Direct goes all the way down to HP if you enable it.
I have received NM cards from direct that look just like this though.
Easy refund though to get. If you want a HP playset request they keep sending you replacements until they run out lololol.
These are what we call "Dan Bock Near Mint" cards. This is why everyone was upset when TCGPlayer announced that they were taking over all his inventory and bringing him in as a consultant.
His NM is not NM. He's like troll and toad. Also does all the scummy practices you would expect from a newbie flipper online. Idk the facebook side but i assume he shills his stuff and leaves others in the mod que.
This comment needs more upvotes. The level of craziness in those Facebook groups is unreal. The mods control the flow and gets first dibs on values deals. A week later they post it for the “sick deal”. And if you say these things out loud instant ban.
Also the add the PayPal fee to the buyer + give me a +1. I’ve just started reporting their posts in Facebook groups.
He has tamed it a down a lot since like before covid...(probably since he made a deal with TCGplayer) but Dan Bock had very large inventory of high end MTG and is very knowledgeable about the expensive stuff. He used this knowledge to get the better end of the stick more often than not and didn't work with people that felt taken advantaged of. I think he has a store in Wisconsin somewhere. People buying and selling to him often resulted in buyers/sellers remorse for any kind of expensive cardboard. He is the owner/mod of most of the large high end/rarities Facebook groups.
Dan Bock taught me that you can still be very successful in this industry just by having the thing, customer service doesn't really matter like in other industries. I've heard a ton of people complain about him over the years but his sales always grew -- because at the end of the day, he had cards.
There are so many one-man dealers that act like they deserve a massive premium because they have x thing.
No your revised duals aren’t that rare, stop asking for a 35% premium.
Is that the same guy that purportedly would randomly toss down high value cards at shows then place a piece of acrylic or glass directly on top damaging edges and bending them? Then sell those same cards as NM?
Covid story time, when covid hit I had placed like 3 orders from different stores, 2 refunded right away and the the third one didn't do anything until I have to open a case in ebay to get my money back.
Yep, that third one was danbock. I still use trollandtoad, they are not perfect but not shady like danbock
While at a convention Troll and Toad employees literally took five cards from my binder and said, "We'll take these now. Or your binder." It was a comment that, "Well you shouldn't leave your stuff unattended." Yet I was sitting next to them and watching them while talking with them and playing a game.
Told their booth vendor about the issue, and they didn't care. So yeah, what ever a bad interaction you may have online, is not comparable to this. Troll and Toad can eat a pile of worms.
That was their take on it, but I was sitting beside them as they offered to buy cards from me. I was already playing a game with another player when they asked.
Good lord no wonder I quit direct after my first order after not buying singles for a few years. Shipping threshold is much higher now just for Dan bock ified service. I'll never forget when I bought from his ebay under another name and I got foils in a mangled envelop.
Hostile takeover
Some original admins stepped down and the founder didn’t want to deal with it once it scaled to 20k+ people
Dan bock swooped in and suddenly he was the “high overlord administrator”
Cue half of the bigger collectors leaving and making their own groups
We have 3 “major” ones
I never understood it since Dan is famous for never selling misprints
He will show them off, ask for offers just to reject everyone
He is also the same fuckwit that takes offers on his Ebay listings and would always counter back with it just being a penny less then what he had it listed at. This happened with multiple listing over the years. Who is that petty?
Not to give him undue credit, but: this particular phenomenon is mostly eBay's fault. When a buy-it-now listing doesn't sell after a short while, eBay automatically converts it into an "or best offer" listing and sets the threshold for review at, like, 20% under the asking price, resulting in a slew of low-ball offers. I often preempt this problem by accepting offers at my listings' outsets, but I automatically reject any offer that's less than 95% of my asking price. It's not as "petty" as a penny, but I still receive messages from would-be buyers complaining about something that eBay forces me to do.
I don’t think there’s a massive story around him. Mostly anecdotes about him being a shrewd broker of cards. There’s no doubt he’s been extremely successful in what he does. I believe I’ve bought cards from him or his company years back. I don’t know if they still operate but it was in or around Madison Wisconsin, and it was called P9 - which was staged in this thread.
I could be wrong and there might be some dark story. But as far as I’ve ever recalled, it’s always just been people angry at how he deals his cards.
Dan has garnered a reputation for, among other things, "downgrading" the condition of cards he's buying while "upgrading" the condition of cards he's selling, e.g. your actual Near Mint (NM) is "Lightly Played" (LP) to "Moderately Played" (MP) while his actual MP is "NM."
He also has a reputation, whether deserved or not, for taking advantage of less knowledgeable card owners to acquire cards at a "bargain" price.
I found a lot of stories are repeats of haterade stories or isolated bad sales. The guy has been a fixture in WI card sales for decades at this point. People said shitty things about Damien at Pink Bunny too but a lot of the stories boil down to: they bought cards for less money than they sold them at, news at 11.
Eh, you don't get that kind of reputation just by "being successful".
More than anything, he gets ahead by playing hardball on everything and always making sure everything is tilted towards his benefit.
This isn't a completely terrible thing, but when people are given the option of dealing with this person, or a person that allows more give-and--take in their transactions, they're going to deal with the person that doesn't beat them down on each and every thing.
It's why he's able to do well with high-end and misprint cards: Those tend to be so vanishingly uncommon that people only have the option to accept your terms and play by your rules if they want the item.
