I have purchased from several online vendors over the past few weeks in order to work on my cube and EDH decks, and I am extremely displeased.
Out of the 6-7 packages that have arrived at my doorstep, ALL of them have came in with damaged cards, I explicitly bought everything at M/NM.
Examples of damage: severe edge-wear, creases in corners, brown splotches on the front, and yes, SHARPIE'D FRAMES.
I am getting sick of big-name stores getting away with crap like this.
Trollandtoad is the biggest offender.
Other stores I bought from that had issues:
Ice Imports
The Mana Cave (via TCGPlayer)
Crossroad games (via TCGPlayer)
Card Titan (via TCGPlayer)
bsearnshaw MTG (via TCGPlayer)
I have purchased from several online vendors over the past few weeks in order to work on my cube and EDH decks, and I am extremely displeased.
Out of the 6-7 packages that have arrived at my doorstep, ALL of them have came in with damaged cards, I explicitly bought everything at M/NM.
Examples of damage: severe edge-wear, creases in corners, brown splotches on the front, and yes, SHARPIE'D FRAMES.
I am getting sick of big-name stores getting away with crap like this.
Trollandtoad is the biggest offender.
Other stores I bought from that had issues:
Ice Imports
The Mana Cave (via TCGPlayer)
Crossroad games (via TCGPlayer)
Card Titan (via TCGPlayer)
bsearnshaw MTG (via TCGPlayer)
Just sharing my thoughts.
Rant over.
Have you brought this up with their customer service departments?
Ranting on an online forum will get you nowhere, i always make it my business to message them and share my displeasure. Usually theyll give a partial refund or if its really bad ill send it back for a full refund. A lot of stores treat MTG like it is a product that they shouldnt be held accountable for, but this is a business and i will always bring up any issues and i fully expect that they will act like any other respectable business would.
(Have you ever returned a damaged item to a grocery or electronic store and DIDNT expect to be refunded/reimbursed? Because how some MTG stores treat this market is completely unacceptable.)
I purchase from TCG on a weekly basis, from a wide variety of sellers. I have only had ONE SINGLE problem with card condition. I suggest you do the following:
VERIFY that the card condition is ONLY set to M/NM when you use the Cart Organizer. I think it's set to allow SP and MP cards (at least mine is), so make sure you update your preferences.
-IF IT IS SET to allow SP and MP cards, or even HP cards, then you have to accept this, because you allowed this to happen by not looking over your cart.
-IF THIS IS NOT SET to allow cards other than M/NM, then you can simply contact the sellers and request a refund, or tell them you are not satisfied, and they SHOULD send you replacement cards.
If you DID NOT set your preferences to allow lower quality, then you have had an uncommon experience. I honestly do not recall more than ONE time where I was unsatisfied with TCGPlayer.
I am having this same issue. I generally move past it if it's a non-foil, but I buy NM foils exclusively because LP foils do not command top tier pricing when a foil explodes in value.
I do wonder if MM15 has something to do with this issue. I recently placed an order for some MM15 foils from about 6 different vendors and I had to contact 4 of them for refunds. Edgewear is a huge concern and it's showing up on damn near every MM15 card I've received so far.
I've only ever had one issue with this. I ordered a card through TCG player, it was marked as MP, and the card showed up with significant damage (a 1cm split along one of the sides and paint splotches on the back). I immediately contacted the company with pictures, and they sent me a replacement card and let me keep the original, at no additional cost.
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Admittedly I do not do a ton of ordering online, but when I have through Card Kingdom and TCGplayer (to a lesser degree CoolStuffInc as a tack on when I buy board games) I have had no issues with the conditions of cards. However, I will admit that I am not as picky as some of my friends are when it comes to card condition since I figure once I play with it over time it is going to wear some of that NM quality pretty fast anyway.
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I have these issues on all player-to-player sites (ebay, tcgplayer, pucatrade), although I thoroughly read the seller reviews before ordering. I have received sharpied NM cards from all of them. TCGPlayer sellers I have had good experiences with include Pack Fresh Magic, SuperGamesInc, Tome2, and my new favorite seller of NM quality cards IDeal808 (I even get their cards faster than other sellers and they ship from Hawaii).
