So, I’ve heard talk of this situation a lot lately, wondering what everyone’s opinions are.
You sell a PSA graded card to a buyer, and you have a policy of no returns. After receiving the card with no issues, the buyer wants to return the card because they don’t think the PSA-assigned grade is a fair evaluation of the card’s condition. An example being, you sell a 10 and a buyer thinks the card should have gotten a 9. Is this valid, and as a seller, would you accept the return?
and the other way round…
You buy a PSA-graded card, but the grade is higher than what you would grade the card. Do you take up the issue with the seller and request a return?
I personally believe that any issue the buyer has is with PSA, not the seller. The seller is delivering a card with a professional opinion rendered to its condition, and the opinion of a buyer may be different, but you still delivered the goods the buyer ordered. If the buyer was really serious, they could send the card back to PSA and ask them to regrade it, or start their own grading service, or buy only black label BGS 10s. I wonder if there have been any eBay-decided cases on this? Given that eBay sides with the buyer 100% of the time, I wouldn’t be surprised. But I also find it laughable that eBay would decide in the buyer’s favor on a case where the seller delivered exactly what was advertised.
If a seller wanted a return and the card case isn’t damaged at all, I would accept to avoid any negative feedback. If I purchased a card and i felt like it deserved a lower grade I wouldn’t complain because that isn’t the fault of the person selling it. Most of the time PSA gets it right.
Also eBay basically forces returns so that’s kind of hard to get around if the sale is through eBay.
This is a good topic, I hope people can keep it civil. I’ve recently seen this to be a rising and common occurance with collectors. I often get messages from buyers asking for pictures of the back of a PSA 10 card. or when I have multiples of the same PSA 10 card they ask me to send the better condition ones to them.
-I know blastoiserules1 just got a PSA return and one of the senders sent a bunch of jungle holos that got 10’s and he personally said they were not worthy of the grade.
IMO a 10 is a 10, I’ve never had an issue with PSA thus far with collecting for a little longer than a year now and I hhope it stays that way.
It is 100% the fault of the grader. Taking it out on the seller is unfair.
I recently took a risk and bought a “gem mint” card graded by a company that is neither Beckett or PSA. I knew their standards were lower, but the card is a PSA 8 at best. Of course it was not my opinion of gem mint, or psa’s but the seller did not do anything wrong.
A 10 is a 10, the professionals graded it a 10, I think they have more experience and resources then us. If we disagree I think that’s a personal opinion and not really valid as the reality is, psa have graded it to their high industry standard.
I don’t see people kicking up a stink if they buy a 10 and they personally think it’s a 9. Who’s gonna send a card back in a 10 case, wouldn’t you be happy with the gem grade even if you think it’s less?
In the opposite case if you have recieved a 9 and think it’s worth a 10 it’s up to the buyer to send it off to psa for a regrade as already stated.
Maybe. But, there are cards with Knicks/dings and severely off-centered in Japanese that PSA gave 10’s. One user who sent through me sent about 50 cards. In which every single card came back a Gem-Mint 10. Mostly XY7 stuff. Still the Shiny UR Rayquazas, Kyogre, Energy Retrieval were badly offcentered left to right or had a ding on the corner. For a fact I know the 6 Shiny Rayquaza weren’t all perfect and didn’t all deserve 10’s. Also, someone else sent me a English M-Charizard Y Ex #13, and another person sent me a Japanese UR Shiny M Charizard Ex #89. They BOTH graded 10’s when neither deserved it. Just looking at the cards you could clearly notice that they should grade 9’s. Another user sent me a SR BW1 Resiram FA in Japanese. This card has MASSIVE Edge-wear on it and PSA graded it a MINT 9. I’ve graded atleast 1,000 cards with PSA by now. And this is just getting crazy. I’m thinking about stopping PSA grading because of this.
Another person also sent a M-Charizard X Ex #69. The card is Massively off-centered top to bottom. Probably 80% on top and 20% on the bottom. They graded it a PSA-10. I need the card for my collection, and would of tried to work a deal with the owner of this card, but now I don’t want it because of it not being a true PSA-10. I can provide pictures if I can figure out how to upload them on UPCCC.
It was a 119 card order, btw. With only a couple cards coming back 8’s. And the rest either 9’s or 10’s…
I’ll always accept returns but:
The buyer gets blacklisted from all our IDs (plus other sellers are warned)
If personal sale, I will never help them again.
