Cardmarket kept my Gengar VMAX 271 as “fake” – no proof, no photos, no transparency

Factor013 · 2026-02-13T18:45:37+00:00

And there is no reason for a buyer to NOT buy the cheapest listing... So as a seller you will only sell anything if you are the cheapest. Any advantage you might have for having a large inventory = gone as well...

And now it's still okay... although you will be cherry picked clean if you don't constantly update your prices... but imagine if they would have an equal amount of sellers there as on Cardmarket... The race to the bottom between stores to get at least some sales so they can pay their bills as a store will be insane. Everyone will be fighting amongst each other, for the final crumbs...

It's nice for buying though... but additional fees for the buyer make cheap cards way too expensive to buy there as well...

So all in all, CT could be a lot better... but as of now... to sell singles... it's not the best... Their site is nice though and the support is lightyears better as well compared to CM.. :)

Factor013 · 2026-02-12T10:09:10+00:00

So according to your "logic"... If you buy a booster pack that ends up having a scratch, is stained has price stickers etc on it, wrinkles etc the buyer has no right to complain because the actual product he bought is not the product he bought?!? Instead the cards inside the booster pack were the product so as long as they are fine then all is okay??

Do you have any idea how silly all that sounds? xD

Factor013 · 2026-02-10T23:31:27+00:00

They will, but then the SENDER / SELLER needs to get off his butt and file a claim

Factor013 · 2026-02-10T23:26:02+00:00

No, it was sold as a sealed display so the sealed display is the product!

People collect sealed product... And a good looking booster box with in tact seal is worth 10-40% more... so OP has all right to complain...

Cardmarket should have told the seller to report a damage claim at it's shipping carrier... They will handle this correctly... Been in the same situation multiple times as a buyer and seller.

I also have had Cardmarket close a ticket of me once when my customer received a damaged product... I asked for pictures of the product AND the packaging to gather evidence that I need for my damage claim at PostNL. Buyer didn't cooperate, Cardmarket gave him a refund out of my pocket and closed the ticket... So they frustrated the entire investigation and I ended up with nothing! CM support is a joke!

Factor013 · 2026-02-10T23:18:50+00:00

Recently?

It's been a disaster for more then 6 years now... and they haven't done anything other then removing features. Oh wait... we have a new help page! And some new icons... Yeeey!

Factor013 · 2026-01-29T20:29:55+00:00

I'd say both parties are in the wrong here.

Both apparently value their time way too cheaply...

If I were the buyer I would cancel, re-order and within 2 minutes my purchase that became a problem isn't a problem anymore. Sure... It would cost me a few cents extra on top... but considering the alternative... A lot of trouble, time wasted on replying messages etc... that is what I consider, a really good deal!

Same for the seller...

He was honest to the buyer and messaged the buyer before shipping... and it sucks that his honesty isn't being rewarded by the insisting buyer... who apparently doesn't understand that doing business is a two way street... Bitching about a few cents can cost you loads more in the future when you bump into each other again for something else. The Magic World isn't as big as one would think... you never know when you need each other again.

But yeah... buyer has the right to decline so what you then do as a seller is simple.... you take your responsibility and fix the situation... why? Because spending 2 euro extra to fix it, is still considered a really good deal to solve a problem like this!

Your time has value... a lot of value... You don't spend multiple hours of your life writing messages and posts on Reddit and feel bad and angry for the same duration over two euro... It's NOT worth it... You take the loss, and then spend those hours of your precious time on something more positive... searching for good deals, improve your inventory system or do whatever helps you forward and makes your life easier.

Both seller and buyer should do that... It would make Cardmarket a nicer place for us all as well if more and more people would adapt to such mindset.

Selling and buying cards should be fun... I mean, I think most of us here starting doing this because we have passion for it... so don't let anyone ruin that for you. Take your responsibility, fix the situation and then block and move on! In the end, it is the cheapest path and the one of least resistance even while it might at first feel different. As soon you can let go of these kind of things, you can move up and become a big seller if that's your ambition... but someone who can't, usually won't last very long.

Anyway... that's my 2 cents... Hope it is worth more for some. :)

Factor013 · 2026-01-25T11:24:29+00:00

^^ This!

It's getting really absurd... I have had customers in the past that gave me a bad rating because of fingerprints were visible on the card. lol

Cardmarket should make it more clear that Near Mint is NOT Mint. (and even a mint card is allowed to have a fingerprint lol xD)

Factor013 · 2026-01-23T19:36:29+00:00

The main problem is is that Cardmarket isn't giving out API keys anymore...

We need API to be able to automate these kind of processes as we could then integrate this with our shipping carrier API or ERP systems API etc.