Do not order from TrollAndToad for NM cards, the definition of NM on their website gives them a lot of leeway when grading.
I've also noticed an increase of cards attempting to pass off as NM when purchased as NM/M. Traders are doing this as well. It's extremely frustrating, what's even more frustrating is that the mail back is out of your pocket. Through TCG, exactly one store did this for me, and it was Alter Reality. People over there are amazing.
Card stores that sent bad cards from my experience are cash4cards and gacollectibles. What is even worse? I submitted feedback and they decide to regard me as the bad guy. **** both of these stores.
As a vendor on TCG I like to ensure my product really meets the condition as noted, even knocking it down a level when in doubt.
But not everyone cares - honestly. Sometimes the price difference between NM to M can be kinda hefty so people skimp out and shoot for the extra bucks.
On a different note... Who are the hell are the people that charge the same price for NM when the card is heavily played or damaged. Like even Heller Keller could sense something is wrong with the card
I have purchased from several online vendors over the past few weeks in order to work on my cube and EDH decks, and I am extremely displeased.
Out of the 6-7 packages that have arrived at my doorstep, ALL of them have came in with damaged cards, I explicitly bought everything at M/NM.
Examples of damage: severe edge-wear, creases in corners, brown splotches on the front, and yes, SHARPIE'D FRAMES.
I am getting sick of big-name stores getting away with crap like this.
Trollandtoad is the biggest offender.
Other stores I bought from that had issues:
Ice Imports
The Mana Cave (via TCGPlayer)
Crossroad games (via TCGPlayer)
Card Titan (via TCGPlayer)
bsearnshaw MTG (via TCGPlayer)
Just sharing my thoughts.
Rant over.
I buy cards brand new (in booster packs) so I don't have too much sympathy. If you're paying someone else to sort through packs for you and get you only particular cards that you want, they can get damaged along the way. Not all people are super respectful/careful/delicate with this stuff, that's why I only buy cards brand new.
Trollandtoad is utter trash and I would never recommend them to anyone. I bought a couple NM cards from them and the foils were all scratched up. (As if someone kept tapping and untapping them on a dirty table). I messaged them about these issues and their response was unbelievable. They asked which shipping method I selected and I told them I picked the 0.99$ Option. They then responded by saying thats the reason why my cards are damaged. So the company is aware that their cheapest shipping option is prone to damaging their cards, yet they don't care? Unacceptable.
Seems like a lot of people in this thread are complaining about TrollandToad in particular. I've ordered a bunch of stuff from T&T over the past year - mostly foils - and while a few foils came pretty bent, most of the stuff has been in the condition it was marked (NM).
I guess at the end of the day, the only way to really ensure that the cards you're buying are exactly what you expected is to simply buy them in person at card stores or at Magic tournaments after inspecting them yourself.
Trollandtoad is utter trash and I would never recommend them to anyone. I bought a couple NM cards from them and the foils were all scratched up. (As if someone kept tapping and untapping them on a dirty table). I messaged them about these issues and their response was unbelievable. They asked which shipping method I selected and I told them I picked the 0.99$ Option. They then responded by saying thats the reason why my cards are damaged. So the company is aware that their cheapest shipping option is prone to damaging their cards, yet they don't care? Unacceptable.
I've ordered from Troll and Toad for years, and the only problems I can recall having with them was that once they ran out of stock (or had incorrect stock count) on a few cards I ordered between me placing the order and them filling it (they automatically refunded the price of the cards they failed to send me), and once I ordered an Antiquities Ashnod's Altar and received a Chronicles Ashnod's Altar. I can see why that last one might occur, as well, since they have the same set symbol. I emailed their customer service department about it, and received a full refund without having to return the card.
