• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

slowdowntubby

Member
  • Posts

    62
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by slowdowntubby

  1. pi-196 Guy msged me about shipping a figure to the UK. I quoted him a price for freight. He agreed, paid, and I shipped. Item arrived in 5 days. He then opened an "item received not as described case" because he had to pay import fees to the UK government. Fully admitted there was nothing wrong with the figure, he just didn't think he should have to pay tax. eBay actually sided with him and granted him the return!! Thankfully I called in and talked to a real person who realized that was nonsense so they closed the case in my favor immediately.
  2. Happy to say the comics I submitted are now in the hands of their rightful owner. I consider myself very fortunate. A less scrupulous person than Mr. 15 sig Twilight Zone would have made this a complete nightmare for me. So thank you to him. My faith in humanity is restored!
  3. I shipped the Twilight Zone with 15 signatures back to CGC on Friday. I am told the guy who has my books is doing the same. Apparently he is quite attached to his book, which is very fortunate for me. So we are moving forward on a positive resolution. Absolutely no word from CGC regarding any kind of credits or refund, and of course this isn't over until I actually have my books in hand. I am in wait and see mode.
  4. CGC has been informed. They are working on it. The book I received instead of my actual submission is a 2015 issue of the Twilight Zone with 15 signatures.
  5. I sent an email to what’s listed on his sub form. No response yet. Best case is CGC simply mixed up our shipments and he has my books and I got his. Then it comes down to whether he’s honest because my books are worth WAY more than the lone book I got back for him.
  6. I got a box back from CGC today with someone else's submission. The invoice was inside and I've already contacted the person who should have received it. Problem is tracking shows the delivered package as supposed to be containing books that are actually mine. To wit: Hulk 180 6.5 CoW Avengers 57 7.5 Ow/W Tomb of Dracula 10 7.5 Ow/W Werewolf by Night 32 5.5 Ow/W All blue labels These are all customer submissions so pretty much a nightmare scenario. I am counting on the community to help me out since I have little faith in CGC's ability to fix this. If you received my books please contact me!
  7. The saga continues.... just had to call in to CGC this week about my $20 credit, which sadly I am not surprised to say was not applied on my latest submission. They also charged me $90 for shipping that should have been billed to my own Fedex account (I switched over to self-billing last year after the first ordeal). Accounting fixed it right away for me, admitted both mistakes, and was super pleasant. But still, this has to be a message for anyone who does a good number of submissions: Stay on top of your invoices. Match the charges to your records. Do not trust that CGC is getting it right on their own.
  8. Here's a big old follow up to my situation. After seeing my posts here, on September 11 Harshen offered me a $180 credit to cover the overcharge. I pointed out I was overcharged $197.52, not $180. He acknowledged that and said he would therefore apply a $200 credit, not $180. I sent in submissions a couple weeks ago and, wait for it.... was credited $180. What a time to be alive.
  9. No option was given, but since I continue to do submissions the credit is fine. Of course now I have to stay on top of them to make sure it's actually applied on my next submission.
  10. Update for my particular problem: Harshen reached out and has informed me CGC has applied a $200 credit to my account. He explicitly said they shouldn't have been charging for old freight from 2019 and did extend an apology. I've thanked them for their prompt attention. Hopefully this incident leads to more transparency in their billing practices down the line. That's really the most important thing for me. I shouldn't have to be playing detective to make sure I'm being billed accurately. I fear for the other accounts who do a lot of submissions but maybe don't pay as close attention to billing as I do. For a company whose sole product (beyond a piece of hard plastic) is their perceived reputation for accuracy and fairness, trust is everything. Making this right for me goes a long way to restoring that trust.
