[MULLINS5]

Originally Posted by 70ToppsFanatic

I’ll believe that the FBI or other authorities are really involved and taking this seriously when the news comes from multiple media sources and has a little
meat on the bone. When it was Jose’s homemade cello packs with stars on top making there way into slabs a few years ago the FBI was supposedly all over it too.

As for stakeholders getting out in front, I was referring to examples
like the statement put out by Goldin Auctions. There have been a few others.
The response from PWCC, PSA and others more directly involved has left a lot of room for improvement. At the same time, I think we can all understand that they need to be very careful in issuing any statements. The original PSA statement by Steve Sloan was actually pretty benign and an introductory more-to-come kind of statement. The Joe Orlando follow-up was disappointing to say the least.

Ultimately we as the consumers in this market are going to vote with our wallets based on how the vendors in this market handle the current situation. I’m not suggesting for a moment that people shouldn’t be doing that whenever they feel it is appropriate, even right away.

All I am saying is that spreading unsubstantiated talk such as this is so much bigger than anyone’s knows, insider stock dumps, speculating on what happens if so-and-so does such-and-such is not helping anything, and may be distracting from what really needs to be focused on.

As for understating something I disagree. Even 1 altered card in a slab is wrong, but unless you have evidence showing otherwise right now there are several hundred cards that are suspected of being no good so far based on good, but not complete or infallible, investigative work. We did similar things several years ago investigating the homemade cello packs and it wasn’t sufficient to hold up to the evidentiary standards required to put away the bad actor involved then. From some of the uninformed frenzy that has been generated some think in reading message boards that its every third or fourth card. That’s just nonsense.

Perhaps Peter if it seemed that you had less of an axe to grind against PSA you would be a bit more controlled in attacking calls for avoiding misinformation and unsubstantiated statements that only serve to deflect focus from where it needs to be.

We all want to know what happened (or didn’t), how big the problem is, what will be done to make the victims whole, what will be done to prevent it from happening again and what consequences will the people responsible for it face. The issue is that those questions can’t be answered without first looking into it, and that’s not so easy when some of the players are trying to protect their livelihoods and/or their freedom.

Message board hysteria is not what is going to make the big players start getting us those answers. Only two things can; either 1) law enforcement authorities decide to go after this seriously (which is pretty hard for us to influence) or 2) the big players start hearing a groundswell from respectful customers that express concerns and ask, not demand, that these big players step up and lead on this. How does putting out BS speculation that Joe Orlando is dumping his stock get us what we need? How does some of the venomous stuff being written about PSA help get them moving faster?

The only other scenario is to try and cause a market crash so that it no longer matters if the big stakeholders get us the answers or not. Unfortunately that means that the bad actors end up winning this round because then there is no one trying to deter them until something else comes in to replace the TPGs, and it means the hobby gets hurt and a lot of collectors lose a lot.

That’s what’s really at stake here

Have you checked your cards to see if they're altered?