I've ordered from Troll and Toad for years, and the only problems I can recall having with them was that once they ran out of stock (or had incorrect stock count) on a few cards I ordered between me placing the order and them filling it (they automatically refunded the price of the cards they failed to send me), and once I ordered an Antiquities Ashnod's Altar and received a Chronicles Ashnod's Altar. I can see why that last one might occur, as well, since they have the same set symbol. I emailed their customer service department about it, and received a full refund without having to return the card.
Yeah I have only had one problem with T&T either, and it was when they shipped the wrong card. It was a dirt cheap uncommon and I just wanted to alert them, didn't even care all that much, but they still gave me store credit double the value of the card (so a whopping $1). I've actually ordered a SP dual land from them that looked like NM when I got it. So I can't complain about them.
I will not purchase from Troll & Toad anymore either. I have bought from them directly and on Ebay, and I have had condition issues both ways. The last straw was buying a full-art, foil Wrath of God, and receiving a card that would best be described as SP-. They refunded me, but I don't want to deal with the hassle anymore. I just avoid them in all forms.
Yeah, I know that feeling. Lately, I get a little scared of trying to buy foil cards online. Especially if it's from Troll and Toad. :/ They usually come in at LP if not worse. Sure, I can return and usually there's no hassle between buyer and seller; however, it usually costs me money, time, postage, and packaging. Which is just kind of inconvenient. :/
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
For the record, I bought a bunch of foil cards for my Soldier deck from TrollandToad, and 90%+ of the cards were absolutely perfect with almost zero bend or warping.
I then bought a pile of foils for that same deck from Starcitygames, and nearly ALL of them were bent like potato chips and in generally poor condition.
Small sample size and all that, but I won't be ordering foils from Starcitygames anymore, I think. Trollandtoad has yet to fail me for foils!
I don't like Troll and Toad either. I bought a few things from them recently, and they send it in a hard cardboard envelope, without as much as a penny sleeve to protect it. The cards in question, miraculously, were okay, but I won't order from them again.
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I don't like Troll and Toad either. I bought a few things from them recently, and they send it in a hard cardboard envelope, without as much as a penny sleeve to protect it. The cards in question, miraculously, were okay, but I won't order from them again.
Every single time I've ordered from Troll and Toad (51 orders over 5 years totalling $9,440.87), the cards have been inside a padded envelope, containing Troll and Toad-branded divided envelope (two sections, each section able to hold a number of cards), containing one or two resealable polyvinyl sleeves, containing my cards, at least one of which (per resealable sleeve) was in a toploader. Sometimes, the toploader(s) contained 2 or 3 cards each, sometimes the cards in toploaders were in penny sleeves or perfect fit sleeves, and any cards not in a toploader over a certain dollar value were in perfect fit sleeves.
Edit: I think three of those orders were precon decks of one flavor or another rather than singles, so they were shipped in a box with some variant of bubble wrap instead.
This thread is a little old but I'd like to chime in. I've ordered a lot of cards from Abugames, Starcitygames, Card Kingdom, as well as various ebay sellers. I only ever buy cards in NM condition, although this definition is very flexible from vender to vender. I don't accept cards with edge/corner scuffing, or scratches on the face/back. Esp with black bordered cards, if you are looking directly at the card, you should not be able to spots of white on the edges (from scuffing) if the card is "NM". Btw, I like to collect old sets of cards, so I will typically buy 100-200 cards at a time, all NM supposedly.
Starcitygames: Typically the most expensive of the bunch but always the highest quality (in my experience). I've ordered hundreds of cards (probably closer to a thousand) from them and only ever had one card arrive that I was unhappy with. It was a swamp from RAV that arrived with the border slightly scratched. Other than that I've never had a problem.
