Is My Math Wrong Or Is This Buyer Unable To Count?

I am not at all surprised that they did this. I also knew that "having an NGC employee look at it" was total BS. Keep in mind that this will be recorded internally as a ruling "FOR THE BUYER without holding the seller at fault." ebay has almost no grey area when making a ruling. An employee will actually have a screen that only allows them to chose 3 options. Buyer, Seller, or Buyer without holding seller responsible. The buyer likely chose the return and full refund resolution option which is what was granted.

I just want to repeat myself...despite the seller kind of getting a break on this, ebay technically ruled for the buyer. I have dealt with many ebay cases so nothing surprises me. I live within driving distance of ebay headquarters and I know a former employee who worked both in the "trust and safety" department as well whatever department rules on cases---don't recall it's official name right now. He has verified to me that the whole thing is BS and the company doesn't want any employee to rule on any objective opinion so they have to go with concrete facts or numbers. If buyer says "it didn't have the right amount of stars", they will go with it. They will sometimes give the seller a break, as they did in this case, and not hold them responsible either. They usually do this if the rep's conscience gets the best of them or the seller has a long strong record...or of coarse, if the person brings in a lot of money either by selling or buying lots of big money items.

This case is pretty unsettling none the less. I thought the seller would have a shot because it is literally written on a PCGS slab. Of coarse, it would depend on the exact wording the buyer used when making the case. Either way, my guess is that the buyer will not actually return the coin at all. They have 8 days now to upload tracking info for the coin.

Also, make sure ebay follows through on actually giving you the 10% restocking fee and that you haven't been hit with an unresolved case mark on your record. Both oversights may occur, but the reps will likely give you those if you pester them for it.

I had a similar incident on ebay a few months ago, but it was selling a piece of jewelry, not a coin. I had this old sterling silver bracelet that was set with some kind of clear stones. I went to our local trusted jeweler (in business here since 1889) to see if the stones were diamonds, but it turned out they were "moissanite". I learned there was only maybe $15 of melt value in the silver so I decided to just hang on to it.

Then I started searching ebay and found similar bracelets set with this type of stone selling for over $100. I posted it starting at 99 cents and it bid up to around $100 by the last day. Somebody sniped the auction in the last seconds, and I sold it I shipped the bracelet upon payment. If I remember correctly, it sold for over $125.

Fast forward a few days when she received the bracelet, and I get an ebay message from her saying "these stones are not as I expected, I'd like to return it for a refund". My auction clearly stated that there was no refund unless it was damaged. So, she opened a case against me with ebay claiming the item was "not as described".

I gathered all of our emails back and forth and wrote a formal letter to ebay basically proving that my auction was accurately describing the item, and that the buyer's comments to me made it obvious this was a case of buyer's remorse. After waiting three weeks, they finally released the hold on my PayPal account!

It all worked out in the end, but what a hassle for nothing. Don't bid on items unless you (a) read the description entirely, (b) understand what you're buying, and (c) asked any questions BEFORE submitting any offer!

I've been following this thread. I'm really glad you at least get something for your troubles. And I hope your coin arrives back safe and sound. There is no excuse for the buyer in this incident. ebay really needs to improve their "always side with the buyer" policy.

It happens but I don't think I would describe it as common. As Basebal21 says it seems like it happens a lot because mostly what you hear about are the problem deals and not the smooth ones. Also you see a lot of them because there are a lot of ebay sellers here. If one percent of the deals have a problem but we have 100 sellers here you may hear about 100 problem deals but that is out of 10,000 deals

Would like to add that my mother ran an e-business for eight months and over THOUSANDS of transactions, we only ever had two problems--one was an unscrupulous seller we bought from, and the other was a perfectly normal transaction except that we were trying to send a copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire into China. I found out many years after the fact that the English-language Harry Potter is EXTREMELY banned in China (there is a translation into Mandarin, but it's both sloppy--the anagram that changes "Tom Marvolo Riddle" into "I am Lord Voldemort," for example, is left untranslated and written in English in the margin even though Voldemort's name is translated into something totally different elsewhere in the book--and heavily censored), and so it's quite likely that all we succeeded in doing was getting three copies of an error book (this was the edition with the Lily/James error, for people who know their Potter) either destroyed, or smuggled into the black market.


Two out of several thousand . . . not bad.

Didn't he have your address from the outbound mailing?

Here, permit me to on your behalf.

A few years ago when I used to frequent the rec.collecting.coins newsgroup, I remember one of the regulars getting a neg feedback with the comment "Coin was much smaller than in photograph". He was selling a Half Dime and posted huge detailed pics of a really nice coin. Sad how easy it can be to have years of good sales and then have something occur that makes you look bad and that only because the seller didn't know what he/she was buying.