Any fears in selling large $ items on ebay?

[tinkereversandme]

I am a casual seller and a small percentage of the time the transactions have been rather terrible. I once sold an item for $17 and four months later PayPal removed the funds because a "chargeback" occurred and it took me three weeks to get my $17 back. Then there were two International orders that didn't reach their destination and it was my fault despite the fact that I showed proof of shipping (Russian Federation and Italy) and I have heard horror stories of people "saying" that what the received was an empty box when items were in fact sent. Ebay tends to favor the buyer it seems. I have two items I want to sell on ebay and they should bring a few thousand dollars and I am sure a lot of you sell items of that size and bigger all the time and was wondering if you ever had any issues and what measures should I take to protect myself?

I appreciate your input. I love this site.

Regards,

Larry

[Bigb13]

Any fears of course the taxman

[D. Bergin]

You can disallow bidders from individual countries you think are risky, or all International bidders if you like. I have Italy and Russia blocked myself, though I can allow specific bidders from those countries if I like, if somebody I'm familiar with requests an exception.

I've been pretty lucky, but most of my stuff is within a specific niche that doesn't expose me to very much risk.

You could also go the auction house route.

[sb1]

With the plethora of auction houses that sell your items for ZERO sellers fee, why would you risk it on Ebay and pay them 15% or more by the time you figure in paypal.

[TanksAndSpartans]

Originally Posted by sb1

With the plethora of auction houses that sell your items for ZERO sellers fee, why would you risk it on Ebay and pay them 15% or more by the time you figure in paypal.

I was thinking something similar - I was going to ask how much you would pay in eBay/PayPal fees and compare that with consigning the card/item(s). I think if you consign it though, you'd be looking at an auction whereas with eBay you could list a BIN if you wanted.

In my opinion though, there really is no such thing as ZERO sellers fee. I always calculate the Buyer's premium into my bid. For example, if I would bid $472 on eBay, I'd only bid $400 at an auction house to account for the 18% buyer's premium.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by DezHood

I was thinking something similar - I was going to ask how much you would pay in eBay/PayPal fees and compare that with consigning the card/item(s). I think if you consign it though, you'd be looking at an auction whereas with eBay you could list a BIN if you wanted.

In my opinion though, there really is no such thing as ZERO sellers fee. I always calculate the Buyer's premium into my bid. For example, if I would bid $472 on eBay, I'd only bid $400 at an auction house to account for the 18% buyer's premium.

Yes exactly so, frankly I am surprised to hear Scott say that. The consignor gives up a cut to the house whether it's called a seller's premium or a consignment fee or a buyer's premium. Just because it's in the form of a reduced hammer price is really irrelevant to the math.

[Brian Van Horn]

Make sure you are aware of eBay's cut of the sale price.

[D.P.Johnson]

List the items on Net54......

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by D.P.Johnson

List the items on Net54......

I was thinking the same thing. Couldn't hurt to see if there's some interest here. And I haven't heard of anyone getting scammed on this site as a buyer or seller.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Yes exactly so, frankly I am surprised to hear Scott say that. The consignor gives up a cut to the house whether it's called a seller's premium or a consignment fee or a buyer's premium. Just because it's in the form of a reduced hammer price is really irrelevant to the math.

This surprises me as well, and this isn't the first time I've seen it on this site. The fee is payed regardless and it still reduces what a bidder is willing to spend.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

This surprises me as well, and this isn't the first time I've seen it on this site. The fee is payed regardless and it still reduces what a bidder is willing to spend.

whoops responded to wrong thread

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

I was thinking the same thing. Couldn't hurt to see if there's some interest here. And I haven't heard of anyone getting scammed on this site as a buyer or seller.

Jesse you are a good man but you have this habit of generalizing from your own limited experience. Not always accurate.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ighlight=fargo

[pokerplyr80]

In fairness I said I hadn't heard of it. Now I have but it does seem rare here. I'm sure scammers will always find there way on to any site but this one seems as good as any I'm aware of.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Why is it relevant that you personally haven't heard of it? That's about as meaningful as saying I had a few successful dealings with PWCC therefore they are honest. I don't disagree that the BST is a good venue though. Don't mind me in any event.

