eBay

t_bjarnason · ‎07-17-2021

I recently had a customer try to defraud me with the good-ol' "damaged item" trick. Luckily I saw it (literally) from a mile away.

So before I get into the fun part, here's a quick summary of the backstory:

- International customer wins the auction for my moderately played 1st edition Shadowless Venusaur in early June ($570).

- Item tracking stalls after June 9th with no sign of movement.

- Customer opens an INR and I issue a full refund the first week of July.

- July 13th the item starts moving again and is delivered July 14th. YAY!!

- I ask the customer how they'd like to transfer the funds back to me.

- Customer replies that the card is VERY badly damaged from shipping. I'm devastated.

I ask the customer for photos and they provide me 2 photos of the front of the card. It's damaged. BADLY. So badly in fact, that I start to question how it could have even gotten so damaged to begin with. This is obviously not just damage from shipping (FYI, it was packed in a penny sleeve, top-loader, tri-fold corrugated cardboard folio, bubble mailer).

The customer then tells me that they can ship the card back to me but that they'd prefer to keep it instead for its "nostalgia" and instead pay me back a discounted amount for the “damaged” card. What? Who would ever want to pay even $1 for a card that badly damaged? Now I know something is most definitely wrong with this situation.

At the same time, I’m also looking at the 2 photos of the card they sent me, and something seems off. Very, very off.

The more I look, the more I see. And then it hits me like a train – the card in the customer’s photos is a complete fake and have been digitally altered to look like my original!

At first I gave the customer the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe the card got swapped out with a proxy or a reproduction of my card during shipping. However, the card in the two images the customer sent didn’t even match each other, proving the customer digitally altered the second image.

After comparing everything in the images, I determined that the customer had used a fake reproduction/proxy card in the photos. To make it look like my card, the customer tried to digitally add in the damage to mimic my original. To recreate the same scratches on my original card, the customer tried to superimpose an artwork image of my original card onto the fake card. All I can say is PHOTOSHOP FAIL!

In the end, I compiled a visual comparison of all the discrepancies between the images, called the customer out and they promptly sent back the full amount for the card without saying a single word. Victory!

Now in case you were wondering, here are the 17 errors that I found:

Venusaur character is cut-off on the second customer image and not their first image (bad Photoshop skills).
Wear mark next to Pokemon Power text is missing in the first image from the customer but is shown in the second. It also appears cloudy when compared to the original and is in a different position.
Character window border in second customer image is uneven and blurred (bad Photoshop skills).
Tear on the left side of the card is physically exaggerated in the 2nd image
Bottom left corner damage is different between customers first and second images.
Top of Venusaur character touches yellow border in customer’s second image, original card does not.
Left side of character artwork touches yellow border, original card does not.
1st Edition mark is blurred and bleeding on customer’s image while it is crisp and clean on the original
Text on customers images is heavy while the original text is crisp and clean.
Original card has signs of wear on top edge, customer’s card is clean.
Original card has signs of wear on bottom edge, customer’s card is clean
Original card has visible signs of wear that are missing from customer’s card
Original card has sings of wear on left edge, customer’s card is clean
Damage on customer’s card has been digitally added and does not line up or look like the damage on the authentic card.
Customer’s card has a highly-reflective sheen, similar to photo paper. The original card is very dull and muted.
Corners on customer’s card are clean and crisp, original card are more rounded and worn.
Creases on customers card run across the artwork in the first image, in the second they magically stop at the artwork and continue on the other side of the card!

dardeez_200 · ‎07-17-2021

All I have to say is Bravo,

👏✊

cardconnoisseurs · ‎07-18-2021

That's some crazy sleuthing. I have a good one for you.

We had a customer order some high value trading cards; three separate orders, all being shipped to the same address.

I combined them, and decided to not only send the order tracked, but to videotape myself packing the order from start to finish, including placing an up-duplicatable seal on the package. I did *not* give the customer the tracking number, as something felt off about the whole situation.

So lo and behold, 2 weeks later, I get a message through one of our other platforms, NOT the site the items were bought on, where she advised us that she had recieved an empty envelope!

I asked her to clarify exactly what she got. She said it was an empty sealed envelope. I responded with further clarifications, worded like I was verifying the situation to issue a refund. After she had given all the details, I said:

"So just to sum it up, your declaration is that you recieved a parcel with tracking number 123456789, that was sealed, not tampered with, and that was completely empty. Is that correct?"

She replied "yes, that's right"".

I sent her screenshots from the video, and the link to the RCMP online "report an incident" page. I advised her that we retain footage of the packing of every high value order, and that if she persisted in this charade, that mail fraud, theft, and extortion charges would be filed, and the evidence forwarded to assist in the prosecution in kind.

No response.

Made my weekend.

teenytrinkets · ‎07-18-2021

Love this story... set up perfectly!

You guys have more b*lls than I do selling high valued items. Buyer fraud seems far more prevalent than seller fraud these days, and I really hope ebay (and Financial Institutions) makes changes to step up their SNAD investigations in the future.

t_bjarnason · ‎07-18-2021

That's crazy! I've actually thought about this exact situation and have now made it a habbit of photographing all of the cards in their packaging along with the transaction number, date, and seller/buyer name, just as extra proof in case someone claims and empty package.

In the case of this particular card, I had forgotten to take photos so I had no proof of what I actually put in the package. If I hadn't found the descepancies between the customer's own 2 images, I would have had a hell of a time proving that he intentionally was trying to defraud me.

It's unsettling that sellers have to go to such great lengths to basically "beat the system" due to the lack of any significant seller protection from eBay, even with tracked items and following their process and policies to a tee.