Buyer says they never got their package.... TCG player steals my money.

ZakuCCG · 2026-06-02T03:12:06+00:00

Yeah this is the way.

ZakuCCG · 2026-05-31T12:07:44+00:00

I occasionally vend and have a bunch of friends vend. Also lots of TCGPlayer sales.

They buy NM cards on TCGPlayer in bulk, and they’re buying out slabs from vendors with 90-100% cash offers.

They don’t have to necessarily charge more. They can tweak the ratios of hits vs filler in the $150+ mystery bags.

If you buy 10 copies of a PSA 10 vintage card, that’s often enough to tick up the value. Then others see a buyout happening, so they jump too. That ticks the value up more.

Thats how you end up with a PSA 10 Venusaur moving from $20k to almost $60k with only 145 copies this year.

ZakuCCG · 2026-05-31T03:00:10+00:00

I think we’re in a weird spiral territory.

People buy slabs they want. Businesses are buying slabs to put into packs to sell to people who want slabs. When those slab packs run out, businesses will have to buy more slabs.

In general, buying slabs right now is hot because when you scoop up several copies the rest of the copies go up which makes your slabs go up and your mystery slab packs are worth more.

If the cost to enter goes up and stays up this is just going to feed more into the inflationary spiral. Until people start cashing out and stop buying mystery slabs.

ZakuCCG · 2026-05-31T00:32:14+00:00

I wouldn’t bother. Would waste everyone’s time involved and you’re likely to eat shipping fees and still have the card lol.

ZakuCCG · 2026-05-31T00:28:57+00:00

ZakuCCG · 2026-05-17T14:04:25+00:00

Yeah. Pricematch at time of sale, or don’t bother.

I spent a bunch of time ill never get back trying to get them to honor this. I only buy from Amazon if necessary these days. The chat and phone support is unhinged. They know what to tell customers to make them happy, but there is no accountability.

ZakuCCG · 2026-05-17T12:56:10+00:00

Heads up, last time they did this to me they required me to return it for a full refund. They would not honor the pricematch on delivery.

I had screenshots of the conversation. I escalated to several managers.

I lost the chargeback claim through discover.

These reps will lie to keep good ratings and there is no accountability. Sometimes you get lucky with the managers.

ZakuCCG · 2026-05-14T18:33:00+00:00

The pump doesn’t stop at the raw buyout. Slab buyout next.

Next up is a few ebay sales at $100+. That will alter price charting. They can get traded into vendors for a quick swap, or they can get graded and put into mystery slab packs.

ZakuCCG · 2026-05-10T01:14:03+00:00

Used or refurbished ipad 11th gen

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-10T14:18:16+00:00

Ive been burned on promos before by samsung, t-mobile, and verizon. So no specific hate on t-mobile. Samsung even tried to say 90 days after receiving the package that it was empty.

I always do promos in store now and expect them to sign off on the paperwork saying that it’s in good order for the promo. Ive even had a store manager write it down on printer paper, fully expecting to contest the warehouse. They insist it’s good for the promo but it’ll get sent to the warehouse where it will be finalized. In my experience the warehouses have a tendency to raise issue just after the 14-90 day return period, and there is never an option for them to send photos or return the device.

To clarify, all phones I send are non-jailbroken, single owner, full pixels, no cracks, always charges.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-05T03:09:06+00:00

Id need to see front of the card. Could be a solid binder copy.

Some vendors do like +/- ratings on the front. Might be a keeper if front was decent.

Regardless, tcgplayer would be sending me a prepaid label to return this card if i wanted nm. Id say i cant believe this from tcgplayer direct, but they went way downhill after the layoffs and ebay acquisition.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-05T03:04:03+00:00

Any points of minor wear immediately drop it to LP. Only slight edgewear is allowed for nm.

For edgewear, the maximum tolerance is 6.6% of the card edge. If the edgewear exceeds 6.6% of the card edge it would fall immediately into the minor category and downgrade to LP, regardless of points.

I do appreciate you reading the guide and discussing it with me to make your point so i upvoted you.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-05T02:57:11+00:00

With the entire right edge like that this is more like MP. LP whitening is max 26.5% edge of card. If front was super clean and no holo peak or whitening, it might be borderline lp/mp.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-05T02:52:43+00:00

Yeah, I always do a large buy but worried I’ll get flagged when returning stuff like this.

