Wow...
OP: sorry that happened to you but at least they paid you off. Treated you shabbily but didn't make you go to court for it.
Leon and other registry haters [
]: good points re the registry. The bumping game is the dot-com of collecting--freakish spontaneous wealth if you are successful. I also can understand some saying it isn't about the money; the competition PSA has successfully set up sometimes makes it more about rich guys comparing pee-pees than about the cost [no offense to rich guys; I'm sure you are all terribly misunderstood and victimized every day by a system that is just designed to be unfair to you. I acknowledge your pain and oppression, brothers]. Thing of it is, even with obscene sums of money you still can't buy a 1 of 1 card if the seller is unknown or won't sell it. That makes it fun in some ways, Gordon Gekko-ish in others ["It's not a question of enough, pal; it's a zero sum game. Somebody wins, somebody loses."].
The PSA police state/censorship is one big odious reason I use other TPGs as my go-to graders. Shitty service and a bad attitude are others. I had a recent issue with SGC; no biggie, just a careless mislabeling that I caught when the grades popped but that they weren't able to pull from shipping. They were professional, apologetic and covered my expense and inconvenience for returning the card with some grading vouchers. Left me with a good feeling about their service, yet again. Belitting a customer complaint is ridiculous and cutting him off from the in-house forum without his having made a post there...yech.
All that said, I can understand some of the PSA reaction, as a businessman. I had a recent situation that was very similar except for the [lack of] professional demeanor involved. I retained an title company to help me investigate a real estate title issue before accusing a broker of a very serious fraud. I got the report and it appeared to confirm the client's worst fears. I called the expert and asked her to double-check because I was going to use her report as the basis for accusing the broker of defrauding my client. She checked again and verified her conclusions. Based on that I drafted a very nasty and threatening demand letter to the broker. His lawyer's response included a document in the chain of title that my expert missed and that completely negated the accusation. My client got ticked and I had to write off not just the expert's fees but my own as well. When I told the expert, she took the matter to her bosses, and they agreed to pay for my lost time. They also told me that they would not do any more similar work for me because they felt it was too much of a risk. Not to defend that plastic-faced bozo, but Joe O. seems to have taken a similar attitude with you; not worth the risk. Unprofessional as hell the way he did it, but understandable.