scam alert: fake psa cards from ebay seller "cardregistry"
 

Bob Evans.



i am good thru amex/paypal.

bought a 67 mantle 9 from this guy.

http://www.ebay.com/usr/cardregistry...72.m2749.l2754

typical re-sealment job.

i sent the card to psa and got the letter attached.

asked for a refund from seller w/i 48 hrs. said he couldn't.

but good thru amex/paypal.


however, interesting notes that others may be concerned about...

after conversing w/ seller afterwards, here are some more facts:

1. seller never had cards in hand. people paid him, "consignee" shipped.
2. he told me that he is in the midst of $150,000+ other fake cards sold.
3. i know he had a few other mantles and gem 10 rcs of: montana, rice and your typical marquee rookies.
4. they have removed the listing and pics, but this reseal job was scary good.


so might wanna pass this around or check your inventory to see if ya bought anything from this guy.

cant say for sure it was him or if he was just the beautiful idiot that took on a "consignment " w/o ever having the cards in his actual hands,

but just wanted to give everyone else a heads up that there's another 150K worth of fakes recently dumped into the market.

http://caimages.collectors.com/psaim...2/ryan6011.jpg

Do you have a picture of the card? I'm curious to see if this was an older PSA case or even the newer PSA cases w/ new hologram flip are at risk.

i do. gimme a sec to find her...

here is the scan i had to provide psa in an attempt to have the card removed from someone else's set....

That does look "scary" good, as you said. I'm glad you got your money back.

Wow.

So this seller's attitude was basically yeah I know I sold you a bad card but tough luck?

ehh. sorta, kinda, not really...

it was more like:

"omg, i have just sold $150K in fake cards, that i never held. what the hell was i thinking. i've already paid this guy, i got bigger fish to fry but please bear with me..."

so gave him 48hrs to refund. he said he couldn't, so i took care of it my way...

amex already credited.

was thinking about sending in the letter to get "psa/dna verified" though!

HAHA!!!

Why you ever sign up to be a middle man on eBay without handling the goods? That's asking for trouble.

that's exactly what i told him.

i honestly think and feel that this poor guy is the dupe!

Thanks for the heads up on this, Bob! Sucks that you had to go through this process.

What were the signs that tipped you off to it being a reseal, if you don't mind sharing? The scan shows almost no signs of frosting, so that's disheartening.

PSA's note indicated that the seal was "clearly violated". Is this true?

Finally, (sorry for all the questions :) ) was this the older style holder where you can feel the seam along the sides, or the newer style where the bottom portion fits into the top portion? Thanks!

no, it wasn't clearly visible.

i wish i woulda took a better scan of the entire holder...

i think i did and don't want to make any accusations just yet, BUT

to answer your question:

i tried to add it to my inventory on psacard.
other owner of the other mantle said he still had his card.
psa asked me to send it in*.

and this is the kicker:

since i couldn't log it in on psacard.com b/c someone else wouldn't release the cert
i created my own spec using the "add other inventory" tab.
i always do this when someone doesn't release a cert number simply because it let's me keep pertinent info.

well, the "1967 topps mantle psa 9" along w/ the front/back scans has vanished. again, i certainly hope they wouldn't and don't know for 100% certainty but i just hope they didn't go in to my inventory page and delete something....

* i would have sent her in regardless for a reholder. i do this w/ all cards over a certain threshold for protection. the other person not releasing the cert simply pushed it from being on the back burner so to speak...

Great attitude. Tough shit Bob, hope you work it out with your credit card company.

Uh-Oh, I bought two PSA 10 HOF Football Rc's from him in Nov. Not a huge amount, about $400 total but do you recommend me sending them in?

are they modern cards? seller did appear to be reputable prior to this dumb move.

go ahead and post scans, if ya want...but I think you might be good if they were in nov.

these fakes cards were posted around jan 7th.

yep, im good.

just another day.

At that $$$ level you are probably fine, I think it's the Montanas and Rices and Youngs of the world where the issues are. Hopefully anyhow.

