How do you think it all shakes out
 

I do not intend to express my opinion about whether anyone is guilty, complicit, etc. with regard to all the recent revelations. Rather, I prefer to get feedback/predictions on how this will all shake out.

Anyone who has been on the board in the past 2 weeks knows all about the Gary Moser alteration scandal. With it has come comments and accusations directed against PWCC, PSA, SGC, VCP and even Leon/Net54 for advertising. Many altered cards have been outed, and yet others have been implicated as being "bad" despite no obvious signs of alteration (I have a card that fits that exact bill which is going back to PSA for review). Some people are ignoring this whole thing, others have gone "Chicken Little" and are claiming the sky is falling, and the range of opinions is wide and varied. I would like to know what you think will happen when its all said and done -- how will it all shake out?

Here is what I think: In sum, I think very little will happen/change.

The TPGs: They will got off almost scott-free. I think the TPGs will have to live up to guarantees, which could hurt financially in the short-term and affect stock prices, but I think they will survive and thrive, and I think by fall people will be buying high grade PSA flips for their registry sets, as if nothing ever happened. This is for two reasons: (1) We all assume everyone knows about this. They do not. Just like the far left or right politicos who spend all their time on like-minded websites and thus think everyone thinks the way they do, we on these boards represent a tiny population in a fish bowl and may not recognize that most people don't know or don't care about this whole thing. (2) I think there is too much money tied up in PSA and BGS cards for people to make a huge push for retribution/justice. Too big to fail.

I do think TPGs will learn from this mistake -- hire better graders, spend more time, dedicate experienced graders to more high-dollar cards, black-listing bad submitters and procedures for bouncing bulk submissions with a certain percentage of altered cards, etc. But not because they want to do the right thing, but because Wall Street demands it. And, eventually, they will get lax and bad stuff will happen again sometime down the line.

So I think there will be some financial fall out, which could lead to process improvements, which is a good thing. But I do not think any TPG will "go down". Perhaps one or two employees get fired as sacrificial lambs for press purposes, but PSA and BGS will be at the national, with lines out the door, at the 2020 National. The pity is that, IMO, SGC is SO superior to both.

PWCC: I think their brand will take a hit and one they may not be able to fully recover from, at least not for a while. To many, PWCC auctions will be forever suspicious, for both allegations of shilling and alterations, and they may lose bidders and thus consignors. But for the reasons above, they will survive and likely eventually again thrive. They too will take a financial hit and that will lead them to improve procedures, which will take hold for a while but eventually relapse. If the TPGs get a bruise, PWCC gets a few cuts needing stitches and a broken bone.

That said, I think the biggest risk here is that all this publicity has shone a bright light to certain practices -- such as the Vault for potential state tax avoidance and the alleged facilitating of fraud. For this, I think PWCC will forever be under the microscope of collectors and the authorities, and must be mindful of this as they move forward. If this slip is not the one that does them in, the next (if it happens) could signal curtains. In other words, i think PWCC will have to tread lightly and find some serious humility and integrity in the years to come. They best make sure their practices are right and tight going forward.

Gary Moser: I think he (and maybe a few other "doctors") gets convicted of crimes and serves a jail sentence, where he is violated daily, forever "altering" they way he goes to the bathroom. No, for real, this guy is toast and will serve time, and will forever be shunned from the industry. But, a leopard does not change its spots, and this leopard will be back in some form or another and will get caught again.

VCP/Net54 and other PWCC advertisers: Nothing happens. And nothing should happen.

The Rest: Some people will lose money and have to write off the cost of cards they have acquired. Other cards will be devalued as a result of guilt by association. Most people will NOT turn in cards they think or know are altered and will try to sell them and most of the bad cards (the majority of which have not been outed or discovered) will continue to circulate. Within months we will all go back to being purposely ignorant of bad actors and alterations and we will all fool ourselves into thinking all is well because the TPGs say so.

Some people will check the blowout lists and other places where altered cards have been posted. Others may demand records of provenance or be evermore mindful of viewing cards under loops. But those will be the minority. For most, it will be business as usual by September; and for some, it has always been business as usual.

That said, what people are doing here and Blowout is important and it is making a difference. It may not topple the whole regime, but it has opened many eyes and our "hobby" will be better for it. We, the collectors, must police the industry and stay vigilant. But we must also be mindful that this does not become the French revolution where heads roll just because they have eyes on them and a finger pointed. Thank you to everyone who has put in so much time and effort uncovering and publicizing this fiasco - keep up the great work and how can we help?

How do you think it will shake out?

Great write up... here is how I see it playing out.

