paqart

It isn't a "prosecution" because it is civil, not criminal. The civil equivalent is "frivolous" or :harassment." I don't think CGC's case meet these definitions at all. Zanello et al did harm CGC's brand with their fraud and have caused CGC to suffer monetary damages. There is no way around that. CGC is a victim due to the criminal mischief of the defendant.

And this is why law enforcement has to be involved. Every defrauded victim who was defrauded exclusively by Zanello without CGC involvement has no other recourse. CGC will not make them whole, correct the grade, or in any other way assist in dealing with their problem. There are 350 who will be compensated by CGC, but potentially 1,650 who won't be. Those people have to report this as a crime to police/FBI. For the record, I think this makes sense from CGC's point of view, but it also means that victims of the fraud cannot afford to sit around expecting CGC to deal with this on their behalf.

Not CGC. The victims of the fraud go directly to law enforcement. There is no reason for any of them to wait on CGC.

In which case, it goes to law enforcement.

FYI: A strong motion, like the one filed by Zanello, is no guarantee of success. When I sued Fox Television, Chris Carter, and Harris Comics, their reply briefs were excellent. They were also complete baloney. The judge saw through it and told them they should settle with me, which they did. In this case, the Zanello doc is also baloney. It is apparent that the actual CGC mark was used, there is no chance customers wouldn't be confused, and reputational harm is huge when the CGC is implicated in fraud. This has the potential to destroy their business, because trust is a major commodity in a situation like this. Imagine if the Charbucks case wasn't that the offending company had a similar logo/label to Starbucks, but used identical labels and spiked the coffee with LSD or poison. That is what we have here. You don't need thousands of examples to prove harm when the integrity of the service is so thoroughly compromised.

That would require expanding the list all of Zanello/Riva/CBS submissions. I wouldn't buy anything that has passed through their hands at this point.

And this is why this needs to go to law enforcement.

I did the same but got 1 bull and scored 5 for a total of 28. I think that puts me middle of the pack somewhere.

You might be surprised to know this, but I suspected you had done in the last round what you did in this one. I suspected it so strongly that I initially gave all the comics a 5.0. That was a mistake obviously, and led to my worst score of the contest. And then you did it on the next round instead! Arg!

Seems to me that without an explanation, no one should bid on these. My policy: assume they are counterfeit until proven otherwise.

Yes. And speaking of which, it makes sense to me that Zannello could have, or did, work with more than one LCS to submit. This operation of his was in some ways better than printing money, because they output was closer to genuine than a counterfeit hundred dollar bill. His resources would have been llimited only by the number of transactions he could process, meaning the vendors he could submit to. Once this operation starts, he's getting guaranteed profits every month, and it was happening for several years that we know about.

Speaking of "number of charges" I wonder if a lawyer can answer this question: Which would receive the heavier sentence: A thief steals a single comic worth $1,000,000 A thief steals 20 comics worth $50,000 each, in 20 separate robberies. It seems to me that the second option would draw a much heavier penalty than the first, because each robbery carries its own set of risks to the victim, and that is more important than the values involved. Am I right?

I didn't believe that from the start. Any time you try to find every example of a criminal's efforts, you are likely to have incomplete knowledge. That allows some crimes to escape notice. If you find 350 examples, the scale of what you may have missed goes up considerably higher than what it would have been if you'd found only 10 or 20 as in the Terrazas case. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the true number of affected comics is closer to 2,000 than 350. Also, think about the impact to criminal charges here. If this were to be prosecuted criminally, and it definitely could be, Zanello and Riva are in serious trouble even if the number of comics affected remains at 350. That's 350 separate counts of fraud. Depending on how the comics were grouped for processing and sale, it's probably not less than 150 separate mail fraud and wire fraud charges as well. The prosecutor could essentially go for life in prison for this on the basis of the number of counts, much like Bernie Madoff. More realistically, they'd only charge a sub-group of these and sentence on that basis. Regardless, I doubt he'd be looking at less than 5 years in jail, but it could easily be 20.

My guess is that CGC either contains this by identifying, finding, and buying every affected comic or they get a class action against them. If I was in the shoes of any of the affected customers, I'd be happy to walk away if CGC's offered compensation was appropriate. Meaning, I don't feel like I've lost anything. That includes, btw, any value that comic might have accrued since the time of purchase, providing it was the right comic. It also includes whatever money I spent, regardless how much value the comic lost in the meantime. This is why I think the fairest thing they could do is literally replace the comic with another that is untainted with the same grade. Anything less than this, and I'll be looking elsewhere for satisfaction. CGC's failure to follow their own rules may have impacted the value of all comics in their holders, as customers wonder if the contents match the label. For all we know, there is an IH 181 out there that is just a cover attached to a bronze age Archie. It may be unlikely, but it is a fair concern. Speaking for myself, I'm now wondering about my bronze Marvels, hoping they all have their Marvel Value Stamps. I assume they do, but I'm no longer as confident as I was.

I just got one of these: . That looks good to me, but doubt I am in a position to win anything unless everyone else screws up. Amazing that the real contenders have done as well as they have.