[Sean1125]

Column 1 = Value item sold for
Column 2 = Net payment from consignment seller (Probstein123 rates)
Column 3 = Using the buyers premium of B-L auction. The buyer in B-L auction must pay $101250 for a seller to net $90000.
Column 4 = Using the buyers premium of REA Auction. The buyer in REA auction must pay $108000 for a seller to net $90000.


100000 90000 101250 108000
75000 67500 75937.5 81000
50000 45000 50625 54000
25000 22500 25312.5 27000
10000 9000 10125 10800
7500 6750 7593.75 8100
5000 4500 5062.5 5400
2500 2225 2503.125 2670
1500 1335 1501.875 1602
1000 880 990 1056
750 660 742.5 792
500 440 495 528
250 220 247.5 264
150 132 148.5 158.4
105 92.4 103.95 110.88
100 87 97.875 104.4
95 82.65 92.98125 99.18
50 43 48.375 51.6
30 25.8 29.025 30.96
20 17 19.125 20.4
10 8.2 9.225 9.84
5 3.6 4.05 4.32

[pokerplyr80]

Maybe I could have phrased it better but the point I was trying to make was that since he's already on the site, it wouldn't hurt to list his items for sale. And that the chances of getting scammed, which he was worried about from his initial post on another site are pretty low. So low in fact, that until today I hadn't heard of it ever happening here.

[Peter_Spaeth]

It does happen but I agree not very often. I do agree with you that it's an excellent venue for certain cards. Not sure about high value post-war ones though. And I did not mean to single you out, a constant theme one sees here is that people suspected of fraud are defended, and evidence of their potential fraud is ignored, simply on the basis that the individual poster had no trouble with them. One saw post after post defending Mastro and Allen on that basis. Unwarranted extrapolation, or something like that.

[Sean1125]

In short if buyers are spending the exact same gross figure whether on e-bay or at auction e-bay will be cheaper 100% of the time. This is to refute the point made earlier by Jesse. I have no opinion on anything else in the thread.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Sean1125

In short if buyers are spending the exact same gross figure whether on e-bay or at auction e-bay will be cheaper 100% of the time. This is to refute the point made earlier by Jesse. I have no opinion on anything else in the thread.

Yep. Anyone who markets an auction on the basis that they don't charge a seller's premium is, to my mind, just employing a gimmick.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by Sean1125

In short if buyers are spending the exact same gross figure whether on e-bay or at auction e-bay will be cheaper 100% of the time. This is to refute the point made earlier by Jesse. I have no opinion on anything else in the thread.

Sean, my point was the opposite, that you need to take the buyer's premium into consideration and that it is still a fee. SB1 is the one who suggested a major auction house because there's no seller fee.

And to peter, I did defend PWCC in an earlier thread. This was not because I believe he's always honest just because he hasn't lied to me. The argument in that thread was pretty one sided, and I was simply saying there could have been a reasonable explanation for some of the issues people were bringing up. And I felt the tax fraud label was a little harsh.

[Peter_Spaeth]

What's your reasonable explanation for his claim that he had never heard of anyone complaining about his scans when, months before the 54 post, he had posted a lengthy response on CU to exactly such complaints? Did we not already go through that?

What's your reasonable explanation for the disparity between his claim that he only offered to help buyers avoid sales tax in 2013-14 when I represented that I had seen a 2011 invoice instructing the winner how to avoid CA sales tax?

What's your reasonable explanation for the overwhelming number of bidders across his high value auctions (not just isolated instances), with high to very high percentages of bidding with him, significant numbers of retractions (dunno about you but I have ZERO since 1997) and the same bidders bidding on wide varieties of cards in multiple sports and multiple time periods? Have you spent as much as an hour studying the patterns?

Do explain.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Sean, it was Scott B., not Jesse, saying people should consign to AHs because no seller's premium. Jesse agreed with me (it happens) that the point made no sense.

