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

[lostboys]

On 2/15/2024 at 10:13 AM, MAR1979 said:

CGC's (IMHO totally weak) message is purchase from "reputable" dealers.  Keep in mind lack of reputable dealers is one of the reasons CGC was formed in the first place. To have their slabs level playing field for buyers and expand the hobby via that trust

According to CGC's newest message any dealer who has sold or every might unknowingly sell a tainted or "counterfeited" or tampered slab is not reputable.   Which means every Major Comic Seller or Auctioneer like ComicLink, ComicConnect, Worldwide Comics, Doug Sulipa, Victory Comics, Greg Reece, Heritage, etc are not or at some future juncture will not be considered reputable by CGC.   If I was any of those entities I'd be rather unhappy with CGC

BTW the scammer was considered a reputable dealer by CGC until the scheme unraveled! Therefore purchasing from "reputable dealers" is NOT a solution and not safe and it never ever will be!

 

 

Im guessing the lawyer who wrote that has no clue why CGC was formed in the first place.

 

Edited February 15 by lostboys

[ramithard]

On 2/14/2024 at 6:09 PM, sledgehammer said:

about 16 years ago, I gave up on one of their competitors.

Two midgrade amazing Spider-Man books, after removing them from the slabs, were missing wraps.

I also made the mistake of purchasing an incredible Hulk 181, from comic link, in one of their slabs. I resubmitted it to CGC, and it did not come back in a blue label.

I never bought one of their slabs again.

 

 

I got burnt by this too....bought a  a Spidey 50 from Comiclink raw in 2000......NM minus raw....sent to CGC and came back 9.0 restored

[shadroch]

If you can't trust that the book in the case graded by a third-party grading company is actually the book it is supposed to be, what purpose does the third-party grading company have? They have sucked tens of millions of dollars out of the hobby and made it possible for scamsters to take even more. 

In 1999, Steve convinced me there was a need for a third-party company that would make transactions with other dealers easier.  A bunch of NY dealers had recently been burnt by a California dealer who overpromised but underdelivered.   He'd sold us books he claimed were Fine Plus, but we argued they were  VG minus. CGC was supposed to eliminate such issues. Now they say to buy from the people they claimed they were protecting us from. If I only buy from reputable people who will stand behind their product, why do I need a third party to take a piece? 

When a sports team is underperforming, ownership usually recognizes it needs a management change. 

[Nick Furious]

On 2/15/2024 at 9:13 AM, MAR1979 said:

CGC's (IMHO totally weak) message is purchase from "reputable" dealers.  Keep in mind lack of reputable dealers is one of the reasons CGC was formed in the first place. To have their slabs level playing field for buyers and expand the hobby via that trust

The irony there is hard to wrap my head around.  It undermines the entire purpose of third-party grading and encapsulating.   

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 2/15/2024 at 10:05 AM, szav said:

Step one- publicly announce that they will subject themselves to external independent audit of their quality processes, security vulnerabilities, etc by a reputable organization.  Commit to making changes and further future such audits.

Step Two - take much needed steps to vastly increase the difficulty of counterfeiting their product.  Think the sorts of things you see on currency.  Embedded into the plastic mold magnetic strips or colorful wispy threads, hard if not impossible to replicate, and easy to visually verify unique features on each individual slab.

I can see that. The trouble I see or have pointed out is the 20+ years of slabs they've already put out? Maybe they're looking at how to fix that so hard they're blind to the future? If it is going to in effect cause a recall of 10 million slabs but idk 😶😐

That IS kind of disheartening 

[DC#]

On 2/15/2024 at 8:12 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

I can see that. The trouble I see or have pointed out is the 20+ years of slabs they've already put out? Maybe they're looking at how to fix that so hard they're blind to the future? If it is going to in effect cause a recall of 10 million slabs but idk 😶😐

That IS kind of disheartening 

I bet if CGC or someone were to go pull a relevant statistical sample of slabs from across the US and remove and inspect each book - the actual failure rate would be incredibly low.   

 

[BrashL]

On 2/15/2024 at 10:00 AM, shadroch said:

If you can't trust that the book in the case graded by a third-party grading company is actually the book it is supposed to be, what purpose does the third-party grading company have? They have sucked tens of millions of dollars out of the hobby and made it possible for scamsters to take even more. 

