I recently bought a lot of Ghost Whisperer cards that were described as being in "Good Condition" the pictures showed some corner damage to some of the cards and one card had a scratch.
When the cards arrived I found to my horror that the cards in my mind are in very pooor condition and most are fit only for the bin.

This was the message I sent.

"Hi There, Thankyou for sending the cards, they arrived. Unfortunatly im very concerned by the quality of most of these cards. You descriped these cards as being in "Good Condition" and mention no defects, however most of the cards are in very poor condition.
Card C28 good condition has some small scratches.
C29 poor is scratched and rippled
C1 poor numerous dents and scratches
C2 Very poor Corner buckled damaged, scratches and dents
C13 Poor several dents and scratches
GC17 Very poor several large dents
GC5 Very poor corner rippled several dents and scratches
C22 Poor 2 large scratches and several dents
GC18 Very Poor impact damage and sveral large dents and scratches
GC3 Very poor several dents and lots of scratches"

This is the reply I received.

"Poor condition I would be ripped falling apart stuff like that and they are not as I check before posting I don't give refunds and they are ok in my opinion I don't sell very poor condition Cards I put them in bin as But yes again to me they are good condition may need a clean only but other than that there fine and £2.00 per card is cheap for costumes cards."

What do you guys think? Is it fair to ask for a refund? Do dents, scratches buckles = good condition?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Neilsy,

just say the cards are not as described and you wish to return them for a full refund. Make sure you send them back recorded delivary. If the seller says no open up a dispute case with ebay, you will win.

Agreed, send them back. You should get a refund from eBay, but even if you don't, you can easily get Ghost Whisperer cards in much better condition. Why settle for junk?

As for Good condition, that is actually pretty bad, especially for the buyer. You don't want to go below Excellent and you also have to realize that there are two standards in a transaction. The seller believes everything seems better and some buyers, not all but some, believe everything seems worse.

As for grading services, they have their own standards and I don't agree with them either. On paper its one thing and then the slabs come back and cards you think are a solid 8 get a 6 and cards you considered worse than that 8 get a 9.

Grading services take deductions for too many minor things that in no way effect the appearance of the card to the average eye in MHO. The only time it is advisable to grade is on expensive vintage cards or on expensive modern cards known to be counterfeit targets. The average modern card, and certainly the average packed pulled modern card of the last 20 years does not need to be graded.

Ghost Whisperer cards do not need to be graded, not even the relics. You should be able to get them in near mint condition if you shop around. You may even be able to find sealed boxes if you look for them. Don't accept dents, scratches and buckles, no matter what condition grade the seller believes it falls within.

Oh yeah, ask for a refund. Ebay already tends to lean in favor of the buyer, but being a victim of bait-and-switch, you will win that dispute.

I have won/ordered cards taking a chance because the provided photos were rather fuzzy with the description saying "Good condition." It still surprises me how many people who sell cards have no idea that there is a generally-accepted grading scale for cards. However, I should say that I have been lucky to receive cards that turned out to be NM-MT in those cases.

I once won a card that was a particular variant but then received the other version of the card even though it wasn't the card in the photo. The seller acted like he never heard of a variant before and he's been selling sports and non-sports for years. He did end up giving me a refund and I did buy from him again so it worked out.

I've also had two sellers who made no attempt to protect the card for shipment. One just slipped the card into a comic book bag with the cardboard backing (the card slid around and actually got stuck at the opening so it was bent when I received it); the other just put the cards in an envelope without sleeves nor top loaders (cards actually arrived ok though, looking just like their photos).

In my opinion there are only two conditions for trading cards. Perfect, and trash. The seller is right that £2 for a costume card is cheap, but damaged cards are worthless, so it's £2 too much.

Sometimes there are exceptions. I bought a card recently for £30-odd, and when the seller came to ship it they actually contacted me first and said "I've noticed the card has a dent, do you want to negotiate a lower price or have a refund?" Super honest of them, and they provided a photo, which did indeed show a dent on one corner. The card was really rare (£30 was a bargain) and I still really wanted it, so I said how about £10. They accepted, refunded the difference and sent the card. When it arrived, I couldn't find the dent and had to check the photo again to locate it. Turns out it wasn't very bad at all and the photo extenuated the dent because of the camera flash. Once in a sleeve and a sheet in the binder, it's completely invisible.

Anyway, yours sound genuinely way worse than that. Scratches in particularly are completely unacceptable. Don't bother communicating with the seller any further, start a return case, with a reason of "not as described". It will have to go to the seller for approval, but the evidence is already there that you tried to find a solution privately via a message and the seller refused. He will have the opportunity to offer you a full or partial refund, etc. and may require you to post the cards back. From the sounds of him, he'll probably have a moan too.

But ultimately, if whatever he offers isn't what you want, or he ignores it, after a certain number of days (can't remember how many), you can asked eBay to step in and settle the case. They will 99% settle in your favour and give you a full refund. They may also provide you with a tracked returns label, for which they'll extract the cost from the seller on his next invoice.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
I've also had two sellers who made no attempt to protect the card for shipment. One just slipped the card into a comic book bag with the cardboard backing (the card slid around and actually got stuck at the opening so it was bent when I received it); the other just put the cards in an envelope without sleeves nor top loaders (cards actually arrived ok though, looking just like their photos).

I've had plenty of those occurrences too. Usually they're fellow collectors, rather than pro sellers, and it usually turns out fine, but once I did have a problem where the guy packaged them OK, but squeezed them into a small enough package to send via letter post from the US to the UK, which as has been discussed in the past on here, means they go through sorting machines with rollers at right-angles. Of course therefore, when they went through those machines, the toploader shattered and all the cards were ruined.

