How I got scammed out of $3000 buying Magic cards 

Couple tips if they havent been shared (i frequently purchase collections like this): 1. If you buy collections of this value get a jewelers loupe, and spot test multiple cards of ranging sets and values 2. Gather a set of older cards that are minimal value for comparison (IE: Tempest, Stronghold, Legends, The Dark, etc.) Its great to have a real comparison on hand for deals like this 3. Meet somewhere where you can validate the legitimacy of the cards. Well lit area, place to sit, set 30 minutes aside. The more knowledgeable you are,the less intrusive it seems as you can spread awareness/educate the seller as you go along, explain what you are checking and why, so its not awkward when you do identify a fake as you will have explained why you have taken that stance. Better luck next time. Its happened to all of us, hope that it works out better in the future!

The brother with no magic experience was probably invented so that he doesn't need to answer specific questions.

This really sucks man. I remember getting scammed and stolen from in my early days as a kid first playing the game. Even people I used to go to FNM would regularly steal from my binders. I hate these people within the community, and that feeling of being deceived is awful. Took a while, a move, and a different LGS to get my confidence back. Sorry this happened to you man

I'm very sorry for you. This is terrible to happen to anybody and exactly why I push for the community to push BACK against all counterfeits. Proxies are not counterfeits.... Proxies are obviously not real. Counterfeits try to appear real.

If it wasn't for the way too rare cards in there I even would've given them the benefit of the doubt and believed that it might've been them who got scammed when they originally acquired the cards. That just goes to show how well executed this scam was. Really can't blame anyone for falling for it.

The foil stamp on fakes being raised up is a good tip, sorry you got scammed, hopefully future deals go better man.

This is why I always bring a loupe to any in person sale that I do. Just recently saved me from 3k on a fake mishras workshop. These fake card sellers always have stories about where they got the cards and how long theyve been playing and all that to try and legitimize themselves so that is also a red flag in of its self if they are trying too hard to make it seem real before or during the sale. I explicitly tell everyone before meetup that I will be bringing a loupe and doing multiple tests on the cards im picking up and some people still try to sell fakes to you and act dumb once you tell them the card is fake. Hell, they still try to legitimize the cards after telling them its fake, trying to say the inconsistencies must be printing errors lol. This is why you should never trust anybody until you can test the cards. Big lesson here is to buy a microscope or loupe and test all or most of any high value cards before proceeding. If they want you to bring cash then always leave it in the car hidden until you are sure. I usually tell them i do not bring cash before going and that we will go to the bank once everything checks out. And bring someone else if you can. If you cant then let people know where you are once you park and give them a timeframe of 10-20 minutes that if you do not call them in that amount of time, have them try to call you. If you do not answer then tell them beforehand to have police sent to the area of the sale. You can also just keep them on call with your phone in your pocket as well. its best to be safe as there are some crazy people out there who will do just about anything for a few grand and these tips will help you to buy with confidence.

Really appreciate you sharing, Dave! This video probably hurt to make, but it’s an asset for the education of the honest magic players out there. Been enjoying lots of your videos lately! 👍 Happy new subscriber! 👍

amazing how positive you remain in the face of this huge loss of money and trust, i absolutely respect how this whole ordeal didnt get you down enough to not see any upsides to it

Thanks for sharing man. Wish you LOTS of luck on your next collection buy.

Tough break man. I think we've all been through something like this at this point. The $3k loss will sting for a while, but don't let it deter you!

The brown oval on the back is darker than the real card you put up. Typically with fakes the feel is noticeable too. Im so sorry this happened to you man. I own lots of expensive real cards and lots of proxies/fakes. The fakes are getting so good its harder and harder to tell. Buyers beware

It takes a lot to share situations like this. Thank you and your character and how you process this is worth infinite mana

Really cool that you're able to look on the bright side on all the things you got that weren't fakes! Sucks that this happened to you >.

That sucks man, but ANYONE can be scammed, thanks for staying positive. At least some good will come out of posting this so people can be aware of this stuff, too many people don't say anything when this stuff happens. Education is the best way to combat scams.

That's rough. Thanks for sharing! I purchased my first counterfeit card off of TCG player a few months ago. I was a little suspicious at first when I got the card and later, after a lot of research, I determined it was indeed a fake. Through the buyer protection program, I was able to get my money back. This prompted me to purchase a jeweler's loupe so whenever I purchase singles, I can hopefully identify a fake a bit easier.

