Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Stupid eBay Shenanigans

Late last week, I won this card on eBay:

2008 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Nick Markakis jumbo swatch #'d 6/10
Sweet card, right? I didn't spend too much on it, and was pretty excited when the auction closed, and I was the winner.

Well, it arrived on Monday, and at firt glance I was absolutely thrilled with it. I mean, this is a jersey card, not that 2cm x 2cm crap that is in every single product these days. My joy quickly turned to sadness and then to anger when I flipped the card over and found this:
See that giant nick on the top left? Yeah, so did I. It's pretty deep too. This card was NOT advertised as being damaged, and was shipped in a top loader and bubble mailer that were both pristine, so it's doubtful this happened while the card was en route to my collection.

The shenanigans part comes in to play only after I contacted the seller.

Here is his response to my message about receiving a damaged card:

"sorry for missing that part of a 70 card lot that my employee listed over couple of days and must have just missed it No problem if you want to return will refund payment as soon as received thanks Douchey McDouche BookDouche Collectibles" (name changed to protect seller's identity)

I then responded and asked him if he would cover the cost to ship the card back, since I paid for a damaged card as it is, and to have that damaged card shipped to me. Here once again, is the seller's response:

"
Sorry but shipping costs are not covered but if you want to keep card will offer you a $2.00 paypal refund"

$2.00 refund? Shipping costs not covered? This card cost me almost $10, and is DAMAGED and therefore WORTHLESS! At this point I was pretty pissed off, and fired back this response:

"
$2? I paid almost $10 for a damaged card. If you have doubts, I just scanned it and will gladly send you a copy. Refunding half or all of my money sounds fair, especially since you're not going to be able to sell this card again."

To which Mr. McDouche then responded with this gem:

"
Sorry thats best we can do for a limited to 10 jumbo jersey that came out of a $100 pack Otherwise just return but postage is your responsibility"

How the hell is it my problem that this doucheknuckle pulled a damaged card out of his $100 pack and tried to sell it on eBay? This has to be the shittiest customer service I have ever recieved on eBay. After 120+ transactions never have I once been ripped off, or had something like this happen to me.

Here is my final message to the seller, which he has not responded to:

"This is not good customer service. I will be returning the card, and expect a full refund. How much the pack cost you is inconsequential. You sold me a damaged card, and will be receiving negative feedback for your poor customer service, and if this card is ever re-listed, I will report you as well as alert the buyer that they are bidding on damaged goods."

How much do you wanna bet that this card is re-listed at some point in the near future? If this guy gave a crap about his customers, he would refund my money, and tell me to keep the card since it's essentially worthless. At the very least he would cover my shipping costs for me to send the card back to him. I covered his shipping costs so he could send me a damaged card, so why not return the favor?

Regardless of all of this, I'm still tempted to keep the card. It's a huge swatch, and is limited to 10 copies. The damage is on the back, so I wouldn't really even see it. In my mind I would know it though, everytime I looked at this card, that it's damaged. I don't know. What would you do?

Has anything like this ever happened to you? What would you have done differently in dealing with this dirtbag seller?

7 comments:

  1. I am currently going through a similar instance with a Chipper Jones card. All together including S+H I paid $4.50 for the card. Long story short, I made a claim to Paypal. Paypal agreed that I should get a full refund. BUT, I now have to pay (out of my pocket) to ship the card back to the seller, with tracking. A cost of just over $8.
    So according to Paypal, I was screwed by the seller, but to get my $4.50 back, I have to spend $8.
    Paypal favours the sellers big time. This is #3 for me on the bay. Things need to change.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Beardy, can you email me the seller's id so that I can avoid them in the future? I went through a similar issue with a Hanley patch card that was nicked up, dented in several locations, and had terrible damage to the back...all not noticeable from the crappy photo on eBay. When contacted, the seller had the audacity to say (I paraphrase) that they hadn't noticed the small imperfections, especially compared to the "awesome patches." He basically called me a nitpicker while his ebay description stated that it was NR-MT to MT. I also wasn't able to get back my shipping, so the douche got me. I haven't check out whether he re-listed the card, but it's terrible. I take pride in how I ship items and being honest...there's a reason why BO cards or DA cards are getting more business, because LHS are too busy trying to screw us in a plethora of manners.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is really bad.I've been fortunate on ebay so far but I would like his id also,please.That's a good reason cards should not cost $100/pack, but as long as someone will pay it they will still be out there.And you can't blame the card companies,I'd sell packs for a hundred bucks if I thought I could.Maybe I should try to sell that guy some !

    ReplyDelete
  4. I bought a box the other because the seller stated it had odds for 3 hits in the box. I specifically emailed the seller and asked if they took the odds from the box or from some other auction. They said the odds were on the box.

    Ok awesome, sold. 3 days later box arrives I tear in and found 0 hits, I then search the box for the odds (nowhere to be found) and then write them back and they admit to lying to me but then say I should have looked at the box for odds before I opened it????

    Needless to say they got neg feedback

    ReplyDelete
  5. p.s. I would just keep it... it is a good card. Take whatever they will give you back and keep the card.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hmmm... I don't know. That's a huge swatch. It really sucks that he didn't disclose the damage. It's easy for me to say just keep it and not worry about it, but I'm not nearly as attached to it as you are. If it were a Yanks card, I'd be pissed, especially since it's numbered to 10. If I had any Orioles relics I'd propose a trade... but I don't.

    If you're returning it, I'd make sure I got my money from the seller first.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well, if you want to get rid of it that badly, you could always just give to someone.

    Like me, for instance.

    ReplyDelete