Hobby Fraud/eBay Lies/Fighting Back!: How Sports Card/Autograph Crooks Return on eBay

March 2014 UPDATE:

3/11/14



Well it's pretty much official: once again most things I predicted or knew before almost anyone else came to pass on eBay. Yes, I'm patting myself on the back- practically NO ONE else does...



eBay changed more stupid rules with more stupid/more confusing crazier rules in one shot from Feb-Mar 2014 than EVER in the history of eBay! This is because as I predicted, their lack of empathy for any of their members (mainly buyers) since 2009 caused them to bankrupted themselves! You can no longer see who bought what from any particular seller (the ID is scrambled randomly), so members can NEVER AGAIN bust a seller for shill bidding. Plus so many page formats were changed needlessly which just confuses everyone. Ever confuse a dumb person? Well, more eBay members are dumb that not = CHAOS!



I also stated in 2011 that I found out that eBay wanted to be a better Amazon. I knew that would never happen. So eBay pushed & pushed sellers to the point where 75% of all items on eBay became BUY IT NOW instead of auctions- that was 2012. Now that ratio is 90% BUY IT NOW/10% Auction and many auction prices START way above what anyone in their right mind would pay.  I only check Sports Cards & Memorabilia on eBay, but I'm pretty sure every other category had a similar change.

Sadly there are many more people NOT in their right minds than most of us care to admit or want to know. This was caused by: society in general, overpopulation, corrupt financial institutions, a corrupt government (that we lost ANY control over many decades ago) and more liars in the USA than not is what caused this mostly from the 1970's-present. 

If I can knock others, then I should turn that on myself. I'm the first to admit that I have General Anxiety Disorder & get occasional Panic Attacks, but I'm in my "right mind" ALWAYS. I think anyone with a 126 IQ who used EVERY ONE of those points to learn as much as I possibly could about anything that interested me and then shared that info to help others for free (only) would develop an anxiety disorder after dealing with knuckleheads for decades. I was the first kid in my WHOLE family (mother & father's side) to get some college education. Being stuck with a Sociopath mother as my only parent from age 2-18 (I left home literally the DAY I turned 18 on 1/7/85) made it all the more awful. I've been autodidactic my whole life (self educated), but I learn well from others as long as it's a subject I'm interested in. For instance, I passed three Regent's exams in Science in Junior High (Earth Science, Biology) and High School (Chemistry). I HATED CHEMISTRY because of a teacher who taught it HIS way! Once we got passed the Periotic Table, and basic chemistry which I loved, my NERD teacher decided to teach Chemistry with Advanced Algebra WHICH I ALSO HATED. At age 47 now, I can honestly say that I NEVER ONCE used one formula from the Advanced Algebra class (forced to take in High School as well) in my whole adult life- just as I told my teacher!
Advanced Algebra in Grade 10 caused me to start cutting classes to go to the computer lab in 1983 and teach myself how to program in basic. After a couple of months the computer teacher had me teaching his classes as a substitute when he had to take a day off. So I never got in trouble for cutting class and passed a few classes I NEVER WENT TO!!!  
By Grade 11 I wanted to kill my mother for so screwing up my head by basically using me as her slave. I cooked our dinner EVERY night and cleaned the house (I did HER chores). At age 17 I had to be home by 10PM on WEEKENDS (8PM on school days)!  Just a few years ago I asked my mother "what did you teach me to prepare me for everyday life on my own". Her answer" I taught you how to cook and clean." AND THAT'S IT! But in fact she didn't even teach me those things, I figured it out by myself. My mother wanted a daughter BADLY, so in her sick mind she raised me as much as one as she could. I blame my father for having a child with that nut-job to this day & he knows it. I never really saw him until I was 15-years old or so. He was no help at all. As a good older female friend once told me- "lucky you didn't wind up gay.". So I had to spend a good three years after leaving home teaching myself how to live in society as a man. At age 20 while living with my grandparents who I helped take care of- I was very lucky to be hired by Medtronic (a Fortune 500 company) as a Pacemaker Test Technician and Advanced EKG Interpretation/Education eventually became my 16-year career. I was the very first non-college graduate hired to be a Pacemaker Tech. by Medtronic. Ironically, the guy who took a chance of me (Bill) in 1987 became my best friend (Craig) from childhood's father-in-law as Craig married his daughter which I didn't find out until many years later.
I'm lucky I got to live the life that I did even though it was shortened by a terminal illness (severe Myasthenia Gravis).  So I have absolutely no regrets.

HOW BUY IT NOW KILLED eBay SPORTS CARD SALES!

