PSA Response from President Steve Sloan

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

Again, in your order.

1. Worn corners are apparent and need no disclosure.

2. A successful fraud prosecution has nothing to do with whether the grading standards are codified in law.

3. If you are submitting it to a TPG, you disclose it to them. If the card is raw and you are selling it privately, you disclose that what a rational buyer would reasonably regard as material that otherwise the buyer would not reasonably be expected to know and from the circumstances reasonably would not expect to have been done to the card.

4. No argument.

5. Again with this issue, a murky area to some, but to me, I would be okay with it. The fact that this dealer did a better job cutting them, because he was an authorized subcontractor of Topps, would be analogous to different, say, tobacco factories cutting Piedmont brand t206s having better cutting processes. Despite that, those tobacco cards would all be properly regarded as factory cut.

Conclusion: The card doctors could properly be charged with fraud. Whether law enforcement wants to devote the resources to pursue this, that is another matter.

Someone owns a baseball card. That's legal. They do something to it to enhance its appearance. That's legal. The consistent theme of your responses seems to be, if what was done to improve its appearance is disclosed, no problem.

But if nothing of that nature is committed to paper, couldn't it come down to:

Card Doctor : I told them I was improving the cards appearance some.
Auctioneer: I don't remember him saying that (or) I didn't know altering is what he meant.

Basically, He Said, He Said. Then when the card is sold to a third person, because of the claimed confusion above, no mention of "enhancements" is communicated to the current owner of the card, and now its circulating out there.

Thanks again for your thoughtfulness in this conversation. It's so nice to catch a break from the snarkiness, once in awhile.

And again I am not suggesting nothing wrong was done, and I appreciate the fact you get that.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Someone owns a baseball card. That's legal. They do something to it to enhance its appearance. That's legal. The consistent theme of your responses seems to be, if what was done to improve its appearance is disclosed, no problem.

But if nothing of that nature is committed to paper, couldn't it come down to:

Card Doctor : I told them I was improving the cards appearance some.
Auctioneer: I don't remember him saying that (or) I didn't know altering is what he meant.

Basically, He Said, He Said. Then then the card is sold to a third person, because of the claimed confusion above, no mention of "enhancements" is communicated to the current owner of the card, and now its circulating out there.

Thanks again for your thoughtfulness in this conversation. It's so nice to catch a break from the snarkiness, once in awhile.

And again I am not suggesting nothing wrong was done, and I appreciate the fact you get that.

Just because there was confusion between the two parties involved on the selling end doesn't absolve them of their responsibility to disclose. It may muddy the waters as to who is more culpable, but fraud has still occurred.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Just because there was confusion between the two parties involved on the selling end doesn't absolve them of their responsibility to disclose. It may muddy the waters as to who is more culpable, but fraud has still occurred.

I totally agree, and I think the overwhelming number of verified instances that have been uncovered so far is what makes it a clear crime.

It sounds like the answer to my original question, which you've stated concisely above, basically comes down to something like links on a chain. If the Doctor discloses the alteration, he's off the hook (and presumably he receives less for the card when he sells because of that honest disclosure.) If the next guy also discloses the alteration, as told to him by the Doctor, he, likewise, is off the hook. And so on down the road, until someone decides to maximize his profit by not disclosing the alteration. That person, then, is guilty of misrepresenting an altered card as unaltered.

Muddy waters, indeed.

[Exhibitman]

Fraud is more or less common sense, guys: would you want to know that the card had been trimmed, cleaned with a solvent, pressed to remove wrinkles, etc., when you buy the card? You would? Then the alteration is material and not disclosing it is fraudulent concealment.

But then there's PSA (or Beckett, except no one uses them here, so we can go with PSA). So how does that work?

You send the card to PSA without telling PSA you did something to it and you get it through. Yay!

So you sell your freshly graded card on eBay. Guess, what? You're still a fraudster, dumbass. You knew what the card went through and you didn't tell the buyer what you'd done to the card.

So, not wanting to be that dumbass, you decide to send it to a useful idiot on consignment. Let's call the useful idiot "Brent". You don't tell "Brent the useful idiot" that you altered the card and he sells it as a PSA graded card. Yay! Money!

