To the gijoe community...my apology

[antybots]

Shill bidding was a major risk to Curt's business, particularly since people on this board are very good at spotting it. It was silly and it will cost him sales, but I for one think that now it is all out in the open, he probably wouldn't dare do it again or it would close him down.

I think there has been a lesson learned here and we should all now move on from this. I will continue to buy from gijoehq.com and I will have confidence bidding on his auctions now that he knows he is being watched.


That's just my opinion.

[cthulhu522]

It is best to find someone you know you can trust and stick with them.

The problem is, issues such as this make it more difficult to know who you can trust. Everytime a shillbidder pops up, it just makes one wonder who else is doing it. It not only destroys the person that gets caught, but it will trickle down and likely damage some honest sellers because buyers are afraid of getting ripped off or because of association with the evil doer. It's kind of scary really. How many items have I paid more for than I should have over the last year and how much was it and to whom was it paid? Dunno...

[82to87Joes]

The problem is, issues such as this make it more difficult to know who you can trust. Everytime a shillbidder pops up, it just makes one wonder who else is doing it. It not only destroys the person that gets caught, but it will trickle down and likely damage some honest sellers because buyers are afraid of getting ripped off or because of association with the evil doer. It's kind of scary really. How many items have I paid more for than I should have over the last year and how much was it and to whom was it paid? Dunno...

thats why you should buy from ebay store sellers

link is in my sig

[flash70]

Shill bidding is a big problem on e*bay and it will continue to be. Which is unfortunate and so is the over inflated prices of joe items sold on e*bay. A huge monster this action figure hobby has become and how it has turned some of these buyers and dealers into the most vile people.

[viperlegion]

i say never mind simple morality....what he did was wrong but he did apologise and admit to it to all his peers on several boards...

in terms of practical reality we should see that his situation made him do somehting desperate and stupid that hed not have done otherwise and im pretty sure hes neither done before nor will do again...

ill keep buying from him, with all this having had no impact on that now that hes admitted it and apologised as well as explained...

isnt it time we let this lie now? it seems resolved, people have judged as they will and have the right to, and there seems little left to be achieved now in all this....


hope things get better for you bigfan,
viperlegion

[samluvsjoes]

[quote=YELSEW]

This is a little off topic, but the Hatered towards e-bay sellers lately have been stated quite freqently. QUOTE]

I have had some miserable times with EBay lately and am almost at the point of not bidding unless I have bought from a user in the past or someone has 1,000 feedback from various people. Just recently I won an auction for an incomplete Tiger Sting (this was 3 1/2 weeks ago) I have still not received it. The seller had pretty good Feedback 380 at 100%. Furthermore, I feel things are going so high I don't have a chance to even win. I do consider my bids reasonable, but am I the only one who thinks the auctions on EBay are going crazy? Every time I put something on there I get an average cost or below cost, something has to be going on. But I am getting more and more skepitcal.

Man, I wish that the stuff I sell would go for crazy prices. When I sell on Ebay I really try to be a good seller and follow the Golden Rule. Curt got caught, it sucks that it was him of all people, but I wish that things like this wouldn't keep people from bidding on Ebay. Like everyone on this bard, I love the hobby and I want to be able to continue the hobby. But I'd also like it if all the scalpers and scammers were taken into a room and smacked around with a rubber hose for about 30 years, where all the honest people get a turn doing the smacking.
Anywho, I'm rambling. Just please, everyone who is disillusioned by Ebay, don't let it turn you off to the good sellers/buyers on there.
Sam

[Sergeant Duke]

The problem is, issues such as this make it more difficult to know who you can trust. Everytime a shillbidder pops up, it just makes one wonder who else is doing it. It not only destroys the person that gets caught, but it will trickle down and likely damage some honest sellers because buyers are afraid of getting ripped off or because of association with the evil doer. It's kind of scary really. How many items have I paid more for than I should have over the last year and how much was it and to whom was it paid? Dunno...

