ASM #252 CGC 9.8 Record Sale - something fishy going on? - Holder Tampering Incident confirmed by CGC 50 50

[Sigur Ros]

On 12/22/2023 at 11:39 PM, Steven Valdez said:

But if they can blithely hire one dishonest grader without picking up on it, what was stopping them from hiring dozens of them over the past 20-odd years?

Agreed.  I wasn't arguing against your comment.  I'm just thinking of the 2 responses, which one is better for them.

"We fired the guy who was doing this between the years of 20XX and 20XX"

Or...

"we're really bad at this AND have no idea how long we've been failing."

[skybolt]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:06 AM, Sigur Ros said:

Wasn't posted in this thread so likely missed.

The guy was getting a refund, whether by the seller or PayPal.  That was assumed.  Good thing buyer stepped up though.

The real problem worthy of discussion is CGC's enabling of this fraud.

 

The seller is likely trying to play nice with eBay until the rest of his funds are released. Once that happens he'll change bank accounts and leave eBay. He will lose some frozen funds though.

[skybolt]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:11 AM, Sigur Ros said:

Agreed.  I wasn't arguing against your comment.  I'm just thinking of the 2 responses, which one is better for them.

"We fired the guy who was doing this between the years of 20XX and 20XX"

Or...

"we're really bad at this AND have no idea how long we've been failing."

Both options are bad. One means that their entire product has been compromised, while the second one could lead to any book that was graded / reholdered by CGC to come into question since this guy was hired. What I mean is what if he got greedy and started telling friends and family to submit books and he'd fix things on his end. There's no telling what the extent was and how it could be tracked.

[agamoto]

Hmmm... Not sure if this one has been noted by anyone yet. 

Same Certs, Different Books. 4265040003

• SOLD FOR$9,995.00
• SOLD DATEJul 10, 2023

• SOLD FOR$9,900.00
• SOLD DATESep 14, 2023

Edited December 23, 2023 by agamoto

[GDN]

On 12/23/2023 at 4:25 AM, agamoto said:

Hmmm... Not sure if this one has been noted by anyone yet. 

Same Certs, Different Books. 4265040003

• SOLD FOR$9,995.00
• SOLD DATEJul 10, 2023

• SOLD FOR$9,900.00
• SOLD DATESep 14, 2023

This was the book where the green label missing the MVS was swapped in.  But I think you are the first to find the book that was swapped out.  The July sale would be the legit Blue label 9.0 that we assume was bought by Comic Selects.  The September sale is the fake blue which has the CGC 8.5 Green label missing the MVS in it.

[Mdesimone]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:41 PM, mephistopheles said:

Are you willing to share the cert #?

Asm 129

1097250011

 

[sledgehammer]

On 12/22/2023 at 8:20 PM, skybolt said:

On 12/22/2023 at 8:07 PM, VintageComics said:

How do you know it's an MJ insert and not someone's nudie pics that they hid in there?

It's because of blind trust (again assuming it wasn't an inside job). The person reholdering the book probably thought A.) there's no way someone could open the case and tamper with the book. B.) the original grader (s) would've noticed the nudie pics when they first graded the book, and C.) It was likely someone dropping the ball and forgetting to put the Mark Jeweler designation on the label. I would understand all of the above if we were talking about  $100 book. However, for something worth 5 figures, CGC policy has to be that if the Mark Jeweler designation was missed, then the inner well must be opened no matter what.

This what I've been saying all along. I want to hear from CGC, not Roy, that policy has been to open every single inner well, on every reholder.

Especially on any newer inner wells. I'm assuming, and never doubted, that an inner well reholder, from 2005 (for example), goes in to a new inner well.

They had just graded the ASM 252 MJ insert book in June.  No MJ insert label.  Scamboy bought it, and likely sent it back in for a reholder.

I guarantee you that he would have tried to avoid a $500 fee bump for grading to evaluate for an insert, over a high value reholder.

Otherwise, scamboy waited for the right status to show, called his "buddy" at CGC, and said, "Whoa. I saw an MJ insert in that book"

Somebody maybe even opens the inner well (even though they can see it on 3 sides), confirms the MJ insert, and ships the book back, non the wiser,

Now if CGC says that on every reholder, they spot check the grade and open the inner well, etc, etc, I'll assume, barring laziness, that's what they do.

[sledgehammer]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:33 AM, GDN said:

On 12/23/2023 at 6:25 AM, agamoto said:

• SOLD FOR$9,900.00
• SOLD DATESep 14, 2023

This was the book where the green label missing the MVS was swapped in.  But I think you are the first to find the book that was swapped out.  The July sale would be the legit Blue label 9.0 that we assume was bought by Comic Selects.  The September sale is the fake blue which has the CGC 8.5 Green label missing the MVS in it.

The second sale date was October 31st for $7,100. At least, I see that sale on GPA.

