Bruce:
It's always been evident that you are a complex man.
But as others have conveyed, once someone has the experience of dealing with you, he/she comes away with an imprint that feels etched in stone. It's mostly good. Hence your integrity and honesty over the years remains unquestioned by the far greater number of people who deal with you than those who haven't. Just look at what you've written today, how thorough it is, how almost gut-spiilling it is in tone. It confirms what your fans (and your microscopic number of detractors) already feel about your place in this industry.
I believe your take about the Phillip Wages issue, going back a few years now, mostly because it's always been in plain view, never hidden. But I've never felt comfortable about it for obvious reasons. You might not have to fire a good employee, but you need to get rid of the "issue," asap. The justifications, however well written and believable from both of you, take too long.
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I think it's wise you are heavily weighing the possible consequences of kissing off the eBay monster. Your business, your livelihood, the things you've innovated/invented have always been visible. To have everything threatened by the loss of a potential audience of 125 million eBay members is vexing.
Most of your customers WILL follow you, but not all. If growth and stability matters, you may decide to work with eBay, regardless of whatever draconian measures it demands. Why? Because growing the business for new generations of customers remains important as old collectors leave. This is what eBay provides. Notwithstanding your repeated announcements to stop selling "less expensive" contemporary posters, you see the long-range value of continuing to do so to younger customers who may become collectors, hence the reason you've not slammed the door. That's my take on why you still feel, and rightly so, that you're gaining something even though you remind us you're losing money selling certain items.
However, if you decide to re-invent yourself again, I won't be surprised. Word-of-mouth does matter, even if you lose millions of potential customers who aren't otherwise mindful of poster collecting, who "accidentally" come across your high profile sales at eBay. It's why you remain the most successful entrepreneur in this field. Regardless of eBay, you still have control over your destiny; you still get to "choose."
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There's a tortured and eccentric part of you which remains an enigma to even your most ardent fans. Most days, those tiny few who seek your destruction don't matter to you. But on other days, they do bother you in a way disproportionate to their impact. This has always been fascinating. Yet from my experience, the eccentric and occasionally volatile are often the most innovative and successful in business.
If you decide to kiss off eBay, only a fool would bet against your chances of continued success. Go back a few decades. Almost everything you've done with your life has involved a higher degree of "perceived" initial risk than most would tolerate. Some people have forgotten how "wild" some of your moves were at the time you made them.
Think of when you were a full-time poker player, a major force at Christie's in Manhattan, an independent auctioneer hosting sales in Los Angeles while sending out mail-order sales lists to customers, and then taking your ENTIRE business over to the internet, buying a city block, hiring employees while operating in little town in Missouri.
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I remember writing a several-thousand word profile about you in MCW in the 1990s that caused a few ripples. Some thought it was too harsh. Others thought it was too kiss-ass. Who cares? In my view, it's not in your DNA to be a loser. Some see you as a complex and arrogant winner, a gorilla within the slice of pie we call the poster collecting hobby. A tinier number regard you as an irritating blowhard and destroyer. But you see things more simply when it comes to running a business and evaluating risk. The controversial stuff about you has never changed, stuff in my view that has more to do with your personality and the way your competitive brain works.
But by the end of the day, one must concede, if they've watched you over many years -- that by any measure, be it dollars, unit volume, or just plain goodwill -- the things you've done to ensure the continued happiness of your customers, employees and family -- far outweighs anything ill. Hence you have been and will always remain a success. Much has changed since the 1990s, but you're still the same man.
-d.
----Original Message Follows----
From: Bruce Hershenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Bruce Hershenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Subject: Why I was suspended from eBay Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 16:56:23 -0500
I have now talked to a high ranking eBay employee about my suspension from eBay, and the following is what I understand about why I was suspended from eBay on 4/6.
1) eBay added software recently that shows exactly what computer placed what bid on what item, part of a major new campaign designed to stop "shill bidding" (there have been a few major sellers in the news who have been accused of this, and eBay rightfully considers this bad publicity for their site). This software looks for bids that are placed on an account using a different eBay ID, but which are placed from a computer connected to the account bid on. For example, if seller "XYZ" has a second eBay bidder account of "ABC" and logs on to eBay as "ABC" and then places a bid on an item offered by seller "XYZ", then eBay's software will spot that the bidder and seller used the same computer. An eBay employee then reviews the bids placed by bidder "ABC" and if he only bids on seller's "XYZ's" items, then the bids are often deemed shill bids, and any auctions from either account are cancelled, and both accounts are suspended, without ANY notification to the users. If eBay proves to have been mistaken, or if they accept that it is an innocent mistake, the accounts are reinstated, but the users are left to suffer the consequences of eBay's actions.
