eBay Buyer Claims Rubber Bands Put Big Dents in Slabs... What Actually Happened?

airplanenut

Quick background: An eBay buyer (located in Korea) won two 4-coin sets from me on the same day and as soon as one ended tried to back out of the sale because he made a mistake. I'm principled to a fault and assumed that if I declined to cancel, he just wouldn't pay and at least he'd get a deserved unpaid strike. I was already annoyed at the buyer for placing late retractions on a few other items of mine ending that day (including a retraction of a snipe in the last minute of a listing), and his record shows somewhere around 500 retractions in the last year. He's a cancer on eBay. To my chagrin, he paid for both items and I shipped them. Important note: because of customs rules, the two 4-coin sets were shipped in separate packages to make the shipping a lot cheaper.

A few weeks after shipping, the buyer opens a SNAD saying that the slabs were damaged by the rubber bands. When I ship a 4-coin set, the stack of 4 coins is split into two and the rubber band I use to keep the coins together with an inventory tag is around either one coin only or just one of the two stacks; the other stack is naked. It's also not a tight rubber band, let alone these slabs are hard enough to crack that a rubber band can't do anything. If you look closely, there are indentations on more than 2 of the slabs in the 1904 set, and in the 1906 set, every slab is slightly bent (though they still stack).

I've never heard of a slab getting damaged this way in shipment (I've sent tons of similar packages across the globe), let alone it happening twice to (shockingly) the same buyer. That said, I'm trying to piece together what actually may have happened (what did the buyer do, unless someone can think of a way this did happen in transit) largely out of curiosity. I originally thought he may have just used pliers/snips, but seeing the other slabs bent a little, I think heat was involved. I talked to eBay about this and they refunded the buyer (meaning I didn't pay anything out of pocket) and I got the buyer to ship the coins back lest he profit from this. Don't worry, I'm not planning to profit either. Whatever I do with the coins, any proceeds will go to charity.

Yes, I realize their foreign coins. I'm posting here because I know there are a lot of shippers here and a lot of people that have abused slabs to crack them open, and I want to tap into that knowledge base. And yes, in the future I should probably just acquiesce and let the winning bidder walk away from a sale completely unscathed.

jdimmick

I agree , thats got to be some sort of heat

MsMorrisine

This looks like 3 were distorted

MsMorrisine

Is the big one rubber width?

Kliao

No way that hard plastic slabs could be damaged from rubber bands. If they were, I would imagine them crack open rather than get distorted like that. I too think that was the product of heat.

CopperWire

Looks like someone set down their slabs next to a heat source. Did you inspect the slabs before shipping? I have received melted slabs from NGC, when I asked them about it they said it was "a normal part of the sonic sealing process." For the slabs in the photos, looks like a hair curler or an oven burner coil.

291fifth

Those must have been some red hot rubber bands!

it's unfortunate that the holders themselves are now damaged. Wouldn't you like to know what really happened to cause the damage. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that it was a deliberate attempt to create a reason to get out of the purchase.

I'm sure you have already blocked that bidder.

MetroD

A little dated, but here is a thread that includes reports of holders that 'distorted/warped' from being stored in a vehicle during the summer.

Point - at least at the time, the holders were comprised of a polymer that could 'soften/deform' under conditions conceivably encountered during a summer transport to Korea.

Here is the current link to the Travers article.

airplanenut

@MsMorrisine said:
Is the big one rubber width?

I can’t say for sure since I have a pile of rubber bands. Most are thinner (it’s easier to wrap a sticky label around them) but some are thicker and around that size.

@CopperWire said:
Looks like someone set down their slabs next to a heat source. Did you inspect the slabs before shipping? I have received melted slabs from NGC, when I asked them about it they said it was "a normal part of the sonic sealing process." For the slabs in the photos, looks like a hair curler or an oven burner coil.

Photos from the listing confirm no issues (and I can’t imagine I’d have missed that otherwise).

airplanenut

@MetroD said:
A little dated, but here is a thread that includes reports of holders that 'distorted/warped' from being stored in a vehicle during the summer.

Point - at least at the time, the holders were comprised of a polymer that could 'soften/deform' under conditions conceivably encountered during a summer transport to Korea.

Here is the current link to the Travers article.

Definitely an interesting thought. I think the toughest thing for me is that however unlikely this may be in general (never happened having shipped tens of thousands of slabs), the odds go down even further when you consider the buyer already has a history… of all buyers for it to happen to, the odds that it’s him?

@291fifth said:
Those must have been some red hot rubber bands!

it's unfortunate that the holders themselves are now damaged. Wouldn't you like to know what really happened to cause the damage. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that it was a deliberate attempt to create a reason to get out of the purchase.

