I can answer this a bit based upon my experience for industry standards. I'm also not going to make any assumptions of who is right or wrong here since I cannot see a card under a loope and/mag light.
All the major companies that have "buylists" return your cards that are counterfeit, such as TCG and Cardkingdom (but damage the card). I've had 20k+ cards shipped and only 3 were found to be counterfeit that were missed by either me or one of my staff (generally formerly high value cards that collapsed in value to a few bucks). The law people are discussing is based upon 100% assurance they are fake. Smaller stores usually just says they cannot confirm its real and return it, but big companies for them to claim to be fake, they must snip a corner or a clover shaped hole punch the card if they confirm it is fake. This helps prove they have a white core and not on authenticate card stock. Had one come in last week from TCG and it was clearly a white core fake blackcleave cliffs expedition. If they snip the card and there is a blue core, then they pay you out for the card, but honestly they never will contact you to admit their mistake.
This company has two choices. First claim they are uncertain of the cards authenticity and send it back to you. Or damage the card showing if there is a blue core or if it does, pay you out. They should be able to send these cards back or your entire order. However for two $25-$30 market value cards you will not be able to hire or lawyer or even recoup it in small claims court.
Counterfeit cards are super easy to spot usually and I've yet to see a good fake copy. No one cares about making high quality fakes of sub >$100 cards. The ones that slip through I've found are where most of the playset are real but one isn't or they aren't high enough value anymore to garnish a super close look. And to anyone who knows that you can actually get MTG new card stock, its hard to come by, almost no scammers have access to it as they are all chinese knock offs. If you suspect something is fake (but laser printed) but it has real card stock you can feel it honestly as it bends correctly you can send it back.
Lastly there are plenty of FB and Reddit groups that can offer outside verification, that you can use as a 3rd party source for this company.
Do they really return the counterfeit cards? CK has a page stating the opposite, and TCGplayer explicitly states that they'll contact the seller and destroy counterfeit cards in their buylist TOS.
I cannot confirm for sure they do this still after moving wearhouse locations (which might have changed TOS). I think I accidently sent a few in to them over the years. The first one was really early on in my career and I was on the fence as it was my friend's card and he wanted it to contact the guy he traded with for it. They deducted shipping from my total and sent it back with a scissor clip of a corner and a detailed letter about how it way fake. That being said, the times they found fakes after that I just said trash them. Honestly though CK is the easiest company to buylist with and go out of their way to communicate if a major buylist issues happens and provide returns if needed, but I could see it being a shipping hassle for them as well now.
I sent in a Demonic Tutor as a part of a buylist that turned out to be an extremely high quality counterfeit. I had picked it up from my LGS so it even got passed by them, TCGplayer did send the card back but they punched a hole in it and made me promise I would never ever ever ever ever send a fake card again before I could buylist again
I submitted a bundle of cards to be sold by card conduit, and to my surprise they’ve marked both of the highest value cards of my listing as inauthentic.
Reason for my concern is I legitimately pulled those from fresh boosters when the sets dropped years ago with my ex wife while we were still into it, from sealed boxes mind you right when the sets dropped. I know for a fact they’re not proxy as I pulled them myself from a reputable game store in Newnan, Ga called Super Heroes. I’m unsure how to handle this, I’ve requested that they send my cards back that weren’t processed so I can still use them as again, they’re some of my higher value cards (to me) and they were in my best edh decks. I made the decision to sell them out of a desperate attempt to get out of a financial hole and now I feel like two of my favorite cards have been stolen by card conduit.
Edit: Most of my cards came from the same exact purchase time, set and all as I heavily invested in the same three sets from the same store.
Meaning if those two cards(the highest value in the submission) are inauthentic, the rest of the cards from those sets would also be inauthentic & it just seems very fishy for this to occur. Since it’s almost half the value being taken away from my submission by two cards. I sent 38 cards total.
They're not property of card conduit. In no way are they allowed to keep them. In fact there is no circumstance I can think of where they can claim any card to be fake and just confiscate them outright. Very very shady business practice that I would follow up with a letter from an attorney.
https://cardconduit.com/terms
>Cards found to be counterfeit/fake will be assessed at zero value and, per industry standards, will be destroyed.
If you send them your cards you've agreed to their terms and conditions.
It can be harder to replace your id than you think. I lost my birth certificate years ago and it wasn’t really a big deal bc how often do you actually use one? I moved to a new state in 2020 before covid and tried to get my new states id after lockdown, it was a pain. I needed my birth certificate and couldn’t go get a new one bc you had to go to your state to pick it up since they weren’t mailing them for some dumb covid policy. You’re not even legally allowed to drive to your job without valid id. Some people don’t have time to take off work to sit in the bmv for four hours bc an idiot bouncer stole their stuff. Idk why one has to be worse than the other, both are bullshit
> replace it,
Theft/destruction of government property, time spent, unworked hours, moral damages, honestly it's likely a lot less headaches to sue the damn club.
Then it needs to be explained how it's determined, and every person submitting cards to them needs to be fully aware that CC can at any time decide that any card you give them is a fake and therefore confiscated, and nobody in their right mind should ever send in a card worth more than what they're okay with being told is $0 and no longer theirs.
Also Paypal, even with non-card items.
There was an episode of Judge Judy I once saw that involved a dispute over a fake watch; buyer reported it fake, Paypal requested it to process the case, and then destroyed it. Judy argued Paypal would never do this when it was very clearly in the TOS (because she just assumes she knows everything). She ended up screwing over the plantiff because of this, because she refused to accept that Paypal would confiscate and destroy the fake watch.
I get the idea, they don't want you pawning it off on someone else. But at the same time, there has to be a way to challenge the inauthentic determination because sometimes they don't get it right. And there isn't.
The thing is, this *is* industry standard. Every company does this and I don't know why you'd assume card conduit doesn't. I thought that it was common knowledge that if you send a fake card to any buylist, that they will destroy it.
Seriously, if I had a means of making a proxy, or a fake card why would I be so keen on getting them back. I could just print another one, so to speak. They’re attempting to steal from me and I’m upset about it.
Determined fake by who? And what authority does this person have to actually deem a card fake. Are they correct?
Far too many unanswered questions for them to legally have any ground to stand on here.
If the idea seems reasonable to you, send me all your cards, and I will tell you they are all fake and keep them all for free. Sound like a good deal?
Just because its in their terms and conditions doesnt necessarily make it legal behaviour.
If your employment contract says on termination, all of your personal property kept at the business will be destroyed, doesn't make it legal.
"Terms and conditions are meaningless" *definitely* isn't true. They're as meaningful as any other contract.
I have no clue if this is a valid contract or not, I ain't a lawyer. But "lol the terms and conditions mean nothing" sure ain't true.
Not entirely. You can write a malicious ToS. For example if I wrote billing software for a hospital system I can put in my ToS I own all data entered and can do with it as I will, however that doesn’t make it legal as since it’s tied back to medical records I still need to abide by HIPAA
You're misunderstanding what I'm saying.
The person I am responding to said, verbatim "Terms and conditions are meaningless." That is very, very much not the case. Terms and conditions don't supersede the law, but they are definitely not "meaningless". That's all I'm saying.
The point is that we're all dumbasses on Reddit, and this shit is why we have lawyers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> They're as meaningful as any other contract.
Not really. One of the core concepts in contract law is a meeting of the minds; that is, the parties must all agree in broad strokes on what the contract covers. Terms of Service are found to fall short here far more often than a made to order contract, because the law recognizes that the average person doesn't read them, is unable to adequately comprehend them even if they do, and the average merchant fails to make appropriate verification that the other part did so. Thus, no meeting of the minds, *even if* the person clicks a box to "agree to the terms of service."
They're not meaningless. They are less meaningful than most any other form of contract.
This isn't necessarily true. It's a fact specific determination. Please be very cautious of providing that advice. A court could easily disagree with you.
It depends on a lot on exactly how the ToS were presented. For example, in MA, an Uber contract where consumers didn't need to read the ToS were found to be unenforceable where Uber tried to avoid liability for not accommodating service dogs. In contrast, the Uber drivers had to read through several pages, watch videos, and agree to the ToS. Uber just felt that too much effort probably hurt people downloading and using the app.
Here's a helpful article on the topic:
https://www.goodwinlaw.com/en/insights/publications/2022/08/08_10-recent-court-decisions-shed-light
Goodwin is a good lawfirm.
That said, it's not meaningless. However, if the terms are unconscionable or illegal, that's separate from the determination that the agreement itself was void from the start. It's just unenforceable.
I’m an attorney. I draft terms of service frequently. If you have to click to agree to them when signing up, they’re enforceable.
That said, Card Conduit still needs to prove it was counterfeit. If I were their attorney, I’d tell them never to destroy any of these cards. If I were representing a plaintiff and I discovered they destroy these without keeping evidence of inauthenticity, I’d file a class action lawsuit.
Can you provide some sources to back that up? That is very, very different from everything I've ever seen an actual lawyer say on the topic of "clickwrap agreements".
I mean I ain't saying Wikipedia's authoritative, but it's more authoritative than some dude on a MTG subreddit, yk?
>Few cases have considered the validity of clickwrap licenses. Still, in the cases that have challenged their validity, the terms of the contract have usually been upheld:
[Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickwrap)
Meaningless is probably extreme but they are often void or unenforceable. Terms and conditions of any contract should always be congruent with the law and are frequently not.
Non-compete clauses are common (or used to be) in contracts, and with the exception of some industries (tech), are illegal, meaning that they cannot be legally enforced by the employer. Something being in the T&C doesn't make it okay if it's illegal .
That's an *interesting* ToS page. It's also one that frankly hasn't been looked at by a competent lawyer, since there are a ton of aspects of a terms of service contract that it doesn't include. For example, it doesn't include language that defines the parties involved in any transactions. It doesn't make any claims as to arbitration or jurisdiction or venue. It doesn't include language to maintain the terms of the contract if an individual clause is found to be invalid.
It kinda looks like someone just went on Rocket Lawyer and threw it together.
Nope. TOS are not legally binding and have no standing in court. They are simply a statement of their personal policy.
What they’re doing violated OPs reasonable good faith expectations. If what OP says is true and he takes them to court, he will win.
It’s illegal to knowingly traffic in counterfeit goods. Most card businesses follow the same policy and destroy any goods they identify as counterfeit. And the cost of an attorney in this case is going to be more than the money you lost. OP is going to have to either accept that the cards were counterfeit or that they were and never deal with card conduit again.
> the cost of an attorney in this case is going to be more than the money you lost
Fortunately, small claims court is a thing.
I'm not sure why you think repeating "it's in their terms and conditions" all over this thread somehow makes your point stronger. This is absolutely something that could - and should - be taken to court, assuming that OP is correct that the cards were legitimate.
Can you cite some law or statute that prohibits this?
Y'all keep shouting this guy for standing by ToS but have cited nothing at all to show this ToS is illegal
Negative. Card conduit is not God or the final say on whether or not a card is proxy. And a letter from an attorney isn't necessarily expensive. I can't stand proxy cards at all, and hate that they exist, but we also can't have some dipshit working for a company like Card Conduit, who doesn't feel like buying those cards for his own set, just claim they're fake and put them in his or her pocket.
Furthermore, CC would have to provide irrefutable proof the cards they kept are OP's AND that they're proxy, plus how they were destroyed.
Just this letter and one interaction from CC would deter me from ever doing business with them. No buying, selling, nothing. If they're willing to do this, they're willing to cheat someone in any number of other ways.
People putting up with this are also to blame. Stop letting buisnesses get away with this. They want to have these kinds of terms they need to provide undisputed proof at the very least and not just "hey, we looked them over and they fake so goodbye".
This whole story, T&C, emails, people involved etc. don't matter at all. That's your property give it back.
> It’s illegal to **knowingly** traffic in counterfeit goods.
He attempted to deal in good faith and according to the OP, they were real as far as he knew. In fact, if the cards in question are just confiscated and there is no way to dispute the authenticity of said items, that is illegal.
They can have a monkey just point at the "fake" cards and just take them. If I have no way to argue or to review if they were indeed fake, then who is to know you aren't just outright **stealing** things?
I'd hire an attorney just out of principle and aim to sue for the cost of the cards, paying the attorney through attorney fees, and a small premium for wasting my time.
