Partially ripping a card opening the mail

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by sportscardpete

Just as a heads up - EBAY refused to refund. In a way I'm not really surprised; explaining it to people that don't collect cards is kind of hard. For most of you, you can get how a poorly packaged card is a cardinal sin, but ebay can't really see it that way.

Lesson learned is this: 1) PARTICULARLY for raw cards, assume it isn't packaged correctly and handle with care, and more importantly 2) life is more important than worrying about a ripped card (but boy does it suck).

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and for helping me feel a lot less dumb! I've had the worst pit in my stomach this whole weekend but I am glad most of you made me feel like I wasn't entirely crazy!

Pete

Did you pay for it with a CC? File a dispute with your CC company.

Can you at least out the seller so we can block them?

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Did you pay for it with a CC? File a dispute with your CC company.

Sure, now pass responsibility on to the CC company and get THEM to eat the loss.

Is the concept of personal responsibility completely dead?

Look, I once spilled a beverage on a fairly valuable card myself and I know how depressing it is. But looking high and low for someone else to blame isn't the right thing to do. The right thing is to learn from the mistake, of course, and be thankful for all your blessings. If you can afford an $800 bit of cardboard, your life is likely far better than that of most around the world.

My mom used to tell me, whenever I'd lose or break something, that I should think of the people who get hit by tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and so on, who literally lose their entire homes and everything within them. Really puts things in perspective. For that matter, I have a picture of a childhood friend on my computer monitor here... he died when he was just 16 years old. Looking at it lets me remember and honor him, and also reminds me to be thankful for what I have, and worry less about what I don't have, or have lost/broken/ripped.

Just sayin... man up, admit you ripped it, it's a bummer, and move on. Don't excuse your own carelessness by passing responsibility off to someone else (like a CC company,) thus making a victim out of them.

[Mdmtx]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Sure, now pass responsibility on to the CC company and get THEM to eat the loss.

Is the concept of personal responsibility completely dead?

Look, I once spilled a beverage on a fairly valuable card myself and I know how depressing it is. But looking high and low for someone else to blame isn't the right thing to do. The right thing is to learn from the mistake, of course, and be thankful for all your blessings. If you can afford an $800 bit of cardboard, your life is likely far better than that of most around the world.

My mom used to tell me, whenever I'd lose or break something, that I should think of the people who get hit by tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and so on, who literally lose their entire homes and everything within them. Really puts things in perspective. For that matter, I have a picture of a childhood friend on my computer monitor here... he died when he was just 16 years old. Looking at it lets me remember and honor him, and also reminds me to be thankful for what I have, and worry less about what I don't have, or have lost/broken/ripped.

Just sayin... man up, admit you ripped it, it's a bummer, and move on. Don't excuse your own carelessness by passing responsibility off to someone else (like a CC company,) thus making a victim out of them.

Extremely well written response Mark.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Sure, now pass responsibility on to the CC company and get THEM to eat the loss.

Is the concept of personal responsibility completely dead?

It's not passing the responsibility to the CC company. The CC company would get their money back from PayPal and PayPal would probably get their money back from the seller.

If you can't admit the seller was at fault, then I guess personal responsibility is dead.

[packs]

What would be the grounds for a PayPal refund?

Examples of transactions covered by Purchase Protection:

• You bought a book, but received a DVD
•You bought an item described as “new,” but received something that was used
•You purchased 3 items, but only received 2
•The item was damaged during shipping
•The item is missing major parts (that the seller didn’t report)
•You purchased an item described as authentic, but received a knockoff instead

That's from the PayPal site.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by packs

What would be the grounds for a PayPal refund?

Examples of transactions covered by Purchase Protection:

• You bought a book, but received a DVD
•You bought an item described as “new,” but received something that was used
•You purchased 3 items, but only received 2
•The item was damaged during shipping
•The item is missing major parts (that the seller didn’t report)
•You purchased an item described as authentic, but received a knockoff instead

That's from the PayPal site.

Damaged during shipping, and damaged because of poor packing, or a lack of packing is a fine line. I would file a PayPal claim and let them sort it out.

I get that the OP should have been more careful opening the package. How exactly this happened is a little confusing. A picture of the card and envelope it was shipped in sure would help. But if a card of this value was simply placed loose in an envelope I feel that is so egregious as to warrant a refund.

Edit: Frank's suggestion of sharing the responsibility and perhaps issuing a 50% refund is probably the reasonable solution, but this seems like a case that would have to be decided by a third party and a ruling made one way or the other. Contacting the seller and offering a split may be a solution, although the time to offer that most likely would have been before filing the ebay claim.

