Posted By:
Miguel DanielsonDavid,
I was interested to see your story as I have just come across my first pack re-sealer on eBay. I should have known better -- feedback on the guy was less than 98%, a couple of the negative feedbacks mentioned opened packs, and the seller did not accept paypal. Nevertheless, I had had good luck before in buying from those who don't accept paypal, but I guess they never had the feedback issues.
So, my box arrives about 1.5 months after winning the bid, and an alleged story about the box getting returned to the seller for a bad address (yeah right!). The box is badly worn and all of the packs are severely bent for some reason. After closer inspection, the entirety of the back of the packs is covered in a brush-like texture. I believe this is from a technique of using hot wax and brushing it over the pack of the packs to seal -- I compare to some of my other older Topps packs and of course their seal marks are very small and distinct. Furthermore, I notice that all of the wrappers are very loose on the packs -- other wrappers I have are very tight. I open one pack and notice that there is only a tiny wax stain on the back card (this is from was from the re-sealing, seeping through the pack), and there is no gum stain whatsoever on the gum facing card (this suggests that it has not been exposed to the gum for more than the weeks or months since the guy resealed the packs).
In any event, I'm a few days shay of the 60 day window to protest through eBay, but I'm counting on them not being any help whatsoever. I am an attorney and one of my hobbies is to go after companies and people that rip off others and think they will always get away with it. Therefore, I am not considering the best course of action. I believe they I will call the local police where the seller lives and tell them what is going on and that a string of frauds appears to be involved. However, I am wondering if I should send a pack in to PSA or GAI to have it returned as tampered with. I also wonder whether law enforcement would actually be willing to do what they need to do to catch this guy (namely, search his house for the re-sealing equipment and evidence of re-sealed packs in progress). I could also file a civil law suit against the guy in his home jurisdiction, but this would likely require travel there (or obtaining local counsel, which would be expensive). This actually makes me wonder if there are any attorneys here from Richmond, VA, who might want to participate.
Bringing this back to the original topic, I have often thought it would be nice to have a discussion on what options are available when someone has been demonstrably defrauded over eBay. If one has evidence, then the offense is automatically federal because of the use of the postal service, so it would seem there are very good tools to use. However, I wonder about the receptiveness of the Postal Inspector or others at the federal level, where the fraud is not something traditional like credit card scams, identity theft, and the like. Swapping cards out of a PSA holder or opening and re-sealing packs of cards seems like something that some bureaucrat somewhere may have a lot of difficulty in wrapping their heads around.
Has anyone had a good experience in a hobby-specific fraud case and the local or federal authorities? For the lawyers in the group, have you thought out a game plan for the instance where you one day get ripped off via eBay?
Regards,
Miguel