PSA counterfeit cards!!! Beware

[Archive]

Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

BARRY S

Your comment....."I would guess everyone is a one shot seller."

Not so, in recent years I've tracked at least two scammers, who listed a dozen or more fakes....sold them.
Immediately, de-registered and re-registered the following week under another ebay name and address. And,
sold his litany of fakes again. I reported these situations to ebay and they did nothing about them.

This Forum is the only real "watch-dog" there is....as long as we are ever vigilant.

TED Z

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Ted- I meant anyone who sells on Craigslist is probably a one time seller. The ebay people have their scams down to a science.

[Archive]

Posted By: Richie

I purchased 52 bowman mantle 1000$ from cali guy. i spoke to Craig gave me info for people to call.it is so hard to tell. all i see is frost in psa case but label i think is real. i think he has acual card but keeps submitting it and then after he gets it back he pops it out some how. all i know 1000$ is hard lesson to learn when you think you are buying card for an investment and you wind up with nothing with a wife and 2 babies at home. guess im offically done with sportscard collecting. craig i will make those calls.

[Archive]

Posted By: Mike

I think the graders could take a few precautions to make it more difficult and lesson the fraud.
1) Each set should have it's own designed holder engraved in the plastic. Therefore, a T206 could not be placed in a 1975 Topps holder. Only T206 could be replaced or flipped into another T206 holder. If a "1" was listed as a "6" it should be very apparent to the buyer. Also this would be great for the collector of a specific set ( all cards with a specific holder unique to that set)!!

This wouldn't stop the criminals from making their own holders but it would help.

2) Can opened slabs be detected by a black light ? Could someone check this out? I have a black light, hopefully I have no previously opened slabs.

[Archive]

Posted By: Craig

This guy is using the proper PSA holders for each particular issue. The t206 are the right holders for that size card,same with the 33/34 Goudeys, 52 Bowmans and 52-56 Topps. He's not taking cases from 80's and 90's junk and re using them, they won't work. So, he either is buying legit PSA cards probably low grade commons of the issues he's faking to get his supply of slabs or he might have some legit cards of the right issues that he submits to PSA, cracks them when he gets them back and keeps resubmitting just to get the holders. Just a thought.

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Posted By: Richie

Craig after i spoke to you i checked the psa label it is totally real. i just think he has authentic cards. after they are graded he is popping then out and replacing it with the junk you and i have. then he gets the authentic one resimmited again and looks for another sucker as myself was. just hope people read this before they make mistake i did. have good day all

[Archive]

Posted By: Tony Galovich

I just read where NGC, the coin graders, part of the SGC family announced their coin slabs have been counterfeited
So this problem is not just in cards
I buy the card, Not the Plastic
But many newbie's never look at the card
only the numerical grade on the card
I noticed sharp collectors always examined the reverse of the cards
where the novices never looked at the reverse side of the card as they think a hard has just one side to evaluate

[Archive]

Posted By: Jerry Hrechka

There are thiefs & scam artists ever where. My main problem with this thread is that posting scans of your cards on the PSA Set Registry is a unwise thing to do.
I enjoy collecting and like to share my modest collection with the world. I also enjoy looking at other collector's card sets (One of the best is WinPitcher's Mars Attacks Set - with scans of cards posted - Thumbs Up).
So now if I post scans of my cards I am somehow helping scammers?
It's a very sad day that the level of paranoia is so high that posting scans of your collection is frowned upon.
Posting scans of my Registry Set cards has also helped me in trading.
Scans of high grade cards are every where - just get copies of auction catalogs.
So keep your paranoia level high, worry about money and enjoy collecting.

[Archive]

Posted By: Al C.risafulli

I find nothing whatsoever wrong with posting scans on registries or message boards. A nice, simple safeguard to prevent theft of scans (that I'm too lazy to do) is either to watermark your scans or touch out the cert numbers. Lots of collectors do this.

-Al

[Archive]

Posted By: Anonymous

What do yall think this will have as an impact to the graded card hobby? Anything?
2nd time right?

