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You know what, this is why I felt safe sending my books there in the first place. I've never graded books before in my life, not before this last year. But I watch a lot of comic book YouTube channels and almost always I saw that when people made a video about damaged books, they also said that CGC ended up making it right by paying them for the damages or buying them a new book of the same grade. So I felt that even though there's always a risk with sending books out to someone else to handle, grade, and ship back and forth, I wasnt worried. That carried on to when I submitted and didnt feel the need to take "before" photos, and didnt inspect that closely when they came back. So this is kind of my first and only experience with this company, and I certainly cant say much good about them since they just kind of screwed me by ignoring my claims that they damaged my books and then gaslighted me by saying that the bends are "acceptable" and my 1/4" color-breaking bend is ok in a 9.8.

New data.

CGC = Clearly Gaslighting Customers

Actually, this is a good point. I do have a bunch of older books that will almost certainly not get close to 9.0 and have enough spine damage already that CGC potentially turning them into bananas wont damage them or affect the perceived grade... unlike my 9.8's that are now maybe 9.4 or 9.6. But, yeah, I might send in those to use the credit and then sit tight and wait for a resolution on all this. Of course, even if CGC fixes the issue with bending and damaging books, I still have books that are damaged and CGC has offered ZERO in terms of compensation or satisfactory resolution. So even if they fix Bendgate, I might already never submit anything after my subscription is over.

I havent used up my initial credit for my subscription, so I keep hoping that CGC will fix all this and I can once again submit. I have around 100 books I want to grade, but that's also 100 books I dont want to pay to get damaged and turned into bananas. At the rate this is going, or rather the rate that nothing is happening, I will also likely have to cancel my autorenew and move on to another grading company next year. I know that CGC doesnt care about individual customers and whether we renew the membership or not, submit books or not, or whatever. But, yeah, eventually they will have enough people who will start using their competitors that they WILL care. But, by that point it might be too late.

We already know how productive "contacting customer service" is. Once again, CGC cares much more about censoring this board than they care about their customers (and their customers' property) or the quality of their product. Their reply to me emailing their customer service is that I can send my damaged comics in so they can further damage them, at my expense! Their response to my latest questions is... well, I'm still waiting for it after a week. This board is completely useless. CGC is not interested in dealing with this problem or making customers whole for all the damage they have inflicted on our books. I guess they think that if they gaslight us enough we'll all just go away.

At least they wont blame you when they get them back with ticks and bends.

CGC's crack team of experts beg to differ. In response to my images of a 1/4" bend on the spine of one of my 9.8 books: Of course they also would not agree to press and reholder my book and guarantee the same grade. So... I'm starting to think they might be somewhat less than 100% truthful with me.

If CGC was as diligent about their quality control and customer service as they are about censoring this forum and blocking people who dare to mention their competitors or god-forbid post an image of a non-CGC slab, they'd be a truly remarkable company. Unfortunately, their replies to my complaints that they have damaged my books amount to two options for me, I can either: a) give them more money to press and reholder my books, with the free option for them to possibly lower my grade and further damage my books, or b) I can go pound sand. With this high level of quality and customer support, guess to which company I WONT be sending the 100 books I have waiting to be graded?

I asked ChatGPT to make me an image of CGC and this is what it gave me.

More bent books...

Here are the results of my conversation with CGC customer service: I sent them photos of 3 damaged books (all 9.8 from prescreen, all went in with ZERO spine damage). The worst one now has a color-break and bend that measures 1/4". But, all came back bent and all had spine damage. First response from CGC: The told me the following: There you go, they dont claim to have even seen ANY impact to the condition of books. According to CGC, the color-breaking tick that measures 1/4" is "acceptable" for a 9.8. I'm sure if I crack it and send it back in, it will get a 9.8 again. Right? Right??? and Or, more like "there is no guarantee that the grade will stay the same". I offered them 2 options that would be acceptable to me. 1) Press and re-holder the books at their expense and guarantee that the grade will not change. and 2) I send them the books and they refund me their replacement cost FMV (for 9.8s) in exchange. I think both are reasonable. For #1, the books have clearly had zero damage done to the slabs after they left their facility. The only damage is inside the slabs. So if they graded them a 9.8 they should still be a 9.8, especially after pressing. Any damage that would make them not a 9.8 is entirely their fault. And #2 is also reasonable since I'd just like the value of the comic they sent me and I'm sending back. Their reply: They asked for images of the books prior to being sent in. I dont have such images. Also... So I can pay... again... to have them graded, and possibly damaged again. and finally: So I can resubmit for ME, even thought the spine damage will not qualify as ME and they have already said that a bent inner well is "normal" and "acceptable". And of course once they reject the ME I will have to pay shipping both ways. There you go, customer service as its finest. I can either suck it up and accept that I paid CGC to grade/slab my books and now they're damaged, or I can send them in to maybe get even more damaged and maybe, just maybe they can press them and keep the same grade... but I have to pay for it. No offer to even refund the grading fees, or acknowledgement that there's any problem. In fact, they claim that the books with ticks and bends (in one case 1/4" deep) are acceptable in a 9.8. And, while I'm not an expert grader, I think that's just total B.S. If I send that book in I'd expect maybe a 9.4 or 9.6 at highest. And so now I really have nothing I can do except accept that I spent money and the result is some of my books are damaged, and I have to crack and press them myself to TRY to get them back into their original condition. And then... I'm not sure what else. Start using another grading service? Why would I use CGC again when they wont even make up for their mistakes or even do the bare minimum of offering to refund the grading fees the few books they damaged? I just hope that this serves as a warning to others. Submit books are your own risk. If they come back damaged, you're on your own. Attached photos of 1/4" spine tick/bend for reference.

Of course they are, that's the normal and expected outcome of their encapsulation process according to CGC.

Indeed, and probably never will.