Frenzy Rumble's ULTIMATE Optimus Prime for sale on Ebay

[jaydisc]

Beautiful! (http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/705-53470-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5574719522&toolid=10001&campid=5336433113&customid=&icep_item=130551088590&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229515&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg)

[KillinSpoon]

NOTE: The zero feedback bidders.

He is shill bidding overtime on this one (courtesy of 4chan)
He tried to defend himself also, stating that they are all legit... Whatever.

[kaiden]

NOTE: The zero feedback bidders.

He is shill bidding overtime on this one (courtesy of 4chan)
He tried to defend himself also, stating that they are all legit... Whatever.

I only see one - y***8( 0 ) US $3,000.00

[Deceptic_Optic]

I only see one - y***8( 0 ) US $3,000.00

heheh so many haters...lol, just appreciate it man. :cool:

[kaiden]

heheh so many haters...lol, just appreciate it man. :cool:

who me?

[KillinSpoon]

Yeah, what he does is shill bids. Then, when there is a higher bid he removes them :/
He does it with every item he auctions, so does Jin.

[Deceptic_Optic]

who me?

woops sorry i menat killinspoon

[kaiden]

Yeah, what he does is shill bids. Then, when there is a higher bid he removes them :/
He does it with every item he auctions, so does Jin.

ah that would explain why (is unfamiliar with how it works)

[jaydisc]

Yeah, what he does is shill bids. Then, when there is a higher bid he removes them :/
He does it with every item he auctions, so does Jin.

What is the basis for this theory?

[heroic_decepticon]

Yeah, what he does is shill bids. Then, when there is a higher bid he removes them :/
He does it with every item he auctions, so does Jin.

So true. I heard inside information along those lines.

[KillinSpoon]

What is the basis for this theory?

You watch one of his auctions the next time it goes up, the zero bidders come and go until the last day.
He's been doing it for ages now, along with advertising it as 'another member' (one time he left his trip on a post on /toy/ giving himself away).

It is more 4chan hate for him because of this crap he pulls all the time, Jin does the same thing (it is suspected that he makes multiple customs of the same thing like Jin does, shill bids to a massive price and then offer 'second chances' to the next 3-4 highest bidders).

It may just be business and what he does for a job but that doesn't mean that I approve of his tactics.

[kaiden]

You watch one of his auctions the next time it goes up, the zero bidders come and go until the last day.
He's been doing it for ages now, along with advertising it as 'another member' (one time he left his trip on a post on /toy/ giving himself away).

It is more 4chan hate for him because of this crap he pulls all the time, Jin does the same thing (it is suspected that he makes multiple customs of the same thing like Jin does, shill bids to a massive price and then offer 'second chances' to the next 3-4 highest bidders).

It may just be business and what he does for a job but that doesn't mean that I approve of his tactics.

thats such a crappy thing to do. i guess commissions just dont pay enough :]

[jaydisc]

You watch one of his auctions the next time it goes up, the zero bidders come and go until the last day.
He's been doing it for ages now, along with advertising it as 'another member' (one time he left his trip on a post on /toy/ giving himself away).

It is more 4chan hate for him because of this crap he pulls all the time, Jin does the same thing (it is suspected that he makes multiple customs of the same thing like Jin does, shill bids to a massive price and then offer 'second chances' to the next 3-4 highest bidders).

It may just be business and what he does for a job but that doesn't mean that I approve of his tactics.

Sounds pretty inconclusive. Isn't it possible these could be from one or more seriously interested buyers using bullshit bids to see how high the current bidder is? Or even disgruntled folks looking to cause this impression?

[bruticus]

oh wtf? i noticed that his customs are always heavily overpriced.
now i know why.

sounds plausible to use zero bidders and then remove them later once someone genuinely beats the price.
cos right now there are no longer any zero bidders on his auction!

also sounds plausible to make multiples and offer them to the genuine bidders who missed out.

but hey, this is his full time job and if there are actually people out there who are willing to pay an exorbitant amount of cash for his work then who i am to judge?

[kaiden]

oh wtf? i noticed that his customs are always heavily overpriced.
now i know why.

sounds plausible to use zero bidders and then remove them later once someone genuinely beats the price.
cos right now there are no longer any zero bidders on his auction!

also sounds plausible to make multiples and offer them to the genuine bidders who missed out.

but hey, this is his full time job and if there are actually people out there who are willing to pay an exorbitant amount of cash for his work then who i am to judge?

yeah i just had a look and indeed the zero bidders are gone which makes no sense if they were legit bidders - so he just removed them to erase evidence.

and while i don't care how much people want to pay for his customs, to artificially raise the price is so unethical and a disgusting exploitation of the bidding system on ebay.

