I got a crazy person! – What to do.

You can accept the INAD return and then just dispute it with eBay (without having to communicate with the buyer).

D&C: In the past, having been in the art publishing / printing business for many years, each edition we published for other artists came with our shops certificate of authenticity. We generated the master with all the pertinent information about the editions such as number in the total edition, screens destroyed after production, our company name, artists name, dates, titles, addresses, materials used, etc., etc. EXCEPT we left the print number section blank.

The purpose was that the artist or his gallery representative was to reproduce the master certificate then when each print was sold, was to write in the number of the print sold on one certificate and include it with the sold print. [i.e. If we did an edition of 125 prints, then on the certificate would be a line item that was like this ____ of 125]. Of course, the actual print was also hand signed in pencil by the artist with his name, date, title and this number stated as a fraction [i.e. 17/125]. So, print number 17 out of 125 came with its own certificate but it had that space hand filled in as 17 and the of 125 was printed and included on the master.

Also, in many cases we would just go ahead and provide the batch of certificates pre-printed and pre-consecutively numbered for the artist or gallery [whomever our client was].

Ok, in our case we knew that the original certificates were actually original, but anybody under the sun with any type of graphic artists background could easily reproduce a certificate, especially with high end tools that are available to artist and they knowing how to get extremely high rez results using those tools.
Now my point to all this is how do you know that what you had was a real certificate in the first place. Sellers for years who bought Murano, Lladro, Fine Art Prints, anything that they bought without the original box, tags, paperwork and certificate could at least easily make a “fake certificate” and also an original decal in the case of hard goods, to include with their listing and in turn list the item at a higher price and so what if it didn’t have the original box, it at least “had a certificate of authenticity” and or an original decal. I can make these types of items all day long to include with some of our pieces if I was unscrupulous.

So, the big question is how did you validate that the certificates you sold were not faked unless you sent them away to have them authenticated yourself, which gets pricey for just a few items, sent to PSA or others?
Validating some clothing items can be done or if an object is counterfeit but a clothing label can be faked easily and so can original decals, certificates and paperwork. Even old instruction manuals that Stephen Schultz sells many times and shown in his Wed. video’s can be faked. Get an “original”, then scan every page, then publish your our manual in color which would pick up all the old creases, water stains, and one could even add light tea water as real stains, and just publish 25 or 50 manuals, then list one every few months as they sell and through the years pass off dozens reproductions as originals.

So, while your buyer is claiming yours are “fakes” and you don’t have any way to prove they are not, then turn the tables on your buyer to have her “prove they are fakes” to support her claim. If she can’t provide you or Ebay with a solid verification method, then it is a stalemate and Ebay should side with you and hopefully remove the negative feedback.

We run into this all the time on Etsy. To list something as vintage on Etsy, the rule is it must be at least 20 years old. Well how in the world does a seller prove a glass pitcher or a plate is over 20 years old, if unmarked or has now distinctive pattern, paperwork or much to identify it. But we still list, because our stance, can they or someone else prove the listing is not 20 years old.

You can only list what you are told from whomever you buy the item from and from what you glean from your research. Most resellers are collectors of many things, not collectors of all things and certainly not experts in multiple fields.

So, we wish you good luck and keep us all informed as to what the out come is because I would assume many of us face the possibility of a challenge such as your to the authenticity of many of the items we sell. Many glass and pottery companies have design knocked off in large quantities and you may never know what you have.
Do you know that every $5, $10, $20 dollar bill you receive is real and if not, unknowing to you, have you then passed it off to others? A quandary that we may never know about real vs. fakes-forgeries-knock offs-counterfeits.

Just a morning HHhhuuummmm.

Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art

You may very well have

In my experience, the angrier and more threating and emotional the buyer sounds, the more likely it is an attempted scam, probably thinking she can get a refund and keep the items. That will often work with sellers who just want to just make the issue go away with minimal time required.

You will need to send the buyer a feedback revision request. Buyers cannot initiate a change of feedback (someone correct my if I’m wrong).

I avoid an INDAD on my seller record.

How do you do that? In my experience, once the INAD is opened, even if ebay agrees with you and the buyer changes their mind on the INAD, there’s really no way to take it out of the data that goes into Service Metrics. I had a INAD in my service metrics for an entire year(!!!) that was just b/c the buyer thought that I hadn’t included the belt for a jacket they purchased. They later somehow found the belt and the case was closed, but it stayed on my record.

Yep, I get these once in a blue moon as well. I feel like ebay has this unshakable stigma that everybody on there is trying to scam you so as soon as something goes wrong people jump right off the deep end and start yelling SCAM! SCAM! The fact that your buyer did a total 180 once you offered a reasonable explanation is actually proof they probably are not “crazy” just maybe not the brightest bulb in the box 🙂