CGC Reholder Scam: CGC Updates and New Ways to Prevent Fraud!
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- Опубліковано 5 сер 2024
- #cgc #mcu #ComicMarket #reholdergate #markjewelerfooler
I've got an update on this recent CGC Reholder scam and a new tool to help identify fraudulent graded comics. Let's check it out.
Hope you enjoy and make sure to subscribe for more content in the future.
Link to the update and list of books:
www.cgccomics.com/news/articl...
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This is deeper and bigger than we all think
I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone on the inside
and how would they know? They’ve taken on so many so quickly, we’ve all seen their standards drop. I agree with you.
I’ve been saying that as well. Someone inside was involved somewhere
Excellent conversation. Ryan, you do such a great job at offering the updates and advice on steps to take if you have one of the copies. Well done.
Appreciate it Alex, thanks 👍
Also, just a good point about not sending books in until they resolve this. I’ve got two submissions in now but may follow suit and hold off on any other for now. Great idea from you and Gary.
We as collectors need to show that CGC cannot sweep this under the rug by not giving them anymore money until a new slab is produced along with new internal procedures. Also, this should be done at no additional cost to the customer, why should we subsidize CGC's internal failures? If they raise prices again it should be considered a slap in the face, but hey I'm just screaming at clouds as they are the "market" and most will fall back in line cause that's where the value is (well inflated values from the boom). My last 2 subs were with CBCS and I know my few bucks is a drop in the bucket to CGC but if more would follow suit, maybe the monopoly could even out a bit.
There’s no way they aren’t raising prices. I think that’s something everyone just needs to accept. It might not be immediately because of the optics. But I don’t doubt it’s coming.
@@AutomaticComics Indeed, but didn't CGC already do 3 price hikes around the boom?
@consumetheliving if I was them, if I ran that business, I’d increase prices a little every year regardless. It’s no different than any other consumable. Their input costs for materials and labor go up every year, we should expect prices to as well.
I don’t have any problem with increasing prices. It’s part of doing business. CGC had kept their prices flat for like 5 years before that. I think that was a mistake and just made people think that costs were always going to be the same.
This fraud situation is likely going to require hiring additional people and new cases (magazines and comics, maybe even cards). That all costs money, and anyone that thinks CGC is gonna eat that cost is probably going to learn otherwise.
@@AutomaticComics Costs will always go up, even though in a production environment increased efficiency on a repeatable product or process should increase profitability even if material costs increase. Where they have less controls is the cost of manpower, this why most warehouses are moving toward automation to help flatten this cost (which is a paradox in itself).
As for new costs associated to the current fraud, yes we the consumer will end up on the hook and it will be attributed to inflationary increases (materials & labor) and new product lines such as pulps. My screaming at the clouds stance is, why should we just accept that CGC won't eat this cost when they let this problem happen due to negligent internal processes and a "not so" tamper-proof slab? Paying more is fine when that cost goes into the value of the product or service, but it seems that all that extra money just went to bottom of some deep pockets :)
Ryan, you’ve got to see the Matt Nelson interview on West Coast Davengers if you haven’t already seen it. It was excellent!
By keeping the fraudulent info in their records is like a Carfax for your comic slab.
Imagine if GPA's and GoCollect's databases were merged. That might be something CGC themselves could offer as a subscription service. Estimating FMV might be a conflict of interest, but tracking sales of cert numbers with pics could be sold as increasing security through provenance
I think that’s pretty unlikely. They’re competitors, and if I was GPA, I wouldn’t want to give up my data that helps differentiate me to the competition.
However, I think if gpa added a tool to allow for searching against cert numbers and showing all sales with that cert number, that would be very useful.
Fantastic video, thank you so much!
Appreciate it, thanks 👍
It’s crazy that we depend on CGC to confirm what is a 9.4 9.6 or 9.8. They clearly are not consistent with their results… Now we are having to confirm by ourselves if 2 books match each other to say they are legit. AI grading will be the future. Everything that has been been graded prior will fall victim to this standard no matter what the label says…
If you took a raw comic to a show, you would likely have a difficult time getting any two dealers to agree on a grade for the book. That's why grading comics came into vogue.
This is still a developing story, it's by no means over. Will be interesting to see how it plays out in the coming months.
Thats really helpful!
Imaging tools are quite advanced now. Auction houses could certainly use/have/create image tools to analyze images of graded comics that are for sale and generate a "confidence" score that the book matches previous sales of the same book.
I am not sending CGC any new books until they tamper proof their cases. There is no reason for them not to do this. Collectors needs to be reassured that their books are real. And CGC will make a ton of money on regrading and reslabbing.