[jaydisc]

I don't see how you all can be so sure it is him doing this.

[jaydisc]

oh wtf? i noticed that his customs are always heavily overpriced.
now i know why.

Can't be higher that what someone was willing to pay, because even if you buy this theory, there still has to be someone with a legitimate bid below the shill bidder who actually wins the auction. This theory makes little sense to me, and has even littler basis.

[Geminii]

also sounds plausible to make multiples and offer them to the genuine bidders who missed out.

Exactly. Much of the work on the first version is design, and testing various combinations of additions, modifications, paintwork etc. Once it's all been nailed down, it'd be stupid not to make near-identical pieces (which could be assembled and prepped much more quickly) for people willing to pay significantly more than the reduced price.

Example: Someone paying $1500 for a piece which might easily have taken 40 hours of design and testing, and $500 in parts, spares, duplicates, and raw material to get the final effect. That's not a very high hourly profit rate (~$25/hr pre-tax). But if three other people are willing to pay $1000 each for copies which might be able to be assembled and detailed in 25 hours each using $200 of parts, that's $32/hr gross for those three. That raises the total hourly rate for a given design from $25 to just over $30 - a 20% pay rise just for adopting a different business strategy.

Of course, I have no idea if these numbers are anything at all like what professional kitbashers/sellers see day to day, but they illustrate the point.

[STL]

Can't be higher that what someone was willing to pay, because even if you buy this theory, there still has to be someone with a legitimate bid below the shill bidder who actually wins the auction. This theory makes little sense to me, and has even littler basis.

I'm not much more informed than you but I can see the advantage is that the shill bid raises the perceived value of the item, forcing those interested to fork out more. Itn a perfect world, people have an inbuilt pricing system and will make rationalised choices on that but the ability to affect perceived value is invaluable as it creates a sense of urgency and confirms your perceived value. Price, more than it should be, is a powerful motivator and differentiator to confirm the status of an item. And in this case, I can only imagine it's subtantial given the rarity of items in question. There are a lot of pricing signalling studies that will attest to this in auction settings.

I will note I bought a custom WFC Prime last year on eBay and after losing the auction, I was offering a second chance as the customiser had another one. The practice to me does not seem to far of a stretch, especially when as we note one of theses guys is doing for a living.

[kaiden]

Can't be higher that what someone was willing to pay, because even if you buy this theory, there still has to be someone with a legitimate bid below the shill bidder who actually wins the auction. This theory makes little sense to me, and has even littler basis.

just because someone is willing to pay a higher amount, doesn't mean they have to - if they put down $3000 as their max bid and no one else bids after the price is at $2000 then they have saved themselves quite a bit of money. the shill bidding forces the buyer to go to/or beyond the price as the seller now has that vital information and can manipulate the outcome to an extent and if he makes multiples, he can select who else to offer the copies to.

but if you cant accept this theory (or others), then maybe you can come up with a reason why the 0 feedback bidder has been removed from the bidding history? like i said before, if it was a legit bid by a legit person - then there was no need for either the seller or buyer to remove that bid as it was beaten anyway.


I don't see how you all can be so sure it is him doing this.

if its not him then who else would benefit from such actions? and even if it was someone else, i doubt he would be so oblivious to it.


I'm not much more informed than you but I can see the advantage is that the shill bid raises the perceived value of the item, forcing those interested to fork out more. Itn a perfect world, people have an inbuilt pricing system and will make rationalised choices on that but the ability to affect perceived value is invaluable as it creates a sense of urgency and confirms your perceived value. Price, more than it should be, is a powerful motivator and differentiator to confirm the status of an item. And in this case, I can only imagine it's subtantial given the rarity of items in question. There are a lot of pricing signalling studies that will attest to this in auction settings.

I agree very much so and also want to make a point about perceived value.

First i would like to point out that the internet has made it increasingly difficult to measure 'perceived value' as more people have the option of shopping online. Like a Transformers deluxe is $12US(is that right?) in America but here its $25-30AU

with that information i instantly perceive we should be getting our Transformers cheaper. even with the midyear sale with deluxes around the $20AU mark roughly 20-25% off i still feel we're being ripped off (considering the quality of the dotm line) but other people like parents who dont know any better would be like wow! im saving $5-10 how great is that?

also i would ask how much do you shop online compared to buying locally from a store?

so perceived value is a complicated matter and even more so when it comes to a TF custom being sold on ebay.