[Mdmtx]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

It's not passing the responsibility to the CC company. The CC company would get their money back from PayPal and PayPal would probably get their money back from the seller.

If you can't admit the seller was at fault, then I guess personal responsibility is dead.

Personal responsibility dead? You posts have avoided all personal responsibility of the person who actually TORE it.

Maybe it's the envelope mfg fault or maybe the people that sold the car to the seller to drive the package to the post office. As you know, without that car it wouldn't have been shipped.

Wake up. I feel badly for the guy. Terrible situation. But he can't ever get past the fact that he tore it.

I also agree that the seller underperformed by shoddy shipping. But as I said earlier, neither are 100% harmless or 100% at fault. But I can assure you that the cc company, eBay, PayPal or the delivery service are not at fault. They all did their jobs. This failure to accept responsibility is the crap that logjams courts, creates entitled people and causes exorbitant fees. Quit passing the buck.

Mark Medlin

[MuddyMules]

Originally Posted by Mdmtx

Personal responsibility dead? You posts have avoided all personal responsibility of the person who actually TORE it.

Maybe it's the envelope mfg fault or maybe the people that sold the car to the seller to drive the package to the post office. As you know, without that car it wouldn't have been shipped.

Wake up. I feel badly for the guy. Terrible situation. But he can't ever get past the fact that he tore it.

I also agree that the seller underperformed by shoddy shipping. But as I said earlier, neither are 100% harmless or 100% at fault. But I can assure you that the cc company, eBay, PayPal or the delivery service are not at fault. They all did their jobs. This failure to accept responsibility is the crap that logjams courts, creates entitled people and causes exorbitant fees. Quit passing the buck.

Mark Medlin

+1 very well said.

[frankbmd]

The lack of personal responsibility in our society is but one hallmark of what many consider our ongoing moral decay. It's fascinating to me that a ripped piece of cardboard can be used as a focal point to demonstrate this and that the majority of the board aligns themselves with the buyer who ripped the card. It is obvious to me that there is shared fault for this incident and both the shipper and the buyer should accept their share of the responsibility and move on.

I fully realize that posting again to this effect will not change one person's mind, but responsibility can and should be shared by both parties, whether there is any financial restitution or not. There are many shades of gray between black and white. To not impugn (look it up) the buyer in this instance is wrong in my opinion and I believe there are many reading this who would agree, but, because the issue at hand is a baseball card, they will remain mute. To not impugn the shipper would be fallacious as well.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Whether you think it was the buyer's fault or the seller's fault, the bottom line is that it wouldn't have happened if the seller had packaged it properly.

[Paul S]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

The lack of personal responsibility in our society is but one hallmark of what many consider our ongoing moral decay. It's fascinating to me that a ripped piece of cardboard can be used as a focal point to demonstrate this and that the majority of the board aligns themselves with the buyer who ripped the card. It is obvious to me that there is shared fault for this incident and both the shipper and the buyer should accept their share of the responsibility and move on.

I fully realize that posting again to this effect will not change one person's mind, but responsibility can and should be shared by both parties, whether there is any financial restitution or not. There are many shades of gray between black and white. To not impugn (look it up) the buyer in this instance is wrong in my opinion and I believe there are many reading this who would agree, but, because the issue at hand is a baseball card, they will remain mute. To not impugn the shipper would be fallacious as well.

I was impugned once. It happened in a elevator car standing between "Windy" McCall and "Rip" Repulski.

[markf31]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

It's not passing the responsibility to the CC company. The CC company would get their money back from PayPal and PayPal would probably get their money back from the seller.

If you can't admit the seller was at fault, then I guess personal responsibility is dead.

Personal responsibility resides with both the seller and the buyer in any transaction.

When my daughter receives a birthday card in the mail from my parents, I tell her to open it carefully and not just rip it open as she is tempted to do because I know full well that it contains a $20 bill. Now even a bill ripped in half retains its full value, so no harm if it happens but its the idea of opening a package that contains something of value in a careful and responsible way.

Multiple times from Ebay sellers, I've received a stack of cards and each in its own supersaver sleeve but where the supersavers were bound/taped together and in between cardboard to add rigidity. I take extreme care is slicing the tape apart with a blade, knowing full well that I could easily slip the blade right through any one of those supersavers and the card inside. If was to hastily try to hack the supersavers apart and slice a card in the process, I would not blame the seller. I would accept full personal responsibility for having acted in a negligent and careless fashion.