I spent this week speaking to some major eBay sellers. In their defense, if a pin is bid up to a certain amount and you are offered the second chance offer, they most likely have more than one. I can only speak for some of them bit as far as other sellers, I don't understand what the topic is? Like are you trying to figure out what is going on with this issue or are people genuinely concerned they are paying more than they should? And if that is the case, if you are paying an uncomfortable amount of money, no one is forcing anyone to max your own personal bid.I'm just trying to see it from the other end here.
The point of this tread is to discuss shilling. It is a problem that seems to have become commonplace in the pin selling community. There are members of this board that have admitted to shilling and because this kind of thing is not talked about openly it keeps going on.
Someone having multiples of pin is not the issue, the problem is this for those that are still not totally clear what shilling is.
1. If a seller is using two or more accounts to bid on their own listing to raise the prices.
2. If the seller is having a friend or relative bid on heir items to raise the prices.
Neither of those "bidders" will ever pay for those pins and are 100% FAKE BIDS.
this practice is called "shilling". A "shill buyer/bidder"
definition
shill [shil] Show IPA Slang.
noun
1.
a person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating, as at a gambling house, auction, confidence game, etc.
2.
a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty.
Sellers do this to either provoke other buyers to bid a higher amount (seller greed) or to set a false standard of what a particular pins worth is to the overall market. Remember that the overall supply of the Disney LE pins is 300 or less. There is no other collectible that I know of that is produced both in minuscule numbers while also being MASS produced. When there are only 300 of anything you would think they would be worth a lot of money but up until the last few years you could buy most pins for close to cost even the lower numbered editions. I have only been collecting these for less than a year but I purchased pins for a friend a couple years ago on eBay for about 10.00 over actual cost and it was a LE 150 that was relisted like 10 times!!
becuase the market can be so easily manipulated (small supply when total run is given to 150 people) those 150 people then control the entire market. Of those 150 if 20% are resellers (it seems much more like 40-50%) as the currnt number of members listed as "trading" them on pinpics is very high. That is 30-60 people that all try their best to set the going price as high as possible. Think about any DSF release and what our fellow members ask for as "presell" prices. Umm no. I'm sorry that is not what the "market" has decided the value is, it is what the seller has decided you will pay PERIOD. How many of the latest BT sets went unsold on eBay because the true market told them to suck it? Check and see. There are 2000+members here alone of those how many want the BT pins? Ok how many can or will pay 5 times the actual cost? The average collector cannot/will not have $400.00+ dollars o invest in 4 pins and not enough to keep those prices up there.
Honesty should guide all humans, it doesn't. Be careful when bidding, you do not want to contribute to false price setting and the only one to win is the greedy rotten seller. The collecting community loses as the true value will make itself apparent at some point and those that talk about their pins as investments will be looking at "Beanie Babies" on a tiny metal scale.
Peace out.