The unfortunate part about this, and "Cardconduit" (and other businesses) know it is super expensive to hire an attorney, even asking them to draft a letter is expensive, and so almost no one, will take this route unfortunately and it is a crime (literally and figuratively) that this company is seemingly taking advantage of this.
Perhaps a police report would be more helpful.
I remember when the set came out and I sold a Chromati Orrery fresh from a case, buyer said it was fake, and i told them to compare to a pack of cards and they confirmed it was real. The quality back then was bad but they need to give you them back.
It's not worth hiring a lawyer over, but they are in the wrong, legally speaking. If you wish to pursue this notify them you are taking them to small claims court. Ensure that you inform them that their posted disclaimer about forgeries violates theft laws and that "per industry standards" isn't a legal loophole to destroy property deemed by one party as "worthless."
$5-50 cards are usually subject to less scrutiny, bc hey why would you fake a $25 card when you can fake a $300 card? which makes them better targets for mass counterfeiting
Yeah, they fucked you. I can’t believe they still pull this bullshit. I would 100% think that someone at card conduit pocketed those cards, or something lol.
I honestly don’t understand how it’s ok for any place to have a policy where they “remove from circulation” any cards that **they** deem to be fake, without providing any proof to back up their claim. Why can’t they take comparison pictures of the “fake” card next to a “real” copy of the same card - while showing the differences and detailing how/why the card is fake?
Tl;dr — They 100% need to send it back IMO. That, or they need send proof as to what makes it fake. This shit is infuriating and shady as fuck.
For what it's worth I've sent them 2 batches. One came out for over a grand. Nothing was marked as inauthentic. Highest buylist value of any one card was around 50.
Yeah, but sometimes things happen. Even good companies can have shady employees. I think that’s what happened here and I’m just trying to figure the best way to resolve this and get my stuff back.
>Even good companies can have shady employees
Yeah but not even that. You don't realize how many people even at respected companies don't know how to do their job. The corporate side of my job is very incompetent for example compared to the labor worker side.
i recently sold some pokemon cards i had purchased when the game first came out , nothing super high priced. Also had a one of these cards is fake.
Emailed back to ask for proof of this , and that id like to take the card elsewhere for a 2nd opinion.
Got the standard we destroy fake cards and do not return them.
Sent a very friendly legal email stating they no legal right to destroy property that doesn’t belong to them, and if the card is not returned, the full value of the card will be sued for in small claims court , as well as court fees.
Got my card back, as well as every other card as well, about 2 days later.
They have no legal standing to keep a card , regardless if its deemed fake or not.
We should totally make a copy pasta and send in cards of decent value- then all bombard them with the same email saying we are all going to take them to court 🤣
This is definitely a very common occurrence with them then. Guy is definitely skimming off the top and hoping most people won’t do anything and accept the ludicrous and illegal tos.
Well good to know I’ll avoid them… that’s absurd and borderline scummy. What’s to keep them from abusing this policy to effectively steal someone’s cards?
Your personal experience with them has no bearing on whether or not the company is right or wrong here.
It's like the people who go "Blisters have the best pull rates" - your experience may or may not be the norm.
I'm in a few video games subs, runescape in particular, and there are constant "I got banned unfairly" posts and the mods for the game reply to the post with the proof and slam the fuck out of them. I think I've seen maybe 2 out of 100 where they apologized and said our bad. All this to say, yeah the story is almost certainly bullshit and he sent fake cards.
I've read some convincing stories that ended up being bogus.
as a vendor i had a dude come up 1 time with 4 horizon canopy, 1 was fake, he scooped everything when i wouldnt buy it, and came back to me multiple times to tell me it was real and he pulled it from a booster, and my response remained something like "well then sell it to someone else bc i dont buy fakes"
not saying OPs is real or fake, but with the way EDH is popular i know guys with 1 real cyclonic rift and 15 proxies, its easy to mix things up even when you opened them
Yeah I get collections regularly and 9/10 times it's commander decks and there's proxies all the time and some are pretty damn good. 100% casual/newer players get tricked by those all the time if they're trading.
Doesn’t every store do this? I know for a fact card kingdom does as well. I send a lot of cards through their buy list and at one point did send them a card that was deemed counterfeit. They destroyed it. (Wasn’t super high value. Purphoros iirc)
Sadly youll never know (unless previously marked) if they were your original real cards, that they then keep and send you actual fake versions... good luck with it all man!
A company is filled with people, and any individual handling it along the chain could have switched out such cards. I doubt it would be the company themselves doing so, but it could be a person from within the company.
They have control and you have no proof otherwise. How else do you think they have theoretically crafted a perfect scam?
"Our Terms of Service state that we have the right to do what we want with your card., but we destroy them if they"re fake, do not worry."
Id like to throw 'highly doubt a reputable company would do that' in the mix too. But if OP is factual, they deserve to have their exact cards returned. Again, no proof to say it will or wont be the same cards. Hope for the best but expect the worst is all you can do.
I have no intention of selling my collection after this incident since the closest game store is miles away and I drive a gas guzzler. It’s simply not worth it. I’ve never bought a proxy or went out of my way to buy singles though so I’m pretty confident I did not send a fake, my collection is compromised of a few booster boxes and pre cons bought from a single game store over the course of a few months while I was married, sets were Kaldheim, Commander Legends & m21..though my word is weightless I guess. If they did send fakes back it just goes to show how shady their business practices actually are and I hope no one else goes through this bs.
This right here is why I can’t take what they send in an email as proof of anything. They’re a company, with access to these cards daily. Unless I marked my cards(obviously would be stupid to sell) I have no way of firmly believing what they show me, online as hard evidence that what I had was fake. I pulled them from a booster to, regardless of if any of y’all believe me I can’t just wipe my own memory and have a company tell me what I have isn’t what I know it is. I hope I’m just able to get my cards back.
Email them outlining that you believe they are wrong and that you would like all of your property back that was invoiced when you sent them in from them immediately. If they dont comply, contact their local police department or sheriff's department and explain to them the situation, and file a report. Get a copy of the report, scan it and post it on Twitter, and tag them asking why they won't reply. (Police reports are public knowledge, and anyone can get them you're not doxxing them, but it wouldn't hurt to cross off phone numbers and addresses just to not be malicious) it sucks were at this point in society, but if what you're saying is 100% the truth and they don't comply when you email them.... well, then that's on them.
Did they have you sign any paperwork or agreements to this policy they are talking about?
I didn’t have to sign anything, only thing I can think of is some policy being a barrier to all of this. But the situation is mad fishy to me and I don’t want to stir up bad rep for them but I don’t want to be ripped by someone else’s foul play once it got to their hands.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Respond to their email saying you are refusing the sale and you expect all of your property to be back in your possession within 15 days. Say that if more time is needed to safely ship the products, you will extend that period to 30 days if you are provided a notarized promissory note. Say that failure to do so will result on an injunction being filed against (insert their business name here).
If they refuse, do no reply. Contact a lawyer and you will have to pay them to file the injunction on your behalf. After the injunction is filed, file a suit in small claims court for the property + lawyer fees for filing injunction + a reasonable fee for the time you spent on cleaning up this issue.
It will be a hassle, but if these guys are responsible business owners then they will avoid all of this. An injunction will prevent them from doing business online until this matter is resolved.
Do not get in the weeds with them. Do not ask them to prove the cards being invalid. Do not ask them to explain themselves. Give them clear, concise direction:
You are not moving forward with the sale. Return the property. 15 days. Can extend to 30 days with a promissory note. Injunction is ready to be filed should you not comply. Regards.
I try to figure out all the angles on things before I make any hasty moves, especially if this ends up being a legal matter. I more-or-less was looking to dm for specific questions I had revolving the things he mentioned to do without cluttering up the comment thread. But he made an edit stating he’s not a lawyer in his comment so more than likely he wouldn’t be able to help me further in the matter anyways..unless he has experience with this himself.
Has anyone else had access to your cards over the years? Borrowed decks? Played your decks out of your eyesight? Granted it's a long shot, but as said elsewhere, the highest demand, highest cost cards are the ones that are counterfeited. Someone could've switched them years ago and you wouldn't ever know.
That being said, for them to destroy your property and not offer an analysis on why they found them to be counterfeited is very shady. It could be an employee of theirs trying to pocket some cash under their noses. If you don't think there's any chance they were fakes, use small claims court if possible. You may need to file where the company is located, so add airfare / hotel / travel expenses into your claim if you can.
No, I am a legitimate hermit. I live alone when I don’t have my kids and I do not go out to play in public. I play online with friends using discord and before then I didn’t touch mtg after m13 days when I was in high school. There’s just no way for foul play to have happened under ownership.
How hard is this response: “Here are the high resolution scans of your cards and you can see by the layering of the ink that these cards are counterfeit.” Then once you’ve made the customer believe your bullshit then launch into your policy about destroying other people’s property illegally.
The challenge with this is you are creating a for-free authentication service that counterfeiters can use repeatedly to make better and better proxies, until stores no longer can find any evidence of it being fake. I actually agree with store policies to not provide evidence of them being fake, but do not agree with any store policy that won't return a fake. Perhaps one day an authentication service will have a proper legal status to lawfully destroy property that is deemed counterfeit, giving transparency to anyone who knowingly or unknowingly sends in counterfeit property, but until then do not support any store that participates in a system with a giant conflict of interest to unlawfully gain possession of what is essentially anonymized high-value collectibles.
I like the above recommendation to give them a formal letter asking for all property back.
Is the witch hunt over? Y'all really went to bat hard over some person who sent in fake cards to a buylist. Reminds me of that front page post about a month back about someone sending in fake power to CK and wanting legal recourse. Edit: found it lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1cwukso/my_sister_sold_magic_cards_now_the_card_shop_says/
> Y'all really went to bat hard over some person who sent in fake cards to a buylist.
A company single handedly making themselves the arbiter of whether or not your cards are real and then also refusing to give you your cards back is not a good company. Even if they deem them fake it doesn't matter unless you can guarantee that no real cards have ever been made that don't pass those tests.
It's not about the person, it's about the policy.
It's insane how these companies can just hide behind "we are removing a counterfeit from circulation" when they themselves determined it was counterfeit.
Even if everything is perfect and above board, it leads to cases like this. In the worst case scenario, it basically provides them a way to steal cards, even less of a chance if they only do it to small, one time sellers.
They should be required to send them back, assuming you pay for shipping and handling.
It's not that crazy, it's illegal for them to knowingly transport counterfeit goods. Once they know it's counterfeit their options are 1) become a repository for permanently storing an infinite amount of counterfeit cards sent in, for no reason and never make any money on them, 2) destroy them. You getting it back is not an option.
This really is the crux of it to me, and I have not seen anything in CC's replies that convinces me they have any proof of this chain of custody. We have only two strangers' claims, but both agree that CC is saying the cards are fake and they will destroy them.
Which they can say is in their terms of service, but that's some dubious ground to stand on. Even if there's no malicious intent on the part of CC, I wouldn't trust them with a sale at this point.
100% the cards are fake. The rosette gives it away more than the dot test (but that does too). As someone who regularly buys $100+ cards from Facebook marketplace etc, I've tested a lot of cards with a loupe and light test. There are some extremely good fakes out there, but I've yet to find one that can replicate the rosettes from same set comparisons on older RL cards, most fail green dot immediately. Also check the T, that has proven very reliable in my experience.
Stating that a business will just straight up destroy them is where the trust breaks. If it was me, I'd send the seller an email with their options including destruction or return with the FAKE marking rather than making it seem like they are simply destroyed with zero recourse since a lot of these people probably bought them as real from someone or even a reputable vendor that didn't catch them. If the seller believes they are authentic, that causes undue panic and creates mistrust since the situation is bad for all parties involved. Imagine as a seller finding out the two choices you have are that you were ripped off OR you feel a company is taking advantage of you. It's lose/lose. It's great to provide support for possible recourse through TCG etc, but this could have all been avoided with a better description of the process of dealing with fakes and clearly stating a seller's options from the beginning rather than an arbitrary sounding "we destroy them, no recourse, sorry".
Rather than reply to individual queries given the numbers of replies, we figured we’d make another top level post to try to consolidate the information/takeaways from this situation.
