Sad State of the Hobby
 

I'm a night owl, and so late last night somebody on eBay put up a nice set of cards with a $2,000 US BIN. It was a very good deal. These cards were in great condition and if they had graded high, then I would have doubled my money - maybe tripled. I did send the seller a message prior to heading to bed and he thanked me for my purchase. The following morning (today), he cancelled the order and refunded me my money. He told me his daughter spilled a drink on them. And just to show you how dumb this guy is, he immediately re-listed the cards for $9,000 US with best offer and it sold quickly (according to Slabwatch - $3,200 USD).

I told this guy that if he had wanted more money, then all he had to do was ask. And yes, I negged his a** as well. I looked him up on Facebook too. He is a young father with a baby daughter and I am not going to post his name, nor will I post his eBay ID. He doesn't deal much on eBay, and so you people don't need to worry about anything here.

Now, I love seeing the hobby on fire. I own many cards and I love selling at a profit. However, when things like this start happening, it can be hard to enjoy it. It's just so sad how people can step on each other's toes, and how sellers can back out or even blame their own children for their own mistakes.

Yes...I think this is why most serious collectors don't deal with ebay/facebook. There is way too much bullshit that goes on!

So you were about to get something woefully undervalued by the seller, who does very little business selling cards, under priced perhaps as much as 300%, and then someone got to the seller, told him he was making a serious mistake, and then he turns around and pulled the rug out from under you with a bullshit story. And then you do detective work, find out who he and his kids are, and then agree not to out him, a young father with a baby.

I don't know dude, I think I would just move on at this point. Not sure your coming out of this looking a whole lot better at this point than him. A nasty email message, sure. Going beyond that for personal information about his life seems a bridge too far.

I got the old "Out of Stock" trick pulled on me late last week with a Mantle card from a seller who is somewhat well known, and also a prominent member of the YouTube community. It took some time, but I eventually got a story that may or may not be true on why my order was cancelled nearly 3 days after I had paid. Regrettable, but all too common in today's hobby. I was pretty steamed about it, whether it was really the guy's fault or not.

This is one reason I slowed down a bit buying, and just trying to be slow with what I still have left before shows come back. I feel that I have been priced out on many cards, all years modern and vintage. I agree I am still looking for the best deal and when something comes along and you cannot finish the transaction it can be tough. Good luck with the next one you find, there is always more stuff! just move on

Jimmy

+1
Isn't that the truth.

One of my favorite lines is from the Flim Flam Man. Someone asks George C. Scott what a flim flam is and he tells him "Son, that's when a man with experience meets a man with money. The man with the experience gets the money and the man with the money gets the experience."

There are a lot of inexperienced people out in the market right now. Some are selling too low and others are buying way too high. Although this story ended with the seller getting a fair price, he gave up some of his integrity to get there, which is an expensive lesson on its own.

Thanks for your stupid comments, Steve.

He did all this for $1,200 USD, that's right, $1,200 USD. If he wanted more money, then all he had to do was ask (and I would have done it!) Some people would have outed him and even reported him to eBay, but I did neither, so I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

I like how all of this bs is supposedly new. Bad deals date back long before any of us mouth breathers were around.. The online voyeurism is the sad truth of it all. I had a terrible interaction with a seller on ebay thats widely respected on this forum about a month ago and then a really honest and respectful transaction with a new seller today. Good days and bad just like always. Honesty would have been preferred so I agree with the OP on that. But, scouting the dude out over baseball cards.........

I'm sorry this is happening to you.

What's wrong with looking people up on Facebook? I always like to know who is on the other end, that's all.

Now if I had sent him a message on Facebook and said something like "hey punk, I found you! I am gonna' get you now!" then yes, that would be a different story! LOL!

At least he didn't shill them up

Could be that I just don't get it. This forum is the only online social interaction I have. I'm not conditioned to it. I realize that I'm in the minority for not having an FB or IG. Could be totally normal and I'm wrong. I guess if you put yourself out there you're subject to being looked at.

Agree. I do not participate in that type of social media either. But those who do need to know they are subjecting themselves to the world (for better or for worse).

This is happening a lot on ebay right now. Prices are going up so fast, that sellers are literally leaving money on the table the day after they sell so they are cancelling sales. craziness

The purchase I made today was literally top end for the card bit not over priced and even an offer within 5% wasn't accepted. Realistically, had it not been a bin it would have auctioned for more. I get the fear of starting auctions low, but from what I'm seeing it's a pretty safe bet. Better than letting cards rot at high bins too because you get the bidding war and last minute impulse bids on auctions.

