I really don't feel like reading this whole thread to find the answer. But did the OP actually say the buyer told him the card was cracked out while requesting a return? If so my opinion of both parties is completely different.

The buyer did nothing wrong, and the seller made a stupid mistake accepting the return. It happens. I have no idea why this thread was created.

It's in the first post. The seller says he did not know it was cracked out when he "accidentally" accepted the return.

If he didn't know the card was cracked out, why would it be an accident to accept the return?

I did read that, I guess I misread a post towards the end. So by "accidentally" the OP probably meant he accepted the return not knowing it was cracked out.

Seller approved the return before realizing the card had been cracked from its slab. Thus, the "accidental" acceptance of return.

Had he known the card had been cracked out, he presumably would not have authorized the return.

Edit... We were writing at same time. Yes, you've now got it correct, Jesse.

Lots of folks here sell lots more cards on ebay and BST than me I have about 700 feedback on ebay. But the couple times folks have asked for refunds the first thing I ask is why? If I click the button saying I will accept the refund without contacting the buyer why would I expect ebay to side with me?
I was wrong in my earlier post when I said seller said he knew before he clicked ok to return. I re read the post and he dose say it was after he accepted return but before buyer mailed it back.
Maybe the buyer would have been ok with NO or maybe they could have reached a settlement maybe Ebay or PayPal would have sided with him.....anyway LOTS OF MAYBES..
That we will never know answer to because seller said send it back. And buyer did. So end of Transaction.

Return was accepted BEFORE buying advised out of the slab which is noted earlier.
Since return is out if the slab not sure if the same card was returned.

Well that's a new and huge wrinkle since you hadn't raised it before.

If you aren't sure, you should post your best before and after scans/photos and maybe people here can weigh in.

And you should post the name of the buyer so we can offer any insight as to reputation.

Except these examples aren't the same, which is why I suggested there is a huge gray area when putting a value on the packaging. The Lionel train car and Star Wars figure package was part of the original retail item. The CGC grading and GAI holder are embellishments added after market items.

Adding to the complexity of the issue in this case is the value of the card. I mean, if the slab was merely a GAI 1 or 2 and the buyer broke it before return of the card I doubt there'd be nearly as much discussion. So as I somewhat t.i.c. suggested earlier in the thread, in the future sell the slab, not the card.

You are really selling the slab AND the card in the slab. Its like a christmas pack extra value. Its the mystery of whether the GAI will hold up to its grade is the 'value' If it was some XYZ company with zero history of competence, the slab is meaningless.

However there are collectibles to this day that are in GAI slabs in auctions that sell for thousands of dollars such as wax packs etc. XYZ company doesnt have any

The 'mystery' is now gone from this collectible because the slab is gone. People pay more for mysteries/gamble

Example- People pay 40 dollars for a slot in a set break when average value of cards will be 3 dollars. Its the mystery!

Example Xmas packs- Its the mystery!

Meeting someone online whos video is always broken on computer or phone which prevents a live view of the person and all you have to rely on are pictures which could be feasible excuse in 1994 but not in 2019. Its the mystery (not from prior experience)

If I spend $5k for a card described by the seller AND the TPG as near mint, I am not thinking that I am buying a mystery. I think I am buying a near mint (unaltered) card.

You are buying a mystery if the TPG is GAI. Afterall if its from PSA wouldnt it go for far more than 5k? Its the mystery of the GAI is why GAI 5's go for more than PSA 2's for example.

However the benefit of PSA is you can try to get your money back from them if if the card is altered, as everyone is aware from me, no lawsuits yet that I know of so apparently buyers are satisfied.

As for GAI, its buyer beware and buyer is getting it for the mystery and can sell it later on as long as its in the same holder with the extra mystery value....crack it out, you lose the mystery....


So if someone says 'NO returns on graded cards' I can crack it out of a PSA case and say the card is altered so i want my money back because why would i pay 15k etc....

Early GAI generally speaking is still considered pretty reliable.

GAI crack out
 

At one time, GAI had many good cards in holders, much less accurately at higher priced cards or higher tiers. A buyer can initialize a return if the seller uses "Free Returns" power seller terms so he gets an e bay invoice credit monthly if he or she qualifies for Top Rated.