Couterfeits are a tricky issue for a variety of reasons. It is something we have discussed at length internally, and the notion that this is cut and dry, or that we should just simply return counterfeit items does the entire community a disservice. There are an enormous amount of fake cards in the market – we process them every day, and we are sure other large vendors do, too. Most people have no idea they had fake cards, and many are simply being purchased through third-party sellers / marketplaces. You might say “it isn’t your job to try to solve that problem”, and that may be a fair criticism, but in many instances, we will go out of our way to help customers with counterfeit items get their money back.
Our terms are written to protect us. When we process a customer’s shipment, we spend a lot of time and energy processing those cards. What we do and don’t allow via our terms are a baseline – we are always willing to work with people to find resolutions, and we have adjusted our terms over time based on some constructive discussions in this subreddit – namely, allowing for customers to request their shipments be held for review before they are finalized. In addition to our terms, customers very specifically agree to certain conditions using our service – namely, that absent a hold for review, they agree no cards will be returned. Does this mean that we won’t still work with people to find a reasonable solution to a problem? No. It simply protects our company and takes us down a path that is more “let’s find a solution” and less “you better lawyer up”. We agree that the email to the customer does read as very “final”, and we will adjust that language moving forward to reflect the opportunity for further discussion.
Our service – and really any service whereby you send your cards to someone else and hope for the best – requires an enormous amount of trust. We do our best to be as up front as we possibly can about all aspects of our service, including specifically making people agree to specific terms ahead of time. We are aware of how much trust is required, and our physical handling of shipments and cards is very carefully maintained and overseen. While OP may not be intentionally trying to sell counterfeit products, it happens all the time – as a business of scale, you cannot be soft on counterfeits, and that is reflected by the policies of all major vendors in the space. Though it is not our policy, there have been times we have returned fake items after we defaced them, which affords us the ability to actually mail an item we know to be counterfeit without running afoul of the law ourselves. We have offered to do that here, and that offer remains on the table. We have offered to return the other items in the order as well, despite what the customer specifically agreed to. And we have provided proof that the items are fake, which has been posted in this thread.
We’ve reached the point in this thread where there are some who would never accept any solution. If we agree to return the items back (which we have already done, with the caveat that we do something to make it clear the items are fake), there is a suggestion we’re replacing them with fake items we conveniently have on hand. If you’re at that point, there’s nothing we can do to convince you of our good intentions. We don’t need a reddit thread where everyone is calling for our head to work with our customers and find solutions. We are always open to reaching reasonable conclusions, and you can believe that or not – but that is and will continue to be at the forefront of how we operate.
Lastly, we felt it worth providing a general PSA to anyone who might see this or similar threads on reddit where the general consensus is to “lawyer up”. As a general rule, threatening legal action when a company is actively trying to work with you to find a solution is pretty much the worst thing you can do. In most large companies, that ends the conversation, and then you are referred to legal – and will not get any resolution outside of the legal team. There are many, many suggestions to take that route in this thread – and while we are still attempting to resolve the issue with the customer, we have explained to that customer that doing that further will necessitate the conversation ending and having further discussion happen between attorneys. If you get to the end of a discussion with a company and cannot find a resolution you can live with, then you take the actions you deem necessary.
Really good response.
Folks need to look at the proof if they haven't seen it - [light test video](https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj) - and honestly no test is even necessary, that Mana Drain is plainly obviously fake. The mana symbols are aligned wrong. Look at it for 2 seconds and you can tell.
The idea of a conspiracy where a cardconduit employee has a stack of fake Mana Drains around to swap in for a real one is pretty laughable. That sort of fraud is not worth anyone's while...
No idea how OP came to have a fake card. But the fact that reddit will just weigh in on his side, with no particular evidence or proof besides a good story, is one of the silliest parts of this website.
A google search for proxy mana drain commander legends will take you to a site that will sell you a copy for $4, that copy includes the same incorrectly printed mana symbols. You can find a copy of the Chromatic Orrery on the same website also for $4. Buylist value is $48 for the 2.
I'm in this weird middle ground where I believe OP didn't know the cards were fake (although I do think he is adding the "pulled them myself" clause to bolster his argument) but I 100% believe they were sent fake cards and that they are correct to destroy them.
What business which deals entirely in community based card buying and selling would risk their entire reputation on 35 motherfucking dollars of product.
I know you're getting hosed here in the comments but it's just redditors being redditors.
The issue here is that you have a nearly impossible business that is essentially: "Send a nameless stranger a bag of diamonds and I'll honestly assess and pay you for them. Source - Trust Me"
The biggest barrier to potential customers (including myself) is trusting a total stranger to be completely honest. Not only that, but honest remotely and out of sight.
There are so many potential ways that someone could easily be taken advantage of here. You could:
1. "Miss" cards in a collection and customer probably wouldn't even be aware of it.
2. Falsely downgrade the condition to obtain it for a lower price.
3. Outright lie and say that a card is fake and pocket it.
OP could have knowingly sent the fake card with the intention of scamming you. Or they really and truly believe that the card they sent you is 100% real.
The next impossible piece of your business: How do you handle a situation like this? As you can see from this thread you will never be able to convince that customer that they didn't send you a real card. And to their point, if they in their heart of hearts 100% believe that card was real, the evidence provided to them is not proof because it has left their hands and has been out of sight.
If OP genuinely believes that they pulled that card from a pack and sent you that very card there's no possible way for you to appease them other than paying them for it or sending a real card in return. Even if you sent back the fake they would genuinely believe you swapped them.
And while there's no way win this customer service nightmare I think that it was handled as best a humanly possible. You've engaged the community, asked for feedback, and most importantly you've been tactful. As tempting as I'm sure it was to respond "dude just look at this bullshit card you sent me lmao" you stayed respectful the entire time.
Up until this very thread CC has had a great reputation here and I strongly doubt that you would jeopardize that so publicly for a mana drain. And while I personally dislike that cards are destroyed, I also understand that there isn't really a winning option in this scenario.
Is it feasible for them to maybe just state something along the lines of “unfortunately, we actually won’t be able to accept or pay out 'X-Card'from 'X-Shipment', but can/will return the card back to you at x-address, blah blah blah.”
I’m not a lawyer by any means, but giving a very vague reasoning and NOT mentioning the words “counterfeit”, “fake”, “authentic” seems like it could put them in a legal gray areaVance they call it a fake.
Idk. This whole situation is definitely not black and white and requires nuance and whatnot. I do not envy CC for being in this business and having to put up with a (probably constant) wave of bullshit and nonsense all of the time.
I understand your position of "taking these out of circulation" but I think at some point you have to step back and realize that unless you are absolutely perfect at finding counterfeits, you \*will\* make a mistake and you \*will\* destroy a real card, if you haven't already. This is not a "you might," people make mistakes. You will destroy someone's real, valuable card with this policy. I don't know what your volume is, but you may have already done so.
It's easy to take that calculated risk when its not your money on the line (who is \*really\* going to take you to small claims court over even a 150-300 dollar card, most don't have the time or means to do so). The cards in this scenario could very well be fake, but taking fakes out of circulation isn't your job and frankly, shouldn't be.
The best thing you can do is say that they didn't pass your muster test, but not say why so people can't just improve their fakes. You send them back so they get their property and maybe charge the return postage from the bits of the collection you do keep, and call it a day.
Refreshing to see such a reasonable, well thought out response to a complicated situation. If I've learned anything from being on this sub for years, people should hate it. 😂
When counterfeits are identified, it is extremely rare that someone actually wants the cards back. In the cases where they do, 99% of the time it is to try to get their money back from wherever they were purchased from (often that is TCGPlayer from a third-party), and we often will help facilitate that. What we are saying is we cannot mail an item we know to be counterfeit without making it plain the items are counterfeit.
What would you say is the value of a counterfeit item that is being defaced?
Well Mana Drain costs $30-$40 and you haven't provided concrete proof of it being a counterfeit. You are stealing from the op and continuing illegal business practices you dumbass. Send it back, don't do illegal shit, and stop being a whiny pathetic loser. You got caught stealing, just admit it and get over it
We have provided proof to the customer, and it has been posted in this thread. If the customer does get the items back and wants to get some additional opinions on the card, as stated we would be happy to stand by our decision if that was discussed / agreed to ahead of time. What would be acceptable to you as concrete proof at this point?
So you'll destroy his card, but afterwards he can take his vandalized property to be looked at by someone else? Fuck off lol. Just send it back as is, apologize, and that's it.
Can you not answer the question? What is acceptable proof?
You fighting so hard to get this man back what, by all accounts, appears to be a counterfeit card is making me distrust you finance guys more than Card Conduit as someone that has found this thread from the popular page.
* They've said they cannot legally do what you are suggesting.
* They have asked for an acceptable test which no one has provided or recommended.
* They have said the owner is free to get his own legitimate test done and then they will cover the costs of the destroyed cards if they are found to be wrong.
These are very reasonable steps that, if the card is real, the owner might not be thrilled about, but at least give him options.
The biggest impact to this hobby from Covid might actually be the sudden lack of opportunities for comparative in person buylisting. CC is not the only company that has done that and (according to OP) gotten it wrong. Nor is it all that uncommon for an online storefront, even a reputable one, to sell counterfeit cards (I've had CFB ship me a counterfeit Savanna that I traded in accumulated tournament winnings for.) At least in person there's a verifiable chain of custody of the card and such a smaller chance of shenanigans.
Thats not how that works in court. Espically when CC doesn't provide any proof. Just because a company makes up a policy doesn't mean it automatically wins for them.
Yeah you can't just put in T&C that are literally illegal and point at the website. That isn't how it works. That is just to fake out people that don't know better.
Same thing with liability waivers. They don't mean anything. It is just there to make ignorant people think they have no standing.
I just finished a decent sized order with them. Was about to send a new order but going to hold off until I see how this is resolved. I don’t like the unilateral confiscation. It’s another matter to reject and offer to send back for a fee, etc. but to confiscate without proof is a poor practice. Just going to stick to better buyers even if it’s a bit more work.
Christ this is how every large buy list works, has always worked, and will always work. Alot of conspiracies from idiots who have no business having opinions.
Just received an email of them trying to “prove” its inauthenticity. The problem with this, and I stated in my responding email.. is that I cannot in good faith trust that they’re not just using rehashed files, photos & videos either sourced from previous customers or through online media. After what’s going on, there is simply no way for them to prove anything and I would just like to receive my belongings back. All 38 cards, no payments. And I hope I was clear in my emails about that. I do not want to move forward with the service as the sales are not finalized yet. I was invoiced and I’m gladly declining. Hope y’all can learn from my mistake of using their services.
What do the photos show? Do the cards pass or fail the green dot test? What methods did Card Conduit use to determine that they are fake? Can you share the photos?
Claimed green dot test, but again when you email someone, you’re sending files, that can and have been rehashed before by scammers. This isn’t a legit way to prove anything online. Someone could easily reuse files, use other cards, etc I’m dealing with a company that literally comes in contact with thousands of these cardboard bits. I simply cannot take that as proof of anything and I’ve requested that I get them back. If this was in person it would be different, but sending an email with photos and files attached means nothing as a way of prove anything in this matter. I may be stupid in a lot of ways, but how the internet works is not one of them. I been around long enough to know that photoshop, old files, etc etc exist especially the old files since they’re a company selling these cards. Ignorance to that fact is how anyone can get away with claiming fakes.
Okay, but you could also be lying about where you got the cards from. Not saying you are, but there's no way for anyone here to tell who's lying. I've used Card Conduit before and have sent them a number of higher end cards and didn't have this issue. I think it's entirely possible that Card Conduit made a mistake (especially given WotC/Hasbro's quality control these days), but I find it hard to believe that Card Conduit would lie about fakes. Especially to the point that they would send fake evidence. Why don't you share the photos so that we can look at them at least?
OP can't prove their story of where the cards came from.
Unless Card Conduit has continuous unedited video footage from the moment they opened the sealed shipment from OP with all the cards never leaving the frame of the video while they're being tallied and checker for authenticity... they also can't really conclusively prove that OP sent them fakes. A picture or video of an identified fake card does not prove that the card being shown is OP's card.
So we have a case of two people making contradictory claims about the cards, and no proof either way.
The only thing that seems to be agreed upon is that CC is claiming they are fakes and they destroyed them.