TPGs - will take a hit and have to rework standards and procedures if they want to stat afloat. They have a deep pockets thought, so I think they take a hit but survive

PWCC - i cant not imagine how this business stays afloat. Once this train, which seems pretty isolated to Net54, BO, sportscardradio and a few others pieces in the Oregonian gains some national steam and publicity, picks up speed they will be toast. Hard to imagine anyone owning big, valuable cards consigns to PWCC (unless those cards are altered and they are trying to sell them). We have just scratched the surface on this scandal... we have a long way to go and each day is another day of computational damage and cost for PWCC. Adios and good riddance.

Gary Moser - death penalty

The rest - I am strongly considering selling out completely. While I love collecting it is getting to a point where it is not worth the headache. I could see myself going back to the very beginning of collecting, putting together hand collated sets, busting newly released was and enjoying the more simpler parts of the hobby vs. dropping thousands of dollars on Ruths, Cobbs and JJs which I have spent the last 5 years doing. I could see others following suit...

One thing I am happy for is this community. I am sure there are a few bad apples lurking among us but there are guys on here who have taken time out of their personal professional lives to give advice and lend a hand. Specially, Orlando, Jeffrey Lichtman and Greg from BOTN.

nice write up...here's what I HOPE will happen:

PWCC will be toast...and brent will do jail time

Moser will be charged and arrested and WILL do jail time

PSA will be forced to bring their techniques into the 21st century and will become better at what they purport to provide

Leon/Net54 will try to do what is best for the hobby he claims to love and not whats best for his wallet

I see this being a blip for a couple months and then disappearing. The vast majority of collectors and PWCC/PSA/etc customers will not even be aware of this issue. I don't see any jail time for anyone and only a short-term financial hit for anyone. Gary Moser will continue his operation, he'll just hide his submissions better.

I think PWCC is in big trouble, and a couple of people may find themselves in legal trouble. Their reputation may go the way of Mastro.

PSA will be hurt but will be okay. There will be grading changes.

I think this will damage high grade cards in the hobby, as there will always be serious questions about them. I think for a lot of super high grade Pre-War cards, and many other cards, the rote opinion is that the card is or likely is altered.

I think these "conservation" and "hobby maturation" theorists who post on the boards are full of it. If a card has been "conserved" the conservation has to be labeled. The Comic grading, which may be fine with comic collectors, does not apply to baseball cards and never will.

I bet in the future there will be real technology to identify altered cards, and cards that have been altered will be identified.

Very hard to take you seriously when I'm laughing at your profile pic.

What I would like to see out of this is the third party graders getting significantly better at what they do. The idea of examining cards and rejecting those that are altered, and being an unbiased third party opinion for grading, should be lauded by every collector. But the way they actually do this is nothing short of atrocious. If they don't start getting exceptionally skilled at detecting alterations, and extremely accurate in grading baseball cards, then the hobby has no use for them. Screw the set registry and let them go out of business. I hope they take this seriously but I am not holding my breath.

And if they have to reimburse every collector who has an altered card in a holder, they will go bankrupt halfway through the process. So they are going to lawyer up and fight these claims very strongly. I have no idea how that will end up but it may leave many collectors frustrated and angry.

PWCC will either straighten up or lose a lot of business. And card doctors need to be prosecuted. It might be difficult to convict them, but we shall see.

Overall, I suspect we will all be pretty disappointed at how little changes, and high grade cards will likely continue to set world records as buyers won't be able to throw money at them fast enough.

I am so depressed to have to express this... But I too think little (if anything) will ever happen. The Moser corruption dates back over 15 years, and nothing was ever done. Maybe Moser will now do a brief jail stint, but PSA and PWCC have deeper pockets to fight it. Just not enough people are aware of this matter (outside of Net54 and BO). I wish we had a better vehicle to mass-publicize all of the corruption.

I have posted more in the last 2 weeks than I ever have on the Main Board, with the faint hope of getting the word out there. I pray that law enforcement sees enough of our threads to actually do something, but am not optimistic. Most people outside of the hobby just don't care, and the heavy hitters within the hobby are too protective of their "assets" to want any positive change.

PSA's pathetic Letter confirmed they do not care about the hobby or hobbyists... just their shareholders and profits. They positioned themselves as "the victim", rather than owning up to any mistakes whatsoever.

So perhaps the best thing we can do is to stop funneling money to these people, as it just feeds more into their power. I personally will be cracking out every PSA Card I have, and will never submit a card to them. When the time comes to liquidate, my cards will all go to someone like Greg Morris... RAW.

I don't think any of us can really tell what will happen with Moser, PWCC and the other card doctors outed by these recent revelations. I would hope that some branch of law enforcement somewhere will take action against them but I am not holding my breath. I've delivered even worse financial fraud cases to local prosecutors and have only one scumbag's scalp to show for it thus far. They don't like white collar crime, especially when the proof is specialized and esoteric.