I'm sure you have already blocked that bidder.

He was blocked just for trying to weasel out of the sale and all his retractions.

ms70

I wonder if they were exposed to just enough heat where the rubber bands were just strong enough to do that. Either way, it would be the fault of a substantial heat source, not the rubber bands. Then there's always the damage caused by seller possibility...... That sucks.

MsMorrisine

need some experimental sample slabs and a sunny day

messydesk

If a rubber band did that to a slab, imagine what picking it up and holding it would do.

NGC slabs are prone to bulging in some circumstances. The package was probably irradiated somehow during transit, thus causing the damage.

JBK

Agree. Heat or the impact of security screening by authorities.

amwldcoin

The Koreans are being super proactive about Covid. They zapped your package to kill the Coodies!

Aercus

It was not likely heat alone. Definitely not irradiation. Best guess? Rubber bands had some weird plasticizers combined with low level heat from the shipping process. The plasticizers softened up the slab in that area enough to deform it slightly.

I've done some shipping studies at one job using temp loggers. We saw spikes of up to 70C in some studies. Definitely not enough to melt plastic alone, but with plasticizers leeched from the bands, it is possible.

AlexinPA

here's a suggestion if I may. I ship all my coins in Self-Adhesive Cardboard Envelope Mailers. I can get two PCGS slabs to every mailer. Also, I think this is a bad case of Buyer's Remorse.

ricko

I strongly doubt the rubber band did that to the slabs.... I believe the buyer performed some type of distortion method simply to get out of the sale. Perhaps when you get them in hand, there will be further evidence of what was done. Cheers, RickO

BillyKingsley

Some Rubber bands will melt into plastic in extreme heat. The plastic itself will also melt in extreme heat (even being left in the sun would do it)

The fact that they both went to the same source means they experienced the same conditions so it happening to both is actually not a red flag, but logical.

My guess? It was exposed to extreme heat and the pressure from the rubber bands warped the plastic. Something as simple as leaving the mail in a car parked in the sun could do this.

Connecticoin

Watch out, those NGC prong holders may put dents in the actual coins:

mr1931S

May not be damn thing wrong with the slabs. Photoshop job?

Zwiggy

Some rubber bands can react with slabs - the plastisizer can come of of the band and get into the plastic. I’ve had an old NGC slab where a rubber band fused itself into the plastic. In this case, I couldn’t separate the two, and the band left marks on the plastic (I finally reholdered it).

In this case though, since there is diffusion of the plasticizer - one would expect some hazing at the point of contact, or the rubber band fused in itself. Since you see none, it has to be heat only. Either applied on purpose (more likely) or during transit.

mr1931S

If a buyer can establish SNAD successfully with ebay, isn't it true that the buyer can get refund PLUS keep the item(s)?

mr1931S

Some rubber bands can react with slabs - the plastisizer can come of of the band and get into the plastic. I’ve had an old NGC slab where a rubber band fused itself into the plastic. In this case, I couldn’t separate the two, and the band left marks on the plastic (I finally reholdered it).

Wouldn't it take quite a bit of time for a reaction between the rubber bands and the plastic holder to occur? Or is this the kind of thing that can happen in a relatively short time like the time it takes in the mail to get a package to a destination in Korea?

privatecoin

Possibly stored near something hot during shipping?

neildrobertson

If the slabs were hot enough, the rubber band would apply enough force to move the plastic. But you would blame the heat and not the rubber band in that sort of instance.

airplanenut

@ricko said:
I strongly doubt the rubber band did that to the slabs.... I believe the buyer performed some type of distortion method simply to get out of the sale. Perhaps when you get them in hand, there will be further evidence of what was done. Cheers, RickO

Note that the photos literally show the slabs in my hand

@mr1874 said:
May not be damn thing wrong with the slabs. Photoshop job?

These are my photos

@mr1874 said:
If a buyer can establish SNAD successfully with ebay, isn't it true that the buyer can get refund PLUS keep the item(s)?

It depends. I've never had it happen where the buyer got money from me and got to keep the items (in some rare cases I think that can happen), but on multiple occasions including this one, eBay agreed with me but still honors their "we can't prove the buyer did anything wrong, so we have to assume their claim is right" philosophy and they refunded him. He could have kept the coins at that point, but I got him to send them back.

ajaan

Very nice Maundy Set.

BStrauss3

I have filed a claim with fleaBay over a clearly counterfeit Morgan.

The seller refunded my money and neither the seller nor the flea asked me to return the item.

mr1931S

I assumed the pictures were from the buyer. Thanks for the clarification.