WIWAG was cracking holders, according to SCD

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Posted By: Marc S. 

This seems to be an after-market fraud, as reported. WIWAG appears to have been cracking cards and replacing the inserted card with an inferior one. No PSA personnel involvement...


INVESTIGATION UNCOVERS ALLEGED CARD FRAUD
By Rocky Landsverk

Collectors Universe announced it has helped the FBI with an investigation into an alleged scheme to use its PSA holders to defraud graded-card collectors. The company announced that on Dec. 23, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California filed mail fraud charges against When It Was a Game, Inc. and its principals John Slight and Craig Kreider, accusing the defendants of selling sports cards “by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises that the sports cards sold were of the quality represented.”

Collectors Universe said the charges were based, in part, upon evidence provided to the FBI by PSA that cards sold by the defendants over the Internet were purported to have been graded by PSA when, in fact, they were not. Consequently, the cards did not merit the grades defendants represented them to have.

Collectors Universe said none of its personnel were involved in the alleged fraud. “Collectors Universe, using proprietary security measures that it has developed to protect collectibles consumers from fraud and misrepresentation, helped to uncover the alleged fraud and to assist the federal government in the investigation that led to the filing of charges against the dealer,” the company said in a statement.

Joe Orlando, president of PSA, clarified: “I can’t comment on too many specific details until further notice because it’s still under investigation, but in essence what they were doing was attempting to crack holders and take inferior cards, place them into the holders and pawn them off as real PSA-graded cards, and we were able to catch them.”

“It’s extremely important that collectors are confident that the certified sports cards they buy are exactly what they appear to be,” Orlando continued. “While the vast majority of sellers are scrupulous, unfortunately, a few are not. PSA employs various overt and covert security systems to ensure that collectors can trust that PSA products are genuine, and that persons selling fraudulent PSA cards can be identified and stopped in their tracks.”

Collectors who believe they may have purchased fraudulently graded cards from the When It Was A Game company should watch the PSA Web site (psacard.com) for further announcements regarding what to do and how PSA can help them. More information will also be made available in Sports Collectors Digest.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Here it was I thought that PSA was just plain losing it on grading when all along it was WIWAG switching cards. Yeah, that's the ticket.

I wonder how many PSA cards have been switched by other crooks??? er, make that alleged crooks. Like Rome says, if you'r not cheating, you're not trying.

The Hollywood Park show is in a couple of weeks--will these alleged crooks have their usual booth?? That would take some nards.

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Posted By: Dan Mathewson

Maybe I've been outta police work too long. Someone show me the light.

I'm doing my best to follow the scenario of what has been going on...so, correct me if I transgress...

PSA discovers someone (I'm assuming, perhaps, that WIWAG is a PSA Dealer that slabs a LOT of their cards in PSA holders) is committing some sort of fraud. Apparently, this dealer seems to be slabbing high grade cards by PSA, then cracking them upon return, putting a lower grade of the same card back in, then selling them for huge profits. OK, I see the fraud.

(How did PSA find out? I'm assuming what has happened here is that a buyer buys a graded card from this particular dealer, sees it is more like a grade-3 card in a grade-7 holder, then goes back to PSA to demand a refund. But, as this continues over time, PSA realizes these continued complaints have one common denominator -- they were bought from the same dealer).

They call the police who then involve the FBI because, among other things, this involves retail items which go through the mail and also involves interstate commerce. OK, so that part makes sense to me, too.

The FBI gets involved. They start to track the dealer by scanning/photographing and probably tagging graded cards that go back to that dealer. Once sold, the buyers are contacted over time to see if a swap occurred sometime after the cards were sent back to the dealer from PSA.

(I'm just following investigative logic here, ok? I don't know the facts of the case, I'm making some broad strokes, but these steps make investigative sense).

The FBI develops enough probable cause at this point through evidenciary proof to determine that the dealer is committing this fraud. They arraign charges at this point.

************************************************

So, that is one possible scenario that I understand. It seems logical and makes sense to me.

Am I missing something? Are there people on this board that think PSA has the FBI's Banking & Fraud unit in it's pocket? I do understand that people here have their loyalty to certain grading companies, and I have said before that there's nothing wrong with brand loyalty when a company provides you with what you want, regardless of what others think... But, making an assertion that the FBI is bought off by PSA because the FBI wants to make PSA look better than other card grading companies is, well, kinda weird, don't ya think?

Or, have I missed something else?

Historically, the FBI and other larger gov't investigative agencies have very, very strict criteria that must be met before they commit any of their manpower allocation to any investigation. They do not tread into the criminal arena lightly if there's any aspect of a case that can allow them to reverse jurisdiction back to the local authorities (city or county detective units). Frankly, I'm surprised the Feds still held on to this as I couldn't see the dollar values getting very far into even the six-digit range... But, that they did makes me think there is substantial legitimacy to the case.

I'd like to see other comments here because I really think I've missed some other info along the way...

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Posted By: runscott

Who said that PSA is paying off the FBI?!? I think I'm blind because I know you wouldn't make something like that up, but for the life of me I can't find it anywhere in this thread.