2) While this new software certainly may have located real "shill bidders", it has surely also "caught" employees of companies who have been "guilty" of placing one or more bids on items their company is selling, which has resulted in many major eBay sellers having their accounts suspended, even if their employee only bid on a single item! Of course, most actual "shill bidders" likely have other people bid for them from entirely separate computers, so this software is far more likely to "catch" employees who bid on items intending to buy them, than it is likely to catch any actual "shill bidders".
3) As I have explained, this eBay software discovered the account Phil Wages used to bid on some of my items each week. Phillip began to bid on this account (owned by a friend of his in another city) when an eBay employee told me it didn't matter if he bid from a friend's account, as long as he didn't bid from his own account. Phillip sometimes bid from his home, but also sometimes from the computer he uses at work, which is the very same computer from which the auctions are submitted. He bid solely on items he was trying to buy as a collector, and since he has limited finances, he mainly bid on inexpensive items, and he usually won a small number of items (between one and twelve some weeks, and NONE many weeks), but he placed many hundreds of bids over the past years, as has just about everyone who regularly bids in my auctions.
4) Phillip is virtually exactly the same as any other bidder on my items. He gains the tiniest of advantage by being my employee, which is that he does not have to pay shipping for his purchases, but neither does anyone else within driving distance of here. He has no way of knowing what anyone has bid on any item, for no one here has that knowledge (only eBay has that information). Phillip COULD physically examine each item before he bids on it (as could anyone within driving distance), but the large images I provide make that unnecessary, and in actuality he bid just as everyone else does, from looking at the pictures and reading the description.
5) Phillip purchased a few hundred items for around six thousand dollars over the past years (during which time I sold ten million dollars of posters). I could document this, but I know there is no point. Those who believe what I say do not need to see it, and those who want to think I am lying would surely say I have produced false information. Either believe the truth or don't. But everyone should ask these questions. If I had him bidding intending to cheat people, why bid on a few hundred inexpensive items for a few thousands of dollars over a period of years? Why did he not bid on LOTS of VERY expensive items? Is it not far more likely that the truth is exactly what I say it is, that he bid on those items to buy them for his collection, and that if I did do anything wrong, it was solely poor judgement on my part (caused by listening to the advice of an eBay employee).
6) But I have said that Phillip also bid on a few expensive items, but that was because he was placing bids for other collectors. Why? Because when I started my major eBay auctions, I required all bidders to register with me separately, giving full credit information. Due to eBay's antiquated software, this "bidder allow" process could only be updated once a day. So 24 hours prior to the end of the major auction items I had to stop taking new registrations. The first major auction, around ten people (who were good past customers of mine, and who had credit information on file) contacted me on the final day, and asked if they could register, as they had just learned of the auction, and I had had to tell them they were too late. I called my eBay representative and asked if I could set up an eBay account called "absentee bidder", but he said that sounded like a bad idea. He suggested I get someone else to place the bids. I then had Phillip sit on the phone with those people and bid for them from his account. He bid solely on items those people instructed him to, items they were trying to buy as a collector. He (and the people he was bidding for) had no idea of what anyone else was bidding. Sometimes those people won and sometimes they lost, and in every case they paid for their purchases when they won, and their items were sent to them. This process was repeated over the next major auctions, solely for those who were past customers who did not register in time. Again, I could document this (and one of those Phillip bid for has offered to post full information of what occurred, and I have no doubt every such bidder would do so if I asked them to), but I know there is no point. Those who believe what I say do not need to see it, and those who want to think I am lying would surely say I have produced false information. Either believe the truth or don't. But if those bids were intended to cheat people, why place them from my office? Why tell those who asked me that I would have an employee place a bid for them because they had not registered in time? I am not a stupid person. If I had some grand scheme to cheat people, why do it from a computer at my work, and with a small number of bids that totalled thousands of dollars, and not thousands of bids totalling millions of dollars?
