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eBay’s Authenticity Guarantee Program Delays
Is it just me or over the past couple of weeks, has it been taking a week or more every time for PSA to get an item off to the buyer after a qualifying AG purchase. If PSA can’t keep up with the volume, maybe time to shut this program down, none of us ever wanted it in the first place.
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I haven't purchased anything recently that had to go through the Authenticity Guarantee so I can't comment on if it's taking longer, but I don't think it's accurate to say no one wanted it. I've never had an issue with it personally, and I've seen plenty of people (buyers and sellers) post that they are in favor of the program.
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PSA way
It's getting as slow as PSA grading can be, mainly to California. I had one item that I sold take well over two weeks.
Another item, which I bought, I hadn't received in a month. It turned out the authenticators lost it. My money was refunded by eBay and the seller kept the money from he sale, as it wasn't his fault. |
I realized today that it has all to do with the recent change to eBay’s funds availability policy for sellers. It’s in eBay’s best interests the longer the delivery process takes to ultimately reach the buyer since they hold those funds now until 3 business days after the delivery of the item to the buyer has been confirmed. That means at least an extra couple of weeks for eBay to keep those funds in their account and earn interest on it. That’s millions of customers doing millions of transactions a day times all of that additional float time on that money. This can be more lucrative for eBay than their 13.9% fee structure. The question is, how do we stop it?
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Phil, the way to "stop" eBay is for some very-well-financed company to build a better auction mousetrap with policies that pleases sports card buyers and sellers more than eBay does. I can see an aggressive company such as Fanatics doing this. I can see this company offering Greg Morris, Probstein, and and a dozen other large-volume eBay sports card sellers a sweetheart deal to leave eBay and give their business to this company's new and better auction platform. Once this happens, I believe that most of the remaining eBay sellers of sports cards would also leave eBay. I, for one, most certainly would.
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nevermind, saw the other thread.
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I sold a card Saturday, got it in the mail technically because we have a mall post office that is open on the weekends. But it won't get into the system until today likely, and won't probably be delivered until later this week. I got a notification of my payout this morning. |
John:
Read the accompanying thread regarding e-bays funds avaiability policy change. |
"I can see an aggressive company such as Fanatics doing this"
Note to Val and others as an FYI There is already Fanatics Live which is why EBay is pushing their sports collectible live streams https://www.fanatics.live/home And at least a weekly Fanatics auction https://www.fanaticscollect.com/week...on?type=WEEKLY They are already doing this Regards Rich |
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Rich, thanks for your comments. I'm basically aware of Fanatics Live and the weekly Fanatics auctions. My thought is that Fanatics' goal is (or should be) to completely take away the sports collectibles business from eBay by doing it much better than eBay.
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Very unlikely to happen!!
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After two email exchanges back and forth with eBay’s Office of the President, they claim that the reason for the recent slowdown from 1-3 days to 1-3 weeks for their sports card authenticity guaranty program is due to the influx of PSA submissions resulting from Pokemon and Magic recent drops of highly popular gaming products.
Obviously not what I wanted to hear and further evidence of what is ruining our hobby amongst vintage card collectors. |
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Now you have two mega corporations, Collectors and eBay joining forces to battle the individual card collector. Who wins that one?
But, collect what you like, it’s just a hobby, right? |
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Do they have you on the newish pay in up to 7 days program? In my experience it lets you buy stuff from sellers that require immediate payment and pay later. I am guessing this is because when you pick the payment option it is automatically charged to your account when that time comes up and you are agreeing to pay it. |
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I did; interesting. This hasn’t yet affected me on eBay, but I’m selling usually smaller stuff (under $200). This and the larger trend of tax scrutiny (or at least flirting with it…) are discouraging to me and why by and large I’m planning to get completely out of the selling game soon. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk |
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I would wager that in the long run the authenticity guarantee will keep more people enjoying collecting than not (and I would bet money it is not a little multiplier but many orders of magnitude). Just because you may know a resealed slab does not mean that others (and by others I mean the overwhelming majority of collectors) have that same knowledge. Having a stop gap in place serves to help these people (and sellers who are honest and could get wrapped up in shenanigans with buyers who are not) enjoy peace of mind. I for one am a fan of program. I can sell higher dollar cards without worry. I have zero issue whatsoever if it delays things a bit. Nice to know that both myself and the buyer can rest easier at night. Further - I would imagine that if you (not you specifically Phil but anyone who is averse to Authenticity Guarantee) bought a card and found that the holder had been tampered with or there was otherwise a problem you would be up in arms if eBay did nothing to help. Not to say this is some flawless program (it really never could be) but if it helps to elminate even 96% of problems we should ALL be all for it; it can only serve to encourage more collectors to have faith in a marketplace that makes our material highly liquid in ways that no one would have ever dreamed of even 20 years ago. And I do not for a second believe that eBay has implemented their slower to pay out policy so that they can earn interest on the funds. In a world where everyone expects everything to be immediate this would cause more headaches than it would be worth. I am sure that they got left holding the bag too many times by too many bad actors and this is just a way to protect themselves. I don't doubt that some other companies will follow suit as needed. Jeremy Kraft |
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What you've described sounds a little like like financing; perhaps a "grace period" extended to certain buyers. There was a widespread problem with eBay recently. A day or two before a "big game" took place, buyers would hit BIN on a quarterback's rookie card or something similar. They wouldn't pay, of course. They'd wait until after the game. If the player did great (read, their cards would increase in value) then they would pay. If not, they would cancel and not pay. It was a headache, one that eBay took care of with the "immediate payment required" option. I have thousands of eBay listings with that option enabled. I just listed an item this afternoon and the option was still available to be chosen. I can't believe eBay would do what you're saying without notifying people. I don't think you're being malicious; however, I doubt the veracity of your claim. If I'm wrong, I apologize. If anyone has a link to eBay which supports what Ben has written, please post it. |
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Combined shipping is usually not available on immediate payment items. Sellers (Greg Morris, for example) allow buyers to buy multiple items across multiple days and pay all at once. No matter how it shakes out, this in an interesting discussion. Thanks for sharing what you’ve experienced. |
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