A mixed collection of thoughts reading all this. presented in no particular order.
IF I was starting a grading/authenticating company...
1) Getting a bunch of cards done quickly to build enough population to make a registry meaningful would be important.
2) While partnering with a sketchy dealer might be bad PR, my approach might be "Send me your best fakes, I'll find them"
--------------------------
As far as the sketchy dealer, in this case PWCC.
I may not recall the details right, but I had the impression they didn't do their own altering?
But its certain they at a minimum tolerated it and probably encouraged it. And probably helped by making the submissions to PSA.
I also believe PSA was in on it. It's hard to believe everyone there was so utterly incompetent. Expecting some flames for that, but I've said that for a long time now.
If those two things don't deserve regular criticism then nothing in the hobby does.
Yes, every place has it's scandals and failures. The difference is in how large and prevalent they are, and how they get handled. One authenticator in a different hobby had a problem when an employee with access to the database would change bad certificates to good for his friends before they got printed. Huge problem, like if PSA graded cards A, and someone went in and made all those into 8s and 9s.
They fired and charged the person responsible, and changed their process and access to the database, from pretty much all employees to only a few.
-------------------
The auction thing
I forget who said running an auction with bad software shouldn't happen, but .....Really?!
Pretty much all software fails, some of it more often than others. And the companies can only try to predict how much traffic they will have and arrange enough bandwidth to cover it. Having that constantly available is very expensive. So most companies run some basic level then buy more for times they expect a surge.
Was the ending and it's delays handled well? Maybe maybe not. I'd have to know what the discussion was with tech support, and we'll never get that.
I get that people are mad about not winning stuff, or paying more. But the opposite way of handling a tech problem during an auction is way worse.
One auction I placed internet bids for maybe 10 items. All pretty high bids. With the family budget that meant discussions and being in a bit of a spot if I won them all. Nothing we couldn't handle, but the boss would have required stuff being sold to offset the new stuff.
Anyway, all those items were within the same rough number range. Maybe 75 lots between the first and last?
Checked the next day, and it looked like they all went cheap!
No invoice...
Three days later I asked and was told I didn't win anything?? They'd had a half hour or so internet outage and couldn't access the online bids. So... they just carried on.
Thanks Copake Auction for wasting my time and costing your consignors a bundle. All because you couldn't do something simple like write down the internet bids.
|