Hi Bruce -- Do you do any selling on EBAY anymore? I thought there
was still some EMOVIEPOSTERS.COM presence on EBAY. Judging from your
comments I guess I am wrong about that. Yes?
Thanks, Channing Thomson
On Jan 9, 2010, at 7:29 AM, Bruce Hershenson wrote:
One more evil eBay practice I forgot to write about above is their
second chance offers, which should be called the "you were outbid by
a shill" offers. It results in the unknowing buyer being shill bid
to their max (if they fall for it), and there was no real second
bidder.
In the 1% of eMoviePoster.com items where the high bidder never
pays, we NEVER offer it to the underbidder, but ALWAYS re-auction
it, starting again at $1.
Right now, we have in our Tuesday auctions a great one sheet from
ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS. This is the exact same example of this
poster that we auctioned on December 3rd. The high bidder on that
poster told us that he WOULD have paid for the poster out of his
auction proceeds from another auction house, but that they did not
pay him as promised, and therefore he had to cancel this purchase.
That is why it is again offered, and those who missed out on this
the first time have a rare "second chance" to try for it once again.
This is the correct and honest way to deal with a non-paying bidder,
not "second chance offers". And does it cost the consignor money?
Well, there is no way of knowing how much the item would have sold
for the first time (had the bad bidder not bid at all), but one
would assume it would have been lower, maybe much lower.
In the case of this poster, we auctioned it for $1,800 the first
time, and now, it is at $1,551, with three days to go.
Bruce
On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 9:14 AM, Holiday Russell <[email protected]>
wrote:
I didn't know about being able to change the username, Bruce.
That's VERY useful.
Yes, there's a risk of being the high bidder if playing the spite
game. It's more instinct than anything to know where a competitor's
high bid is. I could name a few that characteristically are like
pit bulls once they put a bid in, and they won't be outbid at most
any price. Again, though, that's part of the competition and the
fun. The ability to change the username really solves all these
problems. Thanks!
Holiday
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]>
Date: January 9, 2010 10:08:55 AM EST
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Fwd: [MOPO] Auction houses that can see
absentee bids, and the huge conflict of interest
Reply-To: Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]>
Holiday
I DO agree that some bidders will "run other bidders up" purely out
of spite (or because their friend is the consignor of the item).
That is where eBay dropped the ball completely, and we already two
important safeguards that correct their mistakes, and it sounds
like you don't know about them, so read on:
1) On eBay, you can place bids designed to run someone up, and if
you "go too far" and "accidentally" outbid them, you can simply
retract your last bid only, and then the other person is the high
bid at their limit, and eBay does nothing to punish people who
abuse this!
But in our auctions, we don't give anyone the ability to retract
their bids. Once you bid, you are stuck with it. So that takes away
a lot of the incentive of "running someone up" (unless you are
connected with the auction and know exactly what they are bidding,
and then can't lose, as I first described happens all the time in
auctions other than eBay or eMoviePoster.com).
What happens in those rare cases where someone bids say, $220
instead of $22? They have to contact us by e-mail or phone, and WE
retract their bid. If it is too close to the close of the auction,
or if they don't reach us in time, we cancel the auction and re-
list it again, starting at $1.
And we note on their account that they retracted a bid, and if
they do it again we suspend them (the person, not the account, as
on eBay). We also look to see if they bid $220 instead of $22, or
did they bid say $325, instead of the $275 they say they wanted to
bid (and of course the high bid they exposed was $300!).
We want no bidders who "play games" with the bidding, and in
fact we want no bidders at all who can't pay for their items IN
FULL within two weeks of the close of the auction. We have been
told these are "restrictive credit terms", but that might help
explain why we collect on over 99% of our items, whereas our
competitors list the same items over and over and over, even though
they supposedly "sell" each time!
2) Anonymous bidding: For years, this was a giant hole in eBay's
set-up, because you could track everything a bidder bid on, and any
user name changes people made, so you could quickly identify those
who tended to bid skyhigh, which let spiteful bidders (or shill
bidders) know they could likely run up those bidders quite a bit
(and as pointed out above, if they bid too much they could simply
retract that last bid, with no penalty).
eBay changed to an anonymous bidder system, NOT to fix the
above, but simply to stop buyers and sellers from making private
deals outside eBay. But of course that has created even more
problems, making eBay 'shill bidder heaven", for the sellers can
bid anonymously on their own items, and then simply file a "non-
paying bidder" report on themselves if they get stuck with the item
and pay no fees.
