Recently I auctioned off a PSA 9 Espeon Star on eBay and it surprisingly sold for $1.5k. I am not sure why it went this high however, I am suspicious since the buyer is international and has only 5 feedback. This buyer purchased another card from me for around ~$250 and has already payed, he told me that he will be able to pay for the Espeon tomorrow.
My question is, giving this person the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they pay, how can I mitigate risk in this scenario in case something is tried on me? To anyone who has handled similar situations, what should I do? Thank you for the help!
Dont consolidate shipping, track each package, and perhaps even record your packing and shipping process stating within the video that you’re doing this as a precaution for low feedback in case you need evidence for ebay. At the end of the date mitigating risk means not selling to buyers that arent vetted. But when you’re getting a premium, its hard to have your cake and “eat it too”
GSP. You are safe. Ship it tracked to them and then wash your hands of it. 100% safe from there so good choice in using the GSP.
Nobody cares to see a video of you packing something up. Save yourself the time. It would never be necessary and even if it was it would be meaningless. What happened after you turned off the camera? Bait and switch with two boxes? (Very easy to print out two of the same label) So yeah just please let that terrible time wasting idea die.
I’ve recorded myself put a psa 10 1st ed shining zard in a bubbler, seal it, and the usps lady take it/give me my receipt. Video was 3 and a half minutes long and made me feel mighty secure. Card was going to Europe and I was nervous. To each their own
Can you prove it wasn’t someone just role playing in a costume? How do we know USPS lady wasn’t just a friend? How do we know they weren’t in cahoots and swapped packages off screen after again.
Ridiculous questions yes, but in reply to a ridiculous action that again will get you nowhere.
Well, for small time items I don’t think it would matter much, but let’s say you’re shipping thousands of dollars worth of product, and you shipped it within the country and the buyer claimed they never got it.
I believe you can file a police report, and that video would actually become compelling evidence for the case. Yes, the USPS worker can be “role playing”, but that would be uncovered if this becomes a police matter, and same with connecting the dots with the USPS being the seller’s friend. However, the USPS worker is a federal employee, which produces credibility in some manner.
Otherwise, if the police is uninterested in your claims (because it was too small of a dollar figure), you can go into small claims court to take back your money, which the video might help with your case, especially if you can call the postal worker as a witness.
I mean if you shipped domestically a Pokemon Illustrator and it wound up missing (GSP is no longer an option), it’s not a situation where the buyer or seller just shrugs and let it go. Pretty sure the police/courts will be involved, and that video can be compelling evidence for either the insurance company or to reduce the liability on the seller.
That’s just my subjective view on this situation though! I’m no lawyer and I didn’t do too much research on this!
I did see times where a seller had suspicions that he got a buyer that returned scammed (i.e. bought an item, shipped back an empty box as a return), so he opened the package via youtube with all the evidence he has gathered along with him opening the video to an empty box. The video blew up a healthy amount of views which prompted ebay to return all the money back to the seller. While the seller could have easily resealed the package prior to opening it, ebay just decided that it was better PR to just refund him all the money instead of costing them more in negative publicity.
For you Dan, this would make no sense to record you shipping your cards since you’re a huge seller and you use GSP (unless it’s with trusted E4 members), but perhaps for small time domestic sellers with 4-5 figure end cards this may not be a bad thing, especially if the dollar amount stolen/lost would be considered grand larceny instead of petty larceny. I mean it can’t make the situation any worse, than before, worst case the seller just wasted his time doing nothing. Might make a viral video out of it though!