I had won and paid for a 1964 topps Aaron for the set I am working on. Things were fine until Mr. Aaron dies and then all of the sudden I get a message saying he can't find the card and must have sold it.
My money was refunded. Cost me almost double to get another and not in as nice of shape. This was a rather large seller with 100% feedback. Maybe he was telling the truth but it stunk for me either way.

The seller was wrong but maybe more financially desperate than you know. Seems like you have a sense of this, which is why you are not outing the seller. We are all pressed to make decisions, you know. Like Thursday, was at my office and coming out to the parking afterwards I saw a homeless guy making himself at home in one of the parking stalls for the night. Technically, i should have alerted security to roust him out of there. It was in the forties and rainy all night so I let it be. Just didn't have the stomach to turn the guy out into the rain.

People who do not know what they are selling should not sell without doing their homework. If they do I have no sympathy for them, but I do understand the impulse to correct a mistake like that. $2K on a $3200 item is not shockingly low; if it happened to me I'd be pissed, but if the seller was a newbie or clueless or seemed to be in financial straits I maybe wouldn't look on a chat board to commiserate either.

$1200 could certainly mean a lot to many people these days. Especially if this guy is out if work and selling these cards to make ends meet. Obviously the honorable thing to do (aside from honoring the original agreement) would have been to admit he priced it too low and offer it to you for what he was willing to accept.

I'm not sure one isolated incident from someone who is obviously not part of our hobby has anything to do with the overall state of the hobby as the OP suggests.

I don’t do any social media for this very reason. The idea of some card seller/buyer checking out pictures of me at my son’s first birthday party and me and my wife in Cancun on our wedding anniversary because an eBay transaction went bust gives me the willies. But maybe I’m old school in that regard.
I’ve had people on eBay in the last few months dick me around over paying for an $8 card. At a certain point I just tell myself they must be having a tough time of things and move on.

Disagree with a lot of the comments here. If you personally agree to a deal or tell someone you'll commit to an action, follow through with it, regardless of circumstance outside of grave sickness. I'm not talking about telling your wife you'll wash the dishes and instead watch the game :). I'm talking about real agreements!

If that's too much to ask please leave the hobby. The OP got a raw deal and has every right to be upset.

Agreed. And the cowardly lie the seller told makes it even worse. Sounds like the guys with buyer's regret who claim their 2 year old grandkid hit the BIN.

Yeah, we know the hobby is about nothing if not integrity. If an uninformed seller misprices an item by 300%, get it and run. That’s the hobby behavior we know and love.
How dare someone take advantage of me when I was trying to get over on them!!!

Then the guy should have had the balls to say I mispriced it are you interested at a higher price.

I agree 100%. Wasn't defending the dude. His behavior was unacceptable. But when I got to the part about he's a young father, etc., well that seemed a bit much.
Lack of privacy these days we all have is truly frightening. I think there are lines that should be respected. Again, maybe minority view these days.
Never suggested seller wasn't in the wrong.

It really weirds me out also.

What a victim! "he cancelled the order and refunded me my money. He told me his daughter spilled a drink on them."

The guy handled is unethically. OK. Get it. Reflects poorly on him as a person. And you needed to take a dive into his family situation why exactly? To confirm he had a daughter? Confirm her age? I think you should have left the dispute where it started, on eBay, and not carried it somewhere else.

I agree with the original poster. He is not the one that: (1) did not properly do his homework; (2) listed the cards; (3) came up with the buy it now price; (4) agreed to sell the cards at the listed price; (5) breached the contract; or (6) lied about the reason for breaching the contract.

It’s not his fault that he got a good deal. A sale is a sale is a sale. A man’s word used to mean something.

My personal policy is I do not buy or sell items more than $500 unless it's through an auction house.

Dive into his family situation? The OP looked him up on Facebook. Ooohhh, no one ever does that. Or Googles someone. Never happens.

Please.

This reminds me of around 1990 (or so) when people were pre-selling wax cases. The price from the manufacturer could have been about $250 and people were taking pre-orders for $400. Then the price of OPC baseball started to skyrocket. People were paying $1200, $1600 for pre-ordered cases. When the first cases were delivered, the people that pre-sold for $400 were screwing the people that paid for cases in advance and refunding the buyer their money so that they could sell them for another thousand more. People got so G-damn greedy, it was really pathetic.

It was a frigging orgy of greed. A-holes coming out of the wood work just looking to screw someone. I set up a few dealers on Coin-Net back then. Coin-Net figured it out and offered a portal for sports card dealers (yes, way back in the dial-up days). These dealers would let me scan Coin-Net and I could see all of the screwing that was going on.

GREED - GREED - GREED, looks like it's coming back in full force - it's always been here but when things start escalating and getting crazy, then it gets really bad.

Well said.

