I’ve been experiencing some customer interactions lately that I never had selling PSA cards before, maybe I’ve just been lucky, or maybe this is a new trend among buyers. I hope fellow ebay sellers can join in on the discussion and shed some light on this.
For the past two months I had four return requests from buyers for the following reasons:
I don’t like how the plastic slab looks on the bottom (little breathing hole).2. The card can move inside the slab.3. The PSA label is uneven inside the slab.4. There is a tiny speck of dust in the slab’s corner above the card.
Now, given the above reasons, I can only assume that these people had buyer’s remorse as it is hard for me to believe that people’s main focus when buying a graded card would not be the card itself but rather the slab’s look and appeal. In all instances I accepted the returns and politely explained each buyer that their expectation of absolute slab perfection might be unrealistic.
All customers were promptly added to my block list. Not because of the reasons they gave, but because their risk/reward ratio is not worth it for me as a business.
Am I being unreasonable or is anyone else noticing this trend? May it be a generation gap issue where younger collectors coming into the hobby have expectations that seem unrealistic and difficult to accept for me as an older collector? Do you think my assumption that this is buyer’s remorse is wrong and there is something else at play?
I never got any of those reasons but if I did, I’d do exactly what you did…including blocking them forever.
I do get some condition complaints for the grade. Those jackasses I’ll block and bomb lol.
I’ve learned, these days bidders are waaaaay too picky. Most bidders who ask for more pictures I ignore and block. They aren’t the type of customers I want. Their loss cause I only grade cards I think are 10s. I just don’t want to deal with anal retentive nitwits lol.
As a buyer (actually a new buyer in this hobby) at first I expected absolute perfection.
The first PSA cards that I received had some “white stains” on the cases, some “little scratches”, …
I was concerned that the slabs were tampered or something like this, so I asked here on E4, and Gary (and some of you guys)told me not to worry that those “flaws” were perfectly normal, after all we were talking about simple plastic, nothing else.
I don’t know why I was expecting all this perfection
(actually maybe I do… in video games , lego, hot toys,sideshow , and things like these, even the brown box or the cellophane have their own value), but I have never complained about this issues with the sellers.
(I have to say that I have seen some photos took by some sellers that gave me the creeps:
parts of the cards covered, pics out of focus like they were on the highway at 180 km/h when they took the photos, and things like these ahah)
I’m just trying to say that maybe they were newbies like me, and they were expecting the absolute, and unrealistic, perfection, or maybe they just had some regrets, anyway I don’t understand why complaining with the seller, since it’s not his fault most of times(at least until he tries to hide flaws with bad pics).
That said I have one of my cards that has a tiny lint on the back (fortunately) that it’s bugging me ahah.
Welcome to the hobby and thanks for your feedback @steveg,. Glad to have a buyer’s perspective on this matter.
If I’m honest all these buyers told me the reason why they wanted to return the item for a refund so I didn’t feel like they held me responsible. But it gets frustrating if on top of having to care about card grade I also need to worry about slab condition.
Out of curiosity, and obviously only answer if you’re comfortable, would you by any chance be under 25? Also, what do you think led to your high expectations towards the slabs when you first started the hobby? Is it just a personality trait or was it that the information you had available before starting to collect indicated that the slabs would be perfect?
As everyone said above there is really nothing we can do regarding those buyers other than that you mentioned.
As for slab condition, usually there will be some scratches on the plastic right out of the returned box, but to avoid any other surprise you can use those sleeves for graded cards. Relatively inexpensive and you can add up 10 pence on your shipping charges
I have no problem answering to your questions, I am 27 and about the expectations what can I say… surely in my case it’s a personality trait since I was a child but I also had barely no informations, because here in Italy it’s already difficult to find English packs(none of the shops in my city have them), let alone knowing what is PSA and grading.
As I said in the other post the cause probably it’s because in other hobbies not only the item has a value, but the box too.
For example a game boy game…sealed has a price, opened its value sinks like a stone, you search perfection there, and maybe at first I was expecting PSA slabs to be flawless due to their cost(“forgetting” that this is not the card’s original “pack”, you are just paying for the card and its conditions that someone else have checked for you).
I can add that at first(before coming here), “thanks” to some videos that I have seen casually (actually I don’t even remember how ended up there), I thought that everything less than PSA10 wasn’t worth my attentions (as I said I knew almost nothing about this world), hence I assumed that everything needed to be 10: the card, the case, everything.
Now thanks to E4 and thanks to smpratte’s videos I know that these were all bullshits(excuse the term).
Now I am buying PSA9 too, sometimes I just can’t justify paying a (big) premium for just one grade more (I do not want to be offensive, everyone is free to do what he wants) and I see everything in a different perspective.
I hope this will clarify my thoughts, i have talked quite a bit, and excuse me if I made some mistakes
I would get the card re-holdered if it was heavily scratched up. I wouldn’t want to return a card I wanted and just because the slab is imperfect. If I buy a card in an older case I don’t care about the slab at all. All the older graded cards I buy will just be re-holdered anyways. The reasons you listed seem like buyers remorse.
I prefer the new case if I have to be honest, and about the scratches I just use plastic polish(meguiar’s plastx) and a microfiber cloth, it works pretty well ( I had read about the polish by other collectors, but I can’t remember where). Sorry for the off topic.
@steveg , I think I remember a thread about plastic polish. If I get a newer case thats scuffed or scratched I would definitely use plastic polish. My comment was more about the older cases since they are usually scratched up and I get them re-reholdered anyways. The newer cases look a lot better then the old style cases. But this solves problems for buyers of scratched PSA cases that want a return. For the reasons kaldoverde posted, those are 99% buyers remorse reasons.
sometime its necessary tho, I think it was Rusty who got a PSA 10 on a Shining celebi or something and it just a line crease/line throughout the whole card, and other cards which graded 10’s which had factory dents. Saw a PSA 9 gold star Charizard yesterday which literally had chewed up corners and mold on the back. Can’t really blame people for having trust issues with PSA grading/quality control being so inconsistent.
I sold a few cards on ebay recently and this guy messaged me twice about a piece of plastic in the slab. I told him to send me pictures, I still couldn’t see anything. It was a PSA 9 in an older case, which I think is what he didn’t like, just nonsense. ( the other cards I sold him were in newer slabs). I agree with Scott, it’s not up to the seller to deal with a buyer’s mental issues or remorse. As a seller you deal with some crazies sometimes
He said “unreasonable ocd”, like small scratches on PSA case etc. Obviously it’s an entirely different case if the card is damaged or severely misgraded
The thing that annoys me with sellers is if they have a expense card and have shitty pics. If i’m going to drop some cash on something like that take better pics and add some background to the card in the description.
Those four return cases all sound like buyer’s remorse to me. With scratches in the PSA slab being mentioned that is a little different. A lot of people in the hobby have different opinions in regards to the condition of PSA and BGS slabs. Some don’t care at all if there are scratches and some value the condition of the slab similar to the condition of the card inside. As a seller you need to recognize these types of buyers. You need to accurately describe the condition of the item you are selling. You are responsible for the accuracy and content of the listing and item offered when selling on Ebay. I try to take accurate and clear photos of the front and back and mention in the description if there is any scratches that the buyer needs to know about.
Some sellers will sell a PSA 10 card and only take a picture of the front of the card. If the card has scratches on the back and you don’t disclose this to the buyer you are running the risk of getting an INAD case.
This is seller’s fault, of course, but I have to add that if i (buyer) am a perfectionist, and I know that I don’t like this kind of flaws on PSA cases, I can ask to the seller more photos, if i don’t…well I can’t complain later.
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Sorry for the off topic.