Wen is enough PSA Shame on you!!!

[mybestbretts]

We hear it all the time, but this is really bad.
I sent in a 30 day grading to PSA dated April 9th. This was on a 30 day turnaround. I don't have it yet.
They received it on April 11.
Put into the system on May 8th.
I paid $17.00 a card for the 30 day special
I still don't have the cards.
PSA says it will be about 2 more weeks because of "the convention", BUT
they reduced my fee to $10.00 a card. BIG DEAL that's the bulk rate card price which is what I am getting anyway. No accommodation there.
What a way to treat long time customers.

[mybestbretts]

Sorry about that WHEN

[Johnny630]

Bottom line they don’t care.

The reason they do not care is because of their registry and pop repot, people think this is the money/golden ticket commodity.

Check out there line at the National it will be outta control. The others will look much different.

I agree with you, it’s not a good way treat a long term customer. Hang in there sir.

[hcv123]

I can't even get back into all the stories of read as well as a handful I experienced - last post hit it on the head. As long as they have the registry and people interested in competing on it - they will get away with poor service.

[JollyElm]

Speaking of the registry, you know what's funny? There's a member here (I assume it's him because the name is an exact match) who is a part of a certain master set registry and it says his set is 100% complete. However, and this is a big freakin' HOWEVER, the only reason his set is 'complete' is because he has a rare card that PSA mislabeled as the variation (The reason I know this is because I saw it on ebay awhile back and laughed that PSA really messed that one up. I then downloaded the auction image to keep it on file. It's sad, but I knew someone was going to buy it cheaply and use it for nefarious reasons.) when it is, in fact, the normal version of the card. It's graded a 9 and is (WRONGLY!!!) a pop of 1, the highest graded version of the card. Not only that, when you look at his set and click the image of said card, he friggin' blatantly photoshopped the image to try to make it appear like the variation. It's laughable!! (And yes, the serial numbers of the two cards mentioned here are the same.) Just a complete lack of integrity.

Is there a person at PSA who is in charge of maintaining the registries? Man, I'd love to drop him or her a note.

[vintagetoppsguy]

You answered your own question with your first statement..."We hear it all the time..." If you hear it all the time, why do you continue to submit to them?

[Leon]

Now that is amusing.

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Speaking of the registry, you know what's funny? There's a member here (I assume it's him because the name is an exact match) who is a part of a certain master set registry and it says his set is 100% complete. However, and this is a big freakin' HOWEVER, the only reason his set is 'complete' is because he has a rare card that PSA mislabeled as the variation (The reason I know this is because I saw it on ebay awhile back and laughed that PSA really messed that one up. I then downloaded the auction image to keep it on file. It's sad, but I knew someone was going to buy it cheaply and use it for nefarious reasons.) when it is, in fact, the normal version of the card. It's graded a 9 and is (WRONGLY!!!) a pop of 1, the highest graded version of the card. Not only that, when you look at his set and click the image of said card, he friggin' blatantly photoshopped the image to try to make it appear like the variation. It's laughable!! (And yes, the serial numbers of the two cards mentioned here are the same.) Just a complete lack of integrity.

Is there a person at PSA who is in charge of maintaining the registries? Man, I'd love to drop him or her a note.

[swarmee]

setregistry@collectors.com is the email. They will probably forward it to their identification team and may make the owner send the card back for proof.
They're not exactly hiding... https://www.psacard.com/PSASetRegistry/news

[jchcollins]

I have to say, the more I have read recently about both PSA's poor customer service AND their continued occasional propensity to totally flub the grading - I'm wondering how long they will continue to be the industry leader. Surely someone can do it better? The registry I get but pop report is already kind of a joke considering how many cards are routinely busted out and resubmitted. My main beef is the consistency of grading over time. I'm over the fact that I knew a long time ago that anyone who learned how to properly grade in the 1980's and who is lenient with certain types of tolerances is probably WAYYYY more qualified than whoever actually sits in grading rooms at PSA these days, but the fact that over time - particularly with mid-grade PSA 3-6 range cards - what they slabbed 15 years ago vs. in 2017 is not consistent. There are 1950's cards in PSA 5 slabs from 2002 that would be doing good to get 3's today. That defeats the whole point of professional grading...

