More additions at PSA Autograph Authentication

[packs]

Can I throw a hypothetical situation at the TPA detractors?

Person A is a well respected authority on autographs in the hobby.
Person A is someone people turn to for opinions.
Person A charges a fee for his opinions.
Person A is able to sell his own merchandise to collectors with his name attached as insurance that the item is real.

Now: Person A finds themselves in quite a bit of financial trouble. Let's say Person A is going through a divorce. Person A needs to raise some money.

Couldn't Person A be tempted to use his leverage in the hobby and the grace of his word to defraud collectors in his time of financial need?

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by packs

Can I throw a hypothetical situation at the TPA detractors?



Person A is a well respected authority on autographs in the hobby.

Person A is someone people turn to for opinions.

Person A charges a fee for his opinions.

Person A is able to sell his own merchandise to collectors with his name attached as insurance that the item is real.



Now: Person A finds themselves in quite a bit of financial trouble. Let's say Person A is going through a divorce. Person A needs to raise some money.



Couldn't Person A be tempted to use his leverage in the hobby and the grace of his word to defraud collectors in his time of financial need?

I would assume so...

[packs]

That's exactly why I see TPA's as a necessary evil.

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by packs

Now: Person A finds themselves in quite a bit of financial trouble. Let's say Person A is going through a divorce. Person A needs to raise some money.

Couldn't Person A be tempted to use his leverage in the hobby and the grace of his word to defraud collectors in his time of financial need?

It's simple really.
Yes, someone in financial trouble certainly could be tempted to defraud collectors, but these TPA's are in the same position. They want to make money period. What separates an individual from a corporation is that I can look a person in the eye and discuss things with them. I know who to blame if they defraud me. Who is to blame for the errors in the TPA? The fact is no one knows. You trust a corporation to provide you with an expert opinion without the knowledge that they actually are experts.
Sure, if I knew that Kevin saw my item and said it was good or bad, I can trust that, but we don't know who is handling our items. The buyer gets a letter from a company with all the authenticator's names, but that's it.

Paying for an expert opinion, like Kevin, Bill, or Rich's, is one thing. They each have 30ish yrs of autograph experience to draw from not just a group of photos on a hard drive to compare to. Do I really want to pay the exact same amount, or anything at all for that matter, for some guy who's experience is a mystery? No. I don't. It is a good thing for PSA, etc that you and many others like you do. If I am paying for an opinion, I'd like to know who is actually giving it and what their level of expertise is.

One last difference is that if someone defrauds you, you have financial and legal recourse. If the TPAs make a mistake, it's "Whoops. We're sorry, but you are only paying for our opinion." There is NOTHING that should make you feel more secure than a money back guarantee from a dealer. TPAs guarantee nothing.

[packs]

I disagree. A major corporation is not under the auspices of a single individual. If the head of PSA got into financial trouble it would be extremely difficult for them to use PSA to authentic bogus material for personal sale. There are too many moving parts and you'd be relying on too many people to keep it to themselves. You'll also have your bogus items in your own registry. There's no way that would happen in my opinion.

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by packs

I disagree. A major corporation is not under the auspices of a single individual. If the head of PSA got into financial trouble it would be extremely difficult for them to use PSA to authentic bogus material for personal sale. There are too many moving parts and you'd be relying on too many people to keep it to themselves. You'll also have your bogus items in your own registry. There's no way that would happen in my opinion.

You mean you cannot believe that a company would bow to financial pressures to do things in a less than above board way? Really? You mean like power companies who dump toxic waste. Have you not heard about the fairly large and well known Oil company(BP) who took shortcuts to save money that resulted in the big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?

No, you are right. It's silly of me to think a large publicly traded company would ever do anything underhanded. (Hmm. How about the Mastro Wagner? Nah. they didn't give a grade to a card they knew was trimmed. NO way)

Edit: To me, Any authentication company who does not focus and make accuracy their prime directive is not doing their job. At least an individual puts their reputation at stake with each customer encounter. A private dealer has much more to lose by making mistakes than any of the big companies. If a private dealer had made all the mistakes that any of the TPAs have, even if done honestly, they would be out of business.

