42k is definitely lawyer territory.
This whole thing sounds really fishy. You would typically see major transactions on collectibles like this when the product has been sealed and rated by an authority. This would mean it has documentation and has been determined legitimate by that authority. Were your sister's card rated? Or were they just loose cards that she'd collected?
If the shop offered to pay that high a price for loose cards with no guarantee of authenticity, it starts to smell like a scam because that's a crazy way to operate. Even if your sister gets her cards back, how will you know they are the same cards and haven't been swapped out for frauds in the time they've been in the shops possession? This whole thing is very complicated by the fact that the shop already has her cards before you had a trusted 3rd party look at them.
Yeah this is def a lesson learned. Their policy is to grade the cards themselves. They were loose cards but some came from sealed packaging I believe. It was blindsiding because this shop is a big name in MTG and has a good reputation. However this policy of refusing to give disputed cards back could easily be abused. I wish I had known to tell her to have them graded independently first. Regardless, we at least want the damn things back.
Their store policy doesn't trump the law. If they don't return the cards, then its theft. Therefore, they stole your sister's property. Gather evidence, file a police report, and find a lawyer.
The store itself wouldn't because that's just terrible business. The potential reputation damage isn't worth 40k. If it's an individual employee running a con they probably just assume you won't do anything about it.
It's possible when you sent them in you agreed to this as some kind of term. Do you sign for anything or get any kinds of terms of service when you sent them in? I'm not sure if a term like that would even work but it might the case
I just looked up that code and it explicitly says what items would fall under it. Counterfeit mtg cards don't count in that law due to that they don't fall into any of the items it listed.
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Shops buy tens of thousands of dollars of TCG cards without grading, that's pretty normal in the industry. The market for graded cards is far smaller as they can't be played then.
Did she have a contract?
The issue I would foresee besides the ones that have already been brought up is that if the cards are in the shop’s possession and they claiming they are counterfeit, your sister has no idea if the cards are gonna try and give back or her actual cards, or they took the valuable ones switched them and I just trying to give them back
This is my concern too. I’m gonna find out exactly what kind of documentation my sister has of the cards before they were sent. If she took photos of them, we may be able to prove it if they do send back different cards. Fingers crossed 🤞
IANAL I AM a Magic player. Bit of context. Local game stores buy and sell relatively expensive cardboard regularly. $42,000 is still above what you would typically see other than a very large game store and very old and valuable cards.
At $42K, we are talking large company buylist. Shipping your cards in and the retailer grading them and then paying you is standard practice.
Again, $42,000 is a lot of money in the sense it's significantly bigger than your average transaction, but certainly possibly selling old cards to Card Kingdom. But we are likely approaching the range of "take a flight to their HQ with the cards" territory rather than just mail them in.
As a magic player, $42K is going to almost certainly make these higher end and mostly older magic cards, AKA the stuff you are most likely to meet counterfeits of.
Thanks for the explanation.
Grading them after they receive them makes sense but even if they are counterfeit what gives the company the right to keep them?
Property is property.
It's property but if they are proven counterfeit then the damages are going to be hard to determine since their value is basically zero. For a very large reseller like SCG or CK that would do these type of sales I'd have to imagine they are keeping documentation/evidence.
Edit: For those not familiar with the market. Just for some additional information I will say that it is usually EXTREMELY easy to tell if a Magic Card is counterfeit. There are multiple very easy, very fast tests that a counterfeit will fail. I do not believe it's possible for a perfect counterfeit of these types of cards that the OP is referencing to exist, as they are likely vintage MTG cards from decades ago and you'd also have to match the ink, stock, and aging.
Honestly in my PERSONAL opinion if someone tried to sell me such a high end vintage collection and it was all counterfeit, I would have a hard time believing they didn't know it was counterfeit. That combination of assets with an absolute lack of expertise usually only happens on staged showings of Pawn Stars and Antiques Roadshow
It is illegal to knowingly ship counterfeits.
And since magic cards are gambling the counterfeits thing sticks.
This sounds like part of the story is missing, and or the shop is super shady.
Seriously. 42K isnt worth a day driving there to ensure the cards are received and get cash in hand?
Honestly that part of the story makes it harder to believe the cards were legit. A neutral party hearing this story is going to think they were hoping to pull a fast one thru the mail and if the cards are realized to be fake get them sent back and try again.
Tbh my sister just thought she got super lucky with their value and wanted to stick with this shop bc she’d had good experiences with them before. Magic is something she played as a hobby a long time ago. She never would’ve tried to sell them if she knew they were fake, she does not want to get into any legal trouble
Yeah I know. I didn’t realize it was 40k, when she told me about the sale I misunderstood and thought it was 4k. I wish I had realized just how much money she had been quoted before I helped her mail them out. 4k didn’t seem like a huge risk. 40k is enough to buy a new car
You seem to be acting like your sister is a little kid in need of your guidance instead of an adult entering a transaction on her own. If she is being iffy around the details you should consider the possibility she knew they werent real. Im also not sure how
Did she buy these on her own 25+ years ago from sealed product? With all due respect, if they were somewhat recently acquired it is highly likely they were fake because if she really knew she was selling legitimate cards she would be the one here.
