PWCC again F'ing up
 

PWCC's latest glitch.....

Apparently they did the proverbial "site update" last night and somehow everybody's resale status was dropped from their accounts....I received my invoice this morning with a fair amount of sales tax added. This is after year's - many year's of them utilizing my resale lic. I contact them and all they say is we are trying to fix it. They do not even know when I may receive a correct invoice. They are unapologetic, acting like they are doing US a favor at all times.

They continue to go downhill (if that is even possible).

Now I know why I rarely utilize them anymore. Pretty sad.

They have fallen mightily. I still want to see them succeed though. Maybe they can reinvent themselves.

If you’re still using PWCC at all, then you deserve everything coming to you.

Why would any sane person want criminals to succeed? If the FBI inevitably drops the ball, I hope something else causes them to fold. It's a better hobby without them.

Yep, and all the vault stuff is held up in court or whatever. That way all the "I told you so" folk can gloat. Anyone doing business with them is playing with fire and deserves any wins or loses thus.

Seems like a total dumpster fire over there, not sure why anyone would be dealing with them .

I have no care or love for pwcc, invest at your own risk. “Lifeguard is off duty”

SA Brusokas left the FBI months ago. That would seem a pretty good sign that this is all over.

I wonder how many of those loans they dished out are under water?

…
 

Who is PWCC?

Maybe their auditors ought to do a hands-on physical inventory of the Vault to ensure all is in order.

There are only a handful of individuals on Net54 I would expect to post such a dumbass statement. Yes, you're one of them.

Yep, I am having the same issue with PWCC. I believe the issue started with their 4/9 auction. They have had my resale license on file since 2021, but sales tax was added to my invoice for their 4/9 auction.

I emailed them about the issue and included a copy of my resale license and details of when I originally had my resale license added to my account in 2021. They said accounting was working on it. It has been over a week with no update to my invoice...

Harold (Sonny) Smith

You sound like a total ass. Yes. You. Asshole.

First off....I literally have no idea who you are. We have had ZERO interactions. None. Zilch. For you to make such an ignorant statement over a statement on a chat board says less about me and more about you and your ignorance.

There are soo many great auction houses out there why would people mess around with a company that was investigated by the FBI and kicked off of ebay?

"Stuff Trumps All"

Now that is funny.

A lot of auction houses are dealing in altered cards too, don't kid yourself.

follow up
 

I communicated again today with PWCC, first, with an in house CSR, the one who yesterday promised me I would have a new invoice today, with the $40 worth of sales tax they added on removed. The rep acknowledged they had a "glitch" that deleted resale certificates. (Mine had been on account since well before they moved to OR). Well, seems she was either lying to me or totally clueless. Today, she emails me saying I will not get a correct invoice until I fill out new forms and send them a copy of my resale license again. Huh? The polar opposite of what she promised yesterday. What a pain! I then contact my assigned and real PWCC rep. I tell him what the other rep advised yesterday, and how today it is all different and basically "start over" with resale licenses. He never once apologizes to me, and tells me this is a good thing because they switched banks "so that we can loan and advance more money". OMG. I almost puked then and there. Because they switched banks all resale certificates have to be filed again. That sounds like BS. Anyway, this rep could care less about the inconvenience to clients. He could not even grasp how or why it would upset me that they would just willie nillie invoice me with sales tax. I had to explain to him that PWCC should have at the very least contacted me and all their clients B4HAND. An up front honest explanation is beyond them? Bottom line. Most all Net54ers are correct. PWCC is useless. I tried to give them an extra chance, or two. I canceled the invoice and told them sayanora...

Totally ridiculous, you did the right thing.

I wonder if others will get tired of the nonsense and be done with them.

Fraud ring = that’s fine, do business with them.

Minor personal inconvenience and having to send a form again = done with them!


I don’t get it, but I don’t have to get it.

This hobby is full of contradictions my friend. The card is altered, and was shilled, but damn it he got it to me in just three days so all is well.

If you ship timely, and don't overcharge for postage (still the number one sin in the hobby apparently), the rest don't matter much.

And yeah avoid PWCC and think you're being virtuous, when 80 percent of the others you are dealing with are just as bad.

I get what you mean, but I would posit that there is not much virtue in it sir; I consider it largely selfish and unvirtuous self-interest to not deal with fraud rings, scammers, library thieves, shillers, opinion sellers of demonstrable incompetence, et alia. Lay with a snake, and you risk being bit in more ways than one. Opens myself to risk, and while one is not guilty by association it does not reflect well on or benefit one to so associate, like Catullus' auctioneer.

I suppose it is a low risk version of the same self-interest that drives people to ignore massive fraud rings and conduct business with them. On the other hand I say this from a place of privilege, I've crossed off the top of my want list and nothing left do I feel I really truly 'need' for my poor little collection. And so no REA account, no Heritage, no Probstein bidding, no PWCC, no Memory Lane, no PSA and SGC and Beckett etc. and so on is not so much a sacrifice. Friends, randoms on eBay I don't have reason to think to be crooked, a couple local dealers and some from here I have not seen conducting unethical business practices that would create risk for me. It's also just more fun when the hobby is a lighthearted joy than Faustian dealing to win more registry points.

