blazingbob

Stay home, feel free to buy books off my website. I'd love nothing more then to have the website orders.

Whenever I walk up with a ungraded/unpriced stack the deal ALWAYS sucks. The dealer always assumes I'm only buying high grade and prices it that way without even taking them out of the bag.

The $10,299 is the ask price since why would I use Ebay for the completed sale price? That's what GPA collects.

Ok, I just listed a TOS #39 5.5 OWP Date stamp on back cover, Asking price $11K. What is FMV? Last GPA was $9950 90 day $9425 No copy on Comiclink 5.5 on Ebay for $10,299, cream/offwhite pages date stamp front cover

Just like most people won't ask a "Dealer" who taught them how to grade most won't ask "how did you come up with this price?" Granted the way that is communicated will heavily influence the response.

This type of dealer would never get another purchase from me. And yes I do know a couple of guys who do this.

So what is the bible of Fair Market value? I've had buyers use every one of the below GPA - Last GPA sale - 90 day GPA sale - 12 month GPA sale Go Collect I have guys whipping out the Overstreet price guide Comicpriceguide.com Comiclink last sale which I can either verify or can't. Ebay Each of the above depending on what that particular buyer is using can result in a "No sale" or "2-3X FMV" type comment depending on how your price stacks up. Most buyers don't wait long enough to even ask when did I price that particular item which may give some insight on why I'm 2-3X FMV. Comic dealer pricing is NOT Nasdaq Electronic trading quotes updating instantly based on bid/ask spreads.

I agree that if most people truly figured out the real cost of buying a lot of items they would be surprised. A dealers cost is 1). Cost of the inventory, books aren't free and very few sellers are selling high grade at 1/2 of OSPG 2). Shiny mylars/mylites, boards. Adds .50-$1 cost to each book. 3). CGC/CBCS or any other graded comic. Adds up to 25% to the cost of the raw book. 4). Booth cost 5). Hotels 6). Food 7). Gas 8). Insurance 9). Paying help if applicable 10). Electronic payment costs 1-4% For any multiple 3 day show my minimum cost is $3500. Now while many of you think that dealers profit margins are 50-100% think again. I have to make $3500 profit to break even, not $3500 in sales. If you are telling yourself you did $3500 and made money I suggest a little honesty check with yourself because unless you got that inventory for $0 you LOST money. A online venue will always have a price advantage since there is no booth cost, no hotel, food is whatever you buy at home, gas is only the cost to drive the books to the shipping agent. Problem when you rely just on online sales is the constant need to have new stuff and driving traffic to your online store or ebay id. You are also very reliant on third party information when it comes to what is selling and what is not. Now while some of you would prefer not to do anything face to face sometimes you need to go out to a show to see what sells and what doesn't. There is just as much mis-information as real information.

Unfortunately the comic business has a underlying "Us/Dealers vs them" mentality. Dealers complain about customers, customers complain about dealers. Why this occurs is because there are a lot of dealers/customers who don't or don't know how to communicate with each other. Rather then a short term hurting of feelings one or the other goes away without knowing why a sale/deal didn't occur.

What if I'm the seller? Sales tax impacts what I will net for the book since buyers are bidding lower to account for the tax, consignment fee impacts what I get for the book, paypal fees will impact what the seller nets for the book on ebay, buyer premiums will impact what the seller nets for the book if applicable. Not exactly seeing why the auction houses or ebay are the best places to sell books right now.

I wish people would realize GPA is not a STORE. It reflects the last sale and history of the book that sold in that grade. It is all well and good that the last person sold it for that but that doesn't mean the guy/woman in front of you has to. GPA also isn't the only "STORE" with pricing/sales information. Since most of the data in GPA is coming from auction houses/ebay that are collecting sales tax you can basically assume an additional 8-10% on top of the GPA number. Now the person in front of you may or may not be charging sales tax on your purchase. That either helps you or doesn't. I agree with the one poster that it is my choice to set up at a convention and I have costs to do the show. I also have costs in running my website, in taking electronic payments and other costs of doing business. Auction houses and dealers will always have competition issues with weekend warriors who don't pay sales tax or fly under the radar. To me Ebay is a electronic flea market and if you are looking for common books (like white socks) you will always be able to get the 12 pack for a great deal when paying cash. But if I'm looking for something a little harder I'm not so sure the flea market is the best representation of what the book is worth.