I posted long ago that all the big cards should be on the registry so if you were going to buy a card an email would go out to the 'owner' so they could challenge it if they chose to be included on an email list

in your case the real owner just so happened to be on the registry and it worked out, if the card wasnt you likely woudnt of ever known for a least a very long time and long enough you may never of gotten your money back

everyone was worried about privacy concerns of doing my suggestion but you can see it saved you and again even if 40% of the real owners chose to be on a 'owner registry' ...thats 40% more fake mantles etc that can be discovered fast...

seriously, dude?

i've never even read your post about whatever babble you decided to go on about.

in fact, i usually overlook anything you actually post.

(that's why i edited and put "NM" when i realized it was you looking for a 54 aaron 7 in your wtb thread)

but please do not try and take any credit that you saved me in any type of fashion.

i stick to my self set protocols and this card woulda been sent in for a reholder anyways.

i'm also thoroughly educated on my return parameters/time frames and the legalities involved to cover my own a$$.

i got this down to a science.

feel free to re-read the thread, but don't try to take any credit for some nonsense babble you posted god knows when.

shoo fly.

seriously dude? I not sure anyone will agree with the point of yours post...i didnt say anything against you yet you posted some wierd stuff...not sure what you mean about the Aaron as well....and also not sure what you mean that it doesn't matter when someone pointed out something..there was a past thread or two..one of them was a discussoin with Peter Spieth actually..

i was simply showing how it worked out for you and that a system could help could help the card community a large. I get that you are the master yet you still had the need to post something there....perhaps you were trying to do some good to the community..i not see what the problem is with my suggestion with was an attempt to help the card community which I made long ago and i just noted that it appeared to work for you.......no biggie go on with your attacking non-sense...... im sure you have lots of RC Aarons to sell now...maybe you should of continued to overlook my posts and done us both a favor....of course if you respond that thats one more post you arent overlooking which would than appear you havent overlooked squat....but please overlook in future..thanks

Interesting info, Bob. Thanks.

cardregistry (2419)

Last 12 months:

1,032 positive
0 neutral
0 negative

I don't post this to challenge your story, I believe you, I am just baffled that this seller doesn't have any negative feedback.

Did PSA crack the card of the holder before they sent it back?

i checked him out previous to the purchase as well.

which is why i believe him when he said the cards were "consignments" after the fact.

this was purchased on jan 7.

but between the time that i actually got the card.

attempted to add the card to the registry.

wait the 3 days before i can request it be removed via email w/ a scan to psa.

wait their 2 days process to do the removal

find out that there is an issue from psa

converse back and forth

wait for a pre-paid label from them

mail the thing.

wait for it to get logged. (logged in feb 9th btw)

usually only takes 5 biz days to get things like this cleared up,

so this one musta been good bc it took close to 15 biz days and several wtf phone calls.

and just got the results this thurs...


throw all of the above in w/ a couple of holidays and we are unfortunately around 45 days to get a verifiable answer. i am probably ultimately the first to catch him/them on this round of fakes.

also, once i notified ebay that it was a fake i was unable to leave any feedback whatsoever.

still in disbelief about ebays stance on this and that they would remove the listing all together and not allow me to leave feedback.

yep.

cracked it, confiscated the holder and flip.

had them send the card to him.

Scary stuff. Makes you wonder how many others are floating around in collections, not just the 150k in cards from this guy.

So was the card real, just not quite a 9?

exactly.

i am no master. there is always more room to learn.

but to answer what i think was an attempt at a question,

my sole reason to post this was to notify others of a serious and recent issue.

this otherwise flawless seller had some serious "cardboard" "consigned" which ultimately is fake and was used to run a $150K scheme in a matter of a month.

if this happened to someone else, i certainly would appreciate a heads up as well. i think anybody would.

in fact, i'd feel worse if i didn't post anything about it actually.

card was 100% real. just "altered".

all they would give me.

take a solid 7, doctor her up a lil bit.

slip her into a very nicely tampered psa holder

insert a fake* flip

find a somewhat reliable ebay seller to take the consignment

and make $4K.


