Peter, you know I agree that card doctoring - and fraud in general - is a huge problem in this hobby. It has been for a long time.
A cert number lookup, IMO, does nothing to tell you about the card that you're holding, except in rare instances.
I actually don't believe that the hobby is configured to protect card doctors. I believe that capable authentication companies protect consumers from far more fraud than we know. In my mind, the "old" hobby was designed to protect card doctors.
None of that changes the fact that fraud is a huge problem, though, we can definitely agree on that.
-Al
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