They could have been working some other insider(s). I just don't see how they could do what they did without help.

Curious how this works with the victims. 1) Does this mean the comic is now surrendered to CGC and you don't get it back under any circumstances? 2) Was the purchase price higher or lower than FMV? 3) How is FMV determined? 4) Are they offering FMV, replacement value or a replacement slabbed comic? 5) Did you lose money because of this, after expected compensation? 6) Are you happy to walk away after compensation, or do you want to see perpetrators criminally prosecuted? 7) Have you independently contacted law enforcement?

I think so, but CGC isn't suggesting that in their lawsuit. They have accused the other couple of pulling an inside job, which suggests they are willing to out any bad employees. Therefore, either they aren't aware of an inside component to the reholdering scandal, there isn't an inside person, or there is and they've decided to conceal it. If there isn't an inside person, then CGC has seriously compromised their reputation with a gaping hole in their certification process by allowing unvetted reholdering at a massive scale. If there is an inside person, and they must have at least considered the possibility, I wonder why that person(s) hasn't been found yet or is being concealed. My opinion is that if a CGC emplyee helped Zanello and Riva, it is better for CGC than if not. The reason is that they can say, "there is the problem" and get rid of it by firing the person, suing them, and prosecuting criminally. If there isn't an inside person, CGC really failed at their most fundamental job: certifying authenticity of comics in their holders. Bottom line: 1) Inside man limits scope of reholdering scandal to identified comics 2) No inside man means all CGC holders become questionable, including but not limited to reholders.

So where are we at @comicwiz on the question whether Riva and Zanello had inside help on their scam? I don't see any way CGC would let 369 bad reholder requests go through without checking them unless the comics were set up to land on one person's desk, and that person was helping. I see the connection you're making between the two scammer pairs but am curious what that looks like in relation to the reholdering business. At this point, the information released so far indicates to me that there was an inside man at CGC assisting in the enterprise.

She appreciates the thought, but leaves the collecting to me. She buys comics, but only as a general reader.

This is where, I think, the problem lies, not on the definition of "counterfeit." I have a hard time believing there wasn't an inside man on this. The idea that out of all the people working at CGC, a random group of them would randomly not look at 369 reholdered comics before reholdering is hard to believe, Also, I just got off the phone with my insurance industry friend, with whom I discussed this case. First, he agrees with you about the insurance payout I received for my stolen comics. He thinks there was something else going on that I didn't know about, like the judge was convinced by something else, even if not my trstimony, because, "not even the most honest insurance company in the world would pay out if they didn't have to." Second, he thinks CGC is in bigger trouble than it might look right now. The reason is that there are too many victims in this case to effectively manage by compensating them for losses. It isn't a question of money, but willingness to accept the deal offered. I agree, it is difficult to get that many people to agree on anything no matter what it is. That makes it very likely that some will break ranks and sue CGC in a class action. There is also damage to the market value and salability of the affected comics, which seems to have spread to all copies of ASM 300, 252, etc. That is harder to quantify, but the bottom line from him was, "Yep, they're cooked." Personally, I think CGC will make it through, but I am concerned about the possibility this was enabled by someone at CGC that purposely slipped the comics through the reholdering process without checking to see if they were the right comics.

Full disclosure, my wife agrees with you and @comicwiz

They may have been graded at one time, but not on the occasion when they received a grade bump. If you buy an Action #1 graded at 1.5, it is CGC-graded. If you break it out of the case, it was CGC-graded. If you slip it into a case with a 9.0 label, CGC did not grade it 9.0. Therefore, in that holder, it is no longer CGC graded. Breaking it out of the original holder is like nullifying a marriage: it is as if it had never happened. Saying that someone whose marriage was annulled is now married to someone else on the basis that the names on the marriage certificates match, when the person involved is not the same, does not make them married.

How is it "CGC graded" if CGC didn't grade it? They reholdered it, had a responsibility to at least examine it, but they didn't re-grade it and may not have originally graded the comic if it had ever been graded in the past before the swap. In your coin example, I was waiting for you to say that law enforcement determined they weren't counterfeits, but then saw they absolutely were due to the adultered metal. However, there are many ways to make a counterfeit. I'm not sure these distinctions matter at all, because your concern seems to center on CGC's responsibility in this, whereas my interest is in a correct label from the customer point of view, which is likely how CGC's lawyers are viewing it. You may well be right, though we now live in an age when many words now mean the opposite of what they meant 40 years ago. In this case, we agree the combination of elements were assembled for the purpose of committing fraud. It would not have happened but for the actions of the perps involved. Something at CGC allowed it to happen. Personally, I am not yet convinced there wasn't an inside man on this. It looks more likely to me that there was. At that point, would you accept the term "counterfeit" because the intent of all parties involved was to fraudulently create the appearance of a CGC comic? BTW: If I was on a jury for this case and the verdict depended on this definition, I'd stick to my guns that it was counterfeit. I'm retired and would be happy to stick it out as long as it takes, or until a better argument is offered.

They applied the mark without grading the comic. Therefore, it is not a "CGC-graded comic". That makes it counterfeit.