And we have all inevitably had sellers' remorse at some time, by pricing things too low. It's just part of the deal. Seller needed to man up, and refrain from his blatant lying. Integrity seems to be dying a rapid death these days.

The sale should have been completed as agreed upon but the seller made an extra $1200 with no negative recourse; not even having his ebay handle outed on a hobby website. What’s to keep him from continuing to do it?

I'd have 10 percent of my collection at best if I did that. And have never consigned. Different strokes I guess.

Funny, a similar thing happened to me on eBay. I purchased 6 sets off a guy contingent on them all being sealed. First he said they all were, then after looking again he said one was not. I tried to work something out so he could refund me what he felt was fair for just the one set, but instead refunded me for all, while also adding that he can instead sell them separately and "make extra money".

Agreed--what sanctimonious claptrap.

This
 

This is not a complicated situation. The seller put cards up for sale and accepted the buyer's offer. The seller then decided not to honor the sale and backed out with an excuse. To add insult to injury, the seller then resold the cards for a higher amount to a different buyer. Judge Patrick rules in 100% favor with the original buyer, who started this thread.

not me, I always have buyers remorse as all the good cards I've purchased, I've set records for the fellas. Never sold a card on my life.

Your sister, who doesn't know much about baseball cards, tells you she sold a card on ebay for $500. Curious, you ask for the link and when you look at it, at first it looks like a reasonable deal - an ungraded T206 common in very nice shape for $500. But you look a little closer at this Joe Doyle card and notice it has the N.Y. Nat'l designation behind his name.

Does Judge Patrick:
1. Get on the phone immediately and tell his sister not to ship that card, because it is worth something north of a million dollars?
2. Tell his sister she just threw away a million bucks, but what's more important is, she maintained her integrity?

Two people make a verbal agreement on a deal for $1,000, but nothing is written down. Another person hears of the deal before payment is exchanged and offers $50,000 for the same card. The buyer at $50,000 needs confirmation right away that the deal is done. The seller reluctantly says yes, thinking they will pay the original buyer at $1,000 an extra $5,000 to satisfy them despite not getting the card. Upon promising an extra $5,000, the buyer says it is not enough and wants an extra $20,000. The seller says there wasn't written agreement in the first place so the $5,000 is generous. Who is right and who is wrong?

One can think of increasingly unlikely scenarios and debate that question until the end of time. It's not very relevant. The point is, a verbally confirmed deal should be a deal with extremely limited exception, the OP is right to be upset how this went down and shouldn't be vilified for either pursuing a very good deal, or doing a small amount of research to see who screwed him over and lied about it for some extra bucks in a rising market.

The seller is wrong for lying about the reason, he should've admitted he made a mistake.

OP is wrong for getting so upset, when there was no money lost. You left a negative feedback, move on.

Think of it this way the hobby has always been full of shady characters there’s just more of them now because people see money. Another good way to think of it is; forget about it, move on, the cards probably sucked anyway.

Life is to short and there are many more deals to be had.

Heaven Forfend!!! The OP actually looked up someone who ripped him off on a platform the individual WILLINGLY posts his personal information on, for THE ENTIRE WORLD TO SEE???? Criminal!!! How dare he do what trillions of people do constantly and without second thought and look someone up online! The nerve!

Also Ran-jodh, how dare you not do what the hypocrites here mentioned. You should be assisting the useless seller, and do all of his work completely for him. This is 2021, no eBay seller should be expected to have any integrity, keep their word or know what they're selling...... that's everyone else's job... and shame on you for not helping him get every dollar he "deserves".

He's a new father after all!!!! .... and so much more important than you or what's right apparently....

Perhaps the guy who lied to the OP is posting on this thread? Only way I can explain the moral relativism.

How was he ripped off? He lost no money.

There aren't trillions of people.

He lost the difference between the market value, the cost to purchase another one, and the discounted cost one (the benefit of his bargain) that was the subject of his transaction.

Let's say you are in the market for a new car. The market value for the model you want is $40k. You negotiate a deal with a dealer for $35k. After the sale, the dealer then refunds your money and then sells it to another customer for $40k.

Now, if you want that same car, you are forced to pay $40k on the open market. You will have to pay $5k more. You have lost this amount. You have lost the benefit of the bargain you negotiated.

I think anyone would be unhappy with this result.

Unhappy? Of course.

I disagree, if OP is not out money, he wasn't ripped off. He's exactly the same as before the deal. I guess we see it different.

Some of these comments are hilarious.
Definitely some hypocrite sellers on here...

This is an interesting thread. For those arguing that the original buyer was “taking advantage” of the seller - how far does that argument go? Does a buyer have an affirmative duty to contact a seller and say “Hey, your price on this is way low - let me give you 2x” or whatever?