Episode 197: Timeless Moments. How To Not Get ScAmMeD

In this episode of Timeless Moments, we break down the essential steps for protecting yourself when buying cards. From coining and certified platforms to registered post and payment insurance, we cover the best ways to safeguard your purchases.

We also discuss the benefits of buying from people you know or meeting face-to-face, plus how to use online resources to research sellers before making a deal.

Watch out for red flags like mismatched profiles and payment details—and learn how scammers operate. Plus, why you should always ask for a screenshot of the card via Messenger and respond with a post to confirm legitimacy.

A must-listen for anyone looking to avoid scams and buy smarter in the hobby!

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Transcript

00:00.12
Russell Gibson
didn't count. I didn't count.

00:01.13
Adz
Yeah.

00:01.70
Russell Gibson
Three, two, one.

00:07.50
Adz
Welcome everybody to episode 197 of the You Can't Comp This m NBA Trading Card Podcast. We host Adam, Amy and Russell Gibson back with another timeless moment.

00:22.37
Adz
And Russell, this week is a very serious topic, something that we we have a lot of thoughts on, I guess, in the hobby, and that is how not to get scammed.

00:35.01
Russell Gibson
Yeah. I think it's very topical.

00:39.60
Adz
Very topical.

00:39.76
Russell Gibson
I think it's very important. And there's always new people coming into the hobby. So i think actually this is perfect for timeless moments because people can go back and listen to this at any time in the future. So this is, i think what we designed this whole sort of segment for is these type of topics. So I think this will go really well.

00:59.27
Adz
Yep.

00:59.57
Russell Gibson
And I think you should kick us off, Ad. What would you like to start talking about first?

01:05.40
Adz
um I guess the first thing when it comes to to to not getting scammed in this hobby will be just just not rushing into things, taking your time with transactions and not feeling pressured ah to conduct things in in a way that you're uncomfortable doing it.

01:07.61
Russell Gibson
Thank you.

01:24.48
Adz
and What I mean is payment methods, um postage, like different arrangements, things that don't necessarily feel comfortable. um You should never feel pressured to to conduct a trade in a way that you're not 100% comfortable with. That would be my number one um bit of advice.

01:44.43
Russell Gibson
yeah Okay. Yeah. yeah I think that's a really good place to start, isn't it?

01:50.14
Adz
Yeah, i think I think in a transaction, transactions like this, we can tend to navigate into into scary territory. And um sellers can be rather intimidating at times in the way they pressure you to um conduct a transaction in the way they want to Scammers, however, have a very specific tactic when it comes to things like that, that is having unprotected payment methods, things that can't be traced and returned.

02:18.08
Adz
and And yeah, um if it doesn't feel right, definitely definitely don't go down that that pathway.

02:26.43
Russell Gibson
Yeah. Anything else you wanted to add into that?

02:30.15
Adz
ah not for Not for now. I think i think you'll you'll sort of branch on that ah from from my understanding.

02:32.25
Russell Gibson
Yep.

02:36.42
Adz
I'm sure you've dealt with a lot of people online.

02:37.17
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

02:39.94
Russell Gibson
Yeah. So I suppose leveraging off that part of the conversation piece that you're not rushing is some of the things you should talk about. So think the big one that I was educated on pretty early on was about coining.

02:54.65
Russell Gibson
So the whole idea behind coining is that you take a photo of the card and then in the photo background, you've got something that can identify yourself and also identify the current date.

03:05.50
Adz
yep

03:07.40
Russell Gibson
So that what that is supposed to indicate is you've got the card on hand and you've also

03:12.60
Adz
ye yep yep

03:14.25
Russell Gibson
got the hand, you know, but you've got the card with you relatively recently, or if not immediately. So that's the sort of the whole idea of where someone asks for a coin, that's what they do.

03:24.87
Russell Gibson
Some of the pages online, in terms of the Facebook pages, they will get you to do that every single time. And if you don't do it, they won't let you put the post up.

03:35.81
Adz
Yep.

