Mtg Sellers online: reliable? [Archive]

kiblast

08-20-2010, 07:16 PM

Recently i've bought cards from those two sellers:

http://www.supergamesinc.com/

http://www.taraangelsmagic.com/

Are those reliable and fast?

I've always used MTGfanatic for its enormous stock, and i feel satisfied with their service. But this time i had to buy from other sellers. Have you guys ever experienced problems with any of those 2 ?

Also what seller do you prefer?

scrumdogg

08-20-2010, 08:13 PM

Have had several good experiences with Tara Angel, the other one doesn't sound familiar

Brushwagg

08-20-2010, 09:30 PM

I've used Tara in the past through E-bay and got my stuff pretty fast. Never heard of Super Games. I used Starcity for the first time and got my stuff in a less then a week.

Psyqo

08-20-2010, 09:35 PM

Ordered from Troll And Toad a week ago and got my cards in 3 days, with the card quality exactly as stated. (Who else loves the smell of NM cards right after unsleeving them?)

whienot

08-20-2010, 10:06 PM

I know the supergames folks and play there weekly. They spend the first part of their day packing and shipping the Internet orders. I imagine they're pretty reliable.

I'll +1 trollandtoad. I've literally been using them for many orders since Balduvian Horde was $20 a piece.

anonymos

08-20-2010, 10:16 PM

I've used Tara Angel. Works fine. Never used the store directly though.

Star City is good. ABUgames is pretty good, but overpriced on quite a few things.

Troll and Toad I have a personal issue with.

death

08-20-2010, 10:25 PM

kiblast

08-20-2010, 10:53 PM

Nobody of you shop at MTG Fanatic? i think they're good. Perfect service and when they say NM, they mean gem mint 10.

i'm pleased to know that Tara's is reliable, i might shop again there.

thanks @ whienot for info on supergames.

dahcmai

08-21-2010, 01:56 AM

I use Strikezone, Abugames, starcity, and a few others depending on what I am after. I have bought from Tara before so I know that ones is fine. Don't know the other.

I typically buy from a ton of different places because you can get decent deals on certain things at certain places. Like for instance, Star city is actually excellent on pre-orders. They will sell you the cards at the price you buy them at when they post it and not try and say they ran out of stock or some other nonsence if the price jumps hard. not many sellers will do that if it's a huge increase. I bought my Vengevines at $8 when they posted it and they honored that, tells you something about integrity.

Now on the other hand, starcity is also expensive for some stuff and I wouldn't buy a standard staple from them due to the overpricing sometimes.

ABU is good for finding stuff that's just plain hard to find sometimes. Like I found my foil Thoughtseizes there for cheaper than Ebay. Ebay can get dumb sometimes when it's one of the only lots available. I was picking up Beta duals there for $100 for a while until things started getting silly.

Strikezone is my usual fav though for most random rares. They typically beat Ebay.

The only place I avoid is Channelfireball. I had problems with them on two separate occasions so I just gave up on them.

majikal

08-21-2010, 02:09 AM

Supergamesinc.com is fine. I frequent their B&M store in Atlanta, and they have a pretty wide selection and the staff is nice. When I order from their site, though, I usually just mark it for pickup, so I can't vouch for their shipping or anything like that.

Mark Sun

08-21-2010, 10:37 AM

I bought an ITL Sylvan Library from Trollandtoad earlier this week, I just had my order cancelled and money refunded. They had 3-4 marked at $3.38/ea, and I bought just one. A little depressing since they had been sitting on eBay for a day or two when I saw them.

MTGFanatic is miserable to buy from/sell to. You have to pay something ridiculous for shipping, which is probably why their singles are slightly cheaper. I don't want Prority Shipping but there's no option not to have it. Never sell anything to them. I've had NM pack-fresh cards sent back, and favorable buy prices changed after reception. Garbage.

I prefer cardkingdom and Coolstuffinc, never had a problem with either store.

DownSyndromeKarl

08-21-2010, 01:03 PM

I've used TrolAndToad for ages. I like them. Selling to them can take some time, but I've never had issues with just buying stuff from them.

DogStarGames is a place where friends and I sometimes preorder cases for great prices. I remember last year we placed an order for 3 cases of M10 at ~$400 a case. Since then, their prices haven't been that amazing, but im pretty sure they still do pre-orders at ~$450 a case. They also ship the day before street-date, so we usually get it the day after the set's "release".