That’s very true, but if they deem them fake then they should send me my stuff back no problem as I do not want a payment from them regardless. This is my point of wanting my stuff back, they cannot prove it’s fake given it’s the internet and I cannot prove it’s not fake as I’m just one dude who bought bits of cardboard and I hope they follow through with my request to cancel the service.
The customer uploaded the pictures of the green dot test failing here [https://imgur.com/a/p4eTA5I](https://imgur.com/a/p4eTA5I) and we uploaded the video of the light test fail that was also sent to them [https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj](https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj)
Yes, but again there’s no legit way of me or anyone else knowing what they are sending isn’t also fake, like they’re trying do with my card. This is a problem inevitable with the internet and sales of card to a company host and I’d rather jusy get my cards back than to go back n forth wether or not the green dot photos are actually my cards & not just someone else’s card or a rehashed file from archived messages, previous customers etc etc. give me one sec I’ll figure out somewhere to post it though if y’all actually want to see it. But it’s essentially just a “this is the green dot on your card, and this is the green dot of fakes” with a link on how to spot fakes. But it’s exactly jusy that, a photo, a file, a video. Doesn’t prove anything unless you’re blind to scummy business practices.
My assertion is clearly stated that I cannot trust that you did or did not give me actual proof, given the advantages of the internet and being aware of a thing called archives. What you sent may or may not be legit, but as someone viewing it attached to an email in the form of a file it means nothing. Only way to prove anything is in person and obviously that won’t happen unless you send my cards back. A poor employee could’ve gladly pocketed whatever the said value is. Can’t dimish the value of 48 bucks to a regular person, of course card conduit the company doesn’t worry about $48
It’s not as simple as “look at this photo I sent you” as proof when you’re a company that theoretically touches hundreds of these daily, and have definitely been around long enough to run into legitimate fakes of your own to archive files from. If this was an in person sale you could’ve showed me during the exchange but this is 100% online and you cannot prove anything to me so let’s just move forward from this by canceling the service and sending my cards back.
Here my thing we don't know who's lying here. Cc had a lot more to lose to scam you over $48 buylist cards. Why go out of the way to fake a video and photos for that amount of money? I've seen this story before on the buildapc reddit over a rtx card that indeed the OP was full of shit.
To negate having to send me anything back, it’s simple. If they don’t wanna deal with me and try to dimish my complaint they’ll claim the files they sent as legit. But I mean, there’s no way they can prove that the files were from my card over the internet. Companies do a lot of shady practices to save their asses if shady practices are publicized, happens all the time in the business world.
I can dm you but I can’t post the photos directly in the comment thread here. But as a customer already suspicious I cannot trust that what they sent me are my cards. It would be incredibly ignorant of myself and others to take just that as weighted proof of anything. I’ve learned from this experience that in person sales are better because of this issue alone.
https://imgur.com/a/p4eTA5I
Here’s the photos they sent as a means of “proof”. I don’t know about y’all but I simply cannot take this as cold hard evidence that my cards were fake. They have zero ways of proving to me that those are my cards anyways and it’d be a massive waste of time to go back and forth about it.
This is the internet, if you’re unaware of being able to archive photos in private and rehashed files, altered files, etc then I suggest opening your mind to the fact that not everyone in the world plays fair. And bigger companies can and will take advantage of those unaware of how easily you can fake this, it may only be $48 bucks from me but if they do it enough it adds up and it’s apparent to me that I’m not the only one this happens to. So just because it’s low key and less public doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
I cannot prove to them that I pulled the card from booster boxes and they can’t prove that those errors are my cards, simply because it’s done over the internet and not in person. I just want my stuff back instead of it being blatantly stolen.
Edit: I missed a great point another reddit bro pointed out to me.. if I sent them proxies, why would I be going to great lengths to get them back. Couldn’t I just print another one?? I’ve never made one so idk how it’s actually done but seriously.. I want my stuff back and this company is so keen on telling me I sent them fakes when I most certainly did not.
We also provided video evidence of the light test failing:
[https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj](https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj)
Green dot is simply one of the easiest to photograph tests as I'm sure you know. We offered to do other tests if they had a preferred method.
It's definitely fake and they aren't allowed to ship counterfeit goods. It's not complicated and this is the answer everyone gets every time one of these threads comes up, it hasn't changed in the history of magic.
that's also technically a general legal ruling though. Generally speaking, fraudulent and counterfeit product is subject to forfeiture and destruction.
That’s cool but it still doesn’t prove anything in this situation other than you’ve got access to a green light and a copy of a mana drain. Being a company such as yourself I’m sure that’s not hard to get ahold of and therefore I do not want to debate the proof anymore. Just send ****my**** stuff back please. Your service is no longer wanted & I don’t want your money if I’m getting scammed like this. We cannnot prove our believes on the matter to each other over the internet and continuing to act as if your proving anything is ultimately a waste of time. I’ve made my request to cancel the service, still waiting..
Read the whole thread and I think I’m on your side man. Why does this guy want a card back if it’s fake? The excuse that he’d play with it doesn’t make sense because you would only write FAKE on the back and he could sleeve them easily.
Exactly, why would I want it back if it’s fake? I could just make another one if that were the case, but it’s not. the simple fact is I do not believe it to be fake as I actually pulled the card froma fresh booster myself. Seriously ask yourself that again, why would I be here and in their emails requesting that I get my cards back, not my money, but the cards if it were fake? I’m not asking to be paid for a fake card, I’m asking that my property be returned and this process be canceled. I have not received a payment for anything either so it shouldn’t be a problem. They’re actually ignoring me at this point by harboring in this thread responding to everyone except me. I’ve sent emails requesting exactly what I mentioned above and I’ve heard nothing while I see them replying to everyone else here.
I posted the photos becaus it was an image sight, thay I’ve never used. Simply wasn’t aware videos could also be uploaded. I’m not the one trying to scam anyone here, trust me a single scam of 48 bucks is pointless. Especially if I’m still here bitching about it. However, 48 bucks to a company if they can get away with it over and over adds up. Do the math, mate. I would not care this much about fakes. If I had a high value fake, I could grab another one no problem yeah? Or make one???
Sadly, I wasn’t expecting to have to prove the cards I’m sending are legit given the methods I used to obtain the cards. So no I didn’t take photos to debate with beforehand.
People are wild. What is more likely? This company risking their whole reputation and therefore business over $50 or some guy trying to pull a fast one. Personally I applaud card conduit for standing against proxies.
I have had zero issue with card conduit and I have shipped things in more expensive than a mana drain over multiple orders. It doesn't make any long term business sense for them to mark things fake that aren't fake. Feels like there is something else going on, but I hope it gets resolved
Yeah…they are out for your $48 and orchestrated a big proxy swap to getcha.
You’d have a leg to stand on if we were talking about ABURAAL but this shit? Lawyers? GTFO. Read through the thread. Card Conduit isn’t for everyone but they didn’t scam this person. Waste of your time to even argue it. How many hours of your time will this cost you?
We buy thousands of cards per month and have never once kept anyone's card if we rejected it for being a fake, we simply give them back and tell them that it did not pass our inspection as authentic. But to take them from somebody and just destroy them is wrong. Unfortunately as somebody said, retaining an attorney would cost you far more money than the cards are worth.
Still sucks though.
Those are harder cards to fake with the holofoil stamp. I would have wanted photographic proof and an explanation as to why they felt those were fake. Their word is dogshit. Thanks for the heads up posting this. I’ll never use them.
Evidence was provided [https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1dmv98f/comment/l9zm4c0/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1dmv98f/comment/l9zm4c0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
/u/CardConduit you're on shaky ground by "removing them from circulation". What you really should be doing is holding them for 30 days, and giving the buyer the option to have them authenticated by a neutral third party at buyer's expense. If they are authentic, then CardConduit can credit the buyer for the costs. If the buyer does not choose authentication, the cards are destroyed after 30 days.
That is our general policy, but we would always welcome a dialog with a customer and try to find a way to work things out in a mutually agreeable manner. If that were an avenue a customer wanted to pursue, we would consider it. The most essential first step is a customer reaching out to us with their concerns. In this particular case, we have provided photo and video evidence showing the cards are clearly fake.
Unless your video evidence shows an uninterrupted stream from opening the sealed shipment and pulling out the cards and going through them, with the cards never leaving the video frame, I'm not sure I would believe that your video proof is actually my card, and not just any random fake of the same card.
I'm not the one who sent in the cards, but this thread has been illuminating. If you just unilaterally decide what cards you deem fake and "remove from circulation " those cards, I don't think I could trust your company to not simply skim off the top at your leisure.
Pretty common scam. One of their “assessors” (18 year old kid) sees a new customer submission (don’t mess with established customers) and decides to roll the dice. They can always say “my bad” if you press it. Best case they just straight up steal two nice cards. I feel for you. I hope you spend every waking moment tearing them to the ground.
Woah that’s shady as fuck, they’re not working on behalf of wizards of the coast or hasbro right? They have absolutely no right to remove or destroy any cards from you. They should always return the cards. I could just set up a scam operation and keep all the expensive cards and declare them as fake to not pay out and “destroy” them so they don’t get returned.
Never used their services before, but have anyone bought cards from card conduit then conclude that their cards are fake, demand a refund from them and insist on destroying the said identified fakes instead of returning them?
If their policy doesn't accept such refunds, then they shouldn't do the same to buy list customers.
Honestly, bad policies/terms & conditions needs to stop. In fact, more transparency on reviewers should be given. How do company expect customers to believe if the cards shown are what they sent in and not swapped subsequently? Tough business to be in I guess. More transparency, more costs.
A reminder to everyone. If you are sending cards away from you be sure to document every single one with video and photos so that you can prove which exact cards you have provided. It's very easy to be defrauded.
Sell all your cards in person to avoid this nonsense. Years ago a dealer in person thought one of my verdant catacombs was fake, and it did appear different than most but that was because it was printed in a precon, that I opened myself. I took it back and sold it to the next vendor.
I can answer this a bit based upon my experience for industry standards. I'm also not going to make any assumptions of who is right or wrong here since I cannot see a card under a loope and/mag light. All the major companies that have "buylists" return your cards that are counterfeit, such as TCG and Cardkingdom (but damage the card). I've had 20k+ cards shipped and only 3 were found to be counterfeit that were missed by either me or one of my staff (generally formerly high value cards that collapsed in value to a few bucks). The law people are discussing is based upon 100% assurance they are fake. Smaller stores usually just says they cannot confirm its real and return it, but big companies for them to claim to be fake, they must snip a corner or a clover shaped hole punch the card if they confirm it is fake. This helps prove they have a white core and not on authenticate card stock. Had one come in last week from TCG and it was clearly a white core fake blackcleave cliffs expedition. If they snip the card and there is a blue core, then they pay you out for the card, but honestly they never will contact you to admit their mistake. This company has two choices. First claim they are uncertain of the cards authenticity and send it back to you. Or damage the card showing if there is a blue core or if it does, pay you out. They should be able to send these cards back or your entire order. However for two $25-$30 market value cards you will not be able to hire or lawyer or even recoup it in small claims court. Counterfeit cards are super easy to spot usually and I've yet to see a good fake copy. No one cares about making high quality fakes of sub >$100 cards. The ones that slip through I've found are where most of the playset are real but one isn't or they aren't high enough value anymore to garnish a super close look. And to anyone who knows that you can actually get MTG new card stock, its hard to come by, almost no scammers have access to it as they are all chinese knock offs. If you suspect something is fake (but laser printed) but it has real card stock you can feel it honestly as it bends correctly you can send it back. Lastly there are plenty of FB and Reddit groups that can offer outside verification, that you can use as a 3rd party source for this company.
This was a very detailed response thank you.
Do they really return the counterfeit cards? CK has a page stating the opposite, and TCGplayer explicitly states that they'll contact the seller and destroy counterfeit cards in their buylist TOS.
I cannot confirm for sure they do this still after moving wearhouse locations (which might have changed TOS). I think I accidently sent a few in to them over the years. The first one was really early on in my career and I was on the fence as it was my friend's card and he wanted it to contact the guy he traded with for it. They deducted shipping from my total and sent it back with a scissor clip of a corner and a detailed letter about how it way fake. That being said, the times they found fakes after that I just said trash them. Honestly though CK is the easiest company to buylist with and go out of their way to communicate if a major buylist issues happens and provide returns if needed, but I could see it being a shipping hassle for them as well now.
