Ron Churches

I had to send back for some subgrades to be added and it was VERY fast. Less than a week door to door.

They split your order into two shipments; when you choose any options different from the rest of your submission it generates a 5 dollar handling fee (for each unique selection) and they box and send the shipments separate (and charge you for each).

If you are paying for the increased service on part of your order I'd absolutely put both submissions in the same box and the HIGHEST tier on the outside. That way they receive both submissions faster. Perk of going for the higher tier, in my mind.

I think mine went from received to scheduled around 12/15 or 12/16, looking back at my comments in this thread.

I had my 11/11 received bulk order of 55 cards finish up today.

My 11/11 bulk received submission just finished! Shipping back to me today. 55 cards, all same service level. Nailed 11 9.5s and 2 10s, along with a good bit of 8+s.

Foil cards curve due to humidity. Unless the card is bent/creased because of the curve, it almost always doesn't impact the grade. It'll lay flat in the slab.

I think they are more likely churning staff at cust service roles and/or data entry/receiving than they are graders. I imagine this is due to increased submissions, mainly. They can't increase grading staff instantly by 2x and make sense long term, if at some point the submission flow drops. They can ease up staffing to meet the levels based on demand over time. I have no idea what it takes to train a card grader, but I imagine it's something that takes a bit before they are happy with their output. Good thing (for CGC) is that reducing the demand for the longer services (by increasing the turnaround times) will have a double impact; it'll drive revenue up for those who swing to the higher tier and will decrease the number of bulk submissions for those who don't want to wait the extra time. Should help level out demand a little and allow them to get to their backlog.

I'll say this, they are doing it the right way. Extending turnaround times for bulk (x2) and economy (x 0.5?) makes sense if that means they can keep their 20 days (or better) for the services above that. This is good economic tradeoff and shows that they think they can still hit those really quick days for Standard.

Discover doesn't bundle with all POS systems; whatever they've chosen for payments must not have negotiated fees with Discover, or negotiated lower fees with Visa/MC to keep Discover out of their system. Visa/MC are in almost all systems. Discover and AMEX aren't; it's definitely less common than it used to be, but it used to happen all the time. I used to use my Discover for points/cash back and found out the hard way that retail wasn't friendly to them.

I think you nailed the missing link; that must be what their system does. Probably isn't a complex invoicing system, if that's the case, OR they are trying to reduce overhead of having to manage multiple submissions and just grouping together the accounts receivable all at once. I also think I was charged while still in received on one submission, but charged at 'grading' step for another. Inconsistent, and this seems to really be varying between customers; it's making for a lot of confusion. They have also stated opposing things on these forums versus what their Cust Service folks in email are saying, which doesn't help. I think they are dealing with process issues and a training gap of new folks coming on to assist with the online customer service either aren't given clear details on how to answer 2nd and 3rd level questions, or the information is out of date and their process is not handling things as stated in their guidelines. Honestly, I hope their operational processes improve; they have likely focused their resources on making the grading of high quality, which leaves the Cust Service functions in a marginalized state.

Yeah, 11/11 or 11/12 seems to be where they are on keyeing/researching right now. It's promising that it's moving along generally around the SLAs, given the time of year and the influx of submissions. I was worried it was going to push out further.

Ok, so my 11/11 bulk submission (55 cards, all same order type) just moved to Scheduled for Grading. I noticed that one of my cards maybe got flagged for research or perhaps isn't eligible to grade. It's a Japanese Mew from one of the half decks they did. They flagged it as "INELIGIBLE TYPE/RESEARCH MODE". It's fairly findable: https://www.trollandtoad.com/pokemon/mirage-s-mew-constructed-starter-deck/mew-japanese-005-016-holo-1st-edition-mirage-s-mew-constructed-starter-deck-/1472474 I'll be curious to see if they either get it added so they can grade it, or if perhaps it just wasn't in the system and isn't available. PSA has graded this card, so hopefully they find it. I probably annoyed the researcher with several weird Mew Japanese Mew cards.

so last week we had a bulk received 10/28 and a standard from 11/16 move into scheduled for grading. Several folks with economy grading from early November still 'received'. That should mean that most bulk folks from that first week of November might move this week? Maybe economy is a week ahead of bulk? I feel like my 11/11 bulk shipment is going to be post-Christmas, based on this.

I think that PJ Mack person did the same thing; it's interesting, as it seems they do modify the turnaround times on the comics based on throughput and their submission load. I would wager we'll see an increase to the posted SLAs for TCG soon, unless they think they can get things under control post-holidays.

And every other company is taking 6 months to deliver on 20 day submissions. I'm certain CGC's clock starts on their SLA, by their math, on the date that it's fully received in their system. They do not start the clock on delivery receipt to their PO Box.

The way they write their SLA, they are still inside of 20 days as they start the clock once it's 'received' in the system. All the grading co's seem to fudge the stats by not starting the clock until it's been fully 'received'. There's a guy above that was received the same day and his are graded/sent, so that 11/16 day must be close to the processing point for standard submissions right now. Hoping more 'bulk' orders get posted so we can see what those look like.

Type: Bulk Date Received: 11/11 Current Status: Received

It will, in theory, stay in 'received' until it moves to 'scheduled for grading'. You are not alone on the timeline you reference. With the holidays and the surge in submissions, I think they are bumping up against their commitments more than previously. I'd be curious to hear someone who's recently had a grading finish, just to get a reference point on when their order was first received.

I think they choose a random one in the middle, don't they? PSA goes top stack. Beckett goes bottom of the pile.

Hm, I don't remember seeing that one. Seems like a good sign, though.

I've got a bulk aged 21 calendar days right now; remember the holiday is going to mess with the dates plus they do state working days on their turnaround times, so you need to back out the weekends on expectations versus their promises. Additionally, there aren't many steps other than Received > Scheduled for Grading > Grading/QA > Shipped, and it goes fairly quick from 'scheduled' to 'grading' in my experience. It's going to sit and say received until it is almost finished and those last steps will happen in quick succession (a few days, from what I saw on a standard order).

Yeah, it does look like you can freeform a lot of the fields. When I sent in my Fat Pika from VV it wasn't in the system yet, but they graded it express anyway. I bet if you type the stuff in there, they will grade it if they can find references to support the card's existence.

I mean, it's generating clicks for these YouTube channels. A lot of those channels are also tied in with PSA and Beckett in a variety of ways, as they are essentially a form of advertising for those brands. I'm highly skeptical of a lot of the social media and YouTube content I see critical of CGC for what I know has happened in the industry ever since they started sonic welding cardboard and throwing a value on it.