But in our auctions, we let people choose their own ID, and they
can change it as often as they like. Other bidders can't see your
previous name, so someone who is worried about spiteful other
bidders running them up can change their ID as often as they like,
even every single auction.
If you have even a hint that others bidders have raised your
bids thinking you will surely bid more, then you should certainly
try changing your ID several times and see if that makes a
difference. Of course, if you only collect say, Jeanette MacDonald,
people will likely figure out who you are, even after a name
change, so if you are still worried, even with a new ID. you should
continue to wait for the last 5 minutes to bid.
I am constantly searching for ways to make our auctions even more
fair to ALL bidders, because I believe that this will surely
ultimately get us the most bidders, and the most satisfied repeat
bidders, which is what we are after. We never want to make more
money off of any item if it requires do something in the slightest
bit dishonerable. Other auctions seem to be guided by the letter of
the law. If they can get away with something, they do it!
Bruce
On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 8:11 AM, Holiday Russell <[email protected]>
wrote:
Thanks Bruce. I've always suspected this and that's why even on
eBay I either use a sniping program or do the equivalent when
manually bidding by being there as the time runs out. It's not
just fear of what can happen on the seller side, but also what can
happen from competing bidders that get spiteful. The can jack up
the price is the get a sense that you have a high bid in and that
they're not going to win. I've done this myself with certain
competing bidders I do nor like. That said - here's a suggestion
for you -anonymous bidding. That fixes the problem of spitefulness
- almost. Even so I would still be there at auction end and bid
manually. And, it's more fun that way!
Holiday
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]>
Date: January 9, 2010 8:23:01 AM EST
To: [email protected]
Subject: [MOPO] Auction houses that can see absentee bids, and the
huge conflict of interest
Reply-To: Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]>
When I first started preparing auctions for Christie's in 1990, I
told them I did not want to know what any absentee bidder had bid
on ANY item, and then told me that this information was HIGHLY
confidential, and never given out in any way. Over the years I
came to find that this was pretty much an "in name only" policy at
every auction house I would come in contact with (for example,
when I became friendly with the owners of several other auctions,
they would freely volunteer to me what items had high absentee
bids, and how much, when I would show up in person at the preview
on the day of the auction).
Obviously, this is a huge conflict of interest! If the auction
owner tells me in passing that someone placed a $9,000 absentee
bid on a $1,000 item the morning of the auction, I can later go to
that auction and, with an absolute certainty, bid up to $8,500,
KNOWING I will be outbid. Of course, that may well mean the
absentee bidder pays $9,000 instead of maybe $5,000 (or $3,000, or
$1,000), but the auction house makes a lot of extra commissions,
and they get the prestige of selling an item for a sky-high price,
and it is a "perfect" crime, for there is no way for them to get
caught, and there is no paper trail whatsoever (they can say a
"floor bidder" was the underbidder, and they don't even have to
have a record of who that bidder was).
I detested this, and never took any part in it in any way (either
as an auctioneer or as a consignor), but saw it happen with
regularity in auction after auction, and it made me sick. When I
switched my major auctions from Christie's to Howard Lowery, one
of the biggest draws for me in doing so was that Howard assured me
that this practice never occurred in his auctions, and I believe
that was 100% true.
This is why I was so drawn to switching over my entire business to
eBay in 2000. The greatest benefit to auctioning through them was
that WE could not in any way see the high bidder's secret high
bids, and what was even better, it seems certain that, unlike
every other auction house, eBay protected those bids from ANYONE
accessing them (other than people in their tech department, and I
never, ever heard of anyone breeching that security in any way).
When I left eBay, I found Auction Anything, a wonderful auction
host, that offered everything I wanted in running my own auctions.
But once I had the auctions set up, I discovered to my dismay that
there was a "secret" view I could go to that would show me
bidders' "secret" high bids. I immediately called the owners of
Auction Anything, and asked them to get rid of this view, and not
surprisingly, their people told me that NONE of their other
auction clients had ever asked them to do this, and that they did
not have that capability!
I asked them what it would take to remove this from my auctions
only (because they said they were sure many other clients did NOT
want to remove it!), and they said that not only would it cost a
lot, but that also it would take a lot of their time, and that
they had more urgent things to do at that time in adding features
that would benefit all their clients, so they could not then spare
that time.
So I made certain that I never accessed that "secret" view, and I
told my employees to never access it either. But a couple of
months ago, I started thinking about how I had 23 employees, and
that I could not really guarantee their actions, and so I again
called Auction Anything, and told them that this was a "deal
breaker" and that they would have to find the time to get this
changed. They agreed to do so for a considerable fee, and a couple
of weeks later they told me that the "secret" view had been
removed, and I checked and it appeared to be.