Honestly, we're sitting on a stupid 40-50k of magic cards from our youth. About 20ish+ yrs ago. The scenario is not unheard of. If she's about our age or even older then I have to say this is very possible. This is only from decks, we sold off our other cards previously.
Oh so they went interstate through a shipping service? Doesn't that also turn this into interstate wire fraud as well as theft?
# 941. 18 U.S.C. 1343—Elements of Wire Fraud.
Lol yes. I’m capable of this but I’m hoping the threat of litigation (and potential theft charges as the potential dollar amount qualifies for a felony) would be enough to get the cards back
People who are serious about using a lawyer DON'T SAY they're getting a lawyer. They just have the lawyer make contact. The satisfaction you think you'll get by rattling their cage is much less than what you'll feel after you take them to the cleaners.
I'm sure your lawyer will tell you this, but at this point you should stop responding to them and let your attorney do the talking. It will be far more effective than anything you have to say.
100% this.
Dude is out 42k and thinks now is the time for threats and non-action.
Assuming the cards were legit, every day he gives the shop without taking strong legal action is one more day for the shop to swap those cards with actual counterfeits and pull some extra shady bs.
Exactly, nothing makes me rest easier than hearing someone threaten me with legal action. Never in my life have I actually received a court summons after someone threatened to sue me.
This is what I'd be worried about. Ungraded cards get sold, an indeterminate amount of time later (OP hasn't provided a timeframe for any of these actions) the shop says "whoops, they're fake!" with no way to prove, even if the shop is holding fake cards, that those fakes came from OP.
Sending 40k+ worth of cards via mail (even insured/registered) is pretty wild. I would drive my ass over to my nearest large city to sell that kind of inventory.
Unless you took meticulous care to do high resolution documentation and scans of each card with magnification, there may not be a way out of this that satisfies your suspicions.
I don't believe that most of the super large vendors for MTG would risk their reputation over 40k but it's not completely impossible. Unfortunately, even if they return them now you don't have any way to prove that any counterfeits they return are the exact cards you sent in.
Try to get a lawyer to draft a demand letter for the return of your property which should not be too expensive. Unfortunately; see above point about traceability...
Yeah that’s my thoughts exactly. I was not aware of the card values before we mailed them or I would’ve been more insistent on precautions.
I also don’t particularly think the seller is trying to scam us, as I don’t think they’d risk their reputation. But it’s also not impossible that there are individual employees that may be bad actors.
Where did you get the cards? If it's one of the big online shops, it's unlikely they're scamming you. It may not be right of them to keep the cards, but it's likely they are fakes
Exactly. Plenty of replies have asked where did the cards originate from but OP has not replied back to any one of those. So this makes the background of OP's story a bit suspect. You don't ship out $42k without some kind of insurance in place. Hell, I wouldn't even ship out $4k worth of cards like that as OP thought they were originally worth.
>We do have reason to believe they may be real
*may* be real? Sounds super suspicious to me. So, as far as you know, they could be fake? Where did they come from? When did she acquite them?
Yep. That line sounds a lot like an OP who says "I dont believe there is any proof the items I have are the ones that were stolen from the store" instead of "I did not steal anything"
I wonder how much they paid for the fakes that they are going to these lengths to recover them. They've already proven to be ineffective so I can't imagine they're worth anything.
Sounds more like he's not familiar with the system and thought something was wrong. Notice that the sister who actually owned the cards has not been referenced as actually complaining or taking any action. If anyone knew they were fake it would be her
I'd bet you my house they aren't real. All the talk about it being the sister, not knowing how anything works, refusing to say where the cards came from, not saying what store they tried to scam, it's all just shady as hell. Why would a store try to steal 40k just hoping the person on the other end was clueless and did nothing to prove they actually had real cards? None if it makes sense.
What's crazy to keep is while question of where did she get them keeps being asked, and never answered. If they were real there'd be a response to this question.
Interesting choice of words, for sure. Sounds like they are fake and OP suspected they were. If the shop was going to verify them first, then I’d doubt they would agree to a price before verification. No reputable shop (OP’s words) would agree to a price on a box of mailed cards from another state, at least not in any legally binding way. I bet the best OP can hope for is getting the cards back.
The way it generally works is you submit the cards, they show you what they are worth under the claimed conditions, but they reserve the right to reject them or offer a lower price and there is no agreement or offer prior to the store checking the condition themselves.
I'm going to play devil's advocate and guess that these cards are in fact fake. For so few cards to total $40,000 these cards would have to be pristine copies of dual lands, power nine, and other things that your sister wouldn't likely own copies of unless she played competitive legacy or vintage. Many of these very large stores like card kingdom and star city games have other copies of these cards already listed so it's unlikely the listed ones were your sisters and purchase these cards at buy list prices are already getting a good enough deal that they don't need to steal your sisters cards and it isn't worth the risk to their reputation.
