To anyone who is curious (and to anyone who might have bought from him too) the eBay user who sold me the fake box is bigwill711. He is getting defensive and claiming that the packs look real to him which is an indicator that he knew he was selling a fake. Hopefully nobody else gets caught up in a similar mess.
I was dealing with him recently. He claimed to have a few 1st Ed boxes and about 5 shadowless ones. I negotiated a deal with him for I think 2 1st Ed and 3 shadowless boxes but he could only show photos of one of each at the time, claiming the rest were in storage.
The weird thing is after we negotiated the deal he said he would get back to me, then when I didn’t hear from him and messaged him a couple of days later he then said he’d sold some of them for a higher price individually and it was my fault because I did not respond to him, which is not actually what happened.
I found him because he was selling a shadowless booster box, and in his item history he had sold one already to a guy with 2 feedback, a guy that also had bid on his current auction and on his other auction of blister packs. The 2feedback buyer had also left one on bigwills profile along the lines of “GREAT SELLER, PACKAGE WAS LOST AND GOT FULL REFUND” which to me implies that he used the transaction of the first shadowless box listing to try and price bump someone into bidding higher and ultimately used it to get a good feedback for himself and the lost package thing was probably used to cancel the item so he didn’t pay fees on it.
It’s still not clear to me what boxes he has or hasn’t got or had, but at very best he’s a seller with bad selling etiquette who bids on his own items, and at worst he is a crooked scam artist.
Thanks for sharing that. He told me has many many more boxes in storage too. I had actually purchased a second box from him but requested a refund once I found out the first box was fake. He’s not entirely on the up-and-up, that much is clear now.
I sent him a video my myself opening one of the fake packs, I’m curious to see how he responds.
Did he give you a sob story too? When he told me I kind of thought it completed the package for a scammers shtick… but I wont share it in case it is true.
Oh man. I held back on that for the same reason. He did have a sob story…he told me a close relative died and he needed the cash to take care of related expenses. How long ago did you deal with him?
This. If content would´ve turned out being real op would still have big fat stack of booster packs each worth $200++. Some lower tier boxes definitely suffer in value when plastic seal is broken.
Also I know these boosters go for 200+ a pop however the buyer may have wanted the sealed box for their collection, not necessarily 36 loose boosters despite them having a high value.
Update on the status of things. PayPal is requiring that I obtain “a document from an unbiased third-party, such as a dealer, appraiser, or an organization that is qualified in the area of the item in question”.
I have called every physical location in my area - none of them are willing to do this kind of thing. I called the PSA so see if they did authentication. Apparently they will just return the item stating it was altered/could not be graded, i.e. not provide the documentation I need.