* the flip looked scary good as well. font was spot on. i did the flashlight test (no overlabel) and redlaser'd the barcode and it spit out the right cert number as well.

Somewhere south of the border, someone is laughing his butt off, all the way to the bank.

i have heard that as well. mexico, correct?

Si.

dios mio!

right and my idea would help the card community..the way you found out about the fake would be the exact same way others could be helped by my idea as it just happened in practice with you but right now its very limited....just putting it out there so others can be helped...

It was only a matter of time before these professional thieves took notice of the surging card prices to make the counterfeit process worthwhile. Very scary. If I was PSA I would institute a team to tackle this issue before it damages their credibility and hurts the hobby irreparably.

i still waiting for the half grade fake...when one of those shows up we know the floodgates have opened....and i wish PSA would implement an 'owner registry' (being informed if someone has a dup cert number out there without yourself building a card registry) as stated before.....if anyone else has ideas for PSA as AJjohnsonsox fan wants PSA to tackle the issue im sure PSA is all ears as well

With a bad Mantle 8 having been pulled from a recent auction in a new holder with the hologram, they may have opened already.

we know for sure that Mantle was bad? I never heard the outcome of that but i guess if its not relisted than that answers that......

This happened over a dozen years ago...http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=63017. There are various versions of the what took place. PSA has their version of course but the resealing of holders is nothing new. Only thing about this latest run, most of which are tied to coming out of Mexico, is that it is much more high profile cards.

Yeah it was bad. Someone who had the real one apparently sounded the alarm.

I was told the Mantle was real just altered. The holder was resealed and it is PSA's stance is that it was very obvious. I am not sure that part is 100% accurate though or simply PSA trying to cover up their that their new holder can be opened and resealed. That card is linked to the Mexico operation.

would of been real easy if they could of been contacted on a owner registry before an auction house got duped....was the mantle fake or just a lower grade..i wonder how much the owner of the fake psa 8 mantle paid for the card or when he bought it from craigslist.... PSA seems to always say the tampering of the holder looks obvious...but not obvious to me when i see pictures

'61 Marichal....
 

He has a supposed PSA 10 Marichal Rookie and the bottom right hand corner is fuzzy!?!?!?!?!?!? :eek::eek:

Wow!!!! Stay far away!

Peace, Mike

Link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1961-TOPPS-J...4AAOSwqrtWmVXt


Attachment 222738

Does it have to be a situation where their holder has been opened and resealed. What if someone has been able to duplicate the holder. They then buy some low value cards in new psa holders to get a hold of the new flips with holograms and create new fake flips using the holograms that have been skinned from the real flips on the cheap cards. They then take their PSA substituted holders, put in a lower grade star card with the fabricated flip. Is that possible/probable? Does PSA make the holders on site or do they buy them from suppliers?

That hologram looks strange.

The following is from the Collectors Universe annual report :

http://investors.collectors.com/secf...32&CIK=1089143

"Supplies

In order to obtain volume discounts through June 30, 2015, we have chosen to purchase substantially all of the injection-molded plastic parts for our clear plastic holders principally from two suppliers. We have chosen to order our most critical high-volume plastic part from both of these suppliers. We choose one or the other of these suppliers to manufacture other less critical parts. We typically concentrate the purchase of holders through one supplier when developing new holders. There are numerous suppliers for these parts, and we believe that, if necessary, we could obtain those parts from other suppliers without incurring significant costs. However, if it became necessary for us to obtain any parts from another supplier, we might have to arrange for the fabrication of a die for the new supplier. Fabrication of high-value precision dies can be a lengthy process. Although we do not have back-up dies for some of our high-value volume injection-molded parts, we own the dies used to manufacture the parts, and we believe the inventory of parts we maintain is sufficient to give us the time to have another supplier build the parts, should the need to do so arise or should we decide to use another supplier for certain parts."

i would imagine you could book a flight to china w/ a holder in hand and have multiple manufacturers set up w/in minutes....flips too.

ship them to mexico. grab a sonic welder, start buying up cards & voilà!

