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Posts posted by mrd160
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I still don’t understand why someone impacted by this wouldn’t go after the person directly civilly and/or criminally. CGC it’s gonna look out for their best interest and the person with these tainted books needs to do the same. PLEASE DO NOT RELY ON ANY CORPORATION EVER TO LOOK OUT FOR THE LITTLE GUY….look out for your self.
- BlowUpTheMoon, comeaux, Steven Valdez and 1 other
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On 2/19/2024 at 1:22 PM, grendel013 said:
I was just reading my email too...
A Letter from Steven R. Eichenbaum
Dear friends,
The Certified Collectibles Group and our companies — NGC, PMG, CGC and ASG — exist to protect the collecting community from counterfeit, overgraded and otherwise misrepresented collectibles. I like to say that we are the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” in the collectibles world.
Our position as the hobby’s first line of defense sometimes makes us a target for bad actors who try to defraud us or misappropriate the trust that we have built with our community. These scammers are persistent, and we are in a constant battle to prevent and detect fraud, such as counterfeiting or tampering with our holders.
CCG has certified more than 85 million collectibles since 1987, including more than 10 million in 2023 alone. Counterfeit and tampered-with holders represent a tiny fraction of the holders in the marketplace, but even one is unacceptable to us. We continue to pursue an aggressive, multi-faceted strategy to combat this scourge.
We take a number of defensive measures, such as imaging all collectibles, testing and upgrading the seals on our holders, releasing new high-security holograms and adding variable QR codes, with more to come. We also go on the offense and aggressively pursue bad actors, big and small, across the globe. We will keep the community informed of all of these developments, and today I’d like to give you an update on our legal efforts.
In Europe, an individual falsely claimed that he did not receive a return submission of banknotes and tried to recover more than € 100,000 from us. Our team conducted an intensive investigation and determined that he not only received the package but had also distributed many of the banknotes. After tracing these notes back to him, we notified law enforcement in Germany, where we have an office in Munich; in Austria, where the banknotes were delivered; and Turkey, where the individual lives. Austrian authorities took up the case, and two weeks ago the individual was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 10 months in prison.
Another incident involved two former employees, one of whom stole comic books from CGC submissions. They had these stolen books, along with some of their own books, encapsulated in CGC Comics holders, and then smuggled the books out of our facility to sell through various marketplaces. We swiftly filed a lawsuit against them and have already been granted a temporary restraining order while we pursue further actions, including damages.
We have also filed a lawsuit against an individual and his partner who tampered with CGC comic book holders to replace higher-graded comic books with lower-graded comic books of the same type. We are keeping the community updated on comic books impacted by this incident here. On February 13, 2024, we obtained a Preliminary Injunction Order prohibiting the defendant from distributing, circulating, selling, marketing, altering, removing — basically anything related to CGC-graded books — pending the final hearing and ruling in the case. We are seeking further remedies from the court, including damages
We will not tolerate acts of fraud against our community, and we will not rest until justice is served. We have been successful in the past. For example, last year, we advantageously settled a lawsuit against Richard Albright, who perpetrated a coin swapping scheme with NGC holders. He was ordered to report all collectibles that may have been impacted by his scheme, surrender all of his electronic devices during the investigation, cooperate with efforts to reimburse consumers and pay damages.
We recognize that fighting fraud that has already occurred is only one half of the equation to solve for a protected, confident and whole community. Staying ahead of the bad actors is absolutely essential to ensure these types of incidents do not continue to happen, and we will take the steps necessary to enhance the security of our services and facilities. We have a comprehensive initiative to make continual, meaningful updates to the security of our products, and will share updates as they are available.
Collectors and dealers can protect themselves from fraud in a number of ways:- Always look up a collectible in our free Verification Certification tool on the homepage of our websites. All collectibles are now being imaged in high-resolution, and you can compare the images of your collectible to the images that we took.
- Buy from CCG Authorized Dealers, Official Submission Centers or Strategic Partners. You can look them up using the free Dealer Locator on our website.
- Choose online marketplaces that offer buyer protection, such as eBay. Do your research and exercise common sense. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.
We are committed to protecting our community from fraudsters and anyone else who seeks to take advantage of collectors. We are also committed to being transparent with all of you and sharing information about what we are doing for you. Your passion is our passion.
Sincerely,Steven R. Eichenbaum
CEOCouldn’t get past the “dear friends” part….homeboy…we ain’t friends….:puke:
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On 2/5/2024 at 9:43 PM, grendel013 said:I haven't changed my opinion since I saw that heat gun.
Well…the council of krypton has finally weighed in…
- AbsoluteCarnage, comeaux, grendel013 and 2 others
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- Gonzimodo, grendel013, AbsoluteCarnage and 6 others
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These are other identified eBay accounts the scammer used
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I would post it but the way my wife saved it, it has her personal information on it so I can’t
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My wife has seen the whole lawsuit she was able to download it (she is an attorney) The other thing she brought up is that CGC is seeking 3X damages and punitive damages
- grendel013, nuffsaid111 and EastEnd1
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On 2/4/2024 at 12:52 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:
So now that we know the scammers skipped the reholder part of the scam at times, will CGC be issuing a new list?
- Steven Valdez, Gonzimodo, Ccccccccccccc and 1 other
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Upon information and belief…all these guys are scumbags
- buttock and Steven Valdez
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Is there a link to the whole lawsuit?
