Terms of Service

1. What we do

You send us photos or a short video of a vintage Pokémon collection — a sorted binder of singles, or unsorted bulk — using the form on this site. We review what you've sent and, if we're able to, come back with a cash offer, usually within 24 hours. There's no charge to submit, and no obligation on either side until an offer is made and accepted.

You must be 18 or over to use this service.

2. Offers

An offer is a price for the specific collection shown in the photos and video you submitted, and it is subject to our checking the collection when it arrives (see Section 5), which can lead to a revised offer. We're not obliged to make an offer on any submission, and you're not obliged to accept one — you can decline, or simply not respond, with nothing owed either way. An offer states a single amount for the collection as a whole; it isn't a separate valuation plus a discount.

An offer stays open for 14 days from the day we send it. If you haven't accepted it by then, it is withdrawn automatically, and nothing is owed either way. You can ask us for a new offer.

Before your parcel reaches us, we may cancel an accepted offer if we made it by clear mistake (for example a pricing or typing error), or if we reasonably suspect fraud or that the collection isn't yours to sell. We will tell you why, and any label we sent stops working. You owe nothing if we do this.

By accepting our offer you agree to sell the collection to us on these terms; if you do not agree with them, do not send us your collection. You confirm that you are the lawful owner of the collection, that you have the right to sell it, that it is not subject to any hire purchase, finance or loan arrangement, and that nobody else has any interest in it or claim on it. You also confirm that it is genuine (not counterfeit, fake or a reproduction) and that what you tell us about it is accurate. If we reasonably suspect that a collection, or any card in it, is stolen, counterfeit, or subject to someone else's interest or claim, we will tell you by email and set it aside. You then have 30 days from our email to prove to our reasonable satisfaction that you are the lawful owner, that it is genuine and that it is free from any other interest or claim. We accept no liability or responsibility for refusing to buy it, or for not returning it to you, in those circumstances. If it is stolen or counterfeit, or not free from someone else's interest or claim, we may pursue legal remedies against you, both civil and criminal, and we may tell the police or other authorities, and you agree to indemnify us against any civil claim for damages where the collection or any card in it is proven to be stolen or counterfeit. We don't pay for cards we reasonably believe to be stolen or counterfeit. If only some cards are counterfeit we may send a revised offer without them (see Section 5), and we may keep or dispose of the counterfeit cards as we see fit instead of returning them.

3. Sending your collection

If you accept an offer, we arrange collection and pay for the postage that brings your parcel to us — there is no cost to you for this. The default label we generate and pay for is Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm. You are the person posting the parcel, so it is at your risk until it reaches us; Section 4 explains what that means and how we will help if it goes missing. Ownership stays with you until we have paid you the amount of the accepted offer, and if your collection goes back to you it stays yours. From the moment it reaches us until we pay for it or send it back, we take reasonable care of it. Collection of your parcel by a carrier doesn't mean we have accepted it: we only confirm that once we have received and checked it.

Please only send us a collection once we've made you an offer and you've accepted it. If a parcel reaches us without an accepted offer, we will tell you if we can and offer to return it at your cost, on the same terms as any other returned collection (see Section 5), including the disposal notice described there. If we cannot identify or contact the sender, we may dispose of it as we see fit. Section 4 does not apply to a parcel sent without an accepted offer.

We ask you to post your collection within 7 days of receiving your label — or, if you send it yourself, within 7 days of accepting the offer. Where we can, we show you the date on your tracking page and in your label email. We may contact you if that date passes, and if you need longer, email us. If we haven't seen your parcel posted within 30 days after that date, your accepted offer lapses, any label we sent stops working, and we will email you to say so. If your parcel was posted but hasn't reached us 30 days after you posted it, we treat it as lost or delayed, and Section 4 explains how we will help you. A parcel that arrives after your offer has lapsed is treated as sent without an accepted offer (see below).

If we agree with you to take your collection from you in person instead of by post, there is no postage to pay and nothing to post. You accept the offer in the same way, and once we have the collection, Sections 5 and 7 apply to it in the same way, with one difference: if the collection goes back to you, we hand it back to you in person at no charge. If you would rather we post it, the return postage rules in Section 5 apply to that postage.

Any cards or items in your parcel that were not in your submission are treated as included in the sale, unless you told us otherwise in writing before we received the parcel.

4. If your parcel is lost or damaged on the way to us

Because you are the one sending the parcel, it is your responsibility to investigate if it is lost or damaged on the way to us, and to seek any compensation from the carrier. What differs between the two ways of sending your collection is the carrier cover that applies and the help we can give.

Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm label we generate and pay for (the default route). We buy the label for you, so the parcel travels on a Royal Mail service that carries the compensation level it was bought with. If your parcel is lost or damaged in transit, it is for you, as the sender, to investigate with Royal Mail and to claim any compensation they offer. We will help: on request we will give you the label details, tracking history and proof of posting we hold, and we will confirm to Royal Mail that your parcel did not reach us. If Royal Mail will only deal with the account the label was bought on, we will make the claim for you and pass on to you all of any compensation they pay us for your parcel. Compensation is decided by Royal Mail and is limited by their terms. We do not guarantee that a claim will succeed, and we do not pay you anything ourselves if Royal Mail do not. Please tell us within 30 days of posting if you believe your parcel has not reached us, using the contact details below, so that we can help you in time; Royal Mail set their own time limits for claims.

A courier you arrange and pay for yourself. If you book your own courier instead of using a label from us — because your collection is too large for the labels we'd generate, or simply because you'd rather send it yourself — we have no contract with that courier and no standing to claim from them ourselves. Your parcel remains your responsibility until it physically reaches us, and we are not liable for loss of, or damage to, a parcel sent this way while it is in transit. Before you send it, you must choose a tracked service with cover of at least the value of the offer you accepted, and confirm on your tracking page that you have done so. If a parcel sent this way does not reach us, or arrives damaged, any claim is between you and the courier you chose, using your own proof of postage or receipt, the tracking information, and the cover you bought from that courier.

On either route, a claim to the carrier usually depends on you being able to show proof of posting or a receipt for the parcel, and on the parcel having been packaged properly for what it contained, in line with the carrier's rules. We recommend that you photograph your collection before you pack it and again once it is packed, which can help a great deal with any claim.

5. Checking your collection, revised offers and returns

Every offer is subject to checking

Every offer is subject to us checking your collection when it arrives. We film each collection as it's opened and check it against the photos and video your offer was based on. If it matches, we go ahead and pay you the amount of the offer you accepted (see Section 7). We only send a revised offer, or reject a collection, where we can show you clear evidence of the difference, such as our unboxing footage or photos. If we can't, we go ahead and pay the offer you accepted.

If what we receive is different: a revised offer

If what arrives is different from what you described or showed us — for example in its condition, whether the cards are genuine, how they are graded, or how many there are — we may send you a revised offer instead of going ahead at the original price. A revised offer comes with a written explanation of what we found and, where it helps, photos or video. We send it by email and show it on your tracking page, next to your original offer.

• It is your choice. You have 30 days from the day we send a revised offer to accept or decline it (the “acceptance period”), because we cannot store collections for long periods. Nothing changes unless you accept, and we don't pay either amount while it is waiting for your answer. If you haven't answered by the end of the acceptance period, we send you a disposal notice, as explained under “If the postage isn't paid, or you don't respond” below.
• If you accept, the revised amount replaces the original amount. We pay that accepted amount, and only that amount, and only once we have approved the collection (see Section 7).
• If you decline, we don't buy the collection and we send it back to you, as explained below. Your tracking page tells you this, and asks you to tick a box to confirm, before your decline goes through.
• If we send one by mistake, we may withdraw it before you have answered. It then disappears from your tracking page and can no longer be accepted, even if you still have the email.

If your collection goes back to you

After a collection has reached us, there are two reasons we send it back instead of buying it:

• after checking, it doesn't match what you showed us in a way we can prove to you — for example, cards are missing, or the condition is materially different — and we decide not to go ahead with the purchase (we “reject” it); or
• we sent you a revised offer and you declined it.

• What we tell you first. We only reject a collection, or send a revised offer, where we can show you clear evidence of what is different. If we reject a collection, we explain in writing what didn't match and show you our unboxing photos or video on your tracking page. If you declined a revised offer, you already have our written explanation and evidence. Either way, you get this before we ask for payment.
• How much. The amount is never more than what Royal Mail charge us to post your parcel back, and where we paid for your label it is never more than we paid to post your parcel to us. We don't add anything to it. We show you the exact amount, on your tracking page and in our email, at the same time as we send a revised offer or tell you we are rejecting a collection, so you know the cost before you decide whether to decline. We never charge more than the amount we showed you.
• When and how you pay. We email you a secure payment link, and the same link is on your tracking page, with the amount. You pay by card on Stripe's own payment page; we never see your card details. A payment link works for 24 hours at a time; if it runs out, your tracking page shows a fresh one. If we change the amount before you have paid, it will only be to lower it, and the old link stops working.
• When your cards go back. Not before the postage is settled. Once you have paid, we buy the postage label and send your collection back to you by Royal Mail, and we email you the tracking number, which also appears on your tracking page.
• If we cover the postage. We may decide not to charge you for the return postage. If we do, your tracking page says there is nothing to pay and we send the collection back without a payment. That is up to us in each case.
• If the postage isn't paid, or you don't respond. We cannot store collections for long periods. If you have declined a revised offer or we have rejected your collection, you have 30 days from the day we first ask you for the postage to pay it. We email you reminders during that time. If you haven't answered a revised offer by the end of the acceptance period, or the postage is still unpaid at the end of the 30 days, we will send you a disposal notice by email. The notice states a date at least 30 days after it was sent. Until that date you can still accept the revised offer, or pay the postage, and your collection will be dealt with as you chose. If you have not done so by that date, we may dispose of your collection as we see fit. If you have a problem paying, or need more time, email us before that date and we will talk it through. We are not liable for any loss you suffer because we dispose of your collection under this section, provided we have followed this procedure and have not been negligent.

