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

[paqart]

FYI: A strong motion, like the one filed by Zanello, is no guarantee of success. When I sued Fox Television, Chris Carter,  and Harris Comics, their reply briefs were excellent. They were also complete baloney. The judge saw through it and told them they should settle with me, which they did.

In this case, the Zanello doc is also baloney.  It is apparent that the actual CGC mark was used, there is no chance customers wouldn't be confused, and reputational harm is huge when the CGC is implicated in fraud. This has the potential to destroy their business, because trust is a major commodity in a situation like this. Imagine if the Charbucks case wasn't that the offending company had a similar logo/label to Starbucks, but used identical labels and spiked the coffee with LSD or poison. That is what we have here. You don't need thousands of examples to prove harm when the integrity of the service is so thoroughly compromised.

[agamoto]

On 2/13/2024 at 5:04 PM, HighGrade said:

What is this garbage??? this is part of the defense? LOL

To prevail on a trademark infringement and counterfeiting claim, CGC must establish that
its marks are protected and that Mr. Zanello’s “use of the allegedly infringing mark would likely
cause confusion as to the origin or sponsorship.” Starbucks Corp. v. Wolfe’s Borough Coffee, Inc.,
588 F.3d 97, 114 (2d Cir. 2009). “‘The crucial issue in an action for trademark infringement’ is
whether there is a ‘likelihood that an appreciable number of ordinarily prudent purchasers are
likely to be misled’ or ‘confused’ as to a product source.”

 

IANAL, but CGC is asking for emergency injunctive relief, and the defendent's counsel here is arguing that in such a situation, the onus is on the plaintiff to prove buyers have been or will be misled before that's granted. He's arguing that CGC has only presented the three books that he tried to get back which CGC held on to. I suppose it would have been wiser to show examples of the books that have already passed through unsuspecting buyer's hands on the market, that would make the claims of confusion quite evident. Does anyone know if the judge granted what CGC was asking for here or not?

[agamoto]

On 2/13/2024 at 8:53 PM, paqart said:

And this is why this needs to go to law enforcement.

Indeed, the FBI to investigate swappped cases and bad employees and the FTC to look into how this multi-million dollar company's practices are manipulated within or without, putting their customers in potential peril. 

Edited February 14 by agamoto

[Silver Surfer]

So I'm just skimming through the the latest developments but this seems to be getting worse by the week. This will never make it to discovery. Maybe CGC thought they could bury these guys in legal bills but at a glance it looks like he had probably made so much on this scam that he has lawyered up and is punching back. Seems like an out of court settlement with non disclosures are the only way out of this now. That way they will never have to explain how and why they were duped. 

[paqart]

On 2/14/2024 at 12:29 AM, Silver Surfer said:

So I'm just skimming through the the latest developments but this seems to be getting worse by the week. This will never make it to discovery. Maybe CGC thought they could bury these guys in legal bills but at a glance it looks like he had probably made so much on this scam that he has lawyered up and is punching back. Seems like an out of court settlement with non disclosures are the only way out of this now. That way they will never have to explain how and why they were duped. 

In which case, it goes to law enforcement.

[HighGrade]

On 2/14/2024 at 12:06 AM, paqart said:

FYI: A strong motion, like the one filed by Zanello, is no guarantee of success. When I sued Fox Television, Chris Carter,  and Harris Comics, their reply briefs were excellent. They were also complete baloney. The judge saw through it and told them they should settle with me, which they did.

In this case, the Zanello doc is also baloney.  It is apparent that the actual CGC mark was used, there is no chance customers wouldn't be confused, and reputational harm is huge when the CGC is implicated in fraud. This has the potential to destroy their business, because trust is a major commodity in a situation like this. Imagine if the Charbucks case wasn't that the offending company had a similar logo/label to Starbucks, but used identical labels and spiked the coffee with LSD or poison. That is what we have here. You don't need thousands of examples to prove harm when the integrity of the service is so thoroughly compromised.

