Stock photos

I realize stock photos are necessary, especially for high volume sellers. However, in the spirit of transparency, should their use be disclosed in the listing? Should I preface every inquiry with, “Is this a stock photo?” Does the seller bear any burden here or is this the responsibility of the buyer?

If the card is graded and worth a lot using a stock photo is ridiculous. If it’s some random singles that aren’t worth much I don’t see a problem.

The short answer is YES, there should be a disclaimer, although it is not (explicitly) required by ebay.

Long answer: A seller should add a disclaimer particularly if the item pictured is not representative of the condition of the item that is to be received (such as USED, opened products, single cards etc.).

The burden falls on the BUYER when it comes to asking questions: clarification of limited, missing, or unmentioned item details. Item representations and the associated falsehoods of misrepresentation (incorrect, inaccurate, or false text description and/or photos) are the SELLERS responsibility. If an item received is not as described due to inaccurate photo description a return case filed through eBay is typically an easy case to win (you just need to upload a photo or two of the recieved item to illustrate the discrepancies).

Edit: Additionally, I would always recommend asking questions. As a precautionary measure a 30 second message can save you sometimes hours or more of headache later on down the road when you have to open a return case. A GOOD seller would be glad to hear & answer your question. Questions can be referenced in your return case file as evidence. ALWAYS feel free to ask questions -they can be your saving grace and protect you from dishonest sellers or scammers. That said use your intuition and research tools too, such as spotting inconsistency between listing photos (differing backgrounds etc), reverse image lookup, searching for completed listing photos. Smaller sellers that use stock (and often stolen) photos are actually a very very small minority, so I don’t see a need to message this to every seller :blush:

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Good info here.
One thing though, if the card is within one grade or even 1 1/2 then never waste the sellers time with a return. Just list it.

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Gotta go with buyer’s responsibility on this one. Usually stock photos are pretty easy to tell. If the picture looks stock or if they have multiple copies for sale and the seller doesn’t mention anything about it then I just assume I won’t be receiving the card pictured. It’s always nice tho when they say it’s a stock picture.