I got serviced by Ebay...help?

[Moxlotus]

So my Beta ancestral was fake.  Got it from somebody with like 150+ feedback.  100% perfect rating.  Clearly indicated in title and post that it was printed in 1993 and is Beta.  Many feedback from buyers.  It failed light test and bend test.  Pretty sure he's going to ignore my email.

How are people's experiences from paypal buyer protection?  What's the best way to go after this dogshit fucker?

[Machinus]

If you used Paypal, they will refund your money immediately. Then your seller will have to take up his claim with them.

[Godder]

I hear Beta Lotus doesn't come cheap, which suggests fraud for ~$1000. The Law takes that sort of thing seriously, as do Ebay (this is the kind of thing that gives them a reputation as a bad place to buy expensive collectibles), so I say complain to both. If the Law asks, Ebay will furnish all the details they have - 150 feedback suggests that his details on file are genuine, in which case it won't take long for the Law to come visiting. As mentioned, if you paid by Paypal, complain to them, if you paid by Credit Card, take it up with the issuing bank - they may well give you a chargeback.

[dicemanx]

Did you use cc-paypal? Might want to circumvent paypal entirely and go directly to the creditor.

[Mr. Fantazy]

Make sure you try talking to the buyer first. I had the same problem with an unlimited jet once. After talking to the seller they actually refunded my money before I had even sent the card back to them.
Sometimes mistakes do happen.

-Shawn

[Moxlotus]

Ok, got an email from the guy apologizing and said if I send the card back and he can get a local dealer to verify its fake, he'll refund me my money.  I'm pretty sure I am going to get it verified that is fake by infy people at the next local tournament, then send it back to him.  Would this be a really bad move on my part?

[Mind_under_Matter]

I wouldn't do it, risks having the guy run off with your money, and you standing with no proof. I'd try and get the guy to agree on a third party to authenticate the card.

[Mykeatog]

There are alot of factors not being watched for here...

How fake is it? This question is NOT stupid. Is it absolutely fake? Is it from the 'dark beta' printing? Being that you said it didn't pass the bend test - he is obviously going to be PISSED that there is a giant fucking crease in his card. Or, is the crease very faint? If so, that DOES NOT mean it failed the bend test. I know this might seem a little silly - but do you have, or can you get me a scan of it? I _know_ real vs. fake.

Did he send it to you tracked? If not - he can't win. A little known fact about ebay is if the seller can't prove they sent it to you - then you can say they didn't. Paypal is built for the buyer. If it was tracked - and you send it back to him, he has no logical (though he does have many ethical) reason to give you anything. He can prove to paypal and ebay that he sent it to you and that you received it, he can also then tell you to go fuck yourself. Assuming he knew it was fake when he sold it - then he will tell you to go to hell.

So what should you do?

The team of ebay + Paypal will save you. Tell them there is a dispute, and they will get involved to make sure you don't get fucked. If things are getting ugly, then tell paypal it is a fake, as stated, they refund you and he loses. If he is being honest, and people with 150 positive and 0 negative ARE USUALLY, then he will refund you and everything will be fine. (For those of you who don't know - 'the law' doesn't really give a shit about ebay transactions so don't waste your time).

[MarkPharaoh]

PP and eBay isn't perfect, I lost infinite after the guy took my money, cleared and closed his bank account, and had a fake address on eBay so he couldn't be tracked down by whoever handled my case (I filled out some federal form or whatever, was a few years ago so I can't remember the name of it).

[Moxlotus]

It's definitely hardcore fake.  There is a huge fucking crease in it.  It also fails the light test with flying colors-being way too transparent.  The color resolution on the back is different compared to other beta cards and to an Unl Ancestral.  And it was tracked when he sent it.

Here's probably what I'm going to do:

Scan it and send it to him showing it failed the bend test.  Take a picture up to the light comparing it and another card to show it fails the light test.  I found links to websites explaining about the different tests (one of them wotc.com) and send him those.  I am going to take it to a local tournament and get infy people to verify its fake.  I will send him all of this and ask for my refund.  If he's not convinced and insists that I send it first-I'll just go to paypal.

[Manpriest]

Also, WotC, though they won't reimburse, does assist in tracking down/prosecuting these individuals. 

800-324-6496 or custserv@wizards.com

[everythingitouchdies]

The mana drain community are some awesome guys.

There is a lot of good advice here.

Let us know how shit pans out.

