General Forum

So, as a card collector, I've got two main interests - GPK/Wacky Packages non-sports cards, and Red Sox major and minor league cards, with a particularly strong emphisis on the minor league teams. Given the nature of minor league baseball cards in general, most often the only realistic way to obtain a set is to buy it complete, from the team themselves, from a few specialist shops around the country, or from sellers on ebay. I've been on ebay for some time, and usually carefully research a sellers feedback before buying any high-value card or set (by which I mean anything over $50). 99% of the time, I've had fantastic experiences, but every now and again, I'll buy a set from a reputable seller that turns out to be incomplete. Now, I fully understand that most resellers are just accumulating such sets, either sealed or in a team bag, that sort of thing, and are themselves assuming that it's complete, but as a seller myself, if I'm selling a set, unless it's factory sealed I always double check to be sure it's complete before selling it, and if it's not I make clear and careful note of it in the listing. So, my question is, how should I react when buying a high value set only to find that it is incomplete? I ask because I recently bought a few minor league sets, and two of them turned out to be missing a card. One set is fairly common, and I can just buy the missing card fairly cheaply so I see no need to raise a fuss, but the other is a particularly hard to find Elmira Pioneers set and I have no idea where I might obtain the missing card. I asked the seller kindly if he had another of that card, told him I understood how such an oversight would happen and offered to pay for it if need be, but after a couple of messages saying that he would look in his inventory, I've gotten no communication from him. I don't intend to start trouble or be a jerk, but the truth is, I'm a single dad and I only have a very small budget for collecting and it's frustrating when I save up to get something like this that I've been after for a while, and then have this happen. Well, thanks for your time and patience everyone, have a great day. -Wil 

You have two options as I can see it.

1 - Return the incomplete set for a full refund.

2 - Keep the set and see if they will give you a partial refund based on it being incomplete.

Option 2 nets you most of the cards, but it's missing the "key" card, then it probably wouldn't be worth keeping. But if it's the trainer that's missing....

I would need to know more about the set and the missing card(s) to give an actual opinion or a "what I would do in that situation".

I know I am looking for a 1994 set (my local team), and I found a partial one for sale (like 22 of the 25 cards), but I passed on it because I'm not sure how I would ever find those 3 cards away from the set. So, you see how I feel about such things (if they are difficult to come by).

Oh, you're absolutely right. The set in question in the 1979 TCMA Elmira Pioneers Red Sox team set. It was listed as the full set, and when I got it, it was obvious that the team bag hadn't been opened in many, many years, so I do believe it was an honest oversight, and considering how hard this set is to find for less than $100, I'd rather keep the set a card short than to return it. I don't believe that this set really has any 'key' cards, it's more the fact that the early TCMA sets, especially prior to 1980, are tough to come by in the first place. And the one I am missing, # 4 Danny Huffstickler, doesn't appear to be particularly special in any way. It's really just that at this point, I'm one set away from having every set that was ever produced while the Pioneers were a Red Sox farm team lol. 

I suppose I'm not as much asking what recourse I'd have on ebay, as much as I'm asking how others would react and word their response to such a situation, especially given the price and rarity of the items involved. And thanks for your input, man, I appreciate that! 

I would feel entitled to a partial refund, since what you were sent was not what the seller was listing. Agreed that it's probably easier to keep the almost complete set as you have it and look for the last missing card.

FYI, the Danny Huffstickler card is available right now on COMC for an asking price of $2.70.

tenlbpain,

Wow, thanks for telling me that - I never use COMC's actual site because it looks like you have to purchase store credit in order to purchase anything, rather than simply use my paypal or debit to buy it directly? If that's not the case, I'd love to buy it right this second, but sad as it is, I don't have enough to buy their minimum credit right now lol.  - Wil

I use PayPal and/or debit on there all the time. Go for it!

You can make shopping cart purchases on COMC if you want to pay the asking price and shipping at the time of sale.

Store credit allows you to make offers and possibly get the cards for a lower price, and it allows you to build up inventory and only pay the shipping once for however many cards you are getting.

And don't be fooled by the preset choices for Store Credit amounts on COMC, the "Custom Amount" button lets you purchase as little as $10.

-Tom

Oh wow, thanks everyone, finally got it figured out, I think lol. You folks are awesome, really, thank you all!

I could have swore I saw that card on COMC yesterday for $1.05.  You're a savvy businessman tenlbpain.

I'm kidding!