Welcome to our community

Be apart of something great, join today!

When your buyer states damaged in shipping what is reasonable?

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

cgilmo

Well-known member
Administrator
Aug 6, 2008
37,213
35
Alpharetta, Georgia, United States
Is it reasonable for me to ask for an image of the damage?

What if the image he sends me isn't clear? Is it then reasonable to ask for better pics?

If he refuses to send better pics and throws a fit, can I then assume he's scamming me?
 

cgilmo

Well-known member
Administrator
Aug 6, 2008
37,213
35
Alpharetta, Georgia, United States
him: Hey, you know what can happen when you ship an Expensive Magic card in a regular soft deck sleeve instead of in a hard plastic top loader for protection? The card you sent arrived all bent up, especially the around the upper left hand corner area of the card! :( Please reply back here with some kind of an idea as to how to fix this fairly! A partial refund or another cool foil card that we all agree to would work. Please get right back with us!
Sincerely, Brian (father) & Tyler (son)

me: You got a pic of it? I've got no problem sending other cards to make up for shotty shipping.


him: yep, here you go. The flaw that looks the worst and shows up the most is the bend on the back here. The pic of the bend on the upper left hand corner didn't show up well at all on our crappy cam on our phone. The one on the back is pretty noticeable at least. Please send us a list of what cool foil lands that you have (like shocks, full art basics, etc.). Thanks for your help and understanding here. Since you are handling this in a quick, friendly and professional manner we will still be leaving you a positive feedback once resolved instead of a negative. Also it the positive feedback we will not mention the card arrived in either as we don't want to hurt your future sales on eBay with how cool you are being here in helping us reach a fair resolution.
Sincerely, Brian (father) & Tyler (son)

$_12.jpg
 

cgilmo

Well-known member
Administrator
Aug 6, 2008
37,213
35
Alpharetta, Georgia, United States
him: no not really, but we are acquiring foil full art BFZ lands for decks and we pick up quite a few foil shock lands from Return to Ravnica block so any of these we would be interested in for the most part. A single foil shock lands would do, or a handful of foil full art basic lands from BFZ would also work.

him: (the next morning as I had gone out Saturday night) You haven't replied back to our response to this yet!?! :(

me: (realizing that I had to bite the bullet and send something without verification to avoid negative feedback) Yes. You will get your package soon. Stand by.

him: well what are you sending us?

him: (opens a paypal dispute)

me: Nothing now. There is a dispute and this limits what I can do. We will have to work through paypal.

him: nope, if you still send stuff then we simply cancel the issue when the agreed to cards arrive, so just wondering what you are sending us? If it's easier to do a partial refund instead of sending other cards that would be fine too, but thought you wanted to send cards instead?

me: I did. But I can't send out cards with a pending case.

him: yes you can. This is a very simple process here. What did you want to send us? If it's something we can both agree to then we can do that instead of a partial refund. And we would not have opened the issue had we heard back from you, we literally opened it minutes before you got back with us.


(a few posts back and forth about magic cards and what to send)

him: (after being unable to get a package worthy of replacement) do you think it would just be easier to just do the partial refund? We'll post you positive feedback right afterward and since it will have been handled at that point we will not mention the condition the card arrived in either so that we don't hurt your future sales on eBay either this way. Sound fair?

me: I'd like to see a better image before I do that.

him: (sends the same pic) here you go, there's a pretty good idea of the damage, you can clearly see the crease.

me: However it's just the back of a magic card. I'm going to need to see a better image.

him: look, we are being nothing but fair to you here! Look at our feedback rating, never a negative (not even one!) and look at the feedback we have left, we buy tons of Expeditions and mention the exact card we get when we post positive feedback too. We have been very nice to you the entire time too, but we have a crappy camera and we took 5 pics of the card and saved the best of them to send to you before deleting the others that were worse. You have a clear indicator that the card arrived pretty damaged in that pic. Please just process the partial refund now so we can put this behind us and post you the positive feedback before I head off of here for the night.

me: Send the card back for a full refund

him: I'll tell you what, we'll do just that! But at that point we have to pay shipping back to you and it comes out of our pocket so we will lose $3.37 and all the time back and forth here on top of that so you will get negative feedback if we have to go this route with you! But look at the last message we just sent to you right before this one and if you agree to this then this will still finish peacefully instead.

me: I will refund your shipping fees as well.

him: Good for you, still wasted all this time here! We were making this easy for you and if you can't tell you have really upset me here at this point! If the partial refund is processed in the next 15 minutes then we will leave you positive feedback and be done with this. If not then you will be left a negative instead after 15 minutes and we will send you the card back! You could have avoided all of this had you just sent the card in a hard plastic top loader, and even though this entire thing has been your fault with your faulty shipping method we were nothing but nice to you, but you are not being reasonable with us and I feel like I'm playing Ring Around the Rosy with you here! 15 minutes from right now to reach a fair resolution.

me: I feel extorted. I seriously do.


