Bullies and Hogs and Tricksters

One distressing thing about the otherwise wonderful eBay format is when bullies or hogs or profiteers come into play.

A bully or hog or profiteer can be someone who uses every financial resource they can to outbid you and win every desirable auction. You can say well they have a right to do this, but when other factors and actions come in to play, it does NOT play fair.

Early on there was a guy who wanted to win every single 60s or 70s auction. He would win the SAME item (different auctions) over and over and over. What gives? I finally asked him and he said he was collecting 9 sets of everything so he could eventually give them to his nephews etc SHOULD they become interested in SOM later on. Good lord.

Then of course, we had some kind of dentist or medical professional from SOCal I believe who would win every auction for the rare 60s 1-sided sets or individual teams. Again, how many is enough and for pete's sake let someone else win something every once in a while.

Now we have a pure profiteer who will win every desired auction at any cost. There was a thread started about him on the SOM 2 forum but it was quickly shut down.  This person is the pure definition of a bully and ebay hog.

I have confirmed information about him:

1) He will outbid you in the last 3 seconds on every desirable SOM auction there is.

2) He is a pure profiteer, not a player or collector. He will try to win auctions at the lowest possible cost, and then immediately list the item and try for a 200-500% profit (or more).

3) If for some reason, by bidding against others, his price goes up in winning an auction (and cut severely into his anticipated profits) he will then contact the seller and make up a lame excuse to not pay for the item.  He has said "I just lost my job and now can not pay for the item". Or "my wife had a sudden emergency trip to the hospital" and I can longer afford to pay for this, OR something similar. Often, the seller shrugs, relists the item at a beginning low price, and guess who ends up bidding and trying to win the auction at a much lower price - the same guy who a few days before made up a lame excuse on not paying for the auction when he had to outbid someone else - suddenly he can now afford to pay for this - in reality he is just trying to re-win the auction at a much lower price. I have heard of him doing this on at least 5 different auctions including one recently which was the reason for the thread on SOM 2 that was shut down.

He is unethical, steps around rules, an eBay hog and a pure profiteer. There is no question. What to do? There is nothing else much one can do. You really can not outbid him as either the price would be astronomically high if you win, or he will beat you, or he will beat you and then reneg on paying the seller.

He has no shame, no morals, and is a pure troublemaker. This person has used 2-3 different accounts and screen names (ask yourself why?).

I have a few ideas and how to cope in a marketplace with a person such as this, but shall keep them secret from this person. He is banned from my site but most likely observes as an anonymous viewer.
For me, he has absolutely ruined ebay as a place to help with my collecting needs, and is a true bully, hog and pure profiteer.

Beyond sickening.

The Dreaded 1984 set and rubber band issues

One of the things I debated when I divested of a large part of my collection going on 2 years ago was to sell or keep the 1984 baseball set I had.

In 1984, the game company switched rubber band vendors and little did anyone know that the new rubber bands would leak and stain the cards - extremely common. My set was complete with all extra players and had zero RB stains or other blemishes.

But I sold it.

Of course when I decided to do the proverbial re-acquiring of everything I sold, I knew 1984 would be a challenge - or getting a complete set without any stained cards would be the challenge.

The first set I bought from a very nice gamer was priced fairly but had 45 cards with stain issues.

Since then one gamer sent me 2 cards free of charge to knock my bad card inventory to 43. Then I won an auction "blindly" for 8 1984 times -  I knew by the time the seller audited the cards and got back to me someone else most likely would have bought it so I snagged it right away. I was hoping for maybe 12-15 improvement cards but it had only 9. Down to 34.

Just won an auction for a 26 team 1984 set, and it appears that some extra players and traded players are included - and the seller did mention a "few" cards had the rubber band stains. We will see what his definition of a few is but there is a good chance I can make some headway with this near complete set. However, many of the pitchers in this set came with little red dots on the pitchers cards.

I had budgeted a certain $ amount and also said most likely this will be a 2 year project so we will see how this updates when I receive the item.

Fingers crossed.

... update, purchases yet another full set for a reasonable price and FINALLY have a set free of rubber band stains and no red dots.

Just as good, I have been able to sell basically all the duplicate teams to cover my investments.

Very, very relieved.