mycomicshop

All's good between me and the OP. I think he's more of a Reddit person than a boards person, and he posted a very nice message over there, completely of his own volition, treating us very fairly and saying that his concerns had been cleared up.

Sometimes, we may choose to go the extra mile even if we don't think what the buyer is asking for is technically our responsibility. We are more likely to do so if we believe we messed up on something related.

That was the case here--I don't think we technically are responsible for providing the buyer a $13 refund to account for intra-day exchange rate movements on a $170 charge (am still confused by the math, wouldn't expect the rate to move enough to cause an almost 10% difference over such a short duration). But, since we definitely did err in failing to respond to his emails, why not give a little extra to try to make amends. So that's what we did.

After speaking with our guys in customer service:

- customer service received an email from the OP Nov 18, and assigned it to a department manager for handling
- that department manager made a mistake and thought the issue had already been resolved, so he closed it without further response. That's his error and our error. I'm not happy with how he handled that and discussed it with him. Don't blame the OP for complaining online given our lack of response.

I've emailed the OP to apologize and will provide the additional refund he's looking for.

I've emailed the OP and will follow up with him further on Monday after I check with our customer service staff. I see he emailed us Nov 18 (and additional times after that), and the inquiry was assigned to a manager Nov 18, but I can't tell if we replied to him after that, so he may have a valid complaint that we failed to reply to him post Nov 18.

On 11/27/2022 at 1:51 AM, Flanders82 said:

The OP provided a limited amount of information but if MCS did have to cancel the order, in the future should they give customers the option of store credit instead of refunding the money, to avoid issues with exchange rates? Shouldn't MCS consider improving this area of their business to avoid potentially bigger losses by customers on higher value purchases? 

This is the first time in 20+ years selling online that I can recall a customer having a problem with getting refunded the same amount they got charged originally due to exchange rate movements.

I can definitely tell you that the large majority of customers who pay by credit card and require a refund prefer to be refunded to the credit card, rather than getting store credit. There are people who are regular repeat customers who will be fine getting credit, but there are also people who get refunded with credit who will view it as you're keeping their money hostage and if they can't get their original purchase, they don't want you keeping their money at all. IMO it's not a common enough desire to be worth the complexity of asking people whether they want a refund to their card or as account credit, rather than just refunding to the card automatically.

I haven't read the whole thread (I'm out at a party), but copying the reply I just posted to the same topic that was posted on Reddit. 
 

Hi,

We list both on our own web site and on eBay. When it sells on one site it is quickly and automatically taken down in the other. Rarely, but occasionally we will receive an order from both venues faster than the listing can be removed in the other. When that happens we can only fill one order. That's what happened here. 

I'm not sure what this guy is referring to about "reposting books for higher" but happy to answer ANY questions about that because we don't do anything like that. 

Regarding refunds, the buyer shows as paying $170.44 USD, and we show refunding $170.44 USD. Happy to follow up with the buyer if there's anything else I can do, but we do not control fluctuations in exchange rates and cannot refund a larger amount than we actually charged. 

I'm out enjoying my weekend at the moment and will be in a better position to answer further on Monday. 

Conan with MyComicShop conan@mycomicshop.com

Here's my view of the options and pros/cons, when it comes to reporting time payment sales to GPA where a purchase isn't fully paid for until a significant amount of time after the original purchase commitment was made:

Option 1: report to GPA upon final payment, date reported is date of final payment/shipment
Pros: Guaranteed that every sale reported to GPA actually happened, never any need to remove a previously reported sale
Cons: Sales show up months after the original auction end or purchase commitment was made, so the reported sale doesn't reflect market conditions at the date the sale is reported

Option 2: report to GPA upon final payment, date reported is date of original purchase commitment (auction end or date order submitted)
Pros: Guaranteed that every sale reported to GPA actually happened, never any need to remove a previously reported sale
Cons: Sales pop into existence several months back in the GPA sales record. GPA buyers and sellers who referenced GPA data in those intervening months could be confused by the sudden appearance of a data point that wasn't there when they previously looked at that time period.