EDIT: S&H at TnT can be wonky; they charge a flat $1 on singles(up to 100) but they'll FedEx a single booster pack(so it's like $8 S&H)

dsck

08-21-2010, 01:25 PM

MTGFanatic is miserable to buy from/sell to. You have to pay something ridiculous for shipping, which is probably why their singles are slightly cheaper. I don't want Prority Shipping but there's no option not to have it. Never sell anything to them. I've had NM pack-fresh cards sent back, and favorable buy prices changed after reception. Garbage.

I prefer cardkingdom and Coolstuffinc, never had a problem with either store.

Seconded every word. Took 2 months to get my cards back which they didnt accept for some reason and they took some cards to cover the shipping (which is above normal rates) so they basically got free cards.

lordofthepit

08-21-2010, 04:28 PM

I bought an ITL Sylvan Library from Trollandtoad earlier this week, I just had my order cancelled and money refunded. They had 3-4 marked at $3.38/ea, and I bought just one. A little depressing since they had been sitting on eBay for a day or two when I saw them.

Did they tell you why you were refunded? Because interestingly enough, a few months ago I had bought 3 Legends Sylvan Libraries off their eBay storefront for a pretty good price (less than $7 each after shipping), and they honored it. So I doubt they refunded you because they suddenly changed their mind about their pricing.

dsck

08-21-2010, 05:17 PM

Did they tell you why you were refunded? Because interestingly enough, a few months ago I had bought 3 Legends Sylvan Libraries off their eBay storefront for a pretty good price (less than $7 each after shipping), and they honored it. So I doubt they refunded you because they suddenly changed their mind about their pricing.

"Some of the cards did not meet our standards, so they have been removed from
your sale and returned to you. This entire process is stated on our website
under the FAQS."

I sent pack fresh cards.. Only reason I can think of that they already got full stock of some cards by the time they received.

lordofthepit

08-21-2010, 10:18 PM

"Some of the cards did not meet our standards, so they have been removed from
your sale and returned to you. This entire process is stated on our website
under the FAQS."

I sent pack fresh cards.. Only reason I can think of that they already got full stock of some cards by the time they received.

Sorry, my post was addressed to Morbid- about his experience with Troll and Toad (buying Sylvan Libraries).

I have bought several times from MTGFanatic with no problems, but I have heard a lot of bad experiences about selling to them. I have never sold to a store online, and I never will.

dan who?

08-22-2010, 03:01 AM

Personally I've never had problems ordering from Channelfireball, TrollandToad, XtremeGamesOnline, or Pastimes. I also frequent XtremeGames and Pastimes B&M store.

kiblast

08-22-2010, 06:08 AM

[QUOTE=DownSyndromeKarl;482718
DogStarGames is a place where friends and I sometimes preorder cases for great prices. I remember last year we placed an order for 3 cases of M10 at ~$400 a case. Since then, their prices haven't been that amazing, but im pretty sure they still do pre-orders at ~$450 a case. They also ship the day before street-date, so we usually get it the day after the set's "release".

[/QUOTE]

gee 400$ a case is ridicolously low.
However, i can't see how someone would ever sell to a shop. Their buy prices are, for obvious reasons, too low.

kiblast

08-22-2010, 06:18 AM

it's a pity that 99% of the sellers don't ship booster boxes or booster packs internationally due to wiz restriction (i.e. due to the fact that they want to earn from the EUR-USD rate).
Do you know a store who ships M11 and Pre Orders of scars worldwide at reasonable prices?

rocketrae21

08-24-2010, 01:28 AM

I feel that if the site looks legit, you probably can't go wrong. I mean people buy from Ebay all the time where its so easy to get boned, so a legit looking site is okay with me

kiblast

08-24-2010, 08:11 AM

I feel that if the site looks legit, you probably can't go wrong. I mean people buy from Ebay all the time where its so easy to get boned, so a legit looking site is okay with me

look above, rocket. People got boned from various shops, and all of em were ''legit'' for sure. So its important to have a good credibility and satisfied buyers all over the world, even more than ''looking legit''....and here satisfied customers can recommend or not various shops to other potential buyers; ''looking legit'' is something nonsense-like, if your customer service sucks.

rocketrae21

08-24-2010, 12:23 PM

look above, rocket. People got boned from various shops, and all of em were ''legit'' for sure. So its important to have a good credibility and satisfied buyers all over the world, even more than ''looking legit''....and here satisfied customers can recommend or not various shops to other potential buyers; ''looking legit'' is something nonsense-like, if your customer service sucks.

