A vast majority of collectors seem to like The Emperor's New Clothes. The number on the flip is more important than the actual item being evaluated. :confused:

Unfortunately for some I think this is true. I have a modest collection I keep at home and fiddle with more or less every day (moreso since COVID and working from home, probably). Some dudes spend thousands regularly on single slabs and stock their bank safety deposit boxes, never seeing the cards after they are purchased. That may be "investment", but it's not a hobby. I'll take the latter.

:) That about sums it up for me as well.

Believe it or not you can both enjoy a hobby and keep some of your more expensive cards safe at the bank. What I or anyone else chooses to spend on a card doesn't make collecting them any more or less of a hobby.

Consign and buy.....
 

I consign and buy from PWCC consistently. There are some of us that have been around long enough that can easily tell a trimmed or doctored card in a TPG holder. I don't buy those. I buy bargains! Plenty to be had when you really look.

Peace, Mike

Sorry, did not mean to pigeonhole anyone. Yes clearly, there are also quite informed collectors that enjoy the hobby who store valuable cards somewhere other than their home. What I meant was at least in some cases, I get the idea that some people do this purely as an investment, and don't really know / care anything about cards. You do not sound like one of those people. I should clarify to say of course there is nothing wrong with that. Each unto their own.

Never Again PWCC
 

PWCC blatantly and consistently violates eBay shipping policy.

EBay is unequivocal. You may always lower a shipping charge below what's listed in a given listing after a sale. You may never increase a shipping charge, no matter what other verbiage you put in the rest of the listing to justify it, or in invoices or emails after the purchase. The original shipping charge is the max, period (unless you agree to pay more by accepting an invoice after the fact with higher shipping than the original listing). This is easy to confirm. Ebay's seller rules state as much.

This seems to be their shipping pricing model in a nutshell. List shipping at a low cost, then after the fact, increase that price by as much as double.

They just tried this with me. Won two lots at auction. Shipping charges for both were listed at $33. They sent me an invoice with shipping at $65. I will not pay that extra. I wanted the cards, so I've spent a week going back and forth with them (and with eBay help) but to no avail. They won't budge and neither will I. This is as much about principle now as it is about gouging. Now, after a week, the items are still sitting out there unpaid and they're going to remain unpaid. I will not let them get away with this. They refuse to cancel the order and they will not open a "unpaid item" case. Ebay tells me I'm in the right and will win any case, but that eBay cannot force PWCC to sell to me at the original shipping price; however, I am assured I will not lose a case. Anxious to see how this turns out.

Ron McCr@ry

Never deal with these unethical idiots, if you can help it. If you do, fight tooth and nail about additional shipping charges. They do not get to do that and if we keep taking it, they'll keep doing it. Besides, they're just plain stupid. How short-sighted is it to blow a $5,500 sale over $35 bucks???
Ron McCr@ry

Please clarify - $33 for each item and they are charging you $66 per item? I, too, have reached out on what I thought were exhorbidant (sp) shipping charges. But, they have always adjusted them for me.

Never Again PWCC
 

No, and these were fairly big-ticket items. I won a '55 Topps partial set, and shipping was set to $8. A few minutes later, I won a Clemente rookie, andshipping was set to $25. Auctions totaled about $5,500 before shipping. Before I could even pay, they sent an invoice for the auctions plus $65 for shipping (instead of the $8 and $25 they stated in the listings). I refused to pay the invoice for the higher shipping charges. I exchanged about 10 messages back and forth with them and got nowhere. Reported them as violating selling rules to eBay, which they are. Apparently, nobody's fought back on this crap. They're now stuck and I don't think they know what to do with me. They refuse to cancel the transaction. They refuse to do what's right (ship at the original rate). They refuse to open an "unpaid item" case. So it's just sitting out here in limbo. Again, eBay rules are unequivocal. You don't get to raise your shipping price after the fact, unless the buyer agrees to it. Ebay assures me I won't get dinged for unpaid item, because I have the rules behind me. No idea how this will turn out, but if more of us told them "HELL NO you're not adding shipping charges after the fact", maybe they'll start to listen.

agree

I respect the positions of all the 'never-PWCCers' here. This just is not a 100% 'nice' business. There are a lot of cons, crooks, grifters, corner-cutters, etc. Cash businesses and collectibles always attract those sorts. There are also many really great, honest as the day is long, folks and I try to steer everything I can their way.

I guess the bottom line is that everyone has their own line in the sand. I was at a show once and I heard a dealer I used to buy from all the time use a certain really ugly racial slur. Made my skin crawl. I walked away and never dealt with him again. Racism is my third rail; I won't deal with bigots. Too much family blood in the ground in Poland for that...

