Hey,
So I’ve bought 10 sv2a “sealed” boxes on Mercari through Buyee and even though I didn’t intend to open them at first, I noticed the plastic seal was quite different from what I was used to on booster boxes, so I opened one.
It turns out the boosters didn’t have the same serial numbers so it seems obvious I got scammed.
Now my question is, do you think I can do anything about it since I bought them through buyee ?
Should I contact Buyee ? Open a paypal dispute ?
You unfortunately are out of luck with Buyee. Here’s a response in the FAQ on Discord, in regards to resealed product.
We’ve received quite a few cases in which the contents are stealthily replaced with totally different items. As the listing only shows the outer packaging, Buyee can not confirm what the content is supposed to be and therefore can not compensate for the wrong contents.
Before buying, please make sure to be cautious with the following phrase, check more info such as photos and ratings of the seller or contact Buyee to check with the sellers for you.
・別のダンボールに入れて発送致します = Will replace the original packaging with other ordinary cardboard boxes and ship
As far as your Paypal or Credit Card, you can do a charge back and get the monye, but you’ll be banned from Buyee.
Buying sealed products on Mercari/Yahoo right now is a total shitshow. I’ve heard of multiple people that this has happened to recently, including our very own @kranz.
Unfortunately these scams are becoming much more prevalent, and they specifically target westerners buying through middleman services because you don’t have the ability to do a chargeback or write a bad review for them. As others have mentioned, Buyee will do nothing for you even if you have their inspection/insurance plan. A paypal case is your best option, but you’ll lose your Buyee account.
I’d only buy sealed products from reputable US/Japan eBay sellers and from Japanese card shops right now. It’s too easy for someone to screw you on Mercari/Yahoo.
Well there were 20 sv2a boosters but I’ve looked at the serial numbers, they don’t match. I suppose they’re leftovers of other boxes where the hits were found.
This situation is unfortunately not something you could take reasonable action against. I was scammed buying a resealed case if 151 from Mercari. Here are some pics:
The hits in 1 box was devoid of SR, AR, and the masterball reverse holo. I suspect each box is stuffed with either weighed or leftover non-hit packs after someone opened authentic boxes.
My recommendation is to simply not purchase sealed products via buyee unless you have a JP account as there is 0 recourse to scammers. It’s unfortunate it’s come to this but until buyee can take responsibility they are not getting any more of my business on sealed at least.
It’s clear that their policy does not support any system of authenticity or buyer protection. All items in this list are common scams that buyee does not want to take liability on. I would recommend not selecting any of these “plans” when buying stuff as they aren’t even covered.
I’m sorry to see this happen to so many people. Mercari has a lot of these types of scams floating around, not just limited to Pokemon cards. I buy a lot of Japanese music CDs and there’s a lot of counterfeits floating around with rarer doujin stuff too.
I’ve bought hundreds of items and thankfully never been scammed but it does require some extra due diligence on your own part. Here’s some stuff to look out for to help protect yourself when buying from Japanese second-hand marketplaces:
Seller feedback is obviously very important. Look at not just the overall feedback rating but the number of feedback the seller has received as well. You ideally want both a high rating and a lot of feedback (100+ if not 1,000+ for more expensive items).
On Buyee there’s an option to go to the actual Mercari page and view stuff like comments on the listing and reviews buyers have given the seller. Take a look and see if there’s other users asking about the item, how many people have favorited it and what sorts of reviews (positive and negative) the seller has received.
Sometimes sellers will receive negative reviews for poor service (slow shipping) rather than sending you a defective or fake product. Good service is highly valued in Japanese culture so these tend to make up the bulk of negative reviews.
Read the item description carefully. A lot of Japanese sellers are very upfront with any defects the item may have. Failure to disclose stuff like this can result in a negative review from other Japanese buyers, so many sellers will go out of their way to detail everything. Short descriptions can be a red flag, but not always so use your best judgement.
Check if the listing has a lot of photos in good lighting. For sealed items, you want images of the front, back and sides (especially to inspect the wrap). Continuing the point above, it is in many Japanese sellers’ best interest to detail the product as accurately as possible. A single, poor-quality photo may be a cause for concern. If you require more photos, you can message the seller directly on Mercari and most will happily upload more to their listing.
If the listing has a ton of hashtags with terms unrelated to the actual item ( 「リザードン」 (Charizard) or 「リーリエ」 (Lillie) are common ones), you may want to be weary. It’s not always a cause for concern but use your best judgement.
Learning some kanji and basic Japanese grammar is a lifesaver. Translation sites like DeepL will work, but knowing at a glance that something like「新品」means “new goods” can save you a lot of headache when buying sealed product.
Above all, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. The Japanese market is slightly different from Western ones, but for the most part a lot of prices lines up.
Same thing happened to me about a month ago. Seller had good feedback and everything, but I think some sellers have two piles of inventory and they will send a resealed case if they see it was bought by using a middleman, and send a legit case if they see it was sold to an individual in Japan.
The entire 151 cardboard case was resealed so well that the only thing that tipped me off was looking through the flap and seeing a little part of the booster box did not match what the exterior of a 151 booster box look like.
Needless to say, I then cracked the case open and it was full of early Scarlet and Violet packs….
Yeah you’re right, I think I’ve not been not careful enough. It wasn’t the first purchase I made on Mercari and I have never been scammed before so I suppose I’ve let my guard down. The seller had more than 200 feedback (positive) but yeah the photos weren’t really detailed. The price was normal and not “too good to be true”
@kpod@kranz
So did you ask for a chargeback or anything ?
I had the same issue with an entire case of vstar universe at the beginning of the year.
Buyee won’t do anything. Contact the PayPal customer service ASAP. If you can via phone. They were really helpful and I got a full refund via PayPal.
But be ready that you may not be able to use your buyee account again because buyee won’t be happy about this.
But you can just open a new account without problem.
Ok thanks. And did you open a new Buyee account ?
If so, do you know if there are some things you need to do in order to not get your new account banned ? (like not using the same paypal account, credit card, address or something ?)
The other thing I often see on mercari is “please leave a comment before purchasing for XYZ reason”. Instant
It’s to prevent domestic buyers from accidentally buying a counterfeit product.
I’ll usually have my account blocked and comment deleted when I ask about scam products. If you ever need someone to ask a question about a product on mercari feel free to hit me up.
Didn’t do a Paypal chargeback and just wrote it off as a business loss, I still use buyee for many others things and it’s not worth getting banned from there over a $1k booster case.
