PSA: from Experts who thwart "wack jobs" to unappreciated, human-based opinion givers

[trambo]

Originally Posted by BobC

Their fiscal year ended on June 30, 2019, so they are actually in the middle of their annual financial audit by their outside auditors. In prior years the auditors were Grant Thornton out of Newport Beach, CA. Would assume they didn't change for this year and are using the same firm. Based on prior years, all of their year-end financials and statements are usually out by sometime in September/October, so it shouldn't be too much longer.

Of particular interest will be the amount of warranty reserve they show on the company books for this year end. Based on the numbers of altered/doctored cards thought to be sitting in numerically graded PSA holders, as speculated on by many on here and the BO boards, the potential warranty claims that could be made against PSA could be in the millions of dollars. Should be interesting to finally see what they ended up showing on their financials as their warranty reserve amount, and that the auditors agreed to let them use. If you look at their full annual report once it is up online also (as a publicly traded company this all goes out for public viewing), it will be interesting to see what, if anything, it mentions about these current issues. It should give everyone an insight into their thinking and how they are trying to present this to their auditors and others in the financial community.

They may remove past comments and statements from their sites, and be completely silent to the collecting community about all the issues going on currently, but that won't work when it comes to their outside auditors and requirements of the SEC and the investing community.

I've asked the question if there is anyone yet that has gone back to PSA with a suspected altered/doctored card to take them up on their warranty, and have heard nothing. I did hear that PWCC was refunding buyers of suspect cards their money back when such cards were returned to them, and then they were turning those suspect cards over to the FBI as part of the ongoing investigation. Had also heard that PSA was possibly telling buyers of such suspect cards to also go back the sellers also, and not bring the suspect cards to them. I would love to hear what happened if someone with a suspected doctored card in a PSA holder didn't go back to a seller, like PWCC, and went to PSA instead and demanded they uphold their warranty guarantee. What would PSA say and do?!?!?

If you think you'll get a bunch of detail regarding a change of warranty reserve, you're likely going to be disappointed. My guess is they will increase the reserve but it likely won't be material enough to warrant much, if any, disclosure. I can't imagine they would do any more than the bare minimum with disclosures but whatever they disclose, it will have been opined upon by the CPA firm. It'll be interesting to read regardless!

(BTW-I spent 6 1/2 years w/one of the big CPA firms as an auditor)