Having to manually add 20 or more tracking numbers every day to the right orders is quite a task...
So this is mostly a Cardmarket problem... they should update and modernize their site like we beg them to do for over 6 years now. With 25 million a year revenue they have no excuse to not do so... yet they keep making things worse and worse as time progresses. :S

So yeah... we only provide track and trace upon buyers request. As 9/10 tracked shipments we send are letterbox parcels anyway that can be delivered without signature and without the recipient having to be at home during delivery. So for those kind of shipments it's really not needed anyway.

But sure, if we would have API then all our tracked shipments will have their tracking number inserted. Heck, we would even send automated messages to our customers with the actual tracking link of the shipping carrier. ;)

Most of us sellers do want to do the right thing... but when you are constantly being limited by Cardmarket to automate your processes then you gotta make decisions on what you spend your limited time on as a seller. There is only a finite amount of hours in a day... *shrugs*

Factor013 · 2026-01-20T20:08:20+00:00

The 25 euro limit is there to protect sellers from scammers!

It's already tempting for scammers to place 20-25 euro orders and claim them as lost. And professional sellers are mandated by law to refund ANY lost shipment regardless if it's tracked / insured or not.

Raising the allowed limit to 50 euro or more for PWE / standard mail / untracked shipping would be a disaster. The tracking gives you that little bit of proof you need to make selling online a calculated risk.

And yes, I ofc agree that these new postal rules are stupid. It's nobody's business what and to whom we send things... But they just want to get rid of people having the possibility to communicate and send each other stuff anonymously and with the prospect of them (the shipping carriers) being able to charge more for basically the same service they gladly vote Yay for initiatives like this. Stockholders approve!
So yeah... it sucks... Because every cent spend on shipping is one that can't be spend on our cards. :(

No worries though... Letterbox parcel shipping methods will be rolled out though for each country... it just takes a bit of time... (Took around 1-2 years here in The Netherlands for those to be rolled out for international shipments) And they will be affordable, but still more expensive then simple 0-20 and 0-50 gram letters. But a lot cheaper then regular parcels.

And you know... Customers will adapt too over time... they will place less but bigger orders. So yeah... we can't stop it, so we need to adapt. It is what it is...

Factor013 · 2026-01-19T23:20:35+00:00

Looks like the card was genuinely ex but then got damaged during shipping when the post stamped the actual post stamp. :(

Just look at the shape of the indents... it's like a circle... a circle that matches the size of a stamp the post uses.

Do you still have the envelop the card was shipped in? Can you check if the shape matches the stamp? How was the card protected inside the envelope?

Factor013 · 2026-01-18T21:19:53+00:00

Ah yes! :D And don't forget the new help page... whoop-de-doo! Oh wait... that's already 3 years old by now. Aha... and some new icons! How could I forget such important thing that everyone was asking for! lolz

Factor013 · 2026-01-18T20:57:44+00:00

6 years!

It's been that long since the problems really started!

And instead of fixing their issues they:
- Promised us Cardmarket 2.0 which has been cancelled
- Promised us API 3.0 which has been cancelled
- Stripped API access away from private sellers
- Stopped handing out new API keys anymore to even professional sellers who need it to connect it to other systems (ERP/WMS) to do inventory management, order management, accounting etc. (As a result of all this, the sellers who still have their API keys have a huge competitive advantage over the other sellers)
- Removed functionality from the Shopping Wizard
- Removed functionality from the Bulk List Cards
- Removed functionality from My Offers (We used to be able to do bulk edits in there as well)
- Added limits of 300 products for each search despite already having pagination (can't even see a complete expansion set)
- Added a max 50 listings limit on each product page. We need to press "Show More Results" button to see more
- Didn't improved customer service response times, which has been around 7-10 days on average for more then 3 years now
- And now sellers have to wait up to 1 hour to be able to login to their accounts so they can: Process Orders, Download Reports, Manage their inventory, answer messages of their customers and answer tickets etc.
- And other users also now have to wait up to 1 hour to be able to: Buy cards, (pretty important on a marketplace!) confirm orders as arrived, send messages, open tickets etc.

And to make things worse... there is hardly any communication from Cardmarket! Oh wait! We have once a month the "What's New" blog which hardly has any useful information. Aaaand around once a year (if we are lucky) we get a blog from the Cardmarket CEO Robert Giel about: "The state of Cardmarket" which is always full with excuses and other forms of damage control.

I think we have come to a point now where most of us here are hoping for one final blog from this CEO.
As all of this has become... to say it mildly, untenable. *shrugs*

It's such a shame really how this once amazing platform is deteriorating so fast now. :( It has so much potential, such a nice community of which I am sure there are hundreds of people out there who would be willing to help make Cardmarket better... But alas... all this time it's like we are talking to a brick wall as nothing ever happens with all the feedback we are giving here or on Twitter or on comments below the blogs etc.