I'm sure I'll get ripped off eventually anyways...

This sounds as though someone effed up and the lost a bunch of data. Instead of having their IT contractors work to restore it, they've decided to just have all their clients resend their information and someone will re-enter it.

Poor decision, but something you see often where the client or users are inconvenienced because IT cannot or won't figure out an answer.

Further, the person you were talking with is likely just relaying the information they were given.

Collectors can do what they want but I continue to go back to this news story from August 2021:

Trading card marketplace PWCC has been suspended by eBay for "shill bidding" — the practice of artificially boosting the price of an item through dishonest bids.

Why it matters: One of the industry's biggest players getting rocked by scandal could have deleterious effects on the card-collecting hobby, which is built largely on trust.

The backdrop: Trading cards are in the midst of a meteoric rise. The 10 most expensive cards in history have all been sold since last August.

Details: eBay "restricted PWCC's selling privileges" this week, removing more than 71,000 listings from its website.

Shill bidding, explained: The seller enlists friends and family, or uses aliases, to drive the item price higher than it would have gone if a legitimate buyer bid and purchased it.
PWCC denies any wrongdoing, and is weighing all available legal options to fight the accusation. The company did over $200 million in sales on eBay last year alone, per the Action Network.
The big picture: This isn't the first time PWCC has found itself in hot water. It's also the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation stemming from a 2019 "trimming" scandal, which involves doctoring cards to increase their grade, thus inflating their sale price.

That relationship between grading and selling is illustrative of card collecting's biggest risk: it relies on various cogs — producers like Topps, marketplaces like PWCC, grading agencies like PSA — working together in harmony.
If eBay's allegations are true, PWCC could be shunned by the industry. Multiple competitors have already pounced on the chance to wrestle customers away from them.

I was thinking the exact same thing while reading this thread.

There is fraud all throughout this hobby. If you all sleep better thinking it’s relegated to just PWCC, that’s your decision. I learned really quickly when I tried to take the virtuous road and sold many HUGE cards thinking this market was about to bust a few years ago when the trimming scandal came to light that this “hobby” (if you want to call it that anymore) is going to just keep moving on irregardless what a bunch of board members opinions are.

The numbers don’t lie, the sheer growth in number of items in their weekly auctions show they are growing, not dying. We can find fault in any and every seller, it’s just the nature of the beast with anything involving money.

Ignorance is truly bliss. If you never know, then you will keep buying.

The issue I cant wrap my head around is how can people knowingly deal with PWCC and not have that little voice tugging at them asking "what if". On big money cards, where people have liquidated their 401ks and sold assets to purchase cards, they may have put their future and family at peril, and they sleep well at night?

I don't know about other states, but here the resale tax exempt form needs to be sent each year. It's surprising how many business owners don't know that.

Typically it's let slide though, I used to just give people a reminder when they bought stuff, like "Hey, your resale cert is out of date just send me a new one when you get a chance. "
Never had anyone have a problem with that, but then I didn't tax them.
I had one place get cranky about it, but filled out a new one at the pickup counter and learned they were fussy about the resale forms because they were being audited.

Amen.

The thing though is....how many others are doing the same thing?

I don't think a single person has ever argued, in any PWCC thread on this board ever, that fraud is relegated to PWCC alone. It's just that it is exceptionally broad and obvious in their case and no one can credibly claim that they do not know. Where has anyone said PWCC is the only bad actor?

Numbers don't lie (well, they do when they are shilled and the shiller 'wins' to produce the new top sale that gets the pumpers juiced)... but they also don't prove things beyond the numbers. I have little doubt that PWCC's business is doing well. That does not change the fact they have been running a fraud ring and this is unattractive to some potential buyers. It's not 'finding fault in any and every seller' when they got caught with literally thousands of publicized examples of fraud. This is not some nitpick standard here.

If one wants to continue to deal with PWCC, more power to them. But we don't need to completely make things up to defend it.

It's the same mentality as the card bro's - 'I'm smarter and I will win the game'. Sometimes they will, and sometimes they won't.

Though I sincerely doubt any of the pumpers advocating for other people to go into debt and literally empty their 401K's to put everything into cards do this themselves. They just need more people to keep buying in so their portfolio rises, and say whatever promotes that.

How is it "broad and obvious" in their case??? That is the issue that I have with it. They were just a platform. Same as Ebay. Ebay kicked them off for "shill bidding". PWCC never shill bid a card. The consignors shill bid on their own material. And like someone else said, if you are trying to avoid the hobby due to nefarious characters, you might as well sell your collection now. Like the good book said, let he who has no sin cast the first stone.