  11. As others have said, I would be ok with the shipping charges if I knew up front what they are. That way I can accurately charge my customers who are submitting through me and they can make the decision whether they want to submit or not. As is, when CGC dips back into my pocket on 10 month old subs, I am now providing a service that benefits everyone except me. If I passed on these extra charges to my customers, as CGC has done to me, I'd be drowning in 1 star Google reviews and VISA chargebacks. I guess I'll wait a day or so to see if CGC even responds to my inquiries, then I have no choice but to file the chargeback myself.
  12. Hard to say. Sometime before March 2020 for sure, as my business was closed from March to May for COVID and I didn't receive squat in that time period. They don't show up in my dashboard anymore as the submissions are over 8 months old. I have the order numbers from the original submission invoices, but you can only look up by submission number on anything over 8 months. I've asked CGC to provide me with the submission numbers and corresponding charges but await their response. I'm not holding my breath.
  13. That's why I posted here, trying to find out whether I'm the only one or if this is widespread. I know a lot of people don't even bother reconciling their charges on their credit cards with the invoices. Especially if you are a high volume submitter, you get so many charges, all at different dates, sometimes clumped together, sometimes not, it can be incredibly difficult to stay on top of it all. Luckily I am OCD about my accounting. This isn't the first time CGC has added "adjusted" charges for freight for me. One time in the past, they straight up double charged me for shipping "in error", I noticed, and they refunded the amount. This is very different unfortunately. Shipping for Canada used to be a flat $90 USD for 25 books. Now I have no idea what it is.
  14. I've sent in an email asking for a detailed reporting of the charges on my account, with matching invoices, going back to October 2019. Honestly at this point there are so many extra charges for freight I'm having a hard time matching them all up. I ship submissions in for my customers. These aren't even my books! I know as a business owner it would be immoral and more than likely illegal to go back and charge my customer additional fees, without their consent, 10 months after providing them a service for which we had already agreed to a price. It's frankly insane.
  15. CGC just ran a charge through on my mastercard for $602.52 for a submission of 25 moderns. 25 x $16 = $400 $5 handling fee $197.52 in "adjusted" charges from October and November 2019 invoices I had to call in to get that breakdown. No notice was sent. All I see is the $602.52 charge on my online banking. The invoices I do have, from 2019, clearly list the shipping charges I agreed to and already paid. To me this is cut and dried fraud. The woman on the phone yesterday (Brenda? Barbara?), who was pretty rude frankly, said sometimes they get adjusted charges from the shipper up to a month after they are billed, which they in turn have to pass on to me. When I pointed out these bills were from 10 months ago, not last month, she just doubled down on saying they have no choice but to bill me.
  16. Anybody else experiencing this? Two submissions in a row now CGC has added on additional freight charges from old invoices that were already paid in full. I called in to accounting in July wondering why I had all these additional charges on a recent submission, and they explained shipping rates had gone up and I was being charged for the balance owing on submissions from March 2020. I was told then that I would be all caught up on back charges. Fast forward to this week, and I send in a batch of 25 moderns. This time I am being assessed additional freight charges of nearly $200 on 4 invoices from October and November 2019. Again, every invoice was already paid in full. I do not carry outstanding debts. This is CGC backcharging on 10 month old shipments. Call me crazy, but that's pretty screwed up, especially when not 5 weeks ago I was told there would be no more back charges. In what other industry can you claim you undercharged someone 10 months ago and come back to just bill people without notice? I called in again and was pretty much told by accounting to pound sand.
  17. I sold that 5.5 voldy to the guy who sold it on IG. It was raw at the time and I called it a 4.0. Got a whopping $100 CAD back in 2016. Oops I guess. Just looked like another random Canadian edition at the time. I'm quite certain I've owned multiple copies over the years.
  18. That's Walter's outfit, an extension of Big B Comics in Hamilton. I have no affiliation with them but can tell you they are legit. My best bud Jay runs the website. He'll take care of you. Marc
  19. adsparis99 This guy bid my B&B 28 CGC 4.0 up over $4000 CDN. Did not pay and complete radio silence in response to messages.
