I screwed up, how can I make it right?

thatboyaintright · July 1, 2014 3:05PM

I erroneously listed a coin as a Vespasian silver Denarius 79AD in the title of an Ebay auction. The coin looked silver to me and I didn't pay attention but there was an SC on the reverse. I thought SC was only on the senatorial authority bronzes. It was struck by Titus in 80-81 AD.

So I message the buyer, there were two very active bidders on this piece. I say sorry if there was a mistake on the listing, send it back for a full refund if you don't want it. Funny thing is it sold for $200 less that I expected so the buyer must think he got a good deal because he left great feed back but wont return my message.

I sent him a second note to say I'm glad your happy but I made an error. Please let me know if you want to keep the coin or refund it. Again no answer

What do I do now?

Boosibri · July 1, 2014 3:35PM

Nothing left to do. You did your part, the buyer is happy.

desslok · July 1, 2014 4:23PM

Is it possible that the buyer knew what he was getting and is happy with it anyway? I know nothing about ancients, but in my field of collecting (world error coins) I sometimes ignore the sellers description entirely and make my own judgement about the coin. It happens sometimes that sellers have no real knowledge about what they are selling.

nicholasz219 · July 1, 2014 6:22PM

Yes I agree. A lot of times I just ignore the listing title and glance at it only to see if the year is listed for something like my Farthings or Russian where I am looking for certain dates. Otherwise I look at the pictures mostly and only refer to the title or description afterwards. Like it was said, sometimes sellers have bad titles or descriptions or just no real info is in either. If I'm unsure, I message the seller.

If the buyer has already left you positive feedback then I would consider the transaction closed and worry about something else.

theboz11 · July 1, 2014 7:34PM

Leave him positive feedback and be on your way

Steve27 · July 1, 2014 8:00PM

I recently purchased a very nice Caracalla denarius via ebay. It didn't surprise me at all that the title of the auction was "Elagabalus Denarius." Many of the attributions of ancient coins on ebay are wrong, so you're not the first.

Stork · July 1, 2014 11:16PM

A lot of people know what they are buying despite the title/description. A large, well known and knowledgable seller recently listed a few Japanese minors...clearly there'd been a template in use and several obviously not-silver coins had silver in the title. I knew they weren't silver--and it was obvious they weren't silver to the most cursory of glances, nothing nefarious was meant and the pictures were quite clear. I bought them and didn't give it a second thought (until now).

I've also seen misattributed dates etc...if it's a big mistake I generally send an email so no one gets burned, however to people buying the coins it should be obvious...but sometimes it's on the label of a TPG slab. Once I bought one that was clearly disclosed as a label error by the seller (Hello Jeremy!) and once not, but the values were the same. I just took both slabs to Baltimore and dropped them off at their respective company to get corrected labels.

In any case, my point is that you did the right thing...you contacted the buyer and offered to make good, but at this point presumptively the buyer knew what he was buying and is happy with the purchase. Hopefully there wasn't a big monetary difference.

lordmarcovan · July 2, 2014 5:45PM

I think you're covered. You did your part to correct the error.

As others have mentioned, there is a good chance the buyer knew what he was getting anyway, regardless of the title and/or description of the auction. Most people look at the pictures and pay little attention to the rest.

I screwed up, how can I make it right?

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