The old eBay Bait & Switch

Big80s

For the second time in a month - I have won an item on eBay only to be mailed a card that is in much worse condition than the card that was pictured in the auction. This seller has thousands of sales and only one "neutral" comment. I have to believe I'm not the first person he's pulled this on. Do you guys deal with this sort of thing very often? It's really frustrating to know how many dishonest people are in this industry.

Brian48

Only once. The seller (who's NARU now) used a stock photo of a #'d Brady rookie. He sent me a different card altogether that was off center and had a different #. Got into an argument with him about, but he agreed to take the card back if the card didn't grade at least a PSA 9.

Big80s

I emailed the seller telling him that I "assumed" it was a mix-up and that I'd like to return the card for a refund. We'll see if I hear back from him.

twiley

This happens to me more then 50% of the time as of lately. It is to the point for me at least that I email seller thru paypal not ebay. After to many run arounds from sellers sending me junk cards as replacements. It seems from experience that I get much better results doing this way.

I get the card obviously the card isn't the one pictured. I don't even bother asking seller for replacements. I just open a Paypal dispute saying the item is not as described. I escalate it and I return the card with Delivery Confirmation if the amount is under 250. If it is over 250 I use signature confirmation. So far I have always gotten my $ back (knock on wood).

WinPitcher

Ebays allows for stock photos, however the seller should mention it.


Steve

Blacklabelsociety

From my experiences raw card dealers on ebay are very deceptive. They will advertise nm-mt, and the cards would be lucky to recieve a 5 grade if sent to PSA.

Big80s

Update: I was just refunded from the before-mentioned seller, thankfully. I guess the moral to the story is, stick with the sellers you know you can trust regardless of the feedback scores.

lsutigers1973

I prefer the new Bait & Switch

54topps

This happened 1 time to me. I needed 1 last card to complete an all PSA 9/10 set. I bought the card based on the picture and description. The card I received was way off center.

WalterSobchak

I have had relatively good luck as far as this not happening to me much in my EBay buying career, but it did happen to me a couple months ago. I purchased three raw 1970 Topps cards (three separate auctions) where the seller didn't advertise a specific grade but the cards looked to be NM/NM-MT from the scan. The auction stated "please see scan for condition" and stated nothing about using a stock photo.
When I got the cards, I compared them to the scans- and based on the centering alone it was obvious that I did not get the card pictured in two of the three cases- and the third card I couldn't tell for certain. The total of the purchase was about eight dollars, so not worth the trouble to return them.

No neg or neut, but I did ding her for a few "item as described" stars.