[gunboat82]

Only tangentially related, but I'm not impressed with the Authenticity Guarantee process in general. I recently sold an SGC-graded Mantle. My seller page showed that the card passed authentication (as expected) and was shipped to the buyer.

Soon after, I get an e-mail from the buyer indicating that the card arrived with a note that it couldn't be authenticated because it was miscategorized. It was not. The listing showed that it was properly categorized as a baseball trading card, with the correct year, player, grader, etc.

I contacted eBay customer service, which indicated that their system showed that the card passed authentication and there was no note from the authenticator. After digging deeper, eBay eventually acknowledged that the buyer had received a notification that the item couldn't be authenticated because it was miscategorized. They also acknowledged that it wasn't actually miscategorized, so the buyer never should have received that note.

I offered the buyer a refund and sent him the eBay chat transcripts, and he ultimately decided to keep the card. However, it was a huge hassle, eBay provided conflicting responses, and their customer service rep couldn't provide any other explanation for the hitch in the authentication process, other than to apologize and say "don't worry, we've got your back." Even with that apology, I couldn't get eBay to provide assurances that the shipping cost would be refunded if the buyer accepted my return offer.