Returning Trading Cards

[dogharbortradingpost]

I have a buyer who purchased a trading card that he wants to return and I am

not comfortable with that. I listen no returns for many reasons. Selling trading cards is a delicate nature and damages can be done due to the most minor mistakes. When the card left my facility it was as described in the listing and backed by associates who are familiar with grading, but I understand there are no guarantees when buying ungraded material. Instead, we listed the card in a range that wouldn’t not have given him a perfect 10 but in a respected 7-9. The card had sharp corners and the surface was clean and centered. The buyer purchased the card and admitted to looking over our return policy. He also admitted to taking the card out of the protective casing and allowed third parties to handle it for a week. The company he had the card sent to is not even credible, they range their grades as suggestions and don’t follow the PSA scale, they grade ABC. The company’s policy even admits these ranges are no guarantees as they are not PSA graders. They also state that they prefer to have cards sent in penny sleeves to avoid damaging the card when taking it out, we sent the card as it was described in the listing because we were not aware of the buyers policy to take it out of the sleeve ourselves and send it. They also state that they take the card out of the casings and the casings are destroyed. The card is said to have an edge damaged and that it came from our facility. The buyer did not review the product before sending it into a discredited company, how can I be sure the company did not damage the card he is accusing us of doing. He has sent a photo of the card with an edge flaw, similar to a flaw that would have been created by someone taking a clean card out of a card case and penny sleeve. I have denied his request for a full refund and have explained very professionally my firm stance on this policy. How can I be sure the card will return to me

in the condition it left? He has shown a damaged card that was not the case in my facility. Also, if the company he uses damages protective cases, how can he guarantee I will get my product back and the original case it came in if it is to be destroyed? Will the card be further messed up without the casing? He is sending nasty messages and has gotten eBay to freeze my account until I refund him because he is stating the product is not as described. I have contested this and am waiting to hear back from eBay. Has anyone had any similar issues or can offer some advice or kind words?

[goldguy22k]

Unfortunately you have found a trap that many other sellers fall into too. Sorry this has happened to you.

Key is that a "no returns" policy does not have much value in the eBay system.  "No Returns" only works if the buyer selects a "remorse reason" (didn't like, wrong color, etc.) for the reason for a return.  THEN eBay allows the seller to reject the return, but advises working something out with the buyer.  

When a buyer states an item is Not As Described (NAD) then the eBay policies and Money Back Guarantee (MBG) over rides the seller's "no returns" policy.  You can not fight this and doing so will damage your seller status.

Oh sure we see many sellers standing on principles and railing against eBay policy only to get run over.  So that is not new, unfortunately.

Best thing to do is to accept the return, get the card back and then issue the refund.  That way one has the item for resale or has evidence that fraud happened.  

If that is the situation and the card comes back opened, damaged etc, then you have been scammed.  There is a whole process for that and we can cross that bridge when we get there.

But other advice - I use to rail against returns until I worked them into my business plan.