I saw a card that i wanted on tcgplayer for a really good price but i realized that the card had been listed back in 2018, which was probably the cards price back then, but now it is significantly higher. so i was wondering if i purchase it the seller will refuse to sell at that price or just not sell it to me? or will i be able to get a great deal?
How do you know it was listed in 2018?
Also, tcgplayer has your back. Their customer protection is A+ and I have had hundreds of refunds come through. Sometimes sellers can be a little sketch but at the end of the day they want positive feedback and no matter what, Tcgplayer will force a refund if you didn’t get your card.
I have had a few people cancel on me after I placed an order telling me that they didn’t have the card in stock. Not sure if that was really the case or not but either way I got my money back and no harm was done other than my money being tied up for a few days.
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oh it says listed october 2018 lmao
You said “I have had hundreds of refunds come through”? Does that mean you’ve returned hundreds of cards/orders to them?
Great question! To clarify…well it’s complicated.
I have only ONCE, in my thousands of orders through tcgplayer, actually sent a card back in the mail for a refund. However, I have had probably 100+ refunds come through from sellers who tell me, after I’ve paid, that they don’t have one of the cards that I’ve ordered in stock. I get it. With businesses who have inventory that is constantly being sold,it happens. Not a problem. So when I place an order with 60+ cards from PokeGamersUT , and one of the cards isn’t in stock, a refund for that card is sent to me. This is very common.
I’ve also had a very large number or sellers who don’t catch their mistake or are deceitful in what they are sending me…maybe they are hoping I don’t catch the mistake? Maybe they just don’t know? Either way, when the card(s) aren’t what I ordered, I message them and they usually are pretty quick to send a refund. I’m a master set collector so when I put in an order for a reverse holo it has to be reverse holo or I’m going to ask that the card be refunded. I also always offer to send it back but in most cases it isn’t worth the time or money to do so and 99% of sellers don’t care if the card is .20 cents - a few dollars. For this reason, I buy a lot of niche cards on trollandtoad or ebay because on these sites you can search every variant of a specific card.
Through tcgplayer, I’ve also received fake cards which = refund. I’ve also had PWE w/no tracking that haven’t arrived = refund. I’ve also had sellers who go offline and never send = refund. I almost never ask to return based off of condition because I’m willing to give and take when it comes to individual grades…but if the card was NM or LP and it comes back damaged then I’ll take pictures and send them to the seller = refund. Your big sellers on there with 10k+ feedback are never an issue. It’s usually some small no name business that has prices that are just too good which have issues. Sometimes they are great and a true diamond in the rough! And sometimes it’s a total flop.
Overall, tcgplayer is awesome. I’d say that they typically have the best prices for cheap cards ($0.01 - $100). When I buy, I typically buy from around 25 - 60 sellers in a single order and I’d estimate that 90% of my orders are spot on. Butttttttt, here is the downside of tcgplayer; you get a lot of non pokemon collectors who have no idea what they are sending you. Sellers are typically very friendly and tcgplayer staff is A+ when it comes to customer service. much better than working with trollandtoad.
Yup I’ve noticed the same thing. Some of the sellers have no idea about Pokemon. They don’t know what a reverse Holo is compared to a regular Holo. Or Neo Genesis I had Meganuim mixed up with the other Meganuim in the set. When they mess up on sending non first edition cards that tells me they didn’t even look for the stamp. Or they assumed unlimited means first edition. And yes they often have cards listed they supposedly can’t find anymore or sold ages ago. But still overall I love the site. Side note… I see they offer orders to be made as tcgdirect orders. Which means you get all your cards from multiple sellers at once. This sounds great and they make it sound easy. They say to just press the optimize cart button. But I’ve tried for hours off my phone and computer. I don’t see a way to optimize my cart and use the tcgdirect feature. Please let me know if anyone knows how to actually optimize your cart on tcgplayer to get all orders at once
It’s my go to site for buying cards for standard/expanded play.
For collection cards, I tend to stay away since it’s rare to get mint cards from old sets
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I’ve never understood it. I have had plenty of orders over $35 using multiple sellers with tcgdirect and it has never impacted my price nor has it meant that I just got one large shipment of cards. I alwyas get a a PWE from each individual seller. tcgplayer needs to clarify that process. Another positive of T&T, it’s simple, spend $25 — get free shipping and it all comes in one order.
