CGC Files Lawsuit Against Employees 30 30

[valiantman]

On 2/4/2024 at 6:08 PM, wombat said:

Nothing personal. We are aloud to disagree.

You are also allowed to disagree quietly. You don't have to be loud.

(That was a joke. I'll show myself out.)

[buttock]

On 2/4/2024 at 12:11 PM, shadroch said:

A problem with that is you are asking people to forgo a passion of theirs- collecting comics for a job.  Some sort of restrictions are needed, but a total ban isn't a good idea, imho.

Collecting comics doesn't inherently involve CGC, although it's a big part of the modern way.  But a much greater problem is the impropriety that it invites by allowing them to work with a huge conflict of interest.  Once that door is cracked open, you're just asking for something like this to happen.  

[lou_fine]

On 2/4/2024 at 3:39 PM, jimjum12 said:

My point was THEIR policy, not mine.  I don't have anything to do with it, Dean. I do know what you mean about the real world. It hasn't been the Garden Of Eden for a VERY long time. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Sad to say, but unfortunately very true as we were all led down that garden path of innocence for the first 5 years until they were outed on these very boards here and we all saw what was really happening behind the scenes with respect to some of their "insider" friends, dealers, and others in the know, as already alluded to by this long time boardie here:    

On 2/2/2024 at 9:03 AM, awe4one said:

Are you serious? None of this surprises me at all. This Forum discussed the possibility of insider shenanigans 20 years ago.
 

Jim

Now, that first huge scandal on the boards here was definitely a real game changer to both the hobby and to the marketplace, and not necessarily for the good.  Especially over time as they seemingly doubled down and even tripled down by subtly adjusting their undisclosed grading standards to punish grade those who didn't care to partake in their rather questionable, but clearly huge money making game for all parties involved who were willing to play it.    

Edited February 5 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

On 2/4/2024 at 5:17 PM, buttock said:

On 2/4/2024 at 11:11 AM, shadroch said:

A problem with that is you are asking people to forgo a passion of theirs- collecting comics for a job.  Some sort of restrictions are needed, but a total ban isn't a good idea, imho.

Collecting comics doesn't inherently involve CGC, although it's a big part of the modern way.  But a much greater problem is the impropriety that it invites by allowing them to work with a huge conflict of interest.  Once that door is cracked open, you're just asking for something like this to happen.  

As a long-time comic book collector myself, I clearly tend to see and agree with both seemingly conflcting points of view here. 

Not sure about their policy of not buying and dealing in graded comic books, but was this a policy that Borock had implied only onto himself or did he also applied it to the graders and other employees within the company when he was heading up CGC?    

Edited February 5 by lou_fine

[DR.X]

On 2/4/2024 at 5:31 PM, lou_fine said:

 "generous" grading of the Promise Collection of pedigree books which makes you wonder who the so-called anonymous "secret" submittors really were?    

Was there a 1 year turnaround wait on that collection being certified ? Asking for a friend.

[buttock]

On 2/4/2024 at 6:24 PM, lou_fine said:

As a long-time comic book collector myself, I clearly tend to see and agree with both seemingly conflcting points of view here. 

Not sure about their policy of not buying and dealing in graded comic books, but was this a policy that Borock had implied only onto himself or did he also applied it to the graders and other employees within the company when he was heading up CGC?    

It was a policy from the beginning.  I'm not sure when it changed, but the expected outcome happened.  

[wombat]

On 2/4/2024 at 8:08 PM, valiantman said:

You are also allowed to disagree quietly. You don't have to be loud.

(That was a joke. I'll show myself out.)

[lou_fine]

On 2/4/2024 at 5:25 PM, DR.X said:

Was there a 1 year turnaround wait on that collection being certified ? Asking for a friend.

Most definitely NOT, as the Promise pedigree books were higher dollar value GA books, especially with the first batch all hitting 5 and 6-figures, as opposed to lower dollar value MA books.  

[trademarkcomics]

CGC's lawyers in 2024:

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 2/4/2024 at 7:08 PM, valiantman said:

On 2/4/2024 at 6:08 PM, wombat said:

Nothing personal. We are aloud to disagree.

You are also allowed to disagree quietly. You don't have to be loud.

(That was a joke. I'll show myself out.)

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 2/4/2024 at 8:02 PM, lou_fine said:

On 2/4/2024 at 7:25 PM, DR.X said:

Was there a 1 year turnaround wait on that collection being certified ? Asking for a friend.

Most definitely NOT, as the Promise pedigree books were higher dollar value GA books, especially with the first batch all hitting 5 and 6-figures, as opposed to lower dollar value MA books.  

That combined with the fact that they sent them from CGC to the auction house and both CGC and the auction house both ran massive ad campaigns. 

I am sure in addition to their fees just to grade they both were able to use those books to generate a nice pile of cash.

So many wondered why their books got kicked back in line as these rolled through.  Same reason why fast track moves quick that regular.  It's all about the $$$ they make. 