[Sean1125]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

Sean, my point was the opposite, that you need to take the buyer's premium into consideration and that it is still a fee. SB1 is the one who suggested a major auction house because there's no seller fee.

And to peter, I did defend PWCC in an earlier thread. This was not because I believe he's always honest just because he hasn't lied to me. The argument in that thread was pretty one sided, and I was simply saying there could have been a reasonable explanation for some of the issues people were bringing up. And I felt the tax fraud label was a little harsh.

So my point would support your stance rather than refute it.

[pokerplyr80]

We did go through this in that thread, and I agreed with you about the scans. Seems he was caught in a lie on that one.

I believe the invoice you had just said for California bidders to contact him and did not offer any instructions on avoiding paying tax. I could be wrong on this.

As far as the bidders I have not studied the patterns but there could be any number of reasonable explanations. His auctions have huge followings and run almost constantly. Perhaps there really are that many people who like to bid on his stuff exclusively. Some collectors, myself included, have very unfocused collections, including different time eras and sports. Or perhaps they're all being shilled. Very difficult to prove either way.

[pokerplyr80]

And yes, Sean your point supports my stance.

[ValKehl]

Originally Posted by tinkereversandme

I am a casual seller and a small percentage of the time the transactions have been rather terrible. I once sold an item for $17 and four months later PayPal removed the funds because a "chargeback" occurred and it took me three weeks to get my $17 back. Then there were two International orders that didn't reach their destination and it was my fault despite the fact that I showed proof of shipping (Russian Federation and Italy) and I have heard horror stories of people "saying" that what the received was an empty box when items were in fact sent. Ebay tends to favor the buyer it seems. I have two items I want to sell on ebay and they should bring a few thousand dollars and I am sure a lot of you sell items of that size and bigger all the time and was wondering if you ever had any issues and what measures should I take to protect myself?

I appreciate your input. I love this site.

Regards,

Larry

Larry,
I am right now in the processfor the first time ever, of doing this very thing on eBay that you are asking about. The only fear I have is the recipient claiming he/she received an empty box, and I don't know if there is any way to avoid this possibility. I was planning to consign this scarce Mickey Mantle card, which may be the single most valuable card I own (but am no longer interested in because my collecting focus has been on pre-War cards for the last 15 years or so), to one of the top-tier auction houses (e.g., REA or Heritage), but I kept hesitating because I (erroneously?) believed these auction still charge a seller's commission (I am aware that several middle-tier auction houses don't, and I have used a few of them in the past, but was hesitant to for this card): http://www.ebay.com/itm/1953-54-Brig...e=STRK:MESE:IT
I don't believe I have ever sold anything worth more than $500 or so on eBay. FYI, what persuaded me to list this Mantle card on eBay is the special offer I received via email from eBay a couple of weeks ago - this special offer is that eBay's final value fee (i.e., the seller's commission) will be a maximum of $20, no matter what the sales price of the item is (but no reduction in the PayPal fee). So, I'll see how it goes - wish me luck!!
Val

[glchen]

There are several issues in this thread, but I'll first get to the one the OP asked which was how to protect yourself when selling large $ items on ebay. The max value that I've sold via ebay is $4000, but I often sell $1-2K items. Here is my advice:

(1) Do not sell international. Exclude all foreign countries, including Canada. You can do this via buyer requirements. Sure, you can lose some money, but less to worry about.

(2) At the minimum, ship via Priority Mail with Signature Confirmation and insurance. The Signature Confirmation is needed to protect you with ebay, so don't skimp on this even if you get insurance and via insurance, there is a signature. Ebay may not honor that. I've seen sellers use overnight express also even though it is more expensive, but one less day to worry about. The insurance is needed to protect you in case the Post Office loses or damages your package. Registered mail is also a very popular way to ship these types of packages although it tends to take much longer, but there is less of a chance the package will be lost. So you worry for a longer period of time but your package should be safer.

