Can anyone provide the Clift notes on the CGC case tampering incident? 4 4

[lizards2]

On 12/30/2023 at 5:32 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

On 12/30/2023 at 5:27 PM, Flanders82 said:

I can swap the labels from a universal book to a restored or qualified book. I then have a restored or qualified book in a case that shows no signs of tampering in a universal slab that I sell.

I would like to see a video of you doing this and pictures of the books before and after. 

Me too. Having cracked out over 500 slabs, I would like to see how this is done, because for 98% or more of slabs, I am stumped on how someone can do this, short of "softening" the "welds" by some sort of witchcraft.

[Jaylam]

On 12/31/2023 at 9:33 AM, lizards2 said:

Me too. Having cracked out over 500 slabs, I would like to see how this is done, because for 98% or more of slabs, I am stumped on how someone can do this, short of "softening" the "welds" by some sort of witchcraft.

Maybe the perp managed to get ahold of some "virgin" slabs somehow (either by someone inside of CGC or their supplier) and with their own sonic welder was able to pull off this deception, no?

[lizards2]

On 12/31/2023 at 6:47 AM, Jaylam said:

Maybe the perp managed to get ahold of some "virgin" slabs somehow (either by someone inside of CGC or their supplier) and with their own sonic welder was able to pull off this deception, no?

That is a much more plausible explanation than the others I have seen posted here.

Edited December 31, 2023 by lizards2
greggy

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

On 12/30/2023 at 9:49 PM, Silver Surfer said:

Mmmh can't say I agree with of lot of this. A Qualified IH 181 in 8.5 appears to have been swamped out into s 9.0 blue label and that's just what we know of. Based on this guys MO if he is making 2,3, 5 times his money I think he would be cranking out as many books as possible. Grading fees are nothing considering that one $15K scam sale could probably pay for the next 100 submissions. Didn't someone point out that just one submission, in 2019, had 25 high grade books in it (have no idea how they figure that out) so assume that there could be thousands of books affected. CGC might try to scare this guy with a PI or lawyer letters but really can they prove that he manipulated the books himself, not likely. So unless someone with first hand knowledge flips, nothing will happen to this guy other than a direct ban of their services. 

That's easy; if you know one cert number, you can just plug the other 24 books in the sequence into CGC's search feature to see what the other 24 books and grades are.

[joeypost]

On 12/31/2023 at 10:04 AM, lizards2 said:

That is a much more plausible explanation than the others I have seen posted here.

I have also cracked out my share of slabs and agree something way out of the ordinary had to happen to achieve this level of fraud. 

[shadroch]

On 12/30/2023 at 7:49 PM, Silver Surfer said:

Mmmh can't say I agree with of lot of this. A Qualified IH 181 in 8.5 appears to have been swamped out into s 9.0 blue label and that's just what we know of. Based on this guys MO if he is making 2,3, 5 times his money I think he would be cranking out as many books as possible. Grading fees are nothing considering that one $15K scam sale could probably pay for the next 100 submissions. Didn't someone point out that just one submission, in 2019, had 25 high grade books in it (have no idea how they figure that out) so assume that there could be thousands of books affected. CGC might try to scare this guy with a PI or lawyer letters but really can they prove that he manipulated the books himself, not likely. So unless someone with first hand knowledge flips, nothing will happen to this guy other than a direct ban of their services. 

These scammers didn't start by submitting big books.  The most likely scenario I can think of is them sending low and mid-value books to see if anyone was looking.

Who can say how many test cases are out there?

[Silver Surfer]

I agree. I bet there have been numerous low to mid grade SA keys that have received the label shuffle.

[bc]

On 12/31/2023 at 4:39 PM, Silver Surfer said:

I agree. I bet there have been numerous low to mid grade SA keys that have received the label shuffle.

In my opinion, the big catalyst to many of these recent scams is the introduction of custom labels. 

Initially, some people exploited the fact that they didn't have a purple custom label, so their restored reholders got a blue universal custom label. These involved fairly valuable SA books. The awesome board detectives were all over it. Parties were reimbursed and the guilty party was outed and CGC improved the process.

Now we have an entity taking it one step further and is swapping books and claiming either a mechanical error reholder or a custom label reholder. The MO appears to be high volume BA books which are fairly valuable as well. Again, board detectives have done a lot of the heavy lifting. The event is still developing but CGC has made statements to identifying and reimbursing impacted parties. Let's see where it goes.

-bc

[Lightning55]

On the main thread, out of 200+ pages, there are about 25 posts that provide factual information. The rest are opinions, from wild to mild, in all directions. Speculative confirmation of earlier speculation. To be expected, in this type of weighty situation, but hard to slog through them all. 

[NewWorldOrder]

On 1/1/2024 at 1:51 PM, Lightning55 said:

On the main thread, out of 200+ pages, there are about 25 posts that provide factual information. The rest are opinions, from wild to mild, in all directions. Speculative confirmation of earlier speculation. To be expected, in this type of weighty situation, but hard to slog through them all. 

