Question About a Certain Transaction Issue

General
1

I’ve been buying and selling cards for a long time and have seen most every scenario in the book and handled everything in the book. There is one situation that has arisen a couple of times (1 of those being very recently) and I want to know how you guys would handle the situation because I never seem to be able to get what I want on my end in these situations.

Situation: Offered a chunk of cards that are supposedly in 9/10 condition that are a bit rare so you can’t just find them everywhere. Seller shows me “good pictures” and from the angles they look strong to me so I buy assuming and being told they are 9/10 condition. Cards arrive and the majority are good condition but several are clearly quite bad.

How I Usually Handle It: Tell the seller about condition issues and send multiple pictures of problems and ask seller what they think should be done about the issue. I usually mention I’m good with a small refund for damages and then I’ll be happy.

This solution never goes well for me though. One of two things usually happens:

  1. The Seller says when they sent the cards they were fine and if I’m not happy with a couple of the cards then I can return the WHOLE lot for a refund but I want to keep all the good ones. They won’t let me return only a couple and usually mention “that they’ve found a higher offer and will gladly take them back”.
  2. The Seller argues that the cards were sold at such a good deal that I should look past the damages and accept that I still got a good deal. (This is the one I have the biggest problem with.)

I’ll give you my response to #2 because this is my biggest problem. I think that when a deal is made for cards that the seller and buyer have agreed that this is the price these are worth to both of them and that the price is dependent upon whatever was said about condition, etc at the time of sale. For example: If I buy a 1st Edition Charizard in Mint condition for an agreed upon price of $400 when the card might be worth $500 normally and then there is a condition issue - should I ask for more refund or just be happy with the card since I already got it for $400? In my eyes we agreed the condition and price we were happy with was $400 and if its worse than shown/mentioned that a partial refund would be a good fix and not just a shrug “because I already got it for $400”.

2

I’ve ran into this a few times. The problem with your solution is that in the ‘eyes’ of PayPal, it could go either way. The way I resolve this is either:

  1. Be happy with the purchase and live with what happened
  2. Do a full return / refund. (PayPal will ALWAYS side with this option if you state the item was not described)

Best of luck!

3 Likes
3

@oneonta, Hit the two options I would chose for both a buyer or seller. There is no harm in reaching out for a partial, but if I were the seller I would just say send them back for a full refund. I personally never give partials as they are inherently a grey area.

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4

This is the problem I guess with buying lots of cards at once. I just know that myself as a seller would try to make it up to the buyer somehow if I ever sent cards not as described in a lot like that… I’m always forced to just accept the “hit” because the cards I’m buying I can’t find just anywhere. Don’t want to return my 35 cards when only 3 of them are damaged.

5

I have an example for you. I recently bought a pair of NM first edition base cards from a seller. One was a Nidoking that came with first ed base nidoran and nidorino. Got it no problem for $107. Nice deal.

The second one was for a Raichu said in the description that “pikachu was mint” in addition to information about the raichu. Now I interpreted this as a pikachu coming with the raichu, which would really add value to the listing and would make it similar to the first one I bought. I won for 77 dollars, but did not get a pikachu, which bummed me out. Seller explained that while he originally was going to include it, he decided against it and forgot to pull out the mention of a pikachu in the listing.

Now, I asked him if he would do a partial refund for the pikachu missing because I did expect to get it and he said that I already got a good deal. He explained that he felt the raichu was worth $200 (It’s not, but okay) and said he preferred to refund me. He then said the best he could do was refund me a percentage based on the price I won compared to actual value. So he somehow came to a $13 partial refund. I was more than happy to agree to that. He’s right, I did get a pretty nice deal.

Did I have the right to this? Yes, since I did bid expecting a pikachu. I might not have otherwise.

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