You are asking me to process a refund without verifying anything. You have shown me a generic magic the gathering back as proof. I can't even verify that this is the actual card that I sent. The pic is not confirmation of anything. You have to see my side of this.

As for right now, I am going to bed. It is late and I have work in the morning.


him: The vast amount of the damage is to the back of the card! We have no reason to "extort" you, and out of all the deals we do on eBay why would we randomly pick you to start something with if there was no issue? Simply put, we wouldn't! Our feedback speaks for itself, just take care of this please, I've spent several hours with you tonight chatting about this, I just want it over with and put behind us so we can get on with our lives here please! PLEASE!

him: (calls me at 1 am) Seriously? I call you to just get this resolved and you hang up on me? :(
 
Last edited:

mrdallas

Active member
Mar 20, 2013
1,414
0
Roseville CA


That sucks. Did he or has he ever sent you a picture of the actual front of the card? Because there is clearly damage on "that" card, but without seeing the front it could be any card and I totally see your concern. I would hope that in this case eBay may side with you unless this putz shows the other side of that card. Looks like a scam to me honestly. Sorry man, that sucks
 

cgilmo

Well-known member
Administrator
Aug 6, 2008
37,213
35
Alpharetta, Georgia, United States
That sucks. Did he or has he ever sent you a picture of the actual front of the card? Because there is clearly damage on "that" card, but without seeing the front it could be any card and I totally see your concern. I would hope that in this case eBay may side with you unless this putz shows the other side of that card. Looks like a scam to me honestly. Sorry man, that sucks

No he has not.
 

olerud363

Active member
Jun 14, 2010
3,212
14
Ontario, Canada
I would think the buyer doesn't have much of a case, should the dispute continue through ebay. Apart the mentioned issues around the picture he sent you, I think he's being pretty unreasonable demanding action within 15 minutes and so on.

Also, doesn't ebay have rules about feedback? His demands of "Do it this way and I'll post positive, and do it that way or I'll post negative" seem like feedback blackmail.

Sent from my Android using the Freedom Cardboard app.
 

mrdallas

Active member
Mar 20, 2013
1,414
0
Roseville CA
No he has not.

Yep, sounds like some shady stuff to me. Reasonable to me is, send me a picture of the front of the card or "kiss my ass". I would think that with those magic cards a bend in the card like the one he send you would also show up on the front of the card. Since it is a $50 card, I would contact eBay and show them not only the messages he sent you but also the fact that he has failed to send you a picture of the front of the card. He also threatens you with leaving Negative feedback which is a big NO NO with eBay. I think you have a strong case. I know that eBay does usually side with the buyer but you have a strong case on this one. If he does leave you a neg, eBay could/should remove it.
 

mrdallas

Active member
Mar 20, 2013
1,414
0
Roseville CA
If he sends it back, regardless if there was damage before,I am sure there will be now.


Ryan


You are right. If OP calls him on his bluff this guy could be a real **** and screw with the card. But if it is a HTF card then it would behoove him not to do that. Either way it sucks for the seller.
 

IUjapander

New member
Jan 28, 2011
1,003
0
Indianapolis
If he sends it back, regardless if there was damage before,I am sure there will be now.


Ryan

This is why the best course of action is to just say send the card back for a full refund. Ebay requires returns anyway, so I wouldn't ask for pictures or anything, just accept it and move on. You also don't get this whole back and forth and time wasting like above. For what it's worth this is sounding like they were looking for free cards, partial refund from the get go, probably no damage to the real card, although I agree it will be damaged now. If you are playing with the card, does damage even matter? Or wouldn't the fact that you are actually playing with it prevent it from grading high anyway? Not familiar enough with the game to see why the damage matters anyway if you are going to be using it.

Also, am I only the only one when I see stuff like, "this is for my kid", or his closing line I automatically think scam. I've made tens of thousands of transactions and never once needed to bring my child into the equation. I don't know, just always seems weird to me.
 

cgilmo

Well-known member
Administrator
Aug 6, 2008
37,213
35
Alpharetta, Georgia, United States
I would think the buyer doesn't have much of a case, should the dispute continue through ebay. Apart the mentioned issues around the picture he sent you, I think he's being pretty unreasonable demanding action within 15 minutes and so on.

Also, doesn't ebay have rules about feedback? His demands of "Do it this way and I'll post positive, and do it that way or I'll post negative" seem like feedback blackmail.

Sent from my Android using the Freedom Cardboard app.

I've already reported for feedback extortion
 

goobmcnasty

Active member
Apr 4, 2014
1,583
13
FYI - anytime a buyer mentions/threatens a negative feedback in communication with you, it violates ebay rules. If he ends up leaving one, ebay will remove it.
 

goobmcnasty

Active member
Apr 4, 2014
1,583
13
What sucks about ebay/paypal, is what sucks about ALL merchant accounts. No matter what, the customer always wins. Chargebacks cripple a merchant account, and the card companies rarely side with the seller.
 

Members online

Latest posts

Top