PSA will probably have to increase its loss reserves substantially and will take some short term financial pain, but will go on as the main TPG brand. Too much registry participation and investment (emotional and financial) to realistically assume otherwise. AHs and Dealers will stay with TPGs because it is financially expedient. PSA will somehow find a way to pass on the costs to us because it can. Lunch at the National will be as well attended as ever, the food will be inedible swill, the speakers self-serving and dull, and the give-away will sell on eBay. Same as it ever was.

Some collectors will shift away from big dollar purchases based solely on the flips; I know quite a few collectors who vow to stop upgrading their registry sets and are considering liquidating the ones they have. I suspect that sentiment will ebb over time. Some collectors will stop sending in cards to play grade lotto. I suspect that will ebb over time as well. Ditto those who vow to go with raw cards.


In short, I don't see much changing overall.

From the consumer end only those affected and have skin in the game will be impacted by the headaches of returns to sellers and or reviews by TPG's. Bystanders will continue to chime in on social media.

I think it is very clear from the statements given that there isn't a clear stance on liability. The business side is not impacted. This will all disappear in a few months and those consumers with skin in the game will be exhausted and or still fighting their claims independently.

Nothing changes with TPG's or consignment groups.

It will take deep pockets to bring a case on behalf of consumers at this point. Who's willing to step up and provide their legal services?

The biggest scandal in our history, the financial crisis of 2008, changed what? Good model for what happens here. The big players sail right on, keep doing what they were doing, and get richer. The powers that be stamp out the scandal, buy their way out of trouble, and pour Kool Aid that most people drink. Carry on. I had been more optimistic, but the response of PSA tells me I've seen this play before.

Very little will happen except an official banishment from the card doctor, which only means he will use fronts and aliases to circumvent the ban and continue his work.

PSA has a well established history of sweeping every scandal under the rug with virtually no transparency. As I recall Joe Orlando once stated that only 5% of the collectors read message boards, so they operate on the "ignorance is bliss" business model.

The theme so far is that none of us expect too much to change. Hopefully we will at least see something. Better quality grading and authenticating would be a terrific place to start.

Surely you jest. Where has that been for 28 years?

At Long Beach Show. This has really affected PSA's business--not. Mile long line.

Well hopefully this is a wake up call that they have to do better. Am I confident we will see a change? No, not really. And don't call me Shirley.

You forgot to include Beckett in your list...

TPGs - Not entirely sure on this one, as we definitely don't have all the facts and it may take law enforcement to get to a lot of it. I do think PSA ends up buying some cards, most likely the trimmed stuff assuming people can find the pictures. The cleaning and stain removing I think probably slides by, and/or they just fight it the whole way. I don't imagine they just offer it up, but quite honestly that would be the best way to get it over with. Beckett appears to have a different set of issues, and that all still feels like early days to me. Since they don't have the guarantee, I have no idea what happens there. Regardless, I think all TPGs get much stricter in the short run unless it's clear there is no downside, in which case any guarantees will be done and graded cards will just become what autographs already are - just an opinion (and yes, I know some people already view that as what cards are now).

PWCC - I doubt they survive this, unless law enforcement really doesn't get involved. They've had so many missteps to this point. I really think if they want to maintain any relationship with the TPGs, they're going to have to eat most of the refunds, including the cleaning/stain removal that might not actually be altering. I just don't know how long they can weather that financially. And unless they're going to come out publicly and try to do that, there is no way it's just business as usual for them in Chicago. That will become a multi-time daily show, there's no way they'll be able to do business. Add to this the press on this is just starting, so if it's not somewhat resolved by the time we hit Chicago, you just KNOW there are going to be reporters from anywhere close coming through and trying to get their "scoop" on it - what a mess?!?! Unless it's true that "all press is good press".

Moser - Seems to me unless PWCC/PSA is going to insist on charging him with fraud, I'm not sure anything happens to him. If they were going to do that, wouldn't it have already happened? His reputation seems pretty well known already, but that's kinda the beauty of the internet from a privacy standpoint. I think if PWCC figures out they aren't going to be able to survive, then they will try to go after him and take their chances. Without that, I just don't know what would otherwise happen to him.

VCP/Net54 and other advertisers - I think it's a small blip for them, someone else will look to step in any space created and they'll get the advertising dollars back from someone else, or just carry on without it.

The rest - I think there are a lot of people nervous and undecided on what's next. I definitely believe that some people at the margins may just cease collecting and get out. I know for myself, I collect tons of stuff and had stopped collecting cards for more than 15 years before I started up again. I could always just go to something else.