That's exactly what I was saying, I was amazed at such baloney, Yeah, they put the onus on the plaintiff, but to compare it to the Charbucks case? might be the worst example they could use and the easiest to prove CGC's case.

People clearly thought they were buying a CGC universal graded book, it actually says that, then tell them the book is not what was graded, all would say I was duped!  Hand people the cup of charbucks and all of them would say I'm buying a cup of charbucks from Wolfe’s Borough Coffee, Oh you don't think it's Starbucks? Now if it was their coffee in a Starbucks cup? Case closed Starbucks wins. I'm sure there are hundreds of better cases to use as an example, this was puzzler, not one part of that case is similar or helps the defense.

Edited February 14 by HighGrade
typo had they twice

[Silver Surfer]

On 2/13/2024 at 9:36 PM, paqart said:

In which case, it goes to law enforcement.

But by the time they get around to dealing with it, if they even bothered,  it would take forever. And then you still have the problem of evidence discovery becoming public and that could hurt the company. If it gets to that point nothing material will happen. 

[HighGrade]

On 2/14/2024 at 2:54 AM, Silver Surfer said:

But by the time they get around to dealing with it, if they even bothered,  it would take forever. And then you still have the problem of evidence discovery becoming public and that could hurt the company. If it gets to that point nothing material will happen. 

Yeah, I agree the time and leaving this open to more public involvement might have decreasing rewards. For what CGC is trying to do, they don't really need a criminal case in this situation although I'm not ruling anything out. When they win this case it will serve as a strong precedent going forward. Going after the scammer in a criminal case later would be interesting, and I might tend to think the case against the employees would more likely follow into a criminal case targeting just the theft of the books, that could have benefits.

I'm just glad someone did anything, PSA is having it's cases counterfeited and I see them doing nothing? it's really hurting the hobby! And the coin graders also have been plagued with fake holders, they seemingly do nothing? So seeing any further actions legally will not shock me, I never thought they would go this far!

[Nick Furious]

On 2/14/2024 at 1:31 AM, HighGrade said:

That's exactly what I was saying, I was amazed at such baloney, Yeah, they put the onus on the plaintiff, but to compare it to the Charbucks case? might be the worst example they could use and the easiest to prove CGC's case.

Agreed, not only were they selling under the CGC brand, but also under the CGC guarantee.  The fact that CGC is having to compensate buyers in order to maintain their reputation...seems to me that should be pretty good evidence of the misuse of the brand by the defendants, resulting in tangible damages.    

[sledgehammer]

On 2/13/2024 at 5:45 PM, HighGrade said:

The scammers lawyer is quoting the youtube interview. I didn't think that interview helped CGC's image and did nothing to help the case, it's tough, you want to say things but they should not have done it.  It's nothing terrible to the case but it didn't help either so I'm betting we will not hear anything more until the cases are over. We are not going to hear about new security or holders to stop these clowns, or anything more about the list.  The list is important to find the books in question, but a better way would have been to then keep it private between the owners until the case is over.

Why is this only Zanello's lawyer, and why is there no mention of Riva?

Zanello's promises about engaging in further sales doesn't carry much weight without it.

[sledgehammer]

It's hilarious that they don't mention comiclink advancing them tens of thousands of dollars in their response.

"Comiclink is pushing us on this."

 I bet they are.

[Mr. Zipper]

On 2/13/2024 at 6:45 PM, HighGrade said:

The scammers lawyer is quoting the youtube interview. I didn't think that interview helped CGC's image and did nothing to help the case, it's tough, you want to say things but they should not have done it.  It's nothing terrible to the case but it didn't help either so I'm betting we will not hear anything more until the cases are over. We are not going to hear about new security or holders to stop these clowns, or anything more about the list.  The list is important to find the books in question, but a better way would have been to then keep it private between the owners until the case is over.

