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CGC Taking Forever Receiving Books
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14 posts in this topic

I pay for walk through or an enhanced grading service in preparation to get a book back by a certain date, these services are not cheap...especially on an expensive book. It is very common where my books will deliver say on a Monday, but then not get received until 4-8 business days later. What this does is cause a massive delay where the turn time is essentially sand bagged until the book is received which is a little unfair. There are times where it is received same day, so it almost feels like CGC doesn't receive books on purpose, so they can pad their turn times. 

 

Anyone else experience this? I have multiple friends who send in books who deal with the same thing. I've seen it go as long as 10 business days where a book sits, finally is received and then the "window" starts... which by the way changes all the time even after you submit based on current turnaround times quoted.  

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TAT's are a shoot during con season.  ONLY way to guarantee the fastest TAT is submitting to CGC for onsite grading on the Thursday or Friday of the con.  I've seen where late onsite submission grading has to be taken back to Sarasota and then shipped back out to you if the onsite grading max is reached.  And yes the TAT's for normal submissions start once it's actually received and checked into their system which is the only way they are able to track it.  Until then it could still be sitting in the shipping box and may as well still be enroute by the carrier. 

Did you pay for pressing or restoration checks?  If so, the status is a bit confusing depending on who the book is with: CCS vs CGC and will take longer.

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11 minutes ago, justafan said:

TAT's are a shoot during con season.  ONLY way to guarantee the fastest TAT is submitting to CGC for onsite grading on the Thursday or Friday of the con.  I've seen where late onsite submission grading has to be taken back to Sarasota and then shipped back out to you if the onsite grading max is reached.  And yes the TAT's for normal submissions start once it's actually received and checked into their system which is the only way they are able to track it.  Until then it could still be sitting in the shipping box and may as well still be enroute by the carrier. 

Did you pay for pressing or restoration checks?  If so, the status is a bit confusing depending on who the book is with: CCS vs CGC and will take longer.

I will only pay CCS for pressing if it's a sig book looking for a bump. All others are pre-pressed and ready for grading. No specialized requests associated with them. 

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15 minutes ago, YouFoundDonon said:

I don't... if this is all it takes... I will buy a specialized stamp and punch the box a hundred times. 

:popcorn:

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3 minutes ago, YouFoundDonon said:

I don't... if this is all it takes... I will buy a specialized stamp and punch the box a hundred times. 

I'm too paranoid for this.  For a Sarasota USPS employee in the know, this would be too tempting of a target for a "lost" package.  I'd probably just call CGC once tracking shows it's delivered and remind them the it is a walk through and see if they can get it to receiving quicker.

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I recently emailed CGC about a similar issue.  Shipped a couple of boxes of books out on 8/3/19, they were delivered on 8/8/19 and still haven't shown as received on the tracker.  Their response to my question about the long lead time in receiving books was "we get a lot of books"...Not sure how the factors in to their turnaround times advertised on their site.  14 business days and the clock hasn't even started yet.

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49 minutes ago, musk4star said:

I recently emailed CGC about a similar issue.  Shipped a couple of boxes of books out on 8/3/19, they were delivered on 8/8/19 and still haven't shown as received on the tracker.  Their response to my question about the long lead time in receiving books was "we get a lot of books"...Not sure how the factors in to their turnaround times advertised on their site.  14 business days and the clock hasn't even started yet.

This is the issue I am expressing. I just feel like they utilize receiving time to sand bag turn times when they know they cannot commit to their expressed current windows. I would rather them be transparent with turn times than basically us throwing a hail mary to get our books back on the time window we paid. 

TLDR, sounds like CGC should hire more receiving associates to help process books in a timely manner. It shouldn't rely on the customer reaching out to them saying "Hey... did you get my $x,xxx book? It shows delivered a week ago and I just wanted to make sure everything is good....".  

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I sent a walk through submission last week, think I dropped it off Saturday. They marked it "received" in their system yesterday, Tuesday. I DID write "WALK THRU" (because who has time for those extra letters?) in fairly large letters next to the shipping label. It's getting a clean/press so I expect that will add some time, right now estimate is 10 days for Walk-Through. I guess we'll see what happens.

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1 hour ago, YouFoundDonon said:
2 hours ago, musk4star said:

I recently emailed CGC about a similar issue.  Shipped a couple of boxes of books out on 8/3/19, they were delivered on 8/8/19 and still haven't shown as received on the tracker.  Their response to my question about the long lead time in receiving books was "we get a lot of books"...Not sure how the factors in to their turnaround times advertised on their site.  14 business days and the clock hasn't even started yet.

This is the issue I am expressing. I just feel like they utilize receiving time to sand bag turn times when they know they cannot commit to their expressed current windows. I would rather them be transparent with turn times than basically us throwing a hail mary to get our books back on the time window we paid. 

TLDR, sounds like CGC should hire more receiving associates to help process books in a timely manner. It shouldn't rely on the customer reaching out to them saying "Hey... did you get my $x,xxx book? It shows delivered a week ago and I just wanted to make sure everything is good....".  

I don't think they're sandbagging, although they could be.  But if you don't signal somehow that its walkthrough on the box, why wouldn't they just leave it in the normal queue, which I think is beleiveably long.  As for hiring more people, I think we would all agree that we hope CGC employees who open packages and handle comics to have requisite training and background checks and insurance bonding.  We would love for their to be 24 hour workers, but what do those workers do during slower times, or do we want workers who are working 13-hour overtime days handling our precious books?  Do we want seasonal workers?  Is it financially worth it for CGC to train and insure part-time workers?  More workers mean more managers too.  And if you're opening more packages quicker, doesn't it mean you'd have more books to grade faster?  Same questions all apply at every level.  And then if turnaround becomes much faster, wouldn't EVEN MORE of us submit MORE books, to the point where there might be an even greater disparity during fast and slow times at CGC, creating even bigger seasonal issues for management?

I'm not saying its wrong to complain, or that even this specific complaint is wrong, but just that there's so many factors that go into decision making.  And for better or worse, CGC has built a monopoly where they have a lot to lose but not a lot to gain by expanding too quickly or making the wrong type of short term adjustments.  So you paid for walkthrough, and will wait 20 days total instead of 9.  What is your other option in the market?

I will say this, and this is not a shot at the boards, but complaining here might make a person feel better or engender some camaraderie, but complaints made politely and logically and specifically to company management will ultimately have more practical impact. 

Edited by revat
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5 minutes ago, revat said:

I will say this, and this is not a shot at the boards, but complaining here might make a person feel better or engender some camaraderie, but complaints made politely and logically and specifically to company management will ultimately have more practical impact. 

(thumbsu

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