I have purchased +400 chips on eBay. I'd say.....with a seller I have not dealt with before....about 1 in 7 or 8 show up being less than what they were described.

First things first. If I am going to be bidding over $20 or so, I email the seller and ask him if the chip pictured is the one I will be getting. If I have ANY questions at all regarding the condition, I let the seller know that condition is important to me, and if it is less than advertised, it will be a problem for me. This will clear up most problems.

When a chip shows up and I am mildly disappointed, I let it slide. That is life. Most of the times, you will get nowhere arguing with a non-club member that a chip you purchased that is offered as "mint" or "excellent" shows up as slightly less than slightly used.

If I outbid someone on a desirable chip, and it shows up and I am very disappointed, I email the seller and let them know that what I got was NOT what I was led to believe I was bidding on. Most of the times, the seller will understand and you will get a refund. In over 200 hundred transactions, I have left negative feedback twice.
Both times, this was the case. Both times the seller left retailiatory feedback, and both times, I left a follow-up saying, in effect, I outbid for his "mint" chip. Now he has my money and I have his junk....you figure it out."

In my opinion, the buying public needs to know who the skunks are. A couple of negative feedbacks on my record does not bother me at all. I have purchased and sold chips and other items for over $500 and the negative feedbacks have never been an issue. If it was a problem with a potential seller, two minutes of research would tell the seller what happened in those cases. If a seller chose not to deal with me after that, then I am pretty sure that I don't want to be dealing with that seller either.

The refunding of shipping charges is a grey area. Most times, if I think it will cause a problem with a refund, I let it go rather than argue over it.

Overwhelmingly, most of the transactions go off without a hitch. The problems, at least to me, are a small price to pay for the ability to collect chips that I would never, ever, have the opportunity to get.