Not sure how to handle this, new buyer bought a lot of evolution charizards from me on ebay. I packaged them up, weighed it up, shipped it out with signature confirmation. Item arrives on June 27 and he signs for it. Fast forward to Sunday night, I get a message from him saying half of the cards weren’t there. I have sent 1000s of packages, I am sure I remember packing that specific one and the way I do things, makes it almost impossible for that to happen.
List cards, package cards and sticky note them on my office table. Person pays, I weigh the sealed package, print the label and stick it on then ship it. I never want to pay even .15 over for shipping, so I am very adamant about weight. I look around for his missing half of cards, because I guess I could have made a mistake, nothing. I only owned that amount of them, so its not like I have them lying around nor did I sell them again, hence why I sold them in a lot. The cards can’t magically be sent to someone without a label and since everything was already packed up, there is no box full of cards missing a label. Decide to take the amount of toploaders, holo cards and sleeves, put them in a PSA box and weigh it, comes to mid 13 OZs with tape and bubble wrap. I look at my paypal shipping total, its 6.93 - cost of 14 oz first class + sign confirmation. I weigh directly before shipping everytime, unless its a single PSA card and I ship them at 4oz.
Now I am stuck, he comes up with a story of not opening the package for 11 days because he left on holiday. He is basically saying he signed for it at 11:41 am on a Weds morning, then didn’t open it for 11 days. He told me he signed for it, not his family or anyone, HIM. I really find it hard to believe I would make 3 mistakes which I have never done and the cards would have vanished. I would never stake my reputation over $300 and he hasn’t put a case in because he wants a partial refund. I know I will lose a case, because ebay. Anything I can do at all?
I don’t know that you will lose. It may be a “win-win” as eBay may refund him out of their slush fund which sucks if he really is scamming but not much can be done about that.
Send everything you wrote here in a nice message to him informing that you cannot offer a partial refund. Be succinct and courteous in all your dealings. Allow him to open a case and allow eBay to decide. If you simply refund him you’ll reinforce him scamming before (assuming it is that) and he will just do it to someone else. Opening the case you have half a chance of winning as well as getting a paper trail started in case he does this again in the future.
For some reason, selling cards as a lot increases chances of scams where the buyer says the lot is incomplete. Same garbage happened to me back when I was selling Yugioh Decks.
My decks were inexpensive, so I just sent extra cards to them and that was end of that. It was a 20$ deck and the cards to replace was only 1$ max so I let it go. In your case, filing a case like Dan said is absolutely what I would do in your scenario.
Call his bluff, tell him to give him a list of the missing cards and you’ll review your security tape to try and find out what happened. 9 times out of 10 they’ll find the cards before they send you the list. The 1 out of 10 you’ll have to open a eBay case, or you made a mistake.
Double check your inventory to make sure you didn’t make a mistake, if you had shipments at the same time message other buyers to make sure you didn’t send it to the wrong address.
I don’t really have inventory, nor many raw cards, they were all the same card as well. But I did check Sunday night all over to see if somehow something had happened, but nothing there.
It would be very hard to just assume the seller is correct, large volume guys with 10K+ feedback make mistakes quite a bit. No real way to prove it either way.
this is what i hate about selling using ebay/paypal it scares the pants off me selling high priced cards because of shit like this. i hope you dont lose out friend but il be honest i doubt they will side with you.
Have him open a case. Very likely ebay will decide in his favor cause they always side with the buyer. However when you ge the card back call ebay and tell them exactly what happened that you didn’t recieve all the cards back that you sent him. Ebay cant ignore that. They will most likely tell you to fill out an IC3 form online which is a police report and ebay will have to take the hit on it refunding the buyer and seller. Similar thing happened to me and thats what happened.
DO NOT chalk this up as a lose without a fight! From your OP, it sounds like you have done everything correctly thus far - you double-checked your eBay Inventory, you searched through your “back-stock” inventory, and you even weighed-out a “sample” package (good thinking on that). You also mention that you remember this order; and are positive that you packaged everything.
I would send this person an eBay Message and fully-explain your process of re-checking everything on your end. Inform him/her that you are positive everything was included upon shipment; and ask if there was any indication that the package was opened (searched) during transit by the USPS (there would have been a little note if this were the case - doubt it was). Don’t sound arrogant - be nice - but straightforward and decisive (no saying “believe everything was packaged correctly…”); and just let him/her know that there’s nothing you can do about this. They’ll most-likely respond by opening an eBay Case against you; however, I really feel that you have a shot at winning this case - in-which case eBay would refund out of their pocket.
Within the eBay Case, just re-explain everything once again - going into detail about remembering packaging everything with this purchase, searching through your entire inventory afterwards, and weighing-out the “sample” package exactly as you packaged the original. I would even recommend weighing-out another “sample” package with the number of cards that this person is claiming he/she got and just compare the weight-differance.
You really do have a good-shot here - worst-case scenario you have to refund this person anyway. But DO NOT just cave and refund immediately.
I am just saying, even a .0001% chance is still a chance. I know for a fact everything was sent, it was the ONLY package I sent out that day as well. Due to the nature of my day job needing to be so detail attentive, as well as not being a large volume seller (maybe a package or two a day), its not like I have items all over and storage rooms etc and I thoroughly check my work, hence why this message was surprising and I immediately went to fishy.
UPDATE. He sent a request and I was told by ebay to accept. I did some feedback hunting from “paid quickly” and found a seller who sold him 30 CD promo charizards and asked if they had any issue with him…
“Said i only shipped 5, when we for sure shipped 30”
Guy is a scumbag and scammer and now I have proof. Hopefully ebay will take my information and look at it when I call them later.