I sent in a Demonic Tutor as a part of a buylist that turned out to be an extremely high quality counterfeit. I had picked it up from my LGS so it even got passed by them, TCGplayer did send the card back but they punched a hole in it and made me promise I would never ever ever ever ever send a fake card again before I could buylist again
I submitted a bundle of cards to be sold by card conduit, and to my surprise they’ve marked both of the highest value cards of my listing as inauthentic. Reason for my concern is I legitimately pulled those from fresh boosters when the sets dropped years ago with my ex wife while we were still into it, from sealed boxes mind you right when the sets dropped. I know for a fact they’re not proxy as I pulled them myself from a reputable game store in Newnan, Ga called Super Heroes. I’m unsure how to handle this, I’ve requested that they send my cards back that weren’t processed so I can still use them as again, they’re some of my higher value cards (to me) and they were in my best edh decks. I made the decision to sell them out of a desperate attempt to get out of a financial hole and now I feel like two of my favorite cards have been stolen by card conduit. Edit: Most of my cards came from the same exact purchase time, set and all as I heavily invested in the same three sets from the same store. Meaning if those two cards(the highest value in the submission) are inauthentic, the rest of the cards from those sets would also be inauthentic & it just seems very fishy for this to occur. Since it’s almost half the value being taken away from my submission by two cards. I sent 38 cards total.
They're not property of card conduit. In no way are they allowed to keep them. In fact there is no circumstance I can think of where they can claim any card to be fake and just confiscate them outright. Very very shady business practice that I would follow up with a letter from an attorney.
https://cardconduit.com/terms >Cards found to be counterfeit/fake will be assessed at zero value and, per industry standards, will be destroyed. If you send them your cards you've agreed to their terms and conditions.
I used to take fake ids when I was a bouncer as per our policy but it was technically theft.
[удалено]
Taking IDs has gotten bouncers in trouble in the past because sometimes they take real IDs that they only think to be fake.
The difference is that you aren't ripping up a valuable item. They can get their ID back or replace it, but they can't replace some of these cards.
We threw away all the fake ids we didn’t use for training purposes, and they are quite expensive
It can be harder to replace your id than you think. I lost my birth certificate years ago and it wasn’t really a big deal bc how often do you actually use one? I moved to a new state in 2020 before covid and tried to get my new states id after lockdown, it was a pain. I needed my birth certificate and couldn’t go get a new one bc you had to go to your state to pick it up since they weren’t mailing them for some dumb covid policy. You’re not even legally allowed to drive to your job without valid id. Some people don’t have time to take off work to sit in the bmv for four hours bc an idiot bouncer stole their stuff. Idk why one has to be worse than the other, both are bullshit
> replace it, Theft/destruction of government property, time spent, unworked hours, moral damages, honestly it's likely a lot less headaches to sue the damn club.
Then it needs to be explained how it's determined, and every person submitting cards to them needs to be fully aware that CC can at any time decide that any card you give them is a fake and therefore confiscated, and nobody in their right mind should ever send in a card worth more than what they're okay with being told is $0 and no longer theirs.
I was going to say- based on their terms I wouldn't send anything over $1.
So TCGplayer and cardkingdom also does this
Also Paypal, even with non-card items. There was an episode of Judge Judy I once saw that involved a dispute over a fake watch; buyer reported it fake, Paypal requested it to process the case, and then destroyed it. Judy argued Paypal would never do this when it was very clearly in the TOS (because she just assumes she knows everything). She ended up screwing over the plantiff because of this, because she refused to accept that Paypal would confiscate and destroy the fake watch. I get the idea, they don't want you pawning it off on someone else. But at the same time, there has to be a way to challenge the inauthentic determination because sometimes they don't get it right. And there isn't.
The thing is, this *is* industry standard. Every company does this and I don't know why you'd assume card conduit doesn't. I thought that it was common knowledge that if you send a fake card to any buylist, that they will destroy it.
He didn't send a fake card. They're claiming he did. We're assuming OP is being honest since there's no much reason to fight to get your proxy back.
Seriously, if I had a means of making a proxy, or a fake card why would I be so keen on getting them back. I could just print another one, so to speak. They’re attempting to steal from me and I’m upset about it.
> The thing is, this is industry standard. Which *still* doesn't affect whether or not the act is legal.
They legally can't destroy it, that's theft. If someone wanted to pursue it they could and they'd have legal grounds to win.
Determined fake by who? And what authority does this person have to actually deem a card fake. Are they correct? Far too many unanswered questions for them to legally have any ground to stand on here. If the idea seems reasonable to you, send me all your cards, and I will tell you they are all fake and keep them all for free. Sound like a good deal?
eBay & PayPal don’t. Buyers are **required** to send fakes back to the seller if they want their refunds processed.
Just because its in their terms and conditions doesnt necessarily make it legal behaviour. If your employment contract says on termination, all of your personal property kept at the business will be destroyed, doesn't make it legal.
“When you quit this job you also forfeit your life and will be killed on the spot.” “But…” “nope you signed a contract so it’s legal”
South Park do a good episode on this concept.
why can't it read....
[удалено]
I doubt they’re destroying these cards if ya know what I’m sayin’…….
"Terms and conditions are meaningless" *definitely* isn't true. They're as meaningful as any other contract. I have no clue if this is a valid contract or not, I ain't a lawyer. But "lol the terms and conditions mean nothing" sure ain't true.
Not entirely. You can write a malicious ToS. For example if I wrote billing software for a hospital system I can put in my ToS I own all data entered and can do with it as I will, however that doesn’t make it legal as since it’s tied back to medical records I still need to abide by HIPAA
You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. The person I am responding to said, verbatim "Terms and conditions are meaningless." That is very, very much not the case. Terms and conditions don't supersede the law, but they are definitely not "meaningless". That's all I'm saying. The point is that we're all dumbasses on Reddit, and this shit is why we have lawyers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> They're as meaningful as any other contract. Not really. One of the core concepts in contract law is a meeting of the minds; that is, the parties must all agree in broad strokes on what the contract covers. Terms of Service are found to fall short here far more often than a made to order contract, because the law recognizes that the average person doesn't read them, is unable to adequately comprehend them even if they do, and the average merchant fails to make appropriate verification that the other part did so. Thus, no meeting of the minds, *even if* the person clicks a box to "agree to the terms of service." They're not meaningless. They are less meaningful than most any other form of contract.
This isn't necessarily true. It's a fact specific determination. Please be very cautious of providing that advice. A court could easily disagree with you. It depends on a lot on exactly how the ToS were presented. For example, in MA, an Uber contract where consumers didn't need to read the ToS were found to be unenforceable where Uber tried to avoid liability for not accommodating service dogs. In contrast, the Uber drivers had to read through several pages, watch videos, and agree to the ToS. Uber just felt that too much effort probably hurt people downloading and using the app. Here's a helpful article on the topic: https://www.goodwinlaw.com/en/insights/publications/2022/08/08_10-recent-court-decisions-shed-light Goodwin is a good lawfirm. That said, it's not meaningless. However, if the terms are unconscionable or illegal, that's separate from the determination that the agreement itself was void from the start. It's just unenforceable.
I’m an attorney. I draft terms of service frequently. If you have to click to agree to them when signing up, they’re enforceable. That said, Card Conduit still needs to prove it was counterfeit. If I were their attorney, I’d tell them never to destroy any of these cards. If I were representing a plaintiff and I discovered they destroy these without keeping evidence of inauthenticity, I’d file a class action lawsuit.
So if a company states that by installing this software, they now own my computer, is it legally enforceable?
Found the Adobe customer.
Can you provide some sources to back that up? That is very, very different from everything I've ever seen an actual lawyer say on the topic of "clickwrap agreements". I mean I ain't saying Wikipedia's authoritative, but it's more authoritative than some dude on a MTG subreddit, yk? >Few cases have considered the validity of clickwrap licenses. Still, in the cases that have challenged their validity, the terms of the contract have usually been upheld: [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickwrap)
Meaningless is probably extreme but they are often void or unenforceable. Terms and conditions of any contract should always be congruent with the law and are frequently not.
Howdy, lawyer (currently not practicing), but lol generally enforceable.
Non-compete clauses are common (or used to be) in contracts, and with the exception of some industries (tech), are illegal, meaning that they cannot be legally enforced by the employer. Something being in the T&C doesn't make it okay if it's illegal .
That's an *interesting* ToS page. It's also one that frankly hasn't been looked at by a competent lawyer, since there are a ton of aspects of a terms of service contract that it doesn't include. For example, it doesn't include language that defines the parties involved in any transactions. It doesn't make any claims as to arbitration or jurisdiction or venue. It doesn't include language to maintain the terms of the contract if an individual clause is found to be invalid. It kinda looks like someone just went on Rocket Lawyer and threw it together.
Nope. TOS are not legally binding and have no standing in court. They are simply a statement of their personal policy. What they’re doing violated OPs reasonable good faith expectations. If what OP says is true and he takes them to court, he will win.
It’s illegal to knowingly traffic in counterfeit goods. Most card businesses follow the same policy and destroy any goods they identify as counterfeit. And the cost of an attorney in this case is going to be more than the money you lost. OP is going to have to either accept that the cards were counterfeit or that they were and never deal with card conduit again.
> the cost of an attorney in this case is going to be more than the money you lost Fortunately, small claims court is a thing. I'm not sure why you think repeating "it's in their terms and conditions" all over this thread somehow makes your point stronger. This is absolutely something that could - and should - be taken to court, assuming that OP is correct that the cards were legitimate.
Just because it’s store policy doesn’t mean they have the legal right.
Can you cite some law or statute that prohibits this? Y'all keep shouting this guy for standing by ToS but have cited nothing at all to show this ToS is illegal
[удалено]
No, they have no legal right to destroy someone else’s property, even if they think it’s counterfeit.
Negative. Card conduit is not God or the final say on whether or not a card is proxy. And a letter from an attorney isn't necessarily expensive. I can't stand proxy cards at all, and hate that they exist, but we also can't have some dipshit working for a company like Card Conduit, who doesn't feel like buying those cards for his own set, just claim they're fake and put them in his or her pocket.
Furthermore, CC would have to provide irrefutable proof the cards they kept are OP's AND that they're proxy, plus how they were destroyed. Just this letter and one interaction from CC would deter me from ever doing business with them. No buying, selling, nothing. If they're willing to do this, they're willing to cheat someone in any number of other ways.
I think it’s fascinating here CC says ‘we will be removing them from circulation’ and not ‘they will be destroyed as well’. May be a Freudian slip.
People putting up with this are also to blame. Stop letting buisnesses get away with this. They want to have these kinds of terms they need to provide undisputed proof at the very least and not just "hey, we looked them over and they fake so goodbye". This whole story, T&C, emails, people involved etc. don't matter at all. That's your property give it back.
The sketchy part is they provide a detailed description of the conditions of the card no explanation why they think 2 of them are fake.
> It’s illegal to **knowingly** traffic in counterfeit goods. He attempted to deal in good faith and according to the OP, they were real as far as he knew. In fact, if the cards in question are just confiscated and there is no way to dispute the authenticity of said items, that is illegal. They can have a monkey just point at the "fake" cards and just take them. If I have no way to argue or to review if they were indeed fake, then who is to know you aren't just outright **stealing** things? I'd hire an attorney just out of principle and aim to sue for the cost of the cards, paying the attorney through attorney fees, and a small premium for wasting my time.
The unfortunate part about this, and "Cardconduit" (and other businesses) know it is super expensive to hire an attorney, even asking them to draft a letter is expensive, and so almost no one, will take this route unfortunately and it is a crime (literally and figuratively) that this company is seemingly taking advantage of this. Perhaps a police report would be more helpful.
>I would follow up with a letter from an attorney. Fool they sold them bc times are tough lol y'all are funny
I remember when the set came out and I sold a Chromati Orrery fresh from a case, buyer said it was fake, and i told them to compare to a pack of cards and they confirmed it was real. The quality back then was bad but they need to give you them back.
They don't trust OP because they think OP has fake cards. OP shouldn't trust their judgement of the cards either. Goes both ways
It's not worth hiring a lawyer over, but they are in the wrong, legally speaking. If you wish to pursue this notify them you are taking them to small claims court. Ensure that you inform them that their posted disclaimer about forgeries violates theft laws and that "per industry standards" isn't a legal loophole to destroy property deemed by one party as "worthless."