But over the next few days, I found a "back door" to access that
same information that they had not closed, and once I found that I
then searched their entire site, and discovered two more "back
door", and I called them and they apologized and closed those, and
now I can say with a certainty that neither I, nor anyone at
eMoviePoster.com, can access any high bids placed by any of our
bidders in any way.
Not only can we no longer view the hidden high bids, but we can
also no longer "look up" bidders' passwords, so ALL we see is what
any user of our system sees (except we don't see what they
themselves bid on). This does mean that when a user forgets their
password they will have to go on the site and click on the link
there to have it e-mailed to them (rather than calling or e-
mailing us), but this is a small price to pay for knowing that
your bidding information is 100% protected.
We know of no other auction house (other than eBay and now us)
where those who run the auctions do not even have the ability to
access their bidders' proxy bids. We urge all other auctions to
implement the same software, and we urge all bidders to inquire of
auction houses they are considering bidding with to find out if
their employees are blocked from viewing high bids and passwords
as ours are.
I first announced the above in my e-mail club message #472, sent
December 13th. A few days later, one of my longtime buyers called
me and told me the following story:
"I have been a buyer in major poster auctions for over 20
years. I have bought some in your online auctions, but not that
much, because I am not that comfortable with computers. I have
been learning how to do so, and have been bidding with you, and I
recently noticed that one of your competitiors has online auctions
as well, and I looked at them.
I found 11 items to bid on, and I gave my secretary 11 bids
to place on those items for me. A couple were between the
estimates, but most were over the estimates, and I had bid odd
amounts (like $235, etc).
A few days later I got notification that I had won all 11
items, and I told my secretary to pay for them, and she asked me
why EVERY item was EXACTLY the price I bid! I looked at the list,
and just as she had said, I was the high bidder on every item at
EXACTLY my limit.
Now I could see that happening on a few of the items, or even
five or six, BUT ALL ELEVEN? I mean, that is astronomical that it
could be caused by chance. It would be like picking the winners of
11 straight horse races! It makes me very sad and angry, but it is
easy to figure out what happened."
I told him that many other people had told me very similar stories
over the years, and that the best way to deal with this is to
either not bid in such auctions, or, if they have items you would
like to have at some price, then go ahead and bid, but assume that
they will "make" you pay your maximum, so only a bid a price you
will be happy to pay.
Of course, it is very sad that they have to have this charade
of an auction, and that there are surely many, many, people who
don't "catch on" for years, if ever, but until the government ever
steps in and regulates this completely unregulated industry, it is
likely to not change one bit.
Incidentally, I have heard auction owners defend their
actions by saying that no one is really hurt by this, because
after all, the buyers are getting to buy items for the price they
themselves set as the price they were willing to pay, but I don't
buy this for one second, because there is gross misrepresentation
in "how the game is played" (even if the auctions put in the fine
print that they can bid on their own items, that consignors can
bid on their own items, that reserves can be over the estimates,
etc).
A couple of weeks later, that same longtime buyer called me back
and said that once he got over being so mad, he took my advice and
simply bid prices he was willing to pay. He said he had just
placed three bids, and he bid three VERY odd numbers (like
$171.50), and in all three cases, he "won" the items for EXACTLY
his limit! But at least now he knows "how the game is played", so
he is not as mad, although he said he will likely bid less and
less high in the future in those auctions (but he mentioned how he
had bid $400 in an eMoviePoster.com auction recently and won the
item for $160!).
Does anyone know of any place that auction movie paper where the
auctioneers CAN'T see the hidden high bids, other than
eMoviePoster.com and eBay? And what do YOU think of this? Have you
had experiences where you felt an auction house took advantage of
their knowlege of your "hidden" high bid?
Bruce
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at
www
.filmfan
.com___________________________________________________________________How
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing ListSend a message addressed
to: [email protected] the BODY of your message
type: SIGNOFF MOPO-LThe author of this message is solely
responsible for its content.
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at
www
.filmfan
.com___________________________________________________________________How
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing ListSend a message addressed
to: [email protected] the BODY of your message type:
SIGNOFF MOPO-LThe author of this message is solely responsible for
its content.
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
___________________________________________________________________
How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message
addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your
message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely
responsible for its content.
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
___________________________________________________________________
How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message
addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your
message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely
responsible for its content.
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
___________________________________________________________________
How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message
addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your
message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely
responsible for its content.
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
___________________________________________________________________
How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List
Send a message addressed to: [email protected]
In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L
The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
