MyNameIsLegion

again, to be criminally fraudulent, the devil is in the details. If I crack, press,and clean an old blue label 9.0 Hulk #181 and resub and get back a 9.6 is that fraud? No. If I sell the above, is that fraud? No. if the pressed book shrinks back to it's original imperfections and it no longer appears as a 9.6 and I sell it, is that fraud? No. If I send in a Hulk #181 with a missing MVS and by some miracle they don't catch it and I get a blue label 9.6 is that fraud? No. If I sell the Blue label hulk #181 with the missing MVS on ebay is that fraud? Depends. If I listed it as a blue labelCGC 9.6 Hulk 181,well that's what it is. Says so right on the label. NOT FRAUD If I listed it as a a blue labelCGC 9.6 Hulk 181 and stated in the listing that the MVS is intact. THAT'S FRAUD. If I send in a Hulk #181 with a missing MVS that I slipped into another blue labeled slab for a reholder or custom label and I get a blue label 9.6 is that fraud? Maybe? I contend no, because you aren't selling it to them, you are paying for a service from them. If you trick them into giving you a better grade that it deserves you're a bad person, it might violate some CGC terms of use, but it's not criminal. If I sell the Blue label hulk #181 with the missing MVS on ebay is that fraud? Depends. If I listed it as a blue labelCGC 9.6 Hulk 181,well that's what it is. Says so right on the label. NOT FRAUD If I listed it as a a blue labelCGC 9.6 Hulk 181 without a missing MVS. THAT'S FRAUD

if we aren't careful, CGC will turn this PR nightmare into a new revenue stream though it's not going to help turnaround times.

I meant the sports card case. And you are missing the subtlety of what is happening here by a country mile.

that is 100% correct. CGC probably will do something, it will probably not be very transparent, and it will be just good enough, but calculated to not cost them any more than necessary, and most here will not be satisfied. But this particular scammer will not face any criminal penalty, and not especially likely any civil penalty. He might lose his CGC account and have to get his brother in law to front him now.

if that is the case, I'd like to read about exactly that played out, The devil is in the details. Your counterfeit analogy however is not at all an accurate comparison. the act of creating counterfeit currency itself, regardless of whether you pass it off or not is a federal crime.

but that is all that matters. He didn't sell it to CGC. On the contrary, he paid them some fee to perform a service. Again, where's the fraud? He may have violated some terms of use if there is any such fine print by manipulating the slab and CGC not recognizing this, but it's not criminal.

uh huh. SO the book he sold was 100% as it was delivered to him from CGC. IF he had not had it re-holdered and sold the swapped book inside the original holder to anyone, that's is 100% fraudulent. It's not his fault CGC didn't catch on to the subterfuge.

this is getting juicy enough, it's time to phone a friend. @comix4fun can you parse this debate? I see criminal liabilities as questionable at best. Civil is a maybe, but who is liable and who is the injured party?

thank you- you said it with an economy of words I clearly lack!

actually, CGC has unknowingly legitimized his alleged criminal enterprise. Again. where is the fraud? who is the injured party, and who is directly responsible for the injury? I'm not trying to be obtuse here, I know the guy is scumbag, but he's possible a smart and successful one. If he cracked slabs and swapped out books and sold those directly to a person on any forum, THEN he has committed fraud that's pretty black and white. It's just difficult to prove it.

doesn't matter. Not really. What matter is what he SELLS is a genuine CGC slab that has not been altered or cracked and something other than what was certified by CGC with that serial number.

Precisely.

If he lists a CGC Fartman #1 as a CGC graded 9.8 with photos and shipped them a CGC Graded 9.4. That's misrepresenting the product. eBay wouldn't hesitate to refund that. If he lists a CGC 9.8 Fartman #1, shows a photo of it, and it is exactly that book that is shipped to the buyer, then he did not misrepresent anything from eBays perspective. Nada, zilch. IF CGC missed that it's a 9.4 inside that 9.8 holder is not his problem or liability. He didn't warrant that the grade was accurate or any such guarantee. He sold a thing in a slab with a label, he shipped the same thing in a slab with that label. Pretty black and white if you ask me.