Unless there is a pretty clear response before Chicago, I think the National probably does not go well. Without some substantive resolution of some sort, all the non-message board people are going to get their first taste of this at the show. How do you think they react? For people who do already know, anything more than a couple hundred bucks gets extra scrutiny and if prices aren't lower to reflect the perception of added risk with graded cards, I just don't think they sell as well.

Are they serving kool aid Jay?

I hear PWCC skipped the show.

same
 

nothing will change..as time goes on..collectors will keep doing what they do, buy cards..look for deals, look for steals, look for angles...

Maybe I missed it, but has Joe Orlando been totally silent lately. I have nothing against Joe, who I have never met in person. But, he strikes me as someone who likes to stay on the stage. I realize he is a collector himself and has a lot of enthusiasm for the hobby, but even after Steve Sloan took his position after Joe was promoted, Joe struck me as someone who stayed on the PSA stage too long and overshadowed Steve as his replacement at PSA.

Hard to read much into one day of trading, especially with a thinly traded stock, but CLCT did drop 7 percent or so following the Seeking Alpha article. I wonder how that is playing.

Should be a very interesting National show in Chicago....which is not far away....the body language of some, who shows and doesn't show up at the National, how they interact with attendees and dealers, etc., etc. could be priceless.

Steal, create some angles :)

In virtually all of my ebay searches, I always add (-pwcc, dean) to omit the listings of those two scourges, but when I allow PWCC to show?? A thousand different auctions appear (no matter what I search for) and they all have many bids already logged in. Doesn't seem like the majority of collectors give a crap (yet?) about what's going on.

SGC will get a bigger share of the market, but since a lot of investors buy the holder and not the card then PSA will continue to prosper. Might be an opening for a new TPG with AI technology to start up.

PWCC will take a hit and a lot of collectors will stay away so their eBay dominance will suffer; making the market "fairer."

Card doctors will continue to fool the novice and TPG until AI takes over the process.

60s and early 70s set collectors and mid range Mays collectors like me might start getting better deals.

I think you people are going to be very surprised.

I'll guess the opposite end.

Law enforcement gets really involved. There are ALREADY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS of exposed cards by OVER 10 ALTERERS all using PWCC to launder their goods, plus the SSI company in Dallas.

PSA gets spun off from CLCT and is purchased. They take the SGC route and remove the guarantee for any cards prior to the buyout. Any claims under the current grade guarantee not covered will be subject to a class-action lawsuit, leading to a bankruptcy restructuring. All previously graded cards in the registry need to be reholdered/re-evaluated by new ownership to go back in the registry. PSA can survive, IMO, but if it does, it has to play this by the book and report to the public all known scammers, the cert numbers of questionable cards, and decertify them from the pop report/registry. If they don't, they lose the customer's confidence. Take the 1952 Topps Look-N-See. How can anyone trust that set registry anymore? 1953 Parkhurst? How many T206s has Gary worked/submitted? Without transparency in their process (opposite of the promised "internal investigation"), their big spenders SHOULD LOSE FAITH and should know that their registry competitors are gaining on them by fraud.

How does PSA continue to charge per card value, if their Grade Guarantee has no teeth? Beckett doesn't come with a promise, only expectation, but charges way less for hundred thousand dollar cards than PSA does. Is the Set Registry really still worth all the grading fees? Is public trust shattered?

Beckett customers, mostly younger and more in tune with the internet, realize there's no grade guarantee with their cards. They get together and file a class-action lawsuit, citing gross negligence. (Or is that a criminal crime? I'm not a lawyer) Beckett's already got major issues with their ownership group and leadership, and should lose the trust of the marketplace. Once the top cards stop dropping in price, it may be rapid. BGS Black Labels and Pristines will no longer be the crown jewels they used to be. Since they seem to have unfair grading practices (see the 100+ page thread at blowout), they could be criminally liable for fraud.

PWCC goes out of business. It just has to. Jail time for Brent is the only thing that makes sense. Surely there will be someone to fill the void. But PWCC is the enabler of all these "isolated bad actors."

The market corrects just like we were in a recession; I envision a 40% chop at the top. I think the low-mid end stays fairly constant, but the exponential growth curve for PSA 8/9/10 in vintage cards takes a beating. If it doesn't, PSA just goes about its business and Moser keeps destroying cardboard pictures with base ball men on them.

The watchdogs are no longer lazy, no longer have a defeatist attitude, no longer willing to sit on the sidelines and not rock the boat. And we're willing to push this as long as it takes to right the hobby. Like I said, I've already called in the FDLE to investigate the entire situation. I know others have contact their states. This will not be confined to the few, the proud, the too invested to speak up and do the right thing.

has anyone reached out to any of the reporters who cover the hobby?