I am not simon-pure on the question of shoddy or crooked dealers. When Legendary liquidated the Dreier collection I went after and won several of the rare boxing lots even though I knew by then that the people running the AH were crooks (now-convicted felons Doug Allen and Mark Theotikos). I didn't care. As long as the cards were delivered and at the price I was willing to pay I was fine with it. Some of the cards remain centerpieces of my collection.

Adam, very well stated!

Hi Adam,

I hear you man. They had some stuff that you weren't going to see again for a long time and you wanted it. It's now a centerpiece of your collection. However, for me, even if they had "centerpiece" cards that I could afford and really wanted for my collection because I'd likely never see them again, I just can't get past my personal self respect threshold and deal with someone like Brent or Allen or Mastro, etc. I'm aware that I may be dealing with crooks at any time and don't know it, but if I don't know it then it doesn't affect my self respect. Once the shady business is known though, then I can't do it. No card/item is worth losing my own self respect. I can say no to cards as easily as I say no to doing drugs, they don't control me. For me, stuff doesn't trump all. This isn't an attack on Adam guys, I'm just responding to the idea, not the man.

Got it. So it is the excess shipping charges but not the fact they are under a federal investigation for numerous frauds perpetrated over many years against collectors? PWCC it is so easy to keep people happy just continue to ship quickly and do it at a fair price.

Even if they could use their shipping chart as gospel (glad you brought up that they can't; had no idea)......it looks like they're valuing your basically complete '55 T grade 4 set order at 9 k to 10 k, which of course is too high, so that the shipping charge can be bumped up a little

The portion in bold is the reason I won't even glance at their listings. The illegal shipping charges are a minor off-shoot which only serve to reinforce the sleaze factor.

The excess shipping charges seem to be an act of kindness compared to the allegations that have been levied against PWCC.

Happened to glance over at Blow Out Forum and saw this https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1418582. One more reason to run from their listings, if this is suggestive of how current listings are done.

Like you, I do not even look. I really do not need anything that badly and prefer to not support a business accused of wrongdoings...rather buy from or bid with those that have not yet been accused of wrongdoings. :)

Hey, the fraud allegations are new to me. Big, active participant in the hobby but don't read the trade rags. Closest thing to that I read is VCP.com. I discovered the "Trimgate" scandal when I searched this forum for "PWCC shipping ripoffs"...and landed here. That, indeed, adds another wrinkle to this. It certainly seems that there is an established pattern and practice to their unethical (and, it looks like, illegal) behavior. I guess their business model is "do it as long as you can get away with it...". You'd think that the first wakeup call should have been "Trimgate". That didn't seem to do it. As I said, I'm done with them. Plenty of other sellers who actually value your business.

@cardsagain74
 

Good sleuthing, dude. Thanks for pointing that out. One more arrow in the quiver.

That's fair; like I said, we all have our personal thresholds.

Totally agree Adam. And I don't begrudge anyone for working with Brent. It's not my responsibility to police anyone else's choices, I can just work on my own. And I don't judge either. You'd still be my Net54 friend either way. :D

Here is yet more for you PWCC defenders to chew on. Enjoy...

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1418582

No problem. This is assuming that your total order only had those two lots won (but you didn't mention anything else)

I posted a link above yesterday...dunno:confused:

And no evidence of shill bidding here....

https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/35...p2047675.l2565

How many people here believe that Bidder 3***3 (with zero feedback) is a legit bidder? :rolleyes:

Sorry... I didn't see that you'd already posted it. Good to see that at least a few people are clued into the depth of their corruption. But sad that over 80% of their sheep-mentality clientele probably are not even aware... with another 15% who know of the trimming, doctoring and shilling, but choose to turn a blind eye.

No need to be sorry. The more the merrier. Seems like we are long over the outrage though.

Never Again PWCC
 

You're absolutely right. I went and checked their supposed shipping cost matrix. Total value of the order was $5,500. According to their shipping cost matrix (even assuming they were allowed to get away with charging off that, which they aren't), the shipping charge should have been $45 dollars. Cannot figure out how they landed on $65. Pure, unadulterated thievery. What a bunch of scumbags.

I've been called worse...

boy, that took you a while to figure it out.:) I AGREE.

What about the new PRIVATE BIDDERS feature they are using now? Maybe it's because they are tired of being outed as shill bidders TIME AND TIME again. Here's a nice shiny example and there are so many others. This was just last week :D Such dirt bags PERIOD

https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/40...p2047675.l2565

How many people here believe that Bidder 5***5 (with zero feedback) is a legit bidder?

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1419183
The buyer of this card from PWCC got a free facelift for his Leaf Jackie Robinson. "Easily among the best PRESERVED copies we've seen in our history."
Good to see so many in this thread have no problem buying from scammers under investigation by the FBI and regularly tout their ability to let you cheat taxes.

John, to me, the most amazing thing there is that PSA gave grades to half the cards even though they found so many in the submission to be altered. There should be a policy to summarily decline grades on any submission where more than X% is found to be altered (and that X% was reached in this case).

