I’ve picked up the following lessons:
- 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.
A final tip I wish to give is to give this thread a read: Possibly Lost $2,700 from a YJA! Auction through Buyee
Best of luck out there!