It's been a busy few days in the baseball card world.
First came the news that eBay were restricting the account of PWCC - a leading US based sports card seller - for shill bidding, which is against eBay's terms and conditions. Shill bidding involves bidding on items with the sole intention of artificially driving up the price of items listed for auction. At the time of writing, PWCC's eBay page has no items listed, down from over 18,000 a week or so ago.
PWCC were implicated in a trimming-gate a few years ago too; where they were accused of trimming older cards to make them appear to be in better condition when sent to be graded. Therefore making the card more valuable.
Nothing has been proven in either of the cases above, but neither has a place in the sports card world. If - and it is still an if - PWCC were involved in trimming and/or shill bidding, then they need to be made an example of.
Our advice when buying baseball cards is the same -
Don't rush into any purchases without checking the description
Have a value of what the card is worth to you and don't exceed it
Avoid the temptation to become overly invested in one specific auction at the expense of others which may be cheaper
If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is
These are obviously more difficult to follow if you're searching for a 1 of 1 or a card which is in very high demand.
But if in doubt, follow your gut.
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