[удалено]
$5-50 cards are usually subject to less scrutiny, bc hey why would you fake a $25 card when you can fake a $300 card? which makes them better targets for mass counterfeiting
Yeah, they fucked you. I can’t believe they still pull this bullshit. I would 100% think that someone at card conduit pocketed those cards, or something lol. I honestly don’t understand how it’s ok for any place to have a policy where they “remove from circulation” any cards that **they** deem to be fake, without providing any proof to back up their claim. Why can’t they take comparison pictures of the “fake” card next to a “real” copy of the same card - while showing the differences and detailing how/why the card is fake? Tl;dr — They 100% need to send it back IMO. That, or they need send proof as to what makes it fake. This shit is infuriating and shady as fuck.
For what it's worth I've sent them 2 batches. One came out for over a grand. Nothing was marked as inauthentic. Highest buylist value of any one card was around 50.
Yeah, but sometimes things happen. Even good companies can have shady employees. I think that’s what happened here and I’m just trying to figure the best way to resolve this and get my stuff back.
>Even good companies can have shady employees Yeah but not even that. You don't realize how many people even at respected companies don't know how to do their job. The corporate side of my job is very incompetent for example compared to the labor worker side.
i recently sold some pokemon cards i had purchased when the game first came out , nothing super high priced. Also had a one of these cards is fake. Emailed back to ask for proof of this , and that id like to take the card elsewhere for a 2nd opinion. Got the standard we destroy fake cards and do not return them. Sent a very friendly legal email stating they no legal right to destroy property that doesn’t belong to them, and if the card is not returned, the full value of the card will be sued for in small claims court , as well as court fees. Got my card back, as well as every other card as well, about 2 days later. They have no legal standing to keep a card , regardless if its deemed fake or not.
[удалено]
We should totally make a copy pasta and send in cards of decent value- then all bombard them with the same email saying we are all going to take them to court 🤣
This is definitely a very common occurrence with them then. Guy is definitely skimming off the top and hoping most people won’t do anything and accept the ludicrous and illegal tos.
Certainly seems that way. Won't ever touch this company with a ten foot pole.
How is it a common occurrence with them? They don't even buy Pokemon cards to my knowledge.
Seconding request for friendly legal template
Based around not knowing your location and laws in your area. It would be best to contact legal aid in your area
Well… was the card suspicious or fake in any way?
no it was 1st gen pokemon cards that had been left in a box for years.
u/cardconduit ?
Well good to know I’ll avoid them… that’s absurd and borderline scummy. What’s to keep them from abusing this policy to effectively steal someone’s cards?
Yikes. This is exactly why I won't sell my high dollar cards to ANY of these places.
Which places?
Card Kingdom does this as well.
Card conduit, based on the picture. I've sold some large orders to them, no issues. My guess is the cards were indeed fake.
Your personal experience with them has no bearing on whether or not the company is right or wrong here. It's like the people who go "Blisters have the best pull rates" - your experience may or may not be the norm.
I'm in a few video games subs, runescape in particular, and there are constant "I got banned unfairly" posts and the mods for the game reply to the post with the proof and slam the fuck out of them. I think I've seen maybe 2 out of 100 where they apologized and said our bad. All this to say, yeah the story is almost certainly bullshit and he sent fake cards. I've read some convincing stories that ended up being bogus.
as a vendor i had a dude come up 1 time with 4 horizon canopy, 1 was fake, he scooped everything when i wouldnt buy it, and came back to me multiple times to tell me it was real and he pulled it from a booster, and my response remained something like "well then sell it to someone else bc i dont buy fakes" not saying OPs is real or fake, but with the way EDH is popular i know guys with 1 real cyclonic rift and 15 proxies, its easy to mix things up even when you opened them
Yeah I get collections regularly and 9/10 times it's commander decks and there's proxies all the time and some are pretty damn good. 100% casual/newer players get tricked by those all the time if they're trading.
I only fuck with 1 of my LGS store in my area. The other stores + online stores just suck IMO.
Doesn’t every store do this? I know for a fact card kingdom does as well. I send a lot of cards through their buy list and at one point did send them a card that was deemed counterfeit. They destroyed it. (Wasn’t super high value. Purphoros iirc)
I just sent an email requesting my cards back, including the two that were deemed to be fake without proof instead of receiving a payment.
Sadly youll never know (unless previously marked) if they were your original real cards, that they then keep and send you actual fake versions... good luck with it all man!
I highly doubt a company would stake their whole reputation on a couple of $30-$40 cards. But hey, weirder things have happened I guess.
A company is filled with people, and any individual handling it along the chain could have switched out such cards. I doubt it would be the company themselves doing so, but it could be a person from within the company.
They have control and you have no proof otherwise. How else do you think they have theoretically crafted a perfect scam? "Our Terms of Service state that we have the right to do what we want with your card., but we destroy them if they"re fake, do not worry." Id like to throw 'highly doubt a reputable company would do that' in the mix too. But if OP is factual, they deserve to have their exact cards returned. Again, no proof to say it will or wont be the same cards. Hope for the best but expect the worst is all you can do.
I have no intention of selling my collection after this incident since the closest game store is miles away and I drive a gas guzzler. It’s simply not worth it. I’ve never bought a proxy or went out of my way to buy singles though so I’m pretty confident I did not send a fake, my collection is compromised of a few booster boxes and pre cons bought from a single game store over the course of a few months while I was married, sets were Kaldheim, Commander Legends & m21..though my word is weightless I guess. If they did send fakes back it just goes to show how shady their business practices actually are and I hope no one else goes through this bs.
I believe you. I dont know why theyd consider it a fake but Id fight [[Tooth and Nail]] to get them back too.
This right here is why I can’t take what they send in an email as proof of anything. They’re a company, with access to these cards daily. Unless I marked my cards(obviously would be stupid to sell) I have no way of firmly believing what they show me, online as hard evidence that what I had was fake. I pulled them from a booster to, regardless of if any of y’all believe me I can’t just wipe my own memory and have a company tell me what I have isn’t what I know it is. I hope I’m just able to get my cards back.
This happens at Card Kingdom too.
Wasnt there a ck thread about the same thing a few months ago.
Whelp never using them. Thanks for sharing OP.
I feel like they should at least provide some proof more than "because we said so."
Didn't realize this subreddit had so many lawyers. So many confident people giving out legal advice like candy.
Lots of super bad legal advice in this thread.
Hey everyone here has access to YouTube and Wikipedia and most are neckbeards - of course they’re confidently incorrect on most things they talk about
Email them outlining that you believe they are wrong and that you would like all of your property back that was invoiced when you sent them in from them immediately. If they dont comply, contact their local police department or sheriff's department and explain to them the situation, and file a report. Get a copy of the report, scan it and post it on Twitter, and tag them asking why they won't reply. (Police reports are public knowledge, and anyone can get them you're not doxxing them, but it wouldn't hurt to cross off phone numbers and addresses just to not be malicious) it sucks were at this point in society, but if what you're saying is 100% the truth and they don't comply when you email them.... well, then that's on them. Did they have you sign any paperwork or agreements to this policy they are talking about?
I didn’t have to sign anything, only thing I can think of is some policy being a barrier to all of this. But the situation is mad fishy to me and I don’t want to stir up bad rep for them but I don’t want to be ripped by someone else’s foul play once it got to their hands.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Respond to their email saying you are refusing the sale and you expect all of your property to be back in your possession within 15 days. Say that if more time is needed to safely ship the products, you will extend that period to 30 days if you are provided a notarized promissory note. Say that failure to do so will result on an injunction being filed against (insert their business name here). If they refuse, do no reply. Contact a lawyer and you will have to pay them to file the injunction on your behalf. After the injunction is filed, file a suit in small claims court for the property + lawyer fees for filing injunction + a reasonable fee for the time you spent on cleaning up this issue. It will be a hassle, but if these guys are responsible business owners then they will avoid all of this. An injunction will prevent them from doing business online until this matter is resolved. Do not get in the weeds with them. Do not ask them to prove the cards being invalid. Do not ask them to explain themselves. Give them clear, concise direction: You are not moving forward with the sale. Return the property. 15 days. Can extend to 30 days with a promissory note. Injunction is ready to be filed should you not comply. Regards.
Would you mind dming me if you’ve got the time to explain more on the process?
His response is pretty comprehensive
I try to figure out all the angles on things before I make any hasty moves, especially if this ends up being a legal matter. I more-or-less was looking to dm for specific questions I had revolving the things he mentioned to do without cluttering up the comment thread. But he made an edit stating he’s not a lawyer in his comment so more than likely he wouldn’t be able to help me further in the matter anyways..unless he has experience with this himself.
They have a pretty good reputation around here. Hopefully they will make things right for you!
Has anyone else had access to your cards over the years? Borrowed decks? Played your decks out of your eyesight? Granted it's a long shot, but as said elsewhere, the highest demand, highest cost cards are the ones that are counterfeited. Someone could've switched them years ago and you wouldn't ever know. That being said, for them to destroy your property and not offer an analysis on why they found them to be counterfeited is very shady. It could be an employee of theirs trying to pocket some cash under their noses. If you don't think there's any chance they were fakes, use small claims court if possible. You may need to file where the company is located, so add airfare / hotel / travel expenses into your claim if you can.
No, I am a legitimate hermit. I live alone when I don’t have my kids and I do not go out to play in public. I play online with friends using discord and before then I didn’t touch mtg after m13 days when I was in high school. There’s just no way for foul play to have happened under ownership.
How hard is this response: “Here are the high resolution scans of your cards and you can see by the layering of the ink that these cards are counterfeit.” Then once you’ve made the customer believe your bullshit then launch into your policy about destroying other people’s property illegally.
The challenge with this is you are creating a for-free authentication service that counterfeiters can use repeatedly to make better and better proxies, until stores no longer can find any evidence of it being fake. I actually agree with store policies to not provide evidence of them being fake, but do not agree with any store policy that won't return a fake. Perhaps one day an authentication service will have a proper legal status to lawfully destroy property that is deemed counterfeit, giving transparency to anyone who knowingly or unknowingly sends in counterfeit property, but until then do not support any store that participates in a system with a giant conflict of interest to unlawfully gain possession of what is essentially anonymized high-value collectibles. I like the above recommendation to give them a formal letter asking for all property back.
Yep. Have the person send return postage, hole punch them 8 times and send em back.
Is the witch hunt over? Y'all really went to bat hard over some person who sent in fake cards to a buylist. Reminds me of that front page post about a month back about someone sending in fake power to CK and wanting legal recourse. Edit: found it lol https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1cwukso/my_sister_sold_magic_cards_now_the_card_shop_says/
> Y'all really went to bat hard over some person who sent in fake cards to a buylist. A company single handedly making themselves the arbiter of whether or not your cards are real and then also refusing to give you your cards back is not a good company. Even if they deem them fake it doesn't matter unless you can guarantee that no real cards have ever been made that don't pass those tests. It's not about the person, it's about the policy.
It's insane how these companies can just hide behind "we are removing a counterfeit from circulation" when they themselves determined it was counterfeit. Even if everything is perfect and above board, it leads to cases like this. In the worst case scenario, it basically provides them a way to steal cards, even less of a chance if they only do it to small, one time sellers. They should be required to send them back, assuming you pay for shipping and handling.
These mfs think they're the federal reserve for magic cards. Shit is wild.
It's not that crazy, it's illegal for them to knowingly transport counterfeit goods. Once they know it's counterfeit their options are 1) become a repository for permanently storing an infinite amount of counterfeit cards sent in, for no reason and never make any money on them, 2) destroy them. You getting it back is not an option.
If you’re destroying things you’d need a chain of custody, otherwise whose to say they aren’t destroying their own proxies and keeping yours
This really is the crux of it to me, and I have not seen anything in CC's replies that convinces me they have any proof of this chain of custody. We have only two strangers' claims, but both agree that CC is saying the cards are fake and they will destroy them. Which they can say is in their terms of service, but that's some dubious ground to stand on. Even if there's no malicious intent on the part of CC, I wouldn't trust them with a sale at this point.