Bless your optimism at the end. This video broke my heart, you seem like such a good dude and I hate that this sort of thing goes on in our community. Hopefully this was something you were able to bounce back from and only made you more resilient.

Sorry for your loss Dave, thank you for the continued content. In my opinion you've flipped the bad carma from this jerk into good carma by making the community laugh & smile.

Bought a box of midnight hunt when it was released, and the cards in it make the light dingy and dim like a fake card. Tested multiple different cards and concluded we need an update from the community regarding the light test

Now that Ive gotten further in the video Im wondering, have you based your entire analysis and determined the fakes from the authentic cards using Only the light test? I certainly hope not, or you could definitely have either more real ones than you thought or more fake ones. The light test is NOT reliable as the only method of determining the authenticity of MTG cards!

Sadly scams are becoming more and more common. Thanks for sharing your story.

Nice of you to post. Sorry that happened to you but appreciate you spreading the word. Cheers

I just came upon this video and found it fascinating. Sorry for your loss. I just tried the light test with a pack fresh Crimson Vow common card and it looked muted, kind of like how your fake cards looked. This leads me to believe that more than just the light test is needed. I saw some other video recently where a guy compared cards through a microscope. Using a microscope seems to be the only way these days in determining if something is fake. Cards with the holo foil on the front are easy to tell as you mention in the video, but also, by putting it under a microscope is very easy to tell if it's fake.

You can always do a rip test. Real cards always have the same color glue, also getting a longer light can also show the same color glue without ripping it.

Thanks a lot for this video. Recently I came across a pretty similar collection with the difference that the person who was selling it had (pretended to have) no clue at all. O was in contact with the person for a few days. I decided not to commit to it, but kept chatting and up to today, Im not sure whether they were genuinely uninformed. They invited me to have a look and the ad was online for a whole week, which is strange be ause someone must have checked the cards. Interestingly, even when the they marked it as sold, they still communicated with me and told me that they found someone who appreciated it. But your videos puts me at rest that this collection will 100% have been 95% fakes too. Thanks!

oh no "The bother taking over the sale (because of whatever excuse)" for anything doesn't matter if its collectibles or not is a huge red flag. Sorry this happened, hopefully you can recoup

Tough break as this can happen to anyone. We all might say NOT me EVER but that isn't true for 99% of us. Your attitude though is great in light of the events.

My jeweler's loupe hasn't failed me yet. The green dot test + light test + looking at the black inking has kept me from getting fakes. (except when it was on purpose)

Thanks for bringing this to light.

Sorry to hear that happened bro. I just watched this after the 1st video. Thanks for sharing your experience to the community

im so sorry u sounded so sad while u recounted the story :(

Unlucky dude! At least it was only "spending money" and you havent lost everything like some people do to some scams. Hope your next magic purchase goes better! :)

Thanks for making this video. It's hard to see this happen to people that don't deserve to be scammed. As a rule of thumb I generally don't buy single cards over a 100 dollars. I Also bring a jewelers loop with me when doing rounds of purchasing.

Thanks for making this series! I'm sorry it cost you 3k!

The light test is one of the most unreliable methods of checking for fake MTG cards though- there is alot of variance between modern cards and older authentic cards so hopefully nobody sees this and thinks one can rely solely on that one method, others are way more reliable.

If this guy played in GP's. You could probably look up participant lists and try finding their real social media and maybe recognize them.

really sorry for you man...but thanks for taking this f´d up situation as an opportunity for educating your viewers on how to identify fakes ( especially for magic newbies like myself ) and to be extra cautious when something seems odd.

The crazy thing for me was learning that not all MTG cards actually use a blue core. I thought that was something that they had done on purpose as a security feature and they would always have a blue core. In fact from what I've researched a number of times the earlier sets used black cores and the blue core was more of a preference. So you can have like 90% blue core in a set and then just randomly one of the printers, or maybe the same printer ran out of blue core material, just decided to use black core to finish the last 10% of the cards. The printing on older MTG cards also has a huge amount of variance. Like cards that are normally very faded will suddenly have a few copies that are way darker. Or the way that like all the cards in revised I've seen are really faded, except for one swamp that seems like it had the same dark printing that unlimited had. I'm going to have to get a jeweler's loupe just to tell if most of them are real. But then again most of the cards I have are super cheap, I can't imagine someone printing proxies of ten cent cards and trying to pass them off as real instead of just buying the actual real cards.