[jaydisc]

but if you cant accept this theory (or others), then maybe you can come up with a reason why the 0 feedback bidder has been removed from the bidding history? like i said before, if it was a legit bid by a legit person - then there was no need for either the seller or buyer to remove that bid as it was beaten anyway.

I'll give you 3:

1. It truly is a newbie member of eBay, and FR is removing their bids because he has bad experience with such newbies. Jin has specifically stated in previous auctions that this is exactly what he does.

2. It is the shill account of a genuinely interested buyer curious to see how high he has to bid to beat the currently winning bidder.

3. It is someone with a grudge wreaking havoc.

If he is being nefarious, that sucks, and if there is proof (real proof, not "internet" proof), he should be called out on it, but without real proof, I think it's wholly inappropriate to tarnish his name and reputation.

[UltraMarginal]

I think I'm missing the point, how can you remove a bid? there are very specific rules as far as I can tell for cancelling your bid. they are strict and tightly adhered to. I can't see how he could justify to eBay more than a couple times a year why he might need to cancel a bid.
also, if a bid is cancelled, the auction can revert back to the value before that bid if only one other person has bid on it.

[rampagesss]

Never new that he shill bids to get more money :eek:
I will give him credit his work can be absolutely amazing, but still can't understand why people will spend thousands buying them? I remember seeing one of his custom sell for $2+ thousand on ebay then months later the guy sold it for less the $1,000. so if you want one of his customs wait till someone else sell one on ebay.
Also remember his war within Grimlock, which he sold for a few thousand and since then has made at least 3 more over on TFW

[heroic_decepticon]

*snip*
2. It is the shill account of a genuinely interested buyer curious to see how high he has to bid to beat the currently winning bidder.

*snip*

If he is being nefarious, that sucks, and if there is proof (real proof, not "internet" proof), he should be called out on it, but without real proof, I think it's wholly inappropriate to tarnish his name and reputation.

Point 2 is just wrong despite the benign way you phrased it. "Curious to see how high he has to bid...".... :eek:

At the end of the day, people believe what they want to believe. Real proof is difficult to come by if not impossible - it'd take FR to announce/confess that "yes, I shill bidded on my auctions or got my buddies to shill bid". Other than that, "proof" can only ever be obtained by drawing reasonable conclusions from the facts on hand (which I'll talk about more by way of reply to Rampagess quote below).


I think I'm missing the point, how can you remove a bid? there are very specific rules as far as I can tell for cancelling your bid. they are strict and tightly adhered to. I can't see how he could justify to eBay more than a couple times a year why he might need to cancel a bid.
also, if a bid is cancelled, the auction can revert back to the value before that bid if only one other person has bid on it.

Yes, bids can be cancelled very easily by giving one of many pre-set reasons on eBay, and the bidder has little to no recourse.


*snip* I remember seeing one of his custom sell for $2+ thousand on ebay then months later the guy sold it for less the $1,000. so if you want one of his customs wait till someone else sell one on ebay.
*snip*

This is one of the key reasons that can lead one to conclude that he shill bids his auctions to bump up the value. The situation Rampagess mentioned has happened numerous time over the course of YEARS (just trace his auctions and the subsequent sales and you will see).

In fact, even if the buyer listed the price at slightly lower than his previous winning bid price and uses FR's original photos, the auction just would not sell for that price - because the winning bid price has been artificially pushed up in the original auction.

If its once or twice, you can consider it coincidental, but if it happens time and time again over the course of years, it must have been deliberate.

Also, check out other customisers websites/blogs (not going to mention which). Whenever FR mentions that he's going to list something. Lots of people on those boards will say things like "noted, don't worry, we'll help you out..." or "don't worry, we know what to do".

I also have US friends who knows him personally and have told me so in no uncertain terms (ie: re shill bidding). Sure, it may be hearsay, but I don't think there will be smoke without fire.

On the above basis, and on the basis of what others have said in this thread, I think the reasonable inference is that FR does indeed shill bid on this own auctions or gets other people to shill bid on his behalf to bump up the price - it's even easier now that eBay does not let you see the full name of each bidder.

Jay, in answer to your question, the above is good enough to allow a reasonable conclusion. Even a court of law does not require 100% actual proof (in terms of a confession or being caught red-handed), it just requires enough proof for the judge to draw a reasonable conclusion on the balance of probabilities (ie: 51% or more) that an event has happened/has not happened.

[jaydisc]

Jay, in answer to your question, the above is good enough to allow a reasonable conclusion. Even a court of law does not require 100% actual proof (in terms of a confession or being caught red-handed), it just requires enough proof for the judge to draw a reasonable conclusion on the balance of probabilities (ie: 51% or more) that an event has happened/has not happened.

