Mdesimone

On 4/30/2024 at 8:07 PM, shadroch said:

Would you call it a happy ending? Will you buy another copy of the book?

Yes I am going to replace it as soon as I get this check

On 4/30/2024 at 2:27 PM, silent06 said:

I, too, recently received emails for three of my four books affected by the tampering incident. It appears based on the offers provided by CGC that their analysis or assessment of "fair market value" is the actual or true grade of the book as part of this incident, not the grade as noted on the holder or as the consumer and original purchaser believed the book to be, which to me as someone impacted is unacceptable and in no way an attempt to make me whole. CGC seems to be playing with words such as "fair market value" to shroud their intent to make minimal disbursements for the claims in this incident.

They just offered me close enough to FMV after I declined the first offer

On 4/30/2024 at 2:27 PM, silent06 said:

I, too, recently received emails for three of my four books affected by the tampering incident. It appears based on the offers provided by CGC that their analysis or assessment of "fair market value" is the actual or true grade of the book as part of this incident, not the grade as noted on the holder or as the consumer and original purchaser believed the book to be, which to me as someone impacted is unacceptable and in no way an attempt to make me whole. CGC seems to be playing with words such as "fair market value" to shroud their intent to make minimal disbursements for the claims in this incident.

They never told me what the true grade would be. I saw my book in its correct holder as an 8.0 before it was swapped into the fraudulent holder at 9.0, I should be paid out for a 9.0, they never offered fmv just the exact money  I had paid for it   in 2019

On 4/30/2024 at 2:03 PM, Panda2 said:

Seems like things are moving - I received an email from them offering me 'fair market value' for the book in question - the number is actually ~around what GPA has for the book (averaging the 7 sales that are recorded in 2024) - but doesn't account for shipping costs, buyers premium, customs fees (yey Canada).   

Lucky, I refused their garbage offer for what I paid for the book. I demanded FMV

On 4/25/2024 at 7:26 AM, grendel013 said:

My CGC subscription renewal is due next month. I haven't submitted since February. I was hoping CGC would be further along in reimbursing those impacted by this scam. I don't feel right submitting anything until then.

My renewal is up also, I will not renew until it’s resolved. This is extremely annoying 

Has anyone been compensated yet? Or have you heard anything about when this will be resolved?

On 3/21/2024 at 10:17 AM, agamoto said:

Who is telling you to go to court yourself against the guy? The dude victimized possibly hundreds of primary victims and who knows how many other secondary victims who may have purchased his bad books from those victims.

The onus is on you as the victim here to file reports with local and federal authorities, the purpose of which isn't to prove or disprove anything or to initiate any lawsuit or claim in court, but to have the case kicked up to where it belongs, in the domain of the FBI/FTC where it will be investigated as a criminal matter, and that investigation would certainly include CGC's cooperation in revealing all of that information that you don't have to investigators, whether CGC wants to or not.   

You work for the NYPD, you're the victim of interstate wire fraud and you didn't hear any alarm bells go off in your head when CGC casually forgot to mention you should report the crime against you?

Everything you mention here is PRECISELY why the FTC should be investigating. Not just all the incidences of fraud itself, but also CGC's unwitting role in allowing the fraud to occur in the first place as well as their poor response to it. 

Again you need proof to file criminal charges against some for fraud. If I do that on my own those scammers would sue me for defamation if I lose, why waste my time when cgc will do it for me.  

On 3/20/2024 at 12:11 PM, agamoto said:

I gave up pleading others to hold onto their books and contact law enforcement long ago. There are no power in the words of some forum rando, I guess.

The feds don’t need to just take over the fraud investigation, (if it hasn’t become totally muddied), they need to also examine CGC’s role  in influencing how victims responded to the fraud.

I am very curious if anyone victimized who emailed CGC on the matter ever received any guidance to contact local, state or federal authorities to report the fraud against them.

Five will get you ten they received no such recommendation. 