$150k in a month!

and i think the marichal is real. it has his carpet background, so that just may be psa! ; )

here is a list of items sold w/ highest prices first.

remember, this guy didn't have them "in hand"....

you will see that the first couple all have the "black background" vs his carpet background

my mantle is removed from the list, i know there was an 86 rice 10 and jeter sp 10 that seem to have disappeared from the sold list

but these are some biggies and there are probably a few more that were done direct....

http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?item=...gistry&_sop=16

I have doubts about the "I'm just a consigner" excuse. I know the seller's history looks good, but we've seen recently what greed can do to the best of them.

More importantly, consigners will soon have some liability for fraudulent auctions, and it's long overdue. Can't play the dumb-card much longer.

Otherwise, why not open an auction house, sell all of your fraudulent cards, and then say say they were someone else's cards. Oh wait, that's already been done.

Thanks for letting us know about this this Bob. Man, these fake holders send a chill down my spine. I only know Bob from his postings here and on the CU boards, but I'm confident that he's seen enough PSA holders that if this one could have passed the eye test to him initially, these con artists are mighty sophisticated.

Wow, lots of current bids on those cards too! :eek:

They scan different ways depending on how the light reflects.

Has this guy turned his consignee into the authorities? Has he told you the guys name? What area are these "fake" cards coming from? If he hasn't, he's in on it.

A few years back it was discovered that many fakes were coming from south of the border. It has been investigated by the Secret Service in CA but I don't know if that got anywhere. It is a big scheme.

I understand, but explain to me how this guy is consigning cards with someone he doesn't know? Are these cards showing up in his mail box. Doesn't the thief have to fill out a form with loads of personal/financial information?

Seems to me that once Bob notified him of the fraudulent cards, he would turn over his consignee to the authorities. Is this too simple?

From what I remember it was a ponzi type scheme before. I think one guy ended up in jail back then, in California?. If you search some, on this board, you will find some answers. I spent quite a few hours on it back then.

I doubt the distribution scheme is that simple, it probably has multiple levels, although I don't know.

The authorities are aware of certain individuals who are acting as mules for the guy in Mexico who is resealing these holders. Have no idea why arrests have not been made. I understand that PSA is actively cooperating with the investigation but also keeping it very quiet. This is very much like the WIWAG scandal in 2002 where collectors were not being looked out for--just need to make sure the brand is protected. PSA feels the best way to do that is not call attention to the problem.

a few updates...

after texting w/ seller and entering into "aggressive" negotiations, it appears that he has notified other buyers of the issue. as it has come to my attention that the seller was notified that another card was a fake and i laid into him for not telling me that mine was fake. (i told him jan 26, there was a possible issue and that i had to send the card to psa).

so basically laid into him that he knew something fishy was transpiring and that he shoulda at least notified me that it was a probable fake instead of me waiting around on psa's verdict. his reply was that "he was hoping it was an isolated incident and that he was hoping for the best." completely wrong answer and excuse in my book.

he also stated that the bird/magic rookie was sent in as well however that it was legit. i have a call set up w/ joe o. on Monday afternoon and will inquire if there is any truth to this claim.

at this time, i do know that he did notify another unsuspecting buyer who has contacted me so it appears the negotiation tactics did work, but i still believe that it shouldn't have required a swift kick in the....

i am still working this to gauge and possibly gather any of the "consignees" contact info so that i can forward any info to psa/proper authorities.

at this point it's a delicate balance, but so far it seems he has at least notified 1 other seller after i told him to "wake the f up" and you need to notify any and everybody you sold these cards to...

whether or not joe can confirm if the bird/magic rc was legit will tell me all i need to know about whether this guy is in on it or simply a beautiful schmuck.

if he's in on it, may god help him....

I really don't think he is in on it but I could be wrong. I also bought from him years back and everything was legit. I also believe him to be on the Set Registry although I don't know his registry name or collecting interests.

His inventory is very high end and spans many TPGs. Most of it is newer stuff and he has plenty of five figure cards in BGS holders as well. Hope I am right although in todays collecting world I know better than to get my hopes up.