David Seideman from Forbes is always talking to PWCC and writing articles on the hobby.

One just needs to go through PWCC's "In the news" section to see who the interested journalists are...

Darren Rovell and Keith Olberman have tweeted about it. Because that's a thing.

The Oregonian wrote a pretty good story on it that was getting shared a bit. Beckett will not write an article on it, because it would be hypocritical.

PSA's SMR deserves to. I'll keep suggesting it to Mr. Sloan.

David is a member. He has been a staunch fan of Brent even as all this started to unfold, but it's always possible he changed his mind.

I agree.

I waited in line 2 hours and 15 minutes to drop off some WNBA cards. I have always come at the same time on the same day in the past and I never waited more than 15 minutes. They don’t serve kool aid, but they do have a bowl of chocolates.

What’s an Alana Beard rookie worth?

"WNBA"? What is "WNBA"?

HAHAHA.

You didn't ask but you're gonna get the story anyway...

Roughly a decade ago, Burger King partnered up with Fox and did a "Simpsonize Me" web site. You submitted a picture of yourself and it would turn you into a Simpsons character. Or YOUR FREAKING CO-WORKER submitted a picture of you and then EMAILS IT TO YOUR ENTIRE TEAM. Guess which happened with me :) Anyway, I took a look at it and, well, it looks a lot like me in a caricature kind of way. And so it has become my avatar on most message boards.

I’m truly jealous. Such a cool thing to have.

I'm taking a contrarian position. I can see SGC going away - either absorbed / acquired by CLCT or finally closing its doors ala GAI. PSA will flourish with a few bumps.

Moser will continue in some some form (albeit underground) as he has the past 35 years along with an unrelated army of doctors who beat the system.

PWCC will be the scapegoat, go away, perhaps pay the price. Or not.

I'll go on buying cards that I enjoy.

Brent will keep laughing all the way to the bank.....That's how it will shake out....Ebay doesn't give a SHIT and neither does he.....

https://www.pcworld.com/article/1723...Character.html

Post the results.

I have to believe there are many, many people who feel the same way. How many times do you give the same company the benefit of the doubt?

Bring their techniques into the 21st century? What does that have to do with anything?

$75 for a PSA10. Did you know her at Duke?

I know you're goofing on Jay but if you watch some games some of these women are fantastic basketball players and because they mostly don't dunk it's more basic, fundamental basketball which purists will appreciate.

They play with a smaller basketball than the men. Ball goes through the hoop easier. :)

PSA will keep right on rocking and rolling, trust me....

Some predictions:

PSA will take a hit, but will make it through OK. They will continue to be the TPG of choice for most. For a while.

Another entrant will emerge in the TPG space, utilizing machine learning and computer vision. They will threaten PSAs market dominance.

SGC will slug on and go from second to third behind the new entrant.

Within nine months, PWCC will close it's doors, mostly because there are multiple alternatives to sellers both on and off of eBay that won't have this baggage. Unfortunately, no jail time.

Moser will do time in jail and then re-emerge in the middle of some other scam. Like a poster said above, a leopard does not change it's spots.

Yep, the site in that article is the one that got used. Alas, it is long gone.

PSA will survive, but they are going to be writing a lot of checks. I'm sure they have many unhappy customers right now.

My (far-fetched) prediction: As a result of the scandal, the integrity of grading companies will be significantly compromised, and "gem mint" cards will become much less desirable. A large percentage of the "investors" in the hobby (honest people who buy cards with the sole intention of making profit) will shy away from the market, and overall demand will decrease. "High end" vintage cards will lose value due to paranoia, and authenticity will become more important than condition. Finally, junk wax will make a huge comeback (no one is worried about their 1987 Donruss Barry Larkin being unknowingly altered) and my collection will be worth what my 1992 Beckett says it's worth :D

Big Money 6 figure investors will find another place to make money.

TPGSwill thrive after the smoke clears people still think their collectibles are worth more money in their holders......sheeple will continue to buy holders not cards.

Mid Grade and Off Grade Collectors will always be around bottom feeding for the cheapest cards they can possibly find to fill their sets.

Card Doctors Will Never Go Away....When the market gets over bought they flock when it sells off they disapear.... nothing new same old same...

This has always been a dark, dirty, behind closed door industry filled with fraud if you don't know by now wake up and smell the roses of reality

The ironic consequence...everyone becomes millionaires thanks to the closet of junk wax they couldn't bring themselves to throw away.

Do you really think it'll be that much longer before repro cards are indiscernible from original? Altered original will come back into favor over indiscernible fake.