100 pages are from the same 4 people that think the hobby is over and CGC slabs are now null & void, but yet if you ask them to then sell their now worthless CGC slabs at a slight discount you get no responses. 

Edited January 1 by NewWorldOrder

[mrwoogieman]

Cliff Notes - this was in a 9.8 slab!

 

 

[NewWorldOrder]

On 1/1/2024 at 3:54 PM, mrwoogieman said:

Cliff Notes - this was in a 9.8 slab!

 

 

 

Be even funnier if the scammer tried to insert a 70's insert into a 60's book.

 

Edited January 2 by NewWorldOrder

[mattn792]

On 12/30/2023 at 10:23 PM, BigLeagueCHEW said:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1YS5-hx5ze/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

The simplicity is stunning, yikes.

[Gonzimodo]

On 12/30/2023 at 8:40 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

so I missed it, why did the person resend it to cgc in the 1st place if he didn't "have too" for the holder to not look broken out?

Where is the proof of that?

Pretty early on in the main thread, the 9.8 ASM 252 MJI is discussed.  Basically, that one works like this:

Book A = CGC 9.8 ASM 252 newsstand

Book B = CGC 9.2-9.6 ASM 252 MJI  (Remember, all MJIs are newsstands, so you absolutely need Book A to be a 9.8 newsstand copy.)

Crack out both comics, place Book B (still intact in inner well) into the Book A holder.  Then resubmit that Frankenbook (Book B in the Book A holder) back to CGC as an ME or label correction because they missed the MJI.

Due to an apparent flaw in the process, CGC did not remove the book from the inner well or scrutinize the grade too much, but they could see that the MJI was present, so they simply updated the notes/label and reholdered the book to reflect that it is now a 9.8 ASM MJI.  So the original certification number for Book A shows this other, lower-graded book book as a legitimate 9.8 MJI.  Book B's original label is (probably) destroyed, so that certification number will never again see the light of day.  (Although I suppose it could potentially be used for some other nefarious purpose.  )

So what about the real Book A?  The scammer can break it out of the inner well and resubmit it to CGC, hopefully to obtain another 9.8 grade tied to a new certification number and repeat the scam or just sell it off as a "new" 9.8 newsstand copy.

For some of the other more basic ones that were just swapped-out lower graded copies in higher-grade cases or the qualified books now with blue labels, I suspect they were "laundered" back through CGC as MEs or through custom label reholdering to get new scans in the census and/or to get brand new cases so any tampering on the original cases would never come to light.  (If the scammer's re-encasement wasn't flawless but close enough, they could have damaged the cases enough to distract from the actual tampering and just claim they were damaged in the mail or something.  That's just supposition, though.)

[Gonzimodo]

On 12/30/2023 at 8:40 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

so I missed it, why did the person resend it to cgc in the 1st place if he didn't "have too" for the holder to not look broken out?

Where is the proof of that?

Apologies, I finally caught up enough in the main thread and see you posted the same question there, and it has been pretty well answered.

(Also, apologies for such a longwinded answer in my post above. )

Only 60 more pages in the main thread and I'll be caught up! 

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 1/5/2024 at 1:28 PM, Gonzimodo said:

Apologies, I finally caught up enough in the main thread and see you posted the same question there, and it has been pretty well answered.

(Also, apologies for such a longwinded answer in my post above. )

Only 60 more pages in the main thread and I'll be caught up! 

 it bares repeating. All good  it surmised really what we know even up to this point, mostly  

[Dr. Balls]

Thanks to @Gonzimodo for the easy-to-read explanation. I kind of surmised that through the original discussion - but it's real easy to get lost in all those pages of discussion to what the original scam was.

[Neo "The One"]

I just want to say that anyone not bothered by this is naive.  I noticed people have posted on here, "Everything is fine, it's only extremely rare high grade books." to that I call BS.  First off if CGC can't fix "Newton Rings" how are they going to fix this? Second - they are hiding the fact that this has happened and is happening (it should be on the home page, not "Another book sells for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!" Third, how many of us have gotten back books graded high or low, mislabeled etc.?  (Obvious color breaking spine ticks on a 9.8, or no spine ticks on a 9.6 - and NO GRADER NOTES!) I recently was at a comic store in NY that had a modern key book graded 9.8 that the owner acquire in a larger collection.  The bar code had a complete tear with a 1" missing piece (the kind of tear that happens from tape getting stuck and pulled ripping the top layer of the paper off, but leaving the bottom layer.  The owner is an honest guy so was not selling the book.  I have books I personally sent in to CGC that are mis-labeled - ex Venom 1 and 4 - labels swapped.  I sent in 2 copies of Wolverine limited series - 9.2 (red label) and 9.6.  The red label came back as a 9.8 and the other remained a 9.6.  Label were obviously swapped.  CGC needs to do better.  I believe fraud is rampant and going undetected as CGC expanded too quickly during Covid and has too many untrained staff and inconsistent grading.  - let the hate responses come!