skybolt

On 12/25/2023 at 11:33 PM, Prince Namor said:

I know there's a fair amount of speculation at work here... us old timers call it 'spitballing' and it CAN lead to realizations that haven't been thought of. 

Having said that, and I want to state this is just me 'spitballing', but... can you imagine if it IS a person on the inside? The access that they would possibly have? Even to something as simple as.... LABELS.

Returned labels... pulled labels...

It's the worst possible scenario because this person could have dozens of auspicious clients, and there's no way to track all of them and their dealings.

On 12/25/2023 at 10:39 PM, Taxi Driver said:

That's what many have been posting the last few days, people know who the offender is, name, address, everything. So if the community isn't going to be harsh with this person, I think CGC isn't either. Right now he could be selling a cracked $500 slab and replacing it with a $150 book. It's wrong regardless of the amount, that's why I'm shocked the community hasn't taken a stronger stand, that's all I'm saying. 

My gut tells me that certain individuals that know who this person is are giving CGC a chance to make a statement first. If that does not happen in let's say 2 weeks, I guarantee the name will likely come out. That being said, I do realize that some unaware buyers could suffer collateral damage during this process.

On 12/25/2023 at 10:20 PM, MatterEaterLad said:

These books were graded 4 DAYS APART. Book was given a green label on a Friday, and is graded blue the following Tuesday.  There's no way that book left CGC.

 

As was mentioned in this thread before, there is no way that someone who's super meticulous about opening CGC cases and swapping books/labels without detection, would also take awful photos for his eBay listings (after all that work). Practically most of the photos had awful glare that showed his hand (in reflection) and made the book seem like it had multiple bends. This does not strike me as a person who masterminded the operation of consistently getting these books through CGC undetected.

On 12/25/2023 at 10:13 PM, Comics said:

That's the same scenario that started the whole 'inside man' conversation. Which makes it seem much more likely. I mean like 98% likely...

Not to mention that the 4 day difference in grading the same book twice included a Saturday and Sunday, when CGC offices were closed on 2/25/2023 and 2/26/2023.

On 12/25/2023 at 9:54 PM, WestcoastDAVEngers said:

Also, just to be transparent, last week from Sunday-friday I was live 4 times, and a 5th on my friends channel, I was live for a total of about 12-14 hours, I might have said "I'm Abraham Lincoln reincarnate" and I probably have no recollection of it.

No worries Dave, we all appreciate everything you're doing and keeping us informed. 

On 12/25/2023 at 9:19 PM, paqart said:

Wrong. At the least, there are plenty of photos of the comics in their holders and the records in CGC's registry for the serial numbers. The comics, holders, and numbers exist. From this, we can (and have) determine that lower grade comics were removed from thheir slabs and fraudulently placed in higher grade slabs. We know that the labels were then changed. It makes more sense that these were sent to CGC for reholdering and a new label than printing a new label and reholdering it on one's own, because if that was the case, there wouldn't be any need for the original (and expensive) slab.

Not to mention that CGC's own data base shows all these discrepancies. If it was someone sitting at home changing labels to scam buyers on Ebay, how does this info show up in CGC's registry?

On 12/25/2023 at 9:06 PM, dikran said:

Has anyone from CGC made any acknowledgment about this situation? Haven’t had the patience to go through all 125 pages…

Not yet.

On 12/25/2023 at 7:26 PM, WestcoastDAVEngers said:

A little confused at this. 9.9 didn't take a picture of anyone at a convention, if that's what you're implying, nor it was never said he took a picture of anyone. Screenshots of the IG DMs that Zaneglor sent was the only thing that you might be talking about. But if I'm misunderstanding whats being said here please enlighten me, thanks!

My apologies. That's why I needed to go back and check the podcast again, which again was very informative. 

On 12/25/2023 at 6:23 PM, sledgehammer said:

I don't recall hearing anything like that. did you see this in a video? I don't recall him ever acting like he definitively knows who is doing this.

@WestcoastDAVEngers

9.9newsstand definitely knows who he is and noted that he's taken a picture of him at a convention. I need to re-watch the podcast to find out when this was said.

On 12/25/2023 at 2:31 PM, VintageComics said:

I have what 'may' be a small piece of potential good news. 

I spoke to a very prominent, international convention dealer and shared the name of the alleged person involved (the real name, not the name speculated on in this thread) and they replied that they'd never heard the name before. 

This seems to makes it sound like the person allegedly involved may not have done much business on the convention circuit. If they had been on the con circuit, this dealer definitely would have heard of them.

Take that for what you will at this point. I take it as good news that this debacle may not have spread beyond online sales and into convention sales. 

9.9 newsstand mentioned he's taken pictures of him showing off newly CGC graded books at conventions in 2021.

On 12/25/2023 at 9:46 AM, Nick Furious said:

I won't be surprised if this scandal does permanent damage to the 9.8 premium. 

I think CGC will just see this is as an opportunity to give out more 9.9 grades to get that craze going. Their new motto will be "when 9.8 goes bad, 9.9 is the new fad!".

On 12/24/2023 at 11:07 AM, VintageComics said:

I know a lot of people laughed early on at @paqart's assertion that eBay may have recourse. 

Now, with alleged shill bidding, price fixing, racketeering and fraudulent products this takes on a very different picture.  

This is massive fraud, on a grand scale through eBay's website. 

Is anyone on contact with or has anyone heard of anyone who has contacted eBay about this?

