Posted By:
Jerry SpillmanAn anatomy of a fraud perpetrated by an Ebay Seller
In July 2002 there was a Sporting Life Cabinet card listed on Ebay that interested me. The following is a copy of the description that appeared on that Ebay Auction page.
Description: 1906 W600 Sporting Life Cabinet Arthur Hoffman Chicago N.L. Cabinet photo is clear and bright with no fading or yellowing. Focus & registration are perfect. Centering is perfect, corners are sharp. Light staining left & bottom border. No creases, wrinkles,tack pin holes writing etc. COMES WITH ORIGINAL GLASSINE SHIPPING MATERIAL. Unfortunately the envelope is gone. Solid card. Collectors know how difficult these are to find nice! I have placed a reasonable reserve to protect my investment. Winner to pay $5 for USPS Priority Mail. Insurance is optional based upon final value. I accept Checks, Money Orders, Cashiers' Checks and PayPal. I also accept Visa/MasterCard through PayPal, shipped to confirmed address only. I try to describe all items as accurately as possible. However I am not a professional grader. I use terms generally accepted in the hobby and provide representative scans. Please EMail me if you have any questions, I will respond promptly. Happy bidding!
On Jul-01-02 at 14:21:37 PDT, seller added the following information: Please contact me if you are interested in W600's as I have others including Plank.
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The Ebay auction page in question showed a scan of about 70% of the actual cabinet card size. My best judgement of the image was that the card was in the vg/ex-ex category. Generally I pass on small images for fear that condition problems are being hidden. But highlighted "COMES WITH ORIGINAL GLASSINE SHIPPING MATERIAL" in the description made me believe that the card was clean. All the SLC cards I have ever seen that were still in their original envelope have had pristine photo areas and clean backs - the producer's intention. No back scan of the cards were given.
I contacted the seller Robert Craik (rbcraik@aol.com). He gave me the URL of his web site. I then selected a card to purchase from a list cards on that site.
The initial auctioned card had a reserve. The card had been listed for quite some time and as the seller told me, the high bid at the time was about $100 short of the reserve. I bid the reserve, no one bid higher so I won. Payment was made for the two cards.
A day to remember: I received a large flexible envelope delivered by a USPO mail carrier. I opened the package and found two baseball cabinet cards wrapped in some unfamiliar amber color cellophane (not the original glassine as advertised) between two magazines and two pieces of ripped off cardboard. I could not believe what I saw. The cards showed damage to both fronts and backs. The seller did not disclose this damaged condition.
The fronts of the cards had water stain spots all over the photo (the main focus of any card). These stains blended with the colors of the photo in the scanning process therefore they were not visible on the auction image.
On the backs of the cards, dozens of small pieces of the white paper that is the bonded backing to the cardboard card were hanging off. These grossly shredded backs were obviously due to being ripped off an album page.
I was duped. To avoid any domestic unpleasantness by admitting that I spent $761 on such junk, I immediately took the cards to my work area. I wrapped them in the amber cellophane, packed them in a proper size USPO Priority box. Then I drove to the Post Office, insured and shipped them back to the seller. Emailed the seller that the cards are being returned for a refund.
Due to the ugly water spots on the photo I judged the condition of front of these cards to be "Good" and the backs "Poor". Overall condition Fair to Good at best. This means that in affect, the cards I received were at least three grades lower than I paid for. However, cards in this condition I would not own at any price.
In my response from the seller he suggested that he would reduce the price I paid by $150 if I kept the cards and that normally "My personal policy is no refunds". (Meaning what ever I send you, you must keep - no matter what!)
Without any mention of his 'policies' in the auction description, he arbitrarily decided to deduct an inflated $38.90 Ebay fee, $22.39 Paypal fee, $11.75 shipping cost and a $99.75 restocking fee from my purchase price of $761.75. I expected to be stuck with the shipping cost of this insulting transaction but he kept $184.54 from my refund! A nice living could be made just following this pattern of business conduct.
Dealing with buyers and sellers on Ebay since 1997 and not having any problems I thought this situation would be resolved. It was not to be. On 8-5-02 a complaint against this seller was filed with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center. Their web site states: "The IFCC receives thousands of complaints monthly and does not have the resources to respond to these inquiries. The IFCC reviews every complaint and refers them to law enforcement and regulatory agencies having jurisdiction."
An Ebay Fraud Complaint was registered against the seller on 8-12-02 along with a negative feedback rating. To this complaint the seller stated that I had "buyer's remorse". As a reply to my Ebay Fraud Claim Number 43067 on 10-12-02 Ebay informed me that my claim was denied because of the involvement of the second card.
In the above auction item description the seller writes this self-serving statement: "I try to describe all items as accurately as possible. However I am not a professional grader." Must one be a professional grader to see such conspicuous damage? In addition to being a collector I have been a table holder at the National Sports Collector Convention for 22 years. I've owned and handled many thousands cards. Never encountered such outright deception. This is a case of FRAUD.