Abugames/Card Kingdom/Channel Fireball: Their prices seem to be consistently cheaper than SCG, sometimes by a considerable amount. But I've definitely received NM cards that were not NM. Some of these cards look like cards that were opened in draft, played through the draft, and then sold back to the store and marked as NM. None of them were in bad condition, but they weren't pack fresh. To me, there is a huge difference.
various ebay sellers: Here's where it gets really tricky. I've been burned so many times that I only buy cards from ebay sellers that offer full refunds. If this matters to you (like it does to me) you can just set your search preferences to show only ebay listings that have full refunds. Especially for lots/sets, most listings that do not offer refunds will contain cards that are not NM on average - especially for older sets. Once I bought a full CHK set on ebay. The seller claimed it was NM. In the listing he said that all the cards were pack fresh and had been sitting in storage from the time that the cards were opened when the set was new. This was obviously a huge lie. Many of the cards showed significant wear. One of the cards had markings on the back that looked like writing. I believe that somebody had placed a piece of paper on top of the card accidentally and written on the paper with a ball point pen. The card face had indentations that looked like writing. The Kiki-Jiki cards was absolutely garbage. There was so much white showing around the border that it looked like a white bordered core set from back in the day. A few of the cards had what appeared to be dirt or possibly food caked on them.
I've also noticed that sellers that list sets/lots with full refunds are more confident about the condition of their product. Usually if a set is being sold with full refund, the seller has ensured that the cards are actually NM because they don't want to go through the hassle of providing a refund.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if a set is sold as Mint/NM, you typically won't find a single card in the set that is actually NM. Every one of these sellers will first claim that the cards went directly from pack to sleeve, then they will follow up with the statement that they are not professional card graders and that the "mint" grade is just their judgement. This is their excuse for selling heavily played cards while claiming that the cards are "mint".
TCGPlayer: I'm sure this is a good site to hunt down a few choice expensive cards that you need for your Vintage deck, but if you are buying a large number of cards that are relatively cheap, you should expect them to all look like trash. I stopped buying off of TCGPlayer a long time ago.
And yea, complaining on a forum doesn't do much good but hopefully this advice is helpful for people out there.
Out of the 6-7 packages that have arrived at my doorstep, ALL of them have came in with damaged cards, I explicitly bought everything at M/NM.
Examples of damage: severe edge-wear, creases in corners, brown splotches on the front, and yes, SHARPIE'D FRAMES.
I am getting sick of big-name stores getting away with crap like this.
Trollandtoad is the biggest offender.
Other stores I bought from that had issues:
Ice Imports
The Mana Cave (via TCGPlayer)
Crossroad games (via TCGPlayer)
Card Titan (via TCGPlayer)
bsearnshaw MTG (via TCGPlayer)
Just sharing my thoughts.
Rant over.
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Have you brought this up with their customer service departments?
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(Have you ever returned a damaged item to a grocery or electronic store and DIDNT expect to be refunded/reimbursed? Because how some MTG stores treat this market is completely unacceptable.)
VERIFY that the card condition is ONLY set to M/NM when you use the Cart Organizer. I think it's set to allow SP and MP cards (at least mine is), so make sure you update your preferences.
-IF IT IS SET to allow SP and MP cards, or even HP cards, then you have to accept this, because you allowed this to happen by not looking over your cart.
-IF THIS IS NOT SET to allow cards other than M/NM, then you can simply contact the sellers and request a refund, or tell them you are not satisfied, and they SHOULD send you replacement cards.
If you DID NOT set your preferences to allow lower quality, then you have had an uncommon experience. I honestly do not recall more than ONE time where I was unsatisfied with TCGPlayer.
I am just trying to warn people.
Also my ***** is also set to M/NM ONLY, doesn't do jack ***** apparently.
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I do wonder if MM15 has something to do with this issue. I recently placed an order for some MM15 foils from about 6 different vendors and I had to contact 4 of them for refunds. Edgewear is a huge concern and it's showing up on damn near every MM15 card I've received so far.
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Do not order from TrollAndToad for NM cards, the definition of NM on their website gives them a lot of leeway when grading.
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You shouldnt have issues. Dealt with them a lot in the past, cards were always as describ
Card stores that sent bad cards from my experience are cash4cards and gacollectibles. What is even worse? I submitted feedback and they decide to regard me as the bad guy. **** both of these stores.
As a vendor on TCG I like to ensure my product really meets the condition as noted, even knocking it down a level when in doubt.