7) The employee at eBay who saw the bidding on this account solely saw many hundreds of bids on eMoviePoster.com's items over a period of years, and concluded that this must be "shill bidding" (even though thousands of my customers have placed far greater numbers of bids, for significantly far greater amounts of money). Without giving me a chance to explain what happened, or contacting me in any way, he closed my current 1,500+ auctions. I know many of you find it impossible to believe that eBay could do this without first giving me one or more warnings of some kind, but I guarantee you that was not the case. Regardless of my 160,000 sales on eBay, with 110,000 positives and 12 negatives (likely an eBay record), he closed down every auction without any warning (other that calling me 30 seconds before it happened, as a "courtesy"!). In addition, he looked at my account and saw many minor infractions of eBay's many rules (VERO violations, selling items in the wrong category, etc) and he decided (on his own) that I should be permanently suspended. In effect, I was tried and convicted and sentenced, and I was not even notified of my trial!
8) I am now in phone contact with a different eBay employee. I have explained what occurred. What I am potentially "guilty" of is taking an eBay employee's advice four years ago, and having my employee bid on items using a friend's account, and also having him bid for other people who could not bid in my major auctions due to eBay's poor software (again, taking the advice of an eBay employee). I helped people bid on posters they wanted to win! I NEVER in any way caused anyone to bid on any item with the intent of raising the price of that item, and I am sure that none of my employees ever did this. If I indeed did break eBay's rules, it was not by "shill bidding". If it is against eBay's rules for an employee to bid on my item's (even through a friend's account) then I did break that rule (although I was following the advice of an eBay employee).
9) What is a fitting "punishment" for breaking this rule? Many people might say I should have to agree to ban all employees from ever again bidding on any of my auctions in any way, and that I should be given a "second chance" to sell once again as I have for five years. I have received hundreds of e-mails suggesting this. This makes "sense" to just about everyone I have sold to. After all, most poster collectors are painfully aware that there are many major poster sellers openly selling fakes as originals on eBay, and eBay does nothing to stop this, in spite of hundreds of complaints from collectors and dealers.
10) Why am permanently suspended for what I believe can be fairly described as a relatively minor infraction of their rules, and why am I being singled out in this way? Is it not possible that is it is because I have been an outspoken critic of eBay for years? Several months ago I ran an auction for a "mystic" pizza, that urged eBay to qualify their bidders. The past month I was a frequent poster on a "super-PowerSellers" discussion board. My last post there said that eBay is more concerned with silencing their critics than in fixing what is wrong with their business, and suggested they might adopt a new policy, throwing off everyone who dares criticize them (like me). It seems they have adopted this new policy!
11) I will wait a few days to see what eBay wants from me in order to be reinstated, and then decide whether to appeal their decision, start my own site, or list through a different site. I am afraid that eBay will be basically asking me to PROVE that I never instructed anyone to place bids for the purpose of inflating prices, and I don't know how I can prove that I DIDN'T do something wrong (that takes on similarities to a Kafka novel). If they make it clear they are looking to make it very difficult for me to return to their site, then I will explore my other options, and of course I will post my decision here.
12) I KNOW my auctions are the most honest movie poster auctions ever held. In most other major auctions the owners of the posters have either direct or indirect access to the bids placed by many collectors, and you have depend on their honesty. In my auctions, I don't know what anyone is bidding, and I sell thousands of items at a time. Even if someone WANTED to "shill bid" under these conditions, I don't see how that could reasonably be done. But I absolutely state that every bid placed in my auctions was placed by someone wanting to buy that item at that price. Anyone who EVER was the high bidder and did not honor their bid on even one item was permanently banned from bidding in my auctions. I am sorry if my action of helping Phillip (and some late registrants) bid clouds this issue in anyone's mind, but the simple truth is that NO shill bidding every occurred with my knowledge in any of my auctions, and that is one good reason why my auctions have so many bidders (of course the honest descriptions and quick and careful packing don't hurt either).
Thanks to the many hundreds of collectors and dealers who have called me or e-mailed me with their support (including all of my foremost customers and consignors). There HAVE been a very small group of those who have taken delight in my misfortune, but these are the very same people who were my critics prior to this, so their response was certainly predictable.
I firmly believe this entire experience may well prove to be a blessing in disguise. Certainly the outpouring of support from my friends in the poster collecting community already more than outweighs the negatives of this!
I will keep you posted of further developments.
Bruce
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