 

Since it costs sellers nothing to just post an item, 75% of BUY IT NOW sellers put prices on their items that are so high (with no MAKE AN OFFER either???) that not even the biggest rich moron would pay those prices under most circumstances (99.99% of the time). What these Sociopathic/IGNORANT sellers never think about is the effect their actions have on the general public in our hobby: they are making novice collectors believe their cards are worth WAY MORE than they truly are. Then when they go and buy many more similar cards for say 25% less than BUY IT NOW prices elsewhere (thinking they are worth so much more than they truly are). Then they eventually learn THE TRUTH and QUIT this hobby! Do you realize this happened to many THOUSANDS of collectors in our hobby thanks to eBay sellers? UNFORTUNATELY, THE MAJORITY OF ALL COLLECTORS ARE NOVICES! Here's the PROOF:

 

Back in 1999-00 the Senior Editor of Tuff Stuff (Rocky Landsverk) who is also a collector took my advice and went on eBay to help get more accurate pricing information for his Price Guide that HE was in charge of. I explained that there are more accurate SOLD sale prices on eBay than he could ever get from just store owners who LIE to get the prices listed higher so they could make more money. At the time, there were literally hundreds of eBay ENDED AUCTION prices for nearly any popular card you could think of. Compared to today on eBay, there were well over TEN TIMES the number of sports cards selling on a daily basis & they sold for HIGH prices. I LOVED THAT EBAY! But thanks to all the BAD changes eBay made & the greed of the Hobby Elite, they are a shadow of the site they used to be & so is this hobby. And back then there was no MAKE AN OFFER OR BUY IT NOW on eBay. So these were TRUE sale prices that couldn't be fudged. So Rocky in his infinite wisdom took the STARTING BID PRICES and thought that was what cards were selling for and printed that info in Tuff Stuff for one issue??? CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW STUPID YOU'D HAVE TO BE TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT. Rocky had my help yet he NEVER mentioned anything that even hinted to me that he had NO IDEA how eBay worked! How can a Senior Editor at a Price Guide have no idea how eBay worked in eBay's PRIME in sports cards? Well that's exactly what happened and I tore Rocky a new back hole. He never spoke to me again and I'm glad. I don't talk to people that are THAT stupid and/or ignorant.

 

I don't know how eBay hung on as long as they did, but they'll be gone in a year OR they'll totally re-tool the entire site (AGAIN) and maybe it will work/maybe it won't. All in all I think all card & autograph collectors would be MUCH BETTER OFF if eBay went bye-bye FOREVER!!!  So those relying on eBay sales better start to ePray (if religious) because you'll need to find a "REAL" job soon!

 

Now eBay sellers almost never state how much they charge per extra single card won because eBay REMOVED that rule and reworded something that was supposed to replace that rule but to anyone with half a brain: the interpretation can be taken TEN different ways. Obviously lawyers wrote these new rules! It used to be a listed RULE on eBay that sellers: "MUST LIST HOW MUCH EXTRA ITEMS WON COST FOR SHIPPING & HANDLING OR IT IS CONSIDERED HIDDEN FEES WHICH IS AGAINST EBAY RULES AND CAN RESULT IN SUSPENSION.". I spoke with several actual eBay employee Specialists in 2010 when I was still cardcop05 and they ALL told me same thing once they realized the weight of a card in a top-loader: it is against our Overcharging S&H rule to charge more than .25 cents for each additional card won AND no card seller can charge more than $5.00 as a maximum fee if the entire purchase fits in a flat rate small Priority Mail box where boxes are free and so is home pick-up. Then there's all the stupid eBay sellers who still go to the Post Office to get postage put on their packages. They don't know that the PO has been charging TWICE ($3.07 for a 2-ounce package) what eBay's PRINT SHIPPING LABEL service charges ($1.69 for a 3-ounce package). eBay's Specialist told me this regarding that in 2010: "it's the seller's responsibility to find the cheapest/safe way to ship and it is an iron-clad rule that sellers can never charge for trips to the Post Office, gas, their time, or more than .25 cents for bubble envelopes because they are easily bought right on eBay for that price for almost any size with S&H calculated in". I found out that this particular Shipping & Handling Specialist worked for eBay for over TEN YEARS and was fired in 2011 because she (LIKE ME) refused to follow the new STUPID & CONFUSING RULES that never needed to be changed!!! My cardcop05 ID with a PERFECT Buyer & Seller Rating was suspended for life. Their reason "we wish to part ways with you.". Then chicken-spit sellers like tntnorthnj who I went after for severely overcharging S&H fees or had high hidden fees started leaving bad lying follow-up feedback only AFTER I was suspended so I couldn't leave responses to their feedback.