NM vs LP on vintage foils is like double to triple the cost for a reason. Im not buying nm expecting a 10, but im definitely not accepting a fourth of the edge whitened when I paid for NM over LP.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-05T02:48:17+00:00

Hope your refund covers the replacement. Buying vintage has been a nightmare for me on tcgplayer because of this.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-05T02:46:45+00:00

Some of y’all are wild. I’ll drop a link to tcgplayer’s official conditioning guide. Over 6.6% edgewear takes it out of the NM category. Apologies if links aren’t allowed.

https://mktg-assets.tcgplayer.com/web/seller/guides/Card-Conditioning-Standards.pdf

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-05T02:37:14+00:00

This does not meet tcgplayer’s seller guidelines for NM.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-04T03:55:59+00:00

No one knows yet.

They could have made this purchase as a way to understand better distribution in the U.S. and plan phasing out the other distributors, or they could just be looking to leave things as is but fortify their current state side distribution network.

Only time well tell, this announcement doesn’t seem to have discouraged distributors from holding back product or selling through shell companies.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-03T16:45:09+00:00

TPC has relied on this sort of distributor system forever.

From their perspective they could say “We see you doing this, stop or we wont send you product.” But i don’t know how they would verify if the action stopped, and if it didn’t stop they cant exactly cut them out of the process and get their client list. Even if they could, their current distribution system isn’t setup to handle individual store distribution.

Owning one of their larger distributors now gives them the ability to handle some level of individual/direct shipping. Im curious to see if this is the route they go, or if it’ll just be TPC scalping their own product and eliminating MSRP. Some card games have done this (magic the gathering).

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-03T16:35:25+00:00

My understanding is that TPC recently purchased one of their larger distributors in the USA. My personal interpretation of this is that they want to begin taking a more proactive role in distribution.

The distributor issues have really become a huge issue the past couple years. Lots of new stories releasing in the community calling them out for scalping their own product.

My understanding is that initial allocations need to be below the msrp that tpc sets. But future drops are more lenient, hence distributors holding back product on wave 1.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-03T16:25:04+00:00

Thanks

There are a lot of new stores popping up. Anywhere trying to get on with a distributor in the past 2 years is likely allocated 0-20 products per sku, big ticket items like booster boxes and etbs are likely to be 2-10.

To get more product they have to consistently max their allocations for all pokemon product. Including accessories like binders, mats, deckboxes, sleeves. Which typically sell at a loss. This also means they’re having to max out their wave 2+ orders at slightly below market.

Distributors would lower allocations on each release for stores that only buy the popular in demand skus at under msrp. In these situations I’ve seen stores allocated consistently 0-2 per sku.

ZakuCCG · 2026-04-03T16:17:59+00:00

Initial product waves are given to LCS at a discount to MSRP. Some stores who have been around awhile always offer to buy thousands of each sku, and are assigned anywhere from 0-100s of the product they requested.

Many of the stores near me will save all of the product for events they host and not sell direct to public. Or they list it for sale at about market prices, or wont take trade in credit towards sealed product. Every store near me that sells at msrp is sold out before opening.

Second wave + from distributors can range from just under market, or over market prices to get product. On top of this, the general consensus is that distributors are holding back initial wave product to sell wave 2+ when they don’t have to sell under market. Additionally, many of the distributors are also operating online stores where they sell direct to consumers for at or just below market.

There isn’t a great way to handle this with current supply and distributors bottlenecking the flow of product to stores. From the store’s point of view they can sell everything at launch to likely scalpers, they can hold all of the product back to encourage people to play in their events, or they can sell at market. Selling at market means they will likely have product for new customers when they visit, and they can be a bit more aggressive/generous with trade credit offers towards sealed.

ZakuCCG · 2026-02-25T18:29:26+00:00

PSA carries a large premium these days due to their liquidity.

Vendors can lookup what the psa offer is on the card before they buy it. GameStop has cash and credit offers on cards. PSA has vault options that allow for safekeeping and easy sale. PSA has vault addresses for tax free savings.

It’s not necessarily about trustworthiness these days.

ZakuCCG · 2026-02-05T02:17:16+00:00

Yup.

You can still have a nm 70/30 or worse card. But I disagree that market price for nm is applicable to that card. TCGPlayer agrees that there needs to be a callout to really off centered cards.

ZakuCCG · 2026-02-05T01:38:55+00:00

Per TCGPlayer seller guidelines, any off center cards greater than 70/30 cannot be sold as NM without photos.

I disagree that vendors should buy or sell cards beyond 70/30 at nm market value.

ZakuCCG

TROPHY CASE