That new PSA/eBay deal

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

I sold a card last week that triggered this new service. I was told to ship it to a PSA address in California. It was a SGC graded card by the way. The printing label I printed off ebay had a reference number and was directed to a specific guy at PSA. Yesterday I got an email from ebay saying it has passed authentication and they were packing it and shipping to the buyer. I was paid by ebay pursuant to ordinary practice, and they didn't hold my money until the authentication was complete.

Pretty interesting. Made life no more difficult from the selling end. Would be a debacle of course if PSA came back and said my card was not authentic even though it was in the holder of SGC. Seems like PSA turned the card around in 2 days. (Other than look at the case for marks of obvious tampering, not sure what else this dude was possibly going to do.)

Did this cost either you (seller) or the buyer any money? If not, have eBay fees gone up at all?

And, I think psa should put a sticker or something on it since there are rendering a professional opinion. I would think the buyer, and all subsequent buyers, would like to know that PSA has blessed the card. Plus, it would save from having to do it all over again if the card ever gets relisted on eBay

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Did this cost either you (seller) or the buyer any money? If not, have eBay fees gone up at all?

And, I think psa should put a sticker or something on it since there are rendering a professional opinion. I would think the buyer, and all subsequent buyers, would like to know that PSA has blessed the card. Plus, it would save from having to do it all over again if the card ever gets relisted on eBay

How difficult would it be for someone to counterfeit such a sticker?

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by BobC

How difficult would it be for someone to counterfeit such a sticker?

Juice ain’t worth the squeeze considering the slab is already real or fake. The only person who would counterfeit the sticker is someone who has already counterfeited the underlying slab.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Juice ain’t worth the squeeze considering the slab is already real or fake. The only person who would counterfeit the sticker is someone who has already counterfeited the underlying slab.

I was thinking more in terms of someone selling something on Ebay. I would assume that if you had to send a slabbed card to PSA for authentication per Ebay rules, even if it is a PSA graded card, that once PSA gave it the thumbs up per Ebay rules, a subsequent resale of the exact same item on Ebay wouldn't then require still another trip back to PSA to authenticate it once again. Some type of a sticker would hopefully make such an additional endeavor needless, or so one would think. But of course, that would make too much logical sense, which none of this appears to be, making logical sense that is.

The entire idea and concept behind third party grading and encapsulation to begin with was to ease remote/internet online buyer's minds when purchasing cards they couldn't first examine in person to determine authenticity or true condition. This new Ebay requirement is tacit accusation of the various TPG's that they can't competently authenticate cards, nor have created slabs that are effectively able to deter tampering and/or easily display that they have been tampered with. In other words, Ebay is effectively saying the TPGs are unable to safeguard and prove their graded cards are what they say they are. And to make matters even more ludicrous, Ebay has elected the same TPGs that they have apparently have no faith in (PSA for now) to be the ones to re-examine these graded cards being sold on Ebay. So some PSA graded cards are going to be sent back to PSA to confirm that they were originally correct in their assessment of them and haven't been tampered with.

It would not behoove PSA to find that a lot of their previously graded items were wrongly authenticated, or that their slabs were easily compromised/faked. Doing so would seem to indicate that they couldn't do something right the first time, and only help to indicate their errors/inadequacies. And simply agreeing that what they did originally was okay doesn't help them at all. They did what they were supposed to do, and were paid handsomely to do! For them it can only be a losing situation, and potentially serve to undermine people's faith in them; and potentially other TPGs as well. So that immediately puts a conflict of interest/bias in anything they do for Ebay regarding items they re-examine that were previously graded by them. And with the history of how TPGs seem to have historically looked at re-grading crossovers from other TPG's graded cards, what is to give people any assurance that PSA personnel may not view items submitted to them under this Ebay sponsored program that were originally graded by other TPGs with an inherent bias as well? The more they claim that other TPG graded slabs, and by extension the encapsulated cards in them, are not authentic, the worse they look in comparison to PSA. So, there is obviously no potential conflict of interest existing, now is there?

I can understand possibly trying to fight fraud and such on cards being sold on their platform. And give them props for that. But using the same parties to do so that were originally grading them and possibly being part of the problem may not be the best answer. And is there something better, I don't know. But it clearly seems to be another party in the industry is now jumping in to decide what is best for people in the hobby. My question is when is the industry going to start listening to people in the hobby, rather then simply deciding what is best for them and shoving it down our collective throats?