03:36.67
Russell Gibson
I've been noticing on eBay, people are now putting watermarks on top of their cards. And

03:44.01
Adz
Wow.

03:44.01
Russell Gibson
I actually think that's a really good idea because also what people can do is say, download a picture of eBay and then try and sell it on say, marketplace or eBay or something along those lines.

03:51.69
Adz
Mm hmm.

03:58.09
Adz
Yep.

03:58.47
Russell Gibson
And if you don't require coin to happen, you might think that that person actually has the card in possession. For higher end cards, what you can do is ask the person to do a video call with you and then get them to hold the card in hand

04:10.89
Adz
Yeah.

04:13.49
Russell Gibson
and get them to show you the condition of the card. And so that's a better way of doing a photo coin because people can Photoshop stuff.

04:16.48
Adz
Yeah.

04:20.63
Russell Gibson
And even though people can say, oh, ha ha, look at this like terrible Photoshop that someone's done. Actually, some of the Photoshop can be really good. And to be honest, I don't have that greater eye for that type of stuff.

04:30.77
Adz
Yeah.

04:31.96
Russell Gibson
And they, you know, people can get that past me. So I think coining is a really good place to start in terms of how to educate yourself in terms of getting you protected against people.

04:35.11
Adz
yeah

04:38.47
Adz
no

04:42.14
Russell Gibson
And then the next really easy one, and probably the the biggest one at the end of the day is using payment insurance.

04:42.45
Adz
ah

04:49.31
Russell Gibson
So what that means is there's a whole bunch of different platforms. The biggest one that does this, and probably the one that's most used within the card collecting community is PayPal.

05:01.20
Adz
Yep.

05:01.28
Russell Gibson
And so if you transfer to somebody, friends and families, that's like doing pay ID where the money goes into the person's account and Challenging that transaction and getting the money back into your account is pretty well impossible.

05:10.11
Adz
That's it.

05:14.33
Russell Gibson
However, when you pay for goods and services, you can actually report the transaction as not being delivered or it wasn't delivered as what was discussed.

05:14.74
Adz
Yeah, correct.

05:24.78
Adz
Yeah.

05:25.98
Russell Gibson
And there's a whole bunch of different reasons you can do it. And then PayPal will actually escalate a claim.

05:29.09
Adz
Yeah.

05:31.44
Russell Gibson
Look into that. Contact the seller on your behalf.

05:35.42
Adz
Yeah.

05:36.11
Russell Gibson
and then try and get that then resolved for you. and if you can't, then you can do an insurance claim back through PayPal. And that's what you're paying that extra money for. So often what happens is just say the card is $100.

05:49.80
Russell Gibson
If you're paying it with goods and services, you'll pay 4% or some people charge 4%, some people 3.5%.

05:50.27
Adz
Yeah.

05:53.62
Russell Gibson
Let's call 4%. Then you'll pay $104 for that transaction. I've got honest with you. really like paying

06:00.09
Russell Gibson
transaction and look i got to be honest with you i i really like paying goods and services. It just gives me so much peace of mind.

06:09.41
Adz
Yeah.

06:09.37
Russell Gibson
And I've spoken about this on a previous podcast where I was actually ripped off.

06:13.45
Adz
Mm.

06:13.46
Russell Gibson
It was about $350, something like that. And um the seller didn't post out the stuff to me. i I don't think he ever had any intention of doing it. I personally think the guy had some money problems. And then eventually i went through the process of you know getting my funds returned to me. But that was good good That's not the right way to say it.

06:34.73
Russell Gibson
That was a good experience for me, though, in terms of having that payment protection there for you. So I think leveraging on from that, the other one to check to with that is, so just say you're dealing with Tom Smith on Facebook, but then it says Frederick ah Gibson as the person who is the doing the payment details to, that's a massive red flag in terms of someone putting up a fake profile on Facebook facebook

06:48.60
Adz
Yeah.

07:01.66
Russell Gibson
and then getting payment details into a different bank account.

07:02.09
Adz
Yeah.