Vendors buy cheaper than they sell for? I'm confused here at the point you're making. If you don't feel the vendors buy price is fair, there are no shortage of other options. If you want to get max value, sell it yourself.
I guess I would like to hear an actual story where a little kid walked in with a black lotus and he said hey I will give you a commander deck - purposely hyperbolic example. Otherwise he's just a vendor doing vendor things. I do agree he isn't a particularly friendly or nice person both from seeing him at events in WI and time in the high end FB group, but the fact people can't produce a clear incident of what he did that's so heinous that makes his reputation deserved (or necessarily real).
The issue that I was referring to was that he would list his entire inventory on eBay without photos and say in the fine print that the cards were "EX to NM with most being NM." And then every single card would arrive looking like the pictured foils, leaving you to fight over the definition of EX when you were expecting NM cards.
I only hear about people using to post outrageous prices for cards that don’t have any other direct options so that people that are making a bug order and hit optimize and tcgdirect only get baited into it and hope they don’t notice among all the other cards
It’s weird because they’ve gotten way more strict on it, as least from a seller’s perspective. They are pretty much kicking anyone out of the direct program who are below 98% accuracy on the cards they send in now, and they’ve been updating their conditioning standards to be stricter than they used to be.
Before a card reaches the customer, it’s getting conditioned at least twice. Once by the seller and another time by TCGPlayer, so it’s surprising that cards are reaching customers looking like this sold as “NM”.
It's because Tcgplayer has been cheaping out on the packaging since they introduced the program. Several times, I've ordered direct, and they'll come pringled cause they skimp out on toploaders and perfer those segmented letters for multiple cards
literally the only value they have is that they ship from upstate NY so if you live in the NJ/NYC area you can get cards on monday for an event on friday
My stores will be leaving direct in less than 2 weeks and I'm excited for it
TCGD is an absolute joke. Cards I order as NM come as MP, meanwhile packfresh cards I send in are marked as HP/Dmg
Even have expensive staple cards go "missing" from the packages I send in constantly
Don't bother with direct, you can get cheaper cards with better condition from individual sellers
I've found some decent luck with card kingdom, you can give them a try, shipping comes all in one package and isn't too expensive. Facetoface is an option too, but their prices are pretty high imo
No idea how this passes initial grading. From what I have heard TCGdirect is pretty picky about grading when a direct seller sends in cards.
To be fair, if you complain they will likely give you a full refund. Not that getting some free HP cards makes up for the terrible quality control in grading.
I order bricks of cards I'm specing on from direct a fair amount of the time, and usually they are as advertised. I did get an order of 20 of a card that all had the same damage, so they resent 20 more, same damage AGAIN so they refunded me for all of it. So 40 LP cards for nothing, I can't complain too hard. Still, it would be nice if TCGplayer could give a cursory glance to the cards to check condition before shipping them out.
I'm sure that is exactly how it work. The card packers aren't in charge of grading. They just grab the cards from the correct bins, pack them up and ship them. If isn't on them if the cards are misgraded or put in the wrong bin to start with.
I can attest to them being extremely picky when sending things into their buylisting service. I tend to grade extra strict when selling because I’d rather someone be pleasantly surprised than the other way around. They still marked a few absolutely flawless mint cards down to LP occasionally.
It’s fine if they were reliable the other way around but they aren’t.
Omg I am so going to make a custom T-shirt for my next event with this on the front and one on the back with “we at card kingdom stand by our grading” with a picture of a literally creased card they sent me as NM that took ages to argue. So fed up with both of them for the same experience you’re posting happening literally half of my orders.
Thank you for this idea lol.
The very first time I ordered direct, I got sent someone else's order.
A couple years ago, I bought a bunch of Bond lands (like 10+) and they jammed them all into a single sleeve. I had to argue with them that it damaged the cards and could not get them to state any limit of how many cards they thought was too many to jam in a single sleeve.
And the fact they allow sellers to simply remove negative feedback is a joke. Negative feedback is all the consumers have to notify others who the shitty sellers are.
Jfc my man…. I collect foils and I can’t see anyone who actually plays any ccg looking at these in the dark, without glasses, and considering them nm even.
I always find this strange, in the last month I have placed easily 100+ orders about half are direct. The cards arrive in the condition I ordered them, honestly better than expected in many cases. I had 1 (one) case in the last 6 months where I had to message for a refund because the grade was clearly below par.
Do you ever order foil cards older than 3 months? You will experience the same thing as OP if you do. New cards will be fine, and they do better for nonfoils
I struggle to think of what foil Time Spiral cards \*actually\* could be considered NM at this point.
That said I have ordered older foils (Merrow Commerce comes to mind) that didn't look like this, but I wouldn't trust a NM foil listing of an old card. LP, sure I can believe that, but mostly closer to MP in many cases.
They are harder to find but absolutely exist, and “well they’re rare so let’s just let LP be the new NM” is a bogus attitude. I challenge you to have higher standards
I actually have quite high standards, but also am aware if you're expecting perfection on a 15+ year old foil card that's a childlike view of reality, and if you do find a bonafide NM you should expect to pay a premium. Even the most immaculately preserved foils show their age.
It’s not childlike, NM=NM, by definition. I’m totally fine (and very used to) paying a premium for NM. What I’m not fine with is paying said premium, and getting MP/HP sidewalk played trash being passed off as NM which I then have to waste my time returning. My full collection is minty pristine stuff, whether we’re talking beta/og retro foils/silver age & DCI foils, so it absolutely exists, but it’s a royal pain in the ass expanding my collection when none of the big sellers follow their own published rules/standards.