[packs]

I'm not talking about cutting corners. I said if the head of PSA, for arguments sake, got himself into trouble, it would be pretty difficult for him to have his own company cert bogus items that would appear in its own registry so that he could sell them to trusting buyers. However, it would be pretty easy for Person A to do that in my example.

[Lordstan]

ok. I understand what you mean, but the head of PSA, for example, doesn't authenticate or sell anything to my knowledge. He would not be able to affect the results outside of putting pressure on the workers to give favor to one submitter over another, but an authenticator could. If anyone working in authentication wanted to pass something due to financial gain, they could. I am not saying they have, but they could, just like an individual. Being part of a TPA does not prevent the individuals from acting poorly. In the case of JSA, the owner is the lead authenticator so could absolutely affect the decisions directly and indirectly if he wanted to.

How about TPAs giving preference to Auction Houses so that a) get more business from those auction houses b) get more name recognition and validation in the general public's eyes by claiming that they are approved and required by those auction houses? Both of those things end up increasing the bottom line for the company on the whole and, given that many executives have compensation packages that take into account the profit of the company as part of the calculation, it is certainly within the reasonable realm of possibility to happen. You don't think an auction house might consider getting a different authenticator to replace one that rejects everything?

I could see why you doing the actual certification of things you sell would be a conflict of interest. I think having an authenticator giving up their buy/sell business makes sense, but none of what you said proves the point that TPAs are a necessary evil. Bad things can be done by both the company and individual, both of which turn out bad for the consumer. At least it is easier to prove and hold individuals accountable rather than a large corporation.

EDIT: also, you don't think that management at the highest level was not involved in the Wagner fiasco? It is the most visible and well known item of any type in our hobby. Somehow a card that virtually anyone with eyes can see was trimmed was slabbed as an 8. You don't think, in this type of situation, that the management team doesn't have something to gain by giving it that grade despite it's question? Now think about if a private person was grading it. You don't think a private person would not have suffered much more dramatically had they done the same thing?

[RichardSimon]

"How about TPAs giving preference to Auction Houses so that a) get more business from those auction houses b) get more name recognition and validation in the general public's eyes by claiming that they are approved and required by those auction houses? Both of those things end up increasing the bottom line for the company on the whole and, given that many executives have compensation packages that take into account the profit of the company as part of the calculation, it is certainly within the reasonable realm of possibility to happen. You don't think an auction house might consider getting a different authenticator to replace one that rejects everything?"

Thank you Mark for that one. I could not agree more.
+1!!

[packs]

The conflict of interest is my biggest contention. Yes, I do think that a TPA can be complicit in giving favorable treatment to individuals, like the Wagner situation you brought up. But that end was for publicity, not to sell a fake Wagner that was holdered as real to generate that publicity. The Wagner was still an authentic card and PSA had no ownership of it.

My main contention is that an individual who certs their own items for their own resale could be a dangerous model for the hobby should one of those individuals find themselves in some trouble. I don't think you run that same risk with the TPA.

[Klrdds]

Originally Posted by Lordstan

Edit: To me, Any authentication company who does not focus and make accuracy their prime directive is not doing their job. At least an individual puts their reputation at stake with each customer encounter. A private dealer has much more to lose by making mistakes than any of the big companies. If a private dealer had made all the mistakes that any of the TPAs have, even if done honestly, they would be out of business.

I agree 100%. That is why Jim Stinson and Richard Simon have continued to thrive and survive in this business that is seeing individual dealers who stand by their opinions go the way of the dinosaurs.
PSA and to some extent JSA and SGC and Beckett are companies that have to rely on volume to generate the profits needed to stay in business regardless of how many mistakes they make. In fact I would bet money that those companies have a built-in error/tolerances for certing bad autos as genuine. The individual dealer must be correct 100% of the time, they can't afford to "cut corners" in any small way at any time ....the TPAs don't have to be correct 100% of the time nor do I believe they expect to be.