I see lots of talk about how this guy is going to jail, eBay, CGC, the USPS, FBI, the Canadian Mounties, MI6 all all mounting a joint investigation to take this guy down. umm, no. None of that will happen. Not even a remote possibility. The only "Fear" that briva3 has now that his current accounts are "outed" is he's thinking to himself "dude what a major hassle" and he's not going to bank an easy 20-30k this month Now he has to set up a new eBay ID and CGC account possibly. and why is that? Well, if every single book that he sold was graded by CGC, slabbed and labeled by CGC, any inaccuracies in the grade are 100% not his responsibility. He didn't misrepresent the product, he provided pictures, it's a legit serial number from CGC. He didn't break a single law and did not violate any of eBay's terms of use, or Paypal, the USPS, or anyone else. Did he exploit the system to trick CGC in reholdering books? Probably. Did he swap out comics in the sealed slabs? Probably. But CGC had the books in hand and they had every opportunity to catch on to the ruse. It's not materially different than them getting the grade "wrong" or mislabeling something, or not catching resto. Hey, the game is to "get away" with as much as possible to get the highest grade for that serial number (notice I didn't say comic, no one care about the comic itself, that ship has sailed, let's stop pretending) IF and only IF he swapped out lesser graded comics from a slab he opened and swapped out a 9.8 with a 9.4, sealed it back up and sold that on eBay to someone for money, then and only then could it be construed as fraud. It would still be difficult to prove- as it's still subjective that a 9.4 in a 9.8 case is a smoking gun. Short of dusting for prints on the inner well, no one can tell. Until they start putting serial numbers on the books themselves in infrared ink or something there's simply no way to verify the chain of custody of a book relative to what ever slabbed serial number. Whats more, it's not fentanyl, defective cruise control, or peanut butter tainted with salmonella. It's funny books. THE USDA, FDA, NTSB aren't regulating it. No law enforcement entity really cares are about such trivial stuff. Nobody died. Nobody is cheating on their taxes. CGC at most will review their intake process, to make sure they aren't getting scammed. That's all. No redesign of holders, if they have a good price and a good supply they will not change a single solitary thing. Maybe they review their intake forms, and add some legal language that if you attempt to tamper with their product, they at their discretion can re-grade a books, cancel your account, strike a serial number form the registry, whatever. Basically dissuade petty fraud with some tepid warning or penalty that's baked into the terms of use. As for our enterprising briva3- well I'm sure he will be back under some other ID in a matter of weeks.

we have to get to a minimum of 25 pages of rampant speculation for that to even be considered a sensible idea. It's only Wednesday for chrissakes!

"PSA Grading Card Slabs Plastic Ultrasonic Welder" You get 20% off if you buy 5 of them, who's in?

Is what CGC charges regarded as a product or a service? Hard to class action a service as defective. I think what most people envision in their heads about CGC's grading and slabbing process is a lot more perfect and precise than reality. Manufacturing Processes and their resultant quality control systems and quality management systems are far more OTJ and made-up with an eye more towards cost, time, & material. In an unregulated production environment where you aren't making Food, Drugs, Medical Devices, or any hard-goods with specific products claims that aren't subject to certification and inspection you can pretty much do what you want provided worker safety isn't compromised. I doubt many forms of reholdering and resubmission for custom labels go through much more than 1-2 people in a shift opening the mail, reading the order, and triaging which bucket the job goes in. If the order is for something other than grading and pressing it's skipping a lot of steps, and this is by design. Custom label request? Move it along, reholder due to damage? Quick triage where the person was given guidance to bucket the level of damage. 3 point scale, 5 point scale whatever. Scuffed and scratched? Most go right to the same pile to get a custom label, maybe a few that look really cracked, full blown shaken baby syndrome go to the the pre-graders, and if the pre-graders kick it back, off it goes. A full blown re-grade is a last resort. They lose money on the time it takes, and there's little upside to all parties if they find it to be a lower grade, let's be honest about this. If they kept lowering the grade on reholders & custom labels no one would do it, and it's easy money. Any change in grade is more injurious to their reputation if it's not in the customers favor. Whoever is triaging the submissions is likely trained to keep that to a minimum. the slabs themselves and all the materials used: all of it can be faked, manipulated, replicated, don't doubt that for a second. How often does it happen? Probably less than we think, but more than we know. IF someone has access to the right equipment and can be cost effective doing it, game on. However, those things probably don't scale well and not raise a red flag. The only thing truly unique that CGC provides is a serial number. That is all.

To crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women!

@Bosco685 this appears to be the Wednesday Franchise link, not X-Files. Edit- NVM, but it's barely even a sentence in the article.

Here's 2 pages I have by Pat Boyette from issue #14:

does a cancelled bid by the seller inside the final 12 hour window register as a retraction on the the bidders account? Either way, if 2 accounts are colluding, or one person controls both accounts (bidder and seller) the effect is the same- you are bidding up the item and increasing the max bid of any other legit bidders.

Wow great post @comicwiz. A lot to unpack here but it speaks to what is happening in different collecting circles in coordinated (collusion) and asynchronous ways of buoying prices beyond what they would be organically. The original comic art market is one prominent area. A small group bid up everything to maintain price perception to protect their holdings while they consign, get cash or credit advances and apply them to future auctions. That’s been going on for almost 10 years thanks to HA and Clink, it’s the last area CGC hasn’t managed to invent a product for. But I’m sure the shenanigans you speak of are legion wherever there’s a lack of transparency and oversight.

I actually have nine pages of that story- it's special to me because it was my first DC book that I got used at a bookstore in the mid-70s. Al the pages can be viewed here: https://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=56119