They never told me to contact any law enforcement. I myself work for NYPD. This is being handled civilly not criminal on cgc end at the moment. Cgc holds the burden of proof that the comics were swapped. I am not a grading expert I cannot state the grade of the comic, I cannot prove who was the person who reholder the book because I have no access to that info. If I went after them in court myself I would get decimated by the defense. In NYC this case would go nowhere since I cannot prove it on my own

On 3/19/2024 at 6:57 PM, grendel013 said:

I thought I remember you posting but I couldn't bare going back through the prior 439 pages and relive any of that.I would have reached out to the seller and asked them where they got it. If I thought they were the scammer I would have dealt with it. If they remembered where they obtained it, I would have reached out to them next. If it came to a halt I probably would have caved and sent to CGC. Just trying to play this out in my head.

I got it directly from zanello on eBay, no point in trying to talk to them, the transaction was already 4 years old, also the price I paid for it has since doubled , so I definitely need cgc to handle this.

On 3/19/2024 at 4:18 PM, grendel013 said:

Can you share more about your impacted book? What book? When and where did you obtain? Did you reach out to the seller after you heard about the scam?

Asm 129 bought in 2019, no did not reach out to seller , if you scroll much further back I posted all the details, cgc has my book and is keeping for evidence 

On 3/19/2024 at 10:44 AM, grendel013 said:

Is this true? Did ANYONE report this?

I have said before that I was not impacted personally by this scam so I try to refrain from telling those that were impacted what to do. But I've been following this from the beginning and I pondered what I would have done. I don't think I would have sent my slab back to CGC.

I really would like to hear more from those that were impacted.

There really is no other option but to send back to cgc, it’s not cost effective to sue the scammers yourself. How are you going to prove anything to the courts. Cgc can do that for you. I don’t get is why they can’t reimburse us for the books they take into evidence now, why do we have to wait?

On 3/12/2024 at 4:07 PM, BrashL said:

This is really starting to feel like when this first broke, somebody at CGC (knowing they screwed up) wanted to do the right thing but as this evolved the lawyers got involved and ground it to a halt. It sort of makes sense as buying these books back is an admission of culpability and when they decided to start filing lawsuits that probably had to stop.

I wish they would say that . All I get is we don’t have any new information. They have already admitted to messing up. If you’re going to keep my property as evidence then I should receive documentation for that. Or at least do what you promised pay me…

On 3/12/2024 at 1:36 PM, Panda2 said:

Just in case anyone is wondering - I checked in with CGC customer service yesterday as it has been over a month since they confirmed the book I sent them had been tampered with (ASM 194) At the time they had said 'we will follow up with you'. 

The response yesterday: "At this time we do not have an update on this incident.  Please know that we are working on the next steps and will reach out as soon as we have an update."

So who knows what is going on behind the scenes, but certainly not in a rush to compensate those impacted.

Every 2 weeks i inquire about my compensation and get the same response. I’m beyond frustrated 

Has anyone received compensation yet for books that were hijacked by cgc? All I get is we don’t know anything from the fraud department 

On 2/5/2024 at 6:35 PM, mosconi said:

If CGC can gather the evidence that the store owner received monetary compensation from the millions of dollars of scam slabs over the years from Zanello, then the benefit of doubt will be out the window.  A documented money trail/money transfers from scammer to store owner would be a starting point to investigate.  I'm no skilled detective, but at this point we can only speculate what kind of shenanigans were going on between 

On 2/5/2024 at 6:18 PM, comicjel said:

If I bought a nice looking Hulk 181 in say 9.0 that I thought could get a 9.2, I would have sent it to CGC still in the case to get pressed and graded - think about that chain reaction... CGC calls me to tell me that it had a stamp clipped out - I say, WTF! - I counted on you guys to not have missed this when you originally graded it - I want a reimbursement for my economic loss! - CGC goes back to see the original book grading records and sees that it is different... CGC can easily see the account that was used was the CBS.

Maybe he knew the scam and felt very over confident, but I would never have such confidence with a scam like this - I can see a guy (maybe with not much starting net worth??) hiding behind a bunch of EBAY accounts, but I am having a tougher time picturing a family man with a well known store, who's career revolves around comics subjecting himself to this risk.   

