UPDATE! — CGC nefarious behavior! Any advice/help would be appreciated. 6 6

[StillOnly25Cents]

On 11/4/2023 at 11:00 AM, CGC Mike said:

Here is what I was introduced as:  

CGC would also like to introduce its new CGC Chat Boards Community Liaison, Michael Greenwood! Many members already know Michael, a collector with years of experience

— both in comics and the CGC Chat Boards. Michael’s involvement and other members of the CGC team will strengthen CGC’s interaction and transparency with collectors and dealers. We feel Michael is a great fit for his role in this new endeavor, and we expect to soon supplement his efforts with other help from CGC employees.

well many can attest, you have gone above and beyond

we need a “who is CGC Mike” thread

would love to hear what you enjoy collecting, for how long, other interests and …..

if you yourself submit to CGC 

[comicginger1789]

Glad this was resolved. Sad that CGC tried to deflect and that it took much work to get them to admit error. Also sad to see a beautiful book likely gone to trash. 
 

I hope this is a 1/50000 error. Still should inspire some changes or at least a reminder to staff…go through entire contents before tossing (ie dump the box upside down and make sure it’s only peanuts and paper that are left at the bottom)

[shadroch]

Forget the guy who missed the book; how about the people who supposedly looked at the tape and saw nothing. The book didn't magically appear in the box after the first people examined the tape.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 11/4/2023 at 4:55 PM, shadroch said:

Forget the guy who missed the book; how about the people who supposedly looked at the tape and saw nothing. The book didn't magically appear in the box after the first people examined the tape.

That's VAR for you....

[wombat]

On 11/4/2023 at 12:46 PM, VintageComics said:

If you unpacked, graded, slabbed, QC'd and shipped 10,000,000 books how many mistakes do you think you'd make? 

That's 5 x 10,000,000 = 50,000,0000 opportunities for a mistake. 

Do you think there would be threads about how horrible Wombat is at certification? 

 

So you think prior to this thread CGC shipping didn't know it was important to thoroughly check every box?  

And you think this is the first time they have thrown someone's book away?

 

[wombat]

On 11/4/2023 at 12:55 PM, shadroch said:

Forget the guy who missed the book; how about the people who supposedly looked at the tape and saw nothing. The book didn't magically appear in the box after the first people examined the tape.

We all know what is happening. 

[Ghostzapper]

I respect everyone’s opinions, it’s what I asked for. I believe it helped get to the next phase and having someone like @CGC Mike was greatly needed and appreciated to help get a 2nd look. I didn’t know or seek him out, he was tagged in the thread by @CAHokie. I Thank him too because I wouldn’t have known to reach out to him for any help. @VintageComics and @CGC Mike basically said be patient and let it play out.
I hope this doesn’t happen again and I’m sorry for anyone it has or may have happened to with no resolution. I personally had No idea what to do next when they said we viewed video and there was no magazine and basically told to move on. I was upset to say the least and I’m still apprehensive.

Anyway, Next phase is compensation, I have no idea what that will be, I just got made aware they made a determination on Friday. They said 2 things, the person opening the package inadvertently discarded the book and they would make it right with me, what that means, I have to wait in see. I’ll keep everyone posted. 

Again, I appreciate your time and well wishes towards a positive outcome, everyone’s comments, opinions and suggestions matter. I’m reading and taking it all in. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Be safe!

John

[shadroch]

Everyone makes mistakes. It's what happens after you make the mistake that separates the wheat from the chaff.

CGC's initial reaction sucked, but eventually they came around. It should have been handled better

[wombat]

On 11/4/2023 at 1:02 PM, shadroch said:

Everyone makes mistakes. It's what happens after you make the mistake that separates the wheat from the chaff.

CGC's initial reaction sucked, but eventually they came around. It should have been handled better

Their initial response was to lie and hope the person didn't pursue it any further. Saying is should have been handled better is probably a bit of an understatement. 

[VintageComics]

On 11/4/2023 at 12:57 PM, wombat said:

So you think prior to this thread CGC shipping didn't know it was important to thoroughly check every box?  

And you think this is the first time they have thrown someone's book away?

 

Thanks for answering a simple question with two unrelated questions. 😉

I guess a lot of people don't realize that when you are doing large volume,  mistakes will happen.

In fact the MUST happen unless you can walk on water. I don't think anybody here can do that.

Every large scale business has percentages of allowable error built into the model.

Inevitably those mistakes will make their way to the internet, blow up people's ability to scale their options to the size of the enterprise and butts will get hurt.

Oh well. Life is hard.

[wombat]

On 11/4/2023 at 1:07 PM, VintageComics said:

Thanks for answering a simple question with two unrelated questions. 😉

I guess a lot of people don't realize that when you are doing large volume,  mistakes will happen.

In fact the MUST happen unless you can walk on water. I don't think anybody here can do that.

Every large scale business has percentages of allowable error built into the model.

Inevitably those mistakes will make their way to the internet, blow up people's ability to scale their options to the size of the enterprise and butts will get hurt.

Oh well. Life is hard.

So exactly what lesson do you think CGC shipping learned? 

[VintageComics]

On 11/4/2023 at 1:02 PM, shadroch said:

Everyone makes mistakes. It's what happens after you make the mistake that separates the wheat from the chaff.

CGC's initial reaction sucked, but eventually they came around. It should have been handled better

I want to mark today as a national holiday because I'm agreeing with Shadroch. 

 

[VintageComics]

On 11/4/2023 at 1:10 PM, wombat said:

So exactly what lesson do you think CGC shipping learned? 

People adjust behavior based on information.

I'm sure the shipping department employees will hear about how one of them tossed out someone's expensive comic.

How would you personally react to that news if you were one of those employees?

