CGC Files Lawsuit Against Employees 30 30

[Galen130]

On 2/3/2024 at 9:52 AM, Dr. Balls said:

I don't put this solely on greed.

Greed would be overcharging for a necessity simply to produce higher profits.

What's going on here is a weird mix of greed and incompetence. Grading comics is about the farthest thing from a necessity as you can get. Which, for most companies in this area, means that there is a strict adherence to putting out the best quality, best value on customers return and instilling future confidence to ensure your product psychologically stays in that part of the brain that says "you need to slab your books!"

CGC has stumbled past this entire philosophy during the constant changes of ownership in search for higher profits, and is now bearing the fruits of these missteps.

Damnit....I thought I had it nailed.  Thank you for showing me the error of my ways.

[Galen130]

On 2/3/2024 at 10:04 AM, Jimmy Linguini said:

So does CGC not have cameras that cover the entire "secured facility"?

Just one guy.....

[Dr. Balls]

On 2/3/2024 at 10:22 AM, Galen130 said:

Damnit....I thought I had it nailed.  Thank you for showing me the error of my ways.

It was a joint effort on both our parts!

[Nick Furious]

On 2/3/2024 at 11:04 AM, Jimmy Linguini said:

So does CGC not have cameras that cover the entire "secured facility"?

In fairness to CGC, cameras can be a proactive visual deterrent, but they are typically reactive in terms of viewing the footage.  It could have been months before a single book was even known to be missing.  It's very possible that all the books were stolen in the timeframe before even the first theft was investigated by reviewing camera footage.  

Edited February 3 by Nick Furious

[Stefan_W]

On 2/3/2024 at 12:43 AM, Iconic1s said:

I’m so irritated because I put so much trust in this company and so much effort into locating books THEY gave high grades.  I loved the registry but now I see they were just playing me all along… current CGC leadership doesn’t give a  about us, or this hobby and they won’t get another dime from me until they EARN it.  Oh, and I don’t give a  what a CCG graded AC 1 sells for on Heritage!  They are crooks too!

 

I completely get the frustration, and mistakes that impact upon members that warrant criticism were definitely made. However, I wouldn't go so far as to lump every decision-maker at CGC into one pot and saying they don't care about us or comic collecting in general. I take it as a given that people who have moved up the ranks within CGC care a great deal about comic collectors and love our hobby - that is why they are doing this as a career. Mistakes were absolutely made along the way, but I think those mistakes are more likely to be the result of other pressures than a lack of caring about us or the hobby (e.g., making sure the budget is in line with corporate expectations, trying to hire enough people in the middle of a pandemic to meet the insatiable demand for grading books at the time, etc). 

Here is my two cents. My place of work has hundreds of employees, and trust me I would not be surprised to find a crappy person in that mix of personalities. Having bad apples slip through into a large business is simply not a surprise. Normal business processes like growing in size quickly and switching to new facilities make things even more challenging and lead to further risk. The thing that needs to be improved, IMO, are safeguards to prevent employees from potentially stealing or tampering with products under their care (i.e., solidify a chain of custody so every person who touches a book is tracked) and safeguards to ensure employees are not handling anything that is not directly under their purview (e.g., only certain people get to touch labels, anyone outside of that group simply does not have access to them). External audits can be contracted out to ensure a safe chain of custody and to identify possible cracks in existing processes that may not have been considered. If I put on the "if I was running the company" hat this is where I would be spending some extra money. 

Edited February 3 by Stefan_W

[Galen130]

On 2/3/2024 at 10:31 AM, Dr. Balls said:

It was a joint effort on both our parts!

 

[aardvark88]

CGC's 1999 staff terms, ethics:

[batman_fan]

On 2/2/2024 at 5:06 PM, CitrusZ28 said:

If CGC were a cartel they could require all of their employees to work in the nude.

[Dr. Balls]

On 2/3/2024 at 10:33 AM, Galen130 said:

 

Sadly, I’ll have to admit to being Silent Bob in this scenario - that’s about the only famous character I resemble anymore. 

