Alt has filed a lawsuit against PWCC in the New York State Supreme Court. They allege the company has committed fraud and breached the auctioneer’s duty. The claims are that the company engaged in shill bidding.
By doing so, ALT claims that they were misled and paid an inflated price for items they purchased from PWCC. There is a good deal of precedent for PWCC engaging in this behavior in the past.
Therefore, the claims have surprised no one. Here is the story of the Alt lawsuit against PWCC for shill bidding.
On April 30, 2025, Alt filed a lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court against PWCC, which has recently been known as Fanatics Collect.
It is alleged the company arranged and solicited both internal and external sources to participate in deceptive ‘shill-bidding’ practices to artificially inflate the price of valuable sports trading cards.
The company claims that the actions resulted in millions of dollars in prospective damages to the company and potentially, other buyers
According to the lawsuit, ALT has spent over 10 million dollars on cards on PWCC, but it has since lost its trust in the company and the integrity of the PWCC marketplace.
Their claims center on two particularly high-profile cards: a $528,000 Patrick Mahomes rookie card and a $3.12M Luka Doncic card.
ALT CEO Leore Avidar released the following statement on the situation:
“For years, customers around the world trusted PWCC’s assurances that when they made a bid on a sports card on their site, that those transactions were fair, transparent and free from manipulation – today’s complaint shows that those assurances were patently untrue. PWCC’s leadership knowingly engaged in fraudulent practices, inflating auction prices and skewing the fair market value for the entire collecting community, including against one of its biggest competitors, Alt. This lawsuit is about more than just one company; it’s about ensuring the integrity of the trading card market as a whole and holding bad actors accountable. Alt remains committed to building a marketplace where collectors and investors know their purchases are fair and free from price gouging at the whim of executives.”
A PWCC spokesperson said, “Alt has filed a completely baseless lawsuit against PWCC that lacks substantive evidence. Even though the accusations they are claiming occurred before PWCC changed ownership in May 2023, we carefully looked into their allegations and found zero evidence to support their claims.”
PWCC assured buyers that the maximum bids made on items were confidential and private, stating: “Maximum bids are private and are only viewable by the client that submitted the bid. PWCC cannot access this information and cannot view bidders’ maximum bids.”
However, ALT alleges that this is not true. According to confidential sourcing and analyses performed by Alt, these claims are completely disproven, showing PWCC retains full visibility of customers’ private maximum bids and weaponizes them at their choosing.
In late 2023, ALT claims to have learned from confidential sources that PWCC knew about shill bidding and actively encouraged it. They also claim to have direct knowledge showing that PWCC flagged or otherwise noted when Alt participated in PWCC auctions.
They arranged, solicited, and/or encouraged shill bids to increase the bidding on those occasions.
According to the filing, “Alt was informed that PWCC arranged or solicited shill bids from both internal and external sources. Alt learned that certain accounts that submitted bids in (but did not win) PWCC auctions had identifiers indicating that the bids came from within PWCC, despite PWCC’s representation that “[a]ll employees are prohibited from bidding on PWCC Auction items.”
The manipulation became even more apparent in the frequency of suspicious bidding patterns.
Between November 2021 and July 2022, an improbable 24.2% of Alt’s 626 winning PWCC auction purchases ended with competing bids exactly matching or falling just one increment below Alt’s maximum bid, despite Alt intentionally placing abnormally high bids as a new market entrant.
This pattern was particularly evident in several high-profile purchases, including a Patrick Mahomes rookie card that sold for $528,000 (a 32x increase from its previous $16,500 sale) and a Josh Allen rookie card at $264,000 (nearly 45x its prior $5,868 sale price), suggesting PWCC had access to and was exploiting Alt’s confidential maximum bid information.
Alt emerged as a modern trading card marketplace in 2020, launching with $31 million in funding from prominent investors and backed by athletes including Tom Brady and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Founded by Leore Avidar, who began collecting cards in 2016 and built a multimillion-dollar portfolio, the platform was designed to make trading cards as easy to trade as stocks, offering a sophisticated marketplace with real-time valuations and secure storage options.
The company has become increasingly prominent in exposing market manipulation in the hobby, particularly through its recent lawsuit against PWCC.
Between May 2021 and December 2023, Alt won 707 PWCC auctions, acquiring 809 items for more than $10.7 million, but discovered evidence of systematic fraud in these transactions.
The company now seeks at least $13.7 million in damages, alleging that PWCC manipulated auctions by retaining access to confidential maximum bid information and artificially using coordinated groups of buyers to inflate prices.
Alt is asking to rescind its auction purchases and recover the purchase prices it has paid, or may elect to recover damages representing the amount Alt overpaid for such items.
Because PWCC’s bid manipulation also inflated prices on other auction platforms, Alt also seeks recovery of its overpayments for items purchased in auctions on platforms other than the PWCC platform.
Therefore, according to the filing, “Because of PWCC’s fraudulent conduct, Alt is entitled to rescind its auction purchases and recover the purchase prices paid, or may elect to recover damages representing the amount that Alt overpaid for such items…Alt seeks to recover its overpayments for items purchased in non-PWCC auctions.”
According to the filing, Alt purchased a 2017 Panini Prizm Gold Prizms Patrick Mahomes II Rookie Card for $528,000 in August 2021, representing a 32-fold increase from its previous $16,500 sale in 2019.
The sale was later discovered tainted by an apparent conflict of interest: the seller and one of the top bidders were revealed to be a father-son pair with connections to PWCC.
The duo had significant holdings in Mahomes cards and even collaborated with PWCC on marketing content featuring their Mahomes collection, suggesting a coordinated effort to inflate the value of these cards artificially.