(3) Avoid low feedback buyers. After the buyer has paid for the item, check his feedback. If the feedback # is fairly high, and it looks like he's purchased a number of expensive cards recently, then I think you really don't have much to worry about (other than the Post Office losing your package, of course). If my listings, I stated that buyers with a feedback lower the 50 must message me for approval before bidding. You can't prevent low feedback bidders from bidding and winning your auctions, but perhaps at least this can dissuade some from bidding. If a low feedback bidder has won your auction and paid for it, and you have serious reservations about it, you can still think about trying to cancel the transaction and not ship the item to him. Of course, if he doesn't agree to the cancel transaction on ebay, you may still lose your final value fees. The other thing to look for are bidders who haven't had feedback in years. Then it is always possible that someone has hijacked their account, so you need to be careful in this situation also.

I don't really worry about chargebacks or returns because as long as you get your item back, who cares? You are just out the shipping. I've had a couple of chargebacks in the past, but as I said, it's no big deal other than you just need to put the item for sale again. If you need to spend the funds immediately for something else, just be aware that this might happen. The empty box is a concern, but it's never happened to me. This is usually something from low feedback or international bidders (or those who haven't purchased in a while).

A few years ago, on the Collectors forum, I asked for advice on selling really large $ items on ebay, and the response I received was as follows:

"... I have sold several 10K+ items on E-bay and many many 1K-5K items. First rule in doing this is to Not, and mean Ever, accept payment through Paypal. I Only accept high Dollar payments outside of Paypal. There are several ways to do this with your Buyer. Usually on Hi Dollar items there has been contact with me before they ever drop the Hammer and I make it clear what my rules are ahead of time. I have never had a 2K plus Sale without some form of Pre Contact, usually to negotiate on price. When we do come to a deal I usually get a Cashiers check or some type of Certified funds and then still wait a few days and have my Banker contact the Financial clearing house for the transaction and do this even with Repeat Customers. I Never ship anything until I am assured of the item clearing. I have no issue with my Buyers being amiable to this, if it is a Legit Buyer of a Hi Dollar item they should have no problem with this and in fact other than a little anticipation on some of their parts, have never had no problem.
I have no particular Beef with Auction Houses but the fact that I can list something in my Store let it sit for however long and it Will sell and other than FVF's ALL of the money ends up in my Pocket!! Why pay sombody to do what you can do!!
Also, any and all high Dollar items are Shipped USPS Registered with an Additional Second Signature Delivery Confirmation. Have never had a problem this way. And what are they going to do, with no Paypal, No way to have those RICO Crooks (Paypal) be a party to you getting ripped off !!!!
And if you don't have a store, have you thought of just Consigning with somebody here, I take consignments as do many, and charge way way less than any Auction House?"

[glchen]

About the question whether you should sell it yourself on ebay, use an ebay consignor (e.g., PWCC, Probstein) or go to an auction house, there are pros and cons for all of them.

If you sell it yourself, you can just put the item on a BIN, and wait as long as you want until you get your price, changing your BIN price as needed.

If you worry about buyer fraud, then let an auction house or ebay consignor deal with the issue. If you are selling the card via auction, it is almost better to let the consignor take care of it. For example, PWCC rates for $5K+ graded cards is just 8%, which includes all ebay and paypal fees. If a card sold for $5000, then would come out to $400. If you sold this card on ebay yourself, and did not have an ebay store (and were not a Top Rated seller), your ebay final value fee would be $500 and your Paypal fee would be $150, so your total fees would be $650. If you had an ebay store, your FVF would be $250 and Paypal would be $150, so the total fee would be the same $400 as PWCC, but your auctions would likely be viewed much more. (Top Rated sellers have an additional 3% discount.)

The fees are greater when you use an auction house through their buyer's commission and seller fees. However, if you have a very expensive item or need very specialized buyers to see your listing, then you should probably use an auction house. Auction houses typically list their items for a much longer period than ebay auctions, so there is a greater chance that the buyers who would be interested in your auctions will see it. They often have print catalogs or publicize their auctions much more widely, so there is a chance the final price will be higher. In addition, auction houses usually vet their buyers much more than ebay (which does no vetting), so you usually don't have any deadbeat buyers (although it still happens on occasion). Of course, if your item is very generic and not "special," it could get lost among all of the other prestigious items in the auction catalog and sell for less than it would on ebay.