I got a free copy of the April issue of Beckett Football (because I don't pay for issues more than twice a year- if that). Seems like they changed a lot of prices WITHOUT using arrows again. So collectors have to do extensive research to see what changed which is the one of the STUPIDEST THINGS I EVER HEARD OF! How is it that 2010-2012 Absolute RPM RC ON CARD Autographs #'ed to 25 are only worth 1.5 times the version numbered to 299 or less? There are only TWO versions of these cards, so the one #'ed to 25 SHOULD BE at least 2.5 times the base card. Yet UD SP Authentic RC Patch(which aren't REAL patches)/Autographs WITH NO LICENSING FROM THOSE YEARS (IN THEIR COLLEGE UNIFORMS ONLY) are 3X (THREE TIMES) for the cards #'ed to an avg. of 25 while the base RC/Autos are #'ed from 299-699??? THAT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL BECKETT!

But then again Beckett's Senior Editor (Chris Olds) is a fat, lazy, boring, turd because no one better wanted to work for Beckett Media apparently. I tried e-mailing this lazy jerk TEN times since 2010 and he never responded. So I sent him a "LAST CHANCE" e-mail and he told me "I never received an e-mail from you" (HE'S SUCH A BAD LIAR- I keep copies of everything and he received EVERYTHING I EVER SENT HIM!) & he said I should be nicer. Of course I'd be nicer if I GOT PAID like he does yet I do much more than he's ever done FOR FREE so I'll be as angry as I feel- like I told him. He never replied again- that big fat useless chicken. And Susan L. another Beckett Editor who's stories could be seen in all sports issues of Beckett QUIT in JAN. 2014.  So their only writers are people I NEVER heard of (OR NO ONE EVER HEARD OF) so why buy Beckett EVER??? Plus they stopped printing "READER'S WRITE" which was the only Beckett section where you might actually get some real hobby truth. This was cut from Beckett months ago from what I learned. 

Remember- I told everyone who would listen since 1999 to only collect ON CARD Certified Autograph Inserts from trusted card companies (with the Authenticity printed ON THE CARD) of current established semi-star players or better, or retired semi-stars or better and collect them for the quality of the autograph, NEVER for the low serial number. I suggested always paying LESS than Beckett's low price. If you did that you now have a collection to be proud of that would cost you much more to replace now.
 

James

 

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours: Blocked eBay Bidders & the FLIP side!

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours: Blocked eBay Bidders

I totally agree with you. Since I've been on eBay in 1997 (as a buyer & seller), I've always paid in 48-hours NO MATTER WHAT even though I have a very rare type of Muscular Dystrophy where I can barely move most days & even snuck out of the hospital more than once to get my eBay stuff in order. SO HEALTHY PEOPLE HAVE NO EXCUSE AT ALL!

But on the flip-side there are just as many cheap sellers who penny pinch every way they can think of regardless of eBay's Excessive S&H rules. I disagree with eBay's policies like charging that RIDICULOUS S&H fee to sellers, but that's no excuse to overcharge buyers!!! We are supposed to be peers here: BOTH buyers & sellers. Plus it makes BAD business sense to anger a buyer. I can't tell you how many sellers charge $3.00 to start, then .50 cents or more for each additional item. Then they send the (5) single card items I won with either no penny sleeves, or with them but no top-loaders at all & taped all over the place needlessly making it easy to damage cards cutting them out of this cocoon! If you charge me $2.00-$2.50 for unlimited shipping (like I ALWAYS did) you can package my cards anyway you wish, so long as they arrive in the same shape they were when I bought them & don't get damaged by you OVER taping them up. I always shipped in top-loaders for single cards with 1/2 inch crystal clear tape along the entire top making it almost air-tight & the tape never obscured the card anywhere. I never taped cards together either, or taped "dummy" cards around the top-loaders & I NEVER ONCE had a buyer receive a damaged card from me out of thousands of packages.
I often lost money on shipping but SO WHAT! If you are losing that much money selling cards that you cannot spend $1.00 out of your profit to make a buyer extra happy: IT'S TIME TO STOP SELLING- LIKE I DID! When/if the hobby improves, I'll sell again.

Those who charge more than $3.00 for a package weighing less than 4-ounces are OVERCHARGING no matter how many auctions the buyer won! Regardless whether eBay does anything, I still report every buyer who really overcharges for shipping & so should everyone.