At some point I think the insanity will stop and people will really realize that eye appeal along with hard facts about technical grading (i.e. there is no disputing this card is creased, that card has a dinged corner, etc...) will lead to a change in how grading works. For me at least right now, I think SGC is way more consistent and much easier to deal with.

[irv]

I know many defend PSA, and I get that, but the things I have seen in my relatively short time here on Net54 is enough for me to think I'll likely never send anything into PSA to get graded.

Ex, many grades that don't make sense, card corner reset/glued down and placed back in its original holder, Dimaggio tape stain/doctored card, swimming coach graded as if he were Ruth, the Honus Wagner card, etc, etc.

I get it that mistakes happen and I get how busy they likely are, but when people are spending huge amounts of money on grading, these types of things shouldn't be happening, imo.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by irv

I know many defend PSA, and I get that, but the things I have seen in my relatively short time here on Net54 is enough for me to think I'll likely never send anything into PSA to get graded.

I have never sent anything in personally, because that would likely be the last thing to cause me to totally lose my mind on raw cards that I have owned for a long time, and know every single detail of the flaws they have already. I buy PSA vintage online mainly for a point of reference with the grade and my price point, and to ensure that - figuring most times they are at least going to be in the right ballpark - a card doesn't have a hidden crease, or some other drastic flaw which is hard to spot that might lead to an otherwise 7 card grading a 3 or 4. I collect cards like that for eye-appeal over price, but don't want to pay ridiculous prices. For at least that much, I think TPG's are on the whole reputable. But yes, the consistency issues that PSA has across the board - would be very troublesome I would think for hardcore collectors.

[Peter_Spaeth]

The very fact that they have long delays is proof of their success. People are submitting in record numbers. Like Yogi said, nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded. Barring an epic scandal, IMO PSA will continue to dominate the industry.

[swarmee]

PSA can get away with a bunch of errors because they fix them for free, including shipping both ways. They also have a lot more errors because their volume dwarfs that of SGC nowadays. But if you point them out, they'll hang their hat, accept blame, and get it corrected. Half the stuff that gets pointed out happened 15 years ago. All grading companies make mistakes.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

The very fact that they have long delays is proof of their success. People are submitting in record numbers. Like Yogi said, nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded. Barring an epic scandal, IMO PSA will continue to dominate the industry.

From an economic standpoint that's true. That being said, my personal opinion is that PSA is about 60% hype, 40% service. I think they are overrated for what they do. Granted the reality of the situation is that assigning hard grades in a process that by it's nature will never be anything but subjective is a tall order. The trick is convincing people you do it well. Clearly, PSA still has the majority of their customers convinced. Just not me.

[ALR-bishop]

While I do not collect graded stuff I fully get the allure and draw of the Registry to many collectors. But if the market is big enough ( do not know if it really is ) then history would indicate some well financed major competitor at some point will give it a go.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by swarmee

PSA can get away with a bunch of errors because they fix them for free, including shipping both ways. They also have a lot more errors because their volume dwarfs that of SGC nowadays. But if you point them out, they'll hang their hat, accept blame, and get it corrected. Half the stuff that gets pointed out happened 15 years ago. All grading companies make mistakes.

Funny stuff! When are they going to correct Cert # 00000001?

[Promethius88]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

While I do not collect graded stuff I fully get the allure and draw of the Registry to many collectors. But if the market is big enough ( do not know if it really is ) then history would indicate some well financed major competitor at some point will give it a go.

Biggest problem I see with this scenario is that there is already tens of millions of dollars invested in grading with PSA. Getting someone to crossover tons of cards, complete set collectors for example, is going to just be too expensive imo. Now, I could see it over a long period of time if said company was so much better and more cost effective and everyone started to gravitate there as sets are broken down and sold off.

As far as the love/hate with tpg, I believe it has been very educational. While we know that the pop reports are not accurate, for myself, it has still been eye opening over the years. My example, maybe 15 years ago I started on a quest to build a PSA 8 70-71 Topps basketball set as I couldn't afford the 69's in that grade and I really like the tallboys. Well, when you are putting together a raw set, you may know the short prints that are a little more difficult or certain common cards that might be a little more difficult to find but you will settle for something that is lower grade because it is not a superstar. But what hit me, and my wallet, was finding that some of these cards were virtually impossible to find in high grade, centered, no print dots, etc. This is something that the experienced collector might know that has been collecting a certain set for years but not someone new to either the hobby or a particular series. While it's not exact, it's still a pretty good reference, even if you only collect raw, to know what obstacles you might face collecting a particular card or set.
Anyhow, that's just my opinion. Good discussion and happy collecting to all!
Tim

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Funny stuff! When are they going to correct Cert # 00000001?

