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Frequently Asked Questions

Do you know that cardname is not in the database?

For new printings, cards not being in the database usually means that we don't have enough pricing sources yet. There is always a lag of almost a week to add the prerelease promo cards following prerelease.

For sealed product not yet listed, we will add as soon as we determine an MSRP.

Because card names differ across our multiple pricing sources, some printings may not appear on the correct card page. Please always double check by searching for the card name.

If you're still uncertain about whether a card is available, check in our Discord server and one of the moderators or community members will be able to fill you in.

Why was my payment card not accepted?

Cardsphere partners with Paypal for payment processing. Paypal allows Cardsphere to accept payment with:

  • Visa
  • Mastercard
  • American Express
  • Some debit cards
  • Paypal credit

Payment with a Discover card or crypto currencies are not yet available. As soon as these options become available, Cardsphere will support them. Banks set their own limits on when and where the cards can be used. For example, some banks do not allow debit cards to make international purchases to prevent fraud.

If your cards are unable to be processed by Cardsphere, please speak with your bank. Explain that you are trying to make a purchase from a Canadian company via Stripe. In most cases, they will be able to assist.

What are your fees?

Creating your account is free. There's no charge for adding funds, so when you use Paypal to deposit $20.00, that's how much appears your account.

When you send someone a card, Cardsphere keeps 3% of the amount you're paid. The fee is calculated per card, rounded up. When you withdraw funds, we charge you 10% or $10.00, whichever is more.

To become a Premium member, and get access to extra features, it costs $6.00 for 30 days or $60.00 for 360 days. These charges are taken from your Cardsphere account.

Who pays for shipping?

Senders pay for shipping, and as such you should factor that into your decision making about which offers to fulfill. If the postal service decides that more shipping is required, and charges the receiver, funds will be transferred from your account to cover their costs.

What do I get for signing up for Premium?

  • Our sincere gratitude
  • Private Trade Mode
  • Unlimited tags for your collection management
  • A dark theme (night mode)
  • A premium badge next to your user name
  • Sell sealed product
  • Download last 360 days of ledger history in CSV format (with extra fields)
  • Download cards you are sending in CSV format for card pulling or label printing
  • An indicator on potential packages if you have unshipped cards to that user
  • More to come...

What happens if there's a problem?

If you have a problem, open up a dispute. This brings an administrator into the message system between you and your trade partner. The administrator will assist you in resolving the problem. About 3% of all transactions involve disputes, usually to deal with a disagreement over condition.

When should I open a dispute?

The short answer is: whenever you want.

The dispute system is there to get help from Cardsphere Admins whenever there's an issue with a trade, and we're happy to assist. However, it's usually a good idea to message your trade partner for a status update before you do, and there are expected timelines for certain kinds of disputes. For example, if you have not received a domestic mail package for two weeks, or an international mail package for four weeks. Cardsphere will open reminders on your Receiving page for any unshipped packages, reminding you to open a dispute.

What happens if mail gets lost? Do you offer any insurance?

There is no insurance offered by Cardsphere. The sender assumes the risk for cards being lost or damaged in transit. Around 1% of all transactions result in a report of lost mail, and around a third of those eventually come in late.

How do I find cards I want to buy?

Cardsphere reverses the typical market, where buyers choose what and when they want to buy something. On Cardsphere, you make an offer for cards as a percentage of their index price, and other people choose whether or not to send to you based on your offer.

We provide a lot of information to help you figure out what makes a good offer. On each card page you can see the last ten completed trades, including the price and percentage of index for which they traded. You can also see the current top ten best offers. Also, on the front page, you can refer to the Market Dashboard that provides high level information about offers on the market.

We understand that some people might be a bit nervous about adding money to their accounts when you have to wait for someone else to choose to send you the cards you want. As such, we offer a money back guarantee for new users if they do not receive cards.

How are your index prices set?

We don't share our price sources because we don't want anyone to be able to manipulate the market. However, we can tell you that we use multiple sources including prominent retailers and price aggregator sites. Prices are updated regularly throughout the day.

We collect pricing only for Near Mint, English cards. Index prices for all other conditions and languages are calculated off these prices.

Index prices for sealed product are set by their original Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP).

Why are there so many low offers? I want to make sure I'm getting full value for my cards!

Currently, Cardsphere is something of a buyer's market. Most in-demand cards trade at prices that hit a sweet spot between buylist and retail. The very best offers get snapped up very quickly, leaving the less attractive offers on the system. Cardsphere provides controls you can use to filter out unacceptably low offers so you never see them.

It also takes some time to get used to the idea that you are selling in-demand cards for less than 100% of their index price. But you have to remember that you'll be receiving other in-demand cards at the same or better rates, depending on how you are using the system. When you add to that fact that you also can often include cards that are simply not buylistable, you are usually gaining value on your sends.

Quite a few community-created videos show how people are maximizing their value using Cardsphere, it's worth spending some time watching these, or speaking to experienced traders in our Discord server.

What if I think I've received a counterfeit?

First of all, stay calm. Cardsphere holds your money until you accept the card, so your money is safe while we investigate. So far, counterfeits which have been caught represent 0.0062% of all trades on the system, and in none of these cases did the receiver lose any money.

Contact the trader who sent it to you immediately and let them know about your concerns. Please do so politely; even if the card turns out to be a counterfeit, this does not mean the trader who sent it to you knew that. On the other hand, you trade partner may state that they themselves cracked the card from a booster. Whether true or not, this is a valuable statement to collect for the resolution process.

You may also post images or questions to Cardsphere's Discord or Reddit providing you do not identify your trade partner.

If you are unable to come to a conclusion, on your own, please open a dispute for the card or cards you suspect as counterfeits. You may be asked to provide additional information, or to take the cards to an LGS for verification. Where this is not possible, you may have to ship the card to Cardsphere for examination.

Ultimately, if a card is judged to be a counterfeit, the responsibility is placed upon the sender, as per the Cardsphere Terms & Conditions.

Will you ever support Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh/Other TCGs?

Cardsphere was created for Magic players, by Magic players. While we're not opposed to branching out into other TCGs, we do not see this as something that will happen anytime soon.

What's the difference between sorting by % and $?

In both cases packages are sorted based on quality of the offer, but look at different factors. For example, on a $1 card 50 cents extra gives an offer of 150%. On a $10 card an extra $1 yields 110% offer. Sorting by % will place the first package higher. Sorting by $ will place the second one higher. In case of multiple cards in a package you get numbers that account for all cards in package. Sorting by total value, however, will prefer bigger packages regardless of how good or bad the offers for the cards in it are.

How do I cancel my account?

To have your personal information removed from the database, please send an email to contact@cardsphere.com and providing there are no outstanding transactions, we will cancel your account and permanently delete your private information.

How do I determine what conditions my cards are in?

Please refer to the Cardsphere Condition Guide.

How do I list cards for sale on Cardsphere marketplace?

You can opt into Cardsphere marketplace on your Settings page. This will enable price cotrols for all your haves. Once you set price on any of your haves they become available for instant purchase by other users. Items for sale appear on your profile page and on the page of the individual card. When you enable vacation mode this also prevents other users from buying from you. Items purchased by other users from you using buy now functionality on various pages result in a package created between you and that user.

How do I set minimum package value and maximum package size for Cardsphere marketplace?

Currently Cardsphere does not offer such controls. We understand that they are a necessity for most traders and are working on bringing them to you in our next update. Sorry for the temporary inconvenience. For now please make sure that you list items of such value and price that they would constitute an acceptable single-card package if that may be the case.

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