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

"What scares me is the possibility of organized crime getting into this field. This scam feels much better organized than the usual a-hole selling laser copies on ebay but it could be so much worse. With the money involved how long will it be before one of the many "mafias" we have (LCN, Russian, Armenian, etc.) figures out that there is great money here with not much risk? The Feds don't seem to care and state's AG offices are useless as well since most of the salient charges are Federal mail fraud or wire fraud."

It's a rare time that I actually laugh out loud reading a post on here but this one did it for me!

[Archive]

Posted By: marty quinn

jerry-, i guess this is a response to what i said about registry scans. jerry i can't find where i said it is a unwise thing to do? i did not edit the post, i can't find those words?

i also did not say there was anything wrong with uploading scans either. this i did say..."all of those people uploading pics for their registry sets are also unknowingly supplying these scum of the earth with all they need".

all i was doing was pointing out another avenue of how they may obtain certs, how did this get misunderstood??

i never said it was unwise or wrong, i thought inserting the word "unknowingly" would clarify.

[Archive]

Posted By: rrrowe

...what the point of "loose flips" was to start with.

If the flip was attached to the inside front half of the slab with glue, This, at the very least, would be a huge hinderance to many of these scams.

Providing "loose flips" and an almost limitless supply of available holders to use with them, seems a bit on the negligent side by our grading companies.

[Archive]

Posted By: Anonymous

The thing which annoys me is how there is never any mention of these kind scams on the PSA website. Why don't they alert others instead of keeping quiet about it? Are they afraid of losing money? I mean come on, if you're not going to change your holders then they should explain on their site what to look out for when buying a PSA holder, where to report something suspicious, who to contact etc.

[Archive]

Posted By: NickM

That's a prefix assigned to cellular phones. The scammer could be anywhere - although the 3 addresses of Alhambra, San Gabriel, and Arcadia (3 small cities in the San Gabriel Valley that are near each other) suggests strongly that he's in the San Gabriel Valley.

BTW, Kevin and a few other members of this board have seen 2 "slabs" that I had where I bought cheap modern cards in PSA holders from major eBay dealers (both of whom submit massive quantities to PSA) and the slabs had never been sealed. I can't be the only one that has happened to.
I took those cards to PSA at a show - they bought one back (it had become damaged because it could move freely in the holder) and the other one still merited the grade assigned, so they sealed the slab and returned it to me.

[Archive]

Posted By: Tony Galovich

To the post that this situation hasn't been mentioned on the PSA website
NGC who grades coins has a similar situation currently & they have are circulating stories on the problem with detailed photos etc of what to look for etc
They are taking a proactive stance to warn the public of the situation
Kudo's to them to protect the consumer

[Archive]

Posted By: Richie

Guys this is card i bought off of this idiot. can i get some

[Archive]

Posted By: Richie

Here is back. looks real to me but i can see frost around hole psa case

[Archive]

Posted By: JK

the card looks real to me - but hard to tell for sure from the scan and unfortunately, based on what was stated above, probably a real good fake.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

The font on the flip is off a tad.

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Posted By: Craig

Got the 3 cards I sent to PSA for examination back today with an official letter stating the cards and labels are fakes and the holders had been tampered with on all 4 sides. Ivan Lopez is the PSA Operations Manager and the person who I dealt with. Maybe if he heard from enough concerned collectors they would take quicker action. His e-mail is Ivan@collectors.com


edited email addy to make it correct

[Archive]

Posted By: Rich Klein

To collectors.com not collectos.com

After you change the email in your last post, I'll ask our magnificent moderator to delete my post --

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: Craig

I believe your right, should be collectors.com, PSa misprinted it on their letter.

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Posted By: Jim VB

Craig,

<<PSa misprinted it on their letter.>>

That's standard procedure when a company REALLY doesn't want you to contact them!

[Archive]

Posted By: D.C. Markel

The best way to detect a tampered holder is to scan the card against a black background (scanner cover up) and not a white background (scanner cover down). It makes a world of difference.