And because I havent said it in this post yet,

FUCK.

Yar.

EITD

[Tha Gunslinga]

I'm assuming it's this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8733584581


It looks kinda off to me, just from the pic.

[Moxlotus]

Yup, that's the one.  It looked a llittle different in the pic, but I dismissed that as shitty scanner because of his rating.   I've seen a lot of shitty scanner pics so it really didn't phase me.

[Mark_Story]

That auction page looks semi-sketch.  The whole line about if you are a player and not a collector sent up red flags for me.  I've seen a lot of auctions that are for players, but not collectors, and generally were for proxies.  In any case I hope you get this resolved and get your cash back. Getting served on ebay happens sometimes and is never pleasant.

[knickers]

Did you use cc-paypal? Might want to circumvent paypal entirely and go directly to the creditor.

If you do this, you will lose your paypal account.
Read the rules/regulations. Under the old rules you could do this without worries, but now you have to do it all thru paypal or you will have your account closed.

[dicemanx]

Did you use cc-paypal? Might want to circumvent paypal entirely and go directly to the creditor.

If you do this, you will lose your paypal account.
Read the rules/regulations. Under the old rules you could do this without worries, but now you have to do it all thru paypal or you will have your account closed.

Granted, although I'll take the account closure if it means I get my substantial amount of money refunded before the other party have a chance to clear out their account.

[Tha Gunslinga]

If you do this, you will lose your paypal account.

I couldn't find this anywhere, and while I don't disbelieve you, I would greatly appreciate a link.

[Buttons]

Paypal and Ebay are made for the buyer, but unfortunately, the way it works is definitely for the seller.

Honestly, he could send you an arcbound worker, and say that he sent you the card.  He has the tracking number and everything.

You could raise hell, but he could just keep saying that he sent it.  You don't have anything to disprove him, so he just screws you over.

Moreover, if he actually did send you that crap ancestral, he can just say that you made the fake and are trying to get your money back as WELL as the nice card he sent to you.  Unfortunately, there are some assholes out there that get their feedback all the way up to 100%, just to do crap like this once or twice, clean out their account, and then go make a new one and do the exact same thing.

[M.Solymossy]

Phil bring it to milwaukee if you will be there, and both ben and I, among with many others, will verify it for you.

[jcb193]

Switching gears a little bit, i am in an opposite situation.  I had a beta ancestrall listed

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8742708778&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1

and I had a person with zero feedback Buy it Now during peak pre-Xmas selling time.  The person would not respond to 4 emails, so I filed a no payment with ebay.  I have since relisted it (link above), but do i actually have a chance of recouping my funds?  Why the hell does ebay not qualify their bidders more thoroughly (ie tying payment to auctions directly, so the funds pull automatically).

Will i ever see my listing fees refunded if i go through their 14-day process?  My buyer still has not responded.

JB

[Tha Gunslinga]

Will i ever see my listing fees refunded if i go through their 14-day process?  My buyer still has not responded.

Probably.  If you meet certain qualifications, you can set your BINs to be "pay immediately with paypal," so this can't happen in the future.  You can also set it up so bidders need a minimum number of feedback before they can bid on your items.

[hazard]

A link to the 'Buyer Beware' story on wizards.com:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/209

The article is a good reference for 'tests' and other irregularities to look for.

[Eandori]

I know what fake that is!!!!!!  I have 3 blue power cards, a Library of Alexandria, and a Juzam right now exactly like it!!!

I live in Oregon now, but I used to live in California.  For big tournaments, my buddies and I would travel to Mountainview, CA.  There was a big store there that ran huge tournaments with hundreds of people.  This was back years ago when "The Deck" from Weissman was still a standard of Type 1.  I ran into a guy there, named Chris something?  Can't remember exactly.  Skinny dude, sold tons of stuff on Ebay.  Anyways, he had a buddy with a $200,000 printing press that made replicated power 9 cards, and a few others.  He sold me those replica's for $5 each.

I had a full set of power 9, the Library, a few duals, and the Juzam.  I have traded many of those off (yes as proxies worth $5 each) but they were the best fakes I ever ran into.  I tried bending the dual land once, and it creased.  The entire card was fake, not a reprint on a real card.  So the back was a bit off color.  The front was very close, but the text was a little blurry and also off color.  Of all the cards, the Library of Alexandria was the best replica.  But you can still tell it's fake by the slightly off color, and the fuzzy text.

