WhatNot sellers to avoid (and sellers to add) 3 3

[Jesse-Lee]

Since there are "blocked eBay users" threads and the like, and with the prevalence of WhatNot, I thought it might be good to start a "positive/negative experiences" thread on WhatNot sellers - especially because I just had a pretty negative experience.

I've been buying on WhatNot now for about a year and a half (I've never applied to sell there), and until tonight, it's been all positive experiences. I've bought books from the following sellers with fair prices, excellent shipping and packing, and fast turnaround times:

verygary_comics

triforcebreaks

davisrider

gemmintcollectibles

elreycomics

mutantcitycomics

All of these transactions have been outstanding, and based on my experiences with these WhatNot sellers, I'd recommend each of them.

Tonight, I bought two mystery packs from a "mystery bundle" show by thebluechipcomic. The bundles were advertised as a "floor" value of $24, an "average" value of somewhere around $70, and a "ceiling" value of $550, based on two slabs they claimed to be giving away in the bundles. They also claimed that the "biggest stack of purchases" wins a secondary "high value slab" prize. They were selling the mystery bundles auction-style, with a typical base starting price of $25, but they'd run a lower starting price now and again. I won two bundles for $45 total.

I have no issue with mystery bundles and slab raffles - I understand there's a gambling aspect to it. But people (including myself) were bidding in good faith based on what we were told were the rules of the game and the values of the bundles, and that wasn't the case.

The way it worked was the buyers buy bundles (the seller said they had 50) and they're stacked up next to each other - the bundles had the "opportunity" to hit an indeterminate CGC slab. The seller said continuously throughout the stream that the biggest stack wins the secondary prize. They said at the end they'd open the bundles and see what people won, kind of like a sports card break if you're familiar.

Surprisingly though, before all the bundles were even sold, they ended sales because they said "not enough people were bidding, and that's three strikes" and they ended sales and started opening the bundles. I was shocked at the fact that these were the drekkiest of drek books - calling them $1 bin books is insulting to the $1 bins. There were probably 4-6 of these 50-cent - $1 books per bundle - and they claimed the "floor" of these bundles were $24. They even had bundles with a red sticker on them that were supposed to be "high-value," containing books totaling in excess of $70-100. I won one of these, and the "high-value" book in it goes for $5 on eBay.

The poor guy who amassed the largest stack - which cost him somewhere around $300+ - was told that the secondary prize was void because the sale ended early due to lack of interest. I didn't stick around to see the junk he "won."

Normally I'd just eat the money since I took the gamble - but normally honest sellers actually do have a floor somewhere relatively close to the FMV they're touting, and they play a fair game on their end. In this case, I reported the account and immediately requested a refund for my two purchases - which I was thankfully granted (and immediately blocked by the seller... oh no!).

Long story short - there are a lot of fun and reputable sellers on WhatNot, but steer clear of thebluechipcomic. Please share yours, both good and bad!

[badback83]

Shrinkys aka Joe and Adam from Superworld.

This is a seller to ADD.

Edited May 9 by badback83
Good guys

[Robot Man]

I have never used WhatNot so I have no opinion.

I will say it is a “mystery” to me why anyone would buy mystery boxes even more bid on them. The whole premise is for dealers to dump junk and to take advantage of those with a gambling problem. I guess someone might “win” something but the odds are very much stacked in the house’s favor.

I prefer to know exactly what I am spending my money on. I avoid sites like this and IG due to lack of information. Too many shifty situations for me. You get what you pay for…

[Jesse-Lee]

On 5/9/2024 at 10:13 AM, Robot Man said:

I have never used WhatNot so I have no opinion.

I will say it is a “mystery” to me why anyone would buy mystery boxes even more bid on them. The whole premise is for dealers to dump junk and to take advantage of those with a gambling problem. I guess someone might “win” something but the odds are very much stacked in the house’s favor.

