CGC Files Lawsuit Against Employees 30 30

[Mr. Zipper]

On 2/2/2024 at 3:39 PM, newshane said:

Rookie mistake. 

The funny (or maybe not funny) thing is... thieves almost ALWAYS come from the inside. 

[Dr. Balls]

On 2/2/2024 at 12:52 PM, mosconi said:

it almost feels like books were being stacked on shelves in some hallway or back room with graders coming and going and picking up whatever books they felt like grading that day.

I believe that is called the DeChellis Filing Formula.

[shadroch]

When CGC built its new HQ in Sarasota twenty years ago, they could never have anticipated the backlog they had two years ago.  I don't believe they built vaults intended to deal with the volume they got.  Is it a surprise that they were storing books in corridors or that work is being done in place the original security system wasn't set up for?  

[Gaard]

I'm not sure what's more disappointing ... the fact that it did happen or the fact that it could happen.

[Iconic1s]

On 2/2/2024 at 2:55 PM, shadroch said:

When CGC built its new HQ in Sarasota twenty years ago, they could never have anticipated the backlog they had two years ago.  I don't believe they built vaults intended to deal with the volume they got.  Is it a surprise that they were storing books in corridors or that work is being done in place the original security system wasn't set up for?  

I think much of that is self inflected and was pure greed.  They announce signing upon signing upon signing… if they weren’t prepared to properly secure people’s books they should have tempered that eagerness for massive profits with a little common sense. Now we get to see how it turned out.

Edited February 2 by Iconic1s

[NWOslave]

On 2/2/2024 at 11:25 AM, Dr. Balls said:

CGC is getting dangerously close to 'Rebranding Territory'.

The business acumen of their competitors is also playing a part in how bad/worse the situation could get. Investing every penny they can squeeze into their marketing budget could give CGC a Tyson-sized black eye. The situation is ripe for a massive marketing push that could swing things to their advantage in a way that their current method of attrition-based branding philosophy just hasn't worked. The competitions position in the market right now is an Ad Agency's wet dream - but from what I have seen since it's inception, I don't think they have the horsepower or foresight to take advantage.

the only thing keeping me from using cbcs is their customer support. id rather give my business to egs before i hand over books to cbcs

[ExNihilo]

On 2/2/2024 at 12:05 PM, shadroch said:

The security would be geared towards ensuring nothing leaves the secure facility, maybe not watching everything within the facility.  No one anticipated a thief would work on the inside.

Speaks to management to not consider these things and build safeguards against it.  An inside job is exactly the type of thing that, in my opinion, could destroy the SS brand.  I worry that all someone would have to do is become a witness and, find a forger, and then begin submitting forged signatures as authentic and submit to CGC.  If that ever happens, you can say good bye to the goodwill of yellow labels over those of CGC's competitors.

[ExNihilo]

The solution seems rather simple: all employees are strip searched before and after entering the designated grading/holdering room.  

[Iconic1s]

On 2/2/2024 at 1:32 PM, drotto said:

Does not mean that is the right play from the public relations standpoint, when you know it will come out, but from the legal standpoint it is the play they will almost always make. Also, he may not have been at liberty to say anything which may put this litigation at risk. So essentially Matt was under an NDA.

I think part of the problem is the emphasis they put on social media, particularly once the pandemic kicked off.  Suddenly they’ve got their employees out there talking up their product. Look at IG right now and they are out there with videos at Megacon… videos I will say add absolutely zero value.

Personally I don’t care who grades, slabs, does QC, or runs their company. I don’t care if they are “comic people.”  What should be important is consistent and fair grading and encapsulation.  THEY made personality important, and when they promoted Nelson to President we were all supposed to be impressed… I was happy for him.  It was as much a PR stunt due to his credibility in the hobby as it may have been merit based.  I don’t want IG videos or any other stunts, I want quality services.  This experiment has failed and the company is being ran into the ground. Time to change or become irrelevant.

I was able to forgive when it may have been just an outsider and CGC was able to play the victim, but this insider stuff is ABSOLUTELY unforgivable.  They hired these people and then provided the conditions for this to happen.

Lastly, no matter the legalities or timing of Nelson’s comments on Youtube, he knew things we didn’t and IMO I feel either lied to or extremely misled by him.  Going back to them making it as much about personality as quality, this is probably why he did the interview.  An actual President would have probably issued a statement and rode it out, then issued another statement when this case hit… instead we get this poorly run company dragged on social media where they put their foot squarely into their mouth.

I seriously can’t do business with this company or their services/products until they hold more than the thieves accountable.  This problem all starts at the top.

[Iconic1s]

On 2/2/2024 at 3:11 PM, ExNihilo said:

An inside job is exactly the type of thing that, in my opinion, could destroy the SS brand.

Honestly though, the SS brand was (IMO) destroyed when they started giving 9.8’s to books that had “art” burned into the covers.  Nothing against the “art” but there’s a time and a place, as they say and maybe a CGC “9.8” isn’t the place for burned paper.

[drotto]

On 2/2/2024 at 4:12 PM, ExNihilo said:

The solution seems rather simple: all employees are strip searched before and after entering the designated grading/holdering room.  

More realistically, all areas where books are handled have cameras with 24 hr survalience.  An employee taking a book out of those secured areas, aside from being shipped, is means for termination.

Edited February 2 by drotto

[HighGrade]

In all honesty in many companies this would have been covered up, they would have let the perps go free sometimes they leave with having to signing documents to not discuss reason for dismissal.  Seriously, damage control in many situations lets the criminals go to keep a good company image, they didn’t do that here, they are taking the high road and going after them. So I know they are serious about removing these threats, not just covering it up, believe me the cover ups of inside scandals is wide spread for PR reasons.

I had something go missing in an antique auction house, was told it was "lost" LOL.. I was compensated for it, but pretty sure it was an employee, this was over 30 years ago but I found out later others had stuff mysteriously go missing and a person was later fired but never gone after and  there was zero press. So I have to respect the fact this out in the open, it didn't have to be, they could have just fired them and let it go at that.

[dbcn]

On 2/2/2024 at 4:32 PM, HighGrade said:

they are taking the high road

I'd say they're taking the middle road. The high road would have been to have a press release, sharing some details of the investigation, but more importantly, make it clear that they're working on figuring out which submissions were affected, and that they would be in touch with any affected customers. That would be the high road. 

 

[Iconic1s]

On 2/2/2024 at 3:32 PM, HighGrade said:

In all honesty in many companies this would have been covered up,

Totally agree!  The problem is all the timing of these incidences.

CGC appears to (maybe) have had this under wraps and (maybe) was indeed not going to go public. Don’t know, but do know the Terrazas issue pre-dates 9.9newsstand discovering swapped slabs.

The swapping scandal came to light ONLY due to a vigilant collector!  Did CGC know?  Were they going to let us know?  We’ll never know for sure now either.

Then the President does an interview and says “no inside job.”  About THAT scandal.  Super bad look now!

Then this happens… sure, MAYBE it’s unrelated to the swap scandal but INSIDE JOB!!

Did the 9.9newsstand reveal force CGC to go after Terrazas because it’s just a component of larger problems yet to be revealed?  Were they going to keep it all quiet otherwise?

Thing is, we’ll never know if they were initially going to cover it all up or not.  All I know is that from my personal viewpoint there has been enough incompetence at this point (both in running the business and handling the aftermath of scandals) that CGC no longer deserves MY loyalty or business until major changes, and even admissions take place.

Edit: should have added that in the swap scandal it appears most people (including myself) are convinced it affects many more than 350 books… also no transparency how books are removed from list. Another BAD look from CGC.

Edited February 2 by Iconic1s

[comix4fun]

On 2/2/2024 at 3:26 PM, Iconic1s said:

Honestly though, the SS brand was (IMO) destroyed when they started giving 9.8’s to books that had “art” burned into the covers.  Nothing against the “art” but there’s a time and a place, as they say and maybe a CGC “9.8” isn’t the place for burned paper.

The "SS Brand" to many collectors centered around the "Sig" part of SS...the grade has almost nothing to do the value of the service. 