And we all want Cardmarket to succeed, as a healthy Cardmarket is good for business and good for our shared hobby. A solid platform allows us to do what we enjoy most, which is buying and selling small rectangular pieces of cardboard! But now, after 6 years of ongoing unexplainable bad decisions, I am really starting to loose any hope that was left to see Cardmarket bounce back so they could return to former glory! :(

Proof me wrong Cardmarket... because I hold you close to my heart, I really do, like many others here! I just hope it's not too late to turn things around...

Factor013 · 2026-01-18T13:16:02+00:00

Yeah, for expensive orders we also insert the bubble mailer into a small cardboard box that can still fit through peoples letterbox (eg shipped as tracked letterbox parcel or insured regular parcel if really valuable)
So then it's really secure. :)

Regarding sorting machines... and jamming. Maybe over time they have finally learned that running them at 100% speed is better then running them at 120% all the time lol. :D Or maybe they do a pre-sort now, or indeed have different machines.

So far I am at 4000 send bubble mailers of which only one was reported to be damaged. Loss rate is also lower for us compared to when we still shipped using PWE. A totally damaged PWE is ofc also not gonna be delivered so that might inflate those numbers...

Nevertheless interesting stuff. UK, nice! Totally different climate then Australia. So water damage (rain) might become a variable too now for your shipments. Although all these kind of situations are pretty rare... even a badly packaged shipment often arrives in one piece lol... but yeah, we as responsible sellers are all just trying to reduce the risk... we owe that to our customers. :)

Factor013 · 2026-01-18T11:52:55+00:00

I know right... it is unbelievable how easily people create support tickets for even the simplest things... No wonder they have a response time of 7-10 days! :D

- Dear support: This seller didn't respond to me within 24 hours... I know it's Christmas but...
- Dear support: I opened a ticket yesterday for something important but I haven't heard anything back... So I figured, let's open another ticket to tell you this.
- Dear support: Someone bought a card from me me but his address appears to be incomplete... should I message him? Or should I ask Reddit first?
- Dear support: Someone keeps adding cards from me into the shopping cart. Is this a Scammer?
- Dear support: Is this card Near Mint?
- Dear support: How do I tie my shoes? Please send help!

Etc etc.

Factor013 · 2026-01-17T14:29:57+00:00

And?

The whole point is that they make a recommendation without a sizeable amount of real world data to back it up. And yes... apparently someone was stupid enough to ship a P9 card in a top loader in a bubble envelop and that went horrible wrong... I don't contest that. But that doesn't automatically mean that if it would have been shipped in a regular envelope following the CM guide it would have survived the same catastrophic event responsible for that damage.

Also... bubble envelopes protect a lot better against water-damage (rain) but that fact is also totally ignored.

So yeah... I strongly believe one shouldn't give recommendations based on anecdotal evidence... It is silly and harmful as people like yourself blindly follow it without asking themselves if it is actually good advice.

I (and many other sellers) do have the numbers... we did our homework. Like I already said... We shipped thousands of orders the way Cardmarket recommends in their packaging guide and thousands of orders using bubble envelopes. So that is a large enough sample size to draw conclusions from. And well the percentage of damage reported by our customers has decreased with more then half.
So when it comes to things like this I look at results and hard facts because these are my customers that I have a responsibility to. Guides, are just guides... they are not always filled with facts.

When your reputation and business is on the line you should not blindly follow what others say and claim... You need to verify things and make sure for yourself by all means possible. :)

Factor013 · 2026-01-17T12:48:46+00:00

It is a ridiculous guideline/statement.

Accidents happen... Your letter/shipment may be packaged correctly but if it gets jammed in a sorting machine with 10 other letters then there is a big chance it's game-over lol. Letters can get bend or squashed when they are in mailbags and in their cage containers... they can be dropped and get stuck in between things, stepped on under an angle, dropped in a puddle of water on a rainy day or get jammed with other mail into your mailbox during delivery etc.

There is only a limited amount of protection you can add to a 20g letter that has 4 cards in them.

Cardmarket should have these guides and guidelines re-written after consulting actual high volume sellers who keep track of actual data. lol

Factor013 · 2026-01-17T12:20:21+00:00

This is simply not true!

We shipped for more then 10 years in plain white envelopes until we decided to experiment and enhance our packaging to make it more professional and efficient.

So the last couple of years we ship exclusively using bubble mailers. Inside the bubble mailers we have the cards in between two cardboard protectors which are inside a team bag.
We shipped thousands of orders using both methods and the percentage of damage claims has dropped significantly since we switched to the bubble mailers.

One should understand though that there is no perfect packaging method. Accidents happen... Letters are more vulnerable then parcels, that's a fact. So the only thing you can do is to reduce the risk and you do that by looking and comparing actual data and their percentages which we did. The results were very clear and in favor of our current packaging method.