Good luck on whatever you decided to do!

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

As far as the bidders I have not studied the patterns but there could be any number of reasonable explanations. His auctions have huge followings and run almost constantly. Perhaps there really are that many people who like to bid on his stuff exclusively. Some collectors, myself included, have very unfocused collections, including different time eras and sports. Or perhaps they're all being shilled. Very difficult to prove either way.

I'm starting to wonder if you're actually posting honestly yourself. No one can be this aggressivey clueless. You "haven't studied the patterns?" How about dozens of underbidders who bid almost exclusively on PWCC auctions, cards in every sport, and also have high bid retraction rates? You need to "study" that? If your eyeballs are working that should be enough.

It's a real shame you weren't around eight years ago -- you would have been Mastro's biggest defender.

[sb1]

My point was that using Ebay you will pay 15% perhaps even 20% in fees and perhaps not be marketing your item to the best crowd, either in terms of quality of bidders or visibility of items.

Using a Zero sellers fee auction house there is always the discounted buyers premium which will affect exactly how much you net. However, you won't have to deal with non paying bidders, and will be reasonably sure the most serious collectors/buyers saw your item and were involved in the bidding. Many collectors no longer use Ebay do the large amount of crap that you have to sort thru to find the few quality items.

So I will stand behind my statement that you will probably fare better in any quality AH rather than Ebay if you are selling 4 or 5 figure items.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

We did go through this in that thread, and I agreed with you about the scans. Seems he was caught in a lie on that one.

I believe the invoice you had just said for California bidders to contact him and did not offer any instructions on avoiding paying tax. I could be wrong on this.

As far as the bidders I have not studied the patterns but there could be any number of reasonable explanations. His auctions have huge followings and run almost constantly. Perhaps there really are that many people who like to bid on his stuff exclusively. Some collectors, myself included, have very unfocused collections, including different time eras and sports. Or perhaps they're all being shilled. Very difficult to prove either way.

Yes, you could be wrong. Again. From 2011 ebay invoice.

"PWCC Auctions


Avoid CA sales tax by one of the following methods:
1) Provide a valid CA resale license, or
2) Pay by check or money order

Print this invoice and send paper payments to the following address (checks payable to 'PWCC Auctions'):

PWCC Auctions
1325 Howard Ave. #931
Burlingame, CA 94010"

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Yes, you could be wrong. Again. From 2011 ebay invoice.

"PWCC Auctions


Avoid CA sales tax by one of the following methods:
1) Provide a valid CA resale license, or
2) Pay by check or money order

Print this invoice and send paper payments to the following address (checks payable to 'PWCC Auctions'):

PWCC Auctions
1325 Howard Ave. #931
Burlingame, CA 94010"

Gee, there could be any number of reasonable explanations for this:

Brent had a stroke and when he typed out that invoice he had no control over his hands;

Brent went to attorney Lionel Hutz who advised him that winning bidders didn't have to pay sales tax because sales tax is for sissies;

Don't believe your lying eyes -- those words actually say "please pay your sales tax, we would never aspire to evade sales tax."

[4815162342]

[glchen]