Edited December 23, 2023 by sledgehammer

[sledgehammer]

No custom label.  Just a standard reholder this time. Certainly because all he had to do was have a legitimate copy get a new verfied grade.

Maybe an appropriate custom label wasn't available right then?

Edited December 23, 2023 by sledgehammer

[skybolt]

It would be really interesting to see when this guy started the whole re-holdering scam. I doubt this went back to 2011 or even 2016. Thus far the best evidence we've gotten was from 2022. My gut tells me it started back in 2021 when this guy started noticing how much money could be made between direct/newsstand copies, etc. I'm also confident that 9.9newsstand or other smart collectors would've caught onto something this egregious if it was going on for 10 years.

[skybolt]

On 12/23/2023 at 5:59 AM, agamoto said:

Oh I'm sure they have a rather detailed database and I suspect they keep private notes on certain books, information not included in the grader's notes. 

Below is the first CGC book I could find posted to ebay and sold by our friend, for what it's worth. I was able to find this ad by looking up phrases that were unique to his later ads. Nov 2006. 

It just seems odd that this insider info was given to this guy by a CGC employee (if he wasn't lying). It's not like someone can pay for a higher level of service to receive this info. f there is no such service then no one should receive this info.

[mrd160]

I said it before and I’ll say it again….if anyone thinks that this guy is the only one that figured this out, they are fooling themselves. Scammers and hackers are always going to try some type of shenanigans, it’s up to cgc or any company to stay one step ahead. Security systems need to be upgraded over time, antivirus, and now for cgc, their cases/policies. I’m sorry to say but this goes a lot deeper than we’re seeing. If you see one cockroach there are 1000 more in the walls you can’t see….

Edited December 23, 2023 by mrd160

[sledgehammer]

On 12/23/2023 at 7:21 AM, mrd160 said:

I said it before and I’ll say it again….if anyone thinks that this guy is the only one that figured this out, they are fooling themselves. 

We should start a poll.

1. Briva3 is the only guy

2.  Ok, probably 1-4 guys are this sinister.

3. At an exponential growth pattern, and the dark web, there are probably at least 25 guys that are now doing this.

4. 50% of reholders since 2020 are now fraudulent lower graded copies

I mean, who the  knows, and who has ventured a guess so far? Why would the guess be relevant?

[sledgehammer]

So now that someone has said that Ebay has gotten the scamboy to accept a return, what zero efforts are they making to contact his additional customers??

@ebaysucks

[sledgehammer]

On 12/23/2023 at 7:10 AM, skybolt said:

It just seems odd that this insider info was given to this guy by a CGC employee (if he wasn't lying). It's not like someone can pay for a higher level of service to receive this info. f there is no such service then no one should receive this info.

What insider info are you talking about? The coincidence (that can't seem to possibly be} of the 2 books being graded on the same day?

I don't think anyone at CGC is searching Hulk 181 grader's notes for a good fit to switch data, but who knows for sure?

I don't even know if hacking their system is out of the range of possibilities.

Edited December 23, 2023 by sledgehammer

[comicwiz]

On 12/23/2023 at 8:21 AM, mrd160 said:

I said it before and I’ll say it again….if anyone thinks that this guy is the only one that figured this out, they are fooling themselves. Scammers and hackers are always going to try some type of shenanigans, it’s up to cgc or any company to stay one step ahead. Security systems need to be upgraded over time, antivirus, and now for cgc, their cases/policies. I’m sorry to say but this goes a lot deeper than we’re seeing. If you see one cockroach there are 1000 more in the walls you can’t see….

Earlier in this thread I discussed an example that happened right on these forums, where an old named bad actor by the name of Danny Dupchak (aka Fantazia) posted instructions on how to perform a swap of the inner well, and that thread was quickly taken down. We are talking a time when he was still allowed to have an account on these boards, before he was banned through multiple iterations of aliases. We are talking within the first 5 years of CGC being in business. So that cat and mouse game has been goiing on a long time, in different shapes and forms. I agree that it is incumbent on the grader to stay on top of it. Having seen every manner of it over the course of my frequenting these boards, this has the distinct scent of someone who may have been trusted in some capacity by one or more people in the company with resolving issues, and they took full advantage of it. Even the Ewart scandal had some residual scent of a high volume submitter that had befriended top brass, and I believe Brulato had no idea what he was doing himself. It's likley this type of scenario, and that would mean that CGC has a hint of what's going on already, and have already some idea and are just being cautious about their next steps, or they are still in the dark about how this is happening. I don't see this being on the scale of someone figuring out walk-thrus were a great way to pass through resto books because all the graders with the best eye for it were at a major show that weekend. I've certainly been wrong before, but that's what this situaiton seems like to me, given what I've seen thus far. 

