Stefan_W

People have come forward. I expect CGC to make a statement once they are done with figuring out what happened and how. There is a continual call for a statement from some people on this board, which is understandable, but a large company like CGC is not going to lead with "I dunno" when they communicate with their customers. A statement will happen at some point, and given it looks as though they are investigating first I expect it to have a bit of detail to it. I mentioned early on in this thread that it would be nice to have a list of slab numbers that have potentially been compromised. I doubt it will go this far considering the liability $$$ implications but who knows. It will likely depend on how the insurance coverage is set up.

I can see the messages from Ebay buyers: "I am taking a big risk on your Hulk 181 so I think an offer of about 10-20% of the list price would be fair." The biggest risk to market value is jumpy sellers who are trying to dump and run.

Ok, so you are arguing that because CGC did not release a statement fast enough for your satisfaction a video of how to break into slabs needed to be released? As I said earlier, yes scammers already know this stuff but hundreds if not thousands of people watching it will be hearing about it for the first time.

Videos showing how to get into cases undetected are a double edged sword. On one hand they help people to understand what happened, which is great. But on the other hand they can also serve as instructional videos for how to carry out scams. The people currently do it already know about all of this, but it could give others ideas which can potentially widen the issue in ways none of us want. So I have mixed feelings about whether videos like that are a community service.

I look at things from a different angle than where this discussion is currently at, probably because I do crack and resubs myself. The interesting part from my perspective is the process the scammer used and I see a couple of options that are not mutually exclusive. Below is my current working theory so take it for what it is. First option - if the scammer is keeping the cracked case after the swaperoo he may claim that book was damaged during shipping, which would fall under an ME. The reholder would have the 9.8 grade with the swapped in copy being encapsulated. This could be a part of the scam but I dont think it is viable as a long term option for the scammer because tampering is pretty easy to spot and will be noticed especially when done with multiple books. Second option - if the scammer has a supply of counterfeit holders he could put the book into a clean case and seal it. Since there is no damage on that case he could use the custom label option and claim he wants the book reholdered to add the custom label. The hardest part to figure out (at least for me) specific to the second option was why the person would send in a book for a reslab when they could just sell direct after the swap. It came to me that the person wanted the new copy imaged by CGC and appearing on their web page. That way if someone questions a tick or whatever in a 9.8 copy, and check the certification number on CGC's web site, they would find the book there with the 9.8 grade. The gist of it, if this theory is correct, is that the scammer is taking advantage of three new positive changes (custom labels, imaging all slabs, and allowing people to check the books through certification number for free) to help the scam work. The corollary I would add which is far more speculative is that this is just the current method. Scammers like this find angles within any system and he may well have figure out different ways to scam the comic community prior to the what we know about right now.

I really appreciate all of the hard work you are putting into this - well done!

Just so make my point more accurately - yes, I do believe we are likely dealing with the same 181 based on the similarities on the front, and I really appreciated all of the time and effort it took to compile this. When I go through the pictures carefully I try to line up key features in the defects. When I said the back is less convincing than the front there are three flaws on the back that appear differently in the two photos. Again, these could just be lighting and resolution. I marked them on the blue label 181 back photo and re-attached it. A - there is a large and pronounced crease on the blue label that I cannot see on the green label. This is important because to my eye it looks as though it has not been pressed (or was pressed badly). B - the stain is deeper and easier to see. Could easily be lighting. C - a unique feature to the stain is a small "bite" in it where it is recessed in one spot. I do not see this in the green label, but that may just be resolution. So those are my points in a nutshell. Is it the same book? Probably. Would it hold up in a court of law with these pics? I have doubts it would, and I can't say I am more than 80% sure it is the same book either.

The front is definitely more convincing than the back, which could be a function of lighting and resolution.

I agree when looking at the front but the back makes me far less sure. The staining looks much worse in the blue label version which would be post-switch. There is also pronounced creasing on the back cover that is not in the green label. This could just be a function of the (updated) picture of the green label being at a lower resolution, but while the front cover looks like a match I am not seeing a slam dunk when taking the back into account. I dunno, and I am sure people will disagree with me on this, but I am seeing a "maybe" with this one specific book. The others shown so far were more convincing.