People don't need to think it, because it is true. I have been downsizing my collection. I have been able to get far more for nice condition cards graded than ungraded. I had only graded 1 card prior to 4 years ago when I started downsizing, but I refuse to throw away money selling for pennies on the dollar while someone else makes two or three times their money.

Yes, unfortunately that has been the case in recent years. But this thread focuses on what will happen moving forward. The extent of the TPG's ineptitude is just beginning to be revealed, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Moser alone has been submitting altered cards for grading for over 15 years, and nobody knows how widespread they really are. There are likely countless others that have never been (and never will be) revealed. Serious doubt has been cast in all of our collections.

The TPG's level of arrogance and denial was made very apparent in PSA's recent Letter to collectors. They care only about profits... not the good of the hobby. So hopefully the word will spread outside of these forums. Hopefully Law Enforcement will take notice, and actually do something along the lines of Mastro/Legendary/Rogers. Those of us who are focused on integrity can only boycott these entities and try to deliver the message to a far wider audience. Money should not be the only factor driving the hobby.

That said... Nothing is likely to change. :(

Does anyone know where this Gary Moser guy lives? man it would be great to show up at his house... vigilante style!

I'm going to ask, because so many of you are lawyers or experts in law and I am not. Forget about ethics or morals, but what is illegal about altering cards, resubmitting them to PSA, and then selling them?

I say this because I worked in the car business for years and customers often washed, waxed, Armor-alled, and detailed their cars before trading them in. They would buff out scratches. Occasionally we found Bondo to cover a dent. Our appraiser would look over the car and make a decision. It was what it was. We couldn't go back a month later and call the person that traded in the car and claim some sort of deception. If it got past our appraiser then so be it.

If Gary gets a card and doctors it up and submits it to PSA, it is PSA's job to catch the doctoring. If he has a PSA 4 that becomes a PSA 7, it is what it is. That card is now a PSA 7, whether you like the way it got there or not. If PWCC takes this PSA 7 and sells it on ebay as a PSA 7 beautiful example of this card, are they lying? Is it not a PSA 7? It says so right on the slab.

To me, the only legal issues would be if they had an insider at PSA that was giving them some sort of an advantage, or if they intentionally undersold the first cards so that they could purchase them for resale. As far as the trimming, chemical bathing, or whatever... that seems to be a PSA issue of incompetence.

I think this practice is misleading, unethical, and deceptive. But, my question is this: Is the altering of cards, submitting them, and then selling the newly slabbed item actually illegal?

Yes. Mail fraud and wire fraud, if sold using the mails or the wires (internet). Lots of posts on this in prior threads. Not going to repeat them.

Well that was helpful. Still don't see it. Oh well.

I don't mean to be rude not doing a full reply but I just don't want to repeat and debate the same things I've said before. What you describe is classic fraud.

I don’t see it, counselor. Nice try.

lol

laughable
 

that people believe PSA will be paying out any kind of significant monies. They will fight to the death on a card by card basis with them in a staring role as the fox surrounded by nothing but the hens. Add - or more appropriately subtract - many cards from the conversation as well whose owners won't know about or participate in any kind of cleansing "process". PSA will go on forever...……..
I don't collect modern graded cards so I know nothing about BVG or their previous/current iterations or Black label designations.
SGC has been my grader of choice. I always spoke to them about the mistake they made going into autographs while their own house (core business) wasn't in order. They will have to be aggressive to increase their market share as they are mostly called upon to grade vintage cards.
Overall I think the hobby in general NEEDS grading companies. I hope they will continue to improve their methods - but with a likely minute or less to make determinations about grade and authenticity by someone who may not be a seasoned veteran card grader - along with the increasing skill sets and technology available to card doctors - graded (and raw) card collectors need to realize the inherent limitations of their own eyes and those of the TPG's even with more sophisticated equipment.
I've known of card doctoring and of a doctor or two operating under the radar since I got in the hobby nearly 30 years ago including one or two of the people that have been mentioned in the many threads here and on a couple of other sites I was linked to from here. I remember Gary and a partner from over 25 years ago. No personal knowledge of his guilt or innocence. Always going to be people in this world trying to separate one from their money without a legitimate means. That shit will go on forever - and the devil takes many forms. I try and be an informed consumer but there's only so far I will go. Like at the poker table I get angry at the idiot that always seems to play with his 18%. I go into the situation with my eyes open - occasional he will snap me but I am an educated consumer :-) All grades can be suspect of manipulation BUT I have cut the odds down NOT buying very high grade cards for my sets, instead settling for very-good to excellent overall. I think there should only be 4 grades - all of which incorporate not only technical focus but aesthetics - determined by LOOKING AT THE FREAKING CARD! :-) That's for another day.
PWCC - or whatever their acronym is. Man they are in the news here a LOT! It all seems like smoke and mirrors. Certainly they SEEM complicit beyond the casual. I think they will stall and deflect until they are forced into some accelerated response by whatever PSA and eBay does as surely they don't dictate to either despite all the money they bring in. They are MONSTER sellers. Maybe pwcc just won't continue at the crazy growth levels of the past 10 (?) years.
As for the overall hobby - yesh. Hate this shit but like the direction of the country I love - I have but little impact other than looking at it in the light of day along with others and hoping as they see the same light we can get increasingly more people to see it and bring pressure to bear for change. One can hope can't they?

