Incompetent PSA - who loses?

[jimq16415]

This auction https://www.ebay.com/itm/22619223364...3Avlp_homepage shows a 1962 Topps 135 Babe Ruth that PSA slabbed as a 1962 Topps Venezuelan. It's a 5 which is a pretty high grade for what it says it is. If it sells for $500 or so, and goes thru the ebay program, do they reject it for being a regular Topps? It says final sale and the seller is selling a good PSA slab that's not tampered with. You can't return it, can you return it to PSA for a refund?

[swarmee]

I reported it to ebay and also just messaged the seller.

PSA will not pay out on a grade guarantee on a "Mechanical Error", but they will fix it for free by putting it in a regular 1962 Topps slab.

No telling whether or not the PSA slab reviewer for the eBay authenticity guarantee would verify that it's mislabeled until it actually goes through.

[hcv123]

Take a look at the back and you will see what the grader had to "miss".

[swarmee]

Seller responded that they're going to cancel the auction and return card to PSA.

[jimq16415]

Originally Posted by swarmee

I reported it to ebay and also just messaged the seller.

PSA will not pay out on a grade guarantee on a "Mechanical Error", but they will fix it for free by putting it in a regular 1962 Topps slab.

No telling whether or not the PSA slab reviewer for the eBay authenticity guarantee would verify that it's mislabeled until it actually goes through.

I didn't know they didn't cover mechanical error. Seems more like if they're charging you to grade it they should know what they're grading.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by jimq16415

I didn't know they didn't cover mechanical error. Seems more like if they're charging you to grade it they should know what they're grading.

One of the rubs of that policy is that sometimes the grade "is" the mechanical error. Sometimes a grader types in a 10 instead of a 6 and it actually makes its way through QA1 and QA2 and gets sent back to the submitter.
One dealer a year or two ago got two Joe Montana RCs back as PSA 10s. Both were 70/30 OC. PSA blamed that on Mechanical error and recalled them both to be put in PSA 6 slabs.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by swarmee

One of the rubs of that policy is that sometimes the grade "is" the mechanical error. Sometimes a grader types in a 10 instead of a 6 and it actually makes its way through QA1 and QA2 and gets sent back to the submitter.
One dealer a year or two ago got two Joe Montana RCs back as PSA 10s. Both were 70/30 OC. PSA blamed that on Mechanical error and recalled them both to be put in PSA 6 slabs.

Is the policy different when the submitter is in possession of "mechanical error" cards?

[Kutcher55]

I just got back an order from PSA that was a real head scratcher. I got a 6 on a card that was at least a 7. No big surprise. But I also got a 3 on a card that I expected to get an “A” and should never in a million years graded higher than a 2. They are so inconsistent. Nobody really knows what to do with mid grade vintage. I remember hearing Peter at SGC interviewed a couple of years ago and he said (paraphrasing) that their graders will almost always land on the exact same grade for a given card. Such complete nonsense. There are 3s that should be in 5 holders. There are 3s that should be in 1.5 holders. Etc.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by Eric72

Is the policy different when the submitter is in possession of "mechanical error" cards?

The grade guarantee doesn't apply to the submitter, since they couldn't have lost money just by grading it. PSA will normally fix mechanical errors for free no matter who submits them, even if the original submitter called them the wrong thing on the submission form; PSA is supposed to catch that with their Research & ID teams.

This is one reason that when PSA was dealing with the early stages of the PWCC scandal, I recommended that they tell customers to return them at their original cost to the seller, who would then either not have a grade guarantee claim or would have a reduced loss because they likely got the item cheaper. PSA actually agreed with that, and that's one reason that most altered cards sold through PWCC were returned to them; it minimized PSA liability.