How do you think it all shakes out

[PowderedH2O]

I'm going to ask, because so many of you are lawyers or experts in law and I am not. Forget about ethics or morals, but what is illegal about altering cards, resubmitting them to PSA, and then selling them?

I say this because I worked in the car business for years and customers often washed, waxed, Armor-alled, and detailed their cars before trading them in. They would buff out scratches. Occasionally we found Bondo to cover a dent. Our appraiser would look over the car and make a decision. It was what it was. We couldn't go back a month later and call the person that traded in the car and claim some sort of deception. If it got past our appraiser then so be it.

If Gary gets a card and doctors it up and submits it to PSA, it is PSA's job to catch the doctoring. If he has a PSA 4 that becomes a PSA 7, it is what it is. That card is now a PSA 7, whether you like the way it got there or not. If PWCC takes this PSA 7 and sells it on ebay as a PSA 7 beautiful example of this card, are they lying? Is it not a PSA 7? It says so right on the slab.

To me, the only legal issues would be if they had an insider at PSA that was giving them some sort of an advantage, or if they intentionally undersold the first cards so that they could purchase them for resale. As far as the trimming, chemical bathing, or whatever... that seems to be a PSA issue of incompetence.

I think this practice is misleading, unethical, and deceptive. But, my question is this: Is the altering of cards, submitting them, and then selling the newly slabbed item actually illegal?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by PowderedH2O

I'm going to ask, because so many of you are lawyers or experts in law and I am not. Forget about ethics or morals, but what is illegal about altering cards, resubmitting them to PSA, and then selling them?

I say this because I worked in the car business for years and customers often washed, waxed, Armor-alled, and detailed their cars before trading them in. They would buff out scratches. Occasionally we found Bondo to cover a dent. Our appraiser would look over the car and make a decision. It was what it was. We couldn't go back a month later and call the person that traded in the car and claim some sort of deception. If it got past our appraiser then so be it.

If Gary gets a card and doctors it up and submits it to PSA, it is PSA's job to catch the doctoring. If he has a PSA 4 that becomes a PSA 7, it is what it is. That card is now a PSA 7, whether you like the way it got there or not. If PWCC takes this PSA 7 and sells it on ebay as a PSA 7 beautiful example of this card, are they lying? Is it not a PSA 7? It says so right on the slab.

To me, the only legal issues would be if they had an insider at PSA that was giving them some sort of an advantage, or if they intentionally undersold the first cards so that they could purchase them for resale. As far as the trimming, chemical bathing, or whatever... that seems to be a PSA issue of incompetence.

I think this practice is misleading, unethical, and deceptive. But, my question is this: Is the altering of cards, submitting them, and then selling the newly slabbed item actually illegal?

Yes. Mail fraud and wire fraud, if sold using the mails or the wires (internet). Lots of posts on this in prior threads. Not going to repeat them.

[PowderedH2O]

Well that was helpful. Still don't see it. Oh well.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by PowderedH2O

Well that was helpful. Still don't see it. Oh well.

I don't mean to be rude not doing a full reply but I just don't want to repeat and debate the same things I've said before. What you describe is classic fraud.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I don't mean to be rude not doing a full reply but I just don't want to repeat and debate the same things I've said before. What you describe is classic fraud.

I don’t see it, counselor. Nice try.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by calvindog

i don’t see it, counselor. Nice try.

lol

[1880nonsports]