100% the cards are fake. The rosette gives it away more than the dot test (but that does too). As someone who regularly buys $100+ cards from Facebook marketplace etc, I've tested a lot of cards with a loupe and light test. There are some extremely good fakes out there, but I've yet to find one that can replicate the rosettes from same set comparisons on older RL cards, most fail green dot immediately. Also check the T, that has proven very reliable in my experience. Stating that a business will just straight up destroy them is where the trust breaks. If it was me, I'd send the seller an email with their options including destruction or return with the FAKE marking rather than making it seem like they are simply destroyed with zero recourse since a lot of these people probably bought them as real from someone or even a reputable vendor that didn't catch them. If the seller believes they are authentic, that causes undue panic and creates mistrust since the situation is bad for all parties involved. Imagine as a seller finding out the two choices you have are that you were ripped off OR you feel a company is taking advantage of you. It's lose/lose. It's great to provide support for possible recourse through TCG etc, but this could have all been avoided with a better description of the process of dealing with fakes and clearly stating a seller's options from the beginning rather than an arbitrary sounding "we destroy them, no recourse, sorry".
Rather than reply to individual queries given the numbers of replies, we figured we’d make another top level post to try to consolidate the information/takeaways from this situation. Couterfeits are a tricky issue for a variety of reasons. It is something we have discussed at length internally, and the notion that this is cut and dry, or that we should just simply return counterfeit items does the entire community a disservice. There are an enormous amount of fake cards in the market – we process them every day, and we are sure other large vendors do, too. Most people have no idea they had fake cards, and many are simply being purchased through third-party sellers / marketplaces. You might say “it isn’t your job to try to solve that problem”, and that may be a fair criticism, but in many instances, we will go out of our way to help customers with counterfeit items get their money back. Our terms are written to protect us. When we process a customer’s shipment, we spend a lot of time and energy processing those cards. What we do and don’t allow via our terms are a baseline – we are always willing to work with people to find resolutions, and we have adjusted our terms over time based on some constructive discussions in this subreddit – namely, allowing for customers to request their shipments be held for review before they are finalized. In addition to our terms, customers very specifically agree to certain conditions using our service – namely, that absent a hold for review, they agree no cards will be returned. Does this mean that we won’t still work with people to find a reasonable solution to a problem? No. It simply protects our company and takes us down a path that is more “let’s find a solution” and less “you better lawyer up”. We agree that the email to the customer does read as very “final”, and we will adjust that language moving forward to reflect the opportunity for further discussion. Our service – and really any service whereby you send your cards to someone else and hope for the best – requires an enormous amount of trust. We do our best to be as up front as we possibly can about all aspects of our service, including specifically making people agree to specific terms ahead of time. We are aware of how much trust is required, and our physical handling of shipments and cards is very carefully maintained and overseen. While OP may not be intentionally trying to sell counterfeit products, it happens all the time – as a business of scale, you cannot be soft on counterfeits, and that is reflected by the policies of all major vendors in the space. Though it is not our policy, there have been times we have returned fake items after we defaced them, which affords us the ability to actually mail an item we know to be counterfeit without running afoul of the law ourselves. We have offered to do that here, and that offer remains on the table. We have offered to return the other items in the order as well, despite what the customer specifically agreed to. And we have provided proof that the items are fake, which has been posted in this thread. We’ve reached the point in this thread where there are some who would never accept any solution. If we agree to return the items back (which we have already done, with the caveat that we do something to make it clear the items are fake), there is a suggestion we’re replacing them with fake items we conveniently have on hand. If you’re at that point, there’s nothing we can do to convince you of our good intentions. We don’t need a reddit thread where everyone is calling for our head to work with our customers and find solutions. We are always open to reaching reasonable conclusions, and you can believe that or not – but that is and will continue to be at the forefront of how we operate. Lastly, we felt it worth providing a general PSA to anyone who might see this or similar threads on reddit where the general consensus is to “lawyer up”. As a general rule, threatening legal action when a company is actively trying to work with you to find a solution is pretty much the worst thing you can do. In most large companies, that ends the conversation, and then you are referred to legal – and will not get any resolution outside of the legal team. There are many, many suggestions to take that route in this thread – and while we are still attempting to resolve the issue with the customer, we have explained to that customer that doing that further will necessitate the conversation ending and having further discussion happen between attorneys. If you get to the end of a discussion with a company and cannot find a resolution you can live with, then you take the actions you deem necessary.
Really good response. Folks need to look at the proof if they haven't seen it - [light test video](https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj) - and honestly no test is even necessary, that Mana Drain is plainly obviously fake. The mana symbols are aligned wrong. Look at it for 2 seconds and you can tell. The idea of a conspiracy where a cardconduit employee has a stack of fake Mana Drains around to swap in for a real one is pretty laughable. That sort of fraud is not worth anyone's while... No idea how OP came to have a fake card. But the fact that reddit will just weigh in on his side, with no particular evidence or proof besides a good story, is one of the silliest parts of this website.
A google search for proxy mana drain commander legends will take you to a site that will sell you a copy for $4, that copy includes the same incorrectly printed mana symbols. You can find a copy of the Chromatic Orrery on the same website also for $4. Buylist value is $48 for the 2.
I'm in this weird middle ground where I believe OP didn't know the cards were fake (although I do think he is adding the "pulled them myself" clause to bolster his argument) but I 100% believe they were sent fake cards and that they are correct to destroy them. What business which deals entirely in community based card buying and selling would risk their entire reputation on 35 motherfucking dollars of product.
I know you're getting hosed here in the comments but it's just redditors being redditors. The issue here is that you have a nearly impossible business that is essentially: "Send a nameless stranger a bag of diamonds and I'll honestly assess and pay you for them. Source - Trust Me" The biggest barrier to potential customers (including myself) is trusting a total stranger to be completely honest. Not only that, but honest remotely and out of sight. There are so many potential ways that someone could easily be taken advantage of here. You could: 1. "Miss" cards in a collection and customer probably wouldn't even be aware of it. 2. Falsely downgrade the condition to obtain it for a lower price. 3. Outright lie and say that a card is fake and pocket it. OP could have knowingly sent the fake card with the intention of scamming you. Or they really and truly believe that the card they sent you is 100% real. The next impossible piece of your business: How do you handle a situation like this? As you can see from this thread you will never be able to convince that customer that they didn't send you a real card. And to their point, if they in their heart of hearts 100% believe that card was real, the evidence provided to them is not proof because it has left their hands and has been out of sight. If OP genuinely believes that they pulled that card from a pack and sent you that very card there's no possible way for you to appease them other than paying them for it or sending a real card in return. Even if you sent back the fake they would genuinely believe you swapped them. And while there's no way win this customer service nightmare I think that it was handled as best a humanly possible. You've engaged the community, asked for feedback, and most importantly you've been tactful. As tempting as I'm sure it was to respond "dude just look at this bullshit card you sent me lmao" you stayed respectful the entire time. Up until this very thread CC has had a great reputation here and I strongly doubt that you would jeopardize that so publicly for a mana drain. And while I personally dislike that cards are destroyed, I also understand that there isn't really a winning option in this scenario.
Is it feasible for them to maybe just state something along the lines of “unfortunately, we actually won’t be able to accept or pay out 'X-Card'from 'X-Shipment', but can/will return the card back to you at x-address, blah blah blah.” I’m not a lawyer by any means, but giving a very vague reasoning and NOT mentioning the words “counterfeit”, “fake”, “authentic” seems like it could put them in a legal gray areaVance they call it a fake. Idk. This whole situation is definitely not black and white and requires nuance and whatnot. I do not envy CC for being in this business and having to put up with a (probably constant) wave of bullshit and nonsense all of the time.
Replying to bump this up the thread. THIS IS AN ACTUAL RESPONSE FROM CARD CONDUIT EVERYONE!
I understand your position of "taking these out of circulation" but I think at some point you have to step back and realize that unless you are absolutely perfect at finding counterfeits, you \*will\* make a mistake and you \*will\* destroy a real card, if you haven't already. This is not a "you might," people make mistakes. You will destroy someone's real, valuable card with this policy. I don't know what your volume is, but you may have already done so. It's easy to take that calculated risk when its not your money on the line (who is \*really\* going to take you to small claims court over even a 150-300 dollar card, most don't have the time or means to do so). The cards in this scenario could very well be fake, but taking fakes out of circulation isn't your job and frankly, shouldn't be. The best thing you can do is say that they didn't pass your muster test, but not say why so people can't just improve their fakes. You send them back so they get their property and maybe charge the return postage from the bits of the collection you do keep, and call it a day.
Refreshing to see such a reasonable, well thought out response to a complicated situation. If I've learned anything from being on this sub for years, people should hate it. 😂
So you'll destroy or damage ops property without payment and expect people to send cards in the future?
When counterfeits are identified, it is extremely rare that someone actually wants the cards back. In the cases where they do, 99% of the time it is to try to get their money back from wherever they were purchased from (often that is TCGPlayer from a third-party), and we often will help facilitate that. What we are saying is we cannot mail an item we know to be counterfeit without making it plain the items are counterfeit. What would you say is the value of a counterfeit item that is being defaced?
Well Mana Drain costs $30-$40 and you haven't provided concrete proof of it being a counterfeit. You are stealing from the op and continuing illegal business practices you dumbass. Send it back, don't do illegal shit, and stop being a whiny pathetic loser. You got caught stealing, just admit it and get over it
We have provided proof to the customer, and it has been posted in this thread. If the customer does get the items back and wants to get some additional opinions on the card, as stated we would be happy to stand by our decision if that was discussed / agreed to ahead of time. What would be acceptable to you as concrete proof at this point?
So you'll destroy his card, but afterwards he can take his vandalized property to be looked at by someone else? Fuck off lol. Just send it back as is, apologize, and that's it.
Can you not answer the question? What is acceptable proof? You fighting so hard to get this man back what, by all accounts, appears to be a counterfeit card is making me distrust you finance guys more than Card Conduit as someone that has found this thread from the popular page. * They've said they cannot legally do what you are suggesting. * They have asked for an acceptable test which no one has provided or recommended. * They have said the owner is free to get his own legitimate test done and then they will cover the costs of the destroyed cards if they are found to be wrong. These are very reasonable steps that, if the card is real, the owner might not be thrilled about, but at least give him options.
The biggest impact to this hobby from Covid might actually be the sudden lack of opportunities for comparative in person buylisting. CC is not the only company that has done that and (according to OP) gotten it wrong. Nor is it all that uncommon for an online storefront, even a reputable one, to sell counterfeit cards (I've had CFB ship me a counterfeit Savanna that I traded in accumulated tournament winnings for.) At least in person there's a verifiable chain of custody of the card and such a smaller chance of shenanigans.
[удалено]
Thats not how that works in court. Espically when CC doesn't provide any proof. Just because a company makes up a policy doesn't mean it automatically wins for them.
Yeah you can't just put in T&C that are literally illegal and point at the website. That isn't how it works. That is just to fake out people that don't know better. Same thing with liability waivers. They don't mean anything. It is just there to make ignorant people think they have no standing.
I just finished a decent sized order with them. Was about to send a new order but going to hold off until I see how this is resolved. I don’t like the unilateral confiscation. It’s another matter to reject and offer to send back for a fee, etc. but to confiscate without proof is a poor practice. Just going to stick to better buyers even if it’s a bit more work.
Christ this is how every large buy list works, has always worked, and will always work. Alot of conspiracies from idiots who have no business having opinions.
Just received an email of them trying to “prove” its inauthenticity. The problem with this, and I stated in my responding email.. is that I cannot in good faith trust that they’re not just using rehashed files, photos & videos either sourced from previous customers or through online media. After what’s going on, there is simply no way for them to prove anything and I would just like to receive my belongings back. All 38 cards, no payments. And I hope I was clear in my emails about that. I do not want to move forward with the service as the sales are not finalized yet. I was invoiced and I’m gladly declining. Hope y’all can learn from my mistake of using their services.
What do the photos show? Do the cards pass or fail the green dot test? What methods did Card Conduit use to determine that they are fake? Can you share the photos?
Claimed green dot test, but again when you email someone, you’re sending files, that can and have been rehashed before by scammers. This isn’t a legit way to prove anything online. Someone could easily reuse files, use other cards, etc I’m dealing with a company that literally comes in contact with thousands of these cardboard bits. I simply cannot take that as proof of anything and I’ve requested that I get them back. If this was in person it would be different, but sending an email with photos and files attached means nothing as a way of prove anything in this matter. I may be stupid in a lot of ways, but how the internet works is not one of them. I been around long enough to know that photoshop, old files, etc etc exist especially the old files since they’re a company selling these cards. Ignorance to that fact is how anyone can get away with claiming fakes.