If the seller does not authorize this status, he still has to take card or any item back no matter what within 30 days, so if the buyer cracked out of any slab, either lower tier holders such as CSA or PRO, it ALTERS the original sold product and is not in original sold condition. Even if PSA deemed it altered or non authentic. EVERY GRADING SERVICE including SGC, PSA, GAI, BVG etc offers their professional opinion on grades and based upon our perceptions as to whom we choose to pay to slab numerically...that changes nothing, items are supposed to be returned as shipped, raw or graded....GAI did grade professionally until two years before their demise. If an item is not returned as received, e bay and paypal offers seller protection but you need to file a Federal IC3 fraud report, local police report or professional appraisal to substantiate your claim. Hope this was not too long....

right..everyone says that and everyone has an opinion of what was early and what wasn't and how to identify it or not. Plus there are problems with early grading as well.

All part of the mystery value but it does add value to a card because of the 'maybe' factor

A XYZ holder has zero 'maybe mystery' factor and is just a hard plastic sleeve.

I think we can agree that if you get a card in a hard plastic sleeve and return it in a soft plastic sleeve, its wrong but nobody really is going to complain

a XYZ holder is a hard plastic sleeve. A GAI holder is more than that because of the mystery and past sales. Maybe 20 years from now GAI will just be a plastic sleeve but its not there yet.

When a relatively common card says 1st Graded, it's early -- very early.

right and nobody disagrees that GAI also had problems with 1st graded cards..... going to be arguments both ways but yes i agree, GAI has more value than XYZ....you are preaching to the choir

You still see GAI graded cards in major Catalogue Auctions periodically. I recall a nice Ty Cobb T206 in the last REA Auction.

Do you think REA, Lelands, SCP or Heritage would (for one second) allow the winning bidder to crack it out on their own accord, and accept the returned raw card back, for a full refund? Especially with no notice given, or permission to do so?

The buyer took advantage of the seller, knowing that eBay's liberal return policy had him covered. He wanted the chance for a big payday with no risk, all completely at the expense of the seller.

As others have requested... Please post the Buyer's name.

GAI crackout
 

NO auction house would accept a cracked out slab as a return, in fact very few would take back anything after won & paid for the reasoning of anything except maybe authenticity, if it was sold slabbed and was sold intact, pretty sure NO one tolerates that.

Bingo! Please out the buyer so I may block him.

Does it matter to anyone that the seller also described it as Near Mint?

1933 GOUDEY LOU GEHRIG #160

GAI 7 GRADED

VERY RARE

NEAR MINT

GREAT CORNERS AND NICE EYE APPEAL

SMOKE FREE HOME

Nah he is quoting the flip i assume...

However i got this list below from blowout of grading places in the past you can see below.

Does everyone really think that these 'grades' really matter from all of these guys that you couldnt return a card that was cracked out.



AAA
AAI ( American Authentication Inc)
ADVANCEDGRADING.COM
AGS (Advanced Grading Specialists)
ALL STAR GRADING
ASA (Accugrade Sportscard Authentication)
ASGC (All Star Grading Company)
BCCG (Beckett Collectors Club Grading)
BCG
BEARSTATS GRADING SERVICES
BGS (Beckett Grading Service)
BGUM (Beckett Game Used Memoabilia)
Blue Chip
BRG (Best Rate Grading)
BSVA

Capital Grading
CCS (Card Collector Services)
CEX (Certified Express)
CGA (Card Grading Authenticators)
CGS (Champs Grading Service)
CLG
Compugrade
CPG (Certified Pro Grading)
CSA (Certified Sports Authentication)
CSC (Sports Card Grading Service)
CSG
CTA
EGS (Express Grading Service)
FGA
FGS (Finest Grading Service)
GAI (Global Authentication Inc.) (Bankrupt)
GAI (Global Authority Inc) (new owners of GAI)
GEM
GEM Elite
GEM-Sports
GGI (Gem Grading Inc.)
GGS (Gem Grading Services)
GMA
GRA
GRADEMYCARDS.COM
GRADING UNLIMITED
IGX
IKON
ISA
KSA (Kressler Sports Authentication)
MAJOR LEAGUE GRADING
MAP
MGS (Masters Grading Services)
MGS (Mint Grading Service)
NASA (North American Sportscard Authentication)
PCCG (Pro's Choice Card Graders)
PCG (Professional Card Graders)
PGC (Premier Grading Certification)
PGC (Premier Grading Company -same as above?)
PGC (Pro Grade Certified)
PGI
PGS (Professional Grading Service)
PRE-Grading Service (uses screwdowns)
Premium Sports Grading
PRO (Pro Sports Grading)
PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator)
PSA (Pacific Sports Authority)
PSG (Pristine Sportscard Grading)
PTG
RGA
SBC (Superlative Baseball Card Certification)
SCD Sports Collectors Digest (SCD) folded and was sold to Sports Card Direct (SCD)
SGC (Sportscard Guaranty)
SNAGGLETOOTH
SPA (Authenticated)
Sportscard Grading Association
STADIUM CLUB GRADING
SWG (Southwest Card Grading)
TCG
TFA (The Final Authority)
TGA
UGS
USA (Ultimate Sportscard Authority)
Verisleeve (Sticker on Card Saver)
VGR (Venture 21)
VGS
VSA
VSG Vanguard
WCG (World Class Grading)