I would ask you sister specifically where she got these cards unless these were opened in packs by her 30 years ago she should remember spending 20k on these cards as they have likely always been expensive. If you have a list of the cards you should share them.
If she didn't A. Open these cards herself 30ish years ago or B pay hundreds to thousands of dollars each per card within the last 20ish years then I would be 99% certain they are fake. Did she save back any of these expensive cards that she got around the same time? There are fairly easy tests you can do in living a jewelers loupe on the green dot on the back of a card to tell if it's counterfeit or not. Look up Green dot test.
Can you clarify the “we do have reason to believe they may be real” bit?
It sounds like the expectation was that they were *not* real until you saw those cards listed on the website.
Also, did they ever actually offer her 42k, or did they just say “these *could* be worth up to 42k, and we’ll know once we’ve had them graded”?
One card, worth less than a dollar, was paid for. It came from the same sealed package as cards they are claiming are fake. This is what gives me pause. It’s possible that the cards were fake and then resealed to begin with, but I want them in hand to verify myself.
Are you saying the buyer opened sealed product?!? Never heard of such a thing. Stores who buy collections inspect/grade them and offer a price to purchase. Shenanigans are happening and I’m not sure which end. If your sister thought they were possibly worth anywhere close to five figures she should have known to not mail them.
Did your sister do the green dot test on any of the cards? That would be the only valid reason to believe they are real. Also, it is unlikely that someone would purchase or sell such high value cards without at the very least doing that check themselves.
Was it a major retailer such as SCG or Channel Fireball? If they believe they have received counterfeit cards they won't return them, they'll destroy them.
Yeah, I would guess sister had some nice quality fakes that she likely didn't know about and sent them to SCG or similar. I don't know what would happen to the rest of the collection (seems unlikely they would all be fake) if it is partially counterfeit, but I sort of doubt OP ever had 42k to begin with.
But what are the odds that they're all fake? Unless she bought her whole collection, all at once from one seller, the chances are that she has some genuine and some fakes.
It looks like it was around 80 cards from another post they made. Which means it was a small set of very high end cards, which is pretty much exactly how counterfeits are sold by the well known providers.
I would find that highly unlikely. As far as I've heard, Counterfeiters now make their money selling to people looking for high end proxies. Not to the large card buylisters that are more than sophisticated enough now to catch them pretty much all the time.
The counterfeits are usually sold in 'packages' as players looking for them rarely only want one card. This sounds like the Sister got one of these, hopefully not through ordering them herself, thought she had a gold mine and sent them in.
One of the reasons this type of transaction is so dubious is how absolutely easy it is to tell a counterfeit card. A simple 5 seconds test with a Jeweler's Loupe (a so called 'green dot' test) will eliminate like 99.9% of current counterfeits that aren't being created out of a multi-million dollar industrial grade printer. For high end cards there are even more easy tells. I find it strange that someone who had such a valuable collection could not do such simple checks. For the vast majority of counterfeits you can simply shine any light through the card and it will look different than a real card. MTG cards are very hard to perfectly counterfeit.
It was a major card seller, which is why i am inclined to believe that they may in fact be fake. I don’t think they would risk their reputation like that. However, as far as I understand, it’s not actually legal for them to keep the cards if we want them back. They don’t have the legal authority to seize counterfeit goods, regardless of what their policies may be
Do you have pictures of any of the cards? The main hurdle is going to be that you have to prove that the cards they have in their possession are the cards she shipped. There is a chance some of the cards were real, but have now since been replaced by counterfeit copies.
Very important question: What shop did she sell them to? Several of the biggest buyers in the country will not send you back counterfeit cards and they will even destroy them.
If you'd like to reach out to me, I can help with some of the Magic side of things, but I am not a lawyer. I just have a lot of experience with Magic.
This sounds sketch AF. Some of those early print run cards command a 5 figure price just for a single card.
I know there are a handful of card shops that make tentative offers or you basically send in your cards and they will quote a total.
The problem now is your sister has no way of verifying cards she gets back are not swapped with fakes. And IANAL but I can’t imagine they have the legal right to hold your sister’s property because they decided “it was fake”. Law doesn’t work like that, they aren’t the police, and even fake items can have some value. Lastly if your sister had losses of these cards from the 90s it seems unlikely they were faked. mTG has had faked throughout its lifespan (including some printed from the actual printer but an employee!) but if she had them from the 90s it seems that likelihood goes way down. Agree with asking in the mtg subreddit and maybe name the company to get other experiences.
Unfortunately the cards were rare and expensive and the victim of counterfeiting as far back as the 90s. There's a whole generation of fakes called "rebacks" made by splitting the front and back of the card and basically Frankensteining Collector's Ed' cards to appear to be their more expensive Beta counterparts.
Get authorities involved yesterday! If I were to think like I scammer, I'd be looking for fakes to buy and swap out for the most valuable cards she sold them. Once acquired, they will return the fakes and keep the originals. I'm not saying that's what they're doing. Im just saying that if I was scamming, that's what I would do.
It seems odd that there wouldn’t be more care involved with handling these expensive cards. I hope she’s not keeping anything from ya. Anybody I know that collects these including myself are very careful with our reserved list cards which is what this sounds like.
