A Bad eBay Experience

On September 26th I came across one of those opportunity purchases, this was actually my first opportunity purchase this year, and even though I set a goal of cutting these types of purchase out completely I didn’t listen to my inner voice.

 

While searching through some Allen & Ginter’s autographs a recommendation for various Goodwin Champions autographs appeared so I decided to take a look. One of the suggestions was a 2013 Suzy Hotrod autograph and for some unknown reason I found myself interested. I used to watch roller derby all the time but it just doesn’t show up on television anymore but to be honest if it was on T.V. I would watch every chance I could. It is just the ultimate sport; roller skates, physical assaults and a scoring system that nobody seems to understand.

 

So I got caught up in finding out about Suzy Hotrod and once I was that deep I just had to buy an autograph and of course once you buy an autograph you have to add a relic too. I looked through the autographs and Suzy Hotrod has a rather messy autograph so when I came across this solid signature I hit the BIN for $4.99 plus $2.95 shipping. The price was about a dollar more than what most of her autographs were selling for at the time, the same seller had one of her regular signatures for $3.49 BIN but I wanted the better looking autograph.

 

Next up was the relic. There are base relics and multi-colored relic cards so I decided to go with a dual-colored piece from one of her red Gotham Girls traveling team jerseys. This one was $2.99 plus $2.95 shipping. At the time this was about average for her relic cards so I felt I got a good price.

 

After I purchased the cards I realized they were from the same seller so I emailed him to ask if he would be willing to combine shipping for both cards. His response to me was essentially “Tough” and that once items are paid for he cannot combine shipping, which is B.S. because I did it just a couple of weeks ago and it was a situation where he didn’t want to take the extra 30 seconds and it meant an additional $2.45 in his pocket. But, none-the-less I can accept this because I did pay for them separately and life goes on.

 

Days go by and the tracking number is not showing that it was even shipped and I was a bit concerned. It finally shipped on October 3^rd, seven days after I paid. OK, I am now wondering if the seller was just being a jerk and making me wait because I asked for combined shipping.

 

I get the cards on October 6^th and I open the relic card first and it looked good, I opened the autograph card envelope and notice the autograph is Hotrod’s regular crappy autograph and not the beautiful autograph that I purchased. I double checked the auction to make sure that the description didn’t say something like “You will not receive the card pictured” but nothing like that so I emailed the seller explaining the mistake. When you email a seller regarding an issue a case is automatically opened through eBay so I figured it would get the seller’s attention. I sent a follow up email with a picture of the card I received to show the difference between autographs. I waited and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond so three days later I expanded the claim to get eBay involved. They attempted to contact him and they didn’t get a response so they offered me the option to return the card and get a refund using the aBay Buyer Protection or keep the card. I emailed the seller one last time hoping it was just a mistake that he seriously missed, and waited until Sunday before cancelling the refund option and just leave negative feedback.

 

The card on the left is the card that was pictured in the auction and the card on the right is the card I actually received. What led me to purchase this card was because the signature lines were separated and she actually wrote "#55" where she normally signs "Hotrod#55" all together and the "55" usually looks like anything but "55"

 

 

In the end I decided to keep the card instead of accepting a refund and buying a new one because for some reason Suzy Hotrod’s autographs have doubled in price in just two weeks, even her relics have jumped 50% too.

 

I am really disappointed, the autograph on the card I purchased is very unique compared to her standard autograph. It got me thinking about what happened and I figured it was one of four reasons from the seller. When considering the options I am betting on is either #2 or #4.

 

 

1. He used an image he found on the internet for the auction not realizing there was a difference. But this one seems less likely because he was selling another Hotrod autograph with the crappy signature for less money so he obviously knew there was a difference.

2. He accidently switched the packaging and sent the nice autograph to the other buyer. This seems like a possibility and he wasn’t responding out of embarrassment knowing he couldn’t get the other card back from the other buyer to correct the mistake.

 

3. He didn’t send me the card to be a jerk because I asked for combined shipping. This is a possibility but most people are not this vindictive, especially when you consider this guy has over 17,000 feedback with 99.9% positive. If he got upset and jerked over everyone who had any sort of after sale request I am sure his feedback would be much lower.

 

4. He saw the rapid price increase in the week before he sent out the card and decided to hold the better looking autograph figuring he could get a significant premium over what I paid so he sent out the crappy autograph and is ignoring my/eBay’s messages expecting negative feedback anyway.