This is like watching a police car chase where the perpetrator is driving 120 mph and police is going 25 mph. The guy is probably sitting back sipping tea and waiting for his eBay funds to kick in. In the meantime he's looking up some tours in the Caribbean.

On 12/24/2023 at 9:50 AM, comicwiz said:

My only follow-up to the last point is I think we need to keep an open mind that this seller may be using a full menu of options to carry out the deception, so while a "reholdering scam" is what it's being currently called, I feel like we are going to find situations where we can't exclude the possibility of tampering. my2cents

Unfortunately, if this started in 2021, this is when CGC was desperate for new employees to keep up with the demand. Perhaps someone with data entry experience was hired, but had a shady background in software hacking. This is all conjecture at this point of course.

On 12/24/2023 at 9:28 AM, comicwiz said:

With each new discovery, it sure is starting to look like tampering. 

Honestly, I think this is the likely main reason CGC has not come out with a statement. They're trying to see how much this board can uncover first.

My gut tells me their response will note negligence on the part of their re-holdering department. They'll note that staff should've checked the books more carefully if the slab came in with major damages that impacted the corners. The staff is going through proper training now to ensure this does not occur in the future. Any customers with books in question should send back to CGC for further evaluation. They will also ensure these were isolated cases and not rampant. Any issues with cert #'s or dates graded will be downplayed as system errors.

Perhaps the seller was confident he would find a lower graded Mark Jeweler copy of the ASM #194 and decided to create his submission months beforehand. That's all I could think of outside of any inside shenanigans. 

On 12/24/2023 at 8:47 AM, comicwiz said:

The cert conventions used by CGC are above my pay grade, although I feel like we might be able to learn a thing or two by examining patterns. Good call, as I just noticed that myself. 

Looking at my submissions over the past year, the cert #'s appear to be going up by date. I do know that different services have different cert #'s.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this guy's shill bids going back to 2011. So if someone creates a shill account, wins a book, leaves positive feedback, but then never pays for the books, I'm assuming the seller will keep the positive feedback and just relist the book. Perhaps he needed to build up all these accounts with positive reviews to make it seem legit. I don't know.

On 12/23/2023 at 7:30 PM, brute_nm said:

Joe Pesci in Home Alone, not Joe Pesci in Casino 

Or Goodfellas.

On 12/23/2023 at 7:18 PM, Nick Furious said:

Why do people keep mentioning the idea of marrying inserts?  I haven't seen any reason to speculate that...but it is a long thread.  Where does that idea come from?  

In addition to the re-holdered books, he also appears to have had some good fortunes with sending some green labeled books with missing MVS or inserts and getting a blue label via straight grading. I can't imagine CGC missing these major defects unless he was marrying inserts from other lower graded books.

I don't know. The more I look at this guy's past history, the more I get the sense he's not this world class master in opening and resealing slabs, marrying inserts consistently without detection or suspicion by CGC, etc. The reason I say this is that based on what Agamoto recently posted, the whole shill biding thing is really odd. Most of the ending bids are all over the place. Not sure what he was accomplishing there. Also, even his recent photos from listings from the past couple of years are really amateurish. Heck, in most of them there's this awful glare that almost looks like the books have major bends. Also, his hand and some of his face are showing up in practically every photo. I'm sorry to say this, but in my opinion I believe this guy had major help in pulling off something like this.

On 12/23/2023 at 11:18 AM, jcjames said:

Excellent work 

These are just two examples of the extremely troubling evidence/proof that this scam has indeed been going on for well over a decade by this same scammer with extremely key books! 

And this is only what has been found in just a couple days of digging. 

Like I said, this thread has exposed a couple of snowflakes resting on the tip of a very old iceberg that is massive and deep. 

 

I'm not sure there's anything there. The 7.0 could just be a straight resub. The Avengers book has the same cut, but why would anyone add a date stamp? Plus, the bottom left corner does not look the same. I could be wrong though.

On 12/23/2023 at 10:23 AM, trademarkcomics said:

I feel this is still localized within the CGC fan community and spreading slightly elsewhere. Casual collectors(which still make up the bulk of potential CGC customers) are completely unaware of this situation. Until it hits the media, it's not going to have any measurable impact. Google "CGC" then hit the news tab and all that comes up is a publicly traded pot company. 

 

Not that it matters. No one is buying slabs from me these days anyway.

On 12/23/2023 at 7:41 AM, sledgehammer said:

What insider info are you talking about? The coincidence (that can't seem to possibly be} of the 2 books being graded on the same day?

I don't think anyone at CGC is searching Hulk 181 grader's notes for a good fit to switch data, but who knows for sure?

I don't even know if hacking their system is out of the range of possibilities.

Sorry, the info was provided in another message I was replying to. The insider informtion I was referring to was 9.9newsstand hearing from this guy that a higher up CGC person was feeding him data about how many newsstand or Mark Jewelers copies (I can't remember which one) were on the census for certain books. You and I would not be privy to that info no matter what CGC service we were using.

On 12/23/2023 at 5:59 AM, agamoto said:

Oh I'm sure they have a rather detailed database and I suspect they keep private notes on certain books, information not included in the grader's notes. 

Below is the first CGC book I could find posted to ebay and sold by our friend, for what it's worth. I was able to find this ad by looking up phrases that were unique to his later ads. Nov 2006. 

It just seems odd that this insider info was given to this guy by a CGC employee (if he wasn't lying). It's not like someone can pay for a higher level of service to receive this info. f there is no such service then no one should receive this info.