My eBay experience at The MINT Collective 2022
A few weeks ago, talking to a friend while at a card show, we had decided to pull the trigger on going to The MINT Collective in Las Vegas during the final weekend of March. It was rather “last minute” by comparison to a lot of others that had trips booked. With me being very big on enjoying interviews and panels, I wanted to sign up for the Signature Package to be able to attend the breakout sessions. With being a business that is growing, I always want advice and to hear people’s experiences on struggles and successes while also being able to hear, first hand, announcements.
On Friday morning of the event, the first panel was a great lineup which included NFL HOF QB Peyton Manning, Fanatics Co-Founder & Chief Vision Officer Josh Luber, Collectable CEO Ezra Levine, Wheelhouse CEO Brent Montgomery & eBay Vertical Merchandise Director Bob Means. Obviously, a big draw to this panel was, in fact, Peyton. But one thing that resonated with me was when Bob Means was discussing the eBay presence at the show (as being primary sponsor). Bob mentioned that in the middle of the Marketplace floor, was a large eBay booth. He said that if you have any open issues with eBay currently, they have legitimate customer service employees from the sports/collectibles side on site. They WILL get you answers and resolutions. That is what they are here for. So I immediately had a mission added to my weekend. Resolution to an open eBay issue I had.
Sidebar: Early in the day on January 30th, 2022 I sold a Brandon Aiyuk Panini Select Rookie Patch Autograph card via eBay. Later that day, the San Francisco 49ers would play the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship game with the winner moving on to the Super Bowl. The 49ers would fall to the Rams 17-20. The next day, I shipped the card that was purchased. A week later, I receive a message from the buyer asking for a return because of 2 flaws in the card and that he “couldn’t grade the card.” In response to this, I highlighted the 2 flaws in the card that he was trying to use as his reasoning that were clear in the pictures in my listing. Since I do not allow returns on collectibles due to the volatile market, any return for “defective reasons” is a strike against my seller account which can affect fees I pay to eBay if I happen to get multiple strikes. When I responded to the buyer to deny his return request, he became upset. I called eBay immediately and walked through the return request and my responses to the buyer. eBay customer support agreed with my side and advised me to just let the return case escalate and it would close in my favor. “We will not force this return upon you,” was word for word what I was told.
Several days later, the return case is escalated to have eBay “step in.” eBay sided in the buyer’s favor, forcing me to accept the return. I immediately appealed the case result. An hour later, I am notified via email that I have lost the appeal as well. I pick up the phone to call eBay but there is no link to get the Customer Support number anymore. They removed the ability to call. There is also no option to have them call me. I went into “spam mode” and emailed them using the “contact us” link. 30+ emails were sent that all had automated responses come back to me that I would be contacted within a few business days. That’s not ok. I continued to spam their emails. This went on for multiple hours. Later that evening, I finally received a phone call from eBay support! An hour of explaining the situation and waiting for the representative to research and figure out how to handle this, I am told there is nothing that can be done. My tone changed immediately to “Karen mode.” “I need a manager or someone higher up than you since you aren’t sure of what to do.” Yes, sometimes its necessary to be a Karen. After 30 minutes of waiting “to speak to a manager,” this Karen got his way.
With a new person to speak to but my frustration level already spiked, I was able to keep my cool and start from square one and explain what happened. The manager took a few moments, reviewed everything and apologized for how it happened. He admitted that whoever closed the case, did so incorrectly and that it was not supposed to be found in the buyer’s favor. Relief! The unfortunate part is that he was unable to reverse the outcome but what he would do is remove the strike on my account for the return and he would have a credit issued to my PayPal since he wasn’t sure he could have it issued to my eBay seller account. He also notified the buyer not to return the card as it was closed in error. I was informed that the credit would hit my PayPal within 2 weeks. Whew! Win for me!
Fast forward to the MINT Collective (days shy of two months later) and I still had not received my credit from eBay. Hearing Bob Means say that issues “would be resolved” on site immediately triggered my need to get this done over the weekend, at the show.
