What would you do?

[Archive]

Posted By: Joann

So Bill. Let me get this straight. You are saying that you could go onto the BST, write some artfully worded ads for vintage cards, sell them at market value, and send out reprints. And come back the next day to do it again, claiming the right to make sales in this manner because you never really SAID they were 100% authentic. Do I have that right? Do you think Leon would let that go on for long? Can you see why not? Would you be good with buying a $500 card off the BST, receiving a reprint and having Leon and the seller say that's okay? Your ethical standards for sellers are pretty low.


Another thing that has gotten missed in this whole unfortunate thing is Joe's character. The seller has had several people vouch for his honesty, and his present ebay feedback seems to support this. But his stated reason for not refunding Joe's money when the reprint was brought to his attention (within, it seems, a reasonable time) was that Joe may have switched the card.

The thought of Joe switching out a card in an attempt to steal $1200 from someone is laughable. It's easily as unlikely as this seller intentionally defrauding someone. And yet, the seller bascially said he was keeping the $1200 because Joe may have - probably? - planned to return a reprint instead of the card he got. Huh?

See, the bad thing about this episode of "Something Went Wrong Between Two Good Guys" is that after the dust settles, the one that is out $1200 is Joe. That seems unfair, and I'm surprised the seller isn't at least willing to talk compromise - even after all this time - now that he can see from this board that Joe did not switch cards.

Joe - I'd send it back to SGC first of all. It looks pretty good to me, and if the seller says it was once in an SGC slab maybe the rejection was the mistake. As to the $400, I'm just dying to tell you to keep it as partial payment of the $1200. I understand the arguments about whether that would make you a "good person" or not, but for some reason the seller seems to be getting a free pass on the "good person " front because of his reputation in the hobby. I'm not sure I see how his keeping $1200 by suggesting you would cheat him on a return is any different than you, in good faith, keeping his $400 for a card that got rejected by SGC. Definitely very gray areas we are in here.

In the end though, I think you are right to do exactly what you are doing. Don't sell him the card. That would be the final straw in the unfairness here. Keep it, let him have his $400 back, but don't lift one finger to make it easy for him to get it. Tell him to have at it and come get it, and if it is still in your account in 30 days you are keeping it. It might not be much, but it does put you on higher moral ground than he is (and certainly after this thread in which it should be clear to him by now that he may have, indeed, accidentally sold you a reprint).

And resubmit to SGC. That will be interesting.

J