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Originally Posted by mighty bombjack
The volume has a lot to do with it. Mass marketing and mass production happen in many fields, and just like in those fields, when a consumer wants quantity at a cheaper price, quality is sacrificed. That is a consumer's choice. The TPAs are losing your business but gaining countless others because of their efficiency. Some people just don't care so much. This ain't medicine, man, on any level really.
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The problem with this line of thought is that people aren't getting this service at a cheaper price. If everybody was paying $5 per, I would probably agree with you that you get what you pay for. The problem is that people are paying full price and getting half quality with possible bias.
While I know this isn't medicine, there are certain parallels. Customers pay for a service and expect a certain level of both quality and speed. There is an old business axiom I learned a while ago that fits here. Products and services can be cheap, good, and fast, but customers will only get 2 out of 3. For example, if a product or service is fast and cheap, it probably won't be good, and so on. Well the TPAs don't even follow this because they are fast but certainly not cheap and whether or not you see them as good is iffy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mighty bombjack
Correct in spirit, but wrong in execution. We need not change the definition of authentication, but recognize that what the TPAs do is something different. If they were authenticating only, their fees would not directly correlate with the value of an autograph. Yet they do exactly that. TPAs, in effect, take a percentage of a potential selling price of an auto with their stamp. In that regard, they are more akin to marketers than authenticators. View them that way and you may see that their business model is not as broken as you think.
That doesn't mean you have to like them. They can be ignored like most other facets of this hobby.
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I think you hit the nail on the head with this comment. People don't care if the TPAs are right or wrong, because the only reason they are using their service is to increase resale prices. Perhaps PSA and JSA should change their names to PSM and JSM, Professional Sports Marketing and James Spence Marketing respectively. If we all accept that they are just expert marketers, then all this discussion stops, as any mistake, whether innocent, sloppy, or careless, and any evidence of bias becomes immaterial. After all, a marketer doesn't have to have any expertise in the authenticity of a product. They just have to know how to make it sell. I must give credit where credit is due and the TPAs certainly know how to market.
I have to say, I'm not sure if the general public realizes all of this. Usually, if I am selling something that doesn't have a cert, which is 99% of the stuff I sell, people will ask how can they be sure it's authentic if it doesn't have a cert. To me, this implies that they actually think the cert means that someone who is an expert reviewed the item and thinks its what I claim it is. Often times to give them some level of comfort, I'll even offer a refund if it doesn't pass one of them.
You are right. The business model isn't broken for them, but it is for us the consumers, that's why we complain. Unfortunately, it's impossible to ignore them if you're into autograph collecting, because they effect you either way. If you use them, the price of the item goes up, if for no other reason that to recoup the cost of the cert fees. This costs me more money when I am buying for my collection. If you don't use them, it makes things more difficult to sell, if your name isn't well known like Stinson, Simon, Cocoran, Keating, Marks, etc.