[Archive]

Posted By: boxingcardman

EBay goes far to fight fraud -- all the way to Romania

By Ian Wylie, Special to The Los Angeles Times
December 26, 2007



RAMNICU VALCEA, ROMANIA -- This small industrial center in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains is not Albena Spasova's favorite destination. Driving the twisting highway makes her ill. Once she arrives, danger lurks.

U.S. Secret Service agents escort her, for her safety. Over the last two years, they have kept watch on dozens of trips, some lasting weeks, others months, as she has spent long days foraging through case files with local police and long nights holed up in one of the town's few hotels, with her windows locked.

"You don't know who to trust there. You can't use the hotel phone line. When you step outside, you can spot the local hackers in their cars, circling around," said Spasova, 33. "The Secret Service agents always book my accommodation and make sure I'm in a room next to them."

Ramnicu Valcea is an improbable capital of anything, but this obscure town is a global center of Internet and credit card fraud. And Spasova is an accomplished online fraud buster, helping to take down cyber-crime gangs across Romania. She isn't an FBI agent, though, nor a Romanian police officer.

Spasova works for EBay Inc.

No one, it turns out, does Internet auction fraud like the Romanians. Bulgarians specialize in intellectual property theft; Ukraine is a leader in online credit card crime; the Russians have a profitable niche in Internet dating fraud.

But when it comes to online auctions, particularly for big-ticket items such as cars that can yield $5,000 a scam, Romanians own the game. Romanian police estimate that cyber-crime is now a multimillion-dollar national industry, as important to organized criminals here as drug smuggling or human trafficking.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, ranks Romania fifth in its table of naughty nations. But most experts agree that doesn't give Romanian criminals their due. Much of the cash being made on auction fraud reported as originating in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Spain or Italy is actually being picked up in those countries by Romanian money mules. An EBay fraud ring busted last year in Chicago, for example, has been traced to Pitesti, Romania.

EBay, which doesn't even operate a site in Romania, won't talk dollar figures but acknowledges that the country is the No. 1 source of "professional fraud." On a November 2006 visit to the Romanian capital, Bucharest, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the vast majority of Internet fraud committed on "one prominent U.S. online auction website is connected to Romania or Romanians."

That poses a problem for EBay. The San Jose-based auction giant has built its popularity and staked its reputation on self-policing feedback. Its system depends on buyers and sellers trusting one another -- to send money and to deliver the goods. Yet EBay users are the daily targets of phishing scams, spoof e-mails and fake listing attacks. Such schemes don't cost EBay any money. But some of its customers pay dearly. And they expect EBay to do something about it.

"The fraudsters need to know we're coming after them," said Rob Chesnut, Spasova's boss and a former federal prosecutor who set up EBay's Trust and Safety division. "EBay doesn't have a product. We are in the trust business: making people feel comfortable doing business with someone they don't know," he said. "If the bad guys have no fear of prosecution, they will continue to try to defraud users. So there has to be a cost to trying."


Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Paul Moss

"The fraudsters need to know we're coming after them,"

What an absolute pile of horse manure.

As I stated in my typical longwinded diatribe above, all our efforts in the past to notify "Trust and Safety" of obvious scams and fakes have been an total waste of time by the inaction of their company. It is honestly to a point where I no longer bother. They are all blow and no go.

[Archive]

Posted By: Harry Wallace (HW)

This is real scary. I can't believe that PSA is not being proactive and alerting their customer on what to look for.

Maybe the grading companies will have to issue some sort of document with a front and back picture of the card that they graded to ensure that the card in the holder is the same one that they slabbed.

[Archive]

Posted By: Ed Ivey

I found my wife on Craigslist.

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Posted By: Kevin Saucier

"As with any counterfeit, something is always missed (fortunately)."

"in addition to the back being wrong, the PSA logo should be in silver (but maybe that's just the scan). Just gets worse and worse."

______________________________________


I've been warning collectors for some time and repeated it on my website. Not only cards can be doctored, we now need to look at flips and slabs from all companies.

Here is the back of an altered PSA flip:




Everyone has noticed Global's new holders. They made improvements in an effort to deter the fraudsters. Not only are their slabs more scan friendly now but they have also added some security measures to their flips and slabs.


