Vendor Deterioration

harasha

Just getting tired of the increasing evidence of carelessness amongst vendors, these days. I long ago came to accept that low value offerings from high end vendors and auction companies were usually mislabeled and inaccurately described.
However, I could usually trust the the more moderate dealer. The occasional mistake usually was ordinary negligence and easily corrected.
Now, more and more, it seems vendor error is becoming less the exception, relatively speaking; I stress the "relative" part. Most of my transactions are satisfactory.
Still, I have received 1.5" medals described as 3". Multiple medal purchases sent in envelopes too small for the size, resulting in item loss.
This posting was motivated by a particular frustrating transaction. I had purchased a medal, described as silver. The bidding was frenetic. The ebay vendor had a record of 3,000 plus transactions with a 100% feedback. My bid won and I was very pleased. Well, the medal arrived today. In hand, it is almost certainly a cast copy. Upon magnification, it is almost certainly silver plate, rather than silver. In my opinion, if this is the appearance to my somewhat unsophisticated eye, should it not have been clear to an expert vendor? The medal needs to be returned. To South Africa.

AuroraRarities

Such events are frustrating to say the least. I've had some doozies myself. I can understand the need to vent a bit.

Here's hoping the return goes smoothly and your next find turns out better than expected.

Cheers,

Pat

LochNESS

Sorry for the rough goings-on. We all make mistakes but 1.5" vs 3" is obvious to any eye.

Sounds to me like people are listing based on photos, rather than placing eyes on each item in-hand and then filling out their descriptions. It's unfortunate as these actions hurt more than they help. Minutes of time saved up front results in hours and dollars lost in the end.

rec78

Carelessness or purposely deceptive? If the seller wants to keep his 100% positive feedback he will return all the monies you are out along with an appropriate apology fairly quickly. Everyone makes mistakes, perhaps he was hasty that day or it just slipped by. I think that medals are a lot tougher than coins to authenticate and a coin auctioneer along with most coin collectors have a hard time ID'ing them. I have collected coins for over 50 years and have not had much contact with medals. You need a medal specialist to determine what some of them are-not a coin person. JMO.

Bob

harasha

From the tone of the reply to my issue, I must say that the vendor not only was gracious, but absolutely mortified.

LochNESS - basically, that is what the vendor said. The medal was issued in silver and bronze. It did not occur to him that someone may have silver plated the bronze.