Selling CGC comic on Ebay question 0

[kgtankman]

This is my first time posting on this forum so please be understanding. I have never had a problem buying comics or selling non-slabbed comics on Ebay. Anyway,  I bought a couple of Batman Adventures #12  graded 9.8 a few years back for my wife. Since then it has risen in price which was nice but not expected. I thought about selling one but she stopped that. My initial hesitation was this: What is my recourse if someone received the package intact but breaks the case, reports that it was damaged upon arrival and inserts a bad copy in its place. They then requests a refund and in return I get the "damaged" copy. Thanks for taking the time to look at this and all comments are greatly appreciated.

[WoWitHurts]

1 minute ago, kgtankman said:

This is my first time posting on this forum so please be understanding. I have never had a problem buying comics or selling non-slabbed comics on Ebay. Anyway,  I bought a couple of Batman Adventures #12  graded 9.8 a few years back for my wife. Since then it has risen in price which was nice but not expected. I thought about selling one but she stopped that. My initial hesitation was this: What is my recourse if someone received the package intact but breaks the case, reports that it was damaged upon arrival and inserts a bad copy in its place. They then requests a refund and in return I get the "damaged" copy. Thanks for taking the time to look at this and all comments are greatly appreciated.

The same thing can be said about any ebay purchase really. If you are freaked out about it explain in your listing you will not sell to anyone with low feedback. I have sold and bought expensive books off of ebay with no issues.

[bc]

Welcome to the Boards!

I'm not much of an eBay seller, but others will be along to provide the proper guidance.

-bc

[kgtankman]

2 minutes ago, WoWitHurts said:

The same thing can be said about any ebay purchase really. If you are freaked out about it explain in your listing you will not sell to anyone with low feedback. I have sold and bought expensive books off of ebay with no issues.

Thank s for the reply. I have never had problems with Ebay either. I was curious if this has happened to anyone and what the outcome was. 

[MadGenius]

This is somewhat of an unlikely scenario since the a great deal of value in the book comes with the 9.8 label which would be lost if the buyer swaps the book. In this scenario, they would have to crack the slab open (not easy), remove the book without damaging it and submit to CGC for regrading. Then wait 1-2 months and hope the book retained the original grade. That's a lot of work for a potential scammer.

[kgtankman]

7 minutes ago, bc said:

Welcome to the Boards!

I'm not much of an eBay seller, but others will be along to provide the proper guidance.

-bc

Thanks for the warm welcome.

[KryptoMayor]

 Anything is possible and if something like that worries you, may I suggest using a third-party reputable company like Heritage Auction, ComicLink, ComicConnect, MyComicShop, etc. Takes a little time to get paid though. 

[1Cool]

There are definetely a ton of scams on E-Bay and no one is 100% immune to that kind of thing but E-Bay buyer and seller protection is pretty good so I would not be too worried.  Buyers have more protection by far but you can always present your case to E-Bay if its blatent scamming and you will have a good chance.  Now if you are talking about a $50,000 book you may have some issues but at the $1,500 - $2,000 level you just need to follow the E-Bay guidelines and get  shipping confirmation and insurance and you should be fine.

[shadroch]

21 minutes ago, kgtankman said:

This is my first time posting on this forum so please be understanding. I have never had a problem buying comics or selling non-slabbed comics on Ebay. Anyway,  I bought a couple of Batman Adventures #12  graded 9.8 a few years back for my wife. Since then it has risen in price which was nice but not expected. I thought about selling one but she stopped that. My initial hesitation was this: What is my recourse if someone received the package intact but breaks the case, reports that it was damaged upon arrival and inserts a bad copy in its place. They then requests a refund and in return I get the "damaged" copy. Thanks for taking the time to look at this and all comments are greatly appreciated.

How do you know someone hasn't already done this with your slabs?

[kgtankman]

1 minute ago, MadGenius said:

This is somewhat of an unlikely scenario since the a great deal of value in the book comes with the 9.8 label which would be lost if the buyer swaps the book. In this scenario, they would have to crack the slab open (not easy), remove the book without damaging it and submit to CGC for regrading. Then wait 1-2 months and hope the book retained the original grade. That's a lot of work for a potential scammer.

Thanks for the reply.  Hope your day is good. The reason I thought of this questions was I sold season tickets for the Chicago bears on a secondary ticket site. The receiving party signed for the tickets but reported the envelope was empty. Nothing came to it when the tickets were gonna be voided and new ones sent to me. When the receiving person was notified of this he explained that his wife had the tickets . 

[kgtankman]

7 minutes ago, KryptoMayor said:

 Anything is possible and if something like that worries you, may I suggest using a third-party reputable company like Heritage Auction, ComicLink, ComicConnect, MyComicShop, etc. Takes a little time to get paid though. 

