Stormysweather

Make sure you talk with accounting and that your invoice is paid...regardless of whether you have a credit card on file. It always seems to hang up for some reason.

Express order sent to CSG 7/16 delivered 7/20, graded and shipped back 08/02, received yesterday. Express turnaround delivery to shipped back 10 days (11 days quoted at the time when delivered)

Having been here now since almost the start of this in early March....I've noted a few things The surge in desiring graded, slabbed carded was grossly underestimated by all of the graders. They all were swamped and in over their heads in the blink of an eye It seems that to all the past four months has been four years I do see some signs of encouragement, however with CSG Primarily the acquisition of CSG's parent company by Blackstone (multi-billion $ company who is extremely proficient at optimizing a business) Blackstone will put the resources into this and clean house on some of the processes...putting leadership into it who understands how to make money and get customers on board I too get frustrated with the grading of the low-end cards, but I can't take fault with the folks putting the large bulk orders. They will raise the bulk prices as that is lost revenue with the current system so I think some of that will be snuffed out sooner than later. The hiring going on and the expansion of storage facilities likely masks the increases they are working to add much more capacity in slabbing TAT's will continue to fluctuate until the capacity can handle the demand. Once that stabilizes we'll see a slow decrease in prices, but that is not on the near horizon Maintaining rigor in their grading process will protect the value of their slabs Next few months will shake out those who can't wait and don't realize they are not the only ones "enjoying" these delays Finally, the current employees are well aware of the limitations of the system they work in. Browbeating them (not you Puns, but many others) adds nothing to this.

According to CSG their estimates are from the day they are delivered....not entered. Obviously the front end of their calculations, from delivery to check in has been a mess. My economy order took 32 business days from check-in to shipped status, 25 days from delivered to check-in. You and Kurt have both had much larger business day counts for the first phase.

That's amazing the length of time to acknowledge your order.

My economy cards arrived CSG 03/26 per USPS tracking. CSG acknowledged entry into system 04/30. Shipped out 06/16. I'm not counting days it took to transit back to my address.... but 03/26 - 06/16 = 57 business days. So this was consistent (perhaps a little better) with stated economy turnaround times

Update: My cards did arrive yesterday in good shape. I can only imagine how long it would take if not sent priority. I may look into getting my own FedEx account so thank you for that info.

There are several choices to make here....if you have a high value card and want to have less concern it disappears on the way to you, go the USPS Registered Route. My package was sent Priority Registered on 6/13 and appears it will finally arrive today 6/29 in the Worcester MA area. One has to disassociate the thought that the Registered package will arrive on any sort of a priority basis. Track it, and if need be request online for support if it sits in any particular office for any length of time. I did after not seeing anything update for six days after scanning through the Atlanta regional USPS office. It seemed to generate a push and the updates resumed after my request to have someone look into it. Already got an e-mail with an apology from the USPS for the delay, we'll see how it arrives. Maybe others can share their method of getting their packages back faster via other means, but with the value of the cards sent (and the time it took to get graded) I'm more likely to stay with USPS. Maybe Fedex?

4 Cale Makar YG 1@7.5(!), 1@9.0, 2 @ 9.5 Edges were the toughest grades on all 1 Cale Makar YG Canvas 10.0 - Edge 9.5 With the exception of the 7.5 (but based on their picture I see what they saw) I'll take the two gem mints and one canvas pristine.

Went into scheduled for Grading 5/11, Grading/Quality 5/24, Finalized/Shipped to me tonight 6/16. I don't know if we count shipping days to final delivery, but for economy order I'm on business day 57.

USPS delivered 3/26, received/in system 4/30, Scheduled for Grading 5/6 (Economy Order)

Economy shipment arrived 03/26 entered into system today, 04/30

They may be good at what they do (grading), but their business management skills haven't passed first grade. Not a promising future

Nichole - Appreciate your patience on this question, but it seems like the answer has changes in interpretation daily so I'm hoping to pin this down. Based on your sentence are you saying the "current" turnaround time for an economy package delivered to your facility should be turned in 75 business days, i.e., this 75 day estimate includes the (currently 3+ weeks) time it takes for that delivered package to be opened and inserted into your tracking system? Mark

Economy took the biggest percentage increase from 40 to 75 days. Ugh

Wish you were right....but likely not. This is their answer. As of right now if you want it under 6-8 weeks you're looking at $25/card base price, $35 with subs. That will start cutting down submissions and the turnaround estimates will come down a little bit. For all of the March submitters after about 15 March I feel your pain

75 business days for Economy....15 weeks....almost 4 months...plus receiving to system insertion time of 3-4 weeks. Oh well.

Yeah, that is an ouch.

This gets into the original reason for the initial post in this topic...what is the "cost" of grading a card? Whether someone wants it bulk or walkthrough, there is a cost in time, materials, and labor to produce a graded card which shouldn't vary much by service level. How long does it take an experienced grader to determine the grade of a card? I appreciate the fact CSG is using some automation to help in this department (e.g., centering grades) but if they use many more techniques to determine authenticity and/or whether a card has been tampered with, then the cost goes up and their prices to the consumer are too low, which as a business model is the road to failing. I also wonder when it becomes better known that it costs $$$ and time to have a card graded and some of that cost should be factored into the resale basis of the card itself. If a grading company gains the reputation of delivering on time, does a good (fair, tough, and consistent) job of grading and keeping the submitter aware of the status from reception at the receiving department to the shipping out process, I think many, including moi will pay a significantly higher base price for grading a card, say $30-$50/card. This might also open up a "pre-grading screening service" niche for others to build. I used to live close to Blowout Cards, and would visit their store every so often with some cards which they would evaluate on the spot. They would filter out some cards and recommend which cards to send on to BGS/PSA for free and I never got a grade with those cards less than "mint". That kind of a service might put a dent into the bulk submissions by some. Given the creep of card tampering into this hobby, the need for card grading will increase to support the authenticity evaluation basis of a card. AI, as pointed out, could help but may never totally get the human out of the grading loop, but it might serve to flag cards which need special attention for potential tampering evaluation grading. If someone does get AI-based grading totally automated...congrats...how do I buy stock in your company?

LOL It's unfortunate the very front end of their process appears to be in the worst shape....these companies should be (and could be if their processes were scalable) killing it. Hire some temps, clear your receiving backlog (at least to the point of telling the customers "we got it"). We'll take the bad news if we feel you're transparent about it. Allowing a perception to initiate and fester like this doesn't bode well for loyalty.

Exactly

Thanks for that insight. Wasn't aware of the request to state walkthrough/express. I did put my order number in the address label thinking that might help

In other words....when a box/envelope is received do they open them and then bin them by date received and service level requested, or simply they store them in a pile based on date it hits their PO Box and open them in that order? I was thinking the latter.

So, curious....how do they know the status of the order? It seems the length of time to go from the delivery of the box (as indicated by the delivery service chosen) and the time it is enter into the CSG system is independent of the service level requested. Or do they open each order as soon as received and put it into a line based on the service delivery level requested?

I'm wondering if one of the biggest things to fix is in the receiving shop. Seems like everything comes in and they don't have a method to determine (without opening) the requested status of the submission. So in essence, everything is equal until the box is open and cards inside registered in their system. How about giving us a bar/QR code to place on the outside of our submittal they could scan and quickly/accurately determine the requested status? If one wishes to pay for priority service it should be from the moment it hits their PO Box. Also wondering if the PSA move is intentional in trying to shove the lower service products to CSG (the new kid) and bring them to their knees.