Anyways, I saw the picture of your Ancestral on that auction, and it was like looking at my replica.  It's got to be one of those replicas from the guy in California.  To his credit, HE DID NOT sell them as real cards.  He said right out of the box they were fake.  But I can easily see how many would think they were real.  Since it was a good replica.

Let me know if there is any way I can help you. 

[Eandori]

I just looked through my cards.  I still have the replicas, and even a Mirror Universe I forgot was there.  So in total it's....

-Beta Ancestral Recall (must have been one of his first made, the edges and corners are cut real bad.)
-Beta Time Walk
-Beta Timetwister
-Library of Alexandria
-Mirror Universe
-Juzam Djinn

I bought these because I had Beta Power 9 back in the day and I didn't want to always use my real cards.  Tournaments in Chico, California allowed "stand in's."  I ended up selling that set of power 9, and tons of other stuff to pay for college.  Now I'm graduated and 5 years into my career.  So I now have a new set of P9 in Unlimited, but I build so many decks to test against, I still use the proxies.

Would it help if I scanned these and sent you the pic?  Perhaps if I mailed one to you, you could compare it to yours?  I KNOW these ones I have are fake.  It's 100% easy to tell when I hold them up to my real cards.

Let me know.

[Upinthe]

Anyways, I saw the picture of your Ancestral on that auction, and it was like looking at my replica.  It's got to be one of those replicas from the guy in California.  To his credit, HE DID NOT sell them as real cards.  He said right out of the box they were fake.  But I can easily see how many would think they were real.  Since it was a good replica.

It doesn't matter whether this person sold them as "real" cards or not. It's still illegal, and he gave people the means to rip other people off. He deserves to burn for that.

[Eandori]

It doesn't matter whether this person sold them as "real" cards or not. It's still illegal, and he gave people the means to rip other people off. He deserves to burn for that.

I never said it's not illegal.  What he was selling was a REAL BETA ANCESTRAL and what he actually sold was not.  Period.  I was never disputing that.  I only said it's easy to see how some people would think some good fakes are real.

I was offering my help to MoxLotus, per his request for help in this mail.  I've been ripped off by somebody on Ebay also, and Paypal did NOT give me 100% coverage.  I got back $175 out of $270 from Paypal.  I'm betting MoxLotus's best chance at getting all his $$ back is from the seller.  Since it's been my experience that Paypal does NOT cover all your losses.

[pyr0ma5ta]

I got scammed out of some duals I bought.  I even paid for insured shipping and everything, but no.  Nothing came.  Paypal basically told me "well, you're fucked" and gave me $2.71 back out of my $40.

[oldbsturgeon]

I was offering my help to MoxLotus, per his request for help in this mail.  I've been ripped off by somebody on Ebay also, and Paypal did NOT give me 100% coverage.  I got back $175 out of $270 from Paypal.  I'm betting MoxLotus's best chance at getting all his $$ back is from the seller.  Since it's been my experience that Paypal does NOT cover all your losses.

they should if the guy has that much feedback as he is covered under full paypal protection up to $1000. the problem is when the seller has under 50 feedback and sells expensive stuff. that when you'll get the 175 out of 270. that happened to me once just like that, and once when the seller had over 50 feedback and i got the full amount returned.
you should be safe if he has over 150.

[Eandori]

Well, actually...

A BUNCH of people got scammed on ebay by a guy named Wildwilliam56 awhile ago.  He has around 476 feedback, 100% positive.  He sold around $10,000 worth of MINT BETA cards on Ebay... only issue was... they were all fake.  I spent around 3 months trying to help his buyers ( I was not one of them ) get coordinated and go after that guy for their money back.  All of them got PARTIAL paypal repayment, some of them paid using a credit card, so they just denied charges.  But the bottom line was simple.  The seller had huge feedback, and the buyers were NOT 100% covered.

Wildwilliam56 got banned from Ebay.  He lives in Washington, USA and ALL his buyers called the Washington state police, the FBI, etc.  The police stopped at his house a couple of times, but that was it.  He never refunded anybody, and he pretty much... got away with stealing $10,000.  I can't describe how let down I was that the police were told what he did, shown proof, went to his house, and basically found ANY excuse to just drop the issue.  One of the Officers final statements was "He told me that he refunded everybody, so I closed the case."  He did NOT verify anybody was refunded, and when they all told him that, still nothing else happened.

Police are a joke.