That really sucks dude...I came across the first videos without seeing this one and noticed a few cards seemed fake and I guess it was because of the camera, but I have a handful of proxies I bought years ago and they looked very similar in terms of the surface. It's not your fault for being trusting...this can happen to anyone as I probably wouldn;t have noticed until I got home with it and we know how the rush and excitement of going through a new collection can probably cloud our judgment. Thanks for the video and hopefully this helps someone from having this happen to them! Good luck in the future.

When the "fetch lands" were being used as card backs, I was quite surprised that didn't tip you off. I bought one of these fake sets and noticed all the same cards in your video. I silver border mine with a Sharpie so they can't be used like this but are easy proxies for commander/home games/proxy legacy. Now that I have a better printer, no need to get more, but Wizards gives these people more business than necessary imo. Tough loss. Bring a loupe next time along with the light test. At least now you have some fakes to compare under the loupe!

Dang. This is very scary. I was considering liquidating my collection, but it's tens of thousands of dollars. I don't even know who I would go to for such a transaction.

Not really super related, but the thing you saw with the light, both in reflection and shine, I've noticed is a bit more consistent on newer cards. I bought two of the same set from different shops, and one of them and one of them had a glossier feel, so it felt really smooth, light reflects off them more, and light doesn't shine through that well. I started panicking a bit thinking they might be fake, as this was our first time buying from that shop. So I took it to my normal LGS, and they looked at it through a jeweler's loop and assured me they were real. This doesn't apply to old cards, but apparently newer cards are so inconsistent that it can become harder to determine poor quality real cards from high quality fakes.... Anyway, rant over :) . It's really unfortunate that this happened to you, and I'm sorry to hear that. This is a wholesome game, and I hate when people damage its reputation like this Edit: Oh, and the packs in question for me felt like they had air in them, so I was concerned they were resealed. The rares were also in the wrong spot in each pack (they were 3 from the front)... to be honest, I still question it to the day

I'm sorry this happened but I hope you are able to get past this. It also helps some a light on this kind of thing and hopefully other players seeing this are able to avoid this kind of thing because of your video. Again my condolences.

Thank you for sharing your story. It's awful that there are people who do this. I guess I better start checking my cards too. I tend to only buy from reputable sellers online, but you never know..

Judges should check cards for authenticity in deck checks, but most do not and do not have the knowledge either. With current "commander" players proxy cards are rampant and plenty of counterfeits, as they never play in sanctioned events anyway, nothing really happens, unless they "trade" these cards to someone that will play with them. For very cheap cards its usually irrelevant if its a fake card, the value is so low, nobody cares. If its a much more expensive card, at least use a jewelers loop for the green dot test, covers 99% of the fake cards, light test is good and quick as in this video, and weighting them also works (card is supposed to be 1.7 grams, +- 0.2 at max, anything much heavier or lighter is not a real card material and uses glue or something). Most importantly, with significant value like this, its a proper CRIME to sell these cards, so give all the information to the police and sue them, you can get your money back and they will be taken out. Dont just let it slide, scamming people is a crime.

Thats a big hit and sorry to hear about that ! But THANK YOU for making this video. I immediately went to some cards I have bought recently off eBay and did the light test thankfully they are ok, but I didn't even KNOW about the light test! Thanks man! Subbed and this was an entertaining and informative video.

I've just come back to this video because I've bought a few singles so knowing how to check is super helpful.

You can probably sell the "Proxies" for a few dollars a piece and not take a complete bath. You're right it's crazy that this player spent retail on some of those cards getting the Chinese Super Clones. You're absolutely right about some being more real then others. I sometimes order the Chinese proxies and they vary from easily noticeable to basically you can't tell unless you rip them in half. I'm guessing the quality varies based off the factory/employee that ends up with your order. An interesting thing about ordering proxies too is these Chinese companies know they're doing this illegally and have US addresses that forward your cards after they get them in through customs.

So sorry that happened to you dude. But I'm glad to know the light test so thanks for the info on that.

