On 1/5/2024 at 2:48 PM, wiparker824 said:

If you are the seller you can see the id’s who you sold to, even if they’re old they are in an email that gets sent to you unless you delete your email. If you aren’t the seller eBay anonymizes and hides everything now. 

Does anyone remember if the buy-side account for eBay transactions was visible to all users (even those not involved in the transaction) back in 2016, and is that information searchable with services like Worthpoint and Terapeak?

@comicwiz

Given a CGC slab cert # sold in the past, does anyone know a way to find the eBay ID that purchased that listing?  This is related to uncovering other possibly related IDs (someone I sold to).  Feel free to PM me if you know a method.

I think, when CGC grades every book, they should separately record interior defects, and exterior defects.

When a book comes in for reholdering, the reholderer should ask the following:

1) Does this comic match the image CGC took of it when we graded it?

2) Are the exterior defects (which I can see) and the interior defects (which I can't, but which were recorded) consistent with the grade?

3) Are there any new label notations being requested that weren't there before?

Point 2 is assuming they want to keep the current procedure of not opening the inner well

Additionally, I think the interior and exterior defects should be added to back label, as it defines a sort of "book signature"

On 12/30/2023 at 10:45 PM, Steven Valdez said:

Does Google News include comics?

You pick topics & news sources you like, then based on the types of articles you read, they show you more of that

On 12/30/2023 at 10:40 PM, Lightning55 said:

I got lost with this: "Someone in the middle who works or has worked for Joe Blow might be slipping their own books in with the larger submissions with or without others' knowledge."

Don't want to be lost, but here I am.

I'll take it offline with you.  I probably wrote that fast and I can see where some of it's confusing.

On 12/30/2023 at 10:34 PM, Steven Valdez said:

Then why do I get so much sports news??

Comic book news just seems to be a regular segment of general entertainment news these days, which is excellent.

I use Google News.  Don't know as much about how Apple News works 

On 12/30/2023 at 10:08 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

 

He means to say that like the movie he was watching, it's all a smokescreen. He doesn't do a good job of detail, but goes like this.

Swapper scammer is being found out as the source, or perp.

He has a "mary" or stooge scapegoat on the return packaging, the return address.

The middle men are the people posting on you tube, some of them are middle men who are in on the scam and smokescreening to draw any from the truth.

All that sounds possible or based in movie fiction and or real crime, but he sums it up as "they have their own cgc account!" And that's the only proof he has of all of the above, which could also be "true,  BUT sounds like a weak link that makes it look as conspiracy toward tin foil" 

But perhaps the subject matter is rooted in some kind of truth, but I'd agree probably not "all of that is happening here nor is there proof there of!"

Nothing I wrote was meant to bring up YouTube. I'll illustrate later

On 12/30/2023 at 9:14 PM, Lightning55 said:

Nobody "slips" books into someone else's submission. No one is foolish enough to pay for grading on books they didn't submit, mysteriously showing up on their dashboard. And if this middleman has his own account, he's paying for it anyway, has his own submission number, what's the point of horning in on someone else's submission?

This will only make sense if you drag in Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis, and finish with a fake moon landing.

With respect, I'm either not making myself clear enough, you misunderstood or you don't get it

On 12/30/2023 at 1:32 PM, Iconic1s said:

Whoa!!  Man, if there is a connection to a major submitter that’s just crazy!  This might explain some of the weird grade dates, etc. and what looks like potential hookups.

(edited for space)

 

Just to whiteboard this (having just watched "The Gold" on Paramount+ which I heard about from iFanboy and recommend), I think we have "The Account" - the CGC account, who might be Joe Blow in Wahoo, Alaska who owns a comic shop and/or pressing business, and there's "The Front" - Mary Contrary, the return address on the packages of scammer's customers.  What is the link between "Front" and "Account", are people being forthcoming about it, are middlemen involved, who knew what and when did they know it. Someone in the middle who works or has worked for Joe Blow might be slipping their own books in with the larger submissions with or without others' knowledge.  Disclaimer: Just one person's armchair theory that requires proof and testing. "Middleman" might very well have their own CGC account.

On 12/30/2023 at 12:47 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Other than saying that on the link, when I clicked on the link you shared it just took me to some comic website for the article. Didn't see it on an Apple News site. Besides it isn't like I would trust American news either.  Some people here think the Enquirer  is a "News Source" 

Apple News is just a news aggregator and shows you articles based on your interests.  Just Google "CGC scam" and the Comicbook.com article comes up.  I found it to be a pretty good summary.

On 12/30/2023 at 11:46 AM, MAR1979 said:

_{Nixon Ends Convertibility of U.S. Dollars to Gold and Announces Wage/Price Controls}

August 1971

With inflation on the rise and a gold run looming, President Richard Nixon's team enacted a plan that ended dollar convertibility to gold and implemented wage and price controls, which soon brought an end to the Bretton Woods System.

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/gold-convertibility-ends

Before my time, but i learned it in Elementary school

Check out The Gold Room at the Omni Mount Washington Resort next time you are in town

On 12/30/2023 at 11:44 AM, Steven Valdez said:

At least 6 x Hulk #181s have been implicated... so far.