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Posted By: Tom B.

on WHAT exactly WIWAG did........

The article from Rocky states......Collectors Universe said the charges were based, in part, upon evidence provided to the FBI by PSA that cards sold by the defendants over the Internet were purported to have been graded by PSA when, in fact, they were not. Consequently, the cards did not merit the grades defendants represented them to have.

So......it doesn't specifically say that they were cracking. Someone else on another thread suggested maybe that they got the holders and copied the labels or something. Maybe there were duplicate tags with the same number.

Also, if they WERE cracking, I'm sure they weren't doing anything as blatant as a VG card in a NRMT/MT holder. The biggest price differentials are between 7/8 and 8/9 stuff. Or they could be trimming things and then slabbing.

Also, as to why FBI got involved in it, wasn't the FBI Operation Bullpen for autographs located in San Diego or something? Maybe they were working in conjunction with them. Some type of extension of that investigation.

Whatever the results, it will be interesting to see how much farther it goes.......did anyone else knowingly sell the cards to a third party? I thought MW had some damming (sic) evidence he was going to post when it was in correct format.

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Posted By: Dan Mathewson

I keep seeing (or I think I'm seeing) a lot of criticism thrown at PSA for what has happened here. It's like people are saying that "PSA is the real problem, they are the ones really doing this, they are just trying to pin it on someone else..."

Thus, the implication being that the FBI is somehow helping them along with this scam...

I'm trying to understand what the criticism toward PSA is for involving the FBI and cooperating with them.

I'm not picking on warshawlaw, but in his post he says: >>>Here it was I thought that PSA was just plain losing it on grading when all along it was WIWAG switching cards. Yeah, that's the ticket.<<<

It's not the first time I've seen that kinda "yeah... sure... right..." comment thrown out during this discussion. My point is, do people actually think that the FBI was "fooled" by PSA, or bought off by PSA, or what??

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Posted By: Dan Mathewson

My post above was more to offer some sort of "possible scenario" since there were no facts available about the case or the investiagtion. I'm only trying to follow some sort of logic in this case...it really does interest me.

Yes, to start an investigation, the FBI would have obtained substantial, verifiable info from PSA to move forward. But, with that, they would have most likely not just jumped to arraignment or charges without their own invetigative efforts first.

I just wonder if I have missed something else in all of this, or if a few people just don't like PSA and they want to throw some darts at them...

I too am curious about MW's damning evidence that was supposed to be coming forth at some point. Any chance that appeared in another thread somewhere? I'm really interested in what that is (all I read at home is true crime and murder mysteries! LOL)

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Posted By: runscott

your scenario of what might have happened seemed very logical. I think we are beating a dead horse here, but...one more time: PSA's "overt and covert" detection methods don't do buyers of their graded cards any good if they keep the problem covered up for months while their cards circulate merrily among their customers.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

The slew of grading gaffes by PSA is well documented (the fake Ruth rookie, the Nodgrass errors in impossible poses, fake FroJoy cards graded, the trimmed OJ Lipset recently auctioned, etc.) and has nothing to do with WIWAG. I was trying to make fun of the PSA apologists by use of Swiftian satire to suggest that some of them will now attribute all of PSA'S mistakes to WIWAG. "Yeah, that's the ticket" was the tag line of the liar character Jon Lovitz played on SNL--you remember, the one who kept making all these incredible claims, often including stuff about "my wife, Morgan Fairchild, whom I've seen naked. . . yeah, that's the ticket".

I guess I'm not as good a writer as I think I am.

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Posted By: PSAKID

Check out the following thread in the CU forum

http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=11&threadid=161228&STARTPAGE=1

This card was purchased from WIWAG and is very likely one of those they tampered with. It appears the evidence was there all the time. But many people, including me, have not been diligent enough to inspect the holders closely for signs of tampering. I think many of us assumed all along that nobody could successfully crack a holder and reseal it. I wonder how WIWAG thought they could get away with this scam? Sure they can get away with it for awhile but not forever. Especially when there is noticable evidence on the holder.

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Posted By: Albie O'Hanian

TomB-In the SCD article Joe Orlando states for the first time (at least that I have heard or read)about cracking holders:
~"Joe Orlando, president of PSA, clarified: “I can’t comment on too many specific details until further notice because it’s still under investigation, but in essence what they were doing was attempting to crack holders and take inferior cards, place them into the holders and pawn them off as real PSA-graded cards, and we were able to catch them.”~

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Posted By: Dan Mathewson

...and, that's why I wanted to make sure I said "I wasn't picking on you, but..."

Sometimes, when simply reading messages, you don't get voice intonations, the look on someone's face, etc. So, sarcasm and its meaning sometimes gets lost or misinterpreted.

In an earlier post, though, too, it seemed that there was other implications that PSA was "behind" all this (somehow). And, if that is true, or that is being implied, I wonder what people think the FBI's role in all of this is? A patsy? Someone "bought off" by PSA (which I completely doubt...)? Or, what is the perception? I still think this is an interesting case.

[wilkcards]

Wow, just came across an old card box from years ago...