Thanks for the reply. I have used Comic Link to buy many times and never had a problem

[kgtankman]

2 minutes ago, shadroch said:

How do you know someone hasn't already done this with your slabs?

Anything is possible. 

[MadGenius]

As mentioned above, you'll probably be fine but if you're still worried then I would suggest consigning through MyComicShop. 

[Yorick]

Take photos of the item before boxing it up.  Purchase shipping insurance for the full value of the item.  If someone at the receiving end wants to pull a scam, then they'd have to send you pics of the "damaged" case, and then you simply pass that along to the shipping insurer.  There would be some variations of how this could go through the insurer, but a CGC 9.8 book is going to be valued as a CGC 9.8 book (no broken slab).

[Escaflown41]

7 hours ago, kgtankman said:

This is my first time posting on this forum so please be understanding. I have never had a problem buying comics or selling non-slabbed comics on Ebay. Anyway,  I bought a couple of Batman Adventures #12  graded 9.8 a few years back for my wife. Since then it has risen in price which was nice but not expected. I thought about selling one but she stopped that. My initial hesitation was this: What is my recourse if someone received the package intact but breaks the case, reports that it was damaged upon arrival and inserts a bad copy in its place. They then requests a refund and in return I get the "damaged" copy. Thanks for taking the time to look at this and all comments are greatly appreciated.

My advice to anyone selling on eBay is don't sell anything that you can't afford to lose.  Now granted that scams are out there but they don't occur that often.  God forbid if it does happen to you, I wouldn't count on eBay to set things right for you especially if you are the seller.  Once a SNAD case is opened up against the seller, 99% of the time eBay will side with the buyer.  The 1% chance a seller can win a SNAD case is if by the act of god, the buyer somehow admits fault within the eBay messaging system.  Even if the seller choose to appeal the case, they will tell you straight up that if the buyer doesn't admit fault, there's nothing they can do because this becomes a "he said, she said" case.  Since they have a buyer protection program, eBay will default to side with the buyers.  There IS no seller protection in SNAD cases unfortunately.  Even if you have evidence outside of the eBay messaging system, they will tell you to report it to the authorities or take legal action.  eBay will not stand up for you since they consider themselves a 3rd party. 

[kav]

8 hours ago, kgtankman said:

This is my first time posting on this forum so please be understanding. I have never had a problem buying comics or selling non-slabbed comics on Ebay. Anyway,  I bought a couple of Batman Adventures #12  graded 9.8 a few years back for my wife. Since then it has risen in price which was nice but not expected. I thought about selling one but she stopped that. My initial hesitation was this: What is my recourse if someone received the package intact but breaks the case, reports that it was damaged upon arrival and inserts a bad copy in its place. They then requests a refund and in return I get the "damaged" copy. Thanks for taking the time to look at this and all comments are greatly appreciated.

You can set your ebay not to accept bids from buyers with cases opened against them I believe.  Maybe others know for sure.

[kgtankman]

12 hours ago, Yorick said:

Take photos of the item before boxing it up.  Purchase shipping insurance for the full value of the item.  If someone at the receiving end wants to pull a scam, then they'd have to send you pics of the "damaged" case, and then you simply pass that along to the shipping insurer.  There would be some variations of how this could go through the insurer, but a CGC 9.8 book is going to be valued as a CGC 9.8 book (no broken slab).

Very good advice. Thank you 

[Artboy99]

Potential issues with EBAY and shipping comics. I have experienced all of these.

 

1. Buyer I have dealt with for several years ( he has bought several books off of me ) says that he didn't receive the book. I sent it insured, with tracking and with signature confirmation. I check, tracking says it was delivered and signed for. My buyer says he didn't get it. I check with postal service who say insurance does not cover successfully delivered items. I question successfully delivered since my buyer did not receive. To bad for me that their system says it was delivered and signed for. I refund the buyer and I am out a $300.00 book.

2. I send a raw 9.0 copy of Captain Marvel 33 to a buyer. I sent it insured, with tracking and with signature confirmation. Once he receives it he says he doesn't agree with the grade so I ask for return. When I get the book back it is a 5.0. Thankfully I took pictures. The problem: Ebay sides with the buyer anyway because I can't prove the book I took a picture of was the actual book I sent. I am forced to refund and I am out the nice copy of the book.

3. Send a CGC 6.0 book to a buyer. He informs me the book / cgc case was damaged in shipping and wants to return it rather than be reimbursed/ keep it. I tell him to send it back to me. I get a damaged case with correct label but the book is clearly different, just swapped the label from one inner well to another.

[MustEatBrains]

Sell it on the boards here... Potential problem solved.  The other suggestions about MCS or auction houses are decent alternatives too.

[Ottobord]

For the most part you won't have that type of trouble on ebay but definitely make sure you don't sell to a low feedback buyer.  I recently had a real nightmare with a newbie that didn't know any better.  It worked out in the end but the hassle was legendary.