  20. Tough lessons to learn for sure. Sorry this has happened to you. Couple things from reading this thread. In an early post, you said you found empty bags. Unless you are also finding loose comics that means there is more than price switching going on. Possibly multiple books going in to one bag. As others have said, price switching takes way more effort than just straight up pocketing books so I would assume that has happened too. Second thing. Thieves (plural) are taking advantage of you. They usually work in groups. Don't just assume it's one guy. They will try again and become more bold. Best thing you can do going forward is catch them in the act and then use that leverage to try and recover your previously stolen goods. Most shoplifters are cowards at heart and wilt under pressure. Finally, don't count on law enforcement to be much help. To be perfectly frank, I don't think you actually know enough of what's happened or who is involved for them to give much of a damn. In my experience, unless you deliver them an arrest wrapped in a bow (ie video footage of a crime being committed + names and addresses of the crooks) they have a hard time getting motivated.
  21. I don't discount that people have tried to scam you, but I have to say the GSP is in my opinion itself a massive scam between Pitney Bowes and eBay. For me it's pretty straightforward. If I import goods into Canada I have to pay 13% sales tax. That is mandated by the federal government and I have no problem with it. As a business with a tax number I could recoup 100% of that tax if the GSP actually charged it as a tax. But it doesn't. GSP charges nebulous "import charges" that correlate to no known tax. As I said, for me tax should be 13%. I just did a random search on ebay and added an ASM 129 to my cart. $70.48 in import charges on a $480 book. 14.68%. From the same seller, I added a random variant to my cart. $5.14 import charges on $35. 14.68%. OK. Now I remove the ASM 129 from my cart. Import charges on the variant go UP from $5.14 to $8.72. Now we are at 24.91% tax. Shipping charges remain consistent. This example repeats itself over and over again on ebay. To me this defies logic and international law. If they are charging some sort of handling fee which accounts for the fluctuating rates that should be itemized. If they are collecting sales tax they are required to itemize that so businesses such as myself can claim the tax. If they are collecting sales tax, they are also required to remit that to the Canadian government. With the questionable accounting they present to the consumer I'm curious what they present to the various international tax authorities they are ostensibly collecting tax for. On a side note, are you aware that your items are often repackaged in Kentucky by Pittney Bowes before being shipped out again? On two occasions I have had a seller quite surprised when I sent him photos of badly manged items I've purchased through GSP which came with practically no protection. Both times the sellers said that's not how they packed it. Other Canadians have relayed similar stories to me. In short, I will no longer buy any item listed through GSP. If I see an item I really want, I will msg the seller and politely ask that they not use GSP. Most are happy to, especially when I explain my reasons. If they are adamant about using GSP, I move on to the next item.
  22. I'll be debuting several large silver/bronze/copper collections I've purchased over the last 2 weeks. I've got over 500 great new wall books just from those, plus everything else I've bought since the last show. I've been teasing some stuff over on my IG. Should be a doozy of a show!
  23. Someday when I invent that infinite time machine!
  24. Hey I recognize those! I just dropped them in the mail today. I'm glad they are going to a good home
  25. I do submissions for customers too. I agree it's not hard to actually do. The submitting process is very straightforward. I just think that for the amount of money involved (next to nothing) and the number of times there are headaches, I can see why most stores don't offer it as a service. Right now thankfully CGC's turnaround times are pretty great. I remember a time a few years back when moderns took 4 months and I was getting angry phone calls every Monday from one guy asking "where are my books?". He eventually accused me of stealing his comics. Another guy who didn't like his grades accused me of damaging them. Another guy who didn't like his grade insisted I call CGC, in front of him, to demand that they do something to "rectify this problem". I got a one star Google review from someone who accused me of classism when I said that, though I would gladly do it for him, I wouldn't recommend paying the money to grade a G+ copy of Wolverine #50 (or some similar drek). Maybe I've just had bad luck with unreasonable people. That's why now I feel people out for any sign of craziness before agreeing to submit their books. So far it's working ok. Marc