What's required for libel?

[heroic_decepticon]

What's required for libel?

I'm sure you can read up on it over at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation). :D

I won't say anymore since you are obviously very defensive of FR, or that whatever was said in this thread has touched a raw nerve. :p

[jaydisc]

I don't know him from a whole in the ground, but I'm sure many here are well aware of my public disdain for baseless accusations against anyone, especially those without a voice in the discussion.

As to the many comments of folks surprised at what they sell for, or what folks are willing to pay for, or what they're worth, I find that utterly amazing that a room full of toy collectors could possibly have such a perspective. I know a lot of folks that find the whole lot of us utterly demented for spending $30 on a piece of plastic, let along the hundreds, if not the thousands (looking at you HD) some us spend. Yet many of you fail to comprehend the idea that someone, somewhere might not find 3K to be an unreasonable amount for a relatively unique item.

As the highest roller on this board, and a lawyer, you really disappointed me here HD.

P.S. I will refrain from posting links to his stuff in the future, as this was not the desired effect.

[kaiden]

P.S. I will refrain from posting links to his stuff in the future, as this was not the desired effect.

its probably just easier to link to his gallery rather than the ebay sale which sparked this whole thing.

[frenzyrumble]

hey guys. Shame that my first post and reason to create and account here is to defend my auctions. I really like this forum, often visit it as well.

To clarify, I do NOT shill bid my auctions. They are always 100% legit. Don't believe 99% of the stuff you read hear-say on the internet, especially from jealous, anonymous haters on 4chan.

As for all my auctions, if you suspect shill bidding; PLEASE report my auction. I meticulously watch all my auctions from the first to last second. Verify and confirm EVERY bid, especially when they get high, like in this Ultimate Prime auction.

the "zero feedback" bidder is in fact legit. He's a regular poster on TFW2005, contacted me several times there and through gmail about bidding on this auction. He provided me with the necessary credentials and info to place his bids. In the end, he was outbid by a repeat/regular client of mine.

That being said, I never shill bid my auctions. I do get excited when they climb high, and it's a blessing which I am thankful for. Please don't try to debunk and take that away from me with rumors.

[frenzyrumble]

Also, I want to clarify. I take my auctions, customs and ebay account very seriously. ALL my auctions have and always will have this text on them :

- Auction Rules, Terms and Conditions:
- I will not accept and bids from bidders with 0 feedback or recent negative feedback ratings. This keeps bidding honest. I monitor all bids, and those with zero or no feedback will be deleted. If you are a new ebay member and really really want to bid, contact me.

Like said in my earlier post, this member contacted me, confirmed he was legit, and such a fan of this custom, created an ebay account with intent to win/bid on this Ultimate Prime.

If you have any doubts how I conduct my auctions please feel free to contact me directly at info@frenzyrumble.com and I can hopefully relieve the misconceptions seen in this thread.

In addition, someone mentioned they see something to the effect of "friends helping out" - please link those instances, because this never happens. All my bids are from my "regular" bidders and serious.

[The_Damned]

gee why cant people just admire the look of the figure, isnt it off topic to be discussing the ethics of ebay selling in this thread. if you dont want to pay $4000 for a custom figure then dont,

[jaydisc]

Welcome! I, too, wish it were under better circumstances.

Thanks for the clarification, but as most people hear/read with a previous determination as to the truth, I doubt your explanation will make any difference to them. I still fathom to understand how anyone could use 4chan as the source of any reliable information. "The Internet is pure truth", eh?

Great work on that Sludge you made for our local member Sleeve (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=11787), too!

[Hursticon]

Yep, I'm with both Jay and Damned on this as it is a bloody shame that you've had to join under these circumstances FrenzyRumble. :(
I just hope that this 1st impression doesn't last as the majority of opinions I've seen here with regards to your previous works has been nothing but glowing praise - I myself am often in this category. :p

Please do consider these threads in your judgement though mate:

Your Devastator (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=1387&highlight=FrenzyRumble)
Your Menasor (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=2094&highlight=FrenzyRumble)
Your site, Defensor & Dinobot Combiner (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=2822&highlight=FrenzyRumble)
Your Hardhead (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=6924&highlight=FrenzyRumble)
Your DeadEnd (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=7010&highlight=FrenzyRumble)
Your Alternity Drift (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=7183&highlight=FrenzyRumble)
Your Ground Assault Soundwave w/ Laserbeak (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=11700)
Your Masterpiece Decepticon Diorama (My Personal Favourite) (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=10835)


And there is more where they came from. ;):cool: