Definitely making me rethink submitting to CGC… Sad to see this and just not good to see that kind of dishonesty and shilling from a business.
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Yes. There was another hyperlinked in the op. There was another with no posts. Keep in mind these are the only ones we found from just searching the one ip address.
This post takes the cake. One employee making a comment, another employee liking the comment. 2 for 1.
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Like @qwachansey I just trash PSA for free.
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I don’t know if anyone could have the answer to this and maybe for some people it doesn’t make a difference, but there is a big difference to me between 1. CGC sponsored employees being told and paid on company time to shill for their company covertly and 2. “rogue” CGC employees going off on their own to “help” their brand by doing and saying such things that no management or superiors at the company would support. I’ve seen and heard of examples of both.
I would hope and guess this was the latter but I guess the only way we would know that is if CGC made some kind of a public statement about it (which even that some people would likely question).
Reddit is actually tough a lot of times because most times a brand is directly mentioned redditors are torn on if it’s a genuine 3rd party post or just a company pretending to be an unbiased reviewer. R/hailcorpprate. That at least tends to be people pumping brands up which is better than shitting on competition.
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@gottaketchumall, I hope it was the latter of those 2.
Reddit typically restricts all discussion of said company in this type of situation. Right now we are just letting people know what we know.
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I’m sure there will be a lot of questions like this, so let’s just get out in front of them.
Charlie serves as a consultant to CGC. That means he is self-employed and contracted by CGC to provide expert help with their Pokemon grading division. Because of this he is often incorrectly seen as more involved in the CGC operation than he actually is. He is not a CGC spokesperson, and he is not a direct employee of CGC. Charlie should not be asked to respond to every single CGC-related development, be it positive or negative, yet here we are. Nor should he be held responsible for what at this point seems to be the actions of a few isolated individuals, even though those actions are unprofessional and deeply troubling.
Charlie has been a member of this forum from the beginning. He has worked tirelessly to grow this hobby and his integrity is beyond reproach.
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If they’re willing to shill on E4 than I would bet my last dollar that they’re on reddit too. I think it’s a wider audience and there’s a lot more people on reddit that are just willing to accept whatever they read
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I think the clarification here is necessary and like that you preempted it, but I do want to caveat this and say that Charlie retains the decision to remain affiliated or dis-affiliate himself with CGC. I think we first need to see how CGC responds to the incident and to what extent they clarify the situation.
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Unfortunate to see this happening and a few bad apple can ruin the bunch but this won’t deter me from grading with CGC in the future.
Their quality and customer service are more important to me than a few rogue employees who are shilling their company. Does it give them a bad look? Yes. Will this impact their long-term growth and success? No.
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Another CGC employee?
jk jk jk
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It’s pretty easy to tell if it’s an overzealous employee (the same guy who had to tone down their Instagram, he probably runs social media, come on man you represent your company online even if off the clock) vs company policy. If it’s company policy they’ll be doing similar work on MTG forums, sports forums, YouTube comments, Facebook groups, basically everywhere, and word will get out. If it’s one passionate employee the shilling will be limited to e4 and other Pokémon forums.
Working in digital marketing I would be very unpleasantly surprised if this was a company policy. The contract I signed to receive admin social media access to large brand pages made it clear this behavior is unacceptable. I do think the distinction matters.
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Is it confirmed that these were “rogue” employees?
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I don’t think CGC has responded to this yet since it’s only been ~an hour when this came to light on E4
The reiterate, the official cgc account confirmed the multiple accounts were used by multiple employees. Not just one person.
Again, I hope it was overzealous employees. All this thread is doing is presenting what we know, and how it is against our rules, and pretty much any other platforms rules.
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They didn’t even try to hide it lol
edit. I hope you let the company know who these bad apples were.
HAHA this had me laughing. We see you lol jk
Yeah, I know that. It’s just that he specifically says a “few rogue employees”. How does he know that they were rogue?
Thanks for sharing this important info in a direct and unbiased manner. Appreciate the transparency.
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I’m not saying that Charlie should disavow them at this moment, in fact I don’t think it would be fair to bash any party right now since we don’t know much. However, I do think that it depends on how much CGC knew about this and how CGC decides to respond to this, as astroturfing is poor company practice and should be immediately addressed, especially since E4 is particularly influential for all-things Pokemon TCG (grading, etc.). Essentially, I’m saying that I’m curious to see how Charlie acts when CGC responds and we’ll go from there. This is important because Charlie carries influence in the Pokemon community.
I have been on these forums for years and appreciate all that Charlie has done for the community. I also recognize the fact that CGC is a valid grading company. However, I’m putting the two aside for this matter, as this is an issue of company practices/culture.
Seriously dedicated employees. Thumbs up!
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