07:04.14
Russell Gibson
So that's something else you should be looking out for when you're doing your payments. um When it comes to postage, this to me is the the really funny one. And this is where I, when I'm doing deals with people, I'm selling cards to people and they want to scrimp on postage to save a couple of dollars.

07:17.93
Adz
yeah

07:20.47
Russell Gibson
ah I never really understand that. You know, it's always up to people how much they want to spend on postage and that's 100% their prerogative. You know, I never judge people for that. But my sort of opinion on this is that it's $4 for regular post or it's $8 for registered.

07:34.89
Russell Gibson
If you pay for registered post, you then get tracking so that you know when it's gone into the mail, you know when it's been delivered, you can watch it as it's traveling along, but it also gives you to $100 of insurance from Australia Post.

07:42.11
Adz
Yeah, exactly.

07:48.44
Russell Gibson
So most you know most of the cards that you're transacting on are $100 or less. So that gives you insurance on your payment and then gives you insurance on the on the card being posted out.

07:54.32
Adz
Yeah.

08:00.27
Russell Gibson
And so the counter argument to that is, so then you've spent an extra $4 on PayPal insurance, you spend another $4 on Posty, so that's $8, right? So you're sort of up to, you know, sort of you're paying 10% for insurance.

08:14.22
Russell Gibson
Is that something you want to be doing 10 times, 100 times, 200 times? And people can sort of say, well, you might not be saving on, you know, on this one particular card, but in the long run, you're actually saving like a lot more money for that.

08:26.54
Adz
True, true.

08:26.59
Russell Gibson
So that is something you do need to take into consideration. And

08:30.64
Adz
Yeah, yeah. Look, I think that's ah it's a good point.

08:31.79
Russell Gibson
when you Yeah, of course.

08:33.50
Adz
However, I'm going to play devil's advocate. if i if i win If I win a $2 card in an auction, I'm not going to pay $8 to get it registered.

08:36.69
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

08:40.04
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

08:45.55
Adz
I'm going to chuck $4 on it and go, yep, sure, right?

08:46.16
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

08:48.03
Adz
If I spend $50 on a card, you know what?

08:48.03
Russell Gibson
yeah

08:50.79
Russell Gibson
yeah

08:51.79
Adz
I might pay $65 to make sure that gets to me.

08:55.87
Russell Gibson
yeah yeah

08:57.11
Adz
There's a, and it's obviously a budgetary thing, um but I think there's a scale. I think there's a scale. If I spend five bucks on a card um and and the question becomes at what point are people really, ah you ah are the scammers really trying to get a quick five bucks off you?

09:13.88
Adz
I've noticed that the behaviors started up at the higher price points.

09:17.94
Russell Gibson
Yeah, 100 plus.

09:18.41
Adz
Not a lot.

09:18.74
Russell Gibson
I 100% agree with that.

09:20.00
Adz
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

09:20.06
Russell Gibson
Yeah. Yeah, so I've got two triggers.

09:21.40
Adz
That's where people.

09:22.87
Russell Gibson
So my first trigger is do I want the card? If it's something that I'm chasing really hard, irregardless of if if it's a $2 card, you know what i mean?

09:25.70
Adz
Yep.

09:29.72
Russell Gibson
Like I'll go down that avenue.

09:30.68
Adz
ah

09:31.65
Russell Gibson
And look, obviously, this I would probably also say demonstrates my perception of the world and also my ah interpretation of value.

09:31.95
Adz
Yep.

09:40.83
Russell Gibson
But for me, it's $30. Yeah. It's like, once I get up to 30 bucks, I don't really want to like throw away $30.

09:44.02
Adz
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's fine.

09:47.51
Russell Gibson
I want that $30 card to come back to me. Cause also too, actually for $30, you can get a pretty decent card normally.

09:53.84
Adz
For sure, for sure.

09:54.04
Russell Gibson
You know what I mean?

09:54.72
Adz
Like, yeah, completely agree.

09:54.72
Russell Gibson
Like, yeah. Yeah.

