Sunday, July 27, 2014

Buyer beware

I got skunked on a 2014 Allen and Ginter hand collated set purchase on eBay - the seller gave me positive feedback within 10 minutes after I hit the 'buy it now' and after a couple of weeks, there has been nothing to indicate the set has been shipped or on it's way.

I think I was a little desperate to pull the trigger, so I could get some new cards in-hand, so I didn't consider one or more of the following:

1.) Feedback - a seller with 1,000 positive feedbacks doesn't mean anything; does the seller have any recent negatives, things that particularly sticks out?

2.) What are the things a seller up for sale - I take a look at a seller's inventory and if see a seller doesn't have much of whatever it is I'm looking for [I maybe looking for a hand collated set for example, but the seller has mostly a bunch of singles listed instead or even non-card stuff], then it maybe a warning sign that they might not have the expertise to have something in-hand, ready to ship.

3.) Item description - the less there is said about something, the more I suspect that a seller might not be able to follow through.

I guess I want a seller to know what he or she is selling and if there is no basic description - it may mean I might not get the exact item.

4.) Buying from a list of trusted sellers - I have to pick up things from sellers that are basically strangers, but it may help to have a list of sellers on eBay that seem to be dependable, whether I'm going to be looking for singles, commons, hand collated sets, unopened boxes or other things.

2 comments:

RAZ said...

That really stinks. Hopefully if you aren't able to get the cards you can at least recover your money through the eBay or Paypal dispute functions.

Fuji said...

Bummer. The good news is that eBay does a pretty good job of protecting the buyer. I hope the seller ends up sending you the set.