In 1999, Steve convinced me there was a need for a third-party company that would make transactions with other dealers easier.  A bunch of NY dealers had recently been burnt by a California dealer who overpromised but underdelivered.   He'd sold us books he claimed were Fine Plus, but we argued they were  VG minus. CGC was supposed to eliminate such issues. Now they say to buy from the people they claimed they were protecting us from. If I only buy from reputable people who will stand behind their product, why do I need a third party to take a piece? 

When a sports team is underperforming, ownership usually recognizes it needs a management change. 

I'll take it one step further. These days eBay, Whatnot, etc are all very buyer focused. If I had bought a raw Hulk 181 from this scammer on eBay, opened it and found the MVS missing, eBay would have had the money back in my account by the end of the week. I've returned or been compensated fully for similar situations a number of times. If on the other hand he seals it in plastic, I may never know something is missing.

Let's say he's shipping a different book than what is advertised on the listing. One email to eBay with pictures and I'm refunded 99 times out of a hundred. If he's swapped it out of a case however, my odds of getting anything back without it being a huge deal like this are basically nil.

So not only is the case worthless, it actually makes it more likely you'll get ripped off. The case HAS to be made tamper evident and competitors have shown that it is entirely feasible. 

Edited February 15 by BrashL

[MAR1979]

On 2/15/2024 at 11:11 AM, Nick Furious said:

The irony there is hard to wrap my head around.  It undermines the entire purpose of third-party grading and encapsulating.   

Sort of eliminates all need for ANY Grading Service.

  

On 2/15/2024 at 11:25 AM, BrashL said:

I'll take it one step further. These days eBay, Whatnot, etc are all very buyer focused. If I had bought a raw Hulk 181 from this scammer on eBay, opened it and found the MVS missing, eBay would have had the money back in my account by the end of the week. I've returned or been compensated fully for similar situations a number of times. If on the other hand he seals it in plastic, I may never know something is missing.

Let's say he's shipping a different book than what is advertised on the listing. One email to eBay with pictures and I'm refunded 99 times out of a hundred. If he's swapped it out of a case however, my odds of getting anything back without it being a huge deal like this are basically nil.

So not only is the case worthless, it actually makes it more likely you'll get ripped off. The case HAS to be made tamper evident and competitors have shown that it is entirely feasible. 

Total agreement! In 2024 buying CGC slabbed comic/magazine carries significantly greater risk than purchasing raw.  To expand on that the same too applies to Trading Cards , Video Games and VHS Tapes (absurd to begin with). 

CGC's latest message in effect is diametrically opposed to their very business model - go figure!

Edited February 15 by MAR1979

[Badger]

On 2/15/2024 at 10:05 AM, szav said:

Step one- publicly announce that they will subject themselves to external independent audit of their quality processes, security vulnerabilities, etc by a reputable organization.  Commit to making changes and further future such audits.

Step Two - take much needed steps to vastly increase the difficulty of counterfeiting their product.  Think the sorts of things you see on currency.  Embedded into the plastic mold magnetic strips or colorful wispy threads, hard if not impossible to replicate, and easy to visually verify unique features on each individual slab.

They should invest in meeting ISO 9001:2015 standards along with yet another case redesign. If they can state that they are audited yearly and meet  ISO 9001:2015 standards AND that they have implemented new fraud protections it would give them a new lease on life. It would give the collector community a solid date they can reference as in, "This book was encapsulated before June,2024 so I know it could have been swapped. This book was encapsulated after 2024 so, with CGC's process and case changes, I feel comfortable believing that the product is as represented."

[HighGrade]

Comiclink, Heritage, Comicconnect  I will say are all very reputable in my experience.

If you buy a CGC graded book, and it's fake, they are selling you the book, they are the responsible party because they are the seller.  CGC was the one responsible in the reholder scam because CGC reholdered the books in legit cases. But CGC would not be responsible for a tampered holder in the wild, same with all graders, cards, coins, PSA PCGS etc.. they are not responsible for someone tampering or making compete fakes like some cards/coin slabs have been found. All of them are dealing with this, comics not as much as the cards or coins.