that people believe PSA will be paying out any kind of significant monies. They will fight to the death on a card by card basis with them in a staring role as the fox surrounded by nothing but the hens. Add - or more appropriately subtract - many cards from the conversation as well whose owners won't know about or participate in any kind of cleansing "process". PSA will go on forever...……..
I don't collect modern graded cards so I know nothing about BVG or their previous/current iterations or Black label designations.
SGC has been my grader of choice. I always spoke to them about the mistake they made going into autographs while their own house (core business) wasn't in order. They will have to be aggressive to increase their market share as they are mostly called upon to grade vintage cards.
Overall I think the hobby in general NEEDS grading companies. I hope they will continue to improve their methods - but with a likely minute or less to make determinations about grade and authenticity by someone who may not be a seasoned veteran card grader - along with the increasing skill sets and technology available to card doctors - graded (and raw) card collectors need to realize the inherent limitations of their own eyes and those of the TPG's even with more sophisticated equipment.
I've known of card doctoring and of a doctor or two operating under the radar since I got in the hobby nearly 30 years ago including one or two of the people that have been mentioned in the many threads here and on a couple of other sites I was linked to from here. I remember Gary and a partner from over 25 years ago. No personal knowledge of his guilt or innocence. Always going to be people in this world trying to separate one from their money without a legitimate means. That shit will go on forever - and the devil takes many forms. I try and be an informed consumer but there's only so far I will go. Like at the poker table I get angry at the idiot that always seems to play with his 18%. I go into the situation with my eyes open - occasional he will snap me but I am an educated consumer :-) All grades can be suspect of manipulation BUT I have cut the odds down NOT buying very high grade cards for my sets, instead settling for very-good to excellent overall. I think there should only be 4 grades - all of which incorporate not only technical focus but aesthetics - determined by LOOKING AT THE FREAKING CARD! :-) That's for another day.
PWCC - or whatever their acronym is. Man they are in the news here a LOT! It all seems like smoke and mirrors. Certainly they SEEM complicit beyond the casual. I think they will stall and deflect until they are forced into some accelerated response by whatever PSA and eBay does as surely they don't dictate to either despite all the money they bring in. They are MONSTER sellers. Maybe pwcc just won't continue at the crazy growth levels of the past 10 (?) years.
As for the overall hobby - yesh. Hate this shit but like the direction of the country I love - I have but little impact other than looking at it in the light of day along with others and hoping as they see the same light we can get increasingly more people to see it and bring pressure to bear for change. One can hope can't they?

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by PowderedH2O

I'm going to ask, because so many of you are lawyers or experts in law and I am not. Forget about ethics or morals, but what is illegal about altering cards, resubmitting them to PSA, and then selling them?

I say this because I worked in the car business for years and customers often washed, waxed, Armor-alled, and detailed their cars before trading them in. They would buff out scratches. Occasionally we found Bondo to cover a dent. Our appraiser would look over the car and make a decision. It was what it was. We couldn't go back a month later and call the person that traded in the car and claim some sort of deception. If it got past our appraiser then so be it.

If Gary gets a card and doctors it up and submits it to PSA, it is PSA's job to catch the doctoring. If he has a PSA 4 that becomes a PSA 7, it is what it is. That card is now a PSA 7, whether you like the way it got there or not. If PWCC takes this PSA 7 and sells it on ebay as a PSA 7 beautiful example of this card, are they lying? Is it not a PSA 7? It says so right on the slab.

To me, the only legal issues would be if they had an insider at PSA that was giving them some sort of an advantage, or if they intentionally undersold the first cards so that they could purchase them for resale. As far as the trimming, chemical bathing, or whatever... that seems to be a PSA issue of incompetence.

I think this practice is misleading, unethical, and deceptive. But, my question is this: Is the altering of cards, submitting them, and then selling the newly slabbed item actually illegal?

seriously.Yes PSA is incompetent only to this point in the story. It remains to be seen if they are implicit to the crime. I personally believe they are. You don't have to be a Lawyer to know for FACT what they are doing is fraud. It is almost laughable if you don't think it's not illegal to HIDE material facts about the cards they are reselling.

Let people crack cards, doctor the F out of them and get higher grades on the resubmit. THEN DON'T TELL ANYONE. DING DING DING. Hello McFly, anybody home! They do it over and over and over again with 10 different characters for 15-20 years. Once again, please listen to the lawyers who know much more about the law then you do. I have never wasted 1 nickel on a lawyer but have paid them thousands in my time. Always worth every damn penny. AND I actually do what they tell me..

Imagine that. listening to people who know more than you do... You should try it sometime.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I trim a card. I get it past PSA. I sell it, without disclosing that I trimmed it. Or my co-conspirator sells it for me knowing I trimmed it. If someone truly wants to argue that's not fraud, well, I give up, I'm not debating it any more. Nor am I debating that the federal mail and wire fraud statutes apply if I do this, repeatedly, using the mails or wires.

[Fballguy]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I trim a card. I get it past PSA. I sell it, without disclosing that I trimmed it. Or my co-conspirator sells it for me knowing I trimmed it. If someone truly wants to argue that's not fraud, well, I give up, I'm not debating it any more. Nor am I debating that the federal mail and wire fraud statutes apply if I do this, repeatedly, using the mails or wires.