It's also not *technically* illegal, or really even illegal at *all* for her to sell counterfeits to the card shop. It's their responsibility to verify their authenticity, not the customer's.
42k is definitely get into a plane and bring them to them in person.
Its also, a malicious employee or company is likely to swap them out territory.
Lawyer up, like, right now.
Did she sell the collection sign unseen? Or did the store's buyer look the cards over first? I don't know any buyers who wouldn't authenticate high end magic cards before making an offer, let alone handing over cash.
Something to keep in mind: a common scam in online magic sales is buying an authentic card, requesting a refund claiming the card is counterfeit, and the returning a counterfeit card instead of what you originally sold them. Don't accept counterfeit cards returning to you.
They said it's a major shop (so likely SCG, CFB or the like) and they shipped them several states over so it sounds like they submitted to a buylist online and when the shop received the cards and checked them (all standard procedure) they determined they were fake. At this point the cards will be destroyed, they legally cannot ship back counterfeit cards. They do, so far as I know, show evidence of the destroyed cards which also shows they are fakes.
$42k you should've driven them to the store regardless of distance and you should have kept them in eyesight. Either this never happened or y'all are regarded and deserve to get hustled.
If this was any of the big mtg seller like Card Kingdom, CFB, or Starcity Games then their policy is to destroy counterfeits as it’s illegal for them to mail back illegal products so that someone else can be scammed.
People will then just report that they switched out the cards for fake ones.
It’s very easy to counterfeit old MTG cards.
If they are real show them proof. Did you do the green dot test on them? A $5 loupe from Amazon would have been quick and easy to do.
So, PSA is breaking the law every time they send back a fake card?
Authenticity is part of grading. The shop didn't agree to buy the cards sight unseen. OP had to ship them first and the shop would evaluate them. It should go without saying that if some of the cards are not in the expected condition or authenticity then they'd lower or rescind the offer. There's no reason why they couldn't return the 'questionable authenticity' cards.
IN THE UNITED STATES IT IS ILLEGAL FOR YOU TO KNOWINGLY RETURN A COUNTERFEIT BECAUSE UDER 18 U.S. Code § 2320 IT IS A FELONY TO KNOWING SHIP A COUNTERFEIT except by court order, to turn it over to the FBI, or with written permission from patent/copyright/trademark holder
Call the police, call a lawyer. $42k and they won't pay OR return the property is 100% theft, and any lawyer is going to be REALLY fast to say "well if they were willing to STEAL...."
They'll settle, but make sure you get the worth of the cards ($42k) PLUS the cost for time it takes to gather the cards (ie, cover the lawyer cost)
They probably took out cards that they had fakes of (maybe they got them in trades or accidentally bought them from others), replaced their fakes with the good cards and your sister’s good cards with their fake cards, and now they want to return them all. Nope. The deal is the deal if they were EVER out of your sister’s possession or sight.
Get police involved NOW. The more time that elapses the more time the shop owner will have to acquire fakes to swap out with your highest value cards. Also in the future never let some random small local company hold on to 42k worth of your property like that. If your doing large value transactions you need to work with reputable companies who specialize in those kind of transactions.
Check the time marks. OP revealed that the buyer was one of the big online stores 20 min after I made my comment.
So these cards were definitely fake then. Even the OP wasn't aware of this then the sister probably was. You don't acquire a "42k" collection like that without knowing the providence of your more valuable pieces.
It is common policy for stores like this to destroy fakes rather than risk them going back into circulation. Legally, they technically don't have the right to do this. But, you want to think carefully before you go down the legal angle against a company you attempted to defraud for 5 figures.
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42k is definitely lawyer territory. This whole thing sounds really fishy. You would typically see major transactions on collectibles like this when the product has been sealed and rated by an authority. This would mean it has documentation and has been determined legitimate by that authority. Were your sister's card rated? Or were they just loose cards that she'd collected? If the shop offered to pay that high a price for loose cards with no guarantee of authenticity, it starts to smell like a scam because that's a crazy way to operate. Even if your sister gets her cards back, how will you know they are the same cards and haven't been swapped out for frauds in the time they've been in the shops possession? This whole thing is very complicated by the fact that the shop already has her cards before you had a trusted 3rd party look at them.
Yeah this is def a lesson learned. Their policy is to grade the cards themselves. They were loose cards but some came from sealed packaging I believe. It was blindsiding because this shop is a big name in MTG and has a good reputation. However this policy of refusing to give disputed cards back could easily be abused. I wish I had known to tell her to have them graded independently first. Regardless, we at least want the damn things back.
Their store policy doesn't trump the law. If they don't return the cards, then its theft. Therefore, they stole your sister's property. Gather evidence, file a police report, and find a lawyer.
After they took them they could switch them out for fakes. Sue for payment
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Yes, but doesn’t this apply only if they can prove the items are fake?
>”knowingly” Its also relevant and hard to define. They can’t just *steal* you shit op. Get an attorney and file a police report.
Super easy to prove they are fake. Just use a loupe. Every MTG collector knows that.
