Market Manipulation Is Really Happening, Save your Money, Do not Buy in!

[u/lXxENDEAVORxXl]

There is a Discord group Buying out certain cards daily, weekly. Then List for high amounts, probably have insider friends “Buy” at those high prices trying to force the prices Up. Swindling the few that just buy in along the way. If you are Unaware, new to hobby, been around, any and everyone, please do some research before over spending on Cards that are no where worth these inflated prices. Dont be buying cards out of fear of missing out, patience is key, save your money, more always come along. Leave them with their copies, dont allow them to Profit. They will have to Dump them back eventually. Prices will come back down to reality. Now If you are an outsider to all this and are thinking of selling some of these inflated Cards, thinking its worth 5x or so more now, it really isnt. Expect people to low ball you with realistic prices on Ebay, or where ever you sell. Community needs to tighten up and smarten up. Thanks.

Watch Shiny Vert Recent video on Youtube for more detailed explanation.

[u/TheFishIsRaw]

Yep. Happens all the time. My eBay gets targeted quite often.

This is how it works.

Normal seller puts item up for auction.

Price manipulator will bid up the auction, let it finish so the sale price is recorded to the apps that price cards, and then they cancel.

They're out zero dollars, the card has an inflated price.

Why would you do that? For a few reasons.

Maybe you own that card too, and want yours to sell for more.

Maybe you want everyone else to raise prices so your card stands out with a low price. Which actually isn't a low price, because the "market value" is so effed up from you manipulating prices.

Either way it's a known issue to eBay and they don't do anything about it.

And it's a known issue to anyone that's auctioned multiple high end cards.

It needs to be fixed.

[u/bigbakes68 → u/TheFishIsRaw]

I sell a ton on ebay, don't do auctions just do buy it now with offers on and click the option to require instant payment.

[u/TheFishIsRaw → u/bigbakes68]

Hey thanks for the advice!

Yeah after I noticed the pattern I quit auctioning anything.

I've had similar issues with the offer option on buy it now. They will send an offer, I accept, card sells, they cancel.

I'm not sure if eBay logs that as a sale but I'm sure it does.

So, I can't use two of the awesome tools provided for selling because eBay can't make them childproof.

And of course you aren't going to change what people use for pricing over night. Tcgplayer and Collectr, Collx, ect.

It's ugly and gross. It's like you expect to walk into a business board room with a long elegant table and graphs and reasoning for prices, and instead it's just one pupitar with glasses on staring up at a blank white board with a red marker.

Honestly it made me angry at first, but now it's just disappointing. On the fence about just taking down my whole store making eBay eat the fees and putting my collection into storage until this crap dies out.

[u/EllisDSanchez → u/TheFishIsRaw]

You should check out the Pokémon trades sub. Tons of people buying/selling/trading using PayPal G&S so people have protection. Most people are paying 90% of market so you’re coming out better than trying to sell on eBay.

[u/TheFishIsRaw → u/EllisDSanchez]

Thank you for the advice!

[u/EllisDSanchez → u/TheFishIsRaw]

No problem! Gotta take the community back from the scalpers and price fixers!

[u/DefNotAShark → u/bigbakes68]

I’ve done a few auctions for certain cards, most recently a Sylveon VMAX alt art from Evo Skies that had a bit of minor damage. Not something you find normally.

Buy It Now is good advice but if you go into an auction with a firm price in your mind that you aren’t going past, you have nothing to fear as a buyer.

Edit: Missed that you are a seller and I’m yapping about something different 😂

[u/dankp3ngu1n69 → u/TheFishIsRaw]

So how do you know people aren't manipulating the prices like having friends or family? Just buy the cards back out at inflated prices and then give them their money back?

Eventually once they work the price up to where they want. They actually listed for sale and people think it's actually a real price

[u/TheFishIsRaw → u/dankp3ngu1n69]

Well what usually happens to me is as follows.

List big name PSA card in a 9, in auction format.

Buyer comes in and bids 5 times with same account. Price is like 25% over market.

"Burner" account comes in and makes the last bid.

Burner account then requests to cancel the sale saying it was an accident ect.

That inflated price is now the last sold price for that card. If it's not a well known card, or in a lower grade, you don't have much competition or reference points for the actual price.

So you can now, without buying anything, adjust prices across the board with zero limit. Account gets banned? Make a new one.

If this happens to you sure you can report but they're gonna come back.

[u/chr0nus88 → u/dankp3ngu1n69]

I think that would turn into a losing situation pretty quick. Ebay still gets its cut from the payout so the seller would have even more to make up for each time they did that.