Not sure why this sales tax issue for PWCC is continually being brought up. I thought that I read that Brent stated that the California Board of Equalization (which is the state tax board) has already audited PWCC and found them in compliance. I guess you could always say that they only audited this past year and not 2011. However, there is a paper trail for how much taxes a seller owes on ebay, so it would be too easy to be caught. Every invoice on ebay shows how much sales tax is owed on that item. The state tax board could just go to ebay (in addition to Paypal), and ask how much state tax this seller should have paid for that tax year. If the seller did not pay that amount (or more), then there would need to be significant explaining to do to the authorities. Therefore, it doesn't matter if the buyer does not pay the sales tax because as far as the state is concerned, somebody has to pay it (i.e., the seller). As long as the state receives every cent of the tax that is due, that is all they care about. Therefore, what I'm taking away from this is that PWCC believes that it saves the 3% from the Paypal fees, therefore it is willing to eat the 5+% extra. I agree that this is a significant amount, so not sure how they are able to do this, but I'm assuming they pay much lower ebay final value fees than regular sellers on ebay do. And obviously, PWCC has now moved to Oregon with no sales tax, so they don't need to worry about this for future sales. The one thing that I can think about on how to weasel your way out of this would be to adjust the ebay invoice to remove the sales tax if the buyer pays by check. This would be similar to how it would be done if the buyer had a reseller license for California. However, resellers need to fill out a reseller forms, which PWCC asked me to do in the past since I am in California and have a license. I would think that if the state saw that a high % of California buyers did not pay sales tax because the ebay invoice was adjusted to remove the sales tax, they would want to see the reseller forms at that point. The point here is that it's much too easy to be caught on this sales tax issue with little benefit. It would not be worth it for any seller to take this risk for just an incremental bid up, most especially a consignment seller.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Yeah Gary if Brent said it it must be true, eh? Or did you miss the fact that other things he said demonstrably are not true? When the little boy keeps crying wolf, hard to know what to believe, for me anyhow.

He did say that he only makes "a couple" of percent on each auction. So that must mean, if that was true, that even with the saving of paypal fees he lost money by paying 8.25 percent on all California transactions where the buyer did not have a resale license and paid by check or money order. If that option was offered for many years, then that's a lot of money he paid out as a favor to buyers. Maybe he in fact did, and I hope so.

[glchen]

Peter, my point is for the sales tax issue, it is simply too easy to get caught. The figures and paper trail are right there. If you are audited once, you are dead meat. You'd have to be an idiot to try to avoid giving the state their taxes due. For monitoring shilling, you can probably try to claim benign neglect or something similar, but sales taxes are an open and shut case.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by glchen

Peter, my point is for the sales tax issue, it is simply too easy to get caught. The figures and paper trail are right there. If you are audited once, you are dead meat. You'd have to be an idiot to try to avoid giving the state their taxes due. For monitoring shilling, you can probably try to claim benign neglect or something similar, but sales taxes are an open and shut case.

So offenses that are easily caught don't get committed? I don't follow you. To the contrary, many people who commit such offenses (talking now in the abstract) delude themselves into thinking they are above the law, will get away with it, etc. I see it time and again -- just as one example, smoking gun memos instructing employees to obtain phony sales in order to create the appearance of higher revenues.

[glchen]

Well, of course, some still happen (Watergate quickly comes to mind). However, you'd have to be an idiot. I am not a lawyer or in law enforcement, but I always thought most of these tax fraud cases occur when using cash only transactions with no receipts. Here the receipts are digitally stored in a third party (in eBay's system). You're not going to be able to get away with that.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Again speaking in the abstract, a lot of fraudsters are idiots, delusional, arrogant and driven by hubris, etc.

And regarding sales tax, I am aware of instances where there was a complete paper trail, with the buyer requesting an item be shipped to a state that had no sales tax in order to avoid it. I am sure many cases involve cash, but again, ease of detection does not prove to me the offense did not occur.

[calvindog]

Gary, do you consider Bill Mastro, Doug Allen and John Rogers to be idiots? Because I understand there were some paper trails there too.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Gary, do you consider Bill Mastro, Doug Allen and John Rogers to be idiots? Because I understand there were some paper trails there too.

Unfortunately not as many as there used to be.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by glchen

However, there is a paper trail for how much taxes a seller owes on ebay, so it would be too easy to be caught. Every invoice on ebay shows how much sales tax is owed on that item. The state tax board could just go to ebay (in addition to Paypal), and ask how much state tax this seller should have paid for that tax year.