This is why I cringe every time some boardie is screaming for CGC to issue updates every five minutes and criticizing because CGC uses words like "approximately" and their statements are not detailed enough. It's common sense that the defense will seek to pick apart every word and use it against CGC. The Nelson interview was probably a mistake. 

  Frankly, they should have issued a very high level statement at the onset and noted that they cannot comment any further because it is an ongoing legal matter. Period. 

[BrashL]

On 2/14/2024 at 8:31 AM, Mr. Zipper said:

This is why I cringe every time some boardie is screaming for CGC to issue updates every five minutes and criticizing because CGC uses words like "approximately" and their statements are not detailed enough. It's common sense that the defense will seek to pick apart every word and use it against CGC. The Nelson interview was probably a mistake. 

  Frankly, they should have issued a very high level statement at the onset and noted that they cannot comment any further because it is an ongoing legal matter. Period. 

This only makes sense if your top priority is making sure CGC wins its court cases. As a collector I could care less, what I want is a complete list of affected books, how the books were tampered with, and a new case and transparent process that we can trust again. Punishing one bad actor frankly does very little at this point, that cat is out of the bag.

Edited February 14 by BrashL

[comicwiz]

Information wittheld.

Edited February 16 by comicwiz

[Brock]

On 2/14/2024 at 12:06 AM, paqart said:

It is apparent that the actual CGC mark was used, there is no chance customers wouldn't be confused, and reputational harm is huge when the CGC is implicated in fraud. This has the potential to destroy their business, because trust is a major commodity in a situation like this. Imagine if the Charbucks case wasn't that the offending company had a similar logo/label to Starbucks, but used identical labels and spiked the coffee with LSD or poison. That is what we have here. You don't need thousands of examples to prove harm when the integrity of the service is so thoroughly compromised.

This makes sense, but its seems to me that the crux of this case is different, and that the books ended up in CGC cases because of CGC's systemic failure to inspect the swapped books in the inner wells. So it's sort of like having Starbucks manufacture the Charbucks cups with the similar label, and then ship them to their competitors. Starbucks - and CGC - have become a step in the process that brings the bogus product to market. I would think this makes it more difficult to claim retroactively that they suffered damages, given they were part of the product creation process.

[comicwiz]

On 2/14/2024 at 9:58 AM, Brock said:

This makes sense, but its seems to me that the crux of this case is different, and that the books ended up in CGC cases because of CGC's systemic failure to inspect the swapped books in the inner wells. So it's sort of like having Starbucks manufacture the Charbucks cups with the similar label, and then ship them to their competitors. Starbucks - and CGC - have become a step in the process that brings the bogus product to market. I would think this makes it more difficult to claim retroactively that they suffered damages, given they were part of the product creation process.

The problem here is the contextually inaccurate use of a legal case which has nothing to do with what happened. At some point, there is a duty to report the exploitation (when discovered) rather than planning, priming and carrying out deception from it.

In a hypothetical scenario, if someone happens to discover a bank ATM is prone to disperse more money than requested from a withdrawal minutes after being serviced, and then in a premeditated manner, that person proceeds to discover the service schedule, so as to return to that ATM, planning to be the first person to request a withdrawal so as to benefit from that flaw, it does not take away from the deceptive nature of the act.

This alleged incident goes beyond just the exploitation, coordination, planning - still keeping with the ATM example, it's more akin to realizing that the machine will only disperse a limit of a few hundred dollars and then calibrates to function correctly after dispersing that limited amount, and that cap restricts the coordination and payoff of the deceptive activities, so the deception graduates to counterfeiting.

If a candid camera were set-up at the machine to see how many people would do the right thing, and report it to the bank, you might be surprised by what is captured. I'm sure some would look both ways, maybe twice, before walking off with the extra money, but they might not have thought through that this might come back to them. I guarantee you most would recognize the repercussions, even if that was a letter in the mail saying you received too much money from one of your withdrawals and were expected to return it. I guarantee you the chance of finding someone returning to that machine, with the planning, coordination and repeating pattern would be near non-existant. They'd probably figure out the hidden camera location before trying. 

