TCGplayer Safeguard

(formerly Buyer Safeguard)

Buyer Protections

At TCGplayer, you can shop knowing that you are protected from any issue where your order has not arrived or is not as described. As players and collectors ourselves, we understand it’s essential that you receive exactly what you ordered and that all the collectibles you receive are genuine.

To be eligible for a refund or replacement of an order, you must:

Contact the seller as soon as possible (within 48 hours is recommended) after the order has arrived to request a refund or replacement
Reach out no later than 30 calendar days after the estimated delivery date

You can learn more about refund requirements for orders in our Refund and Return Policy.

If your order has not arrived by the estimated delivery date

If an order is late, it’s best to contact the seller first to give them a chance to make things right. Just visit your Order History to find the order, then click on the Contact Seller button to send them a message.

To be eligible for a refund on missing orders, you must contact the seller within 30 calendar days of the estimated delivery date found in your Order History. You can learn more about refund requirements for missing orders in our Refund and Return Policy.

If your order is not as described

If an order is not as described, it’s best to contact the seller first to give them a chance to make things right. Mistakes can happen and many of our sellers have over a 99.5% feedback ratio that they earned by taking care of buyers in these instances. Just visit your Order History to find the order, then click on the Contact Seller button to send them a message. To be eligible for a refund on orders not as described, you must contact the seller within 30 calendar days of the estimated delivery date found in your Order History. You can learn more about refund requirements for orders not as described in our Refund and Return Policy.

If you believe a card you received on our platform may be counterfeit, you’ll need to submit a counterfeit claim to our dedicated customer service team. We’ll ensure you receive a full refund for any counterfeit cards. To open a counterfeit claim, please contact our dedicated Customer Support team right away with your order details. We’ll send you a prepaid mailer that you can use to send the item to TCGplayer HQ. Our expert team will review the card to determine if it is indeed counterfeit. If it is a counterfeit, we’ll work directly with the seller to resolve this issue.

If the seller does not respond

After you send a message to the seller, TCGplayer is directly involved and monitors the message to make sure you receive a response. If they have not responded after 24 hours, we contact the seller. If they have not responded after 2 business days (M-F excluding holidays), contact us. After 72 hours without a response, we’ll escalate the message to our customer service team. From there, we work directly with the seller, and if they are still not responding, we’ll step in to resolve the problem on your behalf and issue full or partial refunds if your order has not arrived or is not as described.

If you are not happy with the seller's response

If during the course of your communication with the seller you feel that you would like TCGplayer to be involved in resolving the issue, please contact our dedicated Customer Support team. Please include the associated Order Number in the subject line and any details. Our customer service team will review all of the communication from the order directly with the seller, and if they are not responding in a way we feel is adequate, we’ll step in to resolve the problem on your behalf and issue full or partial refunds where your order has not arrived or is not as described.

Seller Protections

TCGplayer wants all of our sellers to know that we are committed to supporting you when a transaction doesn’t go as expected. Read on to learn more about how we are responding to these challenges and how we plan to assist you in resolving shipping delays, as well as negative feedback for issues outside of your control.

Estimated Delivery Times

We are investing to make your operations more efficient and the status of tracked packages more intuitive to users. We have built capability which will provide Estimated Delivery Dates to you and your customers based on current mail transit times, so everyone in the transaction knows when packages are expected to arrive. Per our Marketplace Seller Agreement, “All orders must be shipped to customers within 48 hours. All orders must reach the Buyer within the quoted delivery time indicated by the estimated delivery date.”

However, we understand that postal delays may occur and concerned buyers may reach out to inquire about the status of their order. Please read our Resolving Missing Package Disputes article for more information on what steps to take according to the shipping and tracking status of your order.

How Will TCGplayer Protect Me From Negative Feedback?

TCGplayer will step in to block any negative feedback associated with late or missing packages as long as the order is reported as missing by a buyer and resolved by the seller through refunding or an agreed upon replacement shipment for the order. This feedback will only be removed if the order was shipped within our 48 hour shipment window and shows movement indicated by a “picked up,” “acceptance,” or “in transit” status.

We understand that you are not responsible for delays in transit times after an order has been placed into the mail system, so we will make sure that your feedback rating is protected for events outside of your control.

If you have any questions during any point of the transaction, or need any additional assistance, please contact our team or escalate the message thread from the order.

Missing Package Seller Safeguard

We know that it's not always practical to add tracking to every package, but you are always covered 100% by TCGplayer in the event a buyer reports an order with tracking as missing but the USPS reports the order as Delivered or Missing in Transit on domestic orders. Just follow the process outlined in our help file about Resolving Missing Orders/Packages for your Customers and our customer service team will credit you for the missing order.

What To Do If A Buyer Receives An Order After It Is Refunded?

If a buyer writes back in to inform you that they ended up receiving their order after you processed the refund, simply follow the steps outlined in our Missing Orders help file. Once you’ve followed the instructions we will then connect with the customer to ensure their repayment is received and credit your seller account for the order.

We support your businesses and will continue to monitor the situation to make further changes and adjustments as needed to provide you with additional support and assistance.

Change Log

3/11/24 - Updated "Buyer Safeguard" to "TCGplayer Safeguard", added Seller Protections information, added additional context for how to handle missing orders.
9/23/24 - Updated language about requirements for receiving a refund.