You're just speculating about there being a lot of speculation.

Does CGC allow pickups in person? That is the only way I can think of for this to happen. *edit: I thought of one more possibility. For my orders CGC sometimes lists the shipping date as the next day while it is picked up same day. Not common but it has happened. If he is within a next day delivery area it is also possible in these specific circumstances.

Just saw this gem on feebay. The front was plausible enough but when I went through the pictures....

True, but unlike the car example the wrinkle in this story is many of the slabs were sent back to CGC and were thus certified after the tampering. This is the part of the story that CGC has to deal with (likely in the way that you point out), and the part that can come back to bite them.

I totally get your frustration. Here is the perspective that I use - Even if 100s of slabbed books have been compromised, there are likely (I have not counted) to be in the hundreds of thousands of 9.8s out there across all graded books. The 119 pages and counting of this thread highlight how important an issue this is for our community in terms of needing ways to identify the fraudulent slabs, and that is a great thing. But I would not expect people's buying behaviour to change outside of being cautious about the types of books that have been targeted (especially 9.8 MJ insert books, but also MVS and Tattooz issues and select rare variants). CGC's reputation will take a bit of a hit, they will have to figure out a way to deal with such scams, and prices on some books will fall, but outside of that things will continue on.

I was talking about the name and your point (which is valid) is about the address. I remember seeing a point made earlier that a person who did a return had to route it through the Ebay global shipping program so no actual specific address was uncovered. I was doing family time this evening so maybe I missed something, but as far as I know we have a general area based on tracking but nothing specific so far. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Cool game. You change what I said in a direct quote in an insulting way, I report it to moderators on this board. Merry hoho.

Ebay also has the added internal protection of offering up automatic refunds. If someone discovers an item, like a comic book, is not as promised they can simply initiate a return and the seller can do nothing about it. They would only be on the hook for things outside of their return window or if a buyer came at them for some reason rather than doing a return.

Merry Christmas everyone!

For sure. The pseudonym Briva has been sending off bells in my head since all of this started, but I am not young enough anymore to do an instant and accurate recall of where I know it from. It is all a part with interacting or dealing with many hundreds of comic folks along the way.

Yeah, this is where the name surfaced in this discussion. I still find it problematic. Without meaning to beat a dead horse, I have a box under my tree that says it is from Santa. If it is not from an official document I do not put much stock in it. The scammer may have just been a big Drew Brees fan and decided to use the name since it would be easy for him to remember.

The first collector probably appeared alongside the first comic books and is unrecorded.

Well (and if I understand why this name was floated)..... that assumes any self-respecting con artist would always use his real first name when communicating with buyers. The way to know is through visa records associated with transactions and submissions (which may also be off, but this is a bit less likely).

This question is closely related to how long the individual has been running this particular scam. If it is recent then dozens or possibly low hundreds as a worst case scenario. If this has been going undetected for years then it could be several hundreds. I have a hard time with believing it is in the thousands considering the low census counts of some of these books. Having said this, if the person was doing a version of this scam where he was swapping out a 9.8 and putting a 9.4 copy of a random book into the case then the sky is the limit.

When I brought up this story to my wife and told her that I was puzzled by how the person got books in and out of cases her response was "they make knock off prada bags that are hard to spot, why is this any different?" That was a big "huh" moment for me, and I started to think of this in terms of sourcing knock off cases instead of wedging books in and out of old ones.

If the technology is available at a price point that is not prohibitive I am sure AI will be used. In the mean time, I think discussions about this topic will boil down to whether or not people want to see AI used in grading comics. I am on the fence because while the consistency that may be offered by AI is really attractive, particularly with modern books that have very few flaws, I am skeptical with using this for all comics because for some (say mid grade silver age books) I would rather have someone independently assess it than try to train a program to take hundreds or more factors associated that book into account. I am open enough either way to have my mind changed as technology develops and rational enough to understand that my opinion will not matter in the slightest when final decisions on this matter are made.