The next day (Sunday), I made it a point to get my eBay booth visit done. I walked up to the counter at the booth and mentioned what Bob had said on stage and that I have an existing issue with my account that I would like some help with. The woman and man behind the counter directed me to a gentleman on the end of the booth named Preston. I walked over and introduce myself and said that I was told he could help me resolve an issue. Preston goes behind a display and asked me to follow to where he has a desk and computer set up. He asked for my username and information to look up my account. He’s in! I see my eBay store info pop up on his screen. Once in, I explained the Aiyuk purchase, return, appeal, phone call, resolution and lack of result story. He found the Aiyuk return case in my account and opened it up. He then verified everything I told him was accurate due to the notes within the case file. Preston then called over a woman and asked if he sent over a credit request, could she push it through immediately. She gladly accepted the challenge laid at her feet. He also removed the strike on my account since the manager I spoke to on the phone did not do that either. Boom! Minor victory for me but still something that made me feel great and that eBay is implementing more support for sellers. The credit instantly went into my eBay seller account and NOT to PayPal, which was even better!
So as Preston is working his magic, I tell him a little story that goes back to the summer of 2020 and why I boycotted eBay for a year. Do you all have time for another story?
We all know that Kobe Bryant passed away in late January of 2020. Shortly after his death, it was announced that he would be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame during the next ceremony. The ceremony was supposed to take place the following Summer. I will also take a moment to remind all of you reading this, that we were just getting into “COVID times”. Summer of 2020 rolls around. The NBA was about to start its “Bubble Playoffs” that were much, much later than the normal time for the playoffs due to the cancellation of most of the 2nd half of the NBA season over the COVID Pandemic. Late July, saw another spike in Kobe Bryant sports card prices partly due to the upcoming Hall of Fame ceremony that he would be honored/inducted at. I had a Bowman’s Best Rookie of Kobe that was graded Mint 9 by PSA. In that time, it was selling for $550 up to $700. I listed mine on eBay and within a few days, a buyer made an offer of $660. I accepted the offer, they paid and I shipped the card.
After a couple of weeks or so, the card now being “out of sight, out of mind”, I get a message about a return request for that card. The buyer stated that the card was defective as I did not list any defects in the card and that he wanted a flawless card. Yes, look back in the last paragraph, the card was a PSA 9…meaning it has flaws. The buyer took photos of the bottom edge of the card and zoomed the pictures in as much as he could to make the chipping on the edge look extremely aggressive along with claiming I did not disclose a slight scratch on the face of the card (the reason the card was a 9 in the first place), which you could see plain as day in the listing pictures. I denied the return request and immediately called eBay to discuss. I was met with “outsourced customer support” that had no clue about anything in the trading card world, much less what a graded card is or how that system works. I also showed them that the sold prices had dropped since my sale due to the HOF ceremony being delayed and the card was currently selling for $300-$350. I pled my case to multiple different representatives and was told to wait and see how the case is resolved. I had ZERO confidence.
Escalation day rolls around and I get an email stating eBay had sided with the buyer. I pick up the phone and call eBay. I was advised to appeal the case, so I did. I lost the appeal within minutes. I pick up the phone yet again. I spoke to at least 3 different people over the course of 2 days. Not a single one actually helped me and I was told I would be called back by someone above them within the day. After 3 days, I finally got ahold of someone that informed me that they could help. I explained the situation and that the reason the buyer was returning the card was because the HOF induction ceremony was moved from Summer 2020 to Winter 2021. Kobe prices had been slashed in half. The buyer wasn’t chasing a pristine card when knowingly buying a 9. He bought it and then prices dropped so he wanted a refund. That, is a fraudulent return. The manager understood what I was saying but asked me to accept the return anyway and if I did, he would give me a $300 account credit for the hassle and for the value difference. I begrudgingly accepted.