[Exhibitman]

This is just eBay trying to force sellers (eventually) to pay it more fees. Sure, it is free now, but the email I got says for a limited time. I expect to wake up one day and find an email from eBay sharing the great news that is going to really boost my sales by charging me only 3% of a card's sale price to have PSA check the damned slab.

Stupid stupid stupid.

[Jewish-collector]

Sometimes you just gotta say, "It's an unregulated business"

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Jewish-collector

Sometimes you just gotta say, "It's an unregulated business"

Ain't that the truth!

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

This is just eBay trying to force sellers (eventually) to pay it more fees. Sure, it is free now, but the email I got says for a limited time. I expect to wake up one day and find an email from eBay sharing the great news that is going to really boost my sales by charging me only 3% of a card's sale price to have PSA check the damned slab.

Stupid stupid stupid.

I definitely agree with the stupid part, but not 100% certain they're doing it just to ultimately raise their fees. I would assume CSG and PSA aren't going to do all this work for nothing, and would expect that a significant portion of any such increased fees would be going to them eventually.

At some point it would potentially behoove someone like a Greg Morris cards to dump Ebay and maybe just sell through their own site, through Facebook, or some other platform. If nothing else, it will likely push many independent sellers to just go straight to AHs with their better cards. Or if they're in need of quick cash, other venues like our own BST forum, or even live shows.

I know we on the vintage collecting side are generally more against such crazy things like this happening in the first place in our hobby, but eventually you figure the shine will disappear to some extent for the new investors as well if they keep just jacking up fees and such. At least you would think so.

[iwantitiwinit]

Two questions:

1) What happens if the card gets lost in the mail between the ebay authentication point and the buyer. Is ebay on the hook for the selling price;

2) Who pays shipping between the authentication point and the buyer.

This entire thing is a cluster. Ebay is going to lose tens of thousands of listings. Disaster in my opinion.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

Two questions:

1) What happens if the card gets lost in the mail between the ebay authentication point and the buyer. Is ebay on the hook for the selling price;

2) Who pays shipping between the authentication point and the buyer.

This entire thing is a cluster. Ebay is going to lose tens of thousands of listings. Disaster in my opinion.

My package is being sent Fed Ex by PSA so not a trivial expense for whoever is paying it.

[D. Bergin]

Are there certain sellers that are exempt from this slab service? Like Greg Morris is for raw cards?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Are there certain sellers that are exempt from this slab service? Like Greg Morris is for raw cards?

It would seem not. If you're going to have PSA re-examine their own graded cards, how could Ebay look anyone in the eye and keep a straight face while telling them, "But you can trust this or that specific dealer to sell their raw cards on Ebay without a required third-party authentication."? If they did that, they'd have every other card dealer on Ebay up in arms as doing so would eventually give those dealers a price/cost disadvantage when they eventually start charging somebody for these authentication services.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Are there certain sellers that are exempt from this slab service? Like Greg Morris is for raw cards?

No seller is exempt on sales of graded cards over 2K and if they are they are not saying anything. I suspect the price point will be lowered shortly to 1K too.

To other points made, how can this be something a seller should pay for? The seller has already paid for an opinion on the graded card, assuming they submitted it. Frankly if it is an assurance being provided to a buyer it would reason it should be their cost. Most buyers do not even want it for free, from those I have chatted with.

My feeling is that it is a cost that eBay should absorb since this is more about keeping their site as safe for users as possible. We all no no corporation will pass up a chance to pass the cost onto the little guy.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

My package is being sent Fed Ex by PSA so not a trivial expense for whoever is paying it.

It may not be as big an expense as it seems.

Pre 2000 I had a customer for one summer that was really big. They were doing integrated supply before it was a thing, and while "just in time delivery" was the fad.

They went to all the small package shipping companies for a quote based on the winner getting 100% of their business .... $40 Million a year... As a win it all or lose whatever piece you currently get
UPS - We don't give discounts.
DHL- 5% or some similar trivial amount.
FedEx - If you send all small packages priority one, we'll do that for a bit less than UPS ground At the time, a sub 1lb package cost me 15+ by FedEx, and a bit over 3 UPS ground.

I don't know if they're still doing stuff like that, but PSA probably has similar volume.