Lightning55

Like when you get a shipment of hardcovers....All the $30 books are fine, but the one $200 book that they put on the BOTTOM of the box got scrunched. Murphy's Law.

I suspect we have all had the tape pull accident, very painful, especially on an ASM 50. After my first altercation, probably decades ago, I never take a comic out of its bag unless all the tape has been removed from the bag flaps. It's a hassle, but not letting that tape thing happen again. Especially if it's someone else's comic that you are looking at as favor to evaluate, or to buy. It's bad enough killing your own book, but someone else's?? That would be the worst.

Sounds manageable. Thanks for the tutorial. Maybe if I see an undervalued comic due to tape, I'll give it a try. After some practice, as you suggested, of course.

What technique or process is best for removing tape that has been on a cover or page for so long? I don't think I have ever tried to remove any from comics.

Agree with the others - tape should have been mentioned. It's a big thing. Regarding the return shipping fee, if you have a PERSONAL PAYPAL account, you can sign up for Free Returns (no longer available on business accounts). PayPal will cover your shipping on returns, if you paid for the item through PayPal, so you don't have to battle it out with the seller or eBay. Just go here for more info, or to sign up for free: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/returns You can put in up to 12 requests per year, $30 max per request. It has to be the same PP account you used to make the purchase and return. I use it occasionally, easy to submit, paid promptly. You have to have already signed up before the return, so this is for future returns. It won't help retroactively.

I have seen some crazy routes out there, too. I have had a few eBay buyers contact me, wondering where their packages are. I have to explain to them that things are different now, and we all have to have a lot more patience. Some things just travel right along as usual, even faster sometimes. And then there are the outliers. I had a package coming to me, one state away only, shipped 4/3, got here 4/18. Got stuck in one location for 8 days, no movement at all. But this can happen without the aid of Covid. A few years ago, I shipped a package to England. It got to England, and then bounced back to New York. Went down to New Jersey, then back to New York. They must have finally noticed the address, because it was sent back to England. But no, rejected again and back to New York. Third try to England, it made it through customs and got delivered. Wish I had THOSE frequent flier miles.

Why did you assume it was a man? That would have been even MORE awkward if it wasn't.

I would send an email to CGC customer service explaining your situation. If you are certain that the dimple shows up on both the inner case and the comic, that certainly is on CGC. Don't forget, your comics are insured while they are at CGC. I would think they could crack it out, possibly press the dimple out, regrade it. Probably still get a 9.6 if no other factors. Might get a 9.8 if the pressing took out factors that caused the grade drop. Or compensate you monetarily. If they determine that the dimple is on the inner holder only, comic not affected, they will probably re-holder it for you for free. They did give you a less-than-perfect inner holder. If the dimple you see is on the comic only, could have been that way when they got it, even from shipment damage. And maybe that's why it's a 9.6. I have found customer service to be very helpful, even in a similar situation as this. You have a strong case that something went wrong on their end. I'd pursue it. You have nothing to lose but a bit of time.

The pages are stuck together in some way, is an obvious interpretation. Found when they did the page count. Maybe you didn't check the interior before you sent it in?

I can solve all those problems. Get the heck off of PayPal shipping. Use PirateShip.com. Free, easy, dependable, bolts up to eBay. They do shipping, and only shipping. Why depend on anyone who does shipping as a sideline?

Slightly improved, just a little less horrible. Filters need to be off by default, Universal only on, or be able to set your preferences. Need more filters to get rid of Pedigrees, Newsstand, and Quirks (signed on case, cracked case, listed as a 9.6 when it was a 9.8, and any other minutia). Again, set them if you want them, don't get hit with them if you hate them. Do I need to know it's a Japanese Edition? What's it even doing there??? The selection method per title, still terrible. Scrolling through hundreds of issue numbers to find yours, still ridiculous. Not being able to type in the title with issue number and just going there, incompetent. These are basic things. How were they not in the original design, never mind the inadequacies still hanging around like stinky cheese?