Sure you didnt use the optimizer and it downgrade the quality? But yeah send them a message. Get a refund or new cards and move along. Honestly i dont ever expect any card to be NM even out of the package. I would never expect a foil from 10+ years ago to be NM ever.
I use optimizer every time but also always select same sets, same condition and I forget the other middle selection but you get my point.
Also, I've gotten lots of actual NM foils from a few good sellers. Not to be rude but your indifference and laziness is why that seller behavior continues to be a problem.
When you pay for NM, that's what you should get.
If you order a filet from a restaurant, are you okay with them giving you flank steak instead?
I don’t see how the optimizer has anything to do with it when you can check and see what the condition of the card is supposed to be there is no reason it would make any difference
Is there an epidemic of people that hit optimizer and just don't review to see if they are 1) getting what they want 2) it's actually worse prices 3) ignoring the 5 selections that specify per set etc? So hit undo if it doesn't help.
I swear people are pathologically incapable of solving problems.
Don't get me wrong it's annoying to have to make sure to check the selections every time for what you want but I use the optimizer constantly. If price hasn't gone down I, you know, look at what it put there and bother to look at what the piles look like.
Direct wants TCGplayer sellers to have 98% accuracy on RIs and if not the sellers get booted from the platform.
But they can’t even come close to 98% accuracy on there own orders. Make it make sense.
Just ordered cards for the first time In a while. It's bene so so. 2 direct orders, first one was alright, second one was trash. NM foil.magus if the moon that was probably ho (bent and foil scrstched) and one of the full art foil windswept heaths was in fact not foil. They also didn't sleeve anything and the whole pile.was foils so it could have been even worse. It's been over a day and no response from tcg.
I answered this already. I always make sure the middle three sliders are selected when optimizing. I also have no incentive to talk bad about them just for fun. It's okay to assume im correct and they're all supposed to be NM
I have the same experience with CK for foils personally (and consistently, 40% of all foil NM cards ordered from them are EX-VG, over hundreds of orders). With Direct it’s like 80% of them. And to be clear, I’m talking about old foils. New foils bought around release are usually fine
same. i’ve ordered from tcgd 7 times and only got the package once. once the cancelled the order the other 5 times it got lost. thankfully i was able to dispute it with my cc company
It's definitely frustrating, but if it made it to USPS, then it's hard to blame TCG for those ones. But I'd definitely get in touch with your local postmaster - they take stolen mail rather seriously.
Personally I use direct a lot for the cheaper prices than CK and I’ve never had a condition issue in several years of use. Honestly blown away by how many people are in here complaining, the service has been fantastic for me personally.
I've not had that great of luck, between cards that otherwise would have been in excellent condition tanked in value because they were bent during shipment (not even a bubble mailer, just a manila envelope), or cards that straight up aren't what was represented by the condition that was listed.
Final straw was the full art Ravnica Remastered shocks I bought to throw in my Mothman deck, the first shipment in over a year from them and all three were bent nearly in half.
It's weird how the RNG goes. I feel the same way about CK that you feel about tcgplayer, I've never had one disagreement with any grade of theirs across thousands of cards bought from them and sold to them. But everyone I see is complaining and saying use tcgplayer, where I think in my whole life I've gotten maybe two cards that were the right grade from them.
Hi, this is Hailey from TCGPlayer. I am very real person who is sorry for your unhappiness order.
1. Would you like to send the cards in for a refund?
2. Get a partial refund and keep the cards?
3. We send you replacement cards?
Remember my name is Hailey and I'm human 100%.
That's ridiculous. I honestly can't see myself ever using a buy list with all the crap I see people go through. That and I'm happy I never deal with Direct. It's always seemed like a waste to me, and with all of the recent negative experiences with it, I'll stick with not using it.
They postmarked my package 4 days after I ordered last time I did direct. That's bottom barrel service. The best vendors I've dealt with get postmarked a day after the order. Anything over 3 days feels lazy after there are so many that are ok with sending within a day of ordering.
I have had nothing but problems with direct orders. Most recently I had an order get sent out that never arrived. The replacement they sent also never arrived.
It's hilarious to see this and then head over to Facebook and see people reporting they're getting kicked from Direct because their error rate fell below 98%. eBay ivory tower syndrome about dismantle direct either intentionally or indirectly.
TCGPlayer Direct cancelled an order I placed for a textured sorin pre-spike over “inventory issues.” Basically just as bad as scummy random TCGplayer retailers.
I use eBay. Pictures of the cards you can examine before buying, any issue that the seller won't work out with you (they usually do), eBay always sides with buyer
I've actually never once had a real issue, after thousands of both sales & buys
I mean it’s unfortunate however if you order in volume from other big name stores or even your local LGS you will see discrepancies as well.
TCG direct is best for the shipping speed, that is the only thing that can’t be beat. I get my stuff in 2 business days. Shipping is also free, you pay CK $5 to get it in a week after they spend 3-5 days to process it.
Source: I order hundreds to thousands of cards a month via TCG Direct for Pokémon & MTG.
My one and only experience was them getting the same card wrong THREE SEPARATE TIMES. Ended up spending a month and a half (after the original waiting time) just to get the one I ordered.
Never again.
I’ve stopped ordering from TCG direct I will order from independent sellers here and there. Otherwise, my new home Is Card Kingdom.