09:57.76
Adz
Um, Yeah, you're right. You're right. and And that's the thing is you want, you want people to feel protected regardless. um I think having those options and and thinking things through, it depends how much you want the card.

10:10.86
Adz
Like before you go and pay, fork out money, make sure you're dealing a with a legitimate person, ah be someone that's got the card in hand.

10:10.82
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

10:17.34
Russell Gibson
yeah. yeah.

10:20.12
Adz
So it's all well and good to for the card to look good. ah Yeah. It's, I mean, there could, there, there Plenty of times the coining, I think you've you've put you've touched on coining. Coining is very important.

10:32.16
Adz
One thing I do, especially when I do want a card, I ask the seller when it's a higher value card generally, but I ask for other photos of it. I look condition of the back, condition of the front, everything.

10:43.79
Russell Gibson
yeah

10:45.09
Adz
Rather than just the front of the card, I'd like to see the back as well.

10:49.07
Russell Gibson
yeah

10:50.66
Adz
And then you try and make that educated ah vouchers, like not vouchers, um vouchers. So people vouching for you. um People like, hey, is this person, and does this person have integrity?

11:01.98
Russell Gibson
Yeah. So,

11:04.59
Adz
Will I, have you can have you dealt with this person before?

11:09.53
Russell Gibson
right. So what ah that what a vouch means is that you put up a post and you say, I'm doing a deal with Adam today.

11:17.06
Adz
Yeah.

11:17.02
Russell Gibson
Can people please vouch for Adam?

11:17.16
Adz
Yeah.

11:18.99
Russell Gibson
And then if you're doing like a trade, for example, you might then say, we're doing a trade. Can you please also vouch for me? So then people will go, yep, Adam is A+, plus he's good to go.

11:28.98
Adz
Yeah.

11:29.06
Russell Gibson
you'll get, say, five or six people saying that. Once you've sort of got an idea that you know he's pretty well known in the community, that's fine. On the other hand, if you've got no one vouching for Russell, then you say, okay, look, maybe there's a problem with this buyer or this seller.

11:41.71
Adz
Yeah.

11:41.64
Russell Gibson
Actually, I'm not going to go any further with this deal. So that's what a voucher is for.

11:45.44
Adz
Yeah.

11:46.19
Russell Gibson
Now, the true meaning of a voucher, Adam, If you vouch for somebody, what that actually means is, so if I vouch for you, right, you're selling a card and I say, yep, that's fine, I'll vouch for you.

11:54.69
Adz
yeah

11:56.22
Russell Gibson
And you then don't deliver on it. Technically, the person who vouches is then supposed to cover the cost of that card. So I'm actually um actually really reluctant these days vouch for people unless I'm like, I know who they are, I know how they work, all that type of stuff.

12:02.54
Adz
Agree, yeah.

12:11.68
Russell Gibson
And even my wording on vouchers these days, I'll say, look, I've dealt with this person before and I've had no problems with them.

12:12.06
Adz
Yep.

12:17.16
Russell Gibson
I don't particularly say vouch anymore because like i just, I don't have a stomach for this, you know, taking on someone else's liability.

12:17.66
Adz
Yep. Yeah, no, no, agreed. Yeah, yeah. But they're like, for sure.

12:26.09
Russell Gibson
If I'm being like brutally honest in this situation, but that, that is what a vouch is for.

12:30.46
Adz
That's what a voucher is. But yeah, you're you're trying to deal with people of integrity.

12:31.55
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

12:33.58
Adz
um The other thing is when you're when you're trying to do, i guess, an integrity check on a seller, you'll notice if it goes quiet because you'll also probably get PMs if the person is a scammer.

12:34.55
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

12:46.18
Adz
cause you'll get people reach out privately and go, hey, this guy's dodgy, steer clear.

12:46.21
Russell Gibson
Yeah, if they're known to be dodgy. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

12:50.99
Adz
um And for those that are aware, there are pages where we're we the scammers have been listed and like there is sort of a buyer beware forum of ah of places and behavior is reported.