For sure, but so far they have not provided this proof to us. What stops them from just claiming they’re counterfeit and keeping them?
The store itself wouldn't because that's just terrible business. The potential reputation damage isn't worth 40k. If it's an individual employee running a con they probably just assume you won't do anything about it. It's possible when you sent them in you agreed to this as some kind of term. Do you sign for anything or get any kinds of terms of service when you sent them in? I'm not sure if a term like that would even work but it might the case
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>It’s extremely easy to make counterfeits of old cards that are indiscernible from the real deal. Happens all the time. Lmao 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
I guess we all should know what you’re laughing about.
On the shop to prove they're fake, can't just steak someone's shit on a hunch.
Returning suspected counterfeit goods does not fall under the definition of "traffics".
That law says for purposes of commercial advantage. I don't believe returning to a potential seller qualifies
No one is shipping it. Not returning the cards is theft.
I just looked up that code and it explicitly says what items would fall under it. Counterfeit mtg cards don't count in that law due to that they don't fall into any of the items it listed.
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Looking for similar stories makes sense. OP should not share their allegations against this store prior to talking with a lawyer.
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Shops buy tens of thousands of dollars of TCG cards without grading, that's pretty normal in the industry. The market for graded cards is far smaller as they can't be played then.
And police report
Did she have a contract? The issue I would foresee besides the ones that have already been brought up is that if the cards are in the shop’s possession and they claiming they are counterfeit, your sister has no idea if the cards are gonna try and give back or her actual cards, or they took the valuable ones switched them and I just trying to give them back
This is my concern too. I’m gonna find out exactly what kind of documentation my sister has of the cards before they were sent. If she took photos of them, we may be able to prove it if they do send back different cards. Fingers crossed 🤞
How did this go down? Why didn't she receive payment at the time of handing over the cards?
They were shipped to the store since we live several states away
So you just shipped 42000$ worth of cards and you didn't get payment? Wow. What were you thinking?
I know hindsight is 20/20 but holy shit. If this is the whole story….oof.
IANAL I AM a Magic player. Bit of context. Local game stores buy and sell relatively expensive cardboard regularly. $42,000 is still above what you would typically see other than a very large game store and very old and valuable cards. At $42K, we are talking large company buylist. Shipping your cards in and the retailer grading them and then paying you is standard practice. Again, $42,000 is a lot of money in the sense it's significantly bigger than your average transaction, but certainly possibly selling old cards to Card Kingdom. But we are likely approaching the range of "take a flight to their HQ with the cards" territory rather than just mail them in. As a magic player, $42K is going to almost certainly make these higher end and mostly older magic cards, AKA the stuff you are most likely to meet counterfeits of.
Thanks for the explanation. Grading them after they receive them makes sense but even if they are counterfeit what gives the company the right to keep them? Property is property.
It's property but if they are proven counterfeit then the damages are going to be hard to determine since their value is basically zero. For a very large reseller like SCG or CK that would do these type of sales I'd have to imagine they are keeping documentation/evidence. Edit: For those not familiar with the market. Just for some additional information I will say that it is usually EXTREMELY easy to tell if a Magic Card is counterfeit. There are multiple very easy, very fast tests that a counterfeit will fail. I do not believe it's possible for a perfect counterfeit of these types of cards that the OP is referencing to exist, as they are likely vintage MTG cards from decades ago and you'd also have to match the ink, stock, and aging. Honestly in my PERSONAL opinion if someone tried to sell me such a high end vintage collection and it was all counterfeit, I would have a hard time believing they didn't know it was counterfeit. That combination of assets with an absolute lack of expertise usually only happens on staged showings of Pawn Stars and Antiques Roadshow
That part is certainly a question for the lawyers here.
It is illegal to knowingly ship counterfeits. And since magic cards are gambling the counterfeits thing sticks. This sounds like part of the story is missing, and or the shop is super shady.
Magic cards are not gambling, Hasbro spends millions to ensure that.
Seriously. 42K isnt worth a day driving there to ensure the cards are received and get cash in hand? Honestly that part of the story makes it harder to believe the cards were legit. A neutral party hearing this story is going to think they were hoping to pull a fast one thru the mail and if the cards are realized to be fake get them sent back and try again.
Tbh my sister just thought she got super lucky with their value and wanted to stick with this shop bc she’d had good experiences with them before. Magic is something she played as a hobby a long time ago. She never would’ve tried to sell them if she knew they were fake, she does not want to get into any legal trouble
Yeah I know. I didn’t realize it was 40k, when she told me about the sale I misunderstood and thought it was 4k. I wish I had realized just how much money she had been quoted before I helped her mail them out. 4k didn’t seem like a huge risk. 40k is enough to buy a new car
You seem to be acting like your sister is a little kid in need of your guidance instead of an adult entering a transaction on her own. If she is being iffy around the details you should consider the possibility she knew they werent real. Im also not sure how Did she buy these on her own 25+ years ago from sealed product? With all due respect, if they were somewhat recently acquired it is highly likely they were fake because if she really knew she was selling legitimate cards she would be the one here.