It's funny reading the preliminary statement suggesting all CGC had to do was contact the alleged perp. How about turning the tables and saying, all the alleged perp had to do was contact CGC when they discovered the manner of exploiting the process? My initial thought is that there's no way anyone can lack the self-awareness and be that naive to believe there would be no repercussions to this activity, but then I realize they hired someone to file this contention.

Edited February 14 by comicwiz

[sledgehammer]

On 2/13/2024 at 8:57 PM, comeaux said:

CGC is responsible for this disaster, they held every one of these reholdered books in THEIR HANDS and missed EVERY one of them. 

I think that there had to be some impetus for them deciding last year to start putting scans in the grader's notes.

Anyone that is buying comics that is not searching GPA for transaction history, and reviewing the other books in the submission that includes a certification number they have interest in, is out of their minds.

Of course, how much does even that help, when a submission from 2019, with a FF #2 on the list, has been confirmed by CGC to have been screwed with?

Here is another book from that submission https://www.cgccomics.com/certlookup/1393412001/

Why would I possibly consider buying that comic, when 2 of the books in that submission were put on the list?

[Brock]

On 2/14/2024 at 10:31 AM, comicwiz said:

The problem here is the contextually inaccurate use of a legal case which has nothing to do with what happened. At some point, there is a duty to report the exploitation (when discovered) rather than planning, priming and carrying out deception from it.

In a hypothetical scenario, if someone happens to discover an ATM is prone to disperse more money than requested from a withdrawal minutes after being serviced, and then in a premeditated manner, that person proceeds to discover the service schedule, so as to return to that ATM, planning to be the first person to request a withdrawal so as to benefit from that flaw, it does not take away from the deceptive nature of the act.

This incident goes beyond just the exploitation, coordination, planning - still keeping with the ATM example, it's more akin to realizing that the machine will only disperse a limit of a few hundred dollars and then calibrates to function correctly after dispersing that limited amount, and that cap restricts the coordination and payoff of the deceptive activities, so the decption graduates to counterfeiting.

If a candid camera were set-up at the machine to see how many people would do the right thing, and report it to the bank, you might be surprised by what is captured. I'm sure some would look both ways, maybe twice, before walking off with the extra money, but they might not have thought through that this might come back to them. I guarantee you most would recognize the repercussions, even if that was a letter in the mail saying you received too much money from one of your withdrawals and were expected to return it. I guarantee you the chance of finding someone returning to that machine, with the planning, coordination and repeating pattern would be near non-existant. They'd probably figure out the hidden camera location before trying. 

It's funny reading the preliminary statement suggesting all CGC had to do was contact the alleged perp. How about turning the tables and saying, all the alleged perp had to do was contact CGC when they discovered the manner of exploiting the process? My initial thought is that there's no way anyone can lack the self-awareness and be that naive to believe there would be no repercussions to this activity, but then I realize they hired someone to file this contention.

This all makes sense to me, but I don’t think the bank that owned the ATM would claim trademark infringement.

[comicwiz]

On 2/14/2024 at 10:36 AM, Brock said:

This all makes sense to me, but I don’t think the bank that owned the ATM would claim trademark infringement.

I hear, you, but I think it's a stepped and procedural strategy. As a trademark owner, I can only say that I don't like the onus USTPO puts on the owner to defend against infringement. It can even be used by the entity infringing, or to contest seniority. The moment you are aware of infringement, you have to defend against it or risk losing the TM. If I had to provide an opinion here, the moment legal saw enough evidence of infringement, they went in this direction to establish their defence, and will build out the case from that point forward. 

[comicjel]

On 2/14/2024 at 10:36 AM, sledgehammer said:

I think that there had to be some impetus for them deciding last year to start putting scans in the grader's notes.

... and remember that they also added a note under the "verify" scan to contact them if you suspect counterfeiting (or something to that effect) at the same time.

Clearly they discovered something back then!

Edited February 14 by comicjel