But then some pesky kids on some chat board figure out what you did and they have photographic proof of it. Whoops! But you figure you are OK since PSA and Brent the useful idiot are the ones who certed the card and sold the card, respectively. The chump who bought the card can't claim you didn't disclose anything; you never even interacted with him. So the chump will go after Brent the useful idiot, and Brent the useful idiot will send the chump to PSA to enforce PSA's guarantee (yeah, good luck with that). PSA can't claim the card was altered without looking like a giant clown college instead of a legitimate expert outfit, so they probably will never voluntarily pay off. And most of the chumps won't have any way to sue PSA because they can't afford to pay an attorney and retain an expert to testify, so there will be lots of meaningless chatter across the blogosphere, but so what, you got your money!

What you forget is that if the card is in the window of returns or credit card disputes, Brent the useful idiot is going to get a charge back and he's gonna want his money back from you. Even an idiot wants a refund...And you also forgot about the ways you cheated Brent and PSA with your antics, which amount to an honest services fraud perpetrated against them, all undertaken through the mail. So you are a dumbass all over again, because even though you've not sold a thing directly, you used the mail to send all sorts of stuff you knew was bad to Brent the useful idiot and to the large company, and you managed to do a crime that you never even heard of if that Laurie Loughlin chick hadn't bribed her stupid daughters' ways into USC. Whoops. Worst of all, everyone following this scandal knows your name and many of the players know where you live and the press is starting to circle around.

Then the knock on the door...If you are lucky it is just a process server. If you are unlucky it is an investigator from law enforcement. If you are really unlucky it is one of those really pissed off chumps with a baseball bat.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Fraud is more or less common sense, guys: would you want to know that the card had been trimmed, cleaned with a solvent, pressed to remove wrinkles, etc., when you buy the card? You would? Then the alteration is material and not disclosing it is fraudulent concealment.

Or if you do the typical glowing oozing write up, affirmative misrepresentation.

[RollieFingers]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Fraud is more or less common sense, guys: would you want to know that the card had been trimmed, cleaned with a solvent, pressed to remove wrinkles, etc., when you buy the card? You would? Then the alteration is material and not disclosing it is fraudulent concealment.

pressed to remove wrinkles, doesnt sound like a bad thing.
sounds like a wise thing to do

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by RollieFingers

pressed to remove wrinkles, doesnt sound like a bad thing.
sounds like a wise thing to do

Trimmed to remove edge wear and to sharpen corners. Why not indeed.

[RollieFingers]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Trimmed to remove edge wear and to sharpen corners. Why not indeed.

what precise tools are used to do that anyway? sounds like major surgery.
steady hands

[RollieFingers]

I wipe wax off with pantyhose. Am I in trouble?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by RollieFingers

I wipe wax off with pantyhose. Am I in trouble?

I think most would say no, including me.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by RollieFingers

I wipe wax off with pantyhose. Am I in trouble?

No, Daniel-san.

[Peter_Spaeth]

This is why the only hope for people who care whether their cards are altered (itself a can of worms but leave it aside for now), is for the TPGs to identify the cards submitted by known or strongly suspected card doctors, and to have an open and honest review process.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Someone owns a baseball card. That's legal. They do something to it to enhance its appearance. That's legal. The consistent theme of your responses seems to be, if what was done to improve its appearance is disclosed, no problem.

But if nothing of that nature is committed to paper, couldn't it come down to:

Card Doctor : I told them I was improving the cards appearance some.
Auctioneer: I don't remember him saying that (or) I didn't know altering is what he meant.

Basically, He Said, He Said. Then when the card is sold to a third person, because of the claimed confusion above, no mention of "enhancements" is communicated to the current owner of the card, and now its circulating out there.

Thanks again for your thoughtfulness in this conversation. It's so nice to catch a break from the snarkiness, once in awhile.

And again I am not suggesting nothing wrong was done, and I appreciate the fact you get that.

I'm glad if our discussion helped clarify things in your mind. I can understand how some of it might not be readily obvious if in your mind what you did was done in good faith not to cheat someone but instead to improve the appearance of the card.

And you are correct that if you own a baseball card, it is yours and you can do with it anything you want. But if you submit it for grading or sell it privately, if what you did would reasonably be material information to the grading company or your purchaser and is not readily obvious, you disclose. There's no downside to doing it and it could save you from some unpleasant accusations down the road.

As to the hypothetical you describe of making the disclosure orally, not a great idea. Put it writing, and if the other party will not acknowledge receipt of your disclosure, confirm it in an email (preferable) or text. A person's mood has a tendency to shift when he/she is about to loose big bucks and is looking for someone to pin it on.