Mike Baker, IMO, was as good as anyone. I can only speculate what went wrong at GAI eventually, but in the first year I don't believe there were any more problems than with any other major grader, perhaps fewer.

Again folks here keep saying buyer "took advantage of ebay policy" But all he did was click a button and ask for a refund. The SELLER CLICKED OK SEND IT BACK. WITHOUT CONTACTING THE BUYER AND ASKING ANY QUESTIONS. We cannot know if buyer would have said ok if seller said he would not refund. We will never know if buyer would have negotiated with the seller. Based on ebay rules Buyer thought spending $5k on an altered card. ( please don't say can we really believe PSA, most of us on this board trust them when they say altered) and started the process to talk with seller. Seller chose not to talk and pressed button for buyer to send it back.

Yes but the seller probably assumed, reasonably, that it had not been cracked out.

Yeah, but that should scare people because I have a dead common T206 with a dead common back that is first graded and dead obviously trimmed. I have bought GAI for flipping, this one definitely won't.

So I can sell an altered card as NEAR MINT, as long as I am quoting someone else?

Well that is interesting to know.

Quit justifying the technicalities of a return policy for a moment and look at the moral aspect. The buyer damaged the goods and took advantage. Bottom line this is a scummy individual.
If you can look at yourself in the mirror and say all of the actions taken by the purchaser is acceptable then you are part of the growing problem in this hobby of thieves and tricksters. (Not directed toward the person I quoted but this is just a response to the way of thinking). None of it is justified.

The flip didn't say great corners and eye appeal.

But there are distinct issues here, I think. Yes, the seller inadvertently misrepresented the card by embellishing, in my opinion. He went beyond just selling it as is. I think he implied it was not altered. And as a result, the buyer would be entitled to a return for not as described. But in my opinion the buyer forfeited that with the crack out -- not as open and shut a question as some are making it, I don't think, but I still come out that way.

If we were talking about a different (highly vilified) seller, we might agree that doctored cards in high-grade holders is the problem in this hobby of thieves and tricksters.

A doctored card was outed. The seller can no longer use GAI's misrepresentation of it to sell it as near mint. I don't blame this seller of anything, but he is not entitled to get another shot at selling a now known doctored card at a near mint price, and that is all he has lost, with that cracked holder.

I do think the buyer should owe the seller for a new holder.

Suppose the buyer had asked the seller if it was OK to crack it out to have it reviewed because it's so difficult to cross a card in another company's holder. Would the seller really have said no, if you do I won't take it back, thereby suggesting he had no confidence in the card he just touted and sold? Something to consider.

The card pictured is a "7". The description matched the card sold. And are you really suggesting PSA is credible in their opinion? I'm putting the odds at 50/50. Have you not seen what's been going on in the last 5/6 months? The buyer was a snake to crack it out period! And if you were the seller you'd be ok with getting back the card cracked out?

I'd be curious to see a poll on this topic?

Curious how you would feel about this whole thing if the seller sends it to SGC and it comes back with a numerical grade?

This has been bought up before if it had come back with a number grade I would side with the seller 100%.. I like to think the buyer would not even have asked for a refund if it came back with a number. My point is 100% if you sell altered cards you should refund buyer.
Now if the Seller sends it in to SGC and it comes back with a 6 or a 7 is the seller obligated to tell any future buyers that PSA said it was altered?

How you can justify damaging an item is beyond disbelief...
You don't buy GAI, SGC, BGS and PSA slabs thinking you can submit/review to another TPG then use the results as grounds for returning an item in raw form.

You are buying the item as is.

I can usually buy cards in SGC holders for less than PSA. Does that mean I should return them if they don't cross over?

Your moral compass is completely broken sir. This is the type of insanity that goes on among fellow collectors and the very reason this hobby will collapse from asinine behavior.