That is your opinion and mine is different. I used to care and watched for shill bidding. 3 of the biggest card sellers all shared the same group of shill bidders and it was beyond obvious if you actually cared and watched their auctions. The only really sad part to me was one of those sellers used to be known as being extremely honest, now not so much.

PWCC was a lot more than just a platform. That's like saying Madoff was just an investment adviser. That said, I absolutely agree much of the hobby is tainted.

Are you seriously unaware of the literally thousands of examples from Blowout, and the connections between many of the altered cards and Brent's buying accounts? I'm fairly confident you are not.


Just a platform? False. They actively engaged in fraud themselves. Again, there are numerous examples of this, including with serial numbered unique cards. You surely know this.

Who said anything about avoiding the hobby due to nefarious characters? I actively participate, I just don't deal with people I know or reasonably suspect to be engaging in fraud or unethical business practices. I even named names as some examples, besides PWCC, unlike anyone else. Not a single person is or has argued that PWCC alone is guilty - they are just the biggest in the last 10-15 years with a very, very large body of evidence against them that all of you are well aware of, though you may pretend not to be because it makes your argument harder.

I would love to know what sin, in the context of hobby fraud, I have committed. Please let me know! Who have I defrauded? When? I cast stones at fraudsters. Most people do. It is only here in hobby land that being against fraud, regardless of who the perpetrator is, is unpopular and gets people going because so many of you are in bed with them but still want to mount some moral high horse.

Amen to that.

If they want cake let them eat cake that's it. Nobody's mind is going to be changed.

Fraud can be seen as anything. Ever taken nylon to card? Fraud. Ever soaked a card? Fraud. Ever cracked out a card to get a higher grade? Fraud. There are different degrees here. Having a holier than thou attitude is hard to do. Even Mother Theresa spit on the sidewalk once.

Dunno about most of you but if I could overlook someone engaging in decades of serial card doctoring, serial shill bidding activities and perpetual lying, scheming and market manipulation, I think I would be ok with a temporary IT issue that causes my invoice to be a tad f#(%ed up. This is not meant as a criticism of the OP because he is really in the majority in the hobby. Maybe it is the rest of us who are intolerant of the overwhelming fraud in the hobby to just zip it.

Personally speaking, my view on businesses or people like Brent is that I will never accept what they do and will attempt to avoid them at all costs knowing that it is not always possible. This is what works for me but each of us is different and has to draw lines that we each can justify.

And no. I don't go to Blowout. I come here. I like the guys here. I even met a member that lives near me. I try to do the right thing. I treat others how I would like myself to be treated. And no, I don't consign to PWCC nor do I buy from them. Have I consigned in the past? Sure. Do I wish for him to be in an orange jumpsuit? I'll save that judgement for the more vindictive members here.

No, fraud is not an indefinable word. Some of us are fully capable of being reasonable and understanding key terms. You can choose to pretend everything under the sun is fraud and the word means nothing so that you can defend your buddies, but that's an extremely idiotic argument.

I have done none of these. I have never submitted a card for grading at all, and already called out all the major grading firms as on my list of companies I don't deal with.

Even you must be surely aware of the massive difference between a massive fraud ring of shilling and trimmed cards without disclosure provably repeated over and over and over again vs. cracking a card one thinks to be under graded to sub again. Even if we accept your claims here, it's like since smacking someone and stabbing someone is a form of assault, they are both the same thing and we can't judge.

Okay, you are aware!

As I said, it is largely out of self-interest that I won't deal with fraudsters. It's not a high moral ground; it's what most people do out of basic common sense. Do you go to a store that you have seen commit fraud or a competitor you haven't observed committing fraud? Who the hell picks the former? Again, it is only in hobby land, ridden with so many of you scamming or in bed with those who are and emotionally engaged in their success that a very common sense standard of not doing business with people known to commit fraud is upsetting and a moral high ground.

If you want to do business with PWCC, few would complain. I won't feel sympathy for you if you get ripped but I wouldn't even criticize that. The criticism comes in when people like you make up claims that are complete lies and deny obvious facts because they find it inconvenient to their bullshit.

"I refuse to look at the publicly available evidence, thus they are not guilty because I won't look at it" logic. Amazing :rolleyes:

That's really poor logic. That's like saying going 56 in a 55 zone is the same as going 100. It just isn't. Brent wsa probably going 135, although he was or maybe still is far from alone.

Uhhh....that isn't what I said. Not at all. I'm just not gonna pile on and say they are a criminal just cause everyone else is saying so. I have not heard their side of the story. I bet you think Trump is a criminal too.

Oh, oh. The trump card has been played 😊

Then go read the mountains of evidence publicly available and come back and explain how your previous statements make any sense and accord with the evidence. I'd love to hear it.

Politics has nothing to do with this. Can we not make this about Trump? I know everyone likes to make everything in the world about him but it is completely irrelevant.

Invoking Trump should be the equivalent of invoking a certain German politician, which in the early days of the Usenet groups was grounds for ending a thread -- Godwin's law I believe.