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Ya it made me question myself thinking I’m slow just missing something obvious. It makes it sound like all you have to do is pick sellers that quality and hit a button for optimize cart but there is no said button. I’m glad it’s not just me in that department. I was thinking I’d have no lost cheap orders and tcgplayer would see the mistake orders first hand before sending. I was just hoping to make things more simple. They always refund but after so many missing or wrong orders I worry if they won’t believe me one day and i get screwed. Like this week was a order with tracking of $35 said delivered but I didn’t get it. So waiting on end result of that. But mistakes from this site does happen and I’ve even seen comments here from people automatically thinking people like us are in the wrong or lieing. There’s no point in getting all mad and going thru the process over small amounts especially when a order history shows thousands upon thousands
@mcorey777,
If you go onto tcgplayer for one or two cards your are most likely going to be fine.The issue is when people like me order from 50+ sellers each transaction and each of those sellers is selling me on average 5-50 cards. A lot of these small card shops are great! Part of the reason why I like going on there is to support them. With that being said, Pokemon cards can be very niche, and subtle details can make all the difference. I cannot tell you how many times my “shadowless” cards are just normal base set cards. If I order a shadowless trainer… I’m doomed. It is a 50% chance you are getting the right card. (the sellers that get it right always get it right, and then about half the sellers just have no idea)
Personally, I don’t really care if they mess up as long as they are willing to listen and learn from the experience and work with me on a refund. A lot of sellers are just trying to make a living. Unfortunately, selling the wrong product isn’t going to help them but that is where some good business practices come in and compassion from buyers is needed. I think only on 2 occasions have I ever left negative feedback. I would Highly recommend that you start keeping track of your sellers so you can avoid bad ones in the future and keep continuing to patronize ones that are quality.
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Since we are talking about TCGplayer, does anyone know if they have a “restock alert” option so I know when a card becomes available again? I don’t see one.
Also I often get something like “10 total prices available, This product has no pricing options based on the filters you selected. Please adjust your filters to see more options.”
Does that just mean no sellers that have that card listed sell to canada?
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There has only been a few cards I’ve searched that zero copy’s were available. Some were a few Skyridge holo’s. Or some wotc 1st edition holo’s. Obviously if you look for trophy cards there it will probably not be available. And yes I keep track of the bad sellers and put them on my do not buy list. Especially repeated mistake sellers. One mistake is fine but when you swing and miss on my order 2-3 times you clearly need a new day job or part time gig. Selling cards is not good for some of these sellers that don’t know much of anything and print out a receipt like in your case let’s say 1st edition shadowless Venasaur in light played condition. And you recieve a unlimited regular Venasaur. Like really do you even know what a shadowless card is. Or did you even bother looking for the 1st edition stamp or even know what one looks like. And ya I do the same I buy from 20-30 plus sellers at a time if sellers had all the cards I need I’d pick one or two sellers instead but it doesn’t work like that
There are literally thousands of cards not in stock and There are probably thousands of versions not listed (cosmos, shattered ice, certain staff cards, etc.) You will also never find a trophy card on tcgplayer. Moreover, the search option on tcgplayer is absolutely horrible and of little help. You essentially will have to go through several filters before you can narrow it down to the card you want. For example, let’s say you want the Fire Red/Leaf Green Charizard EX. If you search, “Charizard” you’ll have to scroll through ten pages to find the card you’re looking for. Try typing in “Charizard EX FireRed & LeafGreen” and you’ll get a, “Oh no!Nothing was found!”, If you try being really specific search “Charizard EX 105/112” and you’ll get the same error message. At the end of the day you just have to spend unnecessary time searching Charizard and then using the side bar to narrow it down by set. There are a few other ways but in my opinion they all suck. I’m convinced tcgplayer loses a significant amount of business because of this and I know that in my case, I can’t deal with tcgplayer’s searching methods so I use a number of other sites when I’m looking for niche cards.
Another downfall for tcgplayer is that as a master set collector I can’t use tcgplayer as much as I’d like to because they don’t distinguish between different card variations which is a problem of it’s own.
In other posts I was building up tcgplayer and now I’m kind of shredding it. Point being…most card sites have their issues. In my opinion,use multiple and know the ins and outs of how they function.
I find myself doing the same thing. I love Tcgplayer but hate tcgplayer. It’s mostly just the mistake orders that leave that sour taste in your mouth. And as far as searching ya I’ve always just looked by set. If they did a few minor improvements they would have much more sales and customers. One suggestion is if tcgplayer handled all the sellers cards like a consignment deal it would be a lot better and all the missing orders would hardly ever happen. When you spend $50 you get free tracking. And if your anything like me my orders are usually anywhere from $100-$1500 or so. So it’s not like I’m putting in all small orders. It’s just if I’m buying a $5 card or $20 card no im not paying $7 extra or so for tracking. The only time it would be worth it is above the $50 mark which is already included. When I flip thru my completed sets I do get a little extra enjoyment knowing this card was hard to find. Or originally another card got lost in the mail but I replaced it. Situations like that. Right now I’m in a bad predicament on 1st edition holo Erika and 1st edition Dark porygon2 both lost and the porygon there isn’t abunch of non graded ones available