Popular Post Cat Posted May 17, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted May 17, 2022 As seen here: https://www.cbr.com/wata-games-sued-racketeering-price-manipulation-graded-retro-games/ Gotham Kid, Mojohand, theCapraAegagrus and 2 others 1 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solm4st3r Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalPSI Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 no surprise F For Fake, MAR1979 and Beige 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Domo Arigato Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 Good luck with that. F For Fake and MetalPSI 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larryw7 Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 F For Fake, Pitboss and John E. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gotham Kid Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 (edited) shocker ! Edited May 17, 2022 by Gotham Kid do-boy99 and MAR1979 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Pitboss Posted May 17, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted May 17, 2022 Microchip, lou_fine, MAR1979 and 4 others 2 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzetta Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 scccchhhhhhttttaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post theCapraAegagrus Posted May 17, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted May 17, 2022 It seems to me that the article (or the people suing WATA) is conflating "racketeering" with unreliable TATs? If so, it's not the winning battle that I had hoped it would be. jcjames, Cat, Domo Arigato and 4 others 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WolverineX Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 On 5/17/2022 at 12:52 AM, The Meta said: no surprise Cat and MetalPSI 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Namtak Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 Graded 3 games with wata so far...and no more!waiting on cgc now to open their grading service!not that wata grade badly,its fair,sturdy cases and grading makes more sense than vga but yeah for reasons mention by others ,i lived it,a year and 2 month it took to get 2 of my 3 games,charged me a lot more because of market value ect......no more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cat Posted May 17, 2022 Author Share Posted May 17, 2022 On 5/17/2022 at 11:30 PM, Namtak said: Graded 3 games with wata so far...and no more!waiting on cgc now to open their grading service!not that wata grade badly,its fair,sturdy cases and grading makes more sense than vga but yeah for reasons mention by others ,i lived it,a year and 2 month it took to get 2 of my 3 games,charged me a lot more because of market value ect......no more! What do you think of this lawsuit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manetteska Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post rjpb Posted May 17, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted May 17, 2022 It's pretty clear WATA was created to benefit a few people as part of a scheme to artificially pump up the "value"of their grading service, and in particular graded items already held by those involved. Such a scheme would benefit from delayed turnarounds inhibiting the dilution of value as more graded games hit the market. jcjames, Mojohand, Cosmic_Shel and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Black_Adam Posted May 17, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted May 17, 2022 Thank heaven there are no shenanigans like this in our (comic collecting) hobby... MAR1979, batman_fan, COI and 19 others 1 22 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Namtak Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 On 5/17/2022 at 9:36 AM, Cat said: What do you think of this lawsuit? Its about time!but is it enough? MAR1979 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Qalyar Posted May 17, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted May 17, 2022 On 5/17/2022 at 8:36 AM, Cat said: What do you think of this lawsuit? So, I think WATA and Heritage have been involved in some pretty shady stuff. I am... less optimistic that this lawsuit is going to resolve the issue. First off, I'm not even certain this class is going to get certified. To be certified for class action, there has to be a demonstration that all the class members were similarly situated. I'm dubious. There are a handful of people allegedly out big money, in the thousands of dollars, because they were charged 2% FMV grading fees on games where the FMV was wildly inflated. But most people getting games graded probably weren't hurt, or at least not hurt that badly, because only a fairly small handful of graded games ballooned to crazytown prices. I think that's why they stapled in the whole complaint about TATs -- it's an effort to make more people credibly part of an affected class. I am 100% not an expert on California commercial law, but I do think the pleading that WATA and Heritage (including through the individual actions of Halperin and Khan) conspired to artificially inflate the market value of graded games in order to charge customers based on the now-inflated prices has legs under the California UCL. I don't think the RICO claim is going anywhere; it's intentionally hard to demonstrate the elements of RICO. This is the claim with the best documentation (at least that's known to us plebs) and the only one with a chance for significant monetary findings. So that's a good way to start the suit. But... The TAT thing... ehh. We'll see. The suit claims that the super-long TATs (in some cases way worse than CGC's, on the order of 18 months!) constituted false advertising under California law. Maybe? A lot of stuff is actionable in California. I feel like WATA's defense here is just to say, hey, look, all these people wanted our service and we got busy. We kept believing we could get caught back up, but it never really happened. Sorry. And I can't imagine plaintiffs will be able to show that the class suffered monetary damages from that situation. Individuals, maybe, but the class as a whole? Good luck. So even if the court finds for the plaintiffs, what's the result? An injunction demanding that WATA set more accurate TATs? Be still, my beating heart. I guess the specific claim that WATA knew there would be delays when they moved operations from Colorado to California is a thing, along with their failure to notify customers that the games to be graded were being transported, or how, and that this runs afoul of California business transparency requirements. But again, so what? WATA is forced to say they're very sorry and they'll tell people if they relocate their HQ again? Pffft, whatever. I think this should have been filed as an individualized lawsuit by a handful of people burned the hardest on the 2% FMV fees, and the market manipulation aspect should have really been the entire focus of the suit. Throwing law at the wall and seeing what sticks is a strategy of sorts, but it risks a weaker case overall. Still, we'll see. I think there's enough alleged regarding the UCL claim that this would survive motions for summary dismissal, at the very least, assuming the class certifies. And at that point, really, WATA may consider just offering a token settlement, without acknowledging wrongdoing, that pays out some trivial amount of money per-person over the entirety of the class. If anything significant comes of this, it might lead to some hard choices from other collectibles grading companies (yes, including CGC) about how service pricing based on FMV is being implemented, if for no other reason than to reduce exposure to potential issues down the line. But right now, my use of bold font is only one reason that feels like a big "if". Gonzimodo, Jimmy Linguini , aardvark88 and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAR1979 Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 (edited) On 5/17/2022 at 1:01 AM, Domo Arigato said: Good luck with that. It's still going to cost WATA solid coin to defend themselves, possibly heavily alter the future perception of their firm, and perhaps evidence into the arrangement with Haspel will be brought to light. One can only hope! Edited May 17, 2022 by MAR1979 Jimmy Linguini and Sigur Ros 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAR1979 Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 (edited) On 5/17/2022 at 12:20 PM, Qalyar said: If anything significant comes of this, it might lead to some hard choices from other collectibles grading companies (yes, including CGC) about how service pricing based on FMV is being implemented, if for no other reason than to reduce exposure to potential issues down the line. But right now, my use of bold font is only one reason that feels like a big "if". That would be huge. PSA needs a good kick in the posterior. Edited May 17, 2022 by MAR1979 Courageous Cat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Linguini Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 The cofounders were caught grading their own games and selling them themselves. Since the people accused used to work for other companies, like the company that owns this chatboard, I don't see this ending well. MAR1979 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
