What makes you most suspicious of an eBay auction?
 

For me, it is when the background of a front scan doesn't match the background of a back scan. Or if it is a graded card, and the color behind the holder isn't the same color as the background around the holder. What else are the obvious give-aways that I haven't mentioned?

A big one for a lot of people I know is sellers with no or little feedback. Honest truth, we all started that way on ebay though, and worked our way up.

A very tiny scan so you can't really tell about the condition of the card

I love the feigned ignorance ones. They'll post a card, maybe some beat up reprint and tell you that they have no idea what this is, but they were given it by their grandfather, got it at an estate sale, found it in the basement, or whatever. The implication that they're trying to convey, of course, is that they and their card are ripe for the picking, when their real purpose is to delude you into believing that you're going to get away with an incredible steal, due to their ignorance.

ALL CAPS
JimB

Cards slabbed by other than PSA, SGC and Beckett.

WHO CARES IF ITS ALL CAPS JIM, SOME GRANDSONS ARE IN SUCH A HASTE TO SELL GRAMPAS COLLECTION THAT THEY SIMPLY DONT NOTICE.


:rolleyes:

I hate the tiny scans! What a waste of an auction listing.

Lack of a back scan, particularly on a raw card or a lower-grade graded card.

-Al

"sorry for the poor scan, it doesn't do justice to the quality of the card"

Sellers with high end cards not graded while others of theirs are...

An auction with lots of early bidding and then the high bidder has bid 100% with that seller.

"I'm not a professional grader but these cards look sharp/great/fantastic/mint/etc."

Doesn't make me suspicious, just seems very unwarranted, especially if you're putting pics in of the cards. Just once I'd like to see an auction where a guy says, "Why yes, I -am- a professional grader..."

Registered within the past month, has 10 feedback (all buying, e-delivery to boot) and all of a sudden is selling high dollar cards with crappy photos. Oh yeah, and using eBay mobile to list.

When a seller has the card listed both auction style and buy it now style at the same time.

When the seller buys reprints using the same User ID and then sells "his grandfather's legacy".:D:D

Why is that?

References in the text about Jesus, God and Christianity. Also, grandfather's cards, found in an old desk and the old proverbial I don't know much about grading but......"

When the seller sells a psa graded card, the image of which was stolen from another listing, and he subsequently ships a reprint in a screw down. That bugs me a little.

When all of the sellers graded cards are "undergraded" or when I can see a seller bought a card in a psa 3 holder and all of a sudden it's for sale as a raw "EX-NRMT" card

Makes me suspicious of the seller rather than the card itself. I once submitted a best offer price and won auction style. Seller sent invoice for the best offer price which was $13 more than auction style. It's a beautiful high dollar card I really wanted and I love, so 13 bucks was no big deal, but it seemed kinda shady to me

+1!

Dead bodies lying in the background of the photo, just behind the card.

A sudden glut of a difficult card you've been looking for....

+1

I think all vintage should have a back scan.

How about the:

"So, I'm divorcing my husband after I found out that he was a cheating SOB and now I'm going to sell off his precious baseball card collection. I know nothing about these stupid cards, but he was always bragging about how much they were worth...."

The number of times the seller puts the word "VERY" in front of "RARE" in the description. So far the record I've seen is 10.

jeff

And this one hits many of the things listed ...
 

http://tinyurl.com/8bex89n

Bad image. Out of focus. Strange background. High dollar card. Low feedback, No back scan or image. Story of how he just got it. Doesn't know if it is real or not, but will let us decide. And, oh, he doesn't really care.

A Joke
 

Am I allowed to say ... Rick Probstein (as a joke!) without getting sued???

Cheers,
Patrick

You are allowed to say almost anything on this board as long as your full name is in your post(s). Btw, I for one, think Rick is honest but haven't met him personally. I think some of his consignors might not be as honest as he is though. Again, this is all speculation on my part (and my name is always in my posts :))

I did meet Rick at the National and found him to be a very nice/pleasant and that includes the yound men that were working for him. Ive purchased several cards from him and had 2 problems over time including a high-end card. Both issues were resolved immediately with the high-end purchase resulting in a full-refund including s/h compensation accompanied by an apology.

Steve Suckow

When a seller mainly sells .99 cent A-rod Topps cards and puppets, but then out of the blue they have a Mantle worth thousands.

Feel free to delete my post
 

Hi Leon,

Feel free to delete my post above if you'd like.

I was just making the obvious joke. (And for the record I have bought from Rick in the past with no problems, and agree with those that have said he runs so many auctions, there's no way he can patrol funny business in bids and consignors.)

Cheers,
Patrick

I hope you are right Leon as I just won a couple cards from him last night....:D

No need to on this one as we all know it was in jest. Unfortunately I do have to remind a lot of folks about the nature of their posts with regards to privacy. I am sure Rick has some sense of humor and would be ok with a bit of tongue in cheek when it's very obvious. Take care...

Raises questions....
 

.... when a seller of product X suddenly starts selling Ruth and Gehrig card about which they "know nothing" and swear someone said they were authentic and worth thousands, but they can't guarantee authenticity; or when the seller is new with little feedback (sorry, I know we all started that way, but probably not by selling T206 Wagners with a feedback of 3).

Basically, anything whereby the seller does not stand 100% behind the guaranteed authenticity of their card, with refund guarantees, and without feigned ignorance of or some BS story about the card's origin, worth, grade or value.

Whenever the seller says he knows nothing about his cards and/or card collecting.

"I don't know anything about these cards or how to get them graded but my grandfather left them for me when he passed away. The bidder can decide for himself whether these are real or not."

Anything along these lines is clearly going to be some sort of reprint.

High end ungraded cards are another thing you've got to watch out for, but can be trickier because they often are real. Less feedback is important, too. I usually like to check the actual comments in his feedback because a lot of these guys aren't good buyers and that often translates to a bad seller.

The word "Wow" with exclamation points in the title. For example:

T206 Nattress with Five Creases.....WOW!!!!