Bro…the holders are the same holders we’ve been buying and selling and collecting. They are today just as tamper resistant as they’ve always been.
I'm sure that they count on regrading/reslabbing into their income projections. So they certainly don't want to do too much to decrease that revenue stream. Therefore, how far will they really be willing to go to make the first attempt at grading a book be the best it can possibly be? They're not. That's why they don't guarantee the grade they give a book. It's just an opinion that will change every time you resubmit. And the more people resubmit, the better for their bottom line.
“If there’s money to be made, people are going to try to scam.” I totally agree but I don’t understand why this same logic is never directed at the grading companies themselves.
Because they actually provide a valuable service and will make significantly more money by maintaining trust. That’s why. If they lost trust they lose their business.
@@AutomaticComics My point was that these grading companies continue to squeak their way through controversy after controversy and for some reason are always given the benefit of the doubt.
If they really want to earn trust they should provide detailed notes from all 3 graders so that every grade that comes out of their service is bullet proof. But that kind of trust would hurt their productivity and their bottom line.
@@Supertomscustoms I think complete notes and front/back photos on every graded book that isn’t a 10.0 should be the industry standard. If it’s not a 10.0, tell us why.
I doubt we’ll get that, but that’s what my ideal situation would be.
I’ll say, they did add the front/back pictures for all books now, which is nice. They’ve also started adding a lot more graders notes than I used to see. But it still isn’t at that level I mentioned above.
Just regrade/reverify *ALL* high value books (at the time of request). Not doing that just makes it subject to far too much abuse (eg., switcheroos).
Tell that to the guy who just dropped 7 figures on ASM #1 9.8. What if it came back a 9.6 🤔
Check your last video on this, they absolutely did mention compensation. BUT, I agree I don’t recall mentioning retention of the book, rather they said you’d be compensated but did not specify how/why.
They mention compensation, but I’m pretty certain they don’t state Fair market value.
@@AutomaticComics this is true. You even commented on what that point meant. I guess I was just pointing out they did make mention that buyers would be compensated previously while agreeing they were ambiguous then & are now still somewhat ambiguous about what exactly that means. FMV is actually huge if you think about it.
While it’s true that CGC didn’t cause this alleged fraud, they are culpable because they failed to inspect the books for reslabbing.
Would you consider using CBCS instead? I've been using them exclusively as a small time comic collector because their submission process is so accessible.
In my limited knowledge, having personally gone througha similar incident, if CGC is retaining the book as "evidence" and they compensate you, your ownership is gone. However, if you don't accept their offer for compensation you retain ownership and following the completion all proceedings involving the book it would be returned. We all know the legal process this could take years to be completed. Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, I am only passing personal experiences. Contact an attorney with any and all questions.
What about all the higher value slabs that were encapsulated before CGC added free imaging last year? My 2 batman adventures 12 9.8 newsstands didn't get imaging. Who will buy those now?
Ouch, that’s the risk now with CGC and other grading companies. I’m sorry bro, I really am, we mustn’t play the grading company game going forward.
I think you’re severely overestimating the impact on prices. If you follow my channel and how I’ve talked about the heritage auction that just occurred for example. Prices were huge that books were getting, across the board.
It’s pretty clear that most people buying comics legitimately don’t care much about this. At least not enough to impact prices in a noticeable way.
@@AutomaticComics auctions for rare golden and silver age books in even rarer grades cannot be used as an example for the general slab market. Batman adventures 12 newsstand 9.8 is a book that is more likely to have been swapped than a Wonder Woman 1 4.0 or similar. I think that there's a sweet spot for scammers in copper age grails (9.8/newsstand) and CGC needs to do something to protect those who have legitimate books that buyers may think twice about buying because of this fiasco.
@@AutomaticComics I think you’re counting your chickens too soon. 1. We are super nerds all sniffing each other’s butts on UA-cam, most of the market don’t even know who you or newsstand are (no offence, I do and I love your vids), so this will take a while to filter through to the general market.
2. That auction is not “most buyers”.
@captaincomicana4231 that’s exactly the point. Most comic collectors don’t know or care about Instagram or UA-cam. The fact the story has already died down and it never got beyond UA-cam and a couple small articles tells you all you need to know.
Are these "tools" free to use or paid members of gocollect?
This tool is free, but they don’t show the prices in the free results.
I think the statement is not solid enough to say that CGC is going to give you $3000 if you have an ASM 300 9.8. The statement says compensated for fair market value, it doesn't say monetarily compensated. They could give you $3000 worth of grading credit or other books they have laying around worth $3000 FMV. Until we have a statement saying it will be a cash compensation I would not send the books back to CGC because we would be giving up our evidence for any sort of independent legal recourse.