When the card arrived back to me almost 2 weeks later, I called eBay to settle the deal that was struck. Unfortunately for me, nobody at eBay was willing to review the case. I called every single day for two weeks straight and each conversation ended with, “I have escalated this to a manager call-back so they can get in touch with you.” The only thing I received was emails from eBay stating that the case was found in the buyer’s favor and there was nothing more that they could do. After speaking to several managers over the next few weeks (due to sitting on hold until someone would transfer me), I was told they had no way to review the call logs even though their automated system says are recorded any time you call them. I gave them timestamps of the call, everything. I was met with refusal to acknowledge the deal and that the manager I referenced didn’t exist. Thus, I boycotted eBay.
The next year (summer 2021) I attended my first NSCC (The National Sports Collectors Convention) in Chicago. eBay had a booth and multiple account representatives at the convention. I ended up speaking to several over the course of the few days that I was there. I gave them my negative experience and why I was boycotting the platform. I was met with a lot of positive improvements that were made for the selling experience and for the sports card side of it. I decided to give it a small shot and list a few things. More positive reinforcement came at the Industry Summit sponsored by Beckett just a few weeks later when I spoke to a gentleman that was spearheading the sports card division of eBay. I increased my presence on eBay after that.
Back to The MINT Collective:
After I explained (in a little less detail) to Preston the events of 2020, he decided to do a little digging. He found the case file from the return but was unable to open it. Preston called to another eBay employee, which I can only assume was a little higher on the food chain since he had some higher authorization levels and asked him if there was another way to review a case from almost 2 years ago. After this person walked Preston through a short series of steps, he was in! Flood gates of notes: opened! BOTH Preston and this other employee started reading the notes attached. At the very same time, both of their heads start shaking in a “no” fashion as they couldn’t believe what they are reading. The other employee (his name escapes me) looked at me, apologized for something he had nothing to do with and was before his time and then nudges Preston saying, “credit him the $300 immediately. This is not ok.” Hearing that, I was in complete shock. That is NOT at all what I expected to hear nor expected to have happen.
Tap, tap, tap typing and Preston looks to the woman that helped with the last credit and says, “one more for you if you could push that through ASAP please.” She looks at me without even blinking and goes, “sure thing” with a big smile. Moments later, she says, “that’s going to show pending in your seller acct and should already be there.” Standing there, I am still stunned at the result of the 20 mins of my day to stop at the eBay booth and ask for help.
After a few more keystrokes and Preston being on top of his game, he stopped and said, “if you have a few minutes, I would love to run a report on your seller account and do a review.” This guy just helped me not only get the money I was promised from January but he pulled off a miracle and got me a promised refund from almost 2 years ago that no one wanted to admit to back then. So of course I have time for him. He asked for about 30 minutes to run the report so I walked the show floor a bit and returned for my review. Preston had my account data broken down on a level I didn’t know was possible. He walked me through everything. He went through my listing information and commended me on how much I utilize (which I am proud to say I am anal about all the category info I add). He broke down my page views per listing vs completed sales vs search results which was incredible interesting to see broken down. He gave me a tip on 1 little thing to change on my listings to improve my status from Top Rated Seller to Top Rated Seller PLUS, which helps with my listings popping up in search results, gives me a final value fee discount and also can give me access to other promotions and offers as a seller. He also broke down how Promoted Listings actually work and the fees associated. We then discussed doing a quarterly zoom meeting similar to what we just did.
The trip to The MINT Collective as a whole was invaluable for me not just as a collector but as a business. The amount of information I soaked in was incredible along with the networking and relationship building. The 1 hour in total that I spent with eBay alone was enough for me to justify my trip there. For this portion of the trip, I want to thank Preston with eBay and the multiple others at the booth that helped me out as well as Bob Means for being the catalyst to the entire visit to the eBay booth from something as simple as him, in a well attended panel, saying “if you have any current issues as a seller, go talk to the support staff we have here at the booth.” Without that statement being made, I would have never gotten the idea to stop by the booth with my problem.
- by Ryan Samuelson