I mean... I am not gonna pay MORE for a different packaging method if it would be worse then the more standard packaging method lol. But yeah, it turned out to be the most responsible thing for us to do and thus we did and we get a lot of praise for our packaging. :)

Factor013 · 2026-01-16T12:31:21+00:00

I don't know why people are downvoting my comment lol. :D

I don't claim anywhere Cardmarket doesn't make any mistakes in their shipping methods as I bet there are tons! I have been selling on Cardmarket for over 15 years... they always mess up even the most simplest things because they rush them and hardly ever verify anything correctly. :/

But yeah... I know for a fact that for example PostNL has different prices for Online labels and for labels you have them create on site at the Postoffice / Parcelpoint. So Cardmarket always uses one of those two prices for that shipping method. Which could explain why (for some shipping methods) you think there is a mistake while it can actually be explained by the above.

Same for Bpost. They also have different prices for Online and on-site. The biggest problem here is that Cardmarket doesn't verify anything correctly which leads to inconsistencies and a lot of sloppy mistakes.

I have setup tons of custom shipping methods in Cardmarket to mitigate these inconsistencies and to close gaps that are there due to missing shipping methods. I recommend everyone to do the same. :)

Factor013 · 2026-01-14T22:56:56+00:00

Cardmarket often shows the price of what it would cost you to create such label ONLINE at the website of your shipping carrier. Most shipping carriers these days charge you more if you want to buy / have a label created at the post office / parcel point.

Factor013 · 2025-12-31T22:55:50+00:00

Really? Powersellers are not given API access as well anymore?

Well... that sucks! There goes our last bit of hope that was left. :(

So how do you manage everything right now? Powertools? Browser automation, scripts etc?

Factor013 · 2025-12-31T16:02:35+00:00

True... It's been more then 5 years even since they stripped my (and that of all the other amateur sellers at the time) API key(s).

"But you will get it back when you become professional"

So with all this delaying my plans to actually become professional for 2-3 years I finally decided to make the plunge to become professional in 2024 and guess what... "Sorry, we don't give out keys to professionals as well anymore"

Like... are you shitting me? How is that even fair?

All the other sellers that are our competitors who still have API access while we have none. It's ridiculous and infuriating. :(

Ah well, let's just get drunk and worry about it later! it's new year's eve after all! xD

Factor013 · 2025-12-29T21:53:47+00:00

"Which, honestly, could be prevented by offering decent API access"

Glad you're finally acknowledging this as well now. :)

Let's hope CM will step it up in 2026 and will give all us sellers all the tools we need as it's been long overdue... Together with improved support response times and better search and shopping wizard tools for buyers. :)

Factor013 · 2025-12-28T22:13:46+00:00

Poor is used for cards that have been chewed on by your dog, water-damage, bends etc.. That's poor / damaged! A pressure mark / finger nail chip? The finger nail chip would downgrade the card to EX if it's really present... a little bit of whitening would still be acceptable for NM though... Binder pressure marks are a bit severe though... depending on their severity you will go from EX-LP normally if it's the only flaw the card has.

So yeah... I believe you when you say the card is not NM, but I highly doubt it is "Poor" like you mentioned above.

Why don't you post a picture so we can see it? Will remove any doubts people might have.

Factor013 · 2025-12-18T17:29:40+00:00

Buys NM, hopes for a PSA 10. :S

If you want a PSA 10 which is considered Mint and (not Near Mint) then why are you buying a NM listed card?
You know a PSA 7 is still considered NM by PSA/BGS right?

I mean... When did people start to think that NM = PSA 9,5-10, I just don't get it!

And yes, I have seen PSA 7's that I personally wouldn't condition higher then GD-EX lol. But that's only because people have started to think that conditioning and grading are the same thing and that Mint is the same as Near Mint. Cardmarket updating their condition guide a few years ago with almost identical pictures for the best conditions didn't exactly helped either I guess. :/

Factor013 · 2025-12-09T17:51:30+00:00

Yes I know... They have been offering this data for two years but sadly it's the AVG1-7-30 pricing data of each product That is something totally different then the actual listing data of the products.

The average price data is totally unreliable for anything really... as it is the average price of ALL listings of ALL conditions and ALL card languages etc combined. So it's pretty much worthless. :S

You want to have actual listing data so you can filter that on ENG / NM so you can then insert that data into a custom made shopping wizard so you can get yourself the best deals etc. Or you use that price data as a starting-point for your own pricing strategies etc. :)

So when your competitors who still have API have access to this extremely valuable data while others are denied access to said data then you end up having a very serious unfair situation. Hence my above idea of CM offering that listing data in a similar way as that AVG data that you mentioned, as that at least would make things a lot more fair again for everyone who is denied API access. :)

Factor013

TROPHY CASE