I know of no process ON EBAY that allows for time payments. That is, a structured payment system on eBay, such as Amazon has or PayPal has. Now that Managed Payments is in place for some, that might have changed. I have no experience with that yet as a Seller. One way you could attempt to do it, since it is only a 6 week period, is this: Put Best Offer on the item. Accept the buyer's offer at 1 cent below the Buy-It-Now. That keeps it from becoming an Immediate Payment situation. Now that you have a pending transaction with the buyer, you can communicate freely with them through eBay, without having your PP email address getting redacted. You give the buyer your PP email address. He sends the down payment. Each 2-week period he sends the payments to the PP address. The buyer is protected because he has protections through PayPal and his credit card company, if a card was used. The seller is protected, because he still holds the item. When completed, you mark it paid and ship the item. You don't ship until you have all the money. If you hit a speed bump during the payment process, refund the money and abort. Any dispute after the transaction, all the payments are visible on PayPal. All the communications are on eBay messaging. Ebay got paid their share. PP got its fees. So no dodging fees. Alternatively, buyers can make time payments using PayPal Credit, if they have a line to work with.

The only 9.8 I see is a sale in 2017 for $1500, so that's a heavy hitter. One sample is not a strong indicator, though. Same year, a 9.6 sold for $400. Then there's a 9.4 back in 2008 for $140. Tough to nail that one down.

It has nothing to do with the individual Seller. EBay falls under Marketplace laws, and meets that threshold easily in every state, regarding nexus. They have no choice but to comply or be found culpable. Previous to the enactment of these laws, it WAS up to sellers to determine if they met the nexus minimums, but that bus has left the terminal.

Yeah, like we said. "Improving" it to a state of uselessness. Seems to be the trend in general, everywhere.

This seller can do exactly what he is doing WITHOUT committing fraud by just eliminating the hype. The boasts (lies) about the history of the comic is what is misrepresented, fraudulent. If he buys nice looking 9.0's, cracks them, posts them with an opinion that they are 9.6, and leaves it at that, he technically has done nothing wrong. If someone agrees with his opinion, ponies up the money, that's their prerogative. The UNTRUE EMBELLISHMENT is what makes it fraud. It's just like when we see $50 collectibles priced at $200. We laugh that the seller thinks he can get $200 for it. But that's the seller's OPINION of value, the asking price. And then we are astonished that it sells for $200, to someone naive, maybe. That happens ALL THE TIME. And who are we to say it is wrong? Someone asked a price, and someone stepped up and said, "I'll take it!" I saw it happen yesterday. I sold a book to someone for $50 last year. It's still a $50 book today, if you go by recent sales. My buyer put it on eBay for $100, same book. I kind of chuckled that he thought he could get that. It sold for $100.

Getting a custom label creates a new tier. So that's another $5 charge. And shipped separately, most likely, so much higher shipping total for 2 shipments instead of combined. If you want 3 comics labeled, it appears to be $5 each, or $15. But you have to add $5 for the handling charge. They won't likely ship with others in the group you sent, so maybe $15 for shipping separately. That's $35 for 3 labels, almost $12 each. When doing labels, get as many as you can into the group to help keep those add-on costs down, and lower per comic If you had 20 comics getting labels, and sent them by themselves, it's still a $5 handling charge, but spread over 20 comics at 25 cents each. Shipping 20 comics with labels back is a normal shipping group by itself, not a split group, so you can't blame the labels as the cause of the shipping cost. You had to pay anyway after grading. So now each label costs $5.25, much better. I learned the hard way. I sent an order in and only 1 of the comics had a character label available for it, a Hulk 377. Paid $5 for the label, $5 for the fee, $20 to ship separately through my FedEx account (additional $3 for residential delivery and $5 sig. that I have set to automatic). So that label cost me $30!! For an image printed on your already-supplied label. You learn quickly after that.