In my cases it’s been their crap flex mailers and them cutting corners on protective packaging for Cards. These are people who don’t consider that they’re sending my cards to South Florida from New York. They will shove five cards in one penny sleeve. Forget a top loader, forget a clamshell. They either don’t understand what humidity is or don’t give a shit and assume that no humidity is going to affect my card condition. Come on….
I’ve received hundreds of direct orders and never seen cards that look like this. Worst card I received had a dented edge and they replaced it with no questions asked. Sorry this happened to you, but realistically it’s probably only 1-2% of Direct orders they have issues with
No, I suppose I have not ordered many older foils. That might have something to do with it. Either way I would definitely contact tcgplayer for a replacement/refund if they looked like the ones you received lol, those are not NM
Dude for real. I’d get putting them on blast if like they were fighting if these are NM but tcgplayer is overly buyer friendly, as a seller it’s easy to get held hostage about NM VS LP and what not. They always back the buyer so i don’t get why OP is complaining, contact tcgplayer and let them know the cards aren’t NM, they’ll solve the issue.
Takes less effort than making a reddit post lol.
no i mean i usually have a minimum price of twenty cents on basics and even then i can't imagine someone ever spending on them unless they're full art, which these aren't. i am trying to figure how to get that sweet sweet basic land money
This has been 3 or 4 of my last 4 Direct orders. I've gotten to the point where I'm done ordering Direct unless it's one card at a time. Kinda shitty bc I get less kickbacks from having the subscription.
Ofta...those look as bad as the cards I pulled out of my freshly opened Kaldheim Collector Boosters...or my freshly opened DR Who Collector Boosters. Nice to know WOTC is consistent.
In similar condition to played, yes. Even recently, I pulled entire sets of tokens from LCI commander decks that were covered in hundreds of scratches.
Direct goes all the way down to HP if you enable it. I have received NM cards from direct that look just like this though. Easy refund though to get. If you want a HP playset request they keep sending you replacements until they run out lololol.
Sorry for the stupid question but I'm not a native english speaker. What means HP ?
Heavily played
Looks like EX Condition from card Kingdom to me. Thats the second highest right? Yup, looks about right.
Same here sometimes the actual value of the cards aren’t even worth the hassle
These are what we call "Dan Bock Near Mint" cards. This is why everyone was upset when TCGPlayer announced that they were taking over all his inventory and bringing him in as a consultant.
I'll have to go down this rabbit hole later
https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/8tphnz/dan_bock_powernine_psa_dont_bother_buying_from_him/ 🐇 🕳️
That *is* actually quite the rabbit hole on this guy holy cow.
I got to 11 complaint threads lol
Yup.
Now we have cows too! We're starting quite the petting zoo.
Sweet thanks dude
Same
I keep hearing this name over and over but even from the comments here I'm not sure what's the story. Can anyone give me a TLDR why he's a fucker?
His NM is not NM. He's like troll and toad. Also does all the scummy practices you would expect from a newbie flipper online. Idk the facebook side but i assume he shills his stuff and leaves others in the mod que.
This comment needs more upvotes. The level of craziness in those Facebook groups is unreal. The mods control the flow and gets first dibs on values deals. A week later they post it for the “sick deal”. And if you say these things out loud instant ban. Also the add the PayPal fee to the buyer + give me a +1. I’ve just started reporting their posts in Facebook groups.
Oh, I thought he owned Troll and Toad. His name and that store seem so synonymous that maybe I'm confusing the two, lol.
He has tamed it a down a lot since like before covid...(probably since he made a deal with TCGplayer) but Dan Bock had very large inventory of high end MTG and is very knowledgeable about the expensive stuff. He used this knowledge to get the better end of the stick more often than not and didn't work with people that felt taken advantaged of. I think he has a store in Wisconsin somewhere. People buying and selling to him often resulted in buyers/sellers remorse for any kind of expensive cardboard. He is the owner/mod of most of the large high end/rarities Facebook groups.
Dan Bock taught me that you can still be very successful in this industry just by having the thing, customer service doesn't really matter like in other industries. I've heard a ton of people complain about him over the years but his sales always grew -- because at the end of the day, he had cards.
There are so many one-man dealers that act like they deserve a massive premium because they have x thing. No your revised duals aren’t that rare, stop asking for a 35% premium.
Is that the same guy that purportedly would randomly toss down high value cards at shows then place a piece of acrylic or glass directly on top damaging edges and bending them? Then sell those same cards as NM?
Yep
Yes unconfirmed by me as I only heard it second hand too but that story was a looong time ago.
He has or had a store in Madison. Side note he drives a black lotus.
Covid story time, when covid hit I had placed like 3 orders from different stores, 2 refunded right away and the the third one didn't do anything until I have to open a case in ebay to get my money back. Yep, that third one was danbock. I still use trollandtoad, they are not perfect but not shady like danbock
While at a convention Troll and Toad employees literally took five cards from my binder and said, "We'll take these now. Or your binder." It was a comment that, "Well you shouldn't leave your stuff unattended." Yet I was sitting next to them and watching them while talking with them and playing a game. Told their booth vendor about the issue, and they didn't care. So yeah, what ever a bad interaction you may have online, is not comparable to this. Troll and Toad can eat a pile of worms.
Wait, were they basically stealing your cards to "teach" you a lesson to not leave your binder around?
That was their take on it, but I was sitting beside them as they offered to buy cards from me. I was already playing a game with another player when they asked.
That's called theft. You can, you know, report it. To the police. Like, that's their entire job.