I prefer HS Girls basketball to the Lakers or the Clippers. My friend's daughter is on her way starting with a full scholarship to Santa Clara in her Junior year. They are FUN to watch.

seriously.Yes PSA is incompetent only to this point in the story. It remains to be seen if they are implicit to the crime. I personally believe they are. You don't have to be a Lawyer to know for FACT what they are doing is fraud. It is almost laughable if you don't think it's not illegal to HIDE material facts about the cards they are reselling.

Let people crack cards, doctor the F out of them and get higher grades on the resubmit. THEN DON'T TELL ANYONE. DING DING DING. Hello McFly, anybody home! They do it over and over and over again with 10 different characters for 15-20 years. Once again, please listen to the lawyers who know much more about the law then you do. I have never wasted 1 nickel on a lawyer but have paid them thousands in my time. Always worth every damn penny. AND I actually do what they tell me..;)

Imagine that. listening to people who know more than you do... You should try it sometime. :D

I trim a card. I get it past PSA. I sell it, without disclosing that I trimmed it. Or my co-conspirator sells it for me knowing I trimmed it. If someone truly wants to argue that's not fraud, well, I give up, I'm not debating it any more. Nor am I debating that the federal mail and wire fraud statutes apply if I do this, repeatedly, using the mails or wires.

Odometer
 

I think a better analogy here using cars would be someone buying a car with 100,000 miles on it, rolling back to odometer (Ferris Bueller style) and then selling it again as a "Grandma driven special with only 15,000 miles on it" when in fact the engine has 100,000 miles on it.

The actual act that is illegal is not the trimming of the card, or submitting it to PSA to try to get a number grade, or selling it. I don't know why folks continue to ask why these things are illegal and then act like they don't get it when someone explains fraud. The illegal part is when you do this over and over and DON'T DISCLOSE it to the buyers when you know the fact is the card is altered and doesn't deserve a number grade. This is fraud. Simple. This isn't a hard concept to grasp people. They are misrepresenting what they are selling and doing it on purpose to get more money than they should from buyers that are being duped. Over and over again. The actual trimming of the card isn't what the lawyers are saying is illegal. Submitting the trimmed card to a TPG is not what they are saying is illegal. Lying to the buyers to get record sales is where the fraud starts.

Here's why it's illegal:

Alteration of cards is considered a material fact when it comes to the value of those cards. Trimmed, recolored, whatever cards are deemed to be far less valuable by the vast majority of collectors. If a person is performing alteration and then selling the card to someone without disclosing the alteration, they have concealed a material fact relating to the value of the item. Knowingly withholding a piece of material information in a transaction like that is fraud.

In addition to that, when you purchase a PSA membership, or submit through them, you agree that do not have knowledge that the cards are altered. By knowingly submitting cards that have been altered, you are violating that agreement, potentially committing a fraudulent act against PSA since you are exposing them financially.

The second aspect might be a civil liability only, as opposed to criminal, not sure. The first one, however, is definitely a criminal violation.

To put it in simplistic terms: Gary Moser/PWCC are representing that they have, for example, an unaltered 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle for sale. However, they know it's altered. They are saying that they are selling one thing when they are selling something else. That's Fraud 101.

That was the response I was requesting. Thanks for your courtesy. Nice to know someone can reply without rudeness or being condescending.

My apologies I did not mean to come across that way. In many threads I've explained this in detail and then people who don't know the law insist that I'm wrong, and it gets frustrating. I didn't mean to take that frustration out on you, I know you were simply trying to understand and not debating. My bad. Tabe said it well. Fraud is either the intentional misrepresentation or concealment of a material fact, and when you do that in connection with a sale in interstate commerce, it can be federal mail or wire fraud. It's the sale that makes it illegal; just altering the card isn't. That PSA slabbed the card is irrelevant, the seller still knows the card is altered and doesn't merit the grade. In other words, the negligence of another party doesn't cleanse the fraud.

I didn’t. But I watched most of her games. Duke had some great teams back then with Coach G in charge.