Kevin Saucier

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Posted By: Brad Lewis

I have also bought cards from this guy on Craigslist. I remember
many of the cards you bought in his original listing and in discussions
over the phone. I purchased the '51 Bowman Mantle and that is what
I had up for auction when an EBay member wrote and informed that
the label was fake and case had been tampered with. I ended that auction and just sent my cards to PSA so I have not heard back yet but obviously they are going to come back as fakes. I did not purchase as many cards,
but in addition to the Mantle I bought a 1933 Goudey Gehrig #92 & Ruth #53
as PSA 5's, a 1954 Aaron PSA 6, and a 1955 Clemente PSA 6.

Please let me know what is happening with the FBI and if there is a
particular agent that you have been in contact with at this point. I
can provide them with all the information that I have and hopefully we
can nail this guy and try to recover our money. Contact me at my
email address so we can help each other out with this.

Brad

[Archive]

Posted By: Shannon

Please be patient with me; I haven't participated before.
I have been lurking for years however, and do understand
the rules. What brought me out of hiding, was a question:
I have never noticed the raised insignia on the reverse of
the PSA cases before. Being curious, I reviewed the ones
in my possession and found one that did not have it. Do the
earlier versions of the case not have this identifying
feature? The one in question is not one of the "first
generation" ones with that odd-looking font on the front. It
is one of the later versions prior to the one currently in
use. Thanks again.

[Archive]

Posted By: Dave

I did a national search of Craigslist for "Goudey" and found these brand new listings. Thought you might find them interesting:

http://madison.craigslist.org/clt/574326217.html
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/clt/574328919.html

Is the same guy still at work?

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Posted By: Linda

I also have dealt with this guy - I now have a dispute claim in Paypal...I would like to know how to report this to the FBI as you said you filed with them. I answered his ad on Craigslist in Sacramento, I only got taken for 1 card but it was expensive and now I will be refunding the money to the buyer. The buyer said it was a fake..but the buyer has not sent the card back to me but has filed a claim with paypal. I now can no longer reach "Jose Hernandez" by phone...I wonder if now the buyer is a phony buyer and is part of the scam...he has not returned the card but opened a paypal dispute and said he never received the card.

[Archive]

Posted By: Al Davis

Ed: I found your wife on Craigslist, too.

[bobbyw8469]

Bump because new collectors need to be made aware......there is a fake Aaron rookie PSA 7 ending on Ebay tonight. It is an obvious CL fake, yet bidders have bid it up to around $1,300. Someone is about to seriously get scammed. I have told Ebay to no avail.....

[Ladder7]

ebaY stands to make over a hundred bucks on this sham... Why would they pull it?

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

Bump because new collectors need to be made aware......there is a fake Aaron rookie PSA 7 ending on Ebay tonight. It is an obvious CL fake, yet bidders have bid it up to around $1,300. Someone is about to seriously get scammed. I have told Ebay to no avail.....

How do u know it's a fake?

[bobbyw8469]

Look at the card and not the case/flip. The colors are WAYYYY off....the hues are totally wrong.....there is a nice thread on Collector's Universe that explains how to tell the difference if you need more clarification.

[fkw]

Shoeless, if you go to page 5 of this 3 year old thread, there is a picture that still works and shows that many of these "Craigslist Fakes" have the same BAR CODE (T206 Cobb, Bowman Mantle, '54 Aaron, etc), similar to the same bare code as the PSA-6 Aaron on eBay a couple months ago and the PSA-7 Aaron on eBay right now (both in scan below). Like Kevin pointed out on page 5 of this thread, its not too easy to make unique Bar Codes so many of the fakes have exactly the same copied ones..... at least 2 different ones now known.

here is a scan I made and put on the postwar side of Net54 (and other message boards)
Bobby and I have been pushing info on these fakes for a few days now


(The current eBay PSA-7 is in this pic below)

[fkw]

Here is the auction that ends in 3+ hours
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=280604404994

Funny thing is the seller WAS answering the many questions for a couple days then stopped on the 19th. The last one he answered... the Q guy said that the others were saying his card was a fake to scam the seller, Oh well I hope he is the winner and it bites him in the ass

I wrote the seller 2-3 times and each time I told him detailed info on how to tell his card is a fake, I showed the scan I made above, the link to this post, and also pointed out the scan bar info, and the fact that all these fakes have very dark areas of print (most noticeable is the fingers and face of the smaller action pose)

[Shoeless Moe]

Thanks for the info all. I bet u guys rock at those spot the differences pictures. Amazing. Thanks again for your knowledge.