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On 2/4/2024 at 11:20 AM, WestcoastDAVEngers said:
https://twitter.com/Paul_Lesko/status/1754157651175309811/photo/1
Comic Book Station named, the list is going to grow
I met the scammer working at their booth
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Glad the store name is out there now too
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On 1/12/2024 at 1:53 AM, agamoto said:If I could just point something out there...
"The scandal started after a pair of online collectors began identifying and documenting cards that were allegedly improperly modified. They have identified 316 such cards, retouched by nearly a dozen “card doctors,” that sold for a combined $1.4 million. The four collectors who spoke with investigators say the FBI suspects thousands of additional cards with similar issues are still circulating through the hobby."
To all the folks here who bemoan my insistence the FBI and/or FTC need to be at the lead of this investigation, let the card scandal experience described in the article be exhibit A.
It only required a few hundred cards, a million plus in potentially fraudulent sales, and 4 complaints from collectors to get the feds involved.
Oh, and as for dropping the Comic Station name... Folks, you gotta be careful here. Correlation != Causation... Innocent until proven guilty.
While there is plenty of photo evidence and even a smoking heat gun which appears to link the company to a lot of these books in question, it's all just a tangle of threads that need to be pulled and looked at by actual criminal investigators. No, not the PI's hired by CGC, those don't count.
It's totally fine to discuss the obvious connections which exist at face value between Comic Station, i.e. all the pictures of the books we've seen on their social media, all the ads we've seen on eBay for years now... The connections are apparent to anyone... However, it's a recipe for having your handed to you in defamation court if the company is able to demonstrate it lost reputation and business by anyone pegging them for being responsible for these scams before they are ever indicted, tried and convicted for such a crime.
It is still within the realm of possibility that this company, and it's owners/operators, are also being played like a fiddle by one of their consignors or something, we don't know.
We will never really know unless an actual law enforcement investigation takes place.
This is the last thing I want to say on this topic because I really want to move on with my real life, in my mind the only relevance of discussing any dealer is to see how these books that may have been tainted have moved around. I think it is very possible that many dealers in the Brooklyn/Queens area at least, have had hands or eyes on some of these books, the vast majority (most likely all) unknowingly. The dealers I know in this area knew who he was (one of which gave me the heads-up). If it is true that this alleged scammer has been switching books, then every single one of his submissions needs to be scrutinized…period. And we need to see how the books were laundered. I can say from my personal experience, that these books were sold/marketed at shows and off-line as well as eBay/auction houses. My position, right now, is that CGC is a major victim here in terms of their reputation so it is up to them to decide what they do with any information that is provided. As I have said I’m not a slab collector I offered whatever information I had first-hand knowledge of to CGC and it’s up to them to decide what they’re gonna do. Everyone else needs to chill because we don’t know how deep this goes and quite honestly we probably never will.
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On 1/11/2024 at 8:32 PM, pdags said:
Haha. This photo was taken way before current events.
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I don’t want to speculate on an innocent carpet
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I will never buy anything with a rug background again…not sneakers, not handbags, not hummels
- BlancoBros, nmtg9, F For Fake and 1 other
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On 1/11/2024 at 8:08 PM, comicjel said:
Good reminder that CGC has created many great experiences for me as well - looking forward to getting back to those!!
Not a fan. I like it raw
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On 1/11/2024 at 5:37 PM, brute_nm said:
Here is why I keep harping on this point. I went through the Hot 350 list and found a ton of "holes" - individual cert numbers missing from a single submission batch. For example, say cert numbers xxx001, xxx003, xxx004 are on the list but xxx002 is not. I used the census to fill the holes and this is what I came up with: 215 more books
The highlighted column shows the number of books I added (N meaning not on the initial Hot 350 list).
Some highlights
- 1 more ASM 129
- 25 more ASM 194's
- 11 more ASM 252's
- 39 more ASM 300's
- 3 more Hulk 181's
- 4 more Hulk 340's
- 8 more X-Men 266's, including 1 with MJ
We need some clarity on why some books are NOT on the list. Take ASM 300 for example: why were 86 9.8's on the list but 14 weren't? What is different about the 14? How do we know these 14 are "safe" and guaranteed not fraudulent? There were 3 FF 48's on the list and 3 not on the list; is CGC 100% certain those 3 are OK? How can you tell?
@CGC Mike, please ask to release the criteria used to generate the list of 350 and/or release his entire submission history. Better to be safe and recheck everything this guy touched.
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there’s no proof of anything at all but the optics are bad. It’s up to CGC to decide what they’re gonna do here
- mosconi and grendel013
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On 1/11/2024 at 9:49 AM, shadroch said:That's not a heat gun; it's a pigeon roaster.
It’s a la-ser
- Dr. Balls, royaluglydudes, wiparker824 and 4 others
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On 1/11/2024 at 9:11 AM, wiparker824 said:
Well yes, but if you’re doing that you’re a mad man. I’m not talking about Immaculate using it on low end books for educational purposes… using that kind of heat next to a high end comic book is crazy to me to remove a sticker, might not be crazy to all though.
Immaculate comics just did a video today saying there is no other use for a heat gun on comics. Check it out
ASM #252 CGC 9.8 Record Sale - something fishy going on? - Holder Tampering Incident confirmed by CGC
in Comics General
Posted
I wasn't talking about CGC, I was talking about the scammer him/her self