What's wrong with eBay?

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by Kutcher55

Huge ebay fan. The authentication program is puzzling to me though. I think they are doing it at too low a value. If the card is slabbed with one of the big 3, there's no need for authentication IMO. It's just a grand waste of cardboard resources.

Ebay should also do a much better job policing its sellers. But they have no motivation for doing so as it would only hurt their sales. Ultimately it's up to the buyer to recognize crap when he sees it. That said, there are so many sellers who are garbage human beings and should be banned.

I'm also a huge fan of eBay. Since I sell on there more than I buy, it's natural I would have a somewhat different perspective.

The authentication program protects both buyers and sellers. In my opinion, the program succeeds at doing this.

If a buyer wins a $250 (or more) card and the slab was tampered with or the card sent was different than the listing, the program should prevent the buyer from getting ripped off.

If a seller ships a $250 (or more) card to the authenticator program, and the card matches the listing, the seller is done. No "buyers remorse" returns, no fraudulent returns of a different item, no BS.

Yes, I'm sure some people can offer up anecdotal examples in which there was an exception to this. For the most part, though, the program is working.

As for eBay policing its user base, they could be a bit quicker at shutting down scammers. However, I think this applies to buyers and sellers. There are plenty of "garbage human beings" out there, it's not limited to just sellers. For every seller who "can't find" a card that sold for less than they wanted, there's a buyer who intentionally damages a well packaged item and claims it arrived that way. For every seller who "forgets" to mention a major flaw, there's a buyer who demands a refund because a porch pirate stole their package after it was delivered.

The Authenticity Guarantee program was put in place primarily because there were so many disputes between buyers and sellers. With the pandemic and sports card boom, there were a lot of new people in the hobby. Quite a few of them made their way over to eBay. Some percentage of them were not too ethical. The program gave eBay a way to cut down on the fraud a bit.