That new PSA/eBay deal

[Exhibitman]

This is just eBay trying to force sellers (eventually) to pay it more fees. Sure, it is free now, but the email I got says for a limited time. I expect to wake up one day and find an email from eBay sharing the great news that is going to really boost my sales by charging me only 3% of a card's sale price to have PSA check the damned slab.

Stupid stupid stupid.

[Jewish-collector]

Sometimes you just gotta say, "It's an unregulated business"

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Jewish-collector

Sometimes you just gotta say, "It's an unregulated business"

Ain't that the truth!

[glchen]

I think ebay having CSG validate raw cards over a certain value makes a lot of sense, given that there is so much fraud out there. However, as others have said, having PSA validate graded cards doesn't make much sense because there doesn't seem to be much ROI there. Virtually all graded cards will be genuine, and there is too much lost in the cost of shipping to make this worth it.

However, there are a couple scenarios where I can see that this will be useful. The first is the empty box scam. This is where the seller sends the buyer an empty box that doesn't have the card in it. Obviously if this goes to PSA, they would be an objective 3rd party, and say that the seller never sent the card, which would dissuade many sellers from trying this. (I guess the seller can claim that PSA lost the card.) Next is the example where the seller doesn't actually own the card that they are trying to sell. See thread for T210 Joe Jackson (Link). Obviously, when the seller tries to send the card to PSA, that card would not be present, so it would quickly be pointed out as fraud.

I think these examples lead to the point of what ebay is probably trying to do here. Why do folks prefer to buy high value items from auction houses rather than ebay? (Notwithstanding the recent Goldin issue -Link), people trust that the auction houses will validate that the stuff that they are auctioning is genuine, not tampered with, and they actually have it. With ebay, if you have a low feedback seller, you have no idea if you are dealing with some sort of scam, so people are reluctant to bid very high. Even if you go through buyer protection, you need to jump through a bunch of hoops, so you are always concerned that things might not go your way, and therefore, you may refrain from bidding. However, with this graded card protection, you would have a lot more faith that you will either get the card that you bid for or you'll get a quick refund without hassles, so you have more confidence to bid higher. And higher bids mean more fees for ebay (which will definitely raise fees anyway to pass these costs to the seller).

[BobC]

Originally Posted by glchen

I think ebay having CSG validate raw cards over a certain value makes a lot of sense, given that there is so much fraud out there. However, as others have said, having PSA validate graded cards doesn't make much sense because there doesn't seem to be much ROI there. Virtually all graded cards will be genuine, and there is too much lost in the cost of shipping to make this worth it.

However, there are a couple scenarios where I can see that this will be useful. The first is the empty box scam. This is where the seller sends the buyer an empty box that doesn't have the card in it. Obviously if this goes to PSA, they would be an objective 3rd party, and say that the seller never sent the card, which would dissuade many sellers from trying this. (I guess the seller can claim that PSA lost the card.) Next is the example where the seller doesn't actually own the card that they are trying to sell. See thread for T210 Joe Jackson (Link). Obviously, when the seller tries to send the card to PSA, that card would not be present, so it would quickly be pointed out as fraud.

I think these examples lead to the point of what ebay is probably trying to do here. Why do folks prefer to buy high value items from auction houses rather than ebay? (Notwithstanding the recent Goldin issue -Link), people trust that the auction houses will validate that the stuff that they are auctioning is genuine, not tampered with, and they actually have it. With ebay, if you have a low feedback seller, you have no idea if you are dealing with some sort of scam, so people are reluctant to bid very high. Even if you go through buyer protection, you need to jump through a bunch of hoops, so you are always concerned that things might not go your way, and therefore, you may refrain from bidding. However, with this graded card protection, you would have a lot more faith that you will either get the card that you bid for or you'll get a quick refund without hassles, so you have more confidence to bid higher. And higher bids mean more fees for ebay (which will definitely raise fees anyway to pass these costs to the seller).

Agree, and why I thought the original idea of having raw cards reviewed made some sense as well. Will be curious to see where this ultimately ends up. (ie: the final threshold amounts they set and who ends up paying how much for the service)

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

This is just eBay trying to force sellers (eventually) to pay it more fees. Sure, it is free now, but the email I got says for a limited time. I expect to wake up one day and find an email from eBay sharing the great news that is going to really boost my sales by charging me only 3% of a card's sale price to have PSA check the damned slab.

Stupid stupid stupid.

I definitely agree with the stupid part, but not 100% certain they're doing it just to ultimately raise their fees. I would assume CSG and PSA aren't going to do all this work for nothing, and would expect that a significant portion of any such increased fees would be going to them eventually.

At some point it would potentially behoove someone like a Greg Morris cards to dump Ebay and maybe just sell through their own site, through Facebook, or some other platform. If nothing else, it will likely push many independent sellers to just go straight to AHs with their better cards. Or if they're in need of quick cash, other venues like our own BST forum, or even live shows.

I know we on the vintage collecting side are generally more against such crazy things like this happening in the first place in our hobby, but eventually you figure the shine will disappear to some extent for the new investors as well if they keep just jacking up fees and such. At least you would think so.