Getting it past PSA is the biggest problem here that too many aren't talking about. I don't have cards graded, so I don't care...but many here are trusting PSA with their wallets and PSA is apparently no more capable of spotting a problem than you or I. They are "victims" (based on their response) not experts or authenticators. They are you. You pay for that?

[STL1944]

Originally Posted by PowderedH2O

I'm going to ask, because so many of you are lawyers or experts in law and I am not. Forget about ethics or morals, but what is illegal about altering cards, resubmitting them to PSA, and then selling them?

I say this because I worked in the car business for years and customers often washed, waxed, Armor-alled, and detailed their cars before trading them in. They would buff out scratches. Occasionally we found Bondo to cover a dent. Our appraiser would look over the car and make a decision. It was what it was. We couldn't go back a month later and call the person that traded in the car and claim some sort of deception. If it got past our appraiser then so be it.

If Gary gets a card and doctors it up and submits it to PSA, it is PSA's job to catch the doctoring. If he has a PSA 4 that becomes a PSA 7, it is what it is. That card is now a PSA 7, whether you like the way it got there or not. If PWCC takes this PSA 7 and sells it on ebay as a PSA 7 beautiful example of this card, are they lying? Is it not a PSA 7? It says so right on the slab.

To me, the only legal issues would be if they had an insider at PSA that was giving them some sort of an advantage, or if they intentionally undersold the first cards so that they could purchase them for resale. As far as the trimming, chemical bathing, or whatever... that seems to be a PSA issue of incompetence.

I think this practice is misleading, unethical, and deceptive. But, my question is this: Is the altering of cards, submitting them, and then selling the newly slabbed item actually illegal?

I think a better analogy here using cars would be someone buying a car with 100,000 miles on it, rolling back to odometer (Ferris Bueller style) and then selling it again as a "Grandma driven special with only 15,000 miles on it" when in fact the engine has 100,000 miles on it.

[CobbSpikedMe]

The actual act that is illegal is not the trimming of the card, or submitting it to PSA to try to get a number grade, or selling it. I don't know why folks continue to ask why these things are illegal and then act like they don't get it when someone explains fraud. The illegal part is when you do this over and over and DON'T DISCLOSE it to the buyers when you know the fact is the card is altered and doesn't deserve a number grade. This is fraud. Simple. This isn't a hard concept to grasp people. They are misrepresenting what they are selling and doing it on purpose to get more money than they should from buyers that are being duped. Over and over again. The actual trimming of the card isn't what the lawyers are saying is illegal. Submitting the trimmed card to a TPG is not what they are saying is illegal. Lying to the buyers to get record sales is where the fraud starts.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by PowderedH2O

I'm going to ask, because so many of you are lawyers or experts in law and I am not. Forget about ethics or morals, but what is illegal about altering cards, resubmitting them to PSA, and then selling them?

I say this because I worked in the car business for years and customers often washed, waxed, Armor-alled, and detailed their cars before trading them in. They would buff out scratches. Occasionally we found Bondo to cover a dent. Our appraiser would look over the car and make a decision. It was what it was. We couldn't go back a month later and call the person that traded in the car and claim some sort of deception. If it got past our appraiser then so be it.

If Gary gets a card and doctors it up and submits it to PSA, it is PSA's job to catch the doctoring. If he has a PSA 4 that becomes a PSA 7, it is what it is. That card is now a PSA 7, whether you like the way it got there or not. If PWCC takes this PSA 7 and sells it on ebay as a PSA 7 beautiful example of this card, are they lying? Is it not a PSA 7? It says so right on the slab.

To me, the only legal issues would be if they had an insider at PSA that was giving them some sort of an advantage, or if they intentionally undersold the first cards so that they could purchase them for resale. As far as the trimming, chemical bathing, or whatever... that seems to be a PSA issue of incompetence.

I think this practice is misleading, unethical, and deceptive. But, my question is this: Is the altering of cards, submitting them, and then selling the newly slabbed item actually illegal?

