Brent/PWCC interview on recent controversies

[swarmee]

The gist:
PSA, Beckett, and PWCC are being used by a whole host of scammers that alter cards. These guys are trimming $100 cards to make them worth $500, $500 to be worth $3,000, and $5,000 to be worth $25,000. They have realized that PSA and Beckett (edit: originally had SGC here on accident) are unable to do the job they claim to: detect trimming and other alterations. Once the cards are in TPG holders, they are submitted through PWCC (and Probstein) so that you don't know which scammer's cards you're buying. That is the rub with a consignment service: the owner of a card is known only to the consignment house.

PSA has been silent on the matter. BGS has been silent on the matter. Both are exposed as grading companies, but PSA has the "Grade Guarantee" where they will pay someone who gets scammed the difference between the purchase price and the value of the altered card. In the past 6 months, a few guys on a different message board have started researching the internet to find original pictures of cards before slices of the cards were cut off or before creases were pressed out. These cards would therefore be liable to be returned to sender, because they don't deserve a number grade. Those same sleuths have figured out many of the scammers based on finding out which eBay accounts bought the cards, altered them, submitted them to PSA/BGS, and finally sold through Brent and Rick.

We're not talking small bills; we're talking fraud amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars exposed by just a few guys on a message board. And since Brent keeps talking/posting and asking for feedback for his ridiculous re-writing of what altered means, he keeps getting rightfully bashed.