On the 13th of never.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Funny stuff! When are they going to correct Cert # 00000001?

Amen. People at a minimum should realize that the very first card they ever graded was a disaster. If that card had been in an "A" slab what would it have sold for? PSA is ostensibly the authentication and grading "experts." Yet when asked why that was not caught, David Hall of PSA's explanation? "It doesn't look trimmed to me." Seriously? WTF!?! Nice detailed "expert" explanation.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Funny stuff! When are they going to correct Cert # 00000001?

When the owner sends it in.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Promethius88

Biggest problem I see with this scenario is that there is already tens of millions of dollars invested in grading with PSA. Getting someone to crossover tons of cards, complete set collectors for example, is going to just be too expensive imo. Now, I could see it over a long period of time if said company was so much better and more cost effective and everyone started to gravitate there as sets are broken down and sold off.

As far as the love/hate with tpg, I believe it has been very educational. While we know that the pop reports are not accurate, for myself, it has still been eye opening over the years. My example, maybe 15 years ago I started on a quest to build a PSA 8 70-71 Topps basketball set as I couldn't afford the 69's in that grade and I really like the tallboys. Well, when you are putting together a raw set, you may know the short prints that are a little more difficult or certain common cards that might be a little more difficult to find but you will settle for something that is lower grade because it is not a superstar. But what hit me, and my wallet, was finding that some of these cards were virtually impossible to find in high grade, centered, no print dots, etc. This is something that the experienced collector might know that has been collecting a certain set for years but not someone new to either the hobby or a particular series. While it's not exact, it's still a pretty good reference, even if you only collect raw, to know what obstacles you might face collecting a particular card or set.
Anyhow, that's just my opinion. Good discussion and happy collecting to all!
Tim

Agreed it has been educational. Again, I'm not totally against TPG's, I just think there is still a lot of room for improvement.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by swarmee

When the owner sends it in.

That's just it though, the owner does not have to send it in to be corrected on PSA's end. I have seen (many times) where PSA made a mistake on the label and the owner refuses to send the card in and PSA either corrects it in their database or removes the card from their database. Why can't PSA do it with this one?

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

That's just it though, the owner does not have to send it in to be corrected on PSA's end. I have seen (many times) where PSA made a mistake on the label and the owner refuses to send the card in and PSA either corrects it in their database or removes the card from their database. Why can't PSA do it with this one?

Because to do so in this particular case would be front page hobby news, and would create nothing but negative publicity for PSA. Some might give them credit for being "honest" after all this time, sure - but it would re-ignite the whole debate again and they don't want that. This was almost the perfect storm: Yes, they screwed up on the very first card they ever put in a slab - but it just happened to be the single most famous and expensive card in the entire hobby - and even in the $hitstorm that eventually ensued - the card did not lose value. Not by a long shot.

Personally, I believe that PSA would have had a lot more trouble had the story about Bill Mastro come out at the time of the Gretzky-McNall sale, or shortly thereafter in the months that followed. But it didn't - took years and even decades I think before that was all later proven. So yeah, we now have proof based on what they got off a wire I believe from jailbird Mastro and what he admitted to doing - but PSA sheepishly still stands by tongue-in-cheek claiming that the card is a PSA 8 and not an A. Whatever, I get it. It's the perfect storm because this card is an anomaly if there ever was one. Even if trimmed it's still going to be worth millions of dollars because of the publicity and the controversy. Even if trimmed, it's easily the most eye-appealing copy of the Wagner card known to the hobby.

So bottom line, PSA got lucky. Is it a fair question theoretically why they haven't gone and updated the grade in the database? Of course. But realistically? Not in a million years...

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Because to do so in this particular case would be front page hobby news, and would create nothing but negative publicity for PSA. Some might give them credit for being "honest" after all this time, sure - but it would re-ignite the whole debate again and they don't want that. This was almost the perfect storm: Yes, they screwed up on the very first card they ever put in a slab - but it just happened to be the single most famous and expensive card in the entire hobby - and even in the $hitstorm that eventually ensued - the card did not lose value. Not by a long shot.