I prefer to know exactly what I am spending my money on. I avoid sites like this and IG due to lack of information. Too many shifty situations for me. You get what you pay for…

I totally get that, it's not for everyone and it's not the smartest of financial moves, but I do it sometimes for the fun of it, like popping into a casino or placing a sports bet.

But the fun of these is when the sellers are being honest - most of the time, if a seller says the packs have a value of "x," it's true, and they run a fair game. So I might drop $20 on a pack where they say the value is $20 minimum for example; at worst you might get some interesting new books, and you take your shot at a gamble on a prize.

But the packs last night were ridiculous - they came no where near the stated value. And the fact that they ended the sale early completely screwed the buyers who threw their money down chasing the "buyer prize" that never materialized. 

I do agree with you that there are some buyers who go nuts (at least it seems nuts to me) and find themselves unable to keep buying pack after pack for the chase - that is definitely a bad side to these types of games, fair or not.

[dbcn]

I've both bought books and won give aways from Trinity Comics, Frankies Comics, Unknown Comics & Artgerm Collectibles. 

One Stop Comic Shop has some really fun shows (less frequent, but some really interesting stuff - I think one show he did was all 9.9s?)

Frankies & Unknown do multiple daily shows - mostly with their exclusives, but with the occasional gem, it can get repetitive, but is fun to have on in the background. I haven't had many bad experiences  - the app can be glitchy, but in general it's been good fun and the books are generally high quality (at least from the above). My achilles heel is that if you win a giveaway, the shipping is free, so it's hard not to pick up another book or two...

I've watched some other sellers - Bry's Comics and Mike Mayhew Studio are fun but generally out of my league $ wise - I also can't stand the mystery boxes - they seem way overpriced and when the hosts show the books, very rarely do I feel like I miss out on anything. 

I will say that the platform is pretty unique & offers an opportunity for the hosts to do some really interesting things, especially during conventions. Trinity recently did a show at C2E2 (? maybe it was megacon?) where they were running books but also had E.M. Gist sitting next to them, doing live remarks and answering questions during the show. Another show they had one of their artists call in from Italy and answer questions & generally hang out with the people there.

Artgerm Collectibles did a show at a signing - all of the artists from the collective were in a hotel room with piles of books, but the majority of the show was users asking Artgerm random questions as he signed books. The end of the show was watching Artgerm do a remark on 10ft banner - it was pretty fun.

Curious to hear about other peoples experiences - I tend to only follow / watch a handful of sellers as some of the other shows I've seen are just really, really boring.

 

Edited May 9 by dbcn

[dbcn]

On 5/9/2024 at 2:34 PM, The Auditer said:

So Frankie's came back from bankruptcy?

Tbh I have no idea. On a few occasions there'll be somebody in the auction giving the host a rough time about it, but whatever happened was well before I knew anything about them. The sense I get is some possibly shady stuff went on a while back, but I have only had good WhatNot experiences with them, so no complaints here 

[Lenoxseer]

I second mutantcitycomics. They are great and one you should ADD.

 

[thehumantorch]

On 5/9/2024 at 9:13 AM, Robot Man said:

I have never used WhatNot so I have no opinion.

I will say it is a “mystery” to me why anyone would buy mystery boxes even more bid on them. The whole premise is for dealers to dump junk and to take advantage of those with a gambling problem. I guess someone might “win” something but the odds are very much stacked in the house’s favor.

I prefer to know exactly what I am spending my money on. I avoid sites like this and IG due to lack of information. Too many shifty situations for me. You get what you pay for…

Agreed.  Mystery boxes are a dealer's crafted method to sell drek he's failed to sell.  I just don't get it.  Why would I buy a bunch of junk rather than what I actually want?

I haven't used WhatNot or Instagram but I'm sure there are good sellers and bad sellers.

[Dark Knight]

I stay away from purchasing mystery boxes because of what others have already said about them.  Just stuff the dealers are trying to get rid of because no one wants to buy them. All garbage books.