I would find it hard to believe that any state tax auditor would rely on ebay to prove any type of tax evasion as they would likely focus on paypal transactions and more importantly the business/personal bank accounts of the business and it's owner. Ebay is not set up to accurately or effectively disclose in-state purchases and they are not even set up to offer tax documents such as the 1099 form that paypal provides to users with $20k+ in income annually. Just because a bidder "wins" an item on ebay does not mean that there was a taxable transaction that occurred. However either a paypal payment or a deposited check/MO would indeed indicate that a transaction has occurred and if it was an "in-state" transaction the business owner would then be accountable for showing that the proper tax amount was remitted for this transaction or a re-sale certificate was present.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Leon

Unfortunately not as many as there used to be.

Idiots in the hobby? Oh sure there are. Just re-read the PWCC thread. This one too.

[glchen]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Gary, do you consider Bill Mastro, Doug Allen and John Rogers to be idiots? Because I understand there were some paper trails there too.

Mastro and Legendary owned their own auction software, so they probably thought they could hack it when the authorities came calling. This would be similar to a fraudulent business having two sets of books. In PWCC, these are in the hands of a third party (ebay). Regarding the T206 Wagner, Mastro probably thought he was in the clear once PSA authenticated the card as an 8.

[chernieto]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Idiots in the hobby? Oh sure there are. Just re-read the PWCC thread. This one too.

I believe he meant less paper trails.

[glchen]

Originally Posted by savedfrommyspokes

I would find it hard to believe that any state tax auditor would rely on ebay to prove any type of tax evasion as they would likely focus on paypal transactions and more importantly the business/personal bank accounts of the business and it's owner. Ebay is not set up to accurately or effectively disclose in-state purchases and they are not even set up to offer tax documents such as the 1099 form that paypal provides to users with $20k+ in income annually. Just because a bidder "wins" an item on ebay does not mean that there was a taxable transaction that occurred. However either a paypal payment or a deposited check/MO would indeed indicate that a transaction has occurred and if it was an "in-state" transaction the business owner would then be accountable for showing that the proper tax amount was remitted for this transaction or a re-sale certificate was present.

The tax authorities could easily use ebay in addition to paypal to come after a business. They wouldn't have to "prove" anything. They would just tell the business that your numbers don't match what ebay or paypal are reporting, and you need to explain that to us. If you can't give a proper justification, then you'd better look into hiring a good lawyer. Sure, ebay does not give those 1099's to individual sellers, but I'm sure if the authorities asked ebay for the information, they could get it easily. For every item you sell on ebay, you set up the tax table in ebay, so that item is readily available and stored in their system if the item is won by an in-state bidder. As the seller, you are responsible for getting the proper forms completed by the buyer if they claim they are a reseller. If you are audited, these would be what you need to show the tax authorities to justify why sales tax was removed.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by chernieto

I believe he meant less paper trails.

correct....as in probable shill bidding evidence that went poof....

[steve B]

So you guys are saying Lionel Hutz isn't a good attorney? That's odd because he got me a nice settlement from Dr Nick.........

The tax thing does look bad, If there was an actual audit I'm surprised they didn't at least have a "discussion" about how that was worded.

Could a seller offer no tax, but pay the tax using the savings of Ebay fees to offset the taxes? That makes some sense (Not saying that's what was done, just that it's a sensible explanation. ) So if the paypal fees are 10% and sales tax is say 5% the seller collects the payment by check saving the 10% pays the state their 5% and gets a bit of extra profit?


Steve B

[Peter_Spaeth]

Paypal fees are 3 percent and tax is 8.25. Still have to pay the ebay fees regardless of payment method.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by calvindog

I'm starting to wonder if you're actually posting honestly yourself. No one can be this aggressivey clueless. You "haven't studied the patterns?" How about dozens of underbidders who bid almost exclusively on PWCC auctions, cards in every sport, and also have high bid retraction rates? You need to "study" that? If your eyeballs are working that should be enough.

It's a real shame you weren't around eight years ago -- you would have been Mastro's biggest defender.

I am posting honestly and don't believe that simply having a high percentage with one seller is evidence the bidder is shilling. However, the high retraction rate would be a clear indicator, in my opinion.

And Peter, I hadn't seen that invoice before. Apparently I was mistaken. My apologies.