Again, they are not always stealing the card from someone. That type of thief uses the stolen card billing address but asks it to be shipped to a different address. This type of thief is easier to spot since you can google earth the shipping address versus the billing address. If you have a billing address where the house is worth 2 million and a trailer park shipping address the red flag usually goes up for me. These credit cards are a block of numbers where they are generating cards Credit cards in the US don't require a PIN yet. Debit cards run with a chip reader are processed as credit cards.

It is pretty sad that the "electronic payment business" is built on a lot of "false" security even with chips. CC payments in person no longer requiring signature. No id in a lot of cases required. You technically as a merchant can't really write anything down about the buyer. You could find a card on the floor, run it until it declines and be on your way.

I agree and when I did have one of the crooks on the phone he got very upset that I wanted the issuing bank number to call them since he wouldn't give me a valid business reference. This guy claimed I was discriminating against him because he was a first time buyer who just wanted to buy some books. Again, with mail order I don't believe there is a 100% ironclad way to prevent a fraud chargeback. However for the fees my bank charges it is THEIR responsibility not to give authorization codes on fraudulent cards. The other option which one security person told me was not to accept credit cards. I went are you kidding me?

Paypal is a Merchant service provider just like Chase Paymentech or any of the other companies that provide that service. Paypal would be clearing the purchase and securing the funds from a credit card or bank account. I've never had a Paypal chargeback so I'm not 100% sure how they handle that since they are the one's paying you.

As I believe I stated earlier you have to dispute the chargeback by the issuing bank by stating that you provided as much information as humanly possible. Your argument is if the issuing bank knows that the card is fraudulent why are they giving an authorization code. This type of problem is not solved even if you had a secure online cc processing checkout that the customer is keying in the information. Potential for fraud is why merchant services rates are higher for mail order transactions versus card/chip present.

Billing address/shipping address are usually apartment buildings. When I mapped out the Montreal "Crooks" there seemed to be an area they concentrated the deliveries to. They are either sitting in cars waiting for the packages to be brought by the postman or when a notice is placed they then go to the post office to pick up. Either way in all instances these packages are being delivered. I have a security check in my system that looks for duplicate IP addresses which they are not triggering so I'm assuming they are using different devices to login in and order from.

You can max out how much information you enter on a mail order purchase but it doesn't necessarily mean you won't get a authorization code. Name on Card is not a "key" field as far as I know. You can get an authorization code with a address not matching. You will generally get a decline if the 3 digit code security code doesn't match. AMEX is probably the loosest of the cc companies that will give authorization codes. I have a AMEX card in my postal account that has a 2020 expiration date even though my new card is 2023. Goes through every time.

Not that I'm arguing with you but from the chargeback you can get the issuing bank phone number. You call them, in the case of this crew the card is fraudulent, the address is close and there is no Alex Premachuk who has physical possession of this card. They are basically running blocks of fake cards with "almost close" billing addresses that pass the check digit cc processor audit. I'm not sure these cards would work if run through a chip reader which is why they target mail order type companies. If they are emailing you with a phone number to call you are generally put on hold and "Alex Premachuk" gets on the line. They then give you a song and dance on why you need to ship it right away. If you ship it they pick it up, when the charge from your merchant services provider is sent to the bank they charge it back stating that the card is fraudulent. Chargebacks can occur 30-45 days after the initial charge. Your book is long gone by then.

Actually unless I know the customer or they can provide solid references that I can contact I will no longer ship to Montreal. Doesn't matter what shipping company you use when shipping to this theft ring. The real issue and frankly one that the banks "bake into your rates" is that they are providing authorization codes on fraudulent credit cards. The Montreal police department could care less about this. They won't even take a report even if you have multiple buyer names, addresses, banking info etc.

This is probably the same ring of CC Thieves that stole my Hulk #181 9.0 The cc's are generally valid, however the billing addresses are slightly different. It is always an apartment building. Issuing bank claims the cc is fraudulent yet your merchant services processor gives you the authorization code. I sent you a PM, give me a call if you want.

Delicious is a no no in my circle

Well if you only trust Publicly recorded sales that would only come from Auction houses why are dealer provided sales currently on GPA then?

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Remind me again how shill bidding takes place at a show or store?