Okay, but you could also be lying about where you got the cards from. Not saying you are, but there's no way for anyone here to tell who's lying. I've used Card Conduit before and have sent them a number of higher end cards and didn't have this issue. I think it's entirely possible that Card Conduit made a mistake (especially given WotC/Hasbro's quality control these days), but I find it hard to believe that Card Conduit would lie about fakes. Especially to the point that they would send fake evidence. Why don't you share the photos so that we can look at them at least?
OP can't prove their story of where the cards came from. Unless Card Conduit has continuous unedited video footage from the moment they opened the sealed shipment from OP with all the cards never leaving the frame of the video while they're being tallied and checker for authenticity... they also can't really conclusively prove that OP sent them fakes. A picture or video of an identified fake card does not prove that the card being shown is OP's card. So we have a case of two people making contradictory claims about the cards, and no proof either way. The only thing that seems to be agreed upon is that CC is claiming they are fakes and they destroyed them.
That’s very true, but if they deem them fake then they should send me my stuff back no problem as I do not want a payment from them regardless. This is my point of wanting my stuff back, they cannot prove it’s fake given it’s the internet and I cannot prove it’s not fake as I’m just one dude who bought bits of cardboard and I hope they follow through with my request to cancel the service.
Can we at least see the evidence they sent you? You can upload the photos to an image host so that we can see.
The customer uploaded the pictures of the green dot test failing here [https://imgur.com/a/p4eTA5I](https://imgur.com/a/p4eTA5I) and we uploaded the video of the light test fail that was also sent to them [https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj](https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj)
Yes, but again there’s no legit way of me or anyone else knowing what they are sending isn’t also fake, like they’re trying do with my card. This is a problem inevitable with the internet and sales of card to a company host and I’d rather jusy get my cards back than to go back n forth wether or not the green dot photos are actually my cards & not just someone else’s card or a rehashed file from archived messages, previous customers etc etc. give me one sec I’ll figure out somewhere to post it though if y’all actually want to see it. But it’s essentially just a “this is the green dot on your card, and this is the green dot of fakes” with a link on how to spot fakes. But it’s exactly jusy that, a photo, a file, a video. Doesn’t prove anything unless you’re blind to scummy business practices.
You can upload the photos/evidences to a public imgur link then add that as a new comment to the post (or edit your post with the link directly)
I just did! It’s somewhere in the comment threads haha
Is your assertion that we have faked photo and video evidence in an effort to scam you for cards worth $48 at buylist?
My assertion is clearly stated that I cannot trust that you did or did not give me actual proof, given the advantages of the internet and being aware of a thing called archives. What you sent may or may not be legit, but as someone viewing it attached to an email in the form of a file it means nothing. Only way to prove anything is in person and obviously that won’t happen unless you send my cards back. A poor employee could’ve gladly pocketed whatever the said value is. Can’t dimish the value of 48 bucks to a regular person, of course card conduit the company doesn’t worry about $48 It’s not as simple as “look at this photo I sent you” as proof when you’re a company that theoretically touches hundreds of these daily, and have definitely been around long enough to run into legitimate fakes of your own to archive files from. If this was an in person sale you could’ve showed me during the exchange but this is 100% online and you cannot prove anything to me so let’s just move forward from this by canceling the service and sending my cards back.
Here my thing we don't know who's lying here. Cc had a lot more to lose to scam you over $48 buylist cards. Why go out of the way to fake a video and photos for that amount of money? I've seen this story before on the buildapc reddit over a rtx card that indeed the OP was full of shit.
To negate having to send me anything back, it’s simple. If they don’t wanna deal with me and try to dimish my complaint they’ll claim the files they sent as legit. But I mean, there’s no way they can prove that the files were from my card over the internet. Companies do a lot of shady practices to save their asses if shady practices are publicized, happens all the time in the business world.
Can you provide us with the evidence that they sent you?
I can dm you but I can’t post the photos directly in the comment thread here. But as a customer already suspicious I cannot trust that what they sent me are my cards. It would be incredibly ignorant of myself and others to take just that as weighted proof of anything. I’ve learned from this experience that in person sales are better because of this issue alone.
https://imgur.com/a/p4eTA5I Here’s the photos they sent as a means of “proof”. I don’t know about y’all but I simply cannot take this as cold hard evidence that my cards were fake. They have zero ways of proving to me that those are my cards anyways and it’d be a massive waste of time to go back and forth about it. This is the internet, if you’re unaware of being able to archive photos in private and rehashed files, altered files, etc then I suggest opening your mind to the fact that not everyone in the world plays fair. And bigger companies can and will take advantage of those unaware of how easily you can fake this, it may only be $48 bucks from me but if they do it enough it adds up and it’s apparent to me that I’m not the only one this happens to. So just because it’s low key and less public doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. I cannot prove to them that I pulled the card from booster boxes and they can’t prove that those errors are my cards, simply because it’s done over the internet and not in person. I just want my stuff back instead of it being blatantly stolen. Edit: I missed a great point another reddit bro pointed out to me.. if I sent them proxies, why would I be going to great lengths to get them back. Couldn’t I just print another one?? I’ve never made one so idk how it’s actually done but seriously.. I want my stuff back and this company is so keen on telling me I sent them fakes when I most certainly did not.
As a misprint collector, the green dot test should never be an absolute by itself I have a stack of 100% real cards that will fail
We also provided video evidence of the light test failing: [https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj](https://imgur.com/a/4YlyVEj) Green dot is simply one of the easiest to photograph tests as I'm sure you know. We offered to do other tests if they had a preferred method.
Your TOS basically says "we can claim any of your cards fake and keep them for ourselves for free"... You are scamming people!
It's definitely fake and they aren't allowed to ship counterfeit goods. It's not complicated and this is the answer everyone gets every time one of these threads comes up, it hasn't changed in the history of magic.
that's also technically a general legal ruling though. Generally speaking, fraudulent and counterfeit product is subject to forfeiture and destruction.
That’s cool but it still doesn’t prove anything in this situation other than you’ve got access to a green light and a copy of a mana drain. Being a company such as yourself I’m sure that’s not hard to get ahold of and therefore I do not want to debate the proof anymore. Just send ****my**** stuff back please. Your service is no longer wanted & I don’t want your money if I’m getting scammed like this. We cannnot prove our believes on the matter to each other over the internet and continuing to act as if your proving anything is ultimately a waste of time. I’ve made my request to cancel the service, still waiting..
Read the whole thread and I think I’m on your side man. Why does this guy want a card back if it’s fake? The excuse that he’d play with it doesn’t make sense because you would only write FAKE on the back and he could sleeve them easily.
Exactly, why would I want it back if it’s fake? I could just make another one if that were the case, but it’s not. the simple fact is I do not believe it to be fake as I actually pulled the card froma fresh booster myself. Seriously ask yourself that again, why would I be here and in their emails requesting that I get my cards back, not my money, but the cards if it were fake? I’m not asking to be paid for a fake card, I’m asking that my property be returned and this process be canceled. I have not received a payment for anything either so it shouldn’t be a problem. They’re actually ignoring me at this point by harboring in this thread responding to everyone except me. I’ve sent emails requesting exactly what I mentioned above and I’ve heard nothing while I see them replying to everyone else here.
[удалено]
I posted the photos becaus it was an image sight, thay I’ve never used. Simply wasn’t aware videos could also be uploaded. I’m not the one trying to scam anyone here, trust me a single scam of 48 bucks is pointless. Especially if I’m still here bitching about it. However, 48 bucks to a company if they can get away with it over and over adds up. Do the math, mate. I would not care this much about fakes. If I had a high value fake, I could grab another one no problem yeah? Or make one???
Got any photos of the mana drain before you sent it? The one in the vid looks like a really bad fake
Sadly, I wasn’t expecting to have to prove the cards I’m sending are legit given the methods I used to obtain the cards. So no I didn’t take photos to debate with beforehand.
People are wild. What is more likely? This company risking their whole reputation and therefore business over $50 or some guy trying to pull a fast one. Personally I applaud card conduit for standing against proxies.
I have had zero issue with card conduit and I have shipped things in more expensive than a mana drain over multiple orders. It doesn't make any long term business sense for them to mark things fake that aren't fake. Feels like there is something else going on, but I hope it gets resolved
Literal theft. Shocking how they get away with it so easily.
Yeah…they are out for your $48 and orchestrated a big proxy swap to getcha. You’d have a leg to stand on if we were talking about ABURAAL but this shit? Lawyers? GTFO. Read through the thread. Card Conduit isn’t for everyone but they didn’t scam this person. Waste of your time to even argue it. How many hours of your time will this cost you?
Thanks OP. You saved me from sending a bunch in.
We buy thousands of cards per month and have never once kept anyone's card if we rejected it for being a fake, we simply give them back and tell them that it did not pass our inspection as authentic. But to take them from somebody and just destroy them is wrong. Unfortunately as somebody said, retaining an attorney would cost you far more money than the cards are worth. Still sucks though.
MTG Goldfish probably not gonna scope out this topic for a podcast. "The eaaaaaasiest way to sell your Magic cards."
Those are harder cards to fake with the holofoil stamp. I would have wanted photographic proof and an explanation as to why they felt those were fake. Their word is dogshit. Thanks for the heads up posting this. I’ll never use them.
fake holofoils of varying quality have been around for several years
Evidence was provided [https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1dmv98f/comment/l9zm4c0/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1dmv98f/comment/l9zm4c0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
/u/CardConduit you're on shaky ground by "removing them from circulation". What you really should be doing is holding them for 30 days, and giving the buyer the option to have them authenticated by a neutral third party at buyer's expense. If they are authentic, then CardConduit can credit the buyer for the costs. If the buyer does not choose authentication, the cards are destroyed after 30 days.
That is our general policy, but we would always welcome a dialog with a customer and try to find a way to work things out in a mutually agreeable manner. If that were an avenue a customer wanted to pursue, we would consider it. The most essential first step is a customer reaching out to us with their concerns. In this particular case, we have provided photo and video evidence showing the cards are clearly fake.
Unless your video evidence shows an uninterrupted stream from opening the sealed shipment and pulling out the cards and going through them, with the cards never leaving the video frame, I'm not sure I would believe that your video proof is actually my card, and not just any random fake of the same card. I'm not the one who sent in the cards, but this thread has been illuminating. If you just unilaterally decide what cards you deem fake and "remove from circulation " those cards, I don't think I could trust your company to not simply skim off the top at your leisure.
Pretty common scam. One of their “assessors” (18 year old kid) sees a new customer submission (don’t mess with established customers) and decides to roll the dice. They can always say “my bad” if you press it. Best case they just straight up steal two nice cards. I feel for you. I hope you spend every waking moment tearing them to the ground.
Woah that’s shady as fuck, they’re not working on behalf of wizards of the coast or hasbro right? They have absolutely no right to remove or destroy any cards from you. They should always return the cards. I could just set up a scam operation and keep all the expensive cards and declare them as fake to not pay out and “destroy” them so they don’t get returned.
Well, now I know to not use card conduit.
Its hard to sell cards on your own?
Never used their services before, but have anyone bought cards from card conduit then conclude that their cards are fake, demand a refund from them and insist on destroying the said identified fakes instead of returning them? If their policy doesn't accept such refunds, then they shouldn't do the same to buy list customers. Honestly, bad policies/terms & conditions needs to stop. In fact, more transparency on reviewers should be given. How do company expect customers to believe if the cards shown are what they sent in and not swapped subsequently? Tough business to be in I guess. More transparency, more costs.
A reminder to everyone. If you are sending cards away from you be sure to document every single one with video and photos so that you can prove which exact cards you have provided. It's very easy to be defrauded.
Wtf I was just about to buy list some stuff to them from mh3. I'd be pissed to have my cards destroyed without evidence.
Sell all your cards in person to avoid this nonsense. Years ago a dealer in person thought one of my verdant catacombs was fake, and it did appear different than most but that was because it was printed in a precon, that I opened myself. I took it back and sold it to the next vendor.