Latest card grading scam

[RobertGT]

I just wanted to alert the group to something that just happened to me for the first time in 10 years of selling on eBay.

I sold a card, graded PSA 8.5, at a pretty reasonable price of $35 to a buyer in California. A couple of days later he e-mails me saying the card arrived with a crack in the holder. The case was perfect when it left my hands - in fact the card had only been graded a couple of weeks earlier by PSA. I sent it via USPS in a bubble mailer, with it marked "FRAGILE" in several places. But I told him to go ahead and return the card to me anyway for a refund.

So I got the card back today, and what I see is a very large diagonal crack across the front and a smaller diagonal crack in the middle of the reverse. I'm looking at these cracks, and they look like obvious pressure cracks to me -- as if someone put the card in a vise in an effort to break it out and resubmit it to PSA, perhaps hoping to get a 9. The difference between an 8.5 and 9 on this particular card is about $350.

I showed the card to a grading expert of mine, and he agrees this is how such cracks likely occurred - from torquing the vise too tightly. Also, there is no movement of the card inside the holder because the plastic is now pressed up against the card.

Sorry to go on forever, but has anyone ever heard of the USPS/UPS etc. causing cracks such as this in a PSA holder?
I don't want to identify the buyer right now as I have no proof this is what happened, but it seems very, very suspicious.

Thanks,
Rob