6. Changing your mind

You can withdraw your submission, or decline an offer, at any point before you accept it, at no cost.

When you decline an offer, you can choose to receive one reminder email about it, about a week later, if the offer is still open. We send it only if you tick the optional box offering it; declining works the same whether or not you do. You can stop it at any time with the unsubscribe link in the email or by emailing us. We don't send reminders about a revised offer. See our Privacy Policy for how we handle this.

After you accept, you can ask to cancel, or to change the collection address or the parcel size, from the “Need to change something?” section of your tracking page. What happens depends on how far things have got:

• Until we have sent you a postage label, a cancellation takes effect straight away.
• Once a label has been sent but your parcel has not been confirmed as shipped, a cancellation, address change or parcel-size change is a request. It only takes effect when we confirm it, and we may decline it, in which case we will tell you why.
• If we confirm a cancellation, or replace your label because of an address or size change, the old label is cancelled and must not be used. We will email you to say so.
• Once your parcel has been confirmed as shipped — when tracking shows Royal Mail have it, or, if you send it yourself, once you have given us your courier details — it cannot be cancelled or re-addressed online. Contact us and we'll do what we can, but we may not be able to intercept it before it reaches us.

If you post a parcel using a label that we have told you has been cancelled or replaced, we cannot promise it will reach us, it is at your own risk, and Section 4 does not apply to it. If your submission was cancelled, a parcel that arrives anyway is treated as sent without an accepted offer (see Section 3).

7. Payment

Once we've checked your collection and approved it, we ask how you'd like to be paid: a bank transfer through our payment provider, Stripe; PayPal; or a bank transfer arranged with a member of our team by phone or message. We pay the amount of the offer you accepted or, if we sent you a revised offer and you accepted it, the revised amount — never a different figure, and nothing is paid while a revised offer is waiting for your answer.

If you choose Stripe, you set up your payment account on Stripe's own secure pages. Stripe asks for the bank details and identity information it needs to pay you (this can include photo ID) and holds them under its own terms and privacy policy; we never see them, and we keep only an account reference from Stripe. If you choose PayPal, we use the PayPal email address you give us. If you choose a transfer arranged by phone or message, you give a member of our team your bank details, which we use to make that payment and do not keep in our records. See our Privacy Policy for the detail on each method.

Once we have sent a Stripe payment, Stripe pays it into your bank account. That normally takes a few working days, but the first payment to a new Stripe account can take 7 days or more.

We never pay you before your collection has reached us and we have checked and approved it. We aim to pay within 10 working days of approving your collection at the latest, and usually much sooner, often as soon as we have verified the cards. This depends on you having given us your payment details, and time taken by your bank or Stripe doesn't count against us. If we still don't have your payment details 30 days after we first ask for them, we may cancel the purchase and return your collection to you, and the return postage and disposal rules in Section 5 apply.

8. Liability

We'll take reasonable care and skill in pricing your collection and handling anything you send us. To the extent the law allows, we're not liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for delays caused by events outside our reasonable control, such as a failure of our payment provider that we could not have prevented. Nothing in these terms limits any liability that can't be limited under UK law, including for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

9. Pokémon trademarks

VintageCardBuyer is an independent buyer of collectible trading cards. Pokémon and all related names are trademarks of Nintendo, Creatures Inc. and GAME FREAK Inc. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any of them.

10. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and any dispute will be handled by the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may also bring a claim in the courts where you live.

11. Changes to these terms

If we change these terms, we'll update this page and change the “last updated” date above. The terms that applied when you accepted your offer are the ones that govern it. If you haven't yet accepted an offer, they are the terms that applied when you submitted your collection.

12. General

If a part of these terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest still applies. These terms and our Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about your submission. Nobody else has a right to enforce these terms.

Contact us

If you want to complain about anything, email help@vintagecardbuyer.co.uk. We aim to reply within 5 working days.

Questions about these terms — email help@vintagecardbuyer.co.uk. See also our Privacy Policy and Contact page.