[bobbyw8469]

Well, since Ebay isn't going to pull it, I hope the winning bidder is happy with his 4 figure fake! He will have a hard time reselling it to me, but who knows....

[53Browns]

No shortage of bottom feeders out there unfortunately!

[delawarevintage]

I purchased a counterfeit 1952 Topps Mantle in a PSA holder. I called PSA before I made the purchase. I wanted to know if the card was stolen. The PSA rep said they don't have that information but make sure the Serial numbers match up. Of course they do. Why was I not informed about the scam. Asking questions should have raised a red flag with the PSA rep. I would have avoided the deal with any kind of warning. The president of PSA implied that I was an idiot and how dare I blame his rep. Really? Any suggestions as to what I should do?

[4815162342]

Originally Posted by delawarevintage

I purchased a counterfeit 1952 Topps Mantle in a PSA holder. I called PSA before I made the purchase. I wanted to know if the card was stolen. The PSA rep said they don't have that information but make sure the Serial numbers match up. Of course they do. Why was I not informed about the scam. Asking questions should have raised a red flag with the PSA rep. I would have avoided the deal with any kind of warning. The president of PSA implied that I was an idiot and how dare I blame his rep. Really? Any suggestions as to what I should do?

I hope you bought it on eBay through PayPal? Or if not, did you buy it with a major credit card?

[e107collector]

Originally Posted by delawarevintage

I purchased a counterfeit 1952 Topps Mantle in a PSA holder. I called PSA before I made the purchase. I wanted to know if the card was stolen. The PSA rep said they don't have that information but make sure the Serial numbers match up. Of course they do. Why was I not informed about the scam. Asking questions should have raised a red flag with the PSA rep. I would have avoided the deal with any kind of warning. The president of PSA implied that I was an idiot and how dare I blame his rep. Really? Any suggestions as to what I should do?

How did you acquire the card? Ebay, dealer, etc?

Can you post scans as well?

Tony

Originally Posted by delawarevintage

I purchased a counterfeit 1952 Topps Mantle in a PSA holder. I called PSA before I made the purchase. I wanted to know if the card was stolen. The PSA rep said they don't have that information but make sure the Serial numbers match up. Of course they do. Why was I not informed about the scam. Asking questions should have raised a red flag with the PSA rep. I would have avoided the deal with any kind of warning. The president of PSA implied that I was an idiot and how dare I blame his rep. Really? Any suggestions as to what I should do?

Nothing but learn a lesson. It's PSA for craps sake. Again I will say that they are the worst grading company out there. You really have to know your cards before buying a PSA slabbed card. A lot of repro's and badly graded cards out there by them. They should be voted off the island. Whooops wrong show

[delawarevintage]

Originally Posted by e107collector

How did you acquire the card? Ebay, dealer, etc?

Can you post scans as well?

Tony

I'm new at this. Not able to post pictures at this time. I am more interested in why PSA would not give me more information when I called before purchasing this card. They had all the information I needed to know. Mike

[e107collector]

Originally Posted by delawarevintage

I'm new at this. Not able to post pictures at this time. I am more interested in why PSA would not give me more information when I called before purchasing this card. They had all the information I needed to know. Mike

It's possible that the serial number that you gave them is linked to an authentic PSA graded Mantle.

Without knowing all the facts, someone may have swapped out the authentic Mantle out of the PSA holder, and replaced it with a fake card.

You also may have a fake PSA slab and flip.

Where did you get the card, and how did you pay for it?

Tony