Looking to start using Buyee again and I’m curious about the (new) good ways of protecting yourself.
We know Buyee has become a cesspit of scammers (I nearly got shafted for $2k a year ago) and since then haven’t used the platform. I did have some great buys on there, like a PSA 9 crystal Lugia Japanese.
So, all you pros out there - what’s the best setup?
I know the standard of
Credit card
PayPal account
Buyee insurance (even if it’s not worth anything lol)
But what are the other methods?
I heard that there is something similar to eBay authenticion on yahoo jp (on some listings that have it enabled) but you can’t see it though Buyee?
Or can anyone recommend a trusty middleman?
Would love to make this thread a comprehensive one on NOT getting scammed on buyee to protect newbies !
Honestly. I just use Buyee for buying old games and consoles. I’m too sketched out to buy cards or sealed stuff since it’s always a chance. I pay with PayPal, but I’ve never had a problem with purchases on Buyee.
I do have a middle man on Instagram who’s worked out great for me: Mew in a bucket.
You will inevitably get scammed at some point. There is no rhyme or reason to it, everything can look squeeky clean on the sellers behalf. The seller knows they are dealing with a foreign purchaser and can pull whatever bs they want with practically no consequences.
You can do a lot of legwork to minimize your chances however. ‘Background checks’ should include:
-reading the description (by translating) and comments of the item and scanning for any key indicators that something can be off.
-reading the sellers description of themselves on the sellers page (Mercari).
-checking other (sold) listings, and reading those descriptions/comments. What kind of items do they typically sell?
-looking through their feedback, are any comments left by native Japanese people?
-try to profile the vendor, how did they aqcuire the cards, is it likely their childhood collection, are they a reseller/flipper, have they graded cards? I always prefer the first kind.
Look closely at pictures, potentially download them to unlock some better zooming. Is any information about the card hidden? Would it make sense to hide it? Assume the worst. Generally you need to learn to gleam a lot of information from pretty bad pics. Buyers have the habbit of wanting cards to be in a better condition than they actually are, so be very critical of the pictures. Do backgrounds in pictures match? If they don’t, that’s a concern to me.
Learn to read the discription from a Japanese cultural perspective. You will find a lot of “just in case I list it as scratches”, “From an amateur judgement”, “Stored by an amateur” etc. etc. They are not red flags, as the Japanese are very humble and generally would rather undersell than oversell their cards quality. Be wary of things like “leave a comment before purchasing”, I haven’t personally come across it but it can be used to target foreign buyers specifically.
Establish a list of good sellers. I’ve bought from specific vendors again and again to great effect, and I keep tabs on their listings.
You can check if other forwarding services (I typically check both ZenMarket and Buyee) have a vendor blacklisted. This is an absolute red flag for me.
At the end of the day purchasing from Japan through a forwarding service is a bit of a gamble, and you should never count your chickens before they hatch. But I would rather gamble on a potentially brilliant purchase, than waste money on ripping booster packs hoping for a pull.
Just a quick word: authentication service is also available on some Mercari listings, however there are ongoing disputes of the service not doing its job (sorry videos are only in Japanese):
@expedition’s post is excellent. I don’t have much to add other than noting that spending extended time browsing is very beneficial.
The more time you spend browsing, the more you’ll recognize patterns like sellers constantly relisting the same card with the same pictures (red flag), listing multiple high-end cards with different backgrounds (red flag), suspiciously having a large amount of mint condition very popular high end cards (red flag), or the mercari relist bots that don’t actually own any cards (red flag). You’ll also get to know sellers which list a large amount of cards consistently, which isn’t a red flag and probably a good sign.
Another thing I would note is to NEVER assume anything. If it’s not pictured, it’s not there. Opened product where the seller says “everything is there, it’s complete” but certain cards conveniently aren’t pictured? You won’t get them.
I’ve been buying from yahoo for many years and over time I’ve developed a sense of what “looks right” and what doesn’t. I’ve also been very careful with who I buy from, but I’ve still gotten scammed—and it’s gotten worse in recent years as sellers become more knowledgeable about how easy it is to screw foreign buyers.
Because of this, I oftentimes I only find Yahoo/Mercari to be useful for items that are inaccessible outside of Japan.
My advice is to become a species collector and only use buyee for tons of low valued non-tcg stuff since no one cares enough to make scam listings of them, the only downside is that you’ll end up being a species collector with tons of low valued non-tcg stuff
Speaking of being scammed, I requested a photo from Buyee of a goldstar Rayquaza which I bought on Yahoo Japan and it is 100% fake. New situation for me as the card is still in their warehouse so I am very curious how they react since it`s obviously a different card than auctioned
If you’re using buyee to purchase high end/popular cards, it is almost guaranteed to run into scam listings. Cards like gold stars, shinings, crystals, xy-p & sm-p promos, etc.
Been buying for years, new scam i’ve never seen before. Non-immediate buy, fake pictures of the back. You request to buy, they remove the ~5 back pictures and then accept the purchase on their end. Front of the card is correct (usually very clean so the super clean back pictures look legit) and they make sure to highlight things like swirls etc so you receive the same card in the picture. Dealing with that now. I have always been extremely safe when buying and had one instance of an obvious swap a few years back, but have spent a ton of money and never any other issues aside from hidden pinholes. Price wasn’t a “too good to be true” either, basically around PSA 9 price of the 2 cards I purchased.
