You can exchange your letters in two different ways: face to face or by mail. The first type of trade is done in tournaments, at schools, or at the local comic book store, and you set up the trades by going through the other person’s cards directly, holding them in your hands. Otherwise, the cards are exchanged by mail when the parties cannot meet because they live far from each other.

Both ways of trading come with their own risks and you can get ripped off in both situations if you don’t take the necessary precautions. Face-to-face trading is usually less dangerous, because you’re seeing the material you’re getting and receiving it at the same time you give yours. However, you can still be tricked in two ways. You can get counterfeit cards, or you can get cards whose value is much less than the value of the ones you give.

Counterfeit cards are usually easy for an experienced person to tell apart from the real thing, but many young merchants don’t know enough about the cards they trade that they can be fooled into thinking they’re some special type of legitimate card. And there are also very good fakes that are really hard to distinguish from the real thing, even for an experienced player.

The cards in each trading card game have different details that you should check to validate their authenticity. For Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, for example, which is one of the games that is suffering the most from these deceptive practices, one of the main indicators is a small hologram in the lower right corner, which should show the eye of Anubis, or the word YuGiOh depending on how the light shines on it. But also the color scheme of both sides of the card and even the overall design can be different on fake cards. You should always compare the cards you receive with the ones you have and make sure the cardstock consistency and print quality are similar, as counterfeit cards are usually made from cheaper materials such as paper, ink, glue, etc.

However, most trades involve only authentic cards. But there is one other thing you need to keep in mind when trading your cards. In each operation, the value of the exchanged cards must be equivalent. But determining this is not an exact science. The value of a card depends on parameters such as its rarity and its condition. Rarity is determined by the frequency of printing, and preservation condition is important primarily to collectors. But value is also relative and sometimes subjective. The same card may have a different value for different people. For example, a collector may value a card much more than a player when it is hard to find but not as useful in the game. Also, a card’s value changes over time, as new game strategies are explored or new cards are released.

However, you can always determine a general value for a card based on how desirable it is to the average merchant. That is why most people will generally agree that a trade is balanced or not. Therefore, if you are not sure of the value of your cards or the ones you are going to receive, you should ask someone else to evaluate the operation.

In short, if you have a modicum of experience and can value the cards and distinguish the fake ones, you should have no real problem exchanging cards in person with any other dealer.

But today it is more and more common to arrange transactions over the Internet and to carry out the exchange by postal mail. People meet online, check their goods and needs, and organize exchanges, all remotely and without meeting. They then exchange addresses and mail their cards.

In these cases you do not know anything for sure about the other person, only what they want to tell you about themselves. You don’t know if they really have the cards they offer, or if the cards are authentic and in the agreed condition. Here you can’t see or touch the cards before you accept the exchange, and you can only check if the cards are authentic and in good condition once you receive them in your mailbox. If you’ve already submitted yours, it might be too late by then.

In operations by mail you run a greater risk, therefore, if you send your cards before receiving those of the other operator. That is why there is a lot of discussion, when organizing an exchange through the web, about who will send their cards first. The most common way to determine it is by using the references. References are votes of confidence given by someone who has dealt with this person before and was satisfied with their performance. It is assumed that the more references a merchant has, the more trustworthy he is. Consequently, the rule is that the person with the fewest references must be willing to send their cards first if required. However, the large number of referrals is no guarantee of a perfect trader. He should always check one or more of the references to verify that they are authentic and recent. A reference includes a way to contact the sender so that they can explain when and how the transaction was made. You should ask politely and be grateful for any answers you receive.

Even after checking references, you may not get the cards you wanted. She may have fallen prey to a ripper, or the other person may have simply forgotten about the exchange. Or they may have sent her fake cards she thought were real, or damaged cards she had deemed fair. If you can still contact your trader, you can make a second deal to correct any shortcomings in the trade, although this will involve more expense and time, and may require a lot of negotiation. You should always try to be as courteous as possible, even if you are discussing what you think is bad behavior. Annoying your speaker will not improve your chances of getting a good resolution of the problem.

Most people use Internet forums to get in touch with other traders. They post their lists, exchange messages, match their collections, and host exchanges, all in the same format as forum posts. It’s all manual and users need to keep visiting the forums to check for new users and visually identify the cards they’re looking for. To facilitate this process, some specialized websites have sprung up that allow users to enter their goods and wishes in a standard way so that the system itself can compare their collections and inform them of potential merchants and desired cards that are available. In this way, the search for operations is automated and a lot of effort is saved. However, users still need to visit the sites periodically to search for new matches. Trade Cards Online (http://www.tradecardsonline.com) is the only site to offer its exclusive Automated Trade Potential Report, alerting its users whenever a card they are looking for is available to trade. Users receive an email message without having to continually visit the site for this purpose.

So finding the best trades is getting easier thanks to the Internet and its global access. The web is also making exchanges by post much more frequent. Unfortunately, you are not reducing the associated risks. The forums are filling up with messages complaining about this or that user who has cheated someone. Special forums are created to post the names of those people who are considered bad traders. In fact, there is a website dedicated to fighting bad trading card dealers: GAB (Good Against Bad traders: http://www.gabtraders.com) is a community of volunteers who investigate reports of trading misconduct. cards and maintain a list of confirmed cheaters. The minimum precaution you should take before initiating a transaction with someone is to check that they are not listed on that website as bad merchants.

But if you really care about security, then Trade Cards Online is the site for you. Trade Cards Online (http://www.tradecardsonline.com) is a feature-rich site dedicated to making trading cards easy and has gone to great lengths to increase your trading security. There are several features that make it the safest place to trade on the Internet:

• Spam Free: your email address is never shared with anyone else, as all messages are exchanged through an internal messaging system that directs them to your mailbox without revealing your address to the other user. You can also decide if you want to receive messages only from registered users or also from external merchants.
• Trustworthy: The site has an easy-to-use referral system that allows users to refer each other and keep track of them and the time they were submitted. Checking the number of referrals a merchant has and contacting some of them is easily done from the website.
• protected: the site offers the exclusive service of protected trading that guarantees that you will not be cheated or scammed. The site acts as an intermediary and verifies that the cards are sent and are correct before forwarding them to their final owners. In this way, you recover your own cards if the other party to the operation does not fulfill its commitment. You will never lose your cards to a dishonest merchant again.
• Ripper Free: There is no list of bad traders, and that’s because bad traders are simply removed from the site entirely, so it remains free of cheaters. Every time a user believes that he has been scammed in a trade with another user, he creates a bad trader report which is investigated based on internal records of the messages exchanged. If no resolution is reached, offending users are automatically banned from the site and banned for life. Users who are listed on GAB are also immediately removed from this site.

Online trading is full of advantages that make exchanging cards much easier and more convenient, but you should be cautious and use all available services that reduce the risks of having your precious cards stolen.