Hi everyone, I recently purchased an expensive card in PSA 9 which I suspect may have been damaged by the PSA holder. The card was packed extremely well with numerous layers of protection so I’m sure it wasn’t damaged in transit. In this case, the seller uploaded a single picture of the card’s back which did not clearly show the damage, nor was it disclosed in the eBay description. The first photo shows what the seller uploaded.
I know when a card is misgraded, PSA has their financial guarantee, but I’ve recently heard of an exception to this where PSA forcibly regraded a card that was only sent in for reholdering, and this was due to water damage that occurred after the card was encapsulated. They did not offer any financial compensation to the owner of the card who had purchased it in the damaged state. For the card I purchased, it looks like it was shaken violently at some point or got stuck in one of the ridges and caused a crease. I am not sure what PSA’s policy is for this. In my opinion, it’s the seller’s responsibility to disclose obvious things like this, but before I go ahead and open an eBay case I wanted to ask for your guys’ opinions and make sure I’m not in the wrong here. Thanks in advance!
I’d say this is more of an issue with PSA than the seller. I wouldn’t open up a case against the seller for a number of reasons, but you could certainly message them and see what they say and go from there.
It’s a PSA graded card, if you didn’t ask for more pictures I’d say your odds of winning a case are slim. If this was a raw card you’d have a leg to stand on. PSA has a claims process but good luck with that.
PSA graded cards can be damaged after encapsulation due to poor storage practices or mishandling. If it was stored in high humidity and had mold inside, or dropped on the floor and caused the card to get stuck on the ridge like this, then it would not be PSA’s fault. Just because the card is inside a slab should not be a silver bullet for a seller to get away with hiding obvious damage like this, in my opinion. But I’d like to hear arguments as to why I’m wrong here.
Damn, I know what card that is. Honestly, for such a big card I really doubt PSA would want to pay out any sort of financial guarantee claim. It’s a tricky situation and most people are going to say that it isn’t the sellers responsibility and that it should land on PSA. However, I think it is unfair for the buyer to assume so much risk on the hope that PSA will pay out. People will also say to just sell it and get a new one, but with this card that situation really doesn’t work, so I think opening a case here has more merit than if it were just a regular set card that you could easily replace. Ultimately, I think you have more grounds to open a case in this situation due to the circumstances.
Thanks for the reply. I’m actually curious why you think it should land on PSA? PSA’s holders do a great job at protecting cards but it’s not supposed to be completely bulletproof. Why is it PSA’s responsibility for damage that occurs after it’s been encapsulated?
As a bit of an extreme example, should PSA be responsible for the card that Pat Flynn destroyed in an oscillating tool? Should Pat be able to sell that card as a PSA 10 on ebay without disclosing the damage?
Correct, I am more thinking along the lines of a card that was simply misgraded. For example, if you were to receive a card and thought that it just had too many holo scratches to be a PSA 10, then I would say to take that up with PSA. One thing to mention, though, is that it is incredibly hard to tell whether damage has occurred before or after encapsulation as it could be the case that PSA simply missed the damage. Some cases are easier to tell than others, but I think that is where the line gets a little muddied.
I agree if a card is misgraded (or simply if standards were different at that time - but don’t wanna open that can of worms lol). But I can see this crease even without good lighting. Not gonna rule it out but it’s hard to imagine a grader missing it. Also it aligns perfectly with the ridge along the bottom edge. And for such an expensive card I’m not going to just sit back and eat it, either.
Yea, I think I would agree with you on this one. Also, people can say that you should just take it up with PSA or whatever, but I can almost guarantee that if they were in your situation they would also lean in favor of opening an eBay case.
Ur actually wrong, psa cases dont do a good job holding japanese cards, since japanese cards are smaller then English cards. And i have seen multiple submissions where psa has given 8s and 9s to cards that have creases. I could link you the vids if you want.
Small is a vague word, what do you mean? Length and width of pokemon cards are the same. I measured thickness on a Japanese and English card and got 0.0115" and 0.0125" using a Mitutoyo caliper.
PSA cases hold the cards fine. Sometimes the acrylic tabs allow the card to shake around a bit based on positioning but other than that not sure what you mean
every japanese psa card I own shakes from the smallest movements possible, and I wanted to find out why so I researched and found a few people saying its because “japanese cards are smaller then english cards”
I’ve had a psa 10 pass through my hands where the card got “stuck” between the ridges of the PSA holder. If a PSA card is dropped onto a hard surface at the right angle, then it’s possible for the card to get damaged by getting stuck there. I know because I’ve seen an example in person. I couldn’t shake it back out, but I smacked it against my palm and it shook right out, revealing a long indent along the edge where it got stuck. The location of this crease is too suspicious for me in this case, but I admit I don’t know for sure either way.
In any case, for a five figure card I would’ve expected this to be disclosed or at least shown in the pictures. I hate to be that guy asking for pictures all the time, and I don’t believe it should fall on the buyer to guess that there might be damage on the card to begin with, since it is already graded by PSA, and that’s what buying graded cards is for. I guess I’m confused why anyone would think that this doesn’t warrant an ebay case. I’ll walk back what I said about misgrades, as well. It’s a different story if the damage is arguably within parameters for the grade. This is clearly not. People frown on sending cards in over and over again until PSA misses the damage. I don’t see how selling a card that’s “clearly” misgraded without disclosing the damage is any less of a bad practice.
I think it’s totally reasonable to open a return case for it. The card is clearly not in mint condition and you purchased a card that was advertised as being mint. Some would argue that it’s now on you to bother PSA about it, but the seller should’ve disclosed it in the first place.
This is a seller-friendly server so some will dislike my advice. But just return it. eBay is meant to be buyer friendly partly for reasons like this. It is a risk you take selling on eBay even if it’s a pain in the ass. If this was a run of the mill Charizard the seller might have missed the damage and be annoyed, but with a card and damage like this it would have saved them time to disclose it clearly to avoid an inevitable return.
As for PSA guarantees, lol. Good luck with that. They’re not gonna pay up.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the main issue I see is that you do not believe that the card’s currently encased condition merits the grade that was assigned. I don’t see how this is the fault of the seller, and I think you should be directing your efforts at PSA.
Sellers should not be responsible for PSA’s mistakes. Many sellers simply don’t have the time to (nor should they be expected to) look over every single one of their PSA graded cards with a keen eye just in case PSA made a mistake. The whole point of professional grading is to take the subjectivity of buyer/seller condition ratings out of the picture. Once a card is graded, the responsibility for any misgrades rests with the grading company, not with the seller of the graded card. If you had asked before the purchase if the card had any damage, and insisted upon multiple pictures and angles of the card, and the damage was intentionally concealed, that is another story. But that doesn’t seem to have happened here.
Damage and misgrades are subjective as well, we have threads seemingly every month where someone takes a 100x microscope to their PSA 10 card and finds the littlest issue and then posts about how they’ve been screwed by a seller and deserve a refund. Not saying that’s what’s happening here, but when you say it’s okay to open an eBay case for something like this, those ridiculous claims get more weight.
Obviously this is a shitty situation as it sucks to buy a graded card and have it be a misgrade. It’s happened several times to me. If you reach out to the seller and explain the situation they may decide to provide a refund, but personally if they did not do that I would not go any further.
Also, for the purposes of the E4 Blacklist, opening eBay cases/forcing refunds due to disagreeing with a professionally-assigned grade is considered opening a case without merit. If you proceeded with this and the seller contacted me and asked to have you blacklisted, this would qualify.
