bid with 2 seconds left myself, haha.

In my opinion, I have to think it was eBay at this point. Maybe she didn't want to fess up because I seemed agitated and they waited till 5 seconds were left to retract it. It only makes sense that it was them, though. COMC 100% doesn't pay attention. It's pretty explicate that you can not retract a bid in said category. I have to assume they saw bids coming from the same IP address and retracted it. I just don't get why they waited till the last second like that. I feel wronged .

Back to the COMC topic and this one, to me at least, being put to bed ... I've taken all my stuff down and will probably be sending it home. Not a fan of how their CS has handled me over the last couple weeks. Seemingly totally ignoring my concerns while handling the concerns of others to my detriment. Rules are rules on the return but it was just what set me off on being overly pissed about their lack of any sort of effort/returned email at all, save my "rep" ... who totally did not return the last email I sent him before this one ... basically saying "I'm going on vacation, it's someone else's problem" to me. Gonna leave my stuff on there for a week to think about it but this whole thing just might cost them a 100K+ per year account. Already rid myself of my ePack accounts last month(tired of spending 100k+ a year and getting 25-30k in return...for 8 years straight)...July might mean no more COMC as well.

[boxbuster7]

^^^ I agree with you - I've kinda lost faith in COMC this year - all these empty promises of improvements and they really have lost what got them here in the first place. The people that send them cards.

PS: I saw the steve irwin auto sold. do you mind sharing how much it sold for?

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by boxbuster7

^^^ I agree with you - I've kinda lost faith in COMC this year - all these empty promises of improvements and they really have lost what got them here in the first place. The people that send them cards.

PS: I saw the steve irwin auto sold. do you mind sharing how much it sold for?

It didn't sell my friend. It's being shipped home, along with everything else. I will be listing it myself and I will for sure post in here if it sells.

I am leaving money on my COMC and I have cards at auction/in Elite/at PSA but I'm going to be taking a break and I'm also going to give them a very "short leash" when it comes to dealing with me going forward. I'm super easy going and to be honest I'd prefer short responses to the VERY FEW CS questions I have, but I would prefer a response...not crickets. If I'm getting nothing in return from them taking 15% of everything(5% plus 10% if I cash out), I might as well do it myself and keep the extra few % eBay doesn't take...doesn't cost that much for supplies and to drive to the PO. Between 2 accounts, 15 years and 8 years. 75,000 cards sold. Countless "Reps" who, for the most part barely email back. Regular CS ghosting. No thank you! Worst part, for them, I have several very high end cards that I was tossing around sending and moving through them. No thanks to that, if I can't get replies to basic CS requests. Off my soap box. I'll be around, muddling and looking for deals, but I'm not placing much faith in anything they can do for me that I couldn't do for myself in the first place.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by orion9578

Back to the COMC topic and this one, to me at least, being put to bed ... I've taken all my stuff down and will probably be sending it home. Not a fan of how their CS has handled me over the last couple weeks. Seemingly totally ignoring my concerns while handling the concerns of others to my detriment. Rules are rules on the return but it was just what set me off on being overly pissed about their lack of any sort of effort/returned email at all, save my "rep" ... who totally did not return the last email I sent him before this one ... basically saying "I'm going on vacation, it's someone else's problem" to me. Gonna leave my stuff on there for a week to think about it but this whole thing just might cost them a 100K+ per year account. Already rid myself of my ePack accounts last month(tired of spending 100k+ a year and getting 25-30k in return...for 8 years straight)...July might mean no more COMC as well.

Understandable. Their CS is pretty hit or miss imo. Sometimes I’ll get a quick response that same day or next, others I have written and never got a response back. Every place has its problems. eBay does. COMC does. One difference is eBay at least has actual phone CS (although often outsourced), and with COMC CS it’s this long email game and hoping for a response.

I’m not nearly as big of a player, so they wouldn’t be missing me much either way . My main issue with COMC this year has been they always just seem so behind with everything. (I’ll be told…‘they’re always short staffed!’…ok that’s a problem, and if so then don’t overpromote, which they are choosing to do and is often a root cause of these backlogs). But whether I had a ship date 1/31 package being sent out like 4/6, a high end submission off the radar because they don’t process it for more than week post delivery, always something going on. But, like the month+ late grading submission (presumably due to PSA, but something COMC is choosing to advertise as 45 day turnaround when you pay for it), I guess we’re supposed to just grin and take it, and no being critical of anything as that means you have no patience.

There’s a lot I like about COMC. I’ll still be using it (well not for grading). But hoping this whole first half of this year was an anomaly and things can get on a smoother track with them. With your issue, I agree that’s bad if the CS just ghosts or doesn’t give you a better explanation of how that happened with your auction.

[paulcarlcards]

I started playing with an awesome Chrome extension for RPA (robotic process automation) and it’s actually really good. I’ve got an automated COMC repricing tool in the works. I just wanna add more logic for what cards/price points it skips for human review. It currently will only reprice cards that were acquired on COMC and aren’t marked NFS/RTS.

I’ve currently got it setup to undercut the lowest price by $0.01 with a floor price of 110% of the acquired price (or $0.05 if the card was purchased for a penny or two). When I trust it, I’m going to remove the “clicking continue” thing so it just does everything with one button click.

What other logic or features would you guys want to see in an automated repricer for COMC?

If anyone wants to mess with the Chrome extension too, it’s called BrowserFlow. Only caveat is that it requires writing some JavaScript to work with the data on your inventory page and to create some of the logic.

[Crosby 87]

Originally Posted by paulcarlcards

I started playing with an awesome Chrome extension for RPA (robotic process automation) and it’s actually really good. I’ve got an automated COMC repricing tool in the works. I just wanna add more logic for what cards/price points it skips for human review. It currently will only reprice cards that were acquired on COMC and aren’t marked NFS/RTS.

I’ve currently got it setup to undercut the lowest price by $0.01 with a floor price of 110% of the acquired price (or $0.05 if the card was purchased for a penny or two). When I trust it, I’m going to remove the “clicking continue” thing so it just does everything with one button click.

What other logic or features would you guys want to see in an automated repricer for COMC?

If anyone wants to mess with the Chrome extension too, it’s called BrowserFlow. Only caveat is that it requires writing some JavaScript to work with the data on your inventory page and to create some of the logic.

So now people can easily manipulate your asking price as I understand it.

[paulcarlcards]

Originally Posted by Crosby 87

So now people can easily manipulate your asking price as I understand it.

lol maybe. It’s not running constantly in real time. Only runs when the button is clicked so if you wanted to manipulate my asking price you’d have to drop your price and hope I run the repricer before someone else buys the card(s) you used to try to manipulate my prices with.

[RustyGreerFan]

Originally Posted by paulcarlcards

lol maybe. It’s not running constantly in real time. Only runs when the button is clicked so if you wanted to manipulate my asking price you’d have to drop your price and hope I run the repricer before someone else buys the card(s) you used to try to manipulate my prices with.

Cool. That's how I price a lot of my stuff anyways.