I don't know if it's relevant to how PSA grades the 80 Topps but the perforations do not appear to me to be centered between the panels.

begsu1013 did you post this scam warning on collectors universe sports card forum yet?

Wow!! And we all thought that autographs were the worst part of the collecting hobby :eek::eek:

mr. alt,

no. my posting privileges were revoked for speaking my mind and certainly not embarrassed about it one bit.

for some reason i was never into gag orders, upgrades that didn't work, getting lied to about who was responsible for fixing the glitches or being told that i simply wasn't important enough to care about.

but that's just me. i'm also allergic to shark bites.

in a weird turn of events though, it worked out pretty well as i am not swirling the toilet bowl after the proverbial dump they took on ya'll. ; )

never did see that link in the $200,00K mantle thread that i asked for...

you run and dodge really well.

you should be glad.

That's unfortunate you got banned from Collectors universe sports forums. You could have warned people in that forum about how you got scammed.

How many minutes would that thread have lasted?

trust me, i've lost all sorts of sleep over it...

but kinda confused on how i got scammed?

amex credited me.

but please enlighten me w/ your masked and infinite wisdom....

(notice the deflection again on the link i requested)

and what's your name again, jdogg?

So your saying this crime is a never-ending consignment? Everyone says he's consigning for someone else all the way down the line?

Interestingly, Joe's letter to Bob only addresses the holder, not the card. Would be nice if PSA also addressed the authentication of the card along with the holder next time.

Not necessarily. I am just guessing that like a drug cartel, there are enough intermediaries that the trail is going to be hard to trace back to the man even if someone gets caught.

Agree
 

I agree with you Peter. Need to catch people like this but how many degrees of separation do we find? How long is the trail. But it sucks. And more of this crap is happening. Frustrating and discouraging

I have been told by a few reliable sources that there are dealers who have talked with or had contact with the guy who is directly involved with the resealing. Would seem to me that an arrest would have been made if this were true. Dunno...

His registered name, per the rules, is Jas.on Che.ng. I have emailed and let him know I would like to have a chat on the phone at his earliest convenience. I have found it worthwhile to chat with our members for a couple minutes (on the phone) about their collecting focus while keeping the board as safe as it can be (within certain constraints).

ps...spoke with Jason on the phone this evening. Didn't sound like an alt...

Maybe Sean Penn and that Mexican actress can arrange a meeting with him.

I spoke with the supposed mastermind several times. Try tracing/catching someone using some kind of magic jack phone who is based in Mexico but seems to be very mobile. I don't think it's a gimme..I really don't know what happened to that investigation in the end either. I understand one guy downstream got picked up on some kind of fraud charge but really don't know good details (or remember them). And all of that was a few years ago, or so. I presume if not stopped the culprit kept doing what he does...which is defrauding collectors using altered holders and cards.

Psa holders
 

I have always thought that psa holders should be designed to change colors after sonic bonding. If cracked, the sonic bonded area could then easily show significant damage. The flips should also include micro-print only visible with a 10x loupe. Psa needs to work harder than the us treasury to protect the consumer.

Well I have no idea about how the underworld works but there are currently dealers in the US who are tied to this guy while claiming total innocence. If this was important enough to national security magic jack phones or not, I suspect his operation would not be ramping up as it appears to be.

If high end cards keep fetching the ludicrous sums that they have been, then people will keep sending in their cards to get graded. As long as those two things keep happening, the scammers will keep scamming and PSA will continue to not care. Rinse, wash repeat. Ego, delusion and denial will keep this train running forever.

A while back, I realized it was cheaper to buy raw cards and, even if 75% are messed with, I'm still out less than if I bought one high grade slabbed card that turned out to be bogus.

haha...i think sean penn...and "the actress" have learned their lesson with el chapo!

something doesnt look right with his 1957 Topps Basketball cards
 

The color in the Russell rookie is way off

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1957-TOPPS-B...cAAOSwA4dWIT9r

ditto with a bunch of others. like the 57 Cousy--

The cards look strange, but perhaps his scanner is just changing the colors significantly. Scanner could be altering the image.
Also a number of other high end cards in PSA holders just look off, but perhaps its the scans.