My Experience With eBay's Authentication Service

[Luke]

I bought a nice looking GD+ / VG card that was listed as EX on the title. It got rejected for the stated grade being too high. As an informed buyer, I'm annoyed to have to wait another week or two and buy the card again. But this is a good thing overall. It's been the wild west where sellers can say a card is EX and then you look at it and its fair or gd. I have always wondered if a buyer is going to get screwed when I see those listings. This new program will make those old school dealers quit calling fair card vgex and ex, and that's a good thing.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Luke

I bought a nice looking GD+ / VG card that was listed as EX on the title. It got rejected for the stated grade being too high. As an informed buyer, I'm annoyed to have to wait another week or two and buy the card again. But this is a good thing overall. It's been the wild west where sellers can say a card is EX and then you look at it and its fair or gd. I have always wondered if a buyer is going to get screwed when I see those listings. This new program will make those old school dealers quit calling fair card vgex and ex, and that's a good thing.

I agree but ebay needs to communicate better.
It does seem the op's listing might have confused them. My guess is if the "excellent" part wasn't in the description it would not have gotten rejected. Of course I am not sure..
.

[oldeboo]

Originally Posted by Luke

I bought a nice looking GD+ / VG card that was listed as EX on the title. It got rejected for the stated grade being too high. As an informed buyer, I'm annoyed to have to wait another week or two and buy the card again. But this is a good thing overall. It's been the wild west where sellers can say a card is EX and then you look at it and its fair or gd. I have always wondered if a buyer is going to get screwed when I see those listings. This new program will make those old school dealers quit calling fair card vgex and ex, and that's a good thing.

No doubt. There is a long list of dealers that describe every single card as NM/MT as well. How is a card with a wrinkle, 90/10 centering, and smashed corners considered NM/MT? The anything goes era existed for a long time. According to the terms and conditions of the program, an item gets rejected when it is "significantly not as described." To Howard's point, sellers certainly deserve clarification on what issues are in a listing.

[Yoda]

I suppose this is why collectors whose collections are solely comprised of raw cards sleep better at night.

[Buythatcard]

I can live with the fact that I might have not described the card to eBays standards. I was under the assumption that eBay thought the card was not authentic. It was never explained to me. Atleast tell me exactly what I did wrong.

At the time of the listing, I was not even aware of this new service that was forced upon us. When I finally looked it up, it said that any card valued over $500 would automatically be submitted to their authenticators.

Two nights ago, I sold a card for $472 and saw that it was getting sent to the authenticator. I thought to myself why is it getting sent if the value is below $500? When I researched for the answer, I saw that they now automatically authenticate the card if value is $375 or higher.

There is no reason for me to be confused about how this works. eBay made no effort to relay that info to me. I can't speak for other Sellers. I have done a fair amount of business on eBay over the past 19 years and would think that they would treat me as a valued Seller and let me know about these changes.

[bobbyw8469]

This just reinforces my idea that I don't want to sell high dollar cards on Ebay. Lee?? Scott? Are you paying attention??

[ValKehl]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

This just reinforces my idea that I don't want to sell high dollar cards on Ebay. Lee?? Scott? Are you paying attention??

+1. I rarely list cards on eBay that I think will sell for more than $100-$125. I give cards worth more than this to certain, very-reputable auction houses.

[D. Bergin]

Just a heads up. Sold a Boxing Cabinet Card on Ebay. I listed it in the Trading Card section, because I thought that was the best audience for it.

I was happy with the result.

It went for high enough of a price, it had to be shipped to the Authentication program, before going to the buyer.

I figured they could authenticate a simple Cabinet card.

Just got this message back from them:

We wanted to let you know that your item is on the way to your buyer, but unfortunately we can’t provide our Authenticity Guarantee. The item was miscategorized in your listing and isn’t eligible for this service. This may be disappointing for your buyer, so we recommend you check the item category on any of your other listings to help make sure this doesn’t happen again.

In the meantime, we’ll notify your buyer and let them know their order is on the way. If you have any questions or concerns, just get in touch. We’re here to help.

Thanks for being part of the eBay community.

They are sending it on anyways, so not a big deal...just a heads up they are not "Authenticating" Cabinet cards...but if you list in the Trading cards section it will still have to go through that extra layer of service to get where it's going.

I know technically I could have listed in the "Memorabilia - Photographs" section, but thought that would be counter-intuitive to getting a strong price and reaching the right bidders.

This is assuming, I'm guessing at the exact reason they rejected it from their program. Could be something else for all I know. Ebay's not known for being the most transparent company in the world.