I mean it depends on the value of your card and how fair you’d be willing to go to insure you aren’t “scammed”. Sticking to buyers who have 100% positive feedback, have a lot of feedback, and overall seem trustworthy is really the best protection you’d ever get, unfortunately, no matter what precautions you take. That seems to be the limit for sellers. And if the item is at a price threshold where you’re worried even with a seemingly trustworthy buyer, just don’t sell it on eBay and try to find other platforms or sell in person. That’s the logic I stick to, but more experienced sellers may have a different philosophy. Sorry if its not the most helpful reply.
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Hi!
I have been currently dealing with that exact problem. I was scammed out of a PSA 8 Mew GoldStar that I sold on eBay to a 100% feedback buyer, though few feedback (I believe 18 at the time of the purchase). Currently I am waiting for the resolution of Paypal on the case after filing a police report and give proofs that the item I received back was not what I first sent. I also wanted to start a discussion on this matter. What can a seller do to protect himself/herself?
I had long conversations to Paypal representative on how to mitigate the risk. However, according to them, there is really nothing that you can do to protect yourself from being hit with such fraud and they do not take video recording as evidence of anything, they won’t watch it or take it into account. So what can be effectively done? Looking at the feedback of the buyer only goes so far, restricting the buyer pool on an already small pool is also not what any seller wants, and this leaves us with the back against the wall.
More and more I believe that there is gap to fill and actually a potential for a business to appear in the e-commerce, as a 3rd party to validate the purchased item, otherwise these type of issues will be more and more prevalent as time moves forward. We see this more or less with eBay GSP, however, it is not available to everyone apart from the USA and the UK.
What do the experienced sellers think? Do you factor a percentage within your prices to account for possible future scams?
I would be very interested to hear,
THank you
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Sorry to hear that @styluspt did you have the item insured? I don’t even think insurance covers this sort of thing anyways, I think it only covers lost/damaged products. I doubt it because technically people could use this same method to defraud the insurance companies by claiming to have sold some expensive item to another person in on the scam when in reality they insured some worthless item. Buyer files for refund item not as described, seller claims they sent out the legit valuable item and wants insurance to cover the refund when in reality they sent them a rock they found outside lol. Like I said though I don’t really know so hoping some other people have dealt with this and know the ins and outs of the insurance coverage for this issue. I’m going to do some more research tonight as well. And you’re right about a third party package authentication service. It would be nice to have but it would definitely add even more costs to online sales. Would probably only be used for sales over like $10k or something
StockX already implements verification and being the middle, think its a great idea. Not to mention they have a pokemon marketplace 
Tell paypal/ebay that if they wish to give the person a refund it can come out of their wallet. More times than not they’ll tell you something along the lines of that they believe you while you’re making your case. As soon as they say that they’re admiting to giving your property to a third party and taking your money from you. You can tell them that you’ll file under the BBB or IC3 that they admit to withholding your money without you recieving your property.
A lot of time they say things like it’s your responsibility as a business owner to account for these as a cost of business, I like to throw the line back at them, and tell them does your company do the same because I think this is a good time for it. You could also ask them if it’s common policy for them to steal from their customers, I’m sure it would be funny to hear the representative explain how it’s not stealing, especially if you get them to admit they believe you first.
If it gets really harsh just bluff to them that you have a recording of the phone conversation on your side as well, and will include it to the agency you tell them you’re going to report to. I doubt it’ll get to this point as they’ll probably eat the cost themselves before getting to this point.
Overall, it’s not a common thing that I don’t even really have to do these things. I haven’t even had this scam attempted on me and I’ve recieved a lot of scam attempts over the years. Things like asking me to donate to charity events, phishing emails sent to me, people sending me money through hacked paypal accounts, people asking to pay in gold and expecting me not to know how to tell if it’s a fake, but I’ve never had this scam.
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r/eBay Is probably a good place to visit. Known scams are listed there and how to identify them. Also a lot of talk on how to solve issues with eBay after buyers try to hustle you. In many cases eBay sides with the buyer, no matter what proof you have. Even with police reports etc. they side with buyer and pay you out of their own pocket if needed. Buyers will get feeling they can get away with this every time they win a dispute.
The most valuable tip on r/eBay ; only sell items you can miss. If you have to sell an item worth $1000, but you cannot miss out on having that $1000; don’t sell it on eBay. And as someone asked; yes you have to calculate in a % on each listing you do to cover that one loss you’ll take one day. Sucks for the buyer, but it’s what eBay has become. 90% Of buyers on eBay think they’re on Amazon and their item will arrive next day by an eBay delivery truck and they can return whatever they want, whenever they want.
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@somepokemonguy ,The insurance one might have from the postal services only is elligble if the item is damaged or lost during delivery, so it does not apply to this case, since confirmation of delivery updated.
@cullers ,thank you for your insight, really appreciate it and will take it into account when talking to paypal next time!
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