I will begin by stating I'm quite new/potentially ignorant regarding Ebay selling and the nuances therein. I'm just a simple collector who recently got into buying baseball cards again and decided to sell some of my random buys from the past on Ebay. I first began selling cards around January 29th this year.
On February 12, 2019 I sold a 1952 Topps Eddie Mathews RC PSA 2 (item: 382765605798) for $1750 (either best offer accepted or buy it now price) to user "mastei3", real name Marc Steinberg. The listing was titled: "1952 Topps Eddie Mathews RC #407 PSA 2 Boston Braves". The listing description stated the condition as "very good", this is where I'm assuming the claim stems from, the fact that the card was graded PSA 2 GOOD and my conditional description mistakenly said "very good"? I attached the exact two images of the card which were uploaded to the listing and available to zoom in and see complete condition of the card.
The card was shipped priority mail and delivered February 15th to the buyer.
I was never contacted by the buyer in any form.
On March 26th, 2019, a month and a half later, I was notified by Paypal that an "Item Not As Described - Claim" had been opened up against me. I responded to Paypal with a written response detailing the exact listing, title, description and photos of the card, showing the buyer could see exactly what they were buying.
I called Paypal to understand more about what was going on, and they explained to me the buyer had went to their own credit card company and filed a "purchase not as described" claim and had gotten reimbursed by their credit card company and now their credit card company was contacting Paypal to recoup the money which they had refunded to the cardholder. Paypal immediately put my acocunt in debt to -$1750 and said I need to give them that amount of money to hold until the dispute is decided. Paypal told me they have a good track record of winning these kinds of disputes and it could take 75 days to finalize.
I also informed Paypal that I would've pursued the possibility of refunding the buyer and getting the card back if they would have contacted me and expressed their dissatisfaction about their purchase.
I contacted Ebay to explain the situation and ask for any assistance and they informed me they would investigate this buyer, and that he had apparently created over 30 different Ebay accounts/usernames, but they couldn't help me beyond that, because the buyer went around Ebay & Paypal with their dispute and went straight to his credit card company.
So that's the run down. Now I'm playing the waiting game. I have not attempted to contact this buyer as I figured it wouldn't do any good, they already filed a charge-back with their credit card company and it's too late to handle any disputes like gentleman. What's worse is I gave the buyer a positive rating after he initially bought the card, to this day he only has 3 ratings on his "mastei3" account.
I also paid $175 selling fee to Ebay upon selling the card.
I have a 100% positive buyer/seller rating on my "bagwell-1994" account with 140 ratings.
My questions to the knowledgeable folks here at Net54 are:
1. Is this my fault? Due to the goof of listing "very good" condition within the listing description for a PSA 2 GOOD card?
2. Or, is this buyer as conniving as I believe him to be? Is he operating in an intentional way to get reimbursed by his credit card co. while avoiding any contact with Ebay, Paypal or the seller while also intending to retain the baseball card?
3. If Paypal loses the case for me and I am forced to pay his credit card co. back, how do I ensure that I receive my Eddie Mathews card back? Paypal could not answer this question for me.
4. Has this happened to you or someone you know when selling an item? How did it work out for you/them?
Thanks in advance for any guidance.
Update 5/13/2019: I received a collection notice in the mail from ACI (American Coradius International LLC), they are a sister company to PayPal who seek collections. They did not report my collection to the credit bureaus, per our correspondence. The remaining balance is $784 (the rest of the $1750 has been paid off by cards I have sold through Ebay/Paypal, but I still owe $784).
PayPal never contacted me to Inform me the claim case had been lost and I was responsible to pay. I simply received a notice from a collection agency-sister company to PayPal. When I tried to call Paypal, they referred me to the collection company, PayPal would not speak with me at all, they referred me to the collection company
, the collection company supervisor was a baseball fan and felt sympathy for my dilemma but couldn't help me beyond that. He informed me "when the banks come to a conclusion, PayPal is powerless against it, they are simply a money-processing website and have no power against the banks."
Tomorrow morning I will go to my local police station to file a police report against Marc Steinberg for theft of $1750 of property. Yes I know, I should have pursued this sooner. But I was trusting in PayPal to "follow the process" which they assured me had a very high success rate in the past.
Beyond that, if I do not repay PayPal the remaining $784 balance, they will lock my account, preventing me from buying/selling using their processing tool. Not to mention they will report it to the credit bureaus.
The PayPal collection company urged me to contact the buyer and try and reconcile with them, as a last resort.
Do you think I should message the buyer and try and reconcile? I honestly felt it would be completely futile based on their actions and never pursued this course of action. Marc Steinberg already has the $1750 Eddie Mathews RC AND his money back! Why the f$%@ would he reconcile?! He never once contacted me, or Ebay, or Payapal, which is why I knew this was a scam to begin with.
Now I must focus efforts to paying back PayPal the remaining $784, while this pathetic con artist keeps on keeping on and screwing over others as he sees fit. At the end of the day, I will have paid about $3500 to the cause of criminals (card and cash included), which I dont have to pay. I'm a blue collar worker and baseball card collector for christ's sake.
Talk about losing faith in humanity..
Update 6/13/19:
Faith restored? Received email just now from PayPal that the case was won in my favor and they credited my account the $1750 back. This is especially great timing as I'm currently going through a financial crisis and am pursuing selling my whole collection with the help of a fellow Net54 member! Feeling very grateful this day
and perhaps this is a good sign for anyone else who may encounter these kinds of battles in the future.