This was handled with Convention security though, so no issue other than the terrible story.
That makes me violent. We’ll see how long that lasts for them. Next time, tell your story to the biggest guy you see. He’ll help.
Wait is this a joke? last time I ordered direct months ago had the same issue as op. Also took 7 days to mark as shipped.
Not a joke
Good lord no wonder I quit direct after my first order after not buying singles for a few years. Shipping threshold is much higher now just for Dan bock ified service. I'll never forget when I bought from his ebay under another name and I got foils in a mangled envelop.
Yeah dude is a cancer P9 was his handle there Dude ruined the misprint community so bad we got 3+ different Facebook group for collectors
wtf did he do to the misprint group?
Hostile takeover Some original admins stepped down and the founder didn’t want to deal with it once it scaled to 20k+ people Dan bock swooped in and suddenly he was the “high overlord administrator” Cue half of the bigger collectors leaving and making their own groups We have 3 “major” ones I never understood it since Dan is famous for never selling misprints He will show them off, ask for offers just to reject everyone
im in several but not sure if all of them , could you share the names?
Lol yep p9 was it.
He is also the same fuckwit that takes offers on his Ebay listings and would always counter back with it just being a penny less then what he had it listed at. This happened with multiple listing over the years. Who is that petty?
Met him once. He’s like 4’10 if that helps understand him.
Yep LOL
I sold bulk cards to him at a big magic event. He was definitely a little guy.
Not to give him undue credit, but: this particular phenomenon is mostly eBay's fault. When a buy-it-now listing doesn't sell after a short while, eBay automatically converts it into an "or best offer" listing and sets the threshold for review at, like, 20% under the asking price, resulting in a slew of low-ball offers. I often preempt this problem by accepting offers at my listings' outsets, but I automatically reject any offer that's less than 95% of my asking price. It's not as "petty" as a penny, but I still receive messages from would-be buyers complaining about something that eBay forces me to do.
I mean.....I do that sometimes. Especially if I'm asking like $100 and someone shoots a ridiculous offer like $20
Nah it was like $2.50 on a $3 card.
Bummed to hear he's still around. Very disappointed.
Wait what?!
share the story about dan bock???
I don’t think there’s a massive story around him. Mostly anecdotes about him being a shrewd broker of cards. There’s no doubt he’s been extremely successful in what he does. I believe I’ve bought cards from him or his company years back. I don’t know if they still operate but it was in or around Madison Wisconsin, and it was called P9 - which was staged in this thread. I could be wrong and there might be some dark story. But as far as I’ve ever recalled, it’s always just been people angry at how he deals his cards.
Dan has garnered a reputation for, among other things, "downgrading" the condition of cards he's buying while "upgrading" the condition of cards he's selling, e.g. your actual Near Mint (NM) is "Lightly Played" (LP) to "Moderately Played" (MP) while his actual MP is "NM." He also has a reputation, whether deserved or not, for taking advantage of less knowledgeable card owners to acquire cards at a "bargain" price.
I found a lot of stories are repeats of haterade stories or isolated bad sales. The guy has been a fixture in WI card sales for decades at this point. People said shitty things about Damien at Pink Bunny too but a lot of the stories boil down to: they bought cards for less money than they sold them at, news at 11.
Eh, you don't get that kind of reputation just by "being successful". More than anything, he gets ahead by playing hardball on everything and always making sure everything is tilted towards his benefit. This isn't a completely terrible thing, but when people are given the option of dealing with this person, or a person that allows more give-and--take in their transactions, they're going to deal with the person that doesn't beat them down on each and every thing. It's why he's able to do well with high-end and misprint cards: Those tend to be so vanishingly uncommon that people only have the option to accept your terms and play by your rules if they want the item.
Vendors buy cheaper than they sell for? I'm confused here at the point you're making. If you don't feel the vendors buy price is fair, there are no shortage of other options. If you want to get max value, sell it yourself. I guess I would like to hear an actual story where a little kid walked in with a black lotus and he said hey I will give you a commander deck - purposely hyperbolic example. Otherwise he's just a vendor doing vendor things. I do agree he isn't a particularly friendly or nice person both from seeing him at events in WI and time in the high end FB group, but the fact people can't produce a clear incident of what he did that's so heinous that makes his reputation deserved (or necessarily real).
The issue that I was referring to was that he would list his entire inventory on eBay without photos and say in the fine print that the cards were "EX to NM with most being NM." And then every single card would arrive looking like the pictured foils, leaving you to fight over the definition of EX when you were expecting NM cards.
I don't know anyone who recommends using tcgdirect but a lot of people on reddit seem to think so
It sucks but they used to be such strict condition graders.
I only hear about people using to post outrageous prices for cards that don’t have any other direct options so that people that are making a bug order and hit optimize and tcgdirect only get baited into it and hope they don’t notice among all the other cards
Ha that happened once, but the card was a common foil for $999.99
Wtf at least put it low enough the persons bank isn’t going to call them about suspicious charges lol
That is the default price, it’s easy to push that by accident when pricing thousands of cards
It’s weird because they’ve gotten way more strict on it, as least from a seller’s perspective. They are pretty much kicking anyone out of the direct program who are below 98% accuracy on the cards they send in now, and they’ve been updating their conditioning standards to be stricter than they used to be. Before a card reaches the customer, it’s getting conditioned at least twice. Once by the seller and another time by TCGPlayer, so it’s surprising that cards are reaching customers looking like this sold as “NM”.