They call themselves (and charge a fee as) authenticators. If suddenly many cards that passed through their hands are proven to be altered, how can they not be accountable?

Because they almost uniformly refuse to pay despite their easily proven liability. They dare you to sue and most won’t. It’s almost unheard of to find a time that PSA has ever honored their guarantee without having its arm twisted.

Getting it past PSA is the biggest problem here that too many aren't talking about. I don't have cards graded, so I don't care...but many here are trusting PSA with their wallets and PSA is apparently no more capable of spotting a problem than you or I. They are "victims" (based on their response) not experts or authenticators. They are you. You pay for that?

That's unfortunate. Sounds like an insurance company.

Shit. We agree again. Suing carriers is what I do.

I worked in cars for a while too. While customers getting one over on the dealership wasn't common, it did happen.
The reason the dealership had no recourse in most cases was that a dealer was generally seen as an "expert" who should know better.
Also, most of the things you mention are considered entirely acceptable, and the cleaning, waxing and buffing as well as mechanical repairs would be done by the dealer anyway before resale. We did have one where the customer lied about the mileage when they filled out the title. We found out when we sold it and the registry kicked back the title transfer since the previous transfer had been at 80K and we showed 50K or so. Making the supposed actual mileage in the 150 range.

The opposite was also true. We had sold a couple reliants to a taxi company that added the roof lights then never made a payment. Dealership get them back and added a fake convertible roof on one and a weird reverse landau top on the other to hide the holes from the lights. One of the sales people sold one without disclosing that it had been a taxi. Private extended warranty caught it, legal action ensued briefly, and the place had to pay 3x damages.
Try selling an odd looking Reliant that you own for something like 18K ….

Short version, if I sell an altered card, I might be able to fall back on the "hey I had no idea" defense. (Probably less likely since I publickly state that I can probably tell, plus I'd just say "damn I missed that" and take the card back)
A large full time dealer and/or grading company can't hide behind cluelessness as they're the "experts" *

*I could be wrong about that, not being a lawyer

How do you think it all shakes out
 

I would say the card restoration/alteration business is way, way more widespread than we could guess.
In the SCD in 2008, they interviewed Dick Towle of Gone With The Stain. He said in 2008 that they had worked on 15,000 to 18,000 cards. That is over 10 years ago. They said that they started their company in 1993.
And that is only one company. I'm sure there are others out there.
They claim all their work is undetectable to card grading companies. I am sure many, many of those cards have been graded. Hopefully, cards that they worked on won't start disintegrating one day.
Until new technologies that can detect their work are discovered, I don't know what the grading companies can do

I completely agree with these statements. The Hobby probably should made a financial couse correction and this may aid in that for the good of the Hobby. It's the defeatist attitudes that believe nothing will happen. There's way too much money involved here. You're looking at 50 million just from pwcc in annual sales alone from 2010 to 2018. Possibly more from PSA and dont forget the forgery scandal -so yes, The FBI and SEC are looking into this. Why would anyone think that the government would let this ride? Because it's only Baseball cards? Hell no! It's a 5 billion dollar a year industry and a huge chunk of this falls under a publicly traded company regulated under the SEC.

Change has to happen. This Hobby has changed considerably since the days of Jefferson Burdick, Lionel Carter and Buck Barker, but it will continue to change weather or not PSA or PWCC are in it or not.

There are no garantees that this hobby is around in a generation or two, but the one of the ways it changes for the good is by being vigilant to fraud and by better education. Hobbyists and the Hobby may need to change their way of thinking and to alter their perceptions. Net 54 is a great site, and the collectors and dealers here have done some outstanding work on both educating and tipping off fraud, however it needs to be better advertisers.

I am impressed you know what the FBI and SEC are doing. I wish I did.

trifecta of shame
 

What do I have the power to control? My actions only.

PWCC: I will never again buy from pwcc and tell people I know what has been alleged.

Gary Moser: If what has been alleged is true his legacy will always be that of a scoundrel. Have you ever stepped in dog s**t at first you are annoyed. Then you smell it or track it inside........ that is one heck of a legacy.

PSA: THE GATE KEEPER! I no longer value their product and will not buy PSA graded cards. In the event they make every possible effort to improve practices and publish the list of alleged altered cards I will then look to them for services and start to trust their brand. In the card business the card grader is where the buck stops. In the mean time I will just estimate the grade myself assign a value and hope it is not altered.

VCP/Net54 and other PWCC advertisers: I know that when I first saw the posts on the message boards regarding the trifecta of shame and saw the pwcc advertisement I questioned the integrity of the site. I trust the integrity of this site based on how it is managed and am pleased it is available to use.

The Rest: I wish ebay had a block seller feature.