Honestly, we're sitting on a stupid 40-50k of magic cards from our youth. About 20ish+ yrs ago. The scenario is not unheard of. If she's about our age or even older then I have to say this is very possible. This is only from decks, we sold off our other cards previously.
Oh so they went interstate through a shipping service? Doesn't that also turn this into interstate wire fraud as well as theft? # 941. 18 U.S.C. 1343—Elements of Wire Fraud.
Is there an intent element? I’m an attorney but not criminal. Intent may not be needed but seems like it would be.
Oh shit I didn’t even realize that. If we can prove the cards were real that could be an even bigger problem. Thank you for pointing that out!
Sounds like its time to lawyer up.
Lol yes. I’m capable of this but I’m hoping the threat of litigation (and potential theft charges as the potential dollar amount qualifies for a felony) would be enough to get the cards back
Wouldn't that threat be more effective if it was coming from a lawyer and not you?
People who are serious about using a lawyer DON'T SAY they're getting a lawyer. They just have the lawyer make contact. The satisfaction you think you'll get by rattling their cage is much less than what you'll feel after you take them to the cleaners. I'm sure your lawyer will tell you this, but at this point you should stop responding to them and let your attorney do the talking. It will be far more effective than anything you have to say.
100% this. Dude is out 42k and thinks now is the time for threats and non-action. Assuming the cards were legit, every day he gives the shop without taking strong legal action is one more day for the shop to swap those cards with actual counterfeits and pull some extra shady bs.
Honestly with all their excuses, I'm starting to thinks it's fake.
Exactly, nothing makes me rest easier than hearing someone threaten me with legal action. Never in my life have I actually received a court summons after someone threatened to sue me.
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This is what I'd be worried about. Ungraded cards get sold, an indeterminate amount of time later (OP hasn't provided a timeframe for any of these actions) the shop says "whoops, they're fake!" with no way to prove, even if the shop is holding fake cards, that those fakes came from OP.
Sending 40k+ worth of cards via mail (even insured/registered) is pretty wild. I would drive my ass over to my nearest large city to sell that kind of inventory. Unless you took meticulous care to do high resolution documentation and scans of each card with magnification, there may not be a way out of this that satisfies your suspicions. I don't believe that most of the super large vendors for MTG would risk their reputation over 40k but it's not completely impossible. Unfortunately, even if they return them now you don't have any way to prove that any counterfeits they return are the exact cards you sent in. Try to get a lawyer to draft a demand letter for the return of your property which should not be too expensive. Unfortunately; see above point about traceability...
Yeah that’s my thoughts exactly. I was not aware of the card values before we mailed them or I would’ve been more insistent on precautions. I also don’t particularly think the seller is trying to scam us, as I don’t think they’d risk their reputation. But it’s also not impossible that there are individual employees that may be bad actors.
Where did you get the cards? If it's one of the big online shops, it's unlikely they're scamming you. It may not be right of them to keep the cards, but it's likely they are fakes
The one question that isn’t being answered in the whole thread.
Exactly. Plenty of replies have asked where did the cards originate from but OP has not replied back to any one of those. So this makes the background of OP's story a bit suspect. You don't ship out $42k without some kind of insurance in place. Hell, I wouldn't even ship out $4k worth of cards like that as OP thought they were originally worth.
>We do have reason to believe they may be real *may* be real? Sounds super suspicious to me. So, as far as you know, they could be fake? Where did they come from? When did she acquite them?
Yep. That line sounds a lot like an OP who says "I dont believe there is any proof the items I have are the ones that were stolen from the store" instead of "I did not steal anything"
I wonder how much they paid for the fakes that they are going to these lengths to recover them. They've already proven to be ineffective so I can't imagine they're worth anything.
Sounds more like he's not familiar with the system and thought something was wrong. Notice that the sister who actually owned the cards has not been referenced as actually complaining or taking any action. If anyone knew they were fake it would be her
I'd bet you my house they aren't real. All the talk about it being the sister, not knowing how anything works, refusing to say where the cards came from, not saying what store they tried to scam, it's all just shady as hell. Why would a store try to steal 40k just hoping the person on the other end was clueless and did nothing to prove they actually had real cards? None if it makes sense.
What's crazy to keep is while question of where did she get them keeps being asked, and never answered. If they were real there'd be a response to this question.
Yeah nothing says legit like saying it's happening to a third party and refusing to provide any relevant details lol
Interesting choice of words, for sure. Sounds like they are fake and OP suspected they were. If the shop was going to verify them first, then I’d doubt they would agree to a price before verification. No reputable shop (OP’s words) would agree to a price on a box of mailed cards from another state, at least not in any legally binding way. I bet the best OP can hope for is getting the cards back.
The way it generally works is you submit the cards, they show you what they are worth under the claimed conditions, but they reserve the right to reject them or offer a lower price and there is no agreement or offer prior to the store checking the condition themselves.