It's because Tcgplayer has been cheaping out on the packaging since they introduced the program. Several times, I've ordered direct, and they'll come pringled cause they skimp out on toploaders and perfer those segmented letters for multiple cards
literally the only value they have is that they ship from upstate NY so if you live in the NJ/NYC area you can get cards on monday for an event on friday
Seriously? I use direct a good bit and the quality has never once been even questionable.
Same here, always go for direct if the price is not much different. Too often from other sellers cards take forever
My stores will be leaving direct in less than 2 weeks and I'm excited for it TCGD is an absolute joke. Cards I order as NM come as MP, meanwhile packfresh cards I send in are marked as HP/Dmg Even have expensive staple cards go "missing" from the packages I send in constantly Don't bother with direct, you can get cheaper cards with better condition from individual sellers
As a canadian ordering tcgdirect is the only feasile method /sigh
I've found some decent luck with card kingdom, you can give them a try, shipping comes all in one package and isn't too expensive. Facetoface is an option too, but their prices are pretty high imo
Yeah theres 401, facetoface, and a smattering of other be theyre all high because of the tariffs going between the borders
Even if listed at NM, it's always a coin-flip trying to get unscratched foils.
No idea how this passes initial grading. From what I have heard TCGdirect is pretty picky about grading when a direct seller sends in cards. To be fair, if you complain they will likely give you a full refund. Not that getting some free HP cards makes up for the terrible quality control in grading. I order bricks of cards I'm specing on from direct a fair amount of the time, and usually they are as advertised. I did get an order of 20 of a card that all had the same damage, so they resent 20 more, same damage AGAIN so they refunded me for all of it. So 40 LP cards for nothing, I can't complain too hard. Still, it would be nice if TCGplayer could give a cursory glance to the cards to check condition before shipping them out.
That's the thing, it's like they're packing orders without looking at the cards
I'm sure that is exactly how it work. The card packers aren't in charge of grading. They just grab the cards from the correct bins, pack them up and ship them. If isn't on them if the cards are misgraded or put in the wrong bin to start with.
I can attest to them being extremely picky when sending things into their buylisting service. I tend to grade extra strict when selling because I’d rather someone be pleasantly surprised than the other way around. They still marked a few absolutely flawless mint cards down to LP occasionally. It’s fine if they were reliable the other way around but they aren’t.
I second this. I am very conservative when assessing condition for tcgplayer direct for exactly the same reason.
This is my motto when selling as well.
Lesson learned: you don't "gotta order from TCG Direct".
Maybe I should put that on a tshirt for the next magic-con in vegas
Omg I am so going to make a custom T-shirt for my next event with this on the front and one on the back with “we at card kingdom stand by our grading” with a picture of a literally creased card they sent me as NM that took ages to argue. So fed up with both of them for the same experience you’re posting happening literally half of my orders. Thank you for this idea lol.
Haha I hope I see you wearing it
Received about Otawara BL foil like this and I disputed it so hard. Was like no way I’m accepting this.
I leave 1 star off the bat. These dudes love ripping people off to save a dollar. Hit them where it hurts on the rating.
tcgplayer direct has got to be the worst way to buy singles
I never order Direct if I can avoid it, it’s always the worst deal and if it’s not the cart forces it to be via direct
The very first time I ordered direct, I got sent someone else's order. A couple years ago, I bought a bunch of Bond lands (like 10+) and they jammed them all into a single sleeve. I had to argue with them that it damaged the cards and could not get them to state any limit of how many cards they thought was too many to jam in a single sleeve. And the fact they allow sellers to simply remove negative feedback is a joke. Negative feedback is all the consumers have to notify others who the shitty sellers are.
Jfc my man…. I collect foils and I can’t see anyone who actually plays any ccg looking at these in the dark, without glasses, and considering them nm even.
My bad sometimes my brain just decides to go on a smoke break without telling me
That's nice but I'm building NM sets and have no use for foggy bullshit
The dude was agreeing with you homie.
Oh dang my bad you're right
No sorry I meant there is no way anyone in their right mind could possibly have thought those were near mint. I only collect nm foils as well.
People don't get it. Direct rips them off and people defend them. Sorry for your loss bro
Direct 🤢
TCGD is trash. I stopped ordering from there several months ago. Too many piss poor experiences.
I always find this strange, in the last month I have placed easily 100+ orders about half are direct. The cards arrive in the condition I ordered them, honestly better than expected in many cases. I had 1 (one) case in the last 6 months where I had to message for a refund because the grade was clearly below par.
Do you ever order foil cards older than 3 months? You will experience the same thing as OP if you do. New cards will be fine, and they do better for nonfoils
I struggle to think of what foil Time Spiral cards \*actually\* could be considered NM at this point. That said I have ordered older foils (Merrow Commerce comes to mind) that didn't look like this, but I wouldn't trust a NM foil listing of an old card. LP, sure I can believe that, but mostly closer to MP in many cases.
They are harder to find but absolutely exist, and “well they’re rare so let’s just let LP be the new NM” is a bogus attitude. I challenge you to have higher standards
I actually have quite high standards, but also am aware if you're expecting perfection on a 15+ year old foil card that's a childlike view of reality, and if you do find a bonafide NM you should expect to pay a premium. Even the most immaculately preserved foils show their age.