To be getting boned is more along the lines of not receiving your cards or not have them in the condition stated. If they cancel your order and refund the money, yeah that sucks if you had a good deal, but you didn't lose money. Every place that deals with customers in the world will had satisfied and dissatisfied customers. You can't really chose to buy from somewhere because person x loves them, because person y will probably hate them. You need to man up and just order from somewhere and see what happens.

Penguinizer

08-24-2010, 01:01 PM

I've had ok experiences with Troll & Toad Europe and Star City Games. Each time I got my cards in a reasonable amount of time. Cards I ordered from Star City Games were in plastic boxes that were taped shut and were in the condition adveertised. Troll and Toad had them in sleeves that were taped together that were wrapped in paper.

Overall, haven't had problems with either.

AngryTroll

08-24-2010, 02:58 PM

Troll and Toad and Star City Games are both excellent. SCG can be a little spendy sometimes, but you always know you will get exactly what you ordered in the condition you ordered or better. I once made a mistake on a SCG order, so I called and they fixed my problem without any trouble. I've always received my stuff very quickly from both stores; I highly recommend both sites.

Penguinizer

08-24-2010, 03:40 PM

I actually found that SCG was cheaper than Troll and Toad Europe on a few cards. Either way, was satisfied with both.

BenBleiweiss

08-24-2010, 03:57 PM

I used to order cards from trollandtoad 2 years ago and didn't have any issue. I recently tried starcitygames and was very disappointed to receive creased cards which were supposed to be in excellent condition. I didn't bother to call them because I don't want to waste any more of my time with them.

Hey there:

It's entirely possible that the cards may have been damaged in transit, or maybe someone pulled the wrong condition cards. Either way, I would absolutely love to replace the cards you bought with better condition copies of the same card, because I would like you to get what you paid for! Please feel free to e-mail me at ben@starcitygames.com so I can help improve your experience shopping with us!

- Ben Bleiweiss
- General Manager, StarCityGames.com

Amon Amarth

08-24-2010, 04:19 PM

I've probably bought more cards from Star City Games recently than I have from a brick and mortar store for like 3 years. They've always been reliable and fast. Never had a problem. Highly recommended.

dahcmai

08-25-2010, 12:27 AM

Starcity is actually a pretty good spot. The prices are higher than if you shopped around a bit, but you get what you pay for. Generally you end up with your cards fast and in the condition stated. I'm actually surprised you got something different. Take Ben up on that offer, seriously. They do mean it.

I typically buy my pre-orders from them and anything I really care about condition absolutely having to be mint mint like for a set because you aren't going to get that from Ebay and it's hard to guess on some of these other sites. Like I said, my only bitch is sometimes the prices are much higher. Just pay attention, they do have some good deals.

AngryTroll

08-25-2010, 12:41 AM

Hey there:

It's entirely possible that the cards may have been damaged in transit, or maybe someone pulled the wrong condition cards. Either way, I would absolutely love to replace the cards you bought with better condition copies of the same card, because I would like you to get what you paid for! Please feel free to e-mail me at ben@starcitygames.com so I can help improve your experience shopping with us!

- Ben Bleiweiss
- General Manager, StarCityGames.com

Star City Games is amazing. I hope everyone saw this--a nameless person complained about an order in a magic forum, and the SCG general manager jumped right in and offered to fix this problem for the anonymous person.

I recommend SCG at every chance I get, and they're always my first choice for cards I'm trying to find. I have always been more than satisfied with every order I've placed with them, and their customer service is amazing.

Ben, keep up the excellent work! I'm extremely impressed.

kiblast

08-25-2010, 04:35 AM

Baumeister

08-25-2010, 07:59 AM

I have to second the approval of CoolStuffInc.com for buying cards. I only had one problem ordering some sleeves from them (came in the wrong color). I called them and they shipped new sleeves over the weekend to me for free. Plus, their buy list is incredible - they offer fairly high prices for buying cards and let you know exactly why a card might be marked down in price. I remember going through a sell I was giving to them and marking down which cards I thought were going to have price deductions, and I got every single one right.

This might be a little biased since I buy board games too and they have fantastic prices on those. Plus the more you buy from them, the bigger discounts you get.

ramanujan

08-25-2010, 08:02 AM

I thought that I would chime in a say that Starcitygames is, by a wide margin, the best place to order cards. When it comes to quality, accuracy, willingness to settle a dispute, and timeliness, they are the bar to be measured against. In particular, if you enjoy foreign cards as much as I do, there stock can not be beat. It takes several times more effort to organize thousands of foreign cards than it does for English, and for that alone, they have my business for life.

