Bounties

[36GoudeyMan]

Not a joke or sarcastic: my wife works in IT, in cybersecurity, actually. Her company hires outside people to try to hack into her company's systems, and, if they do, and document what they did (show how its done so it can be fixed), the company pays a bounty (several thousand dollar actually). The benefit of the small bounty is a vastly more secured and tested system.

What if TPGs paid bounties (money, free grading, something) to outside individuals who seek out and find and document trimmed/altered cards so that the TPGs can ban the submitters, get info on the trimmers, etc.? (Oh yeah, and do something about them when found). The value of the greater scrutiny (hobby-wide by innumerable pairs of eyes) might get the TPGs back in the business of screening cards rather than screwing buyers of their slabs.

Just a random thought.

[swarmee]

I'm not sure the TPGs ever thought they'd need White Hats. Obviously it may be something they consider, but opening up themselves to additional liability can show pro-activeness or desperation, and could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Customers may like it, shareholders may not.

[steve B]

They should have occasional test submissions with cards known to be altered to see if they get through.

[jchcollins]

All of this assumes PSA at some point even acknowledges the situation and has an interest in trying to make things right. I've seen no evidence so far they care the least bit about doing that.

[Jobu]

Banning the doctors is a good idea, but won't fix anything as they will find other ways to get their cards submitted.

The fix is for the graders to find a way to actually do what they claim they can already do: accurately grade cards and detect alterations.

[darwinbulldog]

They should have occasional test submissions with cards known to be altered to see if they get through.

I would suggest making this part of the grader hiring process. Give all the job applicants a stack of cards, some of which are known to be good while others are known to have been altered in specific ways, and hire the applicants who most accurately identify those alterations. And pay them well.

[bnorth]

Banning the doctors is a good idea, but won't fix anything as they will find other ways to get their cards submitted.

The fix is for the graders to find a way to actually do what they claim they can already do: accurately grade cards and detect alterations.

Lets just assume the grading companies are completely on the up and up.

In my opinion they need to hire a former scum bag card doctor/counterfeiter to review cards before encapsulation. With someone that knows the tricks of the trade they would be able to spot bad cards better/faster than a normal grader even if well trained. I am sure a few bad cards would still get by them but it would be a LOT less.

The problem is it would cost the company too much revenue to actually do it. Kinda like how eBay disbanded the crew that pointed out bad listings.

[perezfan]

All of this assumes PSA at some point even acknowledges the situation and has an interest in trying to make things right. I've seen no evidence so far they care the least bit about doing that.

And even if they did, it would be like a major hotel making Richard Nixon their Head of Security.

Or replacing Kevin Costner with Ted Bundy, as Whitney Houston’s Bodyguard.

When incompetent or corrupt agencies want to self-police, it usually turns out badly.

[Bigdaddy]

That would require integrity, something that seems to be in short supply.

Actually, your wife's company sees that an IT breach could cost the company $$, either through lost customers/business or through the courts. Not sure that PSA sees that scenario yet. If they do, they'll make a change. If not, it will be business as usual.