I have a love hate relationship with the hobby. I love the cards. I don't love the nerds and stupidity that this hobby seems to attract.

Ridiculous discussion period. I thought most of you are better than this.

Peter, suppose a card doctor flattened and trimmed the corners of an asset in such a way that the only way the alterations could be detected was to measure the thickness (and its variations at the corners) and edges, and then somehow gets it into a high grade slab...

Does that mean he gets away with it? Because the only way his fraud can be discovered is the very thing that would void a return.

Isn't there some allowance regarding this holder, considering the fact it is grossly misleading and basically concealing a fraud? Wouldn't the buyer reimbursing the seller for the cost of a re-slab be an appropriate solution?

This is a double-negative. You are actually saying it is believable.


I don't think a guy who buys an asset described by the seller as near mint, great eye appeal, sharp corners which turns out to be doctored should be stuck with it and I am:

Operating with a broken moral compass
Insane
Asinine
a Nerd
Stupid
Ridiculous

Well, at least the art of civil discourse is alive and well.

If nothing else, this thread is a nice tutorial for explaining how great the 'ignore' function on this site is. Click.

We have been operating with limited and at times confusing information. My assumptions here are that the doctoring is not just a nuanced opinion (like the card being 1/64 inch too narrow) but something fairly obvious. The reason I assume this is that it would have been in PSA's best financial interest to have been able to give it a numeric grade and collect those grading fees. It was against their best interest to determine it to be altered.

Certainly if my assumptions are wrong, or if someone adds new information not known before, then the conclusions easily might change. As I have said before, even if PSA gave it a low numeric grade, I would be 100% with the seller. The issue is the doctoring (fraud) that somebody performed on that thing.

Unbelievable

Although I understand both sides of this, and obviously you are not immoral lol, I think at least in the case of a slabbed card, the only workable rule is that the buyer can't crack it out and then demand a return. It's far from perfect, but I think you need a hard and fast rule or you open the doors to an awful mess and to dishonest buyers manipulating the system.

Yes, that means the buyer is stuck with an altered (maybe, probably) card. But the buyer could have tried to get an agreement with the seller in advance, among other things.

This is not to condone for one minute the resale in the slab, without disclosure, of a card that has failed to cross over, especially if it's not PSA or SGC.

As previously mentioned, PSA gets paid for its review, not contingent on the result.

The ad hominem stuff from a couple of recent posters really doesn't add anything to the discussion.

Peter, First, thanks for the civility and thoughtful reply.

As I have said, I see both sides. You have me leaning your way based on the above - that being, the can of worms it would open if lots of people were buying cracking and returning slabs. I get that. Also the general idea that in order to return a product it should be in the same condition received. Also the fact that buying a slabbed GAI 7 card means you are buying a card deemed to be near mint by GAI, and therefore, as a buyer, you have to decide for yourself how much trust you put in that.

But I sure hate thinking about the huge smiles on the faces of card doctors and those who work with them, as they read this thread.

I realize it's just being pedantic but, to me, "accidental" would be clicking a button you didn't mean to click or your cat walking across the keyboard or something. Clicking "OK" on the return intentionally is not accidental.

Yeah the same holder as before..just contact GAI

You can sell the card with flip saying near mint and say its near mint. No returns on third party graded cards is a pretty common saying in the industry

Not only does PSA collect its fee.... they are probably being more stringent than ever with their grading. Given the thousands of visible "mistakes" they've made, and the new cards that are exposed daily, their wonderful management team has surely instructed the troops to be tougher with their grading standards... at least until the heat is off.

People here are giving way too much credence to PSA.

Yeah that's the typical response from PSA -- crush the innocent collectors.

Does that mean that in this case, the buyer paid PSA the full fee of grading a $5,000+ card, and only received the card back, in a sleeve, with the authentic-altered designation?

I was under the assumption, perhaps wrongly, that the fee paid by the buyer was smaller, but had it been a true high-grade card, PSA would've been asking for a higher fee to slab it with the decent numeric grade.

The fee is for the review at the designated service level, whether or not the card is rejected.

So based on this it looks like he may have paid $200, and then if PSA graded it at a value higher than $4,999 they would've asked for $500 to slab it, right?

Or maybe he thought the card was as represented and paid $500 up front.

Just trying to understand how this works.

In general, you pay the fee for the value of the card regardless of whether it receives a grade or not. There have been cases where a card was submitted at a lower tier level, but when graded the card reached a value significantly above that lower tier level and PSA required the submitter to pay the higher tier level price. However, this is the exception rather than normal.

