Ebay Etiquette?
 

I am recently back into the hobby and have benefitted tremendously from all of the knowledge on this forum and would appreciate your advice. I have a question about Ebay etiquette and expectations. This morning I sent a seller a request for images of the back of a card and closeup photos of the bottom corners. I was initially suspicious of the listing due to the relatively low # of feedback ratings (thought the seller has numerous positive ratings related to selling) and the lack of back photos on a $4,000 item. I won't post the listing as it is an acitve item on eBay and I dont think that is allowed on here (I can if that is approvable). The seller responded with a cryptic message which I can decipher as being a phone number. Based on this, I am not moving forward with any further discussion. But should this be reported to eBay? I am fairly sure this is against the terms of use on eBay.

Thanks again for being a great resource for all of us and especially those of us newly back to card collecting.

IMO, at that price point, I wouldn't take a chance.

Better to work with long established sellers...though I've all but stopped buying now...when I did, I was very careful who I dealt with.

Be patient, there will be another (and better ) opportunity - besides, it is an obvious sellers' market right now.


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I wouldn't report a seller trying to give you a phone number or otherwise trying to contact you about doing business outside of eBay, I would just ignore them and not do any business with them.

If you aren't comfortable
 

just move on. I agree it is unusual for a seller to list that expensive a card and not have better images. He could be trying to take you off Ebay - 1) TO save you both some $ or 2) because it's a scam. Most important - if your gut says no - move on. I wouldn't report him.

If you aren't comfortable
 

just move on. I agree it is unusual for a seller to list that expensive a card and not have better images. He could be trying to take you off Ebay - 1) TO save you both some $ or 2) because it's a scam. Most important - if your gut says no - move on. I wouldn't report him.

There are two things going on here. Against eBay rules or not, sometimes you want (or need?) to be able to contact a seller off-line. I have no problem with that at all and wouldn't report it. But if this guy is a possible scammer, that's a whole different kettle of fish, so approach it very carefully.

Thank you all for confirming my initial instinct of avoiding further interaction. After doing a bit more diligence, I found that the seller received a negative feedback a few weeks ago for canceling a sale on this exact same card. Negative feedback stated that Seller said it sold too low in the auction so seller canceled the sale. It’s now listed as BIN for a few hundred more than that auction amount. While the listing may not be a scam, it’s certainly not good business, in my opinion, and I will move on to the next opportunity. Thanks again.

Agree with not reporting to eBay: As someone said, sometimes it feels necessary to talk to a human rather than trade text messages, so trying to do that isn't necessarily nefarious. And since no direct harm came to you, better to let it go rather than stick yourself out there in case the seller turned out to be a jerk and tried to retaliate against your account in some way. No need to escalate and then potentially lose sleep over it.