There can sometimes be a premium for the cards they provide, but I almost always find that the extra couple bucks is worth it knowing that I can sleep well knowing that my order is taken care of. Highly reccomended is not a good enought description of how I feel about thier business.

-Peace

yankeedave

08-25-2010, 08:04 AM

Star City Games is amazing. I hope everyone saw this--a nameless person complained about an order in a magic forum, and the SCG general manager jumped right in and offered to fix this problem for the anonymous person.

I recommend SCG at every chance I get, and they're always my first choice for cards I'm trying to find. I have always been more than satisfied with every order I've placed with them, and their customer service is amazing.

Ben, keep up the excellent work! I'm extremely impressed.

I would love to be able to buy from SCG, but being in Europe, they have some very high demands for information that I am not to happy to provide over the internet. Its a shame, as I would like to use them more often. If they had a SCG Europe, same as Troll and Toad do, I would use it all the time!

elof

08-25-2010, 09:46 AM

Does Starcitygames have lots of german cards? I remember looking at SCG before and didn't find that many german cards...

jamied1981

08-25-2010, 12:40 PM

i have bought thousands of dollars off of ebay and alot of stores and the one i hate the most is channelfireball too many screw ups for my liking. I have bought from the two orig posted places and have never had a pronlem and i live in canada.

Whippoorwill

08-26-2010, 03:09 PM

Some of my experiences:

Troll & Toad - Never had a problem with them in the almost 10 years I've been ordering from them.

Star City - Haven't ordered from them as long as T&T, but while the prices may be higher on some things, the customer service and attention to detail more than makes up for it. Also the best place I know of for foreign singles.

Channel Fireball - I'd rate them about 75-80% in terms of satisfaction. I've had a couple orders where details were missed on an order (receiving non-foil when I ordered foil; also received a completely different card in one case, but it was fixed when I contacted them), but they usually have pretty good prices.

Cool Stuff Inc - Started ordering from them recently for Archenemy sleeves. All around was a good experience. Only bad thing I can say is that some cards have somewhat higher prices than normal.

Core TCG - Ordered from here cause I was looking for Windswept Heaths and they had them for a good price. I paid for priority shipping and got an email the next day (Thursday) saying it was mailed out. I receive another email on Monday with tracking info for the package. I check it and it was sent out on Monday. I ended up receiving the package on Thursday of that week as it had been sent standard mail. Meanwhile I placed an order at Star City on the Thursday morning after I placed this order and received it Saturday (2 days later) despite SCG being further and using standard shipping. Overall bad experience from this place.

nedleeds

08-27-2010, 11:56 AM

+1 for Supergamesinc.com ... very reliable and real people to call and handle any questions or problems.

lep

08-27-2010, 12:52 PM

I have delt with SCG in person at the Philly SCG Open as well as through their online site and I have to agree, I have never had any issues. I sold a good deal of cards at the event (About $4,000 worth) and I think the prices were set fairly for the level of cards I was selling. They really have the luxery of dealing in such a large quantity that their margins aren't nearly as large as other dealers I have worked with in the past.

In addition, if you have ever dealt with their dealers, they are amazing card graders. It sucks for selling but great for buying. I wandered over to their "heavily played" section and was picking up Survivals at $8 because of slight edge wear. I also picked up a set of hp unlimited underground seas for $65 per.

TrialByFire

08-28-2010, 01:14 PM

In addition, if you have ever dealt with their dealers, they are amazing card graders. It sucks for selling but great for buying. I wandered over to their "heavily played" section and was picking up Survivals at $8 because of slight edge wear. I also picked up a set of hp unlimited underground seas for $65 per.

I love this. Picking up blackbordered singles and Antiquities/Arabian Nights/Legends randoms for cheap is awesome

ImpinAintEasy

08-31-2010, 09:53 PM

I've used star city and they are awesome. I also use capefeargames.com and I highly recommend them! The owner also runs mtgotraders on mtgo.

Whippoorwill

10-17-2010, 04:15 PM

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I felt the need to share a horrible experience I just had with Channel Fireball:

On October 2nd (in the AM), I placed an order for a bunch of Scars stuff (mainly edh and smaller stuff).

On Oct. 3rd, I receive an email with a tracking number.

On Oct. 7th, I receive an email stating my order was shipped. This seemed later than usual, but more of an annoyance than anything.

Later that week, I check the tracking number and nothing was updated since USPS received the Shipping Info. I figure it just hadn't been updated yet.

A couple days later I see it was updated that it was sorted through the process center. On the 14th.

I finally receive my order on the 16th, 14 days after I initially placed it. And to make things better it was missing cards. I don't care about those cards anymore, but this entire experience has made it so I will never order from Channel Fireball again.

