Ebay Authentication is a Comical JOKE.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

John, the main point of Ebay's authentication program for graded cards, probably 99% of it, is just to make sure the card they get from the seller is the same as the listing.

There used to be a fair amount of scammers who would sell a PSA 5 Mantle and deliver instead a graded Greg Jeffries card, or an empty box. There were also a few buyers who would actually get a PSA 5 Mantle from a legitimate seller, but claim they got an empty box.

Ebay's resolution service was very busy trying to sort through these claims. It can be difficult in some cases to decide who is lying. Since Ebay began the authentication program, most of these issues have gone away. If a seller sends that Greg Jeffries card to PSA, it gets sent back and nobody hears about it. But I suspect that is a rare occurrence anymore.

Now, I suspect the PSA graders doing the authentication for Ebay have very little to do when they get a graded card, so maybe this one grader looked at Dan's case a little too closely.

There was also I think a big story a couple years ago about someone putting cards in fake PSA flips and selling them. Do you remember that one? I'm not sure if that was an Ebay issue or not, my recollection is they were being sold at a card show.

As for raw cards, I doubt your raw EX-MT cards would be rejected, as long as they weren't creased or heavily worn. I think on the raw side PSA is mostly checking to see if the card is authentic, is the same one as shown in the listing and is described fairly.

Thanks Al. I'm aware of what the point of the program is.

I have not tried out the authentication experience with raw cards as a seller, but had heard some horror stories of ostensibly inexperienced authenticators issuing rejections based on holding raw sellers to super critical standards. My point in discussing the raw was that I think it's not good if because of such experiences, raw sellers are more likely to disclose less (i.e. not list a condition range at all...) on such listings.