First In, First Out?

Well, first of all, let me give a disclosure statement up front.

I LOVE CGC!!!

I have no animosity towards them whatsoever. I know for a fact how busy and overrun they are from time to time in the process of attending cons and grading submissions, all of which has increased ten fold over the last year or so.

So I understand the workload involved in their offices, and I know it's tough to keep up with the demand with the current staff they have. So I don't begrudge them any when it takes months for my invoices to get back to me or when set requests take six months or better to get created.

With that said however, I have noticed an unusual trend this year from CGC when it comes to them being accurate in their updates on member's order status pages.

At first, I thought it was just that they were running behind in keeping up with the online postings of invoice status changes. They have done this before in the past on an individual basis, but this time it seems like they're doing it to a lot more members at the same time.

And this may be the case now, but I'm starting to wonder if it's more than just that.

Why?

Because I have proof that they aren't necessarily doing invoices in the order that they come in. I'm not talking about one grading tier in comparison with another. We all know they grade at different time intervals depending on the tier. But this event takes place among invoices in the same tier.

So here's what's happened.

Tnerb and I attended Megacon. We both had some invoices done onsite. We also had invoices that were submitted normally. Tnerb then attended ECCC the next week, where I also had an invoice done.

Among the invoices I submitted normally at Megacon were two that became Recieved on my order status page on 4/10. This was 8 days AFTER the invoice from ECCC was put on as Received.

Why did the ECCC invoice post as Received first, when the Megacon invoices were done the week prior? I figured that the guys at CGC just failed to actually post the Megacon invoices online until the next week. No problem. It really wasn't a big deal. As long as they're getting done, you won't see me complaining.

But then something very strange happened...

The ECCC invoice, which admittedly was posted online before the Megacon ones were, went on to become Verified and Scheduled For Grading and Graded and Grading/Quality Control and Shipped/Safe and back in my hands.

Meanwhile, the Megacon invoices stayed Received during this whole process! In fact, even though the ECCC invoice was NOT marked for Fast Track, it got processed and back in my hands in just 36 days!

But the Megacon invoices were not Fast tracked either, and yet it took them 32 days to just move from Received to Verified? This isn't because of severely altered turnaround times. These invoices were all submitted in the same week.

I almost wonder if somehow, the ECCC invoice was accidentally included into a batch of Fast Track invoices and accidentally processed as such. Otherwise, I simply don't know how to explain the severe time differential.

Again, I'm not complaining here. I'm super stoked about getting my ECCC invoice back so quickly. I'm a little confused about the slowness of the other two Megacon invoices from the week prior but that doesn't really bother me.

What bothers me is not knowing or understanding how such a time discrepancy can occur. Very, very strange.

Anyway, just tossing the observation out there. Has anyone else noticed anything weird in CGCs turnaround times or the order in which their invoices are being done?

Just curious.

Below is a pic of one of the issues Tnerb had signed for me at ECCC. New Mutants #34 SS 9.8 WP signed by Ann Nocenti and Steve Leialoha!

To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.