How is everything fake? That is crazy. Thank you for sharing, I am going to through my collection to be very safe now.

Really unfortunate, it's a horrid thing to go through. I and a few of my friends have been scammed in some way shape or form. Recently one of my friends had all his socials hacked because of it. Even things like that hurt a lot and make you feel like shit. So losing such a massive sum of money would have been awful. I'm really sorry this happened to you. I hope you get through it okay. This is why it's important to be so hyper-carful on the internet, one slip up and some low-life scumbag asshole will take advantage of you and take what's yours without doing any of the work tp ern any of it in the first place. Take care and be safe.

Moral of the story: when you decide to purchase a high value card or a collection of cards and you meet the seller ask him/her if you can see the cards and check them (light test, green dot test, bending test with a common one, compare test with real cards, etc). BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.

Sorry for you getting scammed. I have been playing since 1996 and own a lot of original cards. I first ran into fakes about 2 years ago. The fakes back then were very obvious, but the latest fakes are almost undetectable. They past the bend test. They pass the light test, but they do not pass the the jeweler's loop test. You use the jeweler's loop to look on the green synbol on the back of the card. Real cards have 3 red dots in the yellow reflection of the mana symbol, fake ones will have multiple red dots. Other than that, the new fakes coming out of Germany and Italy are almost undetectable. They are now even making complete holifoil cards, judges issued cards, and FNM holifoil trophy cards. If you are going to buy singles, have a jeweler's loop with you.

Thanks for sharing. Always bring a jeweler's loupe to a sale and check the rosette pattern, the green dot on the back etc. There are plenty of youtube vids to help you become more skilled at spotting fakes. Start with the assumption that people want to scam you. Hell, I buy from big renowed stores and even then I use a microscope on cards to verify they're real.

I'm so sorry for your misfortune. It's very weird, I bought a collection for $1600. Very nice stuff, turned it around and sold it to my local LGS over 3 separate visit/sales. 3 weeks later I got a call from a police officer saying the store is claiming they were all fake. To make a long story short, I was out $4600. Still not sure if the original seller scammed me or the store considering they checked everything on all three visits but I have been doing business with this store for many years so I don't think it was them. If they were fake, they were very very good fakes.

High quality fake cards have been able to pass the feel test for many years. I would make more tests on the "recent" "real" cards to confirm they are authentic and not just latest generation fakes. I saw latest generation MH1 fakes in Beijing back in 2019 and they were nearly indistinguishable from real cards. I used a loupe and compared directly with cards from a box I opened to discover the fakes. Check every element like the set symbol, the artist credits, the black lining, etc... Thank you for making the video. So many Magic players are oblivious to how good fake cards have gotten. Especially a streamer like Rudy who does videos on fake cards but those are only the fake cards he can detect, and he doesn't use or demonstrate loupe tests. So his videos become misinformation instead of information, regardless of how they were intended.

Always light check everything you buy, even from my local LGS I’ll check. Unfortunately we live in a day where people can even buy WOTC product wrap open a booster box and rewrap it and either return the item or resell it as “new”

you live you learn! not a total loss, which is good. aside from glossy sheen and flimsiness of card stock, definitely familiarize yourself with the light test and recognizing the pattern of "waves" in the blue core paper. even more importantly, familiarize with the ink dot pattern on face and back of cards. if you don't have jewelers loupe, take some quality photos with your phone and zoom in on the taken photo and make note of the hexagon-like pattern of the print dots. this is important for making purchases and why i never purchase from anyone with blurry and limited photos. cheers to you, better luck moving forward, and thanks for making this video!

I would’ve threatened to get a lawyer involved. He sold fake cards and can be proven, so he broke copyright laws and knowingly sold a fraud

New subscriber just ran across your stuff alot of funny videos and then I saw this. Bummer man, I got scammed on a lotus in 2009 and ever since I will literally pull my jewelers loop out even in a LGS to verify now.

Sorry to hear this happened scams are horrible, in effect scammers are con artists, door salesmen they act nice to get you comfortable enough to buy into what they are selling however this isn't true for some scams. I doubt the grand pre story id even real. I actually tried the lights test on cards I had opened from packs after reading what you said in the comments and alot of the newer cards in my collection failed the test aswell.