But not everyone cares - honestly. Sometimes the price difference between NM to M can be kinda hefty so people skimp out and shoot for the extra bucks.
On a different note... Who are the hell are the people that charge the same price for NM when the card is heavily played or damaged. Like even Heller Keller could sense something is wrong with the card
I buy cards brand new (in booster packs) so I don't have too much sympathy. If you're paying someone else to sort through packs for you and get you only particular cards that you want, they can get damaged along the way. Not all people are super respectful/careful/delicate with this stuff, that's why I only buy cards brand new.
Coolstuff is my go to site, ive ordered played and gotten cards I would trade as NM.
TrollandToad are the worst if you care about quality of the cards you are getting.
I guess at the end of the day, the only way to really ensure that the cards you're buying are exactly what you expected is to simply buy them in person at card stores or at Magic tournaments after inspecting them yourself.
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Yeah I have only had one problem with T&T either, and it was when they shipped the wrong card. It was a dirt cheap uncommon and I just wanted to alert them, didn't even care all that much, but they still gave me store credit double the value of the card (so a whopping $1). I've actually ordered a SP dual land from them that looked like NM when I got it. So I can't complain about them.
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I then bought a pile of foils for that same deck from Starcitygames, and nearly ALL of them were bent like potato chips and in generally poor condition.
Small sample size and all that, but I won't be ordering foils from Starcitygames anymore, I think. Trollandtoad has yet to fail me for foils!
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Edit: I think three of those orders were precon decks of one flavor or another rather than singles, so they were shipped in a box with some variant of bubble wrap instead.
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Starcitygames: Typically the most expensive of the bunch but always the highest quality (in my experience). I've ordered hundreds of cards (probably closer to a thousand) from them and only ever had one card arrive that I was unhappy with. It was a swamp from RAV that arrived with the border slightly scratched. Other than that I've never had a problem.
Abugames/Card Kingdom/Channel Fireball: Their prices seem to be consistently cheaper than SCG, sometimes by a considerable amount. But I've definitely received NM cards that were not NM. Some of these cards look like cards that were opened in draft, played through the draft, and then sold back to the store and marked as NM. None of them were in bad condition, but they weren't pack fresh. To me, there is a huge difference.
various ebay sellers: Here's where it gets really tricky. I've been burned so many times that I only buy cards from ebay sellers that offer full refunds. If this matters to you (like it does to me) you can just set your search preferences to show only ebay listings that have full refunds. Especially for lots/sets, most listings that do not offer refunds will contain cards that are not NM on average - especially for older sets. Once I bought a full CHK set on ebay. The seller claimed it was NM. In the listing he said that all the cards were pack fresh and had been sitting in storage from the time that the cards were opened when the set was new. This was obviously a huge lie. Many of the cards showed significant wear. One of the cards had markings on the back that looked like writing. I believe that somebody had placed a piece of paper on top of the card accidentally and written on the paper with a ball point pen. The card face had indentations that looked like writing. The Kiki-Jiki cards was absolutely garbage. There was so much white showing around the border that it looked like a white bordered core set from back in the day. A few of the cards had what appeared to be dirt or possibly food caked on them.
I've also noticed that sellers that list sets/lots with full refunds are more confident about the condition of their product. Usually if a set is being sold with full refund, the seller has ensured that the cards are actually NM because they don't want to go through the hassle of providing a refund.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if a set is sold as Mint/NM, you typically won't find a single card in the set that is actually NM. Every one of these sellers will first claim that the cards went directly from pack to sleeve, then they will follow up with the statement that they are not professional card graders and that the "mint" grade is just their judgement. This is their excuse for selling heavily played cards while claiming that the cards are "mint".
TCGPlayer: I'm sure this is a good site to hunt down a few choice expensive cards that you need for your Vintage deck, but if you are buying a large number of cards that are relatively cheap, you should expect them to all look like trash. I stopped buying off of TCGPlayer a long time ago.
And yea, complaining on a forum doesn't do much good but hopefully this advice is helpful for people out there.