How Sports Card/Autograph Crooks Return on eBay

I was forever banned from eBay with my ID cardcop05 a few months ago for fighting fraudulent sellers in the sports card area. You see eBay doesn't want to lose any more money from suspended/banned sellers and I was causing at least one suspension a week on eBay. Look at my feedback for that ID- it's near perfect. Yet they permanently suspended me for no legitimate reason! Everytime I got a supervisor on the phone they'd hand up on me!!! But all their regular employees told me "your account is perfect & you have one of the highest buyer/seller ratings I've ever seen" & my account had about 4,000 feedbacks too.

So I get a phone call from an eBay employee who tells me to "just open another account with a different credit card & bank account". So I did just that using the same Paypal account and I've been buying/selling on eBay again for the last 2-months! Remember- I was BANNED FROM EBAY FOREVER!!!
I cannot keep my mouth shut and hold my tongue when it comes to informing a fellow honest card collectors about something I'm aware of & eBay reads every e-mail you send though their system, so this caused me to get suspended again: ID cert-auto-inserts . But if I would have kept a low profile I could have stayed on eBay indefinitely. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT CROOKS DO TOO! If you still trust eBay and feel completely safe buying/selling there- you are a fool I'm sorry to say that, but it's the truth. EBAY IS JUST AS CROOKED AS THE MOST SINISTER SELLERS THEY NOW PROTECT!

James McCay aka Cardcop

It's over: NO MORE EBAY AS WE KNEW IT!

I've been hearing rumors that eBay has been making a transition behind the scenes for a while now to become a Amazon-lite basically. No more auctions, just stores & Buy It Now items.

After what I just went through since Aug. 22nd proved to me that this is 100% fact & they will do anything and everything to make that happen. But instead of doing it with some honor by sending a system-wide e-mail to everyone, they opted to quietly do it by indefinitely suspending anyone who does not fit within their new mold of sellers or even big buyers for that matter as well.

If you fight for your rights under eBay's rules; YOU ARE GONE!

If you are a seller and fight Buyer Complaints: YOU ARE GONE!

If you are a buyer and leave negative feedbacks for people who send you unmentioned damaged items and then sellers refuse a partial refund, or never get your item and the seller never responds & you leave negative feedback each time: YOU ARE GONE!

The list of reasons goes on & on. But eBay will never tell you what it is that you need to do to fit their NEW BUSINESS MOLD!

It kills me how every time I called eBay with an issue over the past 6-months they kissed my butt royally saying: YOU ARE A TOP RATED SELLER & FROM LOOKING AT YOUR ACCOUNT YOUR STATUS IS ONE OF THE HIGHEST I'VE EVER SEEN IN EVERY CATEGORY AND YOU ARE SO GREAT AND WE THANK YOU, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH (just fix my problem you idiot)! It started sounding more & more cultish as time went by.

Here's an example that should blow your mind- on Aug. 22nd a seller who charged me over $8.00 S&H for empty trading card boxes that fit in a medium Flat Rate Priority box (I checked), yet he shipped them Parcel Post & it took 11-days to arrive. I kept politely asking him where my boxes were after 5-days passed and he was obnoxious right from the start. Every e-mail to him after that he got nastier & nastier. He never said through all this that he sent them Parcel Post. I had to find out from the shipping label, same goes for the shipping date which he lied about.
So I left a truthful, unemotional negative feedback. His response was this e-mail:

Dear cardcop**,

GO FUCK YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!!! I have your address saved, I travel to new
york area often.  We will be in touch!

-shindig_747

Even though I have been fighting hobby fraud for all collectors for free since 1997 online, I never received such a threatening e-mail.
So I immediately called eBay and they said he would be suspended immediately, probably indefinitely.
So three days pass & he's still selling. I call eBay again and the woman this time was just as upset by that e-mail as I was. She asked if I left follow-up feedback to address this e-mail. I did not, so she said "you need to". So I mulled it over for 24-hours (so I didn't write anything I'd regret) and I left this "Told me to F--- Myself & he's coming to see me. BRING IT THEN!" or very close to that. I wanted him to know that I was no easy target, because that invites retribution. The next thing I knew, I was suspended as a buyer for 90-days because they said I had too many Buyer Complaints (ONE!).

