I’m pretty new to buying off ebay in general, but a query I have with Pokemon cards specifically is; Is it common for sellers to list a card overpriced, and then use another account to ‘Buy It Now’, to push up the price of that card?
I scroll through Completed Listings to get an idea of what a specific card sold for, and it got me thinking that if an overpriced card didn’t sell, the seller could easily buy the card at the price using a second account, or a friends. I know this brings in the issue of that seller then re-listing that same item at a later date, but again, couldn’t they just do so on a different account?
Is this type of thing a problem in the community? I’m finding it difficult to gauge current value of certain cards because some sell for almost double in the same month as each other. Am I right in assuming not all sales are legitimate?
I don’t know anybody who does any of that stuff. Maybe newbie thieves try. Stick with reputable higher rated sellers and you won’t have to worry. Stay away from the junk sites like…well you know. Plus check things like our bad seller/buyer thread or whatever it’s called.
Not all sales are legitimate, but there are more legit sales than there are illegitimate. If you put a $$50 card up for sale at $100 and buy it yourself, then relist it, you’ve created an artificial market. Based on the card, the actual market might readjust to the artificial market but this usually doesn’t happen for multiple reasons, mainly, there are usually multiples of any given card for sale within the same time frame (barring promo cards). So you can create your own little market where you buy your own cards and set the price, but eventually other sellers will list the same card at a lower price or auctions that you don’t shill will end at a lower price which will bring your card value down. This is why shilling usually doesn’t work and isn’t a major issue.
It’s best to look at the average of previous auctions to spot outliers. That way you don’t overpay.
I guess this kind of thing might only be a problem with scarce cards. Cards that only pop up for auction once every month or so? If someone were to do this and that card was the only one of its kind in the completed listings, an unsuspecting buyer might assume this is what the card is going for?
On the other hand, buyers looking for such rare high-end cards would have probably done more research/be aware of the current value anyway.
Edit: Could it be a problem for legitimate sellers, who want to know the current selling price for their card? They see a shilled copy having sold for $300 for example, they list theirs as $280, but in reality the most recent true buying price was only $180? Couldn’t this create some sort of ripple effect?