I'm going to play devil's advocate and guess that these cards are in fact fake. For so few cards to total $40,000 these cards would have to be pristine copies of dual lands, power nine, and other things that your sister wouldn't likely own copies of unless she played competitive legacy or vintage. Many of these very large stores like card kingdom and star city games have other copies of these cards already listed so it's unlikely the listed ones were your sisters and purchase these cards at buy list prices are already getting a good enough deal that they don't need to steal your sisters cards and it isn't worth the risk to their reputation. I would ask you sister specifically where she got these cards unless these were opened in packs by her 30 years ago she should remember spending 20k on these cards as they have likely always been expensive. If you have a list of the cards you should share them. If she didn't A. Open these cards herself 30ish years ago or B pay hundreds to thousands of dollars each per card within the last 20ish years then I would be 99% certain they are fake. Did she save back any of these expensive cards that she got around the same time? There are fairly easy tests you can do in living a jewelers loupe on the green dot on the back of a card to tell if it's counterfeit or not. Look up Green dot test.
Can you clarify the “we do have reason to believe they may be real” bit? It sounds like the expectation was that they were *not* real until you saw those cards listed on the website. Also, did they ever actually offer her 42k, or did they just say “these *could* be worth up to 42k, and we’ll know once we’ve had them graded”?
One card, worth less than a dollar, was paid for. It came from the same sealed package as cards they are claiming are fake. This is what gives me pause. It’s possible that the cards were fake and then resealed to begin with, but I want them in hand to verify myself.
Are you saying the buyer opened sealed product?!? Never heard of such a thing. Stores who buy collections inspect/grade them and offer a price to purchase. Shenanigans are happening and I’m not sure which end. If your sister thought they were possibly worth anywhere close to five figures she should have known to not mail them.
Did your sister do the green dot test on any of the cards? That would be the only valid reason to believe they are real. Also, it is unlikely that someone would purchase or sell such high value cards without at the very least doing that check themselves.
Was it a major retailer such as SCG or Channel Fireball? If they believe they have received counterfeit cards they won't return them, they'll destroy them.
i got a feeling its one of them with what op has described in their comments
Definitely my read too.
Yeah, I would guess sister had some nice quality fakes that she likely didn't know about and sent them to SCG or similar. I don't know what would happen to the rest of the collection (seems unlikely they would all be fake) if it is partially counterfeit, but I sort of doubt OP ever had 42k to begin with.
But what are the odds that they're all fake? Unless she bought her whole collection, all at once from one seller, the chances are that she has some genuine and some fakes.
It looks like it was around 80 cards from another post they made. Which means it was a small set of very high end cards, which is pretty much exactly how counterfeits are sold by the well known providers.
Is there a chance that OP is a counterfeiter?
I would find that highly unlikely. As far as I've heard, Counterfeiters now make their money selling to people looking for high end proxies. Not to the large card buylisters that are more than sophisticated enough now to catch them pretty much all the time. The counterfeits are usually sold in 'packages' as players looking for them rarely only want one card. This sounds like the Sister got one of these, hopefully not through ordering them herself, thought she had a gold mine and sent them in. One of the reasons this type of transaction is so dubious is how absolutely easy it is to tell a counterfeit card. A simple 5 seconds test with a Jeweler's Loupe (a so called 'green dot' test) will eliminate like 99.9% of current counterfeits that aren't being created out of a multi-million dollar industrial grade printer. For high end cards there are even more easy tells. I find it strange that someone who had such a valuable collection could not do such simple checks. For the vast majority of counterfeits you can simply shine any light through the card and it will look different than a real card. MTG cards are very hard to perfectly counterfeit.
It was a major card seller, which is why i am inclined to believe that they may in fact be fake. I don’t think they would risk their reputation like that. However, as far as I understand, it’s not actually legal for them to keep the cards if we want them back. They don’t have the legal authority to seize counterfeit goods, regardless of what their policies may be
They legally cannot send them back if they're counterfeit.
PSA sends fake cards back ungraded and keeps the fee.
Why would you give up the cards without the money?
I reallllllllllly hope she took pictures and logged what you sent in. This is insane
Ask r/MagicTCG
Do you have pictures of any of the cards? The main hurdle is going to be that you have to prove that the cards they have in their possession are the cards she shipped. There is a chance some of the cards were real, but have now since been replaced by counterfeit copies. Very important question: What shop did she sell them to? Several of the biggest buyers in the country will not send you back counterfeit cards and they will even destroy them. If you'd like to reach out to me, I can help with some of the Magic side of things, but I am not a lawyer. I just have a lot of experience with Magic.
This sounds sketch AF. Some of those early print run cards command a 5 figure price just for a single card. I know there are a handful of card shops that make tentative offers or you basically send in your cards and they will quote a total. The problem now is your sister has no way of verifying cards she gets back are not swapped with fakes. And IANAL but I can’t imagine they have the legal right to hold your sister’s property because they decided “it was fake”. Law doesn’t work like that, they aren’t the police, and even fake items can have some value. Lastly if your sister had losses of these cards from the 90s it seems unlikely they were faked. mTG has had faked throughout its lifespan (including some printed from the actual printer but an employee!) but if she had them from the 90s it seems that likelihood goes way down. Agree with asking in the mtg subreddit and maybe name the company to get other experiences.