Option 3: report to GPA upon "reliable enough" payment/commitment to buy, even though full payment has not been completed. In the hopefully rare event that the buyer does not complete payment, that would be passed to GPA and they would scrub the sale. Anyone seen to be attempting to abuse this mechanism to get data points into GPA without following through on the purchase would face additional consequences like no longer being allowed to purchase from us.
Pros: Sales show up at the time the purchase commitment is made
Cons: The possibility that the buyer doesn't complete the sale and a previously reported sale has to be removed from the record.

Option 4: GPA updates its data intake and UI to display the full context of time payment orders, allowing a data point to report both the date the sale was committed to, and the date the sale was fully paid and complete. Then either option 2 or option 3 could be used, and GPA users would have more insight to what's going on.
Pros: maximal info to GPA consumers
Cons: requires complications to GPA's interface I'm almost certain they don't want to make, also complicates the interpretation of GPA data for users.

Option 5: Just don't report time payment sales to GPA at all
Pros: There's nothing to criticize.
Cons: It removes meaningful and useful sales data from GPA, especially for high end sales where time payments are most common.

I agree that option 1 isn't what we want to do. It's the most reliable, but the trade-off isn't worth it since the data can create a false sense of where the market currently is.

Option 2 and 3 both seem preferable to option 1. Option 4 I don't think is a realistic option, and option 5 is the take the ball and go home answer that avoids thorny questions at the cost of GPA having less data.

George and I are going with option 3 for MCS's data, under this time payment framework for MCS:

- Required down payment to secure a time payment purchase will usually be 25%. I may occasionally move that number higher or lower for specific purchases/buyers.

- Upon receipt of that down payment, if the item is consigned we pay the consignor in full. We charge a 10% financing fee when buyers use time payments to purchase auction or consignment BINs. This financing fee covers the fact that we are effectively extending a loan to the buyer, since we pay the consignor up front, and then the buyer pays us back over time.

- For particularly large purchases, if the buyer does not want to pay that 10% financing fee, we can find out if the consignor is willing to wait to be paid until the item has been paid off. Most are. In that case there will be no financing fee charged since we're not fronting any funds for the buyer.

- All monies paid toward a time payment purchase are non-refundable. If a buyer pays 70%, 80%, even 90% toward an item and then stops, there's no refund. This policy is intended to create maximum incentive for a buyer to complete any time payments they agree to.

- If a buyer fails to complete payments and MCS already paid the consignor for it, MCS now owns the item and keeps whatever the buyer had paid to date. If the consignor chose to forgo getting paid until the item was paid in full, then the consignor continues to own the item and receives the funds the buyer paid--the consignor earned it by having their item tied up in a sale that the buyer did not complete.

- We would report the time payment sale to GPA upon receipt of that first deposit, usually 25%. The date we would report would be the date the auction ended or the date the order was first turned in. If the buyer later fails to make their payments we would report the canceled sale to GPA.

I don't expect this, or any solution to satisfy everybody. George and I are trying to do what we think creates maximum utility for GPA users, while acknowledging that the real world is a little messy.

On 11/25/2022 at 1:37 PM, Motor City Rob said:

@mycomicshop You don't appreciate what? I have never said MCS was guilty of breaking any laws.  I also stated that no one has any concrete evidence that proves MCS was intentionally being misleading...nor do we have any concrete evidence that proves the opposite. What's wrong with being open-minded of both scenarios?

I think @Phill the Governor stated it best when he said that MCS taking a sale price in May and representing it as a sale price in November was "irresponsible at best and nefarious at worst". 

I know you don't like my wording of saying GPA "fixed" the problem, but that's how I see it. From your post above, it sounds like GPA suggested to move the date back to May, and then they moved it, and you agreed. I think that was the right decision. 

Some people agree with my option. Some don't...and that's ok. I'm glad the boards are a place where all should feel welcome to state their opinions and participate in discussions. 

 

It seems simple to me:

- We report to GPA voluntarily, for everybody's collective benefit, including our own.
- This event arose because of how we set up GPA data reporting over 10 years ago, before we offered time payments. The initial decision was not just fine, it was a GOOD decision at the time for insuring the integrity of GPA data. It only became a problem in the later infrequent context of time payments.
- When made aware of the potential confusion that a delayed-appearing time payment order can cause, I very transparently discussed it here and we are promptly addressing it.
- We have an excellent reputation here on the boards and in the comics community.