But as far as I know not a single swap outside of the CGC reholder scam has "yet" to be sold through these companies, if it was found one did, they would investigate and I'm sure they would take care of it. So I believe they all back up what they sell. They certainly inspect what the sell, especially large $$ items (probably will inspect everything whole lot closer now!) 

I fully trust all of them 100% I have dealt with them all for well over 20 years, never an issue, I do lots of business with all of them.

I am sure all the big players are going to want CGC to beef up security just as much as we do.

I'm sure they would back up what I'm saying that it's a MUST to keep up all scans on the cert page, before reholder and after reholder, old and new images! And put any and all the images they have available, it will make a tremendous difference! They already started to some degree and it's great!

Having both original and reholder images gives more confidence, higher prices, more people slabbing books!

It's a battle, we all need to support each other! scammers must not win.

Edited February 15 by HighGrade

[Nick Furious]

On 2/15/2024 at 10:57 AM, HighGrade said:

It's a battle, we all need to support each other! scammers must not win.

Not disagreeing with you, but the reality is that the bidder/buyer is the only party that doesn't have a short-term financial conflict-of-interest in this battle.  The seller wants to sell, the consignment house wants the consignments, CGC wants it all to go away...and the buyer can't make much happen individually.  The buyers need the bigger players (particularly CGC) to support by setting aside concerns about short-term side-effects and taking the necessary medicine to restore confidence.      

[Number 6]

On 2/15/2024 at 8:29 AM, Badger said:

They should invest in meeting ISO 9001:2015 standards along with yet another case redesign. If they can state that they are audited yearly and meet  ISO 9001:2015 standards AND that they have implemented new fraud protections it would give them a new lease on life. It would give the collector community a solid date they can reference as in, "This book was encapsulated before June,2024 so I know it could have been swapped. This book was encapsulated after 2024 so, with CGC's process and case changes, I feel comfortable believing that the product is as represented."

The issue I have with the "new case" solution (and I'm not directing this at you personally, just using you statement as a jumping off point to vent my frustration) is that: what about the thousands of comics in the compromised 3rd gen cases?

If you're holding any of those...which a lot of us are...your options are to either reward CGC for their gross negligence but paying them their reholder fee to have all those books put into (what we hope is) a new, tamper-proof holder (and hope that CGC doesn't manage to screw that up by being asleep at the wheel again)....otherwise you're stuck with your books (for which you already paid CGC their fee for encapsulation or paid the CGC tax when you bought it) now automatically view as suspect and compromised just by virtue of the case they happen to be in, and would probably have to sell at a discount if at all.

No matter what CGC does, it's hard for me to feel good about anything CGC going forward, and unfortunately the CGC cabal has their tentacles so thoroughly entrenched in this hobby there's no going back.  

[HighGrade]

On 2/15/2024 at 12:18 PM, Nick Furious said:

Not disagreeing with you, but the reality is that the bidder/buyer is the only party that doesn't have a short-term financial conflict-of-interest in this battle.  The seller wants to sell, the consignment house wants the consignments, CGC wants it all to go away...and the buyer can't make much happen individually.  The buyers need the bigger players (particularly CGC) to support by setting aside concerns about short-term side-effects and taking the necessary medicine to restore confidence.      

Yeah, I hear that, the conflict is always there, usually works against buyers, in odd way that conflict might work in the buyers favor here! Sellers and CGC will be more willing to up the game if it means $$$ and happy confident buyer pays more, which makes CGC and sellers happy.

No matter what, all of us are battling the scammers, and we do have a pretty good community of craz...umm passionate collectors!

[Badger]

On 2/15/2024 at 11:31 AM, Number 6 said:

The issue I have with the "new case" solution (and I'm not directing this at you personally, just using you statement as a jumping off point to vent my frustration) is that: what about the thousands of comics in the compromised 3rd gen cases?

If you're holding any of those...which a lot of us are...your options are to either reward CGC for their gross negligence but paying them their reholder fee to have all those books put into (what we hope is) a new, tamper-proof holder (and hope that CGC doesn't manage to screw that up by being asleep at the wheel again)....otherwise you're stuck with your books (for which you already paid CGC their fee for encapsulation or paid the CGC tax when you bought it) now automatically view as suspect and compromised just by virtue of the case they happen to be in, and would probably have to sell at a discount if at all.

