Question about shop grading practices and CGC 1 1

[RB3]

I was at a comic shop the other day for a signing and wanted to get my books CGC'd. The shop use to send in books to CGC under their account but now they use another business to come in to submit for them.  I was told (from an employee) that the store owe'd CGC alot of money from older grading, so CGC froze their account.  While at the event, I was talking to other customers who have books sitting at CGC under the stores account and when they call CGC, they are told that the books are graded and "sitting in a vault" but they cant tell them anything else due to it being under the stores account.  

Whats the validity of this?  Is this how CGC holds customers books until the account holder pays?  What about the store still getting away with having books graded through a third party vendor? If this is true, this is messed up.  

[Lightning55]

The part about the store using another company to submit, well, how is CGC going to know that the books originated from that store? 

The store can certainly do that, because now CGC is dealing with the intermediary, not the store.  Of course, the store is going to pay a markup to the intermediary, unless a friend.  And if they pay more, you will pay even more to use them.  And you have more layers between you and CGC, so that's not ideal.

I don't know how books get graded without being paid for up front.  They open the box, load it to the dashboard, and charge you at that time.  The submission shouldn't move along unless paid for.  At least that is how it appears from my own experiences. Maybe with a dealer account, invoicing happens at the end.

The people whose books are being held hostage have to band together and sue the store owner for damages.  That is about the only way they are going to get their stuff back, or compensated.