All the seller would do was offer replacements provided I paid another lot of shipping charges! Ironically, the guy was heavily religious, and his storefront was plastered with statements about how they operate with Christian values, every email signed off with "blessings", and so forth.

In the end I sourced replacements of all of the cards from more honest people so cheaply that I couldn't be bothered to claim the refund.

As far as the simple question, what is Good condition for trading cards, here is the PSA professional grading list:

Gem - Mint 10
Mint 9
Near Mint - Mint 8
Near Mint 7
Excellent - Mint 6
Excellent 5
Very Good - Excellent 4
Very Good 3
Good 2
Fair 1.5
Poor 1

So going by that wordage Good condition and even Very Good condition, is really really bad.

This is why its so hard to challenge sellers even when they totally misrepresent the grade. Are they knowingly giving you the wrong impression, or are they just using a different standard for the term that they have applied?

Most of the time any experienced card buyer or seller can accurately tell the general grade of a card just by looking at it in hand. Internet photos can be deceiving or can even be falsified, so you have to be able to trust the seller more. When a seller says its good, you have to know it means clean of major defects, not that it is a Good grade, which as you can see is actually very bad condition.

It all comes down to people accurately describing cards. Most modern cards go straight from packs to binders. They are produced free of defects and carefully handled. They are expected to trade in only the highest grades. Knowledgeable buyers don't even want 8s, just 9s and above. Only the rarest modern cards sell in lesser conditions.

Vintage cards are different because they are older and were not marketed as collectibles. Rare vintage cards can still sell well in lower grades simply because better copies can not be found. They are not expected to have many high grade copies left in many cases.

Do not buy modern cards in lesser conditions, unless it is an extremely rare card. You don't have to get it professionally graded to judge the condition. The average modern card never needs grading, but you should always hold out for the best defect free copy you can get and upgrade if you find a better one.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Raven,

Thanks for your thoughts guys. As it was only £20 ive decided to keep the cards rather than have the hassle of forcing a return.

Once placed in a binder and in normal light most of the cards dont look too bad. I already have some of the cards in perfect condition so will sell the perfect ones on to recover some of the money.
The ones that still look bad the actual costumes are perfect so I might cut them out and just keep the costumes or remake them as custom cards.

It's not that much of a hassle and you would be encouraging the seller to continue offering damaged cards. Is it less of a hassle to sell other cards you have to recover some of the money? Is it less of a hassle to cut up the cards and try to make a nice card with the costume piece? It sounds like you're making a lot of work for yourself instead of sending a message.

quote:

Originally posted by Neilsy:
Thanks for your thoughts guys. As it was only £20 ive decided to keep the cards rather than have the hassle of forcing a return.

Once placed in a binder and in normal light most of the cards dont look too bad. I already have some of the cards in perfect condition so will sell the perfect ones on to recover some of the money.
The ones that still look bad the actual costumes are perfect so I might cut them out and just keep the costumes or remake them as custom cards.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle,

Neilsy, while I understand if you want to chalk it up to live and learn, and that's totally up to you, selling perfect cards in order to fund a bad deal seems like doubling the damage.

Try for a refund, eBay is buyer friendly.

Should it fail, as justice sometimes does, keep what you have and dump them as you find better copies for upgrade.

Whether you seek a refund or not, the average Ghost Whisperer costume card does not go for very much. Only ones with a piece of patch or variants seem to be worth decent prices. If its cheaper cards in lower grades, you really don't want to try to salvage them by getting rid of nicer cards. Better to just take the loss and dump the biggest offenders than water down your collection with damaged cards in MHO.

It sounds like you are using the word "Good" in its conventional sense. But if the seller was using it as it is usually defined for card grading standards, the cards could be pretty beat up and still qualify for "Good". For example, PSA describes good as "A good card may have scratching, scuffing, light staining, or chipping of enamel on obverse. There may be several creases. Original gloss may be completely absent. Card may show considerable discoloration."

That is a biggie right there. How is good being used? Is the seller using a grading good or a general 'looks good to me' kinda good.

quote:

Originally posted by STCardGeek:
That is a biggie right there. How is good being used? Is the seller using a grading good or a general 'looks good to me' kinda good.

I get the impression it's a "looks good to me" scenario.

Really winds me up on eBay how everyone seems to describe absolutely everything sold on there as being in "excellent" condition. Unless I have decent pictures to satisfy myself, seller descriptions mean jack to me unless there are clearly specific. Too many people's opinions vary.

But to chip in on Neilsy's issue. I would definitely send them back if none of the cards are hard to get. No matter how good the price. Sellers like this need to realise that poor descriptions/pictures are not acceptable: they should feel the inconvenience of dealing with the return and having to try and sell them again. Why should it be your problem?
I bought a cheap Sean Bean LOTR FOTR auto a few months back. Think I paid a bargain of £25. Tipped it out the bubble mailer and the card was unsleeved so already half slipped out the toploader with two banged up corners. Oh, and it smelled of cigarette smoke and there were bits of debris/crud on the card/toplader (obviously from scruffy people in a scruffy home).
Can you guess whether that one went back or not? That card wasn't worth a fiver to me. And if it was worth a fiver to someone else then the seller could resell it for that.

If you were disappointed when you received them (and obviously you were) don't you have your answer right there?

I certainly would NOT be selling nicer examples of the same cards in my collection to cover the cost of a bad transaction. I'm sorry I really don't understand the rationale behind that at all, especially when you can send these poor cards back.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: X,