No matter what CGC does, it's hard for me to feel good about anything CGC going forward, and unfortunately the CGC cabal has their tentacles so thoroughly entrenched in this hobby there's no going back.  

I agree. My solution just fixes(?) the going forward part. All of us with substantial investments in CGC product are possibly left with devalued goods. The only good news is that if the Ewert micro-trimming fiasco didn't tank professionally graded comics I do not think this will either. Even with a possible 2,000 books impacted that leaves, what, another 2,000,000 that are fine? Nothing to see here, folks. 

[paqart]

On 2/14/2024 at 8:12 PM, CGC Mike said:

Unfortunately, counterfeit – and, relatedly, tampered – products have become an issue that many companies and consumers now face. Bad actors seek illegitimate profits by creating knockoffs of well-known, trusted and valuable brands. CGC is one of these targets, and we will take aggressive action to combat counterfeiters and other fraudsters, including through lawsuits, security enhancements and awareness campaigns. We cannot, however, provide compensation to people who purchase counterfeit or tampered products. This would, in effect, render the counterfeit or tampered products as valuable as the real deal, despite CGC having absolutely no involvement in their production.

 The 350 books identified by CGC on 1/3/24 are in a different category because they were submitted to CGC for reholder after being tampered with, and we did not detect the tampering at the time.

 We still want to know about other counterfeit or tampered with CGC holders because we will aggressively pursue these bad actors to the fullest extent of the law. We are committed to taking the appropriate steps to prevent counterfeiting (and tampering), and we will take legal action against those who attempt it.

 CCG strongly advises prospective buyers to do their research and buy from reputable sources. CGC offers the free Verify CGC Certification tool on its websites to help collectors and dealers verify CGC-certified collectibles. In addition, collectors can use the CGC Dealer Locator to find CGC Authorized Dealers.

And this is why law enforcement has to be involved. Every defrauded victim who was defrauded exclusively by Zanello without CGC involvement has no other recourse. CGC will not make them whole, correct the grade, or in any other way assist in dealing with their problem. There are 350 who will be compensated by CGC, but potentially 1,650 who won't be. Those people have to report this as a crime to police/FBI.

For the record, I think this makes sense from CGC's point of view, but it also means that victims of the fraud cannot afford to sit around expecting CGC to deal with this on their behalf.

[HighGrade]

On 2/15/2024 at 12:35 PM, Badger said:

I agree. My solution just fixes(?) the going forward part. All of us with substantial investments in CGC product are possibly left with devalued goods. The only good news is that if the Ewert micro-trimming fiasco didn't tank professionally graded comics I do not think this will either. Even with a possible 2,000 books impacted that leaves, what, another 2,000,000 that are fine? Nothing to see here, folks. 

You are right, It's actually true! If you thought anything would kill a company or a hobby, look back over the card market! Auction houses closed, shill bidding, people in jail, conflicts with grading and said auction house, trimming, building up corners with paper fill, that then get graded somehow. They trimmed cards with serial numbers! and the got graded twice! photo evidence is insane. And one of the most high profile cards was altered, purchased by Gretzky not knowing this and it's legend now! Same altered card goes for more every time, millions, it hasn't really hurt anything they even want the altered card! scandals made the card hobby bigger. I love bringing up this stuff because I remember thinking oh no it's over! it wasn't.

So older holder CGC books will still sell, it's just nothing compared to the card market, the new influx of fake card slabs is troubling, and will see that eventually, but there is always a tell, nothing is perfect.

I still sell the old less secure PSA holder cards without the new improved holder and added security, even get higher prices people think the grading was better..LOL

If we get images in the cert lookup, and reholder images while keeping the original up, it will fix 90% of the worry about older slabs.

[Number 6]

On 2/15/2024 at 9:35 AM, Badger said:

I agree. My solution just fixes(?) the going forward part. All of us with substantial investments in CGC product are possibly left with devalued goods. The only good news is that if the Ewert micro-trimming fiasco didn't tank professionally graded comics I do not think this will either. Even with a possible 2,000 books impacted that leaves, what, another 2,000,000 that are fine? Nothing to see here, folks. 

I understand that the vast majority of the 3rd gen slabs are probably fine (though that's assuming that these 2 scammers are the only ones exploiting these slabs, which may be an assumption too far) the problem with this situation is perception.