Yes, it's quite similar to sports card pre-pack breaks. But different from the usual box or case breaks because those cases and boxes were factory sealed so the contents are unknown. You can hit a big $100k card from a break just like that, but be careful with whom you shop with. Some of these card breakers are shady and would sometimes not ship the cards you won from the break OR they can say that the card was lost in the mail but they in fact kept it due to its high value.  I've done about a few years of sports card breaks back then and have hit some monsters that are worth $$$. I've stopped now a few years ago, but it sure was fun 😆

[ExNihilo]

The only mystery boxes I would consider buying are artist exclusives from creator shops.  People buying that are generally more interested in the creator art and don't necessarily care which books they get.  Also, at least with those you're not getting ripped off because you can get signed books and ratio books (depending on how you value those).  Still, I've never bought any, but I've come close to pulling the trigger.

[Robot Man]

The only time I ever heard of a mystery box work out was for a co worker. He wasn’t a collector but inherited his dad’s collection. He decided to go to a comic con and purchased a mystery box. The big prize was a Stan Lee autographed book which of course he didn’t get. He did, however get a high grade Black Cat Mystery #50.

He had no idea what it was and was disappointed until I told him what it was worth. He was shocked.

So, it can work out I guess…

Edited May 10 by Robot Man

[alexgreece]

Sorry to hear about the bad experiences. I would like to throw our name in the ring, check out reecesrarecomics on Whatnot if you haven't already. We run weekly streams on Thursday and Friday nights at 6PM ET. We typically run raw material of decent quality, but tonight is an all slab show (Daredevil #35 CGC 9.2, Savage She-Hulk #1 CGC 9.8, ASM #252 CGC 9.6 and many more!). Give us a follow if that sounds interesting!

[SkOw]

On 5/10/2024 at 10:20 AM, alexgreece said:

Sorry to hear about the bad experiences. I would like to throw our name in the ring, check out reecesrarecomics on Whatnot if you haven't already. We run weekly streams on Thursday and Friday nights at 6PM ET. We typically run raw material of decent quality, but tonight is an all slab show (Daredevil #35 CGC 9.2, Savage She-Hulk #1 CGC 9.8, ASM #252 CGC 9.6 and many more!). Give us a follow if that sounds interesting!

I don't even have a What-Not account, so I obviously haven't bought anything, but I will say that Greg (and Austin now) Reece is one of the best Dealers to buy from.  I've bought a lot from those guys over the years at Motor City and Chicago.  Like Dale Roberts and Superworld, some of my must stops at shows.  You can buy with confidence from those guys...

[alexgreece]

On 5/10/2024 at 2:29 PM, SkOw said:

I don't even have a What-Not account, so I obviously haven't bought anything, but I will say that Greg (and Austin now) Reece is one of the best Dealers to buy from.  I've bought a lot from those guys over the years at Motor City and Chicago.  Like Dale Roberts and Superworld, some of my must stops at shows.  You can buy with confidence from those guys...

And Alex too hopefully  Thanks for the kind words though, I think most people would enjoy the Whatnot show. If you do pop in tell David (our guy that streams the shows) that you came from the CGC boards.

[SkOw]

On 5/10/2024 at 3:47 PM, alexgreece said:

And Alex too hopefully  Thanks for the kind words though, I think most people would enjoy the Whatnot show. If you do pop in tell David (our guy that streams the shows) that you came from the CGC boards.

FINE!!!!!

Alex too!

[daydoodle]

I mostly shop for reader copies and run fillers on whatnot. You can get some good deals if you are patient. I have had no problems buying from shrinkys, bronzeville_comics, crispytoysandcomics, and reecesrarecomics.

The most entertaining whatnot seller was Duke from the Shanghalla youtube channel. He had Friday shows where he randomly picked a long box from the online store he worked at and sold its contents. Unfortunately, Goldin bought the store and the whatnot shows stopped.