Quote:
Originally Posted by swarmee
List of things I'd like PSA to do:
1) Publish the entire list of Moser's submissions and decertify them from the pop report. In the case the proven "before" card was also PSA slabbed, remove that cert from the pop report as well.
2) Inform the public that this was done. SMR Magazine, Set Registry banquet at National, front page of your website. Have a returns line set up at the National for your aggrieved customers.
3) Get PWCC to pay for as much as they can afford.
4) Pay for the rest. It seems your company has not done a reliable job of this in the past; I have seen references to collectors having to "fight tooth and nail" to get reimbursed. This is the kind of thing that will only increase the bad press.
5) Open up your "internal investigation" to an independent auditor. As a publicly traded company, this makes sense, right?
6) Are you and Brent really working with any law enforcement? If so, why has the agency not been named?
7) Name the other "isolated bad actors" that still submit to PSA and decertify their cards. We're at the beginning of a Set Registry year; collectors will have 11 months to refill their sets with cards to replace their fraudulent ones.
8) Retrain your employees. The amount of various alterations detected so far has been vast: trimming, pressing out creases, recoloring, stain removal, claims of reglossing, rebuilding of corners, adding of rough cuts. Reject undersized cards as Minsize. Tighten up the minsiz requirements for sets like T206, 1952 Look N See, etc. Figure out how Moser beat you and think like him to figure out where PSA is sloppy. Maybe start a white-hat submission program to submit cards to your staff anonymously to see if they catch the alterations you claim you can.
9) Add a historical search for cards to your authentication step. Look for cards that have been photographed already on the internet. This will add personnel costs and timeline to your service, but it's required to regain trust. Otherwise, the scandal will continue to occur.
10) Openly disavow (or approve) Brent's Marketplace Tenets. Disavowing them will show that you believe in the collector's agreement with PSA's longstanding definitions of card alteration. If you approve them, you'll have to explain why the company failed so miserably and confirm that if you can't detect alterations, you'll have to concede your corporate expertise lacks.
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I agree there are things that PSA can do to improve its product.....but, I think that is missing the main point.
In the movie "Other People's Money" Danny DeVito in arguing that technology had made the product the target company was selling obsolete analogized to a company that made buggy whips when the automobile became commercially available. No matter what that company could possibly come up with to try to improve the quality of its buggy whips, it did not matter because people were now driving automobiles.
In the case of baseball card grading, where 5,6, and even 7 figure cards have replaced yesteryear's era of 2, 3 and 4 figure cards, the financial rewards of expert alteration have made PSA's method of grading cards obsolete. To say it another way, unless and until a TPG begins to use the best commercially viable methods technology has to offer to evaluate cards, altered cards will continue to slip through.
It is for that reason why I have stopped purchasing graded cards that have no provenance -- the leap of faith required to believe the card is accurately described by the flip is simply too great.
To those who will respond that my view that a person cares the card is not altered and will look to buy the card, not the flip, represent the exception, not the rule amongst collectors/investors, perhaps that is true. But as I've said before -- I believe that as people really begin to understand how commonplace alterations are and the absurdity of form ruling over substance when one is spending 5, 6, and 7 figures on an item, the s*#t will hit the fan and things will change.