12:52.59
Russell Gibson
Yeah. Yeah.

13:04.18
Adz
So there are there are safe places.

13:05.62
Russell Gibson
So there's a scammers page in Australia and there's an international scammers page. which They've actually formed their own register. So...

13:13.43
Adz
Yeah. Yeah.

13:14.60
Russell Gibson
There's different places you can check them up. So what you can do is, so if you're doing a deal with somebody, can quickly put their name into the scammers pages and then see if they come up and give you a hit.

13:23.09
Adz
Yeah.

13:24.05
Russell Gibson
Then you can see if they've been up to any scallywaggery.

13:24.65
Adz
Yeah.

13:26.92
Russell Gibson
They've been up scallywag before.

13:27.05
Adz
Yeah.

13:28.52
Russell Gibson
It's pretty good indicator that they're going to carry on and kick on again.

13:31.86
Adz
That once I'd probably do it again.

13:32.67
Russell Gibson
yeah

13:33.29
Adz
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

13:34.01
Russell Gibson
Yeah. I've also got a note down here for certified platform. So I think that if you are a very junior person coming into the hobby, an easy win at the start is to go into eBay and and do purchasing because they've got processes that are automated.

13:48.19
Adz
Yep. Protections.

13:51.57
Russell Gibson
So everything is, yeah, everything's set in place for you just to go along. If everyone follows the process, it's all going to be fine. And then also too, then you'd have your buyer protection baked in on top of your PayPal protection too.

13:58.71
Adz
Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

14:04.57
Russell Gibson
So that's something else to keep in mind.

14:06.78
Adz
yeah

14:07.01
Russell Gibson
think the other thing too is to, and you touched on this in terms of being pressured into a deal or not. I think what you're talking about is, is taking your time. So for example, if we're talking about a kaboom. So we talked about the kaboom the other week with the autograph on it.

14:20.65
Adz
hu

14:20.95
Russell Gibson
So this card's being presented to you for this particular price. Go online and check the resources out. So for example, go into the PSA register, look at what the card is actually supposed to look at. Look at card ladder, see what resources are around that in terms of pricing. If someone is trying to sell you $1,000 card for two hundred dollars That might give you another red flag to say, look, this person is trying to trick me into a deal that's too good to be true and take my pay ID off me.

14:47.98
Adz
yeah

14:49.40
Russell Gibson
So that's what I'm looking for in terms of research that I'm doing.

14:53.70
Adz
ye

14:54.28
Russell Gibson
And then i think that's everything that I want to talk about. ah I can't believe we got to the end of that.

14:59.41
Adz
i

15:01.02
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

15:01.17
Adz
Yeah, that was that that was a really comprehensive, informative. I think we didn't segue much. I think it's just really, the main thing is that you you feel safe as buyers um and that you do your research, do an apt amount of research.

15:10.90
Russell Gibson
Yeah. Yeah.

15:13.64
Adz
There are a lot of very trustworthy people um in the hobby that you can that you can use as resources.

15:17.80
Russell Gibson
yeah

15:20.62
Adz
don't know if you've got a local store you visit. ah There are people there that can obviously give advice as well, but um please be safe out there as far as conducting trades. Don't rush things. um take your time and use the appropriate protections.

15:33.76
Russell Gibson
yeah

15:33.90
Adz
um Yeah, we hope you hope you've all enjoyed listening to this. If you yeah you've got any other thoughts and ways to to keep safe in the hobby and avoid getting scammed, please drop us a line in the comments.

15:44.04
Russell Gibson
Reach out to us. We're always happy to hear it. Do you want to do Anthony Mills case study?

15:46.96
Adz
Yeah.

15:49.97
Adz
um maybe we Maybe we'll do that on the show um next week so we keep this break.

15:54.77
Russell Gibson
Yeah, sure.

15:56.67
Adz
But yeah, we're already the 16-minute mark.

15:57.27
Russell Gibson
All right. In that case, thanks, everybody.

16:00.86
Adz
Thanks, everybody. we will see you in the next Timeless Moment.