[Galen130]

On 2/3/2024 at 11:54 AM, Dr. Balls said:

Sadly, I’ll have to admit to being Silent Bob in this scenario - that’s about the only famous character I resemble anymore. 

Well, I sure as hell ain't Jay. 

[Mr. Zipper]

On 2/2/2024 at 7:06 PM, CitrusZ28 said:

If CGC were a cartel they could require all of their employees to work in the nude.

Haha. On a serious note, there should be no bags, backpacks, purses, etc allowed in any room that has books. Employees should have a locker room where they can secure their bags. Body cavity searches would probably be unnecessary because we all know what that would do to the grade that no clean and press would ever fix. 

[Yorick]

Did anyone suggest that this was only found because of the investigation into swap-gate?  When I know where to look for a rat, I usually find a few more...

[Nick Furious]

On 2/3/2024 at 1:06 PM, Yorick said:

Did anyone suggest that this was only found because of the investigation into swap-gate?  When I know where to look for a rat, I usually find a few more...

The timeline doesn't indicate that.  CGC investigators were interviewing the accused months before the swap-gate concerns were brought up.

[wombat]

On 2/3/2024 at 12:31 PM, Nick Furious said:

It could have been months before a single book was even known to be missing.

Which kind of says something in itself. 

[Inhuman Fiend]

When I first saw the court filing naming the defendants yesterday (Brandon and Ayana Terrazas), I looked them both up on Social Media out of curiousity. Found 'em...but then both their profiles were deleted later in the day. Probably getting bombarded by lots of angry collectors! 

[EastEnd1]

I'm still scratching my head as to how this guy thought he could just keep stealing other peoples comics in the grading process and then sell them publicly and get away with it.  It's so obvious you're eventually going to raise suspicions and get caught.  Not exactly a criminal mastermind we're dealing with here.

As far as why pursue litigation... in the case of CGC it makes sense to me.  Their entire business is centered around the certification of valuable collectibles.  Seems to me one of the internal controls you'd want is to make sure all other current and future employees understand that if you break the law, you will wind up with serious civil and/or criminal consequences.  Just burying it does not give you the deterrent effect.  Frankly, it may even inspire other would-be criminals as word is very likely to get out that previous situations had barely gotten a slap on the wrist.

[batman_fan]

On 2/3/2024 at 1:20 PM, EastEnd1 said:

I'm still scratching my head as to how this guy thought he could just keep stealing other peoples comics in the grading process and then sell them publicly and get away with it.  It's so obvious you're eventually going to raise suspicions and get caught.  Not exactly a criminal mastermind we're dealing with here.

As far as why pursue litigation... in the case of CGC it makes sense to me.  Their entire business is centered around the certification of valuable collectibles.  Seems to me one of the internal controls you'd want is to make sure all other current and future employees understand that if you break the law, you will wind up with serious civil and/or criminal consequences.  Just burying it does not give you the deterrent effect.  Frankly, it may even inspire other would-be criminals as word is very likely to get out that previous situations had barely gotten a slap on the wrist.

Yeah I would think when the 1st book went missing you would be concerned about its where abouts

[Gaard]

"CGC lost my books!" - a much too common phrase these days. Maybe, after the first time it happened, CGC should've tried it's hardest to prevent it from happening again. Perhaps this incident never would've happened?

[skypinkblu]

On 2/3/2024 at 2:03 PM, Mr. Zipper said:

Haha. On a serious note, there should be no bags, backpacks, purses, etc allowed in any room that has books. Employees should have a locker room where they can secure their bags. Body cavity searches would probably be unnecessary because we all know what that would do to the grade that no clean and press would ever fix. 

First person to invent a "paper" detector is going to make a fortune!

[ttfitz]

On 2/3/2024 at 8:17 AM, bluehorseshoe said:

You could be and are wrong.

Fair enough. I just thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and that you weren't acting like a jerk for no reason.