Yes I wouldn’t take the risk either as a shop, I would ask 2 of my friends to list books on eBay under their accounts and give them a cut of the profits. Also would be able to bump up those bids and if I won then we can cancel the auction since ya know we’re friends.

On 2/5/2024 at 5:39 PM, shadroch said:

If I had a customer who submitted millions of dollars worth of books through my store, I'd invite him for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Most shops operate on thin margins, and a steady flow of income for submitting the guy's books would seem like a godsend.  

I'd like to give the shop owner the benefit of the doubt, for now. 

Curious do shop owners make millions by submitting customer books to cgc for them? 

On 1/29/2024 at 1:27 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

They should do it in good faith to save face, it is exactly what a near million dollar to billion dollar company would do, given they're sticking to only tree fiddy books. 

That is chump change, the least they could do, provided you can prove it with a receipt and aren't just trying to take advantage.

He didn't say no.

that is all I'm saying.

Some people didn't over pay and what other "case by case basis" would there be? Why wouldn't he just state replacement cost then?

I have provided them with a credit card statement weeks ago it even has the eBay sellers name on it, I’m still here with no “compensation “  because it seems like they haven’t made any decisions on what compensation  really is

On 1/29/2024 at 1:12 PM, DC# said:

Again - what you purchased it for should be irrelevant.   You should get paid $3K because that is what it will cost you to replace it.     I used the car example before but the same works for home owners insurance.   You buy a house for $200k 30 years ago that is worth $3M today - your replacement cost is something much closer to $3M.   

That’s all I want but unfortunately I’m getting sit still and wait for us to to make any determination while they get tokeep my book for evidence, if they are true to their word then just tell me you will get fair market value, hell they can even go buy me a 9.0 and send me that

On 1/29/2024 at 12:58 PM, Badger said:

Why are people getting bent out of shape over CGC asking for a receipt? Can anyone tell me an example of receiving a refund, from someone who did not sell the item in question, without being asked for a receipt? Seriously, it is the start of the refund conversation/dance. If you have a swapped 9.8 ASM #194, is CGC just supposed to send you a check for the last 90 day GPA average which is $2716? What if you are one of the poor souls who paid above $5,000 for your copy? How would CGC know this without a receipt?

Take a deep breath, settle your butt down in your sofa, deep breath, and explain you do not have a receipt but you bought the book from X for this much money at this auction, convention, or back alley. I have confidence that CGC will make you whole. They want this whole incident to fade into memory like the Ewert scandal. The best way to do this is to get the impacted people paid and hushed.

A better question would be that if you want your book back, how would CGC return it? Obviously they would have to return it but it has been broken out of the original holder for inspection. I feel they should grade it for free and offer to return it properly encased and graded. Would they do that or would they just send you your raw comic?

 Because I purchased it in 2019 for 1645 dollars including tax and shipping. Gpa is around 3000 today, the next part to the receipt is that I bought it on eBay , and they removed it. I have no way of getting this receipt, and finally why bother saying you will be fairly compensated for any losses on the site and in a YouTube video then tell me we are working on how we will compensate you but give me a receipt so we can move forward with what we want to do…

On 1/29/2024 at 9:28 AM, Nick Furious said:

I don't mean to tell anyone what to do, but at this point, with receipt mentioned twice and no timeline, I think I would be responding back with my own politely worded reasonable request for compensation.  You did your part and complied quickly with their requests.  I don't think it would be unreasonable at this point to articulate some terms and conditions of your own.  Such as what you want, when you want it by and which obstacles (such as receipts) you find unacceptable.      

I have tried , I call and they won’t direct me to the correct people to talk to, I have asked how will I be compensated and I get that reply, I have emailed them to call me, it’s been over a week now with nothing, why bother going on a YouTube video and state we will be compensated fairly, I am reaching the end of my patience, 

This is the response I get when asked how will I be compensated, because the price I paid back in 2019 is half of what it would be worth now