A buyer of mine bought a rare, mint in sealed box item from me last week. This item is no longer sold in stores and is hard to find. This item was sold as a collectible and I only had one which I offered up for auction and this buyer won it. Obviously, as item was mint in box and factory sealed, I had not opened the item as that would remove much of its value.
Said buyer, upon receiving this item, opened it and discovered a scratch on the item’s leg. A shame? Yes. My fault, obviously not. Factory flaws are very common, especially in the toy industry.
Here is the email I got:
I looked at the picture again and you cannot see the scratch on [item’s] leg, but there sure is one there. Other than that it looks fine. Wish I had known about the scratched leg….oh well. I am having poor ebay luck this go round. Take care. Thanks for the quick shipping.
Notice she doesn’t ask for a refund but the fact that she thinks the scratch should have been mentioned in the item or put in the picture means that she considers this our fault. (Insert your own comment about the passive aggressiveness of this email here).
For those of us that sell rare or one of a kind type items, a situation like this puts you in an impossible place.
Is there a way to take a photo of something that you don’t know exists inside of a sealed box?
Are you responsible for flaws that you had no possible way of knowing existed?
If I manufactured the item or if it was something I had many of, I would take the loss and offer an exchange. But the world of collectibles doesn’t work like that. Now that she has opened it, much of the value is gone. I could offer to take $1 or so off the price but even that irks me because its something that was out of my control. And who’s to say that a partial refund would satisfy this buyer since she has already decided I have deceived her somehow.
Ever accepted a return on a rare item only to get it back damaged and unsellable? (Yes)
Ever get a bad feedback because the buyer was upset the decades old antique they purchased didn’t stand up to their child playing with it? (Sadly, yes here too).
Sometimes selling older and rare items comes with its own host of issues that those that sell new items cannot relate to.
Collectible sellers, share your horror stories below.
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I don’t get too much of this, but at the same time I don’t sell anything fragile enough to crack in the mail. I’ve had a few people say items smelled musty and I’ve usually refunded or come up with a deal for them. I do guarantee all orders with an offer of paying return shipping…though on my few returns I usually just tell them to keep the item as long as it’s not high-ticket.
I’ll take this another way though and tell a happy story, at least from my perspective as eBay buyer.
I ordered 2 lots totaling about 80 magazines from a seller I’d dealt with once previously. I couldn’t believe what arrived, the post office did a total butcher job, the box was open on both ends with some tape sealing it, just enough to hold it together. The box held no more than two dozen magazines which after I went through about 5 or 6 were salable–the others had missing/torn covers, and this being winter, stains from dirty slush.
Ugly!
I could picture the PO guys loading the box, dropping it in the snow and quickly gathering up as many as they felt worth the effort before moving on.
Not insured, no help from the PO (what a service, pay for it with no guarantees unless you want to pay protection money!)
The seller happened to still have several of the title I’d ordered in stock. He was very friendly about it and shipped me off about 40-50 replacement copies at no extra charge. I continue to buy from him and have not had a problem since.
But as happy as this story is for me, in this case my seller probably felt the way you did. And you know, I told him in my email, I realize this isn’t your fault, it’s not my fault, it’s the damn post office’s fault and they claim not to be liable. I felt very bad for the seller and have always hoped it didn’t hurt him too bad to send me the extra magazines.
Thanks, Cliff
I don’t get too much of this, but at the same time I don’t sell anything fragile enough to crack in the mail. I’ve had a few people say items smelled musty and I’ve usually refunded or come up with a deal for them. I do guarantee all orders with an offer of paying return shipping…though on my few returns I usually just tell them to keep the item as long as it’s not high-ticket.
I’ll take this another way though and tell a happy story, at least from my perspective as eBay buyer.
I ordered 2 lots totaling about 80 magazines from a seller I’d dealt with once previously. I couldn’t believe what arrived, the post office did a total butcher job, the box was open on both ends with some tape sealing it, just enough to hold it together. The box held no more than two dozen magazines which after I went through about 5 or 6 were salable–the others had missing/torn covers, and this being winter, stains from dirty slush.
Ugly!
I could picture the PO guys loading the box, dropping it in the snow and quickly gathering up as many as they felt worth the effort before moving on.
Not insured, no help from the PO (what a service, pay for it with no guarantees unless you want to pay protection money!)
The seller happened to still have several of the title I’d ordered in stock. He was very friendly about it and shipped me off about 40-50 replacement copies at no extra charge. I continue to buy from him and have not had a problem since.
But as happy as this story is for me, in this case my seller probably felt the way you did. And you know, I told him in my email, I realize this isn’t your fault, it’s not my fault, it’s the damn post office’s fault and they claim not to be liable. I felt very bad for the seller and have always hoped it didn’t hurt him too bad to send me the extra magazines.
Thanks, Cliff
I actually had a similar incident to what you mention, Cliff. Someone purchased some doll clothes from me and the package opened in transit (USPS must have done a number on it, my envelopes are pretty hardcore) and some parts fell out so I replaced them free of charge. I could do that because I was selling a lot of those clothes and had more. That was a rare case. Normally, I only have one and only one of whatever I am selling.
I once bought myself an audio book (this was many years ago). I took it home, realized it was abridged and decided to just read the book instead. I lost the receipt and couldn’t return it so I sold it on Amazon. Mind you, the audio book was still sealed in plastic wrap from the store.
Well the person who I sold it to got it and said that the disks were flawed (some kind of misprinting) and wouldn’t play. They wanted a refund. I said I would refund if they sent it back but they refused. For all I know this could have been a scam but let’s pretend it was real.
If I was Walmart, I would be able to help them out. But I’m not Walmart and I don’t have another copy hanging around. For Walmart, the cost of a single item is nothing compared to what they make a day. For me, depending on the item, it could be everything I made that day. Perhaps its childish of me but I don’t want to pay for something that was totally out of my control.
Now an audio book is very different than a rare item, I will give you that. But that incident made me feel the same way as something like this does. It makes those of us that are essentially resellers have to face the big chain issue of getting an item back damaged and having to swallow the loss of money in the hope of future gain.
I actually had a similar incident to what you mention, Cliff. Someone purchased some doll clothes from me and the package opened in transit (USPS must have done a number on it, my envelopes are pretty hardcore) and some parts fell out so I replaced them free of charge. I could do that because I was selling a lot of those clothes and had more. That was a rare case. Normally, I only have one and only one of whatever I am selling.
I once bought myself an audio book (this was many years ago). I took it home, realized it was abridged and decided to just read the book instead. I lost the receipt and couldn’t return it so I sold it on Amazon. Mind you, the audio book was still sealed in plastic wrap from the store.
Well the person who I sold it to got it and said that the disks were flawed (some kind of misprinting) and wouldn’t play. They wanted a refund. I said I would refund if they sent it back but they refused. For all I know this could have been a scam but let’s pretend it was real.
If I was Walmart, I would be able to help them out. But I’m not Walmart and I don’t have another copy hanging around. For Walmart, the cost of a single item is nothing compared to what they make a day. For me, depending on the item, it could be everything I made that day. Perhaps its childish of me but I don’t want to pay for something that was totally out of my control.
Now an audio book is very different than a rare item, I will give you that. But that incident made me feel the same way as something like this does. It makes those of us that are essentially resellers have to face the big chain issue of getting an item back damaged and having to swallow the loss of money in the hope of future gain.