Some of the business practices in this hobby are just like any other industry where there are lots of dollars involved. Most of the opportunities for individuals looking to make a profit are driven by building relationships with influential people. This can be done with dealers, customers or grading companies. When dishonest people are exposed to these opportunities they take advantage of them until found out about such as what just happened in this article.
Again this is not unlike what goes on in any industry. I still believe that without the grading companies there would be much less of a market for baseball cards and there would be very few opportunities for sales to be made via the internet. As an example of this compare ungraded prices for items on E-Bay versus items authenticated and graded by SGC or PSA. Usually there is no comparison between the two. I would have to say that anyone purchasing ungraded high dollar items via the internet is running a great chance of being disappointed when they receive their item.
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