Buyer Protection Policy

What TCG Bolt covers you for, what it does not, and exactly how a claim works. Read with the Terms of Service.

1. The short version

All sales are final, and the collection must be what the listing said it was. Those two sentences are the whole policy. You cannot return a collection because you changed your mind. You can return one that does not match its manifest, is in worse condition than stated, contains something that is not genuine, or was lost in transit before the carrier delivered it.

2. Where your money is until you have checked

Your payment goes into the seller’s own account with our payment processor, and it is locked there. The seller cannot take it out while they ship and while you inspect — we release it to their bank when your inspection window closes, or sooner if you confirm the collection matched.

One limit worth knowing. Our processor pays a seller out on its own after thirty days, and that is not something we can extend. It is long enough to cover dispatch, delivery and your whole inspection window with room to spare, so it will not normally be reached — but a parcel that takes weeks could see a seller paid before you have finished checking. Your protection is the same either way; the difference is that the refund comes back off the seller rather than out of money still sitting in their account.

HaulX LLC never holds your money. What we hold is the release. If something is wrong, the refund comes back to you out of that same account, and it does not depend on the seller agreeing.

If the seller does not dispatch within 3 days, the order cancels itself and you are refunded in full. You do not have to chase it or ask.

3. Your inspection window

3 business days from delivery, or 5 on a larger lot. Business days rather than calendar days, so a Friday delivery does not spend the weekend counting down.

A lot gets the longer window when either is true of it: 500 or more items, counting cards and sealed products together; or 50 or more graded cards and sealed products between them. Both are counted from the manifest, so the listing page says which window a collection carries before you buy it, and that is the window your order runs on.

Delivery is when the carrier marks the parcel delivered. The window starts then, on its own. There is nothing to tell us and nothing to press.

Check the lot against the manifest during that window. If it is right, confirming early releases the seller’s money immediately, which costs you nothing and is a kindness to somebody who has been waiting. If it is wrong, raise a dispute before the window closes.

4. What is covered

• It does not match the manifest. Cards missing, different cards, or fewer than listed. Decided by comparing what arrived against the manifest and the seller’s photographs.
• Condition is worse than stated. Creases, edge wear or damage the listing did not mention.
• Something is not genuine. Reprints, fakes, or a grading slab that is not what it claims. We check the cards and the certification numbers on graded cards.
• It was lost in transit. The parcel shipped, at least 10 days have passed, and tracking has never shown it delivered. We check the tracking with the carrier.
• A sealed product’s seal is not what the photographs showed. Sealed items are covered on their seal and their stated condition rather than on their contents. Section 5 says why.

A parcel the carrier has marked delivered is presumed delivered. If tracking says delivered and it was taken from your porch afterwards, that is not covered by this policy and is not something we can refund — contact the carrier with the tracking number. At or above $1,000 the carrier collects a signature on delivery, and it will have that on record.

A scan can be wrong, and then it does not bind you. If the carrier delivered it to a different address and tells you so — a scan somewhere you have never lived, a signature nobody at your address gave, a photograph of somebody else’s door — raise it from the order as a misdelivery and you are covered. Where the carrier cannot say either way, we ask them before we decide, rather than treating the scan as the end of the matter.

5. Sealed products, which are covered differently

A booster box, an Elite Trainer Box or a bundle is sold as itself rather than as the cards inside it, because nobody knows what those are. The cover on one is therefore about the product and its seal:

• Covered: it is the product named, its seal is intact where the listing said so, and its condition matches what was stated. The seller’s photographs of the wrap and seams, taken before it shipped, are the record it is judged against.
• Not covered: what is inside. Neither we nor the seller can promise a box was not searched and re-wrapped by somebody before them, and nobody can open it to find out without destroying it.
• Opening it ends the cover on that item. Once a box is open there is no way to distinguish an unlucky pull from a box that was light on arrival. Check the seal against the photographs while it is still sealed — that is the check that exists.

Everything else in this policy applies to a sealed item as it does to a card: it still has to arrive, still has to be the thing listed, and the inspection window is the same length.

6. What is not covered

• Changing your mind. A collection is a one-off lot assembled by one person. There is nothing to exchange it for.
• The stated market value being higher than you think the lot is worth. Stated market value (SMV) is the seller’s own arithmetic, labeled as such everywhere it appears. We do not appraise collections and a disagreement about worth is not a disagreement about accuracy.
• Market movement. Cards going down in price after you bought them is the risk you took.
• Condition that was disclosed. A card listed as heavily played arriving heavily played is the listing being correct.
• Grading opinions. Disagreeing with a grade a third-party grader assigned is a matter for that grader.
• Anything arranged off the platform. If you pay a seller directly, none of this applies and we cannot help.

7. Making a claim

1. Raise the dispute from your order before the inspection window closes — or, for a parcel lost in transit, once 10 days have passed with no delivery scan — choosing the ground that fits and saying what is wrong.
2. Keep the collection as it arrived, including the packaging. Photograph what is wrong.
3. We review it against the manifest, the seller’s photographs and the tracking, and we tell both sides the outcome.

Possible outcomes are a full refund on return of the lot, a full refund with nothing to return where the parcel was lost in transit, release of the funds to the seller, or — where only part of the collection is affected and both sides agree — a partial refund with the lot staying with you.

8. How we decide

A person decides, not a rule. Every dispute is read by somebody here against the same four things: the manifest the seller submitted, the photographs they submitted with it, the carrier’s tracking, and whatever you send us. Nothing about a dispute is automated, and how a dispute is decided does not depend on the account’s history — the question is always this lot against this listing.

