Hey everyone, recently I’ve been seeing lots of pretty crap slabs listed up on Mercari, primarily the cheap Amazing Rares, or Pikachu Vmax, some of the 25th Rares mixed in. I got one of em for someone else, but it is clearly a scam or the guy is just an idiot who actually thought selling things like this was a good idea.
These pics are only for one of the listings that I’ve found. I’ll make a list of users to block if you’re a user of Mercari Japan and have access to the block feature.
This photo above indicates the only sentence that says the card is not in the graded case
As you can see this is a brand new account.
I’ve found numerous sellers who’ve been using the exact same picture format and many others using similar picture formats, however, they all use the same description. They seem to be stealing pictures from other listings and almost always cover up codes on the slabs. But basically it boils down to the seller promotes the card as graded shows pics of graded cards, tells people to read the description, but the description is relatively long and not useful. There is 1 sentence, located below the “show more” cutoff point on the application that says “the PSA case is not included”.
I understand that the person buying is at fault for not following the directions and reading the listing, but they purposefully put aspects to make people not think before buying, namely the “buy it fast” type phrases.
The guy I’m currently fighting with “焼きチョコ”, has been denying any wrongdoing on his end.
A few Names from the people I found doing this crap:
焼きチョコ
ポロロ
METEOR 即購入大歓迎
Pika@即購入OK
ばいbuy
コメント頂ければ値下げ相談応じます
ピカチュウ即購入可◎
あいうえお＠即購入可
ramu@即購入可
Thanks, I have seen several of these listings and wasn’t sure what to make of them. I’ve also seen cards photoshopped into PSA cases when the label is clearly from a different card. Seems like a classic “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” Hopefully mercari Japan has relatively good buyer protection for people purchasing domestic.
But I thought covering the cert makes it so nobody can steal your slab photo??? Maybe if they covered the cert with stop tape instead?
Thanks for posting this. I’ve seen a lot of people do similar scams with multiple items and then at the end of the description writing “only one included”, but I haven’t come across this one yet. I think a lot of these scam listings in Japan bank on a Westerner with no buyer protection buying without reading the description fully.
Mercari has been flooded with these junk listings lately. I must have seen at least 5 different sellers trying to pull off the same scam, not sure if all these accounts are owned by the same person. I’ll add that the pictures in those listings are just stolen from other people, if the cert number is covered it’s just cause it was covered in the original pictures, therefore I wouldn’t say covering the serial is a suspicious practice in Japanese marketplaces (seems pretty common there for whatever reason). That same description is copy pasted in every listing though, so that’s a guarantee for being scammed. At this point, excessively long descriptions on graded items are a red flag to me.
I’ll also add that many of these cards aren’t priced that low compared to competition, often just a few hundred yen lower.
@fourthstartcg, “Hopefully mercari Japan has relatively good buyer protection for people purchasing domestic.” Good god I wish they did. Yakichoco, is my worst enemy right now. I hate this guy with seething fury. Suffice to say, Mercari has not been particularly helpful as of yet. Though, tbf, I didn’t use even remotely polite Japanese in my first message to yakichoco. I went straight-up American Karen on him immediately. So he is a bit tired of me and isn’t responding anymore.
I’m not sure how if it would be useful or not, but maybe we could do a similar thread to eBay garbage, but instead, “JP Mercari Garbage”. A ban list of Mercari users might be a useful tool to have. Not sure if random eFour members choose to moderate and add people to the running lists, or if mods do that. I might be able to manage doing it if needed, though.
All I know is that A LOT more items have been complete trash lately. Card quality seems to have taken a significant dip, and the number of sellers blatantly covering serious damage on cards is increasing. I suppose it might be part due to me working with more people as a middleman, so I have higher order numbers, and as a result have a larger sample size, but maybe others feel similarly.
@jonbo, yeah, I didn’t even think about that. It’d be 100% impossible to get any kind of refund in that case. I wish Foreigners could use the app while in America. It is a bummer that you can’t create your own ban lists without the user interface itself.
Sure, this one has the bar code uncovered so them covering the certification ID is pointless. However, for sellers that cover both the barcode and the ID, just don’t post a picture. After all, you don’t have to worry about those pesky picture stealers if there is no picture to steal in the first place! On top of that, a picture covering all certification info, which are needed to help verify the legitimacy of the slab, is about as useful as posting no picture anyway.
I think in terms of quality of cards the raising of awareness for grading in Japan and the value that is placed on “gem mint” means people are holding onto the better quality cards, and unloading the imperfect ones onto YA, Mercari or selling at Book Off or Surugaya etc. Most of the stuff I see people selling online or on store shelves is usually nowhere near a 10 in my opinion. I think even the stores themselves are hoarding the good ones that come in. My local card shop just sells absolute trash in their cabinet or they put damaged cards into gacha machines. Whenever I am looking for singles now, it’s a lot harder to find a perfectly centered card with perfect edges front and back than it was before, even for modern.
It’s definitely going to be amusing when Japan opens up again and people from overseas come expecting the goods only to get a lot of quantity, but very little quality and very little value.
If anyone is able to, I think it could be helpful to copy this as a comment into some of their listings that are clearly crap. Of course if you’ve got the time and feel like hopefully screwing them over or at least increasing awareness a bit.
I did this on a handful of listings this morning and already got blocked so I can’t comment on their listings anymore. If nothing else, this will help people see quicker that the product is whack. If he blocks you, that’s great! Then you don’t have to do it yourself.
Oh I’ve def had a few sellers not be honest about the condition. One person had descriptions of how they rated cards. Then when I get the card, which was rated mint, wasn’t even mint by their standards. Smh