I remember getting scammed. The guy thought he had gotten away, but I found him and stole his eye in revenge.

That sucks. I’ve been scammed twice over the course of hundreds of deals… There’s always these little signs that look bad in hindsight but the trouble is even the real transactions have those little quirks in them, and most of the time they go through fine anyway. Tough but important lesson.

18:40 - "as I'm telling it now, it probably looks naïve right?" - That's only because the situation happened. Trust is a fundamental part of humanity. Now you will triple test collections, not because you're 'not naïve', but because you know that your trust is broken and that your skill in feeling cards can still lead to this.

I feel really bad for you. I've bought fake cards like this too, but I did it knowing full well that they are and just wanted duplicates of cards I already own to run in multiple commander decks. But I wouldn't try to ever pass them off as real cards to someone else later. That said, I wouldn't say that these cards are completely worthless like you said. There are many players like myself who would be willing to buy them off you, and it may help recoup some of your losses. Obviously not every one of the cards you got scammed on are any good in commander, but every little bit there helps.

The lengths some people go through instead of working for your money is insane.

Sorry this has happend to you. It's getting worse every day. I can't imagine how many fakes are floating arround and the owners arent even aware, that half the "value" in their deck is not real. Do not rely on the light test. It is very inaccurate, especially with newer fakes and also with newer genuine cards (from different printing facilities). Try comparing cards with genuine cards from the same set. Use a magnifying glass to check the dots on the back and the printing pattern around the dots. This has not been changed from Alpha to the present and is currently very reliable. There is also microtext in the foil stamp on real cards. And please keep up with newer fakes. All this information may be out of date tomorrow.

The colour on the back was a dead giveaway for me but as you said in the video its probably easier to tell on camera.

You don't seem naive. I can totally see this happening in the moment. Hopefully you are more vigilant in the future.

I own some _very_ convincing Chinese proxies of high value legacy and vintage cards, because I like playing these formats, and I refuse to pay $500 for a dual land. Double-sleeved, nobody can tell my proxies from real cards. But I'd never, ever sell or trade them. That being said, I have sold some fairly expensive cards in the past, NM Gaea's Cradle, that sort of thing. And I just _can't_ believe it when people bought them without doing a light check. So far nobody properly checked my cards before buying them. I never sold proxies, but God damn, I really could have. I guess owning high-quality proxies made me more aware of how easy it is to get bamboozeled.

From now on, I would only buy collections after seeing their references pages on Facebook. Did you perform any test other than the light test on these cards? Like a Jeweler's Loupe test? Sometimes there are inconsistencies in the light test. Rare stamps are better authenticated when seeing them at angles. Every other column of logos on the foil stamp alternate between the planeswalker symbol and a randomly selected basic land logo depending on the angle at which the light is reflected off of the stamp. Fake stamps do not have this alternation and appear the exact same at all angles of light hitting it. If I were you. I would get all these card loupe tested by an expert.

Dude major bummer. It’s awful what that man is doing as it undermines trust that should exist between hobby enthusiasts. He probably justifies it to himself by saying there’s legitimate product in there…

Always bring a jeweler's loupe, maybe even a scales to a purchase. If the person doesn't like it or pushes you into accelerating the authentification of the cards, be reasonable and suspicious, walk away.

Thanks for sharing even though it was a rough experience.

Hindsight is 20/20. Makes me never want to trade and now I wonder how many cards in my sizeable collection are fake 😕

This reminds me of the time I was indirectly sold a fake Volcanic Island from a card shop for $250. In retrospect, there were similar red flags in my situation as well, but I was so inexperienced with this sort of ordeal, I thought nothing of it. I had recently began collecting 1 of each "true" dual land through Facebook, and had already acquired a Scrubland, Savanah, Bayou and Tundra successfully. Long story short, be wary of expensive deals(especially online), never do transactions via PayPal Friends&Family and do not do ANY business with Woof & Dargon gaming!

