This came with an international purchase I sent to the vault - random bulk card with writing on it.
I found out about it initially from the submission, where it said 1 raw card was sent for grading.
I even asked support why a card was sent for grading, and said I did not want it graded since it was probably extra bulk.
1 month later, they charge me a 3 dollar processing fee since I sent an “ineligible” card, support did not acknowledge the fact I had previously asked for it to not be processed, and would not waive the fee (Funnily enough, their AI bot said it is reasonable to waive the fee).
My learning here: if you notice an item you’re shipping is going to a Fanatics vault, drop in like a couple hundred bulk cards with writing on it to rack up 3*N dollars in fees.
The reason they do it is because you can send in raw cards. I’ve used that service multiple time. And they probably take a “better safe than sorry” approach for any raw card that get.
It is strange but also I also think it’s the right approach. You should auction it, I bet you’ll get back your $3 lol
It’s bad design, IMO. The sending in raw cards for grading feature should not make the rest of the experience worse. They could make it opt-in and not on by default, I’m sure there’s lots of other ways to handle it
So they’ve introduced a breaking change to the customer experience- historically, extras included with purchases didn’t incur fees, now they do. What they should have done is ..not do this. It’s a bad customer experience.
They have people who think about new features as their full time job so I’m not really the right person to ask. I’m confident there’s an alternative here that is better than charging people money for stuff that should go straight to recycling, though.
That being said, some ideas that come to mind:
Allow vault owners to specify what a submission contains on the submission form, and if it’s graded only, a purchase from another site, etc. Vault owner can opt-out of having “extras” in these submissions processed.
Confirm order with vault owner before processing. TBH, this seems required either way. In the current implementation, if I know your vault address, I can send 100 common cards for grading, you’ll have no way to stop it from being graded, and you’ll get charged for it. It’s a silly design.
I think Fanatics Collect should ask the Vault owner if they would like to retain extras. If yes, pay the $3 surcharge. If no, relinquish ownership of the extra cards and let FC do what they would like with it (e.g., throw it out, auction it, BIN listing, mystery box).
This would allow the consumer to have full control over their Vault submissions and for FC to make a sale or reduce clutter.
For each submission, you show the owner what arrived via scans and include a check box by all items to keep or withdraw ownership. Add a second page that confirms their choices, so nobody accidentally relinquishes ownership of an item that they wanted.
Anything that isnt mentioned in the initial submission should be treated as an extra and the user should get an email or in-site prompt allowing them to decide whether they want to keep/grade anything that was sent in that wasnt included in the submission.