This has rarely happened luckily cause most Pokemon people have half a brain. If they don’t like a card they bought they simply list it for resale. No problem.
Ok, well that’s YOUR opinion. And you may say ‘Well, yeah it is, so what?’ I will get to that in a moment.
You are a ‘hardcore collector’.I understand completely that you want your cards to be as immaculate and well conditioned. Most of us when we see a card we like we want it to be the best possible, and when we get a PSA or BGS 10 on it we are going to be chuffed.
Now, as I said in my first response to you there are low and high end PSA 10s. Anybody who has graded more than a few cards knows that the lee-way is there, and we have discussed it into the ground here on UPCCC and it has been established that a PSA 10 example of a card can have a very slight nick or 2 on it and still qualify. We have all sent cards away that we thought for sure deserved 10s and they got 8s or 9s, and we have all sent away cards that we thought would get an 8 or a 9 and it got a 10(I think A LOT less of the latter but it still happens).
You know what you are paying for when you send a card to PSA? You aren’t paying for a case, you aren’t paying for a serial number, you are paying for an opinion. An opinion from a reputable company that makes A LOT of money because that opinion is generally considered a sound and correct one. You are absolutely free to disagree with it, you are absolutely free to say ‘Well that card got a 10 and I don’t think it deserved one’.
My issue with your complaints is that you are paying for an opinion from PSA and then saying ‘Well, it isn’t perfect to ME so they got it wrong’. Then why are you even using them in the first place? If I sent an order to PSA of 119 cards and a significant portion came back to me with what I thought were far too generous grades (1 or 2 or 3 cards is understandable) but if that many came back to me and didn’t meet my personal expectations of what the companies grading standards are then I would NEVER use that company ever again. It doesn’t matter if they are your cards or not. You are still giving the company your business. If you think PSA standards have significantly dropped then try BGS or stop paying for a grading service.
If I was a seller I’d accept the return because I would likely accept a return even if the buyer simply changed their mind without reason, as I suspect many sellers would.
If I was the buyer, it really depends on the value of the card. If it was a PSA 10 1st Edition Base Charizard, and even after requesting and seeing enough photo’s, I was still disappointed with it in some major way then I would probably ask to return the item. If it was a lower value I’d likely just keep it for a while then re-sell it when I could be bothered. If it was part of a collection e.g. Shinings then I would just keep it until I can buy a replacement and then sell the original one.
Blastoiserules1…your argument was barely digestible until you said, “if a card isn’t perfect, it doesn’t deserve a 10!”
Now we can all understand where you’re off. With an expectation like that you would never get a 10 cause absolutely NO cards are “perfect” (except my Black Label Kangaskhan lol). Even if you look closely at my BGS 10 1st Ed Base Charizard that I paid over 10k for you can see a couple flaws.
As of course you know, Pokemon cards were originally part of a stack of sheets stacked two feet high and peeled off of each other and printed. Then dudes grabbed them by hand and threw them on the cutting machine where again they were peeled off of each other and cut by a 200 pound cutting system. Then they were peeled off as individual cards and stacked bare with other cards and put in packs. Then the packs were opened and many were touched again and again. None of that loans itself to “perfect”.
And one more thing about the process: THESE CARDS ARE MADE OUT OF PAPER.
PSA, BGS, SGC etc knows all this, as do all of us here, and that’s why everyone is telling you the same thing.
Lastly, one of your excuses is that you’re a “hardcore collector”. Uhmm…let me just say you’re not the only one and all the others here feel differently than you about this topic. We all understand that BGS etc isn’t in the business of living up to our standards but trying to stay within their own parameters.
Until you grasp that concept, or simply stop using 3rd party opinion services, you won’t be getting all you should be out of this terrific hobby.
I rather enjoyed reading these rants and opinions. One of my psa returns was around 90 cards total and 80% of them were 10s. I’m willing to admit even my standard for some of them surprised me but a 10 is still a 10 and I won’t complain. Ya I’ve had a few purchased psa 10s that look like 8-9 quality. But some if the cards are loose in the cases and get shook around sometimes nicking the edges possibly… But I’m still glad to have these rare beauties in my collextion… I have 2 psa submissions out right now and well… Fingers crossed lol.
Actually, that shaking won’t damage a card in the case.
We had a grader take a card in an old holder and tape it to a paint can at Home Depot and put it in a paint mixing machine for about 5 seconds before it tore off and shot across the counter. All was well;)
