I am not sure this fully qualifies as sour grapes because it isn’t fully resolved yet, but I am already jaded and frustrated enough with this transaction that it probably already counts.
I found a seller with a PSA 8 1st Edition Base Mewtwo several weeks ago. To give some context, I had done business with him in the past when I bought another relatively expensive card from him, and all had gone smoothly then. We were negotiating on a price on the Mewtwo for a couple of weeks, on and off. I ended up paying basically over market at the time to try to secure the card, paying the price he wanted at the time to get the deal done. That was in late September. A week and a half goes by, and he hasn’t messaged about shipping and the card hasn’t arrived yet, so I message him politely inquiring about whether he’s been able to ship it yet. He tells me that the card is taking longer to arrive than he anticipated from his U.S. address (he’s in France and I’m also in Europe), which he hadn’t mentioned was part of the shipping before. I told him that was not an issue and waited.
After another week of silence, he messages me and tells me that the cards were sent back to the U.S. by customs, and tells me that he is going to refund me. I immediately messaged back and told him that I have some family in the U.S. that he can have the card sent to instead of refunding, and told him that I have a lot of patience and am okay to wait for that. He doesn’t reply at all, and almost a week later I get an email from PayPal saying that a refund from him didn’t complete, and doesn’t provide a reason why:
I have since messaged him a couple of times telling him that a refund is okay as well, if he could just retry it, but he hasn’t replied for nearly a week, when in the past he was quite responsive.
I have a sinking feeling that he got cold feet on the deal weeks after I sent him the money, seeing that prices were rising after I already paid him his asking price, which at the time was top dollar. In negotiations he showed a lot of signs of being hesitant to sell even at his asking price, so it wouldn’t surprise me if so. He also could be telling the truth with the customs story, but I don’t know why he would ignore my messages trying to be as understanding as possible.
It has been nearly three weeks since I gave him the money and I have neither the card nor my money back. This is all especially disheartening for me because it was the second to last card I needed to finish my PSA 8 1st ed base holo set, and now that I have since gotten the last card, this wrenches it open again. I also feel weird about trying to find another copy to buy before I get my money back, and prices are moving so quickly that I am stressed and feel like I’ll never complete my set. All in all, my grapes are very sour, I’d say. Any advice about how to handle this, or the PayPal’s refund inexplicably failed, would be greatly appreciated.
Given the time and lack of messages, I doubt you’ll be able to get the card from him in the end. I think he tried to refund you, and it for some reason failed (probably because he doesn’t have the money available to refund, or maybe because you have to accept it on your end and you weren’t aware/notified).