Personally, I believe that PSA would have had a lot more trouble had the story about Bill Mastro come out at the time of the Gretzky-McNall sale, or shortly thereafter in the months that followed. But it didn't - took years and even decades I think before that was all later proven. So yeah, we now have proof based on what they got off a wire I believe from jailbird Mastro and what he admitted to doing - but PSA sheepishly still stands by tongue-in-cheek claiming that the card is a PSA 8 and not an A. Whatever, I get it. It's the perfect storm because this card is an anomaly if there ever was one. Even if trimmed it's still going to be worth millions of dollars because of the publicity and the controversy. Even if trimmed, it's easily the most eye-appealing copy of the Wagner card known to the hobby.

So bottom line, PSA got lucky. Is it a fair question theoretically why they haven't gone and updated the grade in the database? Of course. But realistically? Not in a million years...

Understood, I just thought what John said was amusing, "But if you point them out, they'll hang their hat, accept blame, and get it corrected." I have never, ever, ever, ever seen PSA admit blame...never, ever, ever for anything. Sure they may fix their mistake at no cost, cover shipping both ways, etc., but I have watched time after time, year after year PSA try to sweep anything negative under the rug. To say they hang their hat and accept blame is laughable.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Understood, I just thought what John said was amusing, "But if you point them out, they'll hang their hat, accept blame, and get it corrected." I have never, ever, ever, ever seen PSA admit blame...never, ever, ever for anything. Sure they may fix their mistake at no cost, cover shipping both ways, etc., but I have watched time after time, year after year PSA try to sweep anything negative under the rug. To say they hang their hat and accept blame is laughable.

Yeah totally agreed. They'll accept blame if they screw something up on a $50 card. But anything that would actually make waves - never.

[jchcollins]

Here's another example - anyone remember the post from last year I think - a Gretzky rookie in a PSA 8 case had a back corner that was flipped up, obvious layering - 100%. Should have been like a 5 or a 6 on that card at the most. It was pretty on the front, even with the messed-up corner on the back. Anyhow, long post here on Net54 - the OP sent it back and what did PSA do? Took the card out of the slab, flipped the corner back down much like I would have done at age 11 with a random card I was trying to put into a toploader. Then put it back into a new slab, put the PSA 8 flip back on, and sent it back to OP saying "no 'permanent' damage" or some other nonsense BS.

Whaaaa....? A card with a badly layered corner - no matter how pretty or how difficult that corner is to notice - is not a PSA 8!

Just saying it's very easy to break your own rules when there is incentive, and probably doubly-so in a company where the very first card they ever graded was fraudulent.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by swarmee

setregistry@collectors.com is the email. They will probably forward it to their identification team and may make the owner send the card back for proof.
They're not exactly hiding... https://www.psacard.com/PSASetRegistry/news

Snideness aside, thanks for the link. Ha ha. I've never even thought of venturing into the area of set registries, so I had no clue if there was a way for a random person to bring up an issue. I sent them a message today and they got back to me very quickly, asking me to send the evidence to them, so they can investigate the 'matter.'

[Johnny630]

IMO Graded Cards Will continue to go down with this booming economy.
The Best time to sell your graded cards for a profit was 2015- early 16. Those cycles come and go. I’m holding mine for the next crazy run. It will come just have to be patient.

[Paul S]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Snideness aside, thanks for the link. Ha ha. I've never even thought of venturing into the area of set registries, so I had no clue if there was a way for a random person to bring up an issue. I sent them a message today and they got back to me very quickly, asking me to send the evidence to them, so they can investigate the 'matter.'

t
One dude and five hot chicks. He's a Pop 1! Lots of investigation goin' on there

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

That's just it though, the owner does not have to send it in to be corrected on PSA's end. I have seen (many times) where PSA made a mistake on the label and the owner refuses to send the card in and PSA either corrects it in their database or removes the card from their database. Why can't PSA do it with this one?

And yet in your other post you are screaming at PSA for not correcting their mistakes. A bit inconsistent, no?

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

And yet in your other post you are screaming at PSA for not correcting their mistakes. A bit inconsistent, no?

Huh? What are you talking about? I've always said PSA should correct their mistakes. I'm saying it here too. Where did I say otherwise???