Here's my tracking number in case anyone wants to verify the above:

9101148008600225652903

http://trkcnfrm1.smi.usps.com/PTSInternetWeb/index.jsp

cdr

10-17-2010, 04:18 PM

I finally receive my order on the 16th, 14 days after I initially placed it. And to make things better it was missing cards. I don't care about those cards anymore, but this entire experience has made it so I will never order from Channel Fireball again.

Did you contact C-F at all about it? If you want to complain about it, you have to at least give them an opportunity to make it up to you.

Whippoorwill

10-17-2010, 05:58 PM

I contacted them today about it but I'm not expecting anything nor do I care at this point. They've screwed up enough in the past with me that I'm done with them now.

mchainmail

10-17-2010, 07:02 PM

CF has been pretty bad at getting things in the mail in a timely fashion.

cdr

10-17-2010, 07:17 PM

hyperchord24

10-18-2010, 07:58 AM

If findmagiccards.com and even allmagiccards.com lists a seller with not the greatest feedback, I don't buy from them. C-F is one of them.

ChannelFireball

10-18-2010, 03:29 PM

Hey Everyone,

There is no excuse for the way Whippoorwill's order was processed. We had experienced slight delays due to the rush of Scars of Mirrodin orders, but nothing that should have caused an 8 business day delay. We pride our company on offering the best prices on Magic cards, while maintaining a 1 day turnaround time and excellent customer service. I am embarrassed how this order was handled and have issued "Whippoorwill" a FULL refund for the order in question and sent out the cards missing from the order.

If Whippoorwill or anyone else has questions or comments about ChannelFireball.com, please feel free to email our customer service department at sales@channelfireball.com or me directly at jonsaso@channelfireball.com.

Thanks,

Jon Saso
President, CEO
ChannelFireball.com
30 North 3rd Street

Whippoorwill

10-18-2010, 06:19 PM

Actually, now I recall hearing C-F had trouble keeping up with Scars demand - I heard they were cracking Fat Packs just for the boosters. If they were having trouble, it seems like they could've been more up front about it and communicated better.

That's what I was told in my response from Jon as well (pretty much exactly what he just posted). If they had told me about the problem/delay I would have been fine with it since I didn't need the cards right away.

I appreciate Jon's response/offer on the matter.

kiblast

10-19-2010, 09:01 AM

it's amazing how many sellers seems to worry about a customer only when they write something on the source, salvation, etc...
no personal attack to anyone.Just saying.

hyperchord24

10-25-2010, 07:52 AM

Well, I'm done with ebay. There are so many reputable sellers out there who charge maybe 10% more than what you find on ebay. I recently bought a ton of stuff for a few decks I'm building and forgot a 30-cent common. So, what do I do? Go to ebay, get a set from a Buy It Now auction with free shipping (okay, that should have tipped me off). That was Oct. 8th. I still haven't gotten my cards and from the other feedback, it looks like other people are in the same boat as me (must be recent because the guy had 99.6% feedback). I filled a dispute and I'll just buy them from a seller I have a rapport with. It's just so headache-free to buy all your cards from one seller than save maybe a dollar or two or even 5 by buying from a bunch of ebay auctions. Call me paranoid, but I won't even go near an actual auction unless they guy has at least 1000 feedback, and by then the price is going to go up anyway.

dahcmai

10-27-2010, 10:32 AM

Well, finally had another site decide to "lose" an order. 2 Foil Frantic Searches right as it got unrestricted in Vintage. I bought them at 8 and of course they are lost in the mail now. Not even overseas. Cardkingdom this time. Just chalking up one more to keep an eye on.

As for Channelfireball, those ones "lost" a couple of beta Wheel of Fortunes on me a long time ago so I don't mess with them either. That was on ebay before the newer site was up so I'm not sure if it's the same ones or not. I have not ordered from that site. If it's not the same ones, you guys have a ton of negatives from that name to make up from Ebay.

Mark Sun

10-27-2010, 11:22 AM

kiblast

10-28-2010, 08:01 AM

guys, do you know of some other mtgshop that has some ''point'' system to achieve discounts?
mtg fanatic one is pretty nice... now i reached level4 wich means 4% discount on singles. I mean, is not so much but at least is something like having free shipping :-)

Also, shop with a very good 7th edition foil availability ? i'm building up a collection and i'm currently buying everything from fanatic or ebay...but some cards are pretty hard to obtain...any help?

ps anybody who haves foil seeker of skybreak hit me up