A pattern of alleged auction manipulation emerged through several high-profile card sales involving PWCC. In November 2022, Alt withdrew from bidding on a Luka Doncic card that reached $3.12 million – a sale that allegedly was never completed despite PWCC’s public announcements.
The seller and other bidders were reportedly part of a coordinated group of market manipulators, with PWCC later discussing a private sale at a different price.
Alt dropped, but according to the filing, “(a) a member of Group 1 (a group of approximately six individuals Alt alleges fraudulently and collusively bid up items in PWCC auctions) was the seller, and other members of Group 1 submitted shill bids to drive up the price of this card, (b) the winning bidder did not complete the auction sale by paying the winning price to PWCC, (c) PWCC nevertheless publicized this ‘sale’ as if it had been consummated, and (d) PWCC discussed with members of Group 1 a private sale at a different price from the ‘winning’ auction price.”
Earlier that year, Alt experienced suspicious bidding patterns in two major purchases: a one-of-a-kind Kobe Bryant card for $360,000 and a Josh Allen rookie card for $264,000 (the latter representing a 45x increase from its previous sale).
In both cases, competing bidders mysteriously placed bids just below Alt’s maximum bid amount, suggesting PWCC had access to confidential bidding data they claimed they couldn’t view – a statistically improbable occurrence in fair market conditions.
The company in question has a long history of this behavior. The PWCC shill bidding scandal came to a head on August 17, 2021, when eBay banned the company from its platform, removing over 71,000 listings.
That wasn’t PWCC’s first brush with controversy – two years earlier, in 2019, they had faced accusations of working with fraudsters who were altering vintage cards.
The shill bidding allegations dated back to at least 2016, when members of various trading card communities first began noticing and reporting suspicious bidding patterns.
The aftermath of the August 2021 ban continues to reverberate through the industry. PWCC quickly moved to establish its own platform, launching its Monthly Auction process shortly after the ban.
More recently, in 2025, Alt filed a lawsuit against PWCC, alleging that the company had engaged in widespread shill bidding practices between 2021 and 2023. This shows that concerns about PWCC’s business practices have persisted well beyond their removal from eBay.
The importance of this case is increased by the involvement of Fanatics. The apparel giant continued its aggressive expansion in the collectibles market with the acquisition of PWCC Marketplace in May 2023, bringing on all 125 PWCC employees as part of the deal.
While the exact purchase price wasn’t disclosed, sources indicated it was acquired at a relatively low price after PWCC laid off a quarter of its workforce in April.
The acquisition gave Fanatics access to PWCC’s well-established auction platform and pioneering vault service, filling a crucial gap in Fanatics’ strategy to become a one-stop shop for sports collectors, allowing them to produce cards, sell wax, and now offer singles through their platforms.
However, the acquisition came with significant baggage, as PWCC had a troubled history in the hobby. The company was banned from eBay in August 2021 for alleged shill bidding practices and faced earlier controversies in 2019 regarding altered cards in PSA holders.
While Fanatics emphasized their commitment to “the highest integrity” going forward, their decision to retain all PWCC staff raised some concerns in the collecting community.
The move represented a direct challenge to eBay’s dominance in the hobby. However, industry observers noted that even with Fanatics’ considerable resources, they would face strong competition from eBay and Collectors Universe-backed Goldin in the auction space.
In a significant rebranding move, PWCC was officially transformed into Fanatics Collect in July 2024, completely departing from the controversial PWCC brand name.
The new platform integrated PWCC’s existing vault and auction services while introducing enhanced buying, selling, and authentication features. However, the transition hasn’t been smooth, as evidenced in the ALT lawsuit.
Despite these challenges, Fanatics has continued to expand the platform’s capabilities, notably partnering with Sotheby’s to provide collectors access to rare and high-end trading cards, while maintaining one of the industry’s lowest seller’s fees at 6% for cards listed below 120% of market value.
The allegations in Alt’s lawsuit paint a damning picture of systematic market manipulation at PWCC, now Fanatics Collect.
The evidence presented – from statistically improbable bidding patterns to insider testimony about coordinated shill bidding – suggests this wasn’t just a few isolated incidents but rather a calculated strategy to inflate card prices and exploit buyer confidence.
While PWCC dismisses the claims as “baseless,” their history of similar controversies is hard to ignore. From their 2021 eBay ban to earlier card-trimming scandals, PWCC has repeatedly faced accusations of unethical behavior.
Now under Fanatics’ ownership and rebranded as Fanatics Collect, they face their biggest legal challenge yet. Alt’s detailed data analysis and $13.7 million damage claim could finally force real accountability in an industry that has long struggled with transparency.
For collectors, the outcome of this lawsuit may determine whether the hobby can truly move past its wild west era into a more trustworthy future.
2025 Bowman Baseball 1st Bowman cards + Patrick Mahomes Auto News
32 Spot Random Team 2024 NFL Mosaic Mega 8 Box Break
32 Spot Random Team 2024 NFL Mosaic Blaster 10 Box Break.
Sealed Blaster Box of 2022 Topps MLB Baseball Update Series.
Sealed box of 2019 Topps MLB Baseball Series 2 Hobby Box. 1 autograph or relic card guaranteed. Great rookie class.
Sealed Box of 2021 Panini Prizm Baseball Cello. 12 packs per box, 18 cards per pack.
© Copyright 2025 - All rights reserved Cardlines.com / Media Techs LLC - Sports Card News, Reviews, Releases and BREAKS - #thehobby.
Important: When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.