Ah, I was wondering why there were so many listings that required comments to purchase. Buyee is generally pretty good about filtering those out (it will say something like "you cannot purchase from this seller) but a decent amount still slip through.
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Oh so buyee blacklists reported sellers?
That would be awesome
Cheap is not always best. Dont buy from mecari , yahoo and amazon.jp if you are looking at 151,eevee heroes,etc. The scammers are keying on collectors that are planning to hold and not rip. Even the Japanese nationals are getting scammed.
The scammers are really good now, even shops that handle 1000’s of boxes weekly are being fooled.
Find a direct seller with a second hand license and ask for the lic #. All legit lic#'s are registered with the police station that the seller applied for (you can check the lic # in the sellers home town police website).
i can go on and on about buying from Japan. But the best way to buy is buy from the importers in your own country, pay a few bucks more and let the importers take the risk of resealed, customs, mail and lost mail . It is worth the headaches you wont have buying direct from Japan.
Be smart, not cheap.
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I bought 151-boxes from a seller with 8000+ feedback, but all 4 boxes was resealed, and you can clearly see from picture at Mercari that items recived is not same as listed. Seller use same picture every listings i have seen from same seller later. Boxes was with light Paradigm Trigger packes.
When I contacted Buyee, the plan did not cover it as the boxes looks like the same, and they can not check what is inside.
I ended up with get chargeback with my creditcard.
Sadly I had bought a few times before from people with low feedback, and no trouble, so the one time I felt safe, was the time i get scamed
With the chargebacks on sealed product, I am surprised Buyee still lets people buy sealed product. If Buyee can’t guarantee it, why be a middle man for it?
They are probably out a lot of money, rightfully so
That’s really unfortunate. I feel these scams are happening the most with modern sealed product that is easily moved.
Yeah, sellers re-using the same photos for different listings can be a red flag. If you go to the actual Mercari site and look at the seller’s items, it should show sold items from the past few months. If you see a couple re-used photos, you may want to be weary.
Another thing that may be worth doing is requesting photos once the sealed item arrives at the Buyee warehouse. That way, if there’s a clear discrepancy between the listing photos and the item received it may be easier to open a case. I’ve done this with the sealed items I ordered for extra peace of mind.
Also agree that Buyee needs to improve their authentication game if they want to avoid these chargebacks (which are absolutely warranted).
i just have to say this.
It is not the photos that are most important. The scammers description is very keen on words that help the scammers/sellers get around refunds. This is explained in Japanese YT videos and forums. The wording in Japanese is very vague and deceptive.
“bought from friend so dont know what is inside” “sealed box” but the scammer got away with a refund on amazon.jp cause it was sealed but had yugioh/non pokemon packs inside. So technically the are sealed packs inside. Amazon.jp sided with the scammer, cause the buyer got sealed packs in a box.
again,. more than pictures, it is the description . Get a native japanese to translate for you and then make a decision if they seller is deceptive.
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Agreed. Also there’s no free lunch on sealed products on the secondary market.
Maybe you can find an undervalued vintage dark Charizard single because the seller is a mom cleaning out her son’s collection but ain’t no mother selling cheap sealed boxes of 151 on mercari.
People moving sealed product are trying to flip and will sell at or above market price. Anything lower is fishy
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Yeah but like I said, it wasn’t cheap, it was the standard market price at the time. I’ve also bought unwrapped boxes at the same time and the content was legit.
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Gotcha, yea a few bad actors spoil the fun for everyone