You're getting totally screwed over by fleabay.

If the card was removed from a slab, then it really shouldn't matter whose slab it was, the fact it was removed pretty much can place doubt on the card being the same card.

Totally getting screwed. It would be nice to see someone sue fleabay and win, just to set a precedence and show fleabay that they can be held accountable for their poor judgement calls.

I agree and it should be obvious that buyers should not be allowed to crack cards out of any holders and return them for a refund.

No one is going to sell a GAI graded card with a guarantee it will cross.

Any card in a GAI holder worth more than a grand or two has already failed to cross over. Multiple times probably. Is a disclosure really necessary for something so obvious?

Expecting sellers to disclose failed cross over attempts for any card is not realistic. It won't happen.

Hard to believe it's even a debate.


Just shows the feeling of entitlement of certain people.

Whether or not the buyer knew about GAI history or not, cracking the slab (or maybe psa did if he didnt put min grade) the item as sold is not whole.

Back when I started, I saw all these PRO graded 9s and 10s and at the price thought I'd have a guarantee of a psa 5 or better. When they cam back trimmed I was upset, but realized I should have put "min grade" and they would have been returned as whole, slabbed cards.


Please provide your Ebay ID if you feel the seller is 1% at fault so I can block you, however I'm positive I wont miss your income.

Ted I agree with everything you said except I would put the buyer at fault some where around 95% and the seller 5% for not asking any questions before accepting the return.

My ebay ID is the same as it is here.

This^...for the win. The buyer took the gamble and chose to remove the card knowing full and well there was, at the very least, a decent chance the card may have been altered (which is assumed by the price he paid for a GAI 7 graded '33 Goudey Lou Gehrig). He also was disingenuous on his return by not disclosing that the item purchased (a 1933 Goudey Lou Gehrig in GAI 7) had been cracked from the original case it was sold in. I don't see how anyone could side with the buyer on this one and my guess is he would lose the case in a court of law.

No, the GAI 7 as advertised

Obviously the buyer agreed which is why he decided to crack it. That said, the reasoning for cracking is irrelevant. Its cracked. The buyer is not returning the item he purchased, a 1933 Goudey Lou Gehrig in a GAI 7 slab. He even lied to eBay about it and we're going to pretend he didn't know exactly what he was doing? BS

I don't disagree, but how sad that we have got to the point where the "item" is not the card but the slab and flip.

The slab and flip have been the product for a long long time. When a raw card sells for $6 and that exact same card in a slab and flip sells for $500 the only difference is the slab and flip. To me that makes the slab and flip the product, to most the actual card means nothing.

Ben for the win! Auctions even brag about this phenomenon!!! Anyone noticed the back of Leland's auction catalog this month?? I can scan it when I get home for those that don't know.

5% is cool! Just remember, ebay rules are you pretty much have to take the card back

this is a not as described return or just a return enforced because of your return policy? if the latter, that's why i blanket stopped taking returns. there is NO upside for seller.

Yup, the slab and flip are the product, couldn't agree more with that part of the statement. I think for older/vintage material the card does have actual meaning to collectors.

Ben, you nailed it on the flip and slab.

Unfortunately, that and 5 bucks will probably get you something nice to drink at Starbucks...:mad:

"This Began wit the 1st Card Ever Graded by PSA!"

Exactly - like buying a lottery ticket with a $7000 potential prize on the face, and then trying to return it because you only won $100.

I actually really like this thread just for the psychological aspect it presents. I have asked my non-card collector friends what their opinion is. Even among my friends the choice between buyer and seller is at 50/50. One friend said that buying an appraised card from a defunct company that has an iffy integrity should signal to the seller it will be reappraised. The card should have been regraded by the seller or taken out of the holder. She added, no opinion is always better than a bad opinion.

Is there a third party grading company you know of that has anything better than "iffy integrity"? None of the current ones with names comprised of 3 initials would come to mind.

I do agree that no opinion is better than a bad opinion (as per the thousands of erroneous numerical grades exposed on Blowout).

Although PSA, JSA, SGC, BGCC are not fool proof, they had/have a better public perception/persona/image than Global. Global went belly up during the recession because it wasn't good. Those that remained had better public images. That is how I presented it to my friend. So, according to my friend, it has been 10 years in which time the seller could have acted. It was in the sellers best interest to resubmit the card to a new appraiser than to keep it in the holder. Because the seller didn't do that, my friend says that it's the sellers fault for selling a product with an appraisal from a company that was known for bad appraisals.