I don’t disagree. I think more clarity is needed. But I know some people have sent books in already, which is why at the end of the video I said I think it would be very valuable for them to let others know how that turns out.
Do you ever go hatless?
Nope
Best way to prevent fraud is stop playing their game.
I just sent 11 more comics to CGC last week.
I assumed that they would be more likely to hand out 9.8's during the bad publicity?
Ryan, I'll ask again...why isn't cgc releasing this guy's name?
sleazy dealers should be exposed, so they can't scam the unsuspecting.
I bought I lot of, for me, expensive books in the 80's, many from a couple dealers who were later revealed as selling restored books as unrestored.
nobody should have to go through what I did, especially when it's as easy as revealing the fraudster and the name(s) he sells under.
Many people have said this. There are serious potential legal repercussions for doing that. You can’t just go out throwing out people’s names to the mob. You can be charged, arrested, sued for doing that as well.
he is the criminal. the idea is to protect the potential buyer/victim.
the other option is for cgc to get some kind of legal ruling to stop this asshole from selling on ANY platform with jail time for any sales in the future.
I bought from a scumbag dealer in the 80's....spidey 50, iron man 1, tos 58, strange tales 110....all restored or trimmed. again, the buyers should be protected from these sellers.
@@karlb10024 and you become the criminal by doxing that person. There’s really nothing else to say on the subject. If you really want to find out who it is, you can dig through all the forums and posts and all of that and find it. But no one is going to say who it is on a public forum and risk legal repercussions and lawsuits themselves.
@AutomaticComics yeah, we're gonna have to disagree on which party deserves protection. the fraudster has already commited the crime.
He can't be named until/unless he's charged, unfortunately. Who knows, he may not even BE charged for this. CGC is just hoping it all 'blows over'. @@karlb10024
What is a Senior Grader? Shouldn’t all graders working at CGC be Senior?😂 This is crazy that we pay a ridiculous amount of price difference between a 9.6 and 9.8 on a book that was not graded by someone Senior. I guess we are just buying the label after all. This is getting worse and worse…
This has always been the case. You have different people working on moderns than the walk through tiers. You can't have everyone have the exact same experience, the world doesn't work that way in any business. How would you hire new workers?
Do you guys really not know how grading companies operate? Everyone in the comments are complaining about things that have literally always been this way.
Whatever CGC do, it won’t be enough. The current and past slabs that constitute the market, will still constitute the vast majority of the market for the next decade, that’s regardless of whatever new case CGC brings out. Nothing will resolve that. Folk need to stop downplaying this, the system is compromised, I have zero faith in CGC.
Only really high value books were affected. CGC should offer free slab evaluation on higher value slabs that don't have photos added and offer free imaging updates for those ceet numbers, after they've examined and determined that slab wasn't tampered with.
@@huntincomics “only really high value books were affected”… lol. Finally someone nails it. Relatively speaking, yes. Glad someone has said that. So instead of folk saying “if all the books cgc has ever encapsulated, this is not statistically significant”. It’s damn statistically significant if you are in the market to buy an ASM 300. All those little pissing around the edges tactics won’t do anything to restore any semblance of trust, all it will do is give diehard cgc fanboys the thinnest of excusss and spin lines to recirculate. The majority of the products they have pumped out to date are compromised, the genie is out of the bottle but please do keep trotting out “it’s only…”
At first it was only 1, then 2, then around a hundred, now we have 350 plus…. From ONE guy. I’ll have a smile of what you’re having. Lol
@huntincomics I think many like you have overstated this scam situation. While it is certainly not a small problem for CGC, it also is certainly not a doomsday situation either. CGC will make the necessary changes to its system, and sites like GoCollect will offer collectors ways to check that their books are not affected by the scam. CGC will take a hit in the short term though.
I think that many like you have grossly overstated this scam situation. While it is certainly not a small problem for CGC, the company will be taking constructive steps to ensure that another scammer can't pull the same thing. This scam affects less than 500 books, and CGC has graded over 8 million. We're only talking about .0000625 percent of all the books CGC has graded. I don't think that's cause to lose all faith in CGC.
@@thomaspalmer6453 hahahaha… and I think that “many like you” are “grossly” understating it. Such a disingenuous argument. We aren’t talking about the millions of books they’ve graded. We are talking about all the keys we actually want. If you are in the market for a high grade ASM 300 your risk is actually pretty high and that’s just from ONE KNOWN scammer. Stop trotting out stats and arguments you’ve heard from other UA-camrs and do some actual thinking for yourself.