[Silver Surfer]

On 2/4/2024 at 2:28 PM, FlyingDonut said:

So I'm skimming through this - is it the case that the two people stole less than $30K worth of stuff and reslabbed it? My thought is that these are small time crooks who are clueless - there would be millions to be made from someone who had this kind of access and these two clowns got busted for thirty grand?

That’s probably what they could prove that they pinched, I’m sure a lot more got past them before CGC caught on. They probably let them get caught so they could make their lawsuit stick. 

[HighGrade]

On 2/4/2024 at 8:24 PM, lou_fine said:

As a long-time comic book collector myself, I clearly tend to see and agree with both seemingly conflcting points of view here. 

Not sure about their policy of not buying and dealing in graded comic books, but was this a policy that Borock had implied only onto himself or did he also applied it to the graders and other employees within the company when he was heading up CGC?    

Yeah, I don't really have issues with graders buying and selling comics, you need passionate collectors for the job, these people went well beyond that!  Even if you ban selling, as you can see there are loopholes, also nothing can be 100% anonymous when dealing in books with obvious defects or marks. The they "kinda" combat any favoritism is have books go through more than 1 grader, which I think they do for the most part. This scam went around that as we read he had books graded and wasn't happy with the grades so he couldn't just grade them himself even though he was a grader, he had to find a way to cheat the system.

I assume finding fast, HONEST none biased qualified graders is probably not as easy as we think, I know they are out there, but maybe they don't want the job for the current pay? I wouldn't want the job, I'm OCD so they would be like we need more than 15 books graded today!  So yeah speed also effects the quality, and happiness of the graders, I would hate being rushed with my job. So not always easy answers, profit is king, everything is a big business, not the little hotel hobby we had back in the 70's. Nobody sets up these companies out of the kindness of their hearts, they have to make money and deal with issues we don't even know about. Big money, big problems.

But this scam is so much more than just allowing or not allowing a grader to sell books, and it has easy ways to be fixed, these scammers were doing flat out theft and fraud, so I expect the lawsuit to help with keeping employees from doing some of these same tricks, and new procedures to be put in place. But the other issues with grading will always be with us, grade bumps, poor grades, mistakes, over worked graders, graders with a bad day... until we get robots grading, it will not be perfect, but scams like this, that can fixed.

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 2/4/2024 at 8:41 PM, trademarkcomics said:

CGC's lawyers in 2024:

As I was catching up on the last couple pages since I was here earlier,  I hit this post .

the absurd and perfectly accurate gif came up as I was mid sip of my drink. Well I started to laugh which half choke and it comes back up my nose. 

I'm still chuckling and half in tears. 

[darkstar]

On 2/4/2024 at 4:52 PM, jimjum12 said:

but CGC has had a policy of keeping the ownership info for each submission secret from the grading team to eliminate favoritism or cronyism.

Remember that time Vintage Magic, probably the largest vintage Magic the Gathering dealer in the world, opened a sealed Alpha starter deck at CGC HQ with the head grader of CGC's Trading Cards division present? And we're to believe that the people responsible for grading these cards didn't know who submitted them? CGC's policy may be true MOST of the time, but it definitely isn't true all of the time. We really don't need to rehash all the instances of exceptions being made throughout CGC's history, do we?

 

 

[ADAMANTIUM]

Someone mentioned that they only theived $30k

Didn't the suit mention $4mil plus in insurance filed with the books subbed through cgc? How that equates to only pocketing 30k doesn't sound feasible idk

[awakeintheashes]

On 2/4/2024 at 10:28 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Someone mentioned that they only theived $30k

Didn't the suit mention $4mil plus in insurance filed with the books subbed through cgc? How that equates to only pocketing 30k doesn't sound feasible idk

I think that’s the other scandal that’s going on. 
 

 

Edited February 5 by awakeintheashes

[lou_fine]

On 2/4/2024 at 7:10 PM, HighGrade said:

The they "kinda" combat any favoritism is have books go through more than 1 grader, which I think they do for the most part.

Please correct me if I am wrong here..............but I believe when CGC first started up in the beginning, it was 3 graders who had input into both the preliminary and final grades assigned to a book.  

With their current grading system, isn't it 2 or 3 graders involved in the preliminary grading process, but only the Head Grader gets to say what the final grade is, regardless of what the preliminary grades are?    

 

On 2/4/2024 at 7:10 PM, HighGrade said:

I wouldn't want the job, I'm OCD so they would be like we need more than 15 books graded today! 

I believe if you were grading only 15 books a hour, you would find yourself turfed out onto the street and queuing up in the unemployment line, let alone grading only 15 books in a whole entire day.    

[WolverineX]

On 2/4/2024 at 5:37 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

back in the days when the biggest scandal was wife stealing.... we are so jaded now. 

 

 

[WolverineX]

On 2/4/2024 at 2:51 PM, lou_fine said:

Not quite sure where you got this half BILLION dollar figure from, but I believe that Matt is running only the much smaller CGC portion of the CCG collectibles umbrella corporation that was brought out by Blackstone and a number of smaller investors.  

Jay Z must be pissed... Beyonce may have to do another world tour if these scandals destroy the company....