EXACTLY on both counts! The new GPA is an embarrassment, and if you like being embarrassed as a business owner, it's a winner! Here's the results when you click on Help: Yep, blank. Can't type in the box. Too difficult to just get it right? Hey, how's that new PayPal interface? Just as cr@ppy. Way back, it started out as spreadsheet design where you could see everything upon login. Links to other stuff you might want to do were in the headers at the top. What more did you need? Then it started "evolving" (read devolving). Now you log in and go to the same useless landing page where you get marketing tossed at you. You look around for the magic button to get you to your stuff, and the main page appears. In a little tiny frame are your transactions. It's loaded with garbage like "Insights", "Actions", invoicing, notifications, quick links, etc.. My favorite one is at the bottom "Tell Us What You Think". I use that A LOT, hope you will too. Back to GPA--- For those of you who can remember, it's like New Coke. What a blunder. Almost croaked Coca-Cola. I can only guess the happiness it brought those Pepsi folks at the time.

This had been in place since October of last year. PayPal is processing payments, and doesn't care if it's for goods, taxes, or shipping. They are going to take their cut. If you pay your property taxes with a credit card, your town has to pay the credit company for handling the payment. Just the way it is in the business world. My average transaction is probably $80. Taxes might be anywhere from $5-$8 on that. PayPal will take an extra 15 cents to 24 cents, charged on the tax. The bright side is that someone, specifically NOT ME, is handling the tax reporting to 50 states. State sales taxes, county sales taxes, local sales taxes, countless jurisdictions. Just to be free of that nightmare, I'd pay DOUBLE. Be thankful for small favors.

It is TOTALLY illegal. It is classic misrepresentation. You can't make statements that are untrue when representing the provenance of an item, statements that the buyer is relying on in making a buying decision. The statement reads " All of the books that you see are from a original owner which was my wife’s father! He bought these high grade books fresh off the news stands threw out his childhood threw adulthood!!" Obviously his father-in-law DID NOT buy this comic at all, NOT off the newsstand, NOT the original owner. So, yes, this is a legit criminal offense. The seller can't even spell "through" correctly. That should be a separate crime, severely punished. Almost as big of a crime is that someone was stupid enough to pay $2500 for a comic that certainly and obviously doesn't meet the advertised grade. The seller can state whatever grade they want, because THAT is an opinion. Even if already graded 9.0 professionally, it doesn't mean that someone can't disagree with that grade. Happens all the time, in both directions. But it will be up to the buyer receiving this to do something about it. And it may be that they have no problem with it. But certainly since it is sold on a marketplace, the marketplace has to rid itself of vermin like this or risk being taken down with them, equally culpable. Years ago, something like this would happen and people would email the buyer to alert them not to send money, that they got tricked. Ah, the good ol' days. Now you can only contact people on eBay that you have a sales relationship with, someone you are involved with as a buyer or seller on an actual transaction. So we can't step in and help, just have to watch someone get slaughtered from the sidelines. The best you can do is report the seller, which rarely results in any action from eBay, a toothless dog.

Regarding claims for USPS insurance in general, I have had no problem whatsoever. But I haven't had to put in large claims, maybe $50-$100 for damage. I did it online completely. I took a few photos, uploaded the tracking, filled out the required buyer/seller info, eBay sale info, if that's where it originated. I put in a brief explanation, because that's all they have room for on the form. Got approved within 3 days, usually. A check came each time within 2 weeks. Couldn't be easier. I would think if you have more than 2 per year, it might raise an eyebrow. But it would be commensurate with your normal shipping frequency. High volume shippers/receivers might have a lot of claims.

Me too, dang it.

Your original "ballpark" figures differed by 260%. Even Yankee Stadium couldn't hold that foul ball. I would think someone looking to invest real money would have that narrowed down a "bit" finer, even in their thoughts. As Bob Uecker would say, "Juusttt a bit outside!"

Very succinct. A work of art, like a Picasso. His "genius" was that if you imagined adding or subtracting even a tiny line, it would only detract from the original.

If The Lion's Den doesn't get back to this, I think it was a reference to a "Handle with care" type warning for the grader. To make them aware that there is a staple detached and a torn cover, to handle very gently when removing from the bag so as not to make them any worse. But if it was to make a different point entirely, I'm hoping The Lion's Den will clarify.