Your friend was wrong. Your friend is right though in that it probably has been 10 yrs since GAI was relevant. So plenty of time for the buyer to know that. He gambled and he lost. Now he returned a different item and ebay sucks for taking the buyers side. Plain and simple.

With the BST here and most places its "buyer beware," on eBay its seller beware; and those were the guidelines the buyer was going by.

Please do.

I have to side 100% with the seller here.

The question is really about who, buyer or seller, should accept the risk that a graded card gets a lower (or altered, etc) grade on resubmission to another grading company.

I don't see any reason why that risk should lie with the seller. The buyer in cases like this got exactly what they bargained for - the exact card with the exact grade by the exact grading company as advertised. The price they paid reflected this. End of story.

The only exception to this would be situations where the seller either engaged in some sort of fraud (trimmers submitting altered cards) or sellers who sell a card that they know to have been trimmed (previously outed cards, etc) which the grading company missed.

A good faith seller though should not be stuck with this BS.

Yes exactly, wow someone understood my point exactly

C'mon. He was just restating the "NM" grade ascribed to the card by the grading company. I routinely do the same thing when I resell graded cards. Who on here has sold a graded "Near Mint 7" card and then advertised such as being "EX-MT" or lower?

I'm late to this thread but my $0.03:

#1 The seller did make a fairly big mistake by "accepting the return" before confirming as to whether the card had been broken out of the slab. This could very well have driven EBay's position to side with the "buyer". As a consumer, the more interesting precedent would be if the seller first insisted upon reasoning, photographic verification, etc. and then when discovering the slab had been broken, "rejected" the return. Would eBay have made the same ruling under this fact pattern?

#2 I routinely buy "PSA/SGC NM 7" commons from the late 50s/early 60s and break them out of the holders to simply take the newly acquired raw card and upgrade my existing raw card as I strive for a more centered raw card and may have minimum graded standard (of 8) on cards that I'll keep slabbed. While I am careful and usually successful, the cracking process in not foolproof and there have been a few times whereby the cracked raw card may have ended up with a slight ding or two. Before and after pictures may not capture this and for an 80 year old card the seller shouldn't be forced to take it on faith that the now raw card hasn't been degraded slightly in the cracking process.

#3. If one is selling an "off-brand" (for me that's simply non PSA/SGC) card on eBay, one should stipulate very clearly that under no circumstances will a cracked card return be accepted. IOW, the buyer is taking the full off-brand risk. May not be bullet proof with eBay and won't protect you in all scenarios but in concert with item #1 would have put this seller on better footing with eBay.

#4. I don't necessarily agree that the seller should have or would have already dabbled in the cross-over game with PSA/SGC. Early on when I started upgrading a lot of my raw stars with graded 7/8s I bought some off brand cards because they looked nice and were cheaper. I stopped doing that very early on and have weeded those cards out of my collection (other than 1 Beckett card that I still have) well before the latest "trimming scandal". So I find it entirely plausible that the seller may have felt the same and simply wanted to recoup roughly what he paid for the card knowing that GAI cards are inferior from a valuation standpoint.

His full description was:

1933 GOUDEY LOU GEHRIG #160
GAI 7 GRADED
VERY RARE
NEAR MINT
GREAT CORNERS AND NICE EYE APPEAL
SMOKE FREE HOME

The "Great corners and nice eye appeal" wasn't GAI talking. But I get what you're saying. I don't think the seller was aware of any alterations.

When this thread started I was 60% on the side of the buyer because I'm tired of hearing about all the people, who pay big money thinking they are getting quality assets, learning later the asset was doctored. And I thought, well, in this instance the doctoring was caught, so good, that card never did deserve to be in a "7" holder.

But after this discussion, which I thought was worthwhile, I have come to decide that it would be too big a can of worms if people could routinely buy graded cards, crack them out, then return them. So now I'm more like 60% behind the seller I suppose. Reluctantly. I wish we had heard from the buyer in case there was more to his side of the story.

While some people brought chainsaws to the thread (I was called "Operating with a broken moral compass", Insane, Asinine, a Nerd, Stupid, and Ridiculous in one post alone,) others respectfully and articulately voiced their views, as you have,.

In the end I agree that if you buy a slabbed card, as a buyer you need to take your precautions up front (ask questions, trust the grading service, or be willing to risk the gamble,) and if you want to return a purchase it must be still sealed in its original slab undamaged, just as purchased.