Problem is Probstein123 charges such low fees with their sweetheart deal with eBay that a ton of people are going to use them no matter what their customer service is like. They could literally never answer a single message ever and thousands of people will use them every day. Dollar wins in the end.
Good deal looks like you found my rant on probstein123
Also I’m noticing some of you guys are defending this “seller” which I have no idea why anyone would defend someone clearly in the wrong… Why don’t you guys defending the seller go take a gamble on these auctions? Maybe because you’re concerned you might not receive your items as well?
Hey, wanted to give a quick update to anyone here who may be curious what’s happened since.
Probstein got back to me Monday night, not sure if it’s because I opened an eBay “did not receive” ticket or because I emailed him at his consignment email address. Either way he told me he can’t cancel the auctions (which I’m not sure is true as he replied over 12hre before they were to end…) but that I had 2 options. I could request a full refund of my purchase or re-bid on the cards and if I won them they would be sent without charge as obviously I had already paid. This is all in writing on an eBay message directly from him.
I won all 31 auctions Tuesday night and have since sent a message letting him know to send the cards out to me. I am waiting for a reply, which given his communication, may not be coming. I just hope he or his staff see the message, understand the situation and send the cards. My main worry now is them just cancelling the cards after 4 days of non payment, ghosting me, and re-listing the cards a third time. I hope Probstein and his staff will get the cards out to me without further issue. I will let you know if I have anymore problems.
Overall I acknowledge that this was very likely an oversight and have no evidence it was malicious or intentional. However, the whole experience has been quite stressful and not what I expected when I was bidding on the cards back on January 13th. I truly hope that the cards will be sent this time to my address and that will be the end of this whole thing.
So Probstein essentially gave you carte blanche to bid any amount on all 31 auctions without having to pay the difference? That’s pretty cool and unexpected! I’m curious, how much did you input as your max bid? It was definitely high enough to win all the auctions again - congratulations by the way - but could you give us a peek under the hood?
Some were lower by a bit, many close to the same price but some went for much higher. As the other poster showed the Typhlosion was like $400 higher. I think it was largely because these cards were isolated to a smaller auction block than when I first bought them so there were more eyes on them? But yeah several went for $200+ higher which is definitely somewhat surprising…
Yeah lol, he said I was welcome to rebid and I would not be charged for cards I won as I had already paid. I was surprised he suggested this over cancelling the auctions or just pushing a refund, but at the end of the day the cards are what I really want and if he is offering a way to get them as I originally should have I’m all for it. Pretty funny he suggested exactly what you joked about though haha
It was definitely a weird experience, I generally jump on last minute for auctions to snipe at a low price as they are ending. I won all of these over about 4-5 hours originally but now had to do so when the auction block was only 2 minutes long. I basically pre-bid close to $1000 on each, less for the 9’s and stuff I thought wouldn’t go for a lot. I wasn’t sure if eBay would hit me with a block or something for placing 31 very high bids in the course of like 10 minutes, especially if they were all the same total bid. I also think these high bids were part of the reason for the high prices this time around on some of the cards. I don’t think they would go for nearly as much if they went up again.
If anything, I would say pre-bidding up to the amount you are willing to pay is better than last second sniping for an auction block like this. The in demand cards seem to have gone up to very high prices, but since so many cards were ending at once there were many that went for sub $100-$150 and would have been good pick ups with a high pre-bid.
Yeah I have taken screenshots of his message to me, as well as the original order information and tracking.
He also messaged through eBay and not personal email so I imagine they would be able to read what he sent as it’s inside their system.
I want to make my experience public, I think this is a not insignificant sum of money and others should be aware, whether now or if they find this thread off google in the future.
I want to have faith that as a seller he would honor his word and just finish the transaction by sending the cards. I read other experiences on sports cards forums that said he did eventually find and return cards that were “lost” or misplaced for others. So I’m hoping for the same conclusion here.
Thank you for the reasonable take earlier in the thread as well, I hope the transparency with my experience will help others who may find themselves in a similar situation.
Technically its somewhat true that you cant cancel the auctions 24 hours before the auction closes. if i remember correctly they would sell it to the highest bidder if they were to cancel but I know some auctions if you do cancel you do get a final value fee or something. very odd how ebay has worked with actions
…BUT the seller is at fault here. Perhaps they didn’t realize, but they ARE at fault. Would the buyer have any unpaid item dings or something from the new batch of what will be cancelled purchases?