A buyer says your card "wasn't as described" — what to do

A buyer messages you: the card didn't match the condition on the listing. Maybe it's a grading disagreement, maybe it's a real miss. Either way, you're now inside a not-as-described claim, and the options in front of you are narrower than most sellers assume.

The three resolutions, and only the three resolutions

TCGplayer sanctions exactly three outcomes for a condition dispute: a partial refund that reflects the condition gap, a prepaid return mailer, or a replacement card. There's no fourth path where you simply decline the claim, and there's no path where you get to set your own terms for engaging with it. Pick the resolution that fits the situation, respond, and the claim moves forward.

A card that's one grade off is usually a partial-refund conversation. A card that's badly off, or one the buyer doesn't want at any condition, is a return-or-replace conversation. Knowing which bucket you're in before you reply saves a round of back-and-forth.

The 10%-per-step math

Partial refunds scale by condition step, not by a flat percentage. A card sold as Near Mint that arrives Lightly Played runs about a 10% refund. Sold as Near Mint and arrives Moderately Played, and you're closer to 20%. Each additional step down the condition ladder adds roughly another 10%. It's a mechanism, not a fixed table, and it means the dollar cost of a grading miss scales directly with the price of the card — a step-down on a bulk rare is nothing, the same step-down on a $150 card is a real refund.

Grading NM vs. LP consistently covers how to stop the miss from happening at the listing stage, which is cheaper than resolving it after the fact.

What buyers are actually reporting

The complaints aren't abstract. On the TappedOut forum, one seller described a purchase gone wrong plainly: "I bought a tarmogoyf recently, supposed to be NM, and was LP, even said it on the sleeve." Another buyer reported an MP-priced card that showed up as Heavily Played, with visible creasing the listing photo hadn't shown. A third described cards that "looked shuffled without sleeves on" despite being sold as Near Mint.

None of these are edge cases. They're the same failure mode repeated: the card in hand doesn't match the grade on the listing, and the buyer has no way to know that until it arrives. That gap is exactly what the claims process exists to resolve, and it's why grading consistency at pack time matters more than any dispute-handling tactic downstream.

You cannot require photo proof to engage

One rule trips up sellers more than any other: you cannot make photo evidence from the buyer a prerequisite for resolving a claim. You can ask for photos, and most buyers will send them without being asked. But you cannot hold the claim open, refuse to respond, or condition any of the three resolutions on the buyer producing proof first. If a buyer opens a claim and declines to send photos, you still have to move to one of the three resolutions.

That doesn't mean pack-time documentation is worthless — it's just not a gate you can put in front of the buyer. Proof-of-condition at pack time covers what to keep on your own side, as internal QA and as your own record if a dispute needs escalating.

When it doesn't resolve on its own

If the two of you can't agree, either side can use the "Escalate This Thread" mechanism inside the claim to bring TCGplayer into the conversation directly, rather than leaving it stuck between seller and buyer. Escalating isn't a loss — it's the designed path for a claim that a straight offer of one of the three resolutions didn't settle.

Most claims don't need to get there. Most resolve the moment a seller picks the right one of the three options and moves on it quickly, instead of treating the claim as something to argue with. Breaking down disputes by set and condition covers how to find out whether these misses are random or concentrated in a specific part of your inventory — which changes whether you're fixing a habit or fixing a single listing.