[agamoto]

More Worthpoint mining, this time focusing on ASM #300

He's sold 21 copies just on eBay between Sep 2022 and Oct 2023 (There's one from 2011 too, but not going to count it)

Total final item value of the sales: $82100 and change.

A few of them were sold multiple times however. 

Not nearly as easy to pick out differences between the books, and no matching certs here at all, but a LOT of vanity labels.

The books that didn't appear to have any defects I didn't bother copying the picture. 

Here we go! 

9.8, 4071124005, custom label, direct, No obvious defects

• SOLD FOR $5,299.99
• SOLD DATE Sep 26, 2022

***

9.8, 4106625003, custom label, direct, suspect - bends in bottom right, CBC on middle back spine

• SOLD FOR $4,651.00
• SOLD DATE Oct 20, 2022
• 

***

9.8, 4094947003, custom label, direct, suspect - right edge of book, scuffs and stress along spine on back

• SOLD FOR $4,051.00
• SOLD DATE Nov 09, 2022
• 

***

9.8, 4154321004, standard label, direct, no glaring defects.

• OLD FOR $5,495.00
• SOLD DATE Dec 16, 2022

***

9.8, 4109596004, custom label, direct, suspect - iffy corners, possible ink transfer on top left, cbc and stress on back spine

• SOLD FOR$4,080.00
• SOLD DATEJan 30, 2023

***

9.8, 4137132003, custom, direct, suspect - right bottom corner iffy.

• SOLD FOR $4,060.00
• SOLD DATE Jan 23, 2023
• ***
• ***

9.8, 4109596004, See above, Second time same book sold. 

• SOLD FOR $3,550.00
• SOLD DATE Feb 13, 2023

***

9.8 4109596004. Sold for the third time. 

OLD FOR$3,605.00

SOLD DATE Feb 27, 2023

***

9.8, 4129851003, direct, suspect, obvious bend right of spidey's left arm. CBC, edge wear, spine stress on back.

• SOLD FOR$3,975.00
• SOLD DATEMar 11, 2023
• 

***

9.8, 4121886004, direct, Custom, no glaring defects.

SOLD FOR$3,951.00

SOLD DATE Mar 20, 2023

***

9.8, 4199541005, Custom, Direct, front right edge wear, manf. defect otherwise no glaring defects

SOLD FOR$4,001.00

SOLD DATE May 01, 2023

***

9.8, 4148457001, Custom, Direct, color breaking creases/stress on back spine.

SOLD FOR $3,506.78

SOLD DATE May 15, 2023

***

9.8, 4221342005, direct, Custom, Looks like a cbc on back spine

SOLD FOR $3,800.00

SOLD DATE May 24, 2023

***

9.8, 4221342005 Sold a second time

• SOLD FOR $3,653.00
• SOLD DATE Jun 05, 2023

***

9.8 4245189003, Direct, Custom, No apparent issues

SOLD FOR $3,700.00

SOLD DATE Jun 13, 2023

***

9.8, 42665049006, Custom, Color breaking crease on front and back of spine, edge wear back bottom

SOLD FOR $3,975.00

SOLD DATE Aug 14, 2023

 

9.8, 4252433007, Direct, Custom, CBC on back spine

SOLD FOR $4,050.00

SOLD DATE Aug 28, 2023

***

9.6,  4153803004, Newsstand, Lol, looks better than most of the 9.8's

SOLD FOR $1,775.00

SOLD DATE Aug 28, 2023

***

9.8, 4324007007, direct, standard label - Just some iffy edge wear on back and scuff/lifting around bottom staple.

SOLD FOR $3,363.00

SOLD DATE Oct 04, 2023

***

9.8, 4287881003, custom label, direct, front right edge wear manf. defect, odd wrap, some edge wear, light spine stress.

SOLD FOR $3,635.00

SOLD DATE Oct 18, 2023

 

Conclusions? 

I'm too tired to draw any. To me, it sure seems like a lot of 9.4s and 9.6's dressed up as 9.8's, but I'll leave it all here for others to decide. Definitely not as easy to pick out matching books like with the hulk 181s. 

Kinda sick of doing this anyway... CGC doesn't pay me enough to do their grunt work.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2023 by agamoto

[Timed]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:41 AM, Mdesimone said:

Asm 129

1097250011

 

I am going to be honest, this does not look like a 9.0. There are a multitude of ticks that I believe would bring it to 7 or 8. AND, it's been reholdered I believe...

This one may need to be looked at more.   

[GDN]

The one ASM300 in 9.6 was probably a 9.8 he had cracked out to use the label and got the grade drop when he sent it back in raw to get a new 9.8.  You win some, you lose some.

Edited December 23, 2023 by GDN

[sledgehammer]

This one, 4094947003, is brutal.

The graders notes say "very light spine stress lines to cover"

This is going to be far worse than Ewert I think.