Yeah, if you can get sales on CCF its much better than
ebay. Sometimes people do take way too long to pay; I'd say maybe 5% of buyers overall in my experience of 500-1000 transactions (I've thrown a lot of lower grade material on there). Problem is, you can't do anything about it because if you file NPB and they pay, they will often neg you in anger. I just wish we still had the for sale forum which made it a bit easier to have ongoing selling etc....had a lot more luck selling here before the for sale forum was axed. I've experienced similar things with dealers also, its like a whole "shut up kid I'm a professional so anything I say goes" attitude. Btw as you may know, 80% of greysheet bid (this is dealer wholesale) really isn't even that much for stuff that was easily average or above average quality..so this guy was really trying to rip me off hard. That's only like 55-60% of retail. Especially when stuff jumps between grades. It's more like the pawn shops that try to buy at 1/3 value.
I remember also that the first guy had some customer come in to sell a collection of very rare stamps, guessing it was his father's collection since he looked maybe 27. He got $3000 for them, but I bet they were worth a lot more. I bet the dealer made an absolute killing off this guy by over-stating the flaws and under stating the grades because he was saying nearly every single one was 'gummed' or something. Yet he gave this guy a huge amount of grief over budging $50 even after the above. The customer stood his ground and said he would walk and not come back if he didn't budge since he was somewhat insulted (good negotiator), but he was also young and it seems they're really likely to act like that with younger people because they figure we're desperate. I guess most of us are. I've seen a fair number of desperate young people come into shops. If they had valuable stuff, they would've been taken. As much as I would probably have been given a dirty look at a minimum, I was willing to make sure they weren't cheated.
If I want to pay 50% or less of value, I go hunting for
ebay auctions to snipe. I don't go lying to people I trade/sell with about the grades or issues to squeeze more money out of them or give them 40% of what its valued at. That doesn't mean I pay retail or that I'm bad at business, its just called not being a jerk. I do actually win some on
ebay in that range and sometimes I get lucky and get something even better, sometimes far better, despite that dealer I've known awhile insisting that 'nothing on
ebay goes below wholesale' (complete BS, you just have to look harder). If you need to do something of low character like that to
survive, that's one thing, but that's hardly ever the case.
Oh, I also forgot to mention that the second guy left 9 bills out of the 50 pack of 20s which was part of the payment I got for some silver. This guy made me wait when I was late for an appointment too, then when he made that mistake he triple counted it as if I was trying to pull something. If it was one or two bills, maybe, but it was nine. Since he was old I wasn't so quick to think 'scammer' at the time, but I'm not so sure now. At the very least, you can bet that if I had walked out without counting it, he would have refused to give me the full amount and I would've been out $180.
We can continue this over email if you want, the grading forum probably isn't the place for it I'm guessing...but I do enjoy sharing experiences.
Posted 10/24/2011 7:55 pm