I can’t imagine the feeling when you realized they were fake! I was glad to see there was at least some value to recoup, but like you said the feeling of being deceived is terrible. Thanks for sharing though! I hope many people learn from you sharing this and thoroughly check valuable cards before buying them from strangers- I know I will! I didn’t even know about the light test before this video

Does the light test work for all cards? Like I went through some of my newly bought MH2 cards (straight from their sealed boxes bought at my LGS) and they had a dimmer, red light coming through and most of my MH2 cards had them...getting super worried

Srry for your loss there are terrible people out there. Definitely need to know how to spot fakes tho this is a must

a $10 jeweler's loupe is also a very nice tool to use when buying collectible cards(and a minute google search for how to distinguish the fakes)... every card i buy online gets checked by my loupe before it A: goes into my deck, B: goes into my collection, or C: get's returned for being fake. P.S. alternate 4th edition does not have a rosette pattern! so if its white bordered and not rosette, i'd break out the black light first to be sure.

Really appreciate you giving us the info, this is really handy.

If you can't immediately tell these cards are fake, like that City of Brass, shouldn't be buying expensive cards or collections like this. And if there's one identifiable fake card, I wouldn't buy or trade anything from that person, ever.

Here is a little bit of money to help recover a bit of the losses. I know it's not much but if others chip in then we can get you back to break even.

If I was spending that much money I'd be getting ID from the seller and taking down plate numbers. Pawn Shops do it, I would too before handing over 3k.

This is why I write Proxy in black sharpie on the back of any fake card I trade away.

All of those "cheap" fakes used to be semi expensive. Fatal push and Inquisition were up around 15-20$ Teeg was really high before the reprint. Probably because of EDH. Plus that fake sellers start out around 2.5$ Plus shipping from china. But if you buy a box set its closer to 90 cents (.90$), and you can enough singles they give a per card discount.

My heart sank I feel for you man

FYI the light test is not a reliable method of testing for fakes, especially modern cards. Different printing locations use different card stock and all pass light through differently. Get a loupe and do the green dot check.

If a deal is too good to be true you have to do your due diligence. The beta wheel alone would be worth for 3k if it was real. If you know someone would hose themselves this bad you know somethings up.

That sucks. Thanks for telling your story.

Sorry to hear that you got scammed. As a cheapskate Magic player myself: I think WOTC are also making this game way too expensive. For certain formats it feels like pay-to-win. So yay proxies.

Dude im so sorry. A couple of people in a pod I play made some trades with a mutual friend between us all and we gave him real cards for knockoffs and we didn't think anything of it because he's been playing forever and we all play together. It hurts man.

These are the most common Chinese proxies. The high finish gloss/reflection is their signature. I am sure a ton of copies are currently circulated, but the list of cards concerned is limited and all in English. I was given a deck of those three or four years ago that helped complete my cube. I think the stifles that you consider as real are fake as well, because they are part of the proxy list (stifle was a quite expensive card before reprints).

Very courageous of you for sharing. Thanks a lots :) Take care

hearing stories like this really make me mad. If it sounds too good to be true? well..... be careful out there guys

Wow man. I feel bad for you...but at the same time i dont, you should have checked closely spending that kind of money. The shine on those cards is GLARING! just how, man

Oof, shame there's no way to get ahold of that person and hold them accountable.

Ouch, that's brutal man. Sorry to hear about this, any time I get a single whether it's a common or a 80$ ragavan I light check it, it's the only way to be sure nowadays. I've had nothing like this happen fortunately but I did get scammed out of booster packs back in the day when boxes were being mapped. It's a shame to because it was being done by some LGS owners... soured me to LGS boosters for a long time.

Scamming is a form of theft as old as the very first trade deal that ever happened. These people are extremely good at lowering your guard and manipulating you in such a way that you'd accept a deal you normally wouldn't. It's similar to being robbed with a fake gun. Nobody (hopefuly you yourself, too) would blame you for giving that person your belongings. In your case, they created another "real" scenario that is extremely hard to look through because they use tricks to tune down the alarms going off in your head ("brother" of seller, police station, charismatic, putting pressure on you etc.) I am surprised that you even noticed some of those things in the moment because the strategies they use are incredibly effective to dull anybody's judgement. For anyone who plans big transactions with untrusted sources, always assume that you're dealing with a scammer. Also, look up typical scamming schemes and prepare yourself before a deal.

About the DOM booster box, out of the cases I own, I’ve never seen a box with the sealing lines on the name of the set. It’s normally shown on the side and back. Just my opinion on it. My bad that happened to you. It almost happened to me too but good thing I carry a jeweler loupe