Refund Request but I believe fraud is at play
Summary: e.ride is dealing with a difficult eBay situation where they sold a Pokemon card and the buyer is requesting a refund with a claim that the card was not as described. The buyer alleges that the card's photo on the listing is not original, creating complications. bdmh-enterprises advises accepting the return and warns of scams targeting new sellers of high-value items like Pokemon cards. christworks suggests sending a firm but polite final message to potentially dissuade the buyer from continuing the dispute. onefootflipper and annadryl share experiences and advice highlighting the risk of scams in selling Pokemon cards online, suggesting building up seller reputation before engaging in high-risk transactions.
I sold an old pokemon card of mine to somebody, and he is now requesting a refund.
The picture I uploaded to the listing and the one he sent me in the refund request don't look anything alike. I contacted ebay and they made it seem like there is nothing they can do.
I spoke to him and tried to calm the situation down, but now he is trying to claim the picture I took of the back of card isn't mine. He is saying he found it on a reverse google search, but I took it directly through ebay. So is that even possible?
I am not trying to cheat anyone, but it feels like I am in a corner here and can't do anything. If he swapped the card, I just lost all of it's value and had to pay for shipping and all those fees.
What do I do? Can I do anything? He has more history and reviews than I do, I am just now starting out.
tobaccocardyahoo
·3 weeks agoI suspect every Ebay seller has a list of categories they would not sell in because of their low opinions of the ethics of the buyers in that category.
I have never seen a general, open sharing of those opinions, and I hope never to. My own opinions are bad enough.
annadryl
·3 weeks agoAs mentioned, start small and work your way up. Don't list anything you can't lose because you are selling to strangers online and there are few protections. On top of that, the Pokemon community seems to be pretty rough-and-tumble compared to, say, baseball cards. There are posts about issues almost daily. Strap in! But good luck!
onefootflipper
·3 weeks agoI don't think I have ever had a claim on a baseball card, not on my account, nor when I was running the ebay account for the card store.
onefootflipper
·3 weeks agoPokemon is a high risk category for buyer scams. You have to price that into your business or else you will not succeed. That is why I stopped selling Pokemon cards. You have to pay MORE than the card store to even get the good ones, so $65 minimum for a $100 card. You sell that card for $100, you lose $13 to ebay fees and $6 to shipping, and longterm you lose another 3 percent to scams and returns. So that leaves you with $19 left out of the $100 item. Not bad considering how little time they take. HOWEVER card prices can also go down. If that card loses 15 percent of value before you sell it then suddenly you are down to making 40 cents on the card. If it loses 16 percent then you lose money on the card.
Your downside risk with every card purchased is huge. If you have the card listed and it spikes in price overnight then someone buys it instantly at the old price and you don't see any of the upside, however if it starts dropping you can definitely start going underwater.
Take the rest of your cards down and sell something else until you get 20 feedback (buying stuff is fine too).
Even though the scammers can basically steal the card from anyone they often choose to target sellers with low feedback scores.
When I was a card specialist shipping 50 cards per day on my other account nearly EVERY SINGLE claim of any type I got was on a Pokemon card, even though they were less than 10 percent of my sales . The customers are among the worst in any category on ebay. I have gotten chargebacks on $2 cards filed months after they left me positive feedback. I have had pokemon customers claim the card arrived torn in half. Many, many claims that they didn't get the card when tracking showed the card was delivered. In fact, in the first couple months of the standard envelope system I had 10 percent of pokemon customers claiming not to get the card. They eventually figured out that the envelopes were tracked now and that cut way down, but it still kept happening.
bdmh-enterprises
·3 weeks agoThe buyer filed a return for 'not as described'? First thing you need to do is accept the return. There is nothing to be done about this or you lose the card AND the fees. You should not bother to communicate further at this point. There is also nothing to be done if they return something different, beyond reporting them to eBay and possibly filing a mail fraud report with the USPS and ic3.
This is just how online selling is. eBay will almost always side with the buyer in these situations.
I'll be quite frank with you. Mid to high end Pokemon cards and products being sold by a new seller is a MASSIVE target for scammers. I would highly recommend sticking to cards cheap enough you can afford to lose them or cards expensive enough to go through authentication until you get your feedback up and look less desirable to scammers.
e.ride
OP3 weeks agoThank you for this. I guess I will send a return approval and get him to send it back. The only issue is that he's going to send me back a card I didn't send him, and now its completely messed up on the back. I think he just switched his crap card with my quality card. I was accused of like 3 different wrong doings in the transaction. That its fake, I stole the listing of the back of the card, and some other crap along with it.
I not trying to be a cheat or anything, the condition he claims it is in (and shows in his return photos) is something I would never sell on ebay. I also take upclose pictures of all the defects of a card because I don't want to deal with this issue.
So do I just take a loss on this and not sell on ebay anymore?
christworks
·3 weeks ago@e.ride A strongly worded message may be your last line of defense to try to scare the scammer off. Remember, you must always operate within eBay's rules or you will take bigger losses. There isn't a rule against lying to a scammer.
If I were in your shoes, I would send them the return label if they've opened a return. Then, I would follow up with one final message:
Dear Buyer,
We received your return request, in which you stated that you are returning the item because it arrived not as described. We assure you that we sent the exact item you ordered.
We have no issue accepting your return, and we are providing you with a free return label so that you can ship back what you received. You can download the label by viewing the return request.
Because you are alleging that some type of fraud occurred, we, eBay, and our shipping partners take this matter very seriously. Once we are notified that you have shipped the package back to us, we will notify USPS's Criminal Fraud Investigations Division.
We have your phone number listed as XXX-XXX-XXXX (You can get this info. from the order). Please be aware that we will provide the carrier's investigators with your name, address, and phone number. An investigator may contact you by phone or in person to conduct an interview.
Should you realize you've made a mistake, you may close out the return and no action will be taken on our end.
Sincerely,
Seller"
Other than a firm message like that to try to get the scammer to rethink their actions, you will get the return back and will have to take a loss here. Should you stop selling on eBay? If all you have to sell are high dollar cards, I might reconsider it. Once you are established, you won't be nearly the target you are now. You'll always have a chance of running into a scammer. That's the nature of selling online. This is no different than a brick and morter store having to deal with shoplifters. As you establish yourself, you work the cost of shrinkage into your business so that even a several hundred dollar loss doesn't phase you. It takes time to get to that point. Good luck.