Here's why it's illegal:

Alteration of cards is considered a material fact when it comes to the value of those cards. Trimmed, recolored, whatever cards are deemed to be far less valuable by the vast majority of collectors. If a person is performing alteration and then selling the card to someone without disclosing the alteration, they have concealed a material fact relating to the value of the item. Knowingly withholding a piece of material information in a transaction like that is fraud.

In addition to that, when you purchase a PSA membership, or submit through them, you agree that do not have knowledge that the cards are altered. By knowingly submitting cards that have been altered, you are violating that agreement, potentially committing a fraudulent act against PSA since you are exposing them financially.

The second aspect might be a civil liability only, as opposed to criminal, not sure. The first one, however, is definitely a criminal violation.

To put it in simplistic terms: Gary Moser/PWCC are representing that they have, for example, an unaltered 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle for sale. However, they know it's altered. They are saying that they are selling one thing when they are selling something else. That's Fraud 101.

[PowderedH2O]

That was the response I was requesting. Thanks for your courtesy. Nice to know someone can reply without rudeness or being condescending.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by PowderedH2O

That was the response I was requesting. Thanks for your courtesy. Nice to know someone can reply without rudeness or being condescending.

My apologies I did not mean to come across that way. In many threads I've explained this in detail and then people who don't know the law insist that I'm wrong, and it gets frustrating. I didn't mean to take that frustration out on you, I know you were simply trying to understand and not debating. My bad. Tabe said it well. Fraud is either the intentional misrepresentation or concealment of a material fact, and when you do that in connection with a sale in interstate commerce, it can be federal mail or wire fraud. It's the sale that makes it illegal; just altering the card isn't. That PSA slabbed the card is irrelevant, the seller still knows the card is altered and doesn't merit the grade. In other words, the negligence of another party doesn't cleanse the fraud.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by PowderedH2O

I'm going to ask, because so many of you are lawyers or experts in law and I am not. Forget about ethics or morals, but what is illegal about altering cards, resubmitting them to PSA, and then selling them?

I say this because I worked in the car business for years and customers often washed, waxed, Armor-alled, and detailed their cars before trading them in. They would buff out scratches. Occasionally we found Bondo to cover a dent. Our appraiser would look over the car and make a decision. It was what it was. We couldn't go back a month later and call the person that traded in the car and claim some sort of deception. If it got past our appraiser then so be it.

If Gary gets a card and doctors it up and submits it to PSA, it is PSA's job to catch the doctoring. If he has a PSA 4 that becomes a PSA 7, it is what it is. That card is now a PSA 7, whether you like the way it got there or not. If PWCC takes this PSA 7 and sells it on ebay as a PSA 7 beautiful example of this card, are they lying? Is it not a PSA 7? It says so right on the slab.

To me, the only legal issues would be if they had an insider at PSA that was giving them some sort of an advantage, or if they intentionally undersold the first cards so that they could purchase them for resale. As far as the trimming, chemical bathing, or whatever... that seems to be a PSA issue of incompetence.

I think this practice is misleading, unethical, and deceptive. But, my question is this: Is the altering of cards, submitting them, and then selling the newly slabbed item actually illegal?

I worked in cars for a while too. While customers getting one over on the dealership wasn't common, it did happen.
The reason the dealership had no recourse in most cases was that a dealer was generally seen as an "expert" who should know better.
Also, most of the things you mention are considered entirely acceptable, and the cleaning, waxing and buffing as well as mechanical repairs would be done by the dealer anyway before resale. We did have one where the customer lied about the mileage when they filled out the title. We found out when we sold it and the registry kicked back the title transfer since the previous transfer had been at 80K and we showed 50K or so. Making the supposed actual mileage in the 150 range.

The opposite was also true. We had sold a couple reliants to a taxi company that added the roof lights then never made a payment. Dealership get them back and added a fake convertible roof on one and a weird reverse landau top on the other to hide the holes from the lights. One of the sales people sold one without disclosing that it had been a taxi. Private extended warranty caught it, legal action ensued briefly, and the place had to pay 3x damages.
Try selling an odd looking Reliant that you own for something like 18K ….

Short version, if I sell an altered card, I might be able to fall back on the "hey I had no idea" defense. (Probably less likely since I publickly state that I can probably tell, plus I'd just say "damn I missed that" and take the card back)
A large full time dealer and/or grading company can't hide behind cluelessness as they're the "experts" *

*I could be wrong about that, not being a lawyer