Granting me the very small benefit of the doubt that I'm telling the truth and this was an unintended result rather than something done with intent to mislead seems like a pretty small thing to ask. But instead I get "no evidence that proves MCS was intentionally misleading, but no evidence that proves the opposite." Huh? Is there still some doubt in your mind? If not, why are we still hedging on this?

Being called "irresponsible at best and nefarious at worst" for... 100% well-intentioned reporting to GPA.

I don't want to continue feeding board drama so will not continue posting replies on this, and have no issues with anybody personally, I'm just kind of mystified by the amount of skepticism and distrust in some of these takes.

Kudos to David for taking down the original video. I suggested he either take it down, or amend the title, video summary, and insert an editor's note at the beginning of the video talking about the corrections, and he obliged by taking it down. Thanks, David.

Regarding our GPA reporting, still confirming details with George at GPA and will update when that's settled.

On 11/25/2022 at 7:40 AM, Phill the Governor said:

 

To be clear, I know 100% other auction houses that have engaged in this behavior before, so this is not limited to MCS; they are just the one's here that got called out.

Did you not read my post? Phrasing that as us "engaged in this behavior" makes it sound like you think this is some ploy, something we're doing intentionally in order to gain some kind of benefit. Heck, this AF 15 is a book we bought ourselves, and sold ourselves, for a large amount of money. It would have benefited us MORE to report the sale back in May, since the sale links to our site.

We're only in this situation at all because our original GPA integration, prior to us offering time payments, was set up to provide 100% assurance that any sale we reported to GPA was an actual completed sale. Now that we're aware it causes confusion in the context of a time payment, we're addressing it.

And for the record, once George and I settle on how we'll handle these going forward, I'll share that here. In the meantime people are free to continue speculating as they wish. 

@Motor City RobWhat exactly would we accomplish by "reporting sales in a misleading way", since "we don't know if it's intentional or not"? Sounds like you're still entertaining the idea that we're somehow dishonest or shady? I don't appreciate that.

A day or two ago when I first saw this thread I emailed George at GPA to discuss this. I explained the situation and proposed ways we could address time payment orders going forward. All options have pros and cons, and none of those pros and cons are unique to us--anybody who offers time payments and reports to GPA would face the same issues. He and I will be discussing more soon (off today for Thanksgiving). George asked if I was good with moving the AF 15 sale to the original purchase date, and I said yeah, told him the date to use, and he moved it. That's not GPA fixing "our" problem, it's two partners working together to address a simple issue when made aware of the problem's existence. 
 

We started reporting to GPA a long time ago, probably over 10 years ago. At the time we didn't sell as many big books as we do now, and we didn't offer time payments. Since we offered both BIN sales and auction sales, and we didn't want to report sales to GPA that didn't get paid for, it made sense to not report sales til they were shipped, when we knew the sale was 100% going through. That way no unpaid orders, and no canceled orders, would ever be reported to GPA. This was discussed with GPA at the time and was a normal decision, not some weird thing we did or kept secret from GPA. I assume they have similar conversations with every reporter they work with.
 

As time passed we developed more business selling bigger books, and also started allowing time payments for buyers to pay for those big books. Reporting to GPA is a very minor aspect of what we do, so when we started accepting time payments it did not occur to me or anyone here that we needed to re-examine anything about GPA reporting. It just silently runs and we never think about it. 
 

Some people are way too quick to cast aspersions on businesses when they run across something questionable or confusing. Occam's razor--the simplest explanation is often the truth. Most businesses aren't trying to rip you off, and most things are the way they are due to some well-intentioned combination of historical inertia and accident. Please cut us some slack and don't act like this is some sneaky misdeed we may have been doing intentionally. It's the guilty until proven innocent just asking questions attitude that the original video got wrong. 

On 11/23/2022 at 11:01 AM, Motor City Rob said:

Some fair points. Any thoughts on how to fix how you report through GPA? If this would have shown up on GPA as a May sale and not a November sale, I think that would eliminate all of the questions.

Currently we report date shipped, and orders are reported to GPA as soon as they ship. That means that when new sales from us show up on GPA, they show up labeled with the same date they first appear.

