Facing item swap scam

[rocketscollectibles]

Sold a trading card graded, the slab had damage on a corner. The buyer opened a return claiming he cracked the slab to take the card out and the card inside is counterfeit. Asking refund or replacement. I gave benefit of doubt at first but after a few photos and investigating, i know he did item swap and the counterfeit card he is showing is not the card that was into the slab shipped. I have proofs that the card inside the slab i sold was real, and his card has some things not matching. It was also authenticated by a reputated company. 

I already reported to ebay for fraud. I exposed to buyer that i found out things not fitting and it's been reported for fraud. But he do not back out. He keeps saying it's the same card and go as far as thanking me for 'exposing myself' to ebay for selling fake cards. Never seen that. 

It's a cheap card so i'm not hurt but i take those situation to improve my knowledge. It's a US buyer so accepting return to give him trouble is impossible. The buyer is a clear scam artist he know my only option is to refund.  

My wonder is: is it worth to ask ebay to step in or it is too risky and similar case cannot be won by seller? 

[flipistics]

Are you top rated for the States? If so, you could send a return label through Pirate Ship (using simple export rate, about $10 USD) and then use the Top Rated perks to refund 50% when you receive it and it's confirmed to be a different item. If it's cheap though, you might be better off just refunding, reporting, and blocking them.

[rocketscollectibles]

Only listing selling on .CA, i guess top rated US is .COM exclusive right? 

[flipistics]

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@rocketscollectibles wrote:

Only listing selling on .CA, i guess top rated US is .COM exclusive right? 

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No, it's separated into USA and Global based on where your sales go to. You can qualify for either or both when listing on dot CA.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Who was the card graded or authenticated by? PSA? Someone else? 

When you say the slab had damage to the corner, are we talking about a ding, or are we talking about the slab already being partially opened or showing signs of tampering?

If it was graded by an outfit that is acceptable by eBay, my suspicion is that the buyer admitting to cracking the slab would constitute modifying the item. If you contact eBay directly, I would see if they can connect you with someone from their trading card department, if such a thing exists. A random CSR is not going to understand grading. 

If you can get in touch with someone who understands the issue, I would ask them to close the case based on the fact that the buyer modified the item by removing it from the case. 

With that said, if the case was already damaged and not sealed, then it is a bit more of a grey area. Those would be reasonable signs that the case could have already been tampered with prior to the sale. Which isn't me saying you inadvertently sold a counterfeit card, but it invalidates the argument about the card being encapsulated and the buyer cracking it, since the case was already tampered with.  At that point, you're basically selling a raw card and it's no different than the buyer saying that a raw card is counterfeit. 

If this is something in a newer PSA holder, you might have some more luck getting eBay to step in as those are known to be more difficult to swap cards out of or to counterfeit.

At the end of the day, you can't avoid every single scam or loss. If eBay won't step in, all you can do is accept the return and report the buyer. eBay does have a mechanism for holding back part of the return if the buyer damaged the item, but I am unsure what burden of proof you would have to provide to qualify for that. 

If you're certain the photos they sent you are of a different card, you can try reporting the buyer now and if this is something they do regularly, your report might be the one that gets their account nerfed. 

eBay may also comp you the refund if you report the buyer, the buyer has a history of this, and you complain to them. This is unlikely, but it does happen sometimes when they can see you dealt with someone who is very obviously to them a scammer. 

[rocketscollectibles]

It is a CGC slab. I purchased that slab myself undamaged and it cracked in shipping when sent to me. There was a very big piece missing of a corner, obviously this is why the buyer targeted it. This way he put a doubt that it could have been tempered. But it was impossible to remove the card from the slab. I also have enough knowledge to authenticate myself that the card in the slab was real. We can see the surface texture from my photo.

I got an undeniable proof here you can see from buyer photo (left) that the inside ink of the '+' sign from the attack '160+' is grey on its card, while black on mine (right) 

 

[pjcdn2005]

The seller protection you are referring to is also for .ca trs sellers.  But on .com, the seller must offer at least 30 day returns.  The .ca page doesn't specify that although I suspect that it it probably applies here as well. 
I'll post the links for both .ca and .com since I woukd guess that the extra info given on .com relates to sellers here too.

https://www.ebay.ca/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-protections?id=4345&st=3&pos=1&query=Selle...

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-protections?id=4345&st=3&pos=1&query=Sell...

[pjcdn2005]

devon@ebay 

I think that I have asked before but I don't recall seeing a reply.  On the .com page for seller protections it mentions trs sellers qualifying for protection if they are trs and offer free returns or 30 days returns and if they report the buyer.  On the .ca page it mentions nothing  about the seller having to offer returns on their listing. So does that mean a trs seller qualifies for the protections mentioned there if they do not offer returns?   Or is there information missing from that page?

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Your best bet is to contact eBay and try to see if they have anybody in their actual trading card department (if such a thing exists) that you can speak to via call, chat, or e-mail.

The odds of a regular CSR understanding the issue are low. Think about explaining grading to someone who doesn't know anything about trading cards.

My original post was not meant to insinuate that it is not a switcheroo. Only that, if the holder was already compromised, it makes it more difficult to prove that you didn't send a tampered holder. There have been lots of issues with people tampering with graded cards over the years. That's why PSA switched to the new lighthouse holders. I know who CGC are, but I am not familiar with their holders or technology. 

In your shoes, what I would do in this order:

1. Report the buyer using the report buyer feature. (https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/resolving-buyer-issues/reporting-issue-buyer?id=4084)
2. Contact the AskeBay account on Twitter. See if they can put you in touch with someone who would understand issues directly related to trading cards.
3. If so, ask them to step in and close the case on the basis that the buyer modified a graded card by cracking it out of the holder.
4. If the above doesn't work, handle the return as you normally would.
5. Contact eBay when the item is returned, before refunding. Provide your proof that it was a scam. See what the advise you to do and if they will reimburse you for the refund. They (might) instruct you to refund the buyer to resolve the case, and then reimburse you. (No guarantee)

That is the extent to what you can do. Keep in mind, I am assuming you are absolutely certain that this is not the same card.

Reporting the buyer first is very important. The biggest problem with scammers on the site is that sellers don't always report them. It takes multiple similar reports for eBay to take action and remove their account. 

If the above doesn't work, take the return. Contact eBay after getting it back with all your proof of it being a scam, and see if they will cover you for the return. If this sort of thing doesn't happen to you often, eBay will sometimes reimburse you for a refund as a courtesy if they can see that it's obvious BS. They usually require you to still go through with the return like you would as a normal one. Being reimbursed is far from a guarantee, but it does happen sometimes.

Ultimately, it sucks when stuff like this happens but it is the unfortunate cost of doing business online. Even physical stores deal with theft or false returns. At a certain point when you have exhausted the measures you have to protect yourself, you just have to accept that it's not worth your sanity to dwell on a bad transaction. The exception being that if it is above a certain cash value, it might be worth looking into things like police reports or mail fraud reports.