Could very well be $20K x n then

On 12/30/2023 at 11:37 AM, NewWorldOrder said:

How many victims are there?

I was exaggerating on the figure.  We know at least one book went for that

On 12/30/2023 at 11:25 AM, Steven Valdez said:

Thousands of free re-grades and reholders? Quite a lot. I can't give you an exact figure just yet, however.

Plus buying back books from victims at 20K a pop

On 12/30/2023 at 11:00 AM, Nick Furious said:

My Predictions: 

1) CGC will not need to design a new slab to restore confidence in new submissions going forward.  There are easier ways to give a buyer an opportunity to verify that the correct book is in the slab.

2) CGC will offer a discounted fixed price to re-grade high-dollar books sent in with the CGC label.  Will not have to be in the slab.  Allowing owners to crack them out and inspect them before selling or re-grading them. 

3) CGC will work with law enforcement to make an example of this submitter as a cautionary tale to would-be scammers.    

I think it would be nice if they offered to crack, inspect, and reseal books for cheap/free at cons, maybe offering 100 such slots per show. Maybe limit it to MVS and page count checks.  It would be a good PR move in my mind.

On 12/29/2023 at 9:24 PM, Pcaedus said:

My SO lives in Forest Hills, I live a 15 min drive over in Flushing. Great part of New York nothing bad to say about it. Don't assume things just because the scammer is from the neighborhood. NYC is a HUGE place, you simply cannot compare or know unless you have lived here X number of years yourself. 

+1

Every neighborhood in New York City is home to both higher income and lower income people 

On 12/29/2023 at 6:55 PM, EastEnd1 said:

The other gut punch with Ewert is that he was a very well known dealer... I bought plenty of books from him in the 1990s at NY conventions... I found him to be great to work with at the time.

On 12/28/2023 at 4:26 PM, agamoto said:

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'll add it here. 

The CGC response does not cut it. There are federal crimes happening here, likely well into the 6 figures, and that's just ONE person. It is the FBI's job to investigate such crimes and I want to hear CGC tell us. CGC needs to be honest with us AND itself. The issue with their holder and their process means that MANY individuals may have been taking advantage of the loopholes and the fraud could be 10 or 100 times more.

CGC has no authority to ask eBay for sales data, user data, IP addresses, previous ID's... They can't get at instagram posts. They can't look at paypal records, facebook marketplace records, etc. Hiring a private investigator and outside counsel doesn't cut it.

You need to call in the FBI so they can investigate this fraud against CGC AND consumers fully. Only they can get at the full breadth of data that needs to be considered here. That includes examining CGC themselves for possible inside connections that helped this perp, or others to facilitate this fraud.

 

Maybe will be the next step after their private investigators gather the info

On 12/28/2023 at 1:25 AM, Heronext said:

eBay should allow sales of CGC-slabbed comics only with a hand-entered serial number and a direct link back to the CGC cert lookup page (ebay-embedded and nothing to do with the lister's description)

I just noticed Heritage is already doing this

On 12/27/2023 at 11:06 PM, brute_nm said:

Check out this new feature on the census. Hopefully this means CGC will remove fraudulent books

eBay should allow sales of CGC-slabbed comics only with a hand-entered serial number and a direct link back to the CGC cert lookup page (ebay-embedded and nothing to do with the lister's description)

On 12/27/2023 at 6:39 PM, Bill1 said:

That's me. I am in no way associated with CGC other than using them like any of us do. Pretty much our only rule is no CBCS and be nice. Many of us simply can't seem to do that, so I gladly help them move on. And no one was banned for talking about this, but their post was removed, and the first 10 or so were given the reason why. After that, if I removed one and the person kept re-posting, I removed them. When CGC finally has an official post, we will gladly post it. But going off of some you-tubers with a bunch of allegations, and then allowing the more enthusiastic members to try convince the majority of us that the sky is falling is not what we are there for. Lots of work has gone into this problem by several of the members here, and I am sure we all thank you for that. Lots of accusations and theories have come from others, and we don't thank you for that. Enjoy this great hobby, and don't let this kind of problem ruin your month. Remember, at least in my group, 80% of the members don't and likely won't ever have a Hulk 181, and no one is counterfeiting the latest Venom variant.

That's great because I don't want to follow two threads anyway

On 12/27/2023 at 1:01 PM, MatterEaterLad said:

CGC will be fine. They'll take a small hit to their reputation and maybe their bottom line. Unfortunately, most of those submitting won't even know about this scandal. There are so many CGC fan communities that will be insulated from this. I got the ban hammer from the CGC fan page on Facebook for just mentioning this scandal. And that's a group with 37,000 members, that the mods there are keeping in the dark.

Could you clarify whether the CGC fan page on Facebook is actually administered/moderated by them or just some fans?

On 12/27/2023 at 11:28 AM, Mikey C said:

Any modern book with a stupid 9.8 premium is suspect to me as a target for anyone with the knowledge how to cleanly crack a case. 

Stay away from sellers you don't know.  Ask if they slabbed the book submitted the book to CGC for slabbing themselves.  With a little patience and due diligence, you can avoid being a victim.