I know wouldn't want to be on the hook to make that mistake again if my employer gave me that talking to. Once you're instructed about something and you do it again, in the corporate world it's often a warning and then you're gone.

And if it was your son or daughter working in that shipping department, how would you want them to be handled? 

It might happen again, but I certainly don't think CGC wants the negative publicity so I think they will try to make some internal adjustments to try to reduce the incidence of this happening again. It'll never be perfect.

 

[wombat]

On 11/4/2023 at 1:20 PM, VintageComics said:

People adjust behavior based on information.

I'm sure the shipping department employees will hear about how one of them tossed out someone's expensive comic.

How would you personally react to that news if you were one of those employees?

I know wouldn't want to be on the hook to make that mistake again if my employer gave me that talking to. Once you're instructed about something and you do it again, in the corporate world it's often a warning and then you're gone.

And if it was your son or daughter working in that shipping department, how would you want them to be handled? 

It might happen again, but I certainly don't think CGC wants the negative publicity so I think they will try to make some internal adjustments to try to reduce the incidence of this happening again. It'll never be perfect.

 

So you are saying before this event the CGC shipping department didn't realize how important it was to thoroughly check boxes so they don't throw out a book? Is that what they learned? This week for the first time?

And do you think this has never happened before? That a book was missed and thrown out?

[Poekaymon]

Oh, it's happened before, and it will absolutely happen again.  It's a mathematical certainty.  When you are dealing in large numbers, and have human actors, that much is certain.  To judge how bad it is we'd need to know total submissions versus how many times things get lost.  Sure, it would be ideal, but it's simply not realistic to say 'just never lose things.'  So then the question is how was it handled.  Well, he got a bureaucratic response to start with as is typical for most large-scale businesses.  Just like submissions/versus losses, we don't know the percentage of fraudulent claims/actual CGC mistakes either.  And while ideally they'd just trust everyone off the bat, that's not a realistic ask either.

Without knowing all those details, and not having seen the video, all we can really go by here is the result.  Whether or not you agree with any the above, or whether you still think CGC is awful even if they do reimburse him, I can only say that he has already gotten further than I got with the "other guys" who in a similar situation cost me money on a reasonably expensive book.  They put me in an absolute bureaucratic wringer and never did give me a dime, or even the time of day--just sent me to endless Indian call centers over the course of a couple months until I gave up.  So I guess given the competition, that's what one might reasonably expect out of CGC as well, but it seems like they actually talked to him and are now doing something about it.  When you have expectations as low as I do, that's a decent result.

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Poekaymon

[speedcake]

On 11/4/2023 at 1:07 PM, VintageComics said:

Thanks for answering a simple question with two unrelated questions. 😉

I guess a lot of people don't realize that when you are doing large volume,  mistakes will happen.

In fact the MUST happen unless you can walk on water. I don't think anybody here can do that.

Every large scale business has percentages of allowable error built into the model.

Inevitably those mistakes will make their way to the internet, blow up people's ability to scale their options to the size of the enterprise and butts will get hurt.

Oh well. Life is hard.

Yes, mistakes will happen. That's life. 

What is important is how you handle those mistakes. And CGC acted like complete dumbarses until CGC Mike was able to intervene.

If CGC had RIGHT AWAY properly reviewed the tape and discovered their mistake, rather than putting the submitter through this completely ridiculous ordeal, how much different would things look now.

They certainly have a need to protect themselves from scammers, which is one major reason for recording the box openings in the first place, but how they handled this very legitimate lost book case says alot about them as a company, and none of it is good.

[Lightning55]

On 11/3/2023 at 10:08 AM, shadroch said:

Assume that the person assigned to open boxes is there because that is the best use of his talents and go from there.

An over-assessment???

[paqart]

On 11/3/2023 at 12:01 AM, Ghostzapper said:

Honest question, why would they be harassed if they did nothing wrong?

I don’t think an employee error or in worst case a theft is going to end up on Access Hollywood.

But I know what was there and being told to basically off with no recourse is unacceptable. That’s basically saying we’re batting 100%, Ted Williams on steroids and good luck striking us out.

All sorts of people get harrassed even if they did nothing wrong. You can see this in the news almost every day. 

[VintageComics]

On 11/4/2023 at 4:29 PM, paqart said:

All sorts of people get harrassed even if they did nothing wrong. You can see this in the news almost every day. 

You don't say! 

[paqart]

On 11/4/2023 at 11:53 AM, VintageComics said:

I guess some people will always see the glass half empty but that's a choice and I choose not to. 

First, let me clarify that I've stated my opinion based on my own personal experience. I just don't post all my personal experiences on here with CGC, contrary to what some may think but I have LOTS of them.

 

I agree with your initial comment. Given the circumstances, it's about as good as can be expected. 

I had a situation earlier where there was pretty much nothing CGC could do to make me whole, so I let it go. It concerned a comic that is worth almost nothing except it was an extraordinarily hard to find $2.29 price variant from 1999. It was graded a 9.0, and then it was encapsulated. At that point, the cover somehow got detached before it got to me, so now it isn't a 9.0 any longer. I can't sell it as a 9.0, because it clearly isn't a 9.0. I also don't want to pass an opportunity to someone else to pass it off as something it isn't, so I'd have break it out of the holder if I sold it. That would be a waste of time however, because its real value is in the future, after these price variants are better known. CGCMike said I should talk to CGC about it, which I did, but they couldn't offer the one thing I wanted: a 9.0 version of that comic in a CGC holder that really was a 9.0. They can't do it because this comic is so hard to find. The offer was something like grading cost +value, but the value of this comic is next to nothing if you discount how hard to find it is.

Anyway, I gave up on getting satisfaction from CGC, so I'm out the cost of grading, shipping, and the comic, but that is probably only around $50 total at most. The problem is that in 2 years of looking, I still haven't found a replacement.