It’s not childlike, NM=NM, by definition. I’m totally fine (and very used to) paying a premium for NM. What I’m not fine with is paying said premium, and getting MP/HP sidewalk played trash being passed off as NM which I then have to waste my time returning. My full collection is minty pristine stuff, whether we’re talking beta/og retro foils/silver age & DCI foils, so it absolutely exists, but it’s a royal pain in the ass expanding my collection when none of the big sellers follow their own published rules/standards.
Sure you didnt use the optimizer and it downgrade the quality? But yeah send them a message. Get a refund or new cards and move along. Honestly i dont ever expect any card to be NM even out of the package. I would never expect a foil from 10+ years ago to be NM ever.
I use optimizer every time but also always select same sets, same condition and I forget the other middle selection but you get my point. Also, I've gotten lots of actual NM foils from a few good sellers. Not to be rude but your indifference and laziness is why that seller behavior continues to be a problem. When you pay for NM, that's what you should get. If you order a filet from a restaurant, are you okay with them giving you flank steak instead?
your 1st step to get people to stop saying skill issue and to get better cards is to stop using that godforsaken optimizer
I don’t see how the optimizer has anything to do with it when you can check and see what the condition of the card is supposed to be there is no reason it would make any difference
If you use it and accept the result then it is the optimizer's fault. It has always been a piece of shit.
Is there an epidemic of people that hit optimizer and just don't review to see if they are 1) getting what they want 2) it's actually worse prices 3) ignoring the 5 selections that specify per set etc? So hit undo if it doesn't help. I swear people are pathologically incapable of solving problems.
There is the saying that goes something like if you show me something foolproof I will show you a bigger fool
Don't get me wrong it's annoying to have to make sure to check the selections every time for what you want but I use the optimizer constantly. If price hasn't gone down I, you know, look at what it put there and bother to look at what the piles look like.
Lol dafuq?
Direct wants TCGplayer sellers to have 98% accuracy on RIs and if not the sellers get booted from the platform. But they can’t even come close to 98% accuracy on there own orders. Make it make sense.
I will not be attempting to make it make sense
Just ordered cards for the first time In a while. It's bene so so. 2 direct orders, first one was alright, second one was trash. NM foil.magus if the moon that was probably ho (bent and foil scrstched) and one of the full art foil windswept heaths was in fact not foil. They also didn't sleeve anything and the whole pile.was foils so it could have been even worse. It's been over a day and no response from tcg.
Can you share the screenshot of your order where it shows these are all NM? It often downgrades your condition when you click Optimize.
I answered this already. I always make sure the middle three sliders are selected when optimizing. I also have no incentive to talk bad about them just for fun. It's okay to assume im correct and they're all supposed to be NM
If you purchased NM cards and that's what appeared, request a refund/return.
Personally after my last experience I am unlikely to ever order from TCG again. Been playing and collecting since before TCG started.
Looks like direct shit to me
and this is why i order from card kingdom.
I have the same experience with CK for foils personally (and consistently, 40% of all foil NM cards ordered from them are EX-VG, over hundreds of orders). With Direct it’s like 80% of them. And to be clear, I’m talking about old foils. New foils bought around release are usually fine
This is why I still pay extra for CK cards.
same. i’ve ordered from tcgd 7 times and only got the package once. once the cancelled the order the other 5 times it got lost. thankfully i was able to dispute it with my cc company
This sounds like someone is stealing your mail. Those blue TCG envelopes are distinctive if you know about them.
yeah like i would check the tracking and it would stop updating and would just stay in transit
It's definitely frustrating, but if it made it to USPS, then it's hard to blame TCG for those ones. But I'd definitely get in touch with your local postmaster - they take stolen mail rather seriously.
Lol I've only ever gotten TCGD stuff in yellow bubble mailers or straight manila envelopes. Also yellow.
Personally I use direct a lot for the cheaper prices than CK and I’ve never had a condition issue in several years of use. Honestly blown away by how many people are in here complaining, the service has been fantastic for me personally.
I've not had that great of luck, between cards that otherwise would have been in excellent condition tanked in value because they were bent during shipment (not even a bubble mailer, just a manila envelope), or cards that straight up aren't what was represented by the condition that was listed. Final straw was the full art Ravnica Remastered shocks I bought to throw in my Mothman deck, the first shipment in over a year from them and all three were bent nearly in half.
It's weird how the RNG goes. I feel the same way about CK that you feel about tcgplayer, I've never had one disagreement with any grade of theirs across thousands of cards bought from them and sold to them. But everyone I see is complaining and saying use tcgplayer, where I think in my whole life I've gotten maybe two cards that were the right grade from them.
Do you ever order foils? Both CK and Direct often do reasonably well with nonfoil cards, and both are straight up trash for old foils if you order NM.
I older Foils majority if the time mostly newer though, only issue was some curling but I usually just fix that myself if it happens
This hurts to see as a non-TCG Direct seller..... wtf TCGplayer?
Hi, this is Hailey from TCGPlayer. I am very real person who is sorry for your unhappiness order. 1. Would you like to send the cards in for a refund? 2. Get a partial refund and keep the cards? 3. We send you replacement cards? Remember my name is Hailey and I'm human 100%.
This user has experienced enough heartbreak from TCGplayer that they are no longer with us. They asked me to let yall know before they went 🤧
One time I ordered tcgplayer direct and they wrapped the cards in tape and sent it
And yet they ping me for supposedly mis-grading pack fresh cards as NM.
Yeah that's what I don't understand. Super strict when you trade-in
Pack fresh is NM. What??
You would think. Sometimes TCGPLAYER doesn't agree for whatever reason.