An alternative would be that instead of reporting the date shipped, we report the date an order was first turned in, or in the case of an auction, it could be the date the auction ended. If we did that, we still wouldn't be reporting sales to GPA until the sale was final and shipped, so it would just mean that sales would be showing up retroactively some time prior to when they first appear in GPA. For non-time payment orders it wouldn't be enough of a difference to matter much, but for time payment orders you'd have sales showing up in GPA several months after the sale took place, that hadn't been in the GPA record since then. Maybe that's preferable, but it also introduces a different type of confusion, since if you do it that way new data points can be added to earlier months after users have already made decisions based on where GPA was for those months without that data point present.

I'll find out if GPA has a preference.

Watching the rest of the video, few other comments:

- He speculates that a book showing up multiple times as sold from HA means that the first sale didn't go through due to non-payment. I would not expect that HA is reporting to GPA based solely on an auction ending without requiring that the item actually be paid for.

- Similarly, he says he's getting set up to report to GPA. If so, I hope that HE will only report actual paid/complete sales to GPA, rather than reporting to GPA as soon as he receives a not-yet-paid order for something.

- Appreciate him including us in a big 4 with HA, CL, and CC!

-This sale was a BIN sale, not auction, so there's no way ComicLink could have "bid up" this item to $114K as he speculates. The results of all our recent auctions are publicly viewable at https://www.mycomicshop.com/auctions/list so if this AF15 had been an auction item it would be in one of those auctions there. Regular bidders in MCS auctions will know there has not been an AF 15 CGC 5.5 auctioned with us recently.

I understand the source of Detective Dave's confusion and no ill will for him getting this wrong, but next time I hope he and any other youtube sleuths will reach out to me directly if they're confused by something. I'm reachable here on the boards, conan@mycomicshop.com, and 512-808-7099.

Hahaha, think this is the first time we've been the subject of a Youtube sleuth.

This is all wrong in terms of there being a scam involved, or us being involved in anything other than selling an expensive comic.

First, basic facts are wrong. The guy says more than once that we take multiple weeks to ship, which makes me wonder if he actually orders from us, because our orders go out same or next business day the vast majority of the time. From an internal dashboard. This shows by month what percentage of orders shipped the same business day (if received by 11 am Central), next business day, or the day after that. The times reported here count from when an order has been paid for to when we ship it. So for credit card and Paypal orders, it's from when the order is placed. For offline payment methods like check or bank transfer, this doesn't start til we get that payment in and it has cleared.

We report sales to GPA when a book ships, not when it is ordered. And a book doesn't ship until it's fully paid for. The Nov 4 date showing in GPA means we shipped it Nov 4, it doesn't mean it was ordered Nov 4. Many buyers who purchase 5 and 6 figure books make use of time payments. Our standard window for time payments is 6 months, occasionally longer than that but to get longer than 6 months depends on the circumstances and requires approval from us before the purchase.

I can see how it could be confusing for a sale price to be reported at the end of the time payment period, rather than the beginning, when a book is both high profile and has seen big price movement. Prices have dropped over the past 6 months so this sale looks high.

I can check with GPA and see if they'd prefer we report the purchase date rather than the ship date for time payment orders. If we did so, we still wouldn't report the sale to GPA until the book actually shipped (because we don't report anything to GPA unless the sale is 100% paid and final and definitely went through), so then you'd have a different kind of confusion--a sale showing up for the first time in GPA 6+ months after the date listed on the sale.

If you look back at where prices were for AF 15 in 5.0, 5.5, and 7.0 around May 2022 rather than Nov 2022, a $114K sale price is not unreasonable. And we paid $103K for the book ourselves when we acquired it from a Goldin auction Feb 2022.

Other stuff... the guy wonders how a book could possibly be ordered from us Nov 4 and be in CLink's hands in time for their auction. Next day shipping--it's not that hard. We got our final payment Nov 3, book shipped Nov 4, in buyer's hands Nov 5. A buyer of a six figure book doesn't have to request expedited shipping, anything $2000-5000+ is pretty much always going next day shipping, much less a $114K sale.

I can't speak for anything after we shipped the book, how/how quickly the buyer got it to ComicLink, or what the buyer's motivations are for reselling it so soon after receiving it. There are a million reasons that would motivate a buyer to get out of a recently acquired expensive book even though it likely means losing money on it.

I've cleared that note as well as a handful of other similar ones from recently posted books. I agree it's not accurate to say that minor restoration has very little impact on value, and we shouldn't be saying that.