The standard is the listing, not the deal. The question we answer is whether the collection is what the listing said it was — not whether it was worth the money, not whether either of you behaved well, and not whether the seller meant to get it wrong. A seller who made an honest mistake and a seller who did not lose the same dispute.

Where the evidence genuinely does not settle it, the buyer is refunded. That is a deliberate choice about who carries an unresolvable doubt: the seller chose what to photograph and what to write down, and had every chance to remove the doubt before the parcel left.

We aim to decide within a few days of having what we need from both sides, and we tell both of you the outcome and the reason for it.

9. Returning the collection

Where a dispute is upheld you have 10 days to post the collection back, with tracking. Send the whole lot as it arrived.

Your refund does not depend on the seller being cooperative. They have 14 days from dispatch to confirm receipt or tell us it did not arrive; we remind them before that. If they do neither, the refund is issued anyway.

A refund covers the price of the collection, the delivery you paid for, the marketplace service fee, and the sales tax on them. You end where you started. This is a full refund rather than a refund of the goods — a collection that was not what the listing said should not cost you the postage that brought it.

You pay nothing to send it back. We buy you a tracked return label, insured for what you paid for the collection, and it is on your order page to print. Pack the lot as it arrived, attach the label and hand it to the carrier. There is nothing to tell us afterwards: the carrier’s first scan is how we know it is on its way.

Once the carrier has scanned it, your refund stands even if the parcel goes astray. The insurance on it is ours to claim, not yours, and your refund does not wait on it.

If your label is not on your order page within a day, you may post it yourself, tracked, and tell us what it cost. We pay that back, up to $150, and it is not deducted from your refund.

10. After the inspection window closes

The inspection window is the protection, and checking the lot against the manifest when it arrives is the whole job this policy asks of you. Once it closes the seller is paid and the sale completes.

It is not quite the end, though, and the policy used to say it was. You can still raise one kind of dispute for up to 30 days after a sale completes: that something is not genuine. Only that one. Cards missing, the wrong cards and condition are things you can see by looking, and they were for the inspection window. A fake found weeks later, when a card is sent away for grading, is a real thing that happens, and refusing to look because a timer expired would be the wrong answer to the one ground that most deserves attention.

Expect it to be harder. The seller has been paid, the lot has been in your hands for weeks, and the evidence is older. A grading company’s written opinion is the strongest thing you can bring.

The 30 days limit what you can claim under this policy, and nothing else. It does not waive any right that applicable law does not permit you to waive, and it says nothing about what you may take up with your bank, your card issuer or anybody else.

11. If you disagree with our decision

Say so, by replying to the decision or writing to support@tcgbolt.com. A different person will look at it, and we will answer within 60 days. New evidence is worth sending even if you have nothing new to argue — most decisions that change, change because something arrived that nobody had seen.

A decision that was wrong is one we would rather reverse than defend. If you are still unsatisfied, nothing here stops you pursuing whatever rights you have under the Terms of Service or the law.

12. Going to your bank instead

You can dispute the charge with your card issuer rather than with us. It is your right and we will not close your account for it.

It is usually the worse route, and it is fair to say why. A chargeback is decided by your bank on the paperwork, with no access to the manifest or the seller’s photographs, and it takes weeks or months rather than days. Raising one does not pause or extend anything here. And where a chargeback and a dispute are running at once we will normally wait for the bank, because we cannot refund money twice.

If you have already been refunded by us, please withdraw the chargeback. Where we are charged for one after refunding you, we may recover it.

13. Where the money comes from, and why this is not insurance

This policy is a promise HaulX LLC makes about how it will run its own marketplace. A refund under it unwinds the sale you paid for, and is paid out of that sale’s money wherever it now is. Two facts, in the order they happen:

• Until the sale completes, the money has not gone anywhere. It sits in the seller’s account with our payment processor, locked, and they cannot withdraw it. A refund in that time reverses the payment you made and returns it to your card.
• After the sale completes, it comes back off the seller. An upheld dispute reverses their sale. On a full refund we give up our fee along with it — we do not keep a commission on a sale that turned out to be misdescribed. A collection that was not what the seller said it was costs the seller, which is what they agreed to in the Seller Agreement.

The seller owes any shortfall either way. A refund reverses their sale, and where their account cannot cover it they owe the balance to HaulX LLC — Section 8 of the Seller Agreement says how it is recovered. What this policy does is unwind a sale that failed, out of the money the sale was made with.

So this is not cover you bought. There is no premium, no policy document of the insurance kind, and no insurer standing behind it: it applies to every purchase here, at no cost, and cannot be bought, declined or added to. What it is, is the way this marketplace settles a sale that went wrong, out of the money the sale was made with.

It is also separate from the insurance on the parcel. HaulX LLCinsures each outbound parcel in its own name and makes any claim itself. Your refund does not wait on it and is not reduced if the insurer refuses.

14. Using this policy fairly

Almost nobody abuses this and the ones who do are recognizable. Returning a different lot from the one that was sent, or a pattern of disputes that do not survive contact with the evidence — any of those can cost you access to this policy or to the marketplace, under Section 14 of the Terms.

Being wrong is not abuse. A dispute raised in good faith and decided against you counts for nothing against your account, and it should not. Somebody who checked carefully and reached the wrong conclusion did exactly what this policy asks of them.

15. Changes to this policy

Material changes carry a new effective date and notice before they take effect. A change never applies to an order already placed — that order is covered by the policy in force on the day you bought.

16. Contact

Disputes are raised from the order itself rather than by email — that is the route that reaches the right people with the order attached. For anything else, including an appeal: HaulX LLC, 1424 Turnwood Run, Josephine, TX 75135. Email support@tcgbolt.com.

Effective 25 September 2026.