I'd go one step further. If you have a submission that's more than 10% altered you should be banned from submitting.

How fair would that be for me on a group sub?? I have no idea what guys are submitting.

Are they really still under investigation? Seems like once they got a lawyer it almost instantly went POOF other than a few refunds.

I agree that you shouldn't be held responsible. If anybody that sends you cards gets a bunch returned altered would you out them?

I think you would be safe from reaching the X% altered amount in a group sub. Otherwise we have a bunch of schmucks sending you altered cards to have graded no? :rolleyes:

https://dw7591lwb84er.cloudfront.net...Q3YmMyMGY1In0=

Whoever worked on his cheek (Gary Moser?) did an effing horrible job! Jackie looks like he has smallpox! :eek:

That was of course the evil Captain Kirk from episode 5, The Enemy Within.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...vil%20kirk.jpg

So far no one has done that. I think everyone is above board. I'd have to think long and hard about that. It feels like I would be violating some kind of client priviledge type of deal.

I think it depends on the item (s). Now I don't bid on any of their items but let's say they came up with a major lot of Gene Larkin *Good Columbia boy, got WS game-winning hit in 1991* cards in "raw condition* I would not see why not.

Why not? Well I will get what I saw on line, what I paid for and I would wager the items will be properly sent out. At this point I can't guarantee the USPS either. But that would not be a lot that anyone would want to play with so I would feel very safe on a lot such as that.

Rich

Even when buying a card as basic and safe as that, you are putting money in the pockets of criminals.

Why would we want to enable, support and perpetuate their fraud and corruption? PWCC needs to go the way of Mastro (even more than Mastro itself). Anyone who spends just 10 minutes on Blowout can see the indisputable evidence. One of dozens of similar threads, linked below...

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1419183

We should not be funding criminal enterprises, no matter the card.

Their "forced" refunds are one drop in a swimming pool of corruption.

If Mastro refunded the difference between the shilled price and the actual bid price of the card (on roughly 1% of their fraudulent transactions- only when they were caught) do you think they would get a free pass and avoid jail time?

I can't understand why people are so quick to give PWCC a pass, unless they are naive to the situation and facts.

And in addition to the accusations on BO and elsewhere (with corresponding photographic evidence), I'm still disgusted at the video interview about a year and a half ago when Brent lobbied to make "conservation" an accepted practice in the hobby - essentially trying to change the hobby's long-standing beliefs on altering cards in order to validate his shady practices.
I do my best to support companies and people who do good for the community, use local credit unions versus the big banks, go to local small businesses versus the big box stores, etc. PWCC may have made people money, but it has not been good for the hobby.
I won't even click on a PWCC item because I don't want to increase the number of views.

it isn't naivete; they just don't care. Many collectors would deal with the devil himself if he had the cards they need. Look, if you go to a show and buy a card you have no idea whether the dealer selling it raped a teenage girl, used a fake charity to defraud seniors, beat up his wife, is a die-hard racist, etc. (all real examples of things dealers at the National have done, BTW) and you don't condition the purchase on a background check of the guy. People extend that same logic to online sellers. As long as the seller is 'honest' (defined as will get you the card you bought for the price you paid) no one cares about the rest until the FBI takes them down, which is when those same people ask "what took you so long?"

Not condoning, just explaining...

I see what you're saying, although in this case, many/most/a number of people DO know what PWCC has done and how the company is run. And if I were at a card show and knew which dealers had done what your examples have done, I'd surely not spend a cent with them. I've been faced with learning about some financial misdeeds (not nearly as bad as the ones you list) by a dealer I used to frequent at a local card show and I don't even visit his table any more.

Spot On Bottom Line Love it or Hate it is the way it is and the way it always will be, and The Beat Goes On

I get all of that and well said, Adam...

But I still think there are a large number of "eBayers" who are not clued in to much of the ongoing corruption. A relatively small percentage even frequent these forums, and I would bet that as many as half of PWCC's clientele are unaware of how deep the criminality runs.

I'm well aware of those collectors of which "stuff trumps all". Still, there are a bunch out there who still have no idea what PWCC is all about.

And if you don't think Adam is correct, I can assure you many of the dealers in the NY/NJ area I dealt with in the 1980's had, let us say, colorful backgrounds. Adam did not even mention charges with transporting stolen merchandise or yelling at his parents. etc. You don't ask every show dealer their background.

Yep, for whatever reason, this hobby always seems to attract many "charming" personalities and upstanding characters.

If we ran criminal background checks or warrant checks prior to the National Each Year it would be very interesting. Hey Let's Hold the National at San Quentin. I'm just teasing most people don't care or want to think about who they're dealing with they just want to have fun and buy cards. Which is totally cool :-)