I am contemplating listing my first 5 figure PSA card on eBay and I am wondering what the worst possible scenario would be under the following circumstances:
meticulously photo documentation of exact condition of card and PSA slab
item shipped USPS registered mail, fully insured, signature required, US shipping only
continuous video of packaging item and placing into box with application of shipping label sealing for proof of sending correct item
Is there a situation where an unscrupulous buyer could rip me off for 5 figures?
I understand this is extremely unlikely and I have had no issues selling 3 figure cards and a couple 4 figures cards as well on eBay. I am aware of common ebay buyer scam techniques such as addresses different than PayPal, fake PayPal invoice emails, ect. I just want to be sure I’ve done everything I possibly can to protect myself and my cards.
Pretty sure Ebay doesn’t care about any sort of video of you packaging the item.
If its 5 figures and you live near them (few hours by plane), take a plane and get cash. Trading Ebay fees for a nice flight, you might even get a window seat!
The only protective measure you listed was signature-required shipping. All the other stuff - while it may provide psychological comfort - offer little to no actual protection.
The worst case scenario is that you lose the item and the money. You will see how useful your insurance is if the package gets lost. Additionally, the power is really in the hands of the buyer as buyer-based scams through ebay are very easy to pull off.
That being said, it takes a petty and dishonest person to pull those types of scams off and typically if someone has 5 figures of disposable income, they aren’t pulling off these scams.
Basically, there’s nothing you can do to completely eliminate the risk. As unlikely that it is to happen, you should be prepared to lose it all. It’s just part of the process of selling and shipping something: there will always be a party that has the chance to lose out big time. When selling on ebay, that party is you.
If you set it at high price OBO, you can screen buyer feedback before accepting or countering an offer.
I do not like selling sealed product on eBay but have not had issues with graded cards.
There’s more or less nothing you can do from stopping a dedicated scammer from scamming you. If you haven’t already, I recommend checking out the Lotus scam situation and the seller’s videos on the matter. What happened there was basically the nightmare scenario you’ve envisioned.
In effect, if someone wants to scam you and is even remotely competent, they’ll be able to. The sort of fraud involved in these scams is difficult (and often prohibitively expensive) to litigate. Yet, at the same time, return fraud isn’t as widespread as you might think. The chance you’ll fall victim to it in the first place is very low. If you do still have an unshakeable fear of being on the receiving end of it, you should probably just consign your item(s) with HA, PWCC, or some other established auction house.
Thank you for your thoughts I appreciate it. How would you rate the risk of catastrophic loss when consigning my card with a reputable auction house such as HA or PWCC?
If auctioned off in a PWCC premier auction or by HA, much lower risk (if any at all). I’m not sure to what extent those auction houses absorb the risk of loss associated with mail fraud (you’ll have to look at the consignment terms), but in order to bid at all, you have to register with personal info and be approved – so there will naturally be fewer scammers bidding in those auctions.
The risk with auction houses is basically zero as they’ll give you a fully insured shipping label from you to them and that’s it, they take over all responsibility from that point on.
It is also extremely unlikely someone would even attempt to pull off a 5 figure scam even with eBay covering their back. It’s potentially more likely with a low value item where the consequences are minimal.
For what it’s worth I have had 1 single case like that on a 30$ card in over 2000 sales in years. Hasn’t discouraged me from selling 4-5 figures items regularly. Admittedly, I exclusively sell graded cards for these amounts. Raw cards or sealed products are on slightly different level of risk most likely.
Just a quick nitpick because I’ve seen people who’ve been scammed claiming they lost double what they actually had. If you own and sell an item for $10k, ship it out and then the buyer scams you pulling the $10k back. You “lost the item and the $10k” but originally never had the $10k, so you are down your $10k item and that is it. I don’t think you PFM would believe you’d have lost $20k but trust me I’ve seen people saying it many times.
The worst case scenario is always losing everything anytime you transact. Some people are way too negative on insurance and I don’t know why. USPS registered if it were lost you would be good to go and get your money back. Trust me it isn’t going to be lost. Videos don’t matter and good luck filming a 30 minute video nobody is going to watch with all that water activated tape.
If I ever were to sell a singular item I could not afford to lose whatsoever I would sell it through PWCC, Heritage or similar after reaching out to them for a fully insured overnight label. You’re never getting 100%, but that gets you to less than a 1 in a million loss risk I’d say. I’ve done mid-high 5 figures a handful of times with USPS/Fedex Global Express guaranteed or USPS registered mail and have always slept well.