You are right , you don't really know who you are dealing on any level at any time but you at least increase your chances of a successful transaction checking a sellers background. I guess it is safer to deal with stores with an already fixed price.

[Werecat]

Here’s my take on it. As far as I know, Curt doesn’t have a history of doing this. As far as I know, this is the first time he made a public apology. So I have no choice but grant him the benefit of the doubt. No, I can’t read his mind so I don’t know for sure if he’s sincere or not, but at the same time, I have no evidence that tells me not to accept his apology and give him a second chance.

The thing is, we all make mistakes, we all succumb to temptation, and we ALL have lied, cheated, and betrayed someone’s trust. Some of us in our personal or professional lives are probably lying, cheating, or betraying right now. Granted the levels of severity differ from individual to individual, but all of us have done these things sometimes in our lives. All of us have been caught doing bad things. And we’ve all had to apologize.

An apology exists for a reason. It’s a language and societal mechanic that one conveys as a regret for actions that hurt others. Curt is expressing this right now. You can accept it or not, but please keep this in mind:

For all of those who do not accept Curt’s apology or call it false, that’s your right. No one is forcing you to accept it. However with that said, I sincerely hope you remember this the next time you have to apologize to someone, and I hope your apology isn’t dismissed as easily as you dismissed Curt’s.

For those of you who levy attacks against him and say his apology is cheap when posted---I can’t argue your anger, nor can I dismiss it. You have a right to be angry, especially if you were one of those who lost out to shill bidding. All of us react differently to being wronged. However, I would like to ask you this: instead of typing and posting through a monitor, would you walk up to Curt all alone at a convention and say the same things to his face as you’re saying here? I think Curt would walk up to you and say sorry, but could you walk up to him and say the same thing you’re saying here and throw his apology away? I’ll be at the Con this year, so I guess we’ll find out both ways if words equal deeds.

What do I think? I think Curt screwed up pretty bad. I don’t like what he did and his actions hurt the community. It also takes him a notch down in my book because I always looked up to him as one of the best sellers around, but now this will always be nagging in the back of my mind. He's got a long road ahead, and I don't evny his position. However I don’t think he deserves not to be forgiven. It does take guts to admit your mistakes, especially on several public forums where potentially thousands of people can read it. Granted I hope Curt can also make as many personal apologies to those he wronged as he can, but let’s be realistic here, a public apology is legitimate.

Again, I realize this is a bad situation for everyone around and I’m not going to diminish the anger or betrayal some of you feel. You have a right to be upset, you have a right to vent, and you have a right to never shop with Curt again. I understand how you feel and on one level I agree. Despite whatever motivation is prompting him (we'll never know for sure), Curt is making an effort. He’s taken the first step by admitting his mistakes. Something was said on a different board by Scrap Iron that I thought was very profound "I like to believe it's how we face up to the consequences of those mistakes that define us as people." I agree. I’m not saying blindly forget and forgive, and I'm not saying all Curt has to do is post an apology and he's off the hook. No, he has to work hard to earn back our trust. But, if he demonstrates that he is sincere in his apology, if he is willing to fix things and make them right, and if he demonstrates that his shill bidding was an isolated incident caused by stupidity, then I believe he deserves a second chance.

This is only my two cents. There's a lot of emotion surrounding this incident but hopefully I managed to put things into perspective.

[starrcommand]

I think anyone who has won anything from GI Joe HQ, bid4joes, joes4fun,cjstoytown, or any of his other alias's should go back and check and see if anymore shill bidding has been going on.

I think he should also be making ammends to those people he has ripped off. I know he said it was only 2 people but for some reason I think this has been going on longer than that and other people have been hurt by this.

[BelgianGabber]

What I don't get is Ebay's lack of work on shill bidding... They could easily block static IPs from bidding on auctions they generated themselves. That's prolly how they check it anyway after a complaint. But hey they probably make more money because of it and perhaps that's why they won't do that.