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Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
Steven thank you for these observations. A couple of reactions. One, Brent's bad activities are so diverse and of such long duration that he is not just the fraudster du jour, he may well be the hobby fraudster of all time when all is said and done. So while yes to some extent my belief that he needs to be punished is colored by my personal disgust towards him, I think an important message needs to be sent to everyone else doing similar shit on a smaller scale. If he pays some restitution and walks, that will not send a message, IMO.
Two, that said, I obviously agree with you that PSA and to a lesser extent the other TPGs have been revealed to be a huge part of the problem. And something clearly needs to be done to bust through the veil of secrecy and denial and disingenuous bullshit they and their supporters keep spewing. But -- and obviously you may have insight where I don't -- do you really see Brent being able to take down PSA? I mean if he was buying graders and is going to confess, that would be one thing, but I would find that hard to believe. Interested in your thoughts on how he could do that otherwise.
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Peter, you’re an attorney and must have much more of an ability than someone like I do to look through the forest and see the bigger picture. While we all want to see Brent rot in hell, if we take a step back whether we are buying $20 cards, $200, $2000, $20,000, $200,000 or whatever, we want to feel confident we’re getting what we paid for. As a novice collector I relied on those slabs to guide me, foolishly thinking TPG’s were there to protect me and the investment (cringe) I was making. Obviously I was wrong.
Now I don’t know what Brent knows or doesn’t know. Does he have something on TPG’s or are they just incompetent? If they’re just incompetent are we just supposed to accept that or are there things that can happen to make them accountable for their actions? I know everyone believes this is going to be like every other time something like this has happened in the industry but I don’t believe it will be. It’s only been a couple of months and far more has happened than anyone could have imagined and yet it’s still met with plenty of ambivalence and scorn. It’s a tough crowd to please because we all want it both ways: the perpetrators to pay the maximum price and the problem (grading cards properly) to get improved. Only time will tell how it all will play out but I think if we can somehow look at it objectively, winning one of the battles has far more value than the other. Again, tough to do, but the bigger picture is far more important.