If and when a new case is released, are potential buyers really going to do all the leg work to figure out whether my slab is one of the 2,000....or is it going to be easier to just assume "3rd gen slab = could be a problem = pass".  Am I going to have to do a bunch of detective work to create a "SlabFaxx" report every time I want to sell a slab to prove it's not a problem (and since I rarely submit my own books, how much can I really prove anyway).

And yeah, everyone moved on after the Ewert scandal....but the fact that the community is so willing to look away on this stuff because there's all that CGC $$$$$ to be made....is that really a good thing? 

 

Again, just venting here....

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 2/15/2024 at 12:10 PM, HighGrade said:

You are right, It's actually true! If you thought anything would kill a company or a hobby, look back over the card market! Auction houses closed, shill bidding, people in jail, conflicts with grading and said auction house, trimming, building up corners with paper fill, that then get graded somehow. They trimmed cards with serial numbers! and the got graded twice! photo evidence is insane. And one of the most high profile cards was altered, purchased by Gretzky not knowing this and it's legend now! Same altered card goes for more every time, millions, it hasn't really hurt anything they even want the altered card! scandals made the card hobby bigger. I love bringing up this stuff because I remember thinking oh no it's over! it wasn't.

So older holder CGC books will still sell, it's just nothing compared to the card market, the new influx of fake card slabs is troubling, and will see that eventually, but there is always a tell, nothing is perfect.

I still sell the old less secure PSA holder cards without the new improved holder and added security, even get higher prices people think the grading was better..LOL

If we get images in the cert lookup, and reholder images while keeping the original up, it will fix 90% of the worry about older slabs.

A little depressing but from the little I know about it, all my cards are still pretty much late 80's early 90's drek

[awakeintheashes]

On 2/15/2024 at 1:12 PM, Number 6 said:

is it going to be easier to just assume "3rd gen slab = could be a problem = pass". 

If this story continues to grow and CGC does nothing to educate and reassure the community what it is doing to help ensure a book is what the slab says it is (reholder images, PR to identify tampering), then it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that the 3rd gen slab is a knee-jerk avoid. 

If this story slowly dies and the majority of the community is unfazed by what is happening, then it's business as usual.  

Edited February 15 by awakeintheashes

[BrashL]

On 2/15/2024 at 12:12 PM, Number 6 said:

I understand that the vast majority of the 3rd gen slabs are probably fine (though that's assuming that these 2 scammers are the only ones exploiting these slabs, which may be an assumption too far) the problem with this situation is perception.

If and when a new case is released, are potential buyers really going to do all the leg work to figure out whether my slab is one of the 2,000....or is it going to be easier to just assume "3rd gen slab = could be a problem = pass".  Am I going to have to do a bunch of detective work to create a "SlabFaxx" report every time I want to sell a slab to prove it's not a problem (and since I rarely submit my own books, how much can I really prove anyway).

And yeah, everyone moved on after the Ewert scandal....but the fact that the community is so willing to look away on this stuff because there's all that CGC $$$$$ to be made....is that really a good thing? 

 

On 2/15/2024 at 11:31 AM, Number 6 said:

The issue I have with the "new case" solution (and I'm not directing this at you personally, just using you statement as a jumping off point to vent my frustration) is that: what about the thousands of comics in the compromised 3rd gen cases?

If you're holding any of those...which a lot of us are...your options are to either reward CGC for their gross negligence but paying them their reholder fee to have all those books put into (what we hope is) a new, tamper-proof holder (and hope that CGC doesn't manage to screw that up by being asleep at the wheel again)....otherwise you're stuck with your books (for which you already paid CGC their fee for encapsulation or paid the CGC tax when you bought it) now automatically view as suspect and compromised just by virtue of the case they happen to be in, and would probably have to sell at a discount if at all.

No matter what CGC does, it's hard for me to feel good about anything CGC going forward, and unfortunately the CGC cabal has their tentacles so thoroughly entrenched in this hobby there's no going back.  

That's a legitimate concern, but in my opinion that ship has sailed. The cases are what they are and as it stands CGC is essentially warning us to "SlabFaxx" everything now because they won't stand behind the cases. If that dissuades  a meaningful percentage of buyers, then your comics have already been devalued.