Another PSA Card Fraud floating Around
 

Here is another fake holder floating around...I spoke to the real owner of the card. The FAKE is...

http://louisville.craigslist.org/clt/5408245995.html


The real is the 2nd picture. There are more out there floating around. It is ruining the hobby. Dead giveaways are the card itself and the barcode.

I'm assuming that scammers, such as this one, are acquiring the slabs and then printing out the flip and finally either encapsulating a forgery or altering an actual card to make it appear to match the grade.

Is that about right? If so, it seems like these people get a hold of the raw slabs awful easy. Aren't there any patents on these things?

I would of been scared if it was a psa 8.5 or any half grade..

"do NOT contact me with unsolicited services or offers"

Nice sales pitch. Nothing like customer-friendly service.

I believe you just click a box when posting on CL saying whether you do or do not accept unsolicited offers. It sure does look unfriendly though. Another scary listing and sure to fool someone who doesn't do their homework. I think those have been going for around 7k, so 4k will be too enticing for someone to pass up.

Why? How does the half grade affect a forgery?

Ed,

You say that the "dead giveaway" is the card itself and the bar code.

I'm certainly no expert in detecting counterfeits, but even when I compare it to the actual card side-by-side; I don't see any glaring differences.

I would definitely be one of the poor saps that gets fooled by this type of thievery. Please educate me and help me see what exactly the "dead givaways" are.

Thanks.

There hasn't been any ever shown on net54 and not one has ever known to exist...if you find one I would be scared..

There are 14 8.5's in the pop report...... And about 400 half grade examples total.

fake ones? That's my point...waiting for a half grade FAKE ones to be cited on net54....thanks for telling us the POP report for real ones though..

Translation complete.

Another example of why I feel a photo database is necessary, at least for high end cards. How hard would it be for PSA to take a picture for any card worth a couple of grand or more and post them? It could be tied into the registry and prevent some of these fakes from fooling other collectors.

I know that a scam is possible with any card, but as I keep reading about one scam after another with iconic/high grade cards, it makes me glad that most of what I pursue are obscure/low-grade cards.

There are 24 years of cards on the market already.

Not having done it previously is no excuse for not starting it now.

What is the difference between the 2 cards shown ? I don't see the difference. Please help.

My concern with an online database of high-quality scans of every card is that those scans will be used to make reprints/select & alter lower-grade cards so that the cards will be excellent matches for everyting in the online database.

On the real card it has the grade NM-MT on one row and then an 8 on the next row, on the fake NM-MT and the 8 are on the same row.

If the two flips are legitimate designs, as the flip has changed over time, the same card could have been reholdered and thus be in two different scans with two different flip designs, and yet have the same serial number. Point being that two different flip designs alone-- provided of course they are both legit flip designs which PSA used, and the card is identical in both scans-- is not proof positive of one card being a fake.

If a card is reholdered with a newer and different design flip, would the barcode remain the same?

I think that's an understandable concern, although I'm sure there are ways to have online photos feature some aspect (such as a watermark) so that nobody is able to use it for reprinting purposes.

As for altering a lower grade card to make it a close match, that's also valid. But clearly altering low grade cards to make them look better is happening anyway, and I would rather have a photo database and be an informed consumer rather than not have it and lack the opportunity for due diligence on my own.

That's a great question. I have to pick up some cards from them, hopefully this week, and will ask a rep there.

Below is what the barcode for 15437865 should look like. While not the best image, the CL barcode does not appear to match this barcode. IMO, this is likely an older fake as most of the more current fakes at least have a correct barcode as they are easy to create:

http://barcode.tec-it.com/en

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