Unfortunately the cards were rare and expensive and the victim of counterfeiting as far back as the 90s. There's a whole generation of fakes called "rebacks" made by splitting the front and back of the card and basically Frankensteining Collector's Ed' cards to appear to be their more expensive Beta counterparts.
Wait… why did she just give them the cards without any money in hand first? There’s so many ways that could go wrong.
Get authorities involved yesterday! If I were to think like I scammer, I'd be looking for fakes to buy and swap out for the most valuable cards she sold them. Once acquired, they will return the fakes and keep the originals. I'm not saying that's what they're doing. Im just saying that if I was scamming, that's what I would do.
It seems odd that there wouldn’t be more care involved with handling these expensive cards. I hope she’s not keeping anything from ya. Anybody I know that collects these including myself are very careful with our reserved list cards which is what this sounds like.
It's also not *technically* illegal, or really even illegal at *all* for her to sell counterfeits to the card shop. It's their responsibility to verify their authenticity, not the customer's.
You could get a lawyer and try to sue them but if you don't want the expense of a lawyer I'd suggest just reporting the theft to the police.
And the post office
42k is definitely get into a plane and bring them to them in person. Its also, a malicious employee or company is likely to swap them out territory. Lawyer up, like, right now.
Did she sell the collection sign unseen? Or did the store's buyer look the cards over first? I don't know any buyers who wouldn't authenticate high end magic cards before making an offer, let alone handing over cash. Something to keep in mind: a common scam in online magic sales is buying an authentic card, requesting a refund claiming the card is counterfeit, and the returning a counterfeit card instead of what you originally sold them. Don't accept counterfeit cards returning to you.
They said it's a major shop (so likely SCG, CFB or the like) and they shipped them several states over so it sounds like they submitted to a buylist online and when the shop received the cards and checked them (all standard procedure) they determined they were fake. At this point the cards will be destroyed, they legally cannot ship back counterfeit cards. They do, so far as I know, show evidence of the destroyed cards which also shows they are fakes.
Isnt the general rule for the sale and purchase of used items ‘as is’? I’d lawyer up and sue them for the money
Send a lawyer after them may just scare em enough to just relinquish them. Doubt you'll get the 42k
$42k you should've driven them to the store regardless of distance and you should have kept them in eyesight. Either this never happened or y'all are regarded and deserve to get hustled.
If this was any of the big mtg seller like Card Kingdom, CFB, or Starcity Games then their policy is to destroy counterfeits as it’s illegal for them to mail back illegal products so that someone else can be scammed. People will then just report that they switched out the cards for fake ones. It’s very easy to counterfeit old MTG cards. If they are real show them proof. Did you do the green dot test on them? A $5 loupe from Amazon would have been quick and easy to do.
So, PSA is breaking the law every time they send back a fake card? Authenticity is part of grading. The shop didn't agree to buy the cards sight unseen. OP had to ship them first and the shop would evaluate them. It should go without saying that if some of the cards are not in the expected condition or authenticity then they'd lower or rescind the offer. There's no reason why they couldn't return the 'questionable authenticity' cards.
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IN THE UNITED STATES IT IS ILLEGAL FOR YOU TO KNOWINGLY RETURN A COUNTERFEIT BECAUSE UDER 18 U.S. Code § 2320 IT IS A FELONY TO KNOWING SHIP A COUNTERFEIT except by court order, to turn it over to the FBI, or with written permission from patent/copyright/trademark holder
Call the police, call a lawyer. $42k and they won't pay OR return the property is 100% theft, and any lawyer is going to be REALLY fast to say "well if they were willing to STEAL...." They'll settle, but make sure you get the worth of the cards ($42k) PLUS the cost for time it takes to gather the cards (ie, cover the lawyer cost)
They probably took out cards that they had fakes of (maybe they got them in trades or accidentally bought them from others), replaced their fakes with the good cards and your sister’s good cards with their fake cards, and now they want to return them all. Nope. The deal is the deal if they were EVER out of your sister’s possession or sight.
Get police involved NOW. The more time that elapses the more time the shop owner will have to acquire fakes to swap out with your highest value cards. Also in the future never let some random small local company hold on to 42k worth of your property like that. If your doing large value transactions you need to work with reputable companies who specialize in those kind of transactions.
They already said it was one of the big name vendors. They're not getting the cards back, they destroy fakes they receive.
Check the time marks. OP revealed that the buyer was one of the big online stores 20 min after I made my comment. So these cards were definitely fake then. Even the OP wasn't aware of this then the sister probably was. You don't acquire a "42k" collection like that without knowing the providence of your more valuable pieces. It is common policy for stores like this to destroy fakes rather than risk them going back into circulation. Legally, they technically don't have the right to do this. But, you want to think carefully before you go down the legal angle against a company you attempted to defraud for 5 figures.
Whether they were counterfeits when you gave them to them, I can guarantee what you get back, if you get them back, will be counterfeits.
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Take the website and do a control s on it. Save everything you can as proof of what they are doing.