Sad State of the Hobby

[Fred]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

I'm a night owl, and so late last night somebody on eBay put up a nice set of cards with a $2,000 US BIN. It was a very good deal. These cards were in great condition and if they had graded high, then I would have doubled my money - maybe tripled. I did send the seller a message prior to heading to bed and he thanked me for my purchase. The following morning (today), he cancelled the order and refunded me my money. He told me his daughter spilled a drink on them. And just to show you how dumb this guy is, he immediately re-listed the cards for $9,000 US with best offer and it sold quickly (according to Slabwatch - $3,200 USD).

I told this guy that if he had wanted more money, then all he had to do was ask. And yes, I negged his a** as well. I looked him up on Facebook too. He is a young father with a baby daughter and I am not going to post his name, nor will I post his eBay ID. He doesn't deal much on eBay, and so you people don't need to worry about anything here.

Now, I love seeing the hobby on fire. I own many cards and I love selling at a profit. However, when things like this start happening, it can be hard to enjoy it. It's just so sad how people can step on each other's toes, and how sellers can back out or even blame their own children for their own mistakes.

This reminds me of around 1990 (or so) when people were pre-selling wax cases. The price from the manufacturer could have been about $250 and people were taking pre-orders for $400. Then the price of OPC baseball started to skyrocket. People were paying $1200, $1600 for pre-ordered cases. When the first cases were delivered, the people that pre-sold for $400 were screwing the people that paid for cases in advance and refunding the buyer their money so that they could sell them for another thousand more. People got so G-damn greedy, it was really pathetic.

It was a frigging orgy of greed. A-holes coming out of the wood work just looking to screw someone. I set up a few dealers on Coin-Net back then. Coin-Net figured it out and offered a portal for sports card dealers (yes, way back in the dial-up days). These dealers would let me scan Coin-Net and I could see all of the screwing that was going on.

GREED - GREED - GREED, looks like it's coming back in full force - it's always been here but when things start escalating and getting crazy, then it gets really bad.