My Post Office is one of the 3,700 being closed and I've been missing tons of mail over the last two months (June & July mostly) or so including bank statements, credit card bills, etc. Luckily every eBay item that I bought an was missing was below $15.00 (two were sent wiuth Delivery Confirmation as well- where of course it wasn't the buyer's fault at all), & everything else was $3-$5 each. I CANNOT CONTROL ANY OF THAT- YET EBAY BLAMED ME FOR IT???! So I called eBay & they said they were going to reverse my suspension over three different times. That never happened to this day. HOWEVER- the person who threatened me is STILL SELLING all the while since Aug.22nd & a month had passed at this point!!!
Then I had to be hospitalized because I have a very rare form of Muscular Dystrophy & five massively herniated disks in my neck & low back with severe multiple nerve damage>>>> BTW-eBay is well aware of this and I asked them several times to make a note of this on my account & the fact that I've helped them fight fraud for 14-years- THEY NEVER DID THAT.
I'm in severe-excruciating pain 24/7, but after this eBay episode my pain went to 10 out of 10 & I was hospitalized from late Monday Aug. 28th until Friday, Sept. 2nd. So I get home and take care of my eBay business first before I do anything else because I sold two items (the buyers knew I was hospitalized) and wanted to get them out 1st thing Sat. morning with good free bonus cards. I take fast/safe/affordable ($2.50 for unlimited cards bought) shipping very seriously since I started on eBay in 1997.

So it's now Sat. Sept. 2nd in the late afternoon & I decide to relist items I had listed before I went into the hospital. I got to item #6 & out of nowhere a screen pops up saying "YOU ARE SUSPENDED"! So I click My eBay and that warning comes up on the lower left hand of the screen saying "your account is suspended".
So I call eBay again and finally spoke to Grace from Trust & Safety. She told me the case number and said this was all a big mix-up. She said I never should have been suspended for ANYTHING & that shindig_747 should have been suspended by Aug.23rd indefinitely. She "promised" me TWICE that by the nest day, in 24-hours (Sunday???) my account would be fully reinstated & the case against shindig would be upgraded to urgent. That never happened either. HOW MANY LIES CAN EBAY EMPLOYEES TELL WITHOUT GETTING FIRED???

Next I get Carly who couldn't find a reason to keep me suspended so she actually put me on hold & searched my feedback until she found a questionable feedback which she stated I received a warning about (but of course never did since she was creating complaints while we were on the phone!!!). I knew at this point I was done with eBay whether I wanted it to be or not. So I said bye & hung up.
Out of curiosity I called a regular Customer Service employee (Tim) right after speaking to Carly. I asked him if there were any Feedback Abuse cases against my account. He said no, then said oh wait a minute one is just coming up now. I said "yeah, being typed by Carly- right?" & he agreed. I said I'm sorry you have to work with that nasty witch, to which he had no comment.
Then I gave it another try on  Fri. Sept. 9th. I didn't even bother asking who I was speaking to, it didn't matter in the past, so why should it now? They said you are indefinitely suspended and it is unappealable!!! When I asked why shindig_747 who threatened me is still selling she said "that was probably his first offense" (look at his feedback -IT WAS NOT!), "so you don't get suspended for first offenses". He used the F word in it's full glory, and threatened me in the worst way! Plus in a later e-mail he said he was going to borrow his friend's 9MM before he comes to NY!!! And he didn't ever get suspended from eBay??? My feedback is 100% & his is much lower with several negatives...

I saved pages on eBay to my computer showing my Seller Dashboard showing my Policy Violations at LOW during the first week of Sept., but now (Sept. 24th) it shows MEDIUM, plus all mention of any violations were removed??? Taking that into account with my PERFECT ratings in every other category, nothing justifies a suspension of any kind. Plus I received another eBay Award for being a Top Rated Seller! IS THIS INSANE OR WHAT?   So I called eBay one last time on Sept. 24th & got a very polite young lady who was very understanding at first and agreed with my situation and then said, "please hold while I check your account". When she came back her tone of voice was suddenly nasty. She said you are permanently suspended for leaving that feedback saying the "F" word. I told her that this was a quote from an e-mail from a seller and she said "I know all about that now" & I didn't use the F word I put F***, plus it waasn't my idea to leave that feedback it was YOUR EMPLOYEE'S IDEA! She said in her nasty tone "we consider this with you a permanent parting of ways". So I told her to start looking for a new job because eBay will be bankrupt soon by treating people like me like this. I truly believe that.
I'm glad I'll never use eBay again at this point and you all should consider quitting before you are forced off just as I was. I had to change my bank account number & credcit card because eBay are nothing but untrustworthy crooks at this point. I have proof of everything I said here and will prove it in court if need be.

FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT & NEVER PUT UP WITH FRAUD LIKE THIS!

James M.