Need to vent a little here. In the past two weeks I have had three online auction sellers, two on eBay and one on Webstore come back and tell me after I purchased the coins that they had either lost them or listed them wrong They offer to refund my money or offer a different coin. They are not expensive coins but they are not easy to find either. One was an 1873 seated dime on Webstore, another a Norway 1999 20 Kronor commemorative on ebay, and the last Japan 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 5 yen all on eBay. Has anyone had this much bad luck in a short amount of time dealing with online auction sellers?
I've only had one bad experience with an eBay seller and, frankly, that was the result of my own doing. All I can say is check your seller's rating and don't deal with someone whose primary selling appears not to involve coins. I'm a US collector, so I buy only slabbed coins from US dealers. It may be more complicated for you to avoid a bad seller.
When it comes to SleazeBay, the only people you can fully trust are the ones you know and have done business with for a long time. Did you keep images from those listings? If so, you might want to keep checking those sellers to see if they relist them. Maybe they just didn't like the price they got for them. Chris
A run of bad luck, yes you have but you've also had a streak of honest dealers who offered to take care of you and make it right. Look at the positive side, it's sunnier.
Something that I've noticed, not so much as lately, but a culmination of the last couple of years, there are a lot of youngsters who think they have found a way to get rich setting at home on the computer. They win a coin in an auction then turn around and list it in another auction. If they don't see a profit coming, they find a way to get around delivering on the deal. Most bid and buy there stock in lots, then break them up into individual coins and relist with the idea that the coin is worth what Red Book or PCGS says it's worth without a clue as how to grade a coin or the actual market value of that coin.
To be fair, there are an equal number of buyers who don't know how to grade and think that a coin is worth what Red Book or PCGS say's its worth, and will pay it. It is a self-feeding loop.
I won an MS Morgan with a CAC green Bean for about of half of what it was worth and paid immediately and the seller canceled the auction just as fast. I wasn't happy but no recourse.
If those ended up being relisted I'm quite certain this is a case of sellers remorse (bid low or whatever). I've had a couple of my own listings bid lower than I thought and had these feelings but I was a good citizen and shipped them anyway. Didn't want to be a jerk.
Complaining about crummy and crooked eBay sellers is like complaining about the weather. It'll stay that way until eBay decides it has an obligation to properly police its site. I am not holding my breath.