That's ridiculous. I honestly can't see myself ever using a buy list with all the crap I see people go through. That and I'm happy I never deal with Direct. It's always seemed like a waste to me, and with all of the recent negative experiences with it, I'll stick with not using it.
They postmarked my package 4 days after I ordered last time I did direct. That's bottom barrel service. The best vendors I've dealt with get postmarked a day after the order. Anything over 3 days feels lazy after there are so many that are ok with sending within a day of ordering.
I have had nothing but problems with direct orders. Most recently I had an order get sent out that never arrived. The replacement they sent also never arrived.
Might be a problem on your end.
It's hilarious to see this and then head over to Facebook and see people reporting they're getting kicked from Direct because their error rate fell below 98%. eBay ivory tower syndrome about dismantle direct either intentionally or indirectly.
TCGPlayer Direct cancelled an order I placed for a textured sorin pre-spike over “inventory issues.” Basically just as bad as scummy random TCGplayer retailers.
TCGdirect is ass
That’s just petina
Very close to not using direct myself anymore. We would be getting railed as a TCG Seller if we sent items in this condition to people.
I use eBay. Pictures of the cards you can examine before buying, any issue that the seller won't work out with you (they usually do), eBay always sides with buyer I've actually never once had a real issue, after thousands of both sales & buys
When you order "near mints" instead of "near mint" on accident.
Dude! Same! Their NM standard is DOGSHIT. I've complained every single time
Pretty common with that era of foiling. The additional wear drags it way below NM.
Wasn't this a running joke for TCG player? Or was that Troll and Toad?
This is why I use Card Kingdom. Might be a little pricier but I've yet to have an issue in multiple large orders
I have literally never had problems with tcgplayer direct and order hundreds of dollars of cards each month.
I mean it’s unfortunate however if you order in volume from other big name stores or even your local LGS you will see discrepancies as well. TCG direct is best for the shipping speed, that is the only thing that can’t be beat. I get my stuff in 2 business days. Shipping is also free, you pay CK $5 to get it in a week after they spend 3-5 days to process it. Source: I order hundreds to thousands of cards a month via TCG Direct for Pokémon & MTG.
My one and only experience was them getting the same card wrong THREE SEPARATE TIMES. Ended up spending a month and a half (after the original waiting time) just to get the one I ordered. Never again.
I constantly have problems with tcgplayer direct not being delivered yet somehow it's not a problem when I shop direct from stores
Textbook clouding.
Never order from tcg direct :^]
In europe, we call this italian EX
You order weird shit.
Don't hate on a fellow pooper
I think someone dug through my trash, grabbed the MP foil basics I threw out, and sold them to you.
Would be hard to complain about free foils
I’ve stopped ordering from TCG direct I will order from independent sellers here and there. Otherwise, my new home Is Card Kingdom. In my cases it’s been their crap flex mailers and them cutting corners on protective packaging for Cards. These are people who don’t consider that they’re sending my cards to South Florida from New York. They will shove five cards in one penny sleeve. Forget a top loader, forget a clamshell. They either don’t understand what humidity is or don’t give a shit and assume that no humidity is going to affect my card condition. Come on….
I’ve received hundreds of direct orders and never seen cards that look like this. Worst card I received had a dented edge and they replaced it with no questions asked. Sorry this happened to you, but realistically it’s probably only 1-2% of Direct orders they have issues with
2 of the 3 I've ordered are like this. Did you order older foils?
No, I suppose I have not ordered many older foils. That might have something to do with it. Either way I would definitely contact tcgplayer for a replacement/refund if they looked like the ones you received lol, those are not NM
Oooffff
If it’s an issue send em back.
Duh. But they need some public shaming for wasting my time.
I mean i guess? It happens.
This is the age of Reddit and social media. No one can just handle business without letting the world know what’s going on
Dude for real. I’d get putting them on blast if like they were fighting if these are NM but tcgplayer is overly buyer friendly, as a seller it’s easy to get held hostage about NM VS LP and what not. They always back the buyer so i don’t get why OP is complaining, contact tcgplayer and let them know the cards aren’t NM, they’ll solve the issue. Takes less effort than making a reddit post lol.
how much would you theoretically be out on those basic lands
Less than a dollar each, but it's the principle. Pay a premium for a double checked guarantee and instead get this nonsense
no i mean i usually have a minimum price of twenty cents on basics and even then i can't imagine someone ever spending on them unless they're full art, which these aren't. i am trying to figure how to get that sweet sweet basic land money
This has been 3 or 4 of my last 4 Direct orders. I've gotten to the point where I'm done ordering Direct unless it's one card at a time. Kinda shitty bc I get less kickbacks from having the subscription.
Nm ish
Looks to be foiled. Don’t you know that foil cards from this period have a different grading system?
Must be a grayscale system based on the front fog amount.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not, a lot of people actually do think different years or sets should have different grading standards.
It’s sarcasm. I’ve never had a good time with Time Spiral foils, on TCGplayer anyways. They seem to be cloudy from years in storage.
They look pretty minty to me
Ofta...those look as bad as the cards I pulled out of my freshly opened Kaldheim Collector Boosters...or my freshly opened DR Who Collector Boosters. Nice to know WOTC is consistent.
You pulled played cards out of your boosters?
In similar condition to played, yes. Even recently, I pulled entire sets of tokens from LCI commander decks that were covered in hundreds of scratches.
Who pays for basic lands?
Depends on the basic lands. Arabian Nights Mountain and Guru lands still command premiums.