The sketch cover collectors maybe it means more, but the SS service existed long long before sketch covers and for truly rare signatures, the witnessed nature of the sig carries 99% of the value, and the grade is almost entirely immaterial. 

Additionally, the yellow label is a type of "qualified" label. The book is graded "But for" the writing and drawing all over it. And the yellow indicates that the sketch and sig have been witnessed. Because ANY book that's written on and drawn on has a reduced grade but having a qualified grade under a yellow label allows for the "Burning" you dislike as it's apart from the underlying "But For" grade. 

Edited February 2 by comix4fun

[HighGrade]

On 2/2/2024 at 4:44 PM, dbcn said:

I'd say they're taking the middle road. The high road would have been to have a press release, sharing some details of the investigation, but more importantly, make it clear that they're working on figuring out which submissions were affected, and that they would be in touch with any affected customers. That would be the high road. 

 

Ok, I'll go with that, the utter silence on certain key facts is tough, but "some" maybe not all of that is from the ongoing investigation. I would have loved to hear this whole thing earlier as well, but I now realize the private investigation was longer and much more in-depth then I had figured. I think it was outstanding they tried or trying to weed out all parties involved, not sure they are done, but when they are, nobody inside will touch a book again. Just imagine if other companies went after thieves and scammers in the open like this? nah, they just fire them or worse keep them on and move them to another section. This lawsuit is a shocker, they don't stand to collect much, only lose image, but nail the culprits and use them as examples hanging them out in the breeze. Don't think an employee will be stealing or selling any books after this, this is no joke. I'm shocked the went this route.

[bluehorseshoe]

On 2/2/2024 at 11:51 AM, CitrusZ28 said:

bluehorseshoe loves Bluestar Airlines.

You're walking around blind without a cane, pal. A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place.

[Buzzetta]

On 2/2/2024 at 4:01 PM, Iconic1s said:

I think much of that is self inflected and was pure greed.  They announce signing upon signing upon signing… if they weren’t prepared to properly secure people’s books they should have tempered that eagerness for massive profits with a little common sense. Now we get to see how it turned out.

That's when they lost me.  The turnaround times coupled with seeing signing after signing.  To see that turnaround times were extended to almost a year while seeing a solicitation for people that made me say, "who?" made me shrug off future submissions.  Again, I have not submitted a batch of books since May of 2020.  The only book submitted after that was one for the Eastman signing of January of 2021. 

Then issue after issue and this... and then the "perceived market value" stuff... yeah... I will hang on to stuff for a bit more. 

[bluehorseshoe]

On 2/2/2024 at 4:32 PM, HighGrade said:

In all honesty in many companies this would have been covered up, they would have let the perps go free sometimes they leave with having to signing documents to not discuss reason for dismissal.  Seriously, damage control in many situations lets the criminals go to keep a good company image, they didn’t do that here, they are taking the high road and going after them. So I know they are serious about removing these threats, not just covering it up, believe me the cover ups of inside scandals is wide spread for PR reasons.

I had something go missing in an antique auction house, was told it was "lost" LOL.. I was compensated for it, but pretty sure it was an employee, this was over 30 years ago but I found out later others had stuff mysteriously go missing and a person was later fired but never gone after and  there was zero press. So I have to respect the fact this out in the open, it didn't have to be, they could have just fired them and let it go at that.

  And yet here we are.  CGC has no shareholders; it and all of its subsidies are formed to be a closely-held corporation.  There is no one to report any of this to - or at anyone that is legally entitled to this information - for any reason.

CGC is in business for the sole purpose of making money.  The minute it stops doing that, it folds.  I just don't get how you and others on here really think this is "taking the high road."  

A two paragraph media release is not taking the high road.

Filing some goofball lawsuit against two ex-employees (that probably will never even respond to or make any appearance at a courthouse for) is not taking the high road.

Not shutting this thread down (yet) is not taking the high road.

CGC just screwed up when it came to managing this mess, it is as simple as that. 

[bluehorseshoe]

Annndddd just like that, Plaintiff's Complaint is Dismissed and Plaintiff's Motion for Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunctive Relief is Denied.

 

Life moves at you pretty fast.