new low for the ebay authenticity thing

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Presumably fake flips take their number from real flips, that's part of how they fool people. At least that is how the Mexican fraud worked. So if PSA deactivates the cert from a fake flip, that means the owner of the real card now has a deactivated cert? What am I missing?

Great point and question. Here's possibly another.

If under the program a graded card gets sent to a TPG to verify that the card holder is real and hasn't been tampered with, what happens if in sending the card to the designated TPG the holder somehow gets damaged in transit? Or what if it gets damaged in the hands of the people at the designated TPG? Could it be possible for that card to be 100% legit and real, but now because of third-party damage to the holder that some examiner deems the damaged holder as tampered with, and therefore puts the legitimacy of the card itself into question?

Which leads back to Peter's and other's other question, what happens to the card itself in such an instance when the holder is considered fake or tampered with? Does it get returned to the seller, but now in damaged form? Since at the end of the day, whatever TPG is hired to review these holders is still only technically giving their opinion, I doubt they could ever claim the cards are truly fake or tampered with, and as a result confiscate them and not send them back to the seller. To my thinking, such an action would go beyond the mere rendering of an opinion, and confiscation of cards would put actual liability in the lap of the TPG and/or online seller, which they most certainly do not ever want if they can help it.

We all know it is not a question of if, but when, something like that finally happens. And at that point I can see a very upset seller getting everyone else all just pointing fingers at each other, and no one taking any responsibility for the whole issue, leaving the seller stuck.

The other part of this I've never understood is how you can pick one TPG group/company to be in charge of reviewing encapsulated cards and holders of other TPGs as well. Exactly how did those designated examiners suddenly become experts in the card holders of every other TPG? What training did they receive and/or school did they attend to gain such knowledge and expertise?

Also, one would think that there should be a sense of independence to this process as well. I can see hiring a TPG to look at raw cards being sold on an online platform as there is no independence question or issue in that case. But in hiring one specific TPG to examine and review card holders of cards they graded and issued, along with graded card holders of all other TPG graded cards, that can raise a bit of an independence issue and question in my mind.

The transparency in this entire program, quite frankly, stinks. Otherwise, people wouldn't have to be bringing up such questions, at least not so long after such a program was initiated and originally put into place.