My personal episode with BGS and a large well known company was one of the main catalysts that made me liquidate all of my graded magic sets in short order. I will never deal with Beckett again. 
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Yeah but he paid like 3k, and a friend of mine sold one for $1800 2 weeks ago, and someone on IG sold one for $2000 yesterday. TCA buy price was really high
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I just re-read that article again. Wow. And I think that was before the whole doctored cards thing came about. But it was right around the time when I had my incidents in MtG. Some bad memories.
I collected Alpha cards and had put together a whole gem mint set except for a few cards. Alpha is much scarcer than all of the english pokemon sets. Only 1100 of each rare were ever printed. A lot of my gem mint copies were literally pop 1s. To put the set together I went through several collections of people who had opened tons of alpha sealed product and graded the cards. One of the collectors lived in Seattle and had managed to develop connections with former WOTC employees. Over the years he had gotten tons of sealed Alpha product. He told me had opened many boxes of Alpha starter decks over the years. That’s just one example of a collection I went through, there were plenty more. It took some time, but eventually by paying prices people thought were crazy at the time, I was able to go through these collections and pick out ALL of the best cards. The point is these were all pack fresh alpha cards. There were lots of high BGS subs but only a handful (literally) of Beckett 10s out of all of the cards.
Anyways, I had gotten to know Brett from PWCC somehow through collecting and he reached out one day to sell me some cards directly. It was a MOTHER LODE of BGS 10 alpha cards. I couldn’t believe my luck and bought each and every card. There was a BGS black label black vice in there, some really amazing stuff. Honestly, I didn’t think much of it but just felt really lucky to have had the inside access to get all of the cards.
A month or two goes by and he reaches out to me again with a whole slew of BGS 10 alpha cards. This time I really scratched my head. I called him and basically asked him what was going on, where were these cards coming from, etc. i was genuinely curious but my spidey sense was also going off. I got a bit fired up with him and basically said this was causing me to question the whole hobby. He said a major sports card dealer had gotten a hold of a stash of alpha starter decks and that’s where these cards were coming from. When I asked how big the stash was (stashes of alpha starters don’t just pop up out of the blue) he basically implied a small handful, like three starters is what I remember. I had gone through multiple collections of alpha cards, including a guy who said he had personally opened many boxes of starters himself over the decades. I had a few 10s. And this sports card dealer had opened just a few decks and graded all of these pristine 10s and black labels? That same thing happened one more time. For the third time, Brett reached out to me directly on behalf of “his client”, this major sports card dealer as he kept referring to him. He had another large stash of pristine alpha cards. By that time I had already decided I was done. I sold all of my MtG sets as quickly and quietly as I could. As a collector, it was terrible and soul-sucking experience experience to see all of that. It’s better to just pretend it doesn’t exist.
But when I hear even a small story like this cards rush inc seller of pokemon cards on ebay that never shows the backs of cards and consistently has over-graded and poor quality cards, my PTSD kicks in. I would hate to condemn an innocent man, but I have blocked him as a seller on my ebay. Let’s keep that sh$t out of this hobby. Sorry for the long story and my soap box.
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@jonandek, thanks for sharing the story. I don’t doubt that something like this is possible. If insider trading and market manipulation happens then something like trading cards that has no oversight, other than the company, could happen.
PSA overall has been pretty accurate and consistent. It just seems there are times when there has been a deviation of one degree from the usual. There was a time one Nick on the corner would almost always get me a PSA 10 if the card was otherwise flawless. Later on I got more 9s then 10s. While the difference in cost is huge PSAs grading overall was accurate. PSA has its issues, but they have been fairly consistent and there haven’t been any scandals with data to back it up.
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Thanks for reading the story. Yeah I feel good about PSA. Magic is really niche. I think pokemon is too big for anything like that to happen. It also seems to have much more of a community and I could just see how that would light up the forum and galvanize the collector base. Also, I think the scandals have probably put the grading companies on notice. IF there is any harsher grading on the margin now, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of it is blowback from some of the things that were happening.
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Thanks for letting me know guys. I’ll never buy off them now that I know. And you didn’t try to return it? Normally I never do returns but a 10 shouldn’t have significant whitening. Maybe a spot or something max
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Also sorry to the OP for going so off topic here. 
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It’s off topic but we can bring it back around. Black and White cards re notoriously bad for quality. I would sacrifice the PSA 9 GS for a shot at plasma storm now before it gets valued higher. Cards like that with so many quality issues are undervalued. Then add to the fact that it’s a Charizard and you have a combination for crazy prices.
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I paid $3k
All my $2k offers that were sent out were declined and I didnt want the rug pulled out again before they were gone so I went with $3k on my last offer and it stuck. To me the price makes sense looking at the card and where everything else is going right now.
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Thanks for everyone for your insight, I’d truly love to trade it haha but apparently the other party ‘forgot’ he had sold it a while ago. What a shame!
Card rush has the cards I want but I’m terrified to buy from them, just post pictures of the back, I get no responses to messages either. Anyhow I would let the GS Zard go since you have another in a higher grade, “gotta catch’em all” I suppose
You’d think Pokemon is too big for this to happen…but it definitely happened in sports cards recently. There was a huge thread on blowout about a major dealer who was getting over 5% black labels when average collector was getting well under 1%.
yes that thread was a fascinating read. I’m hopeful the recent scandals give us a bit of “calm after the storm” with the grading companies. the whole beckett “pristine 10” and black label concepts are also more prone to manipulation (IMO) than PSA. with grading being so subjective, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a truly perfect card. I had a MtG Alpha Mox Ruby that was graded a pristine 10. really nice looking card. I had Beckett re-review it and they ended up giving it a black label. the same card seemed to fit just fine in either label. but it sure was a lot more valuable with the black label on it. First the 10 commanded a premium, then the black label a further premium. PSA would have just called that a 10, no room to try and game whether it was more perfect or not than another card. the variance within PSA grades (unless its badly mis-graded) leaves it up to buyers to sort that out themselves, which I like. buyers could call it “strong 10” with PSA.
all of that being said this thread has caused me to have some scepticism about cards rush inc. I haven’t checked but if they also sell sports cards then my suspicion is even higher. some of these sports card dealers have long-time relationships with Beckett and PSA. again, not trying to presume someone guilty without much evidence, so I’m open if someone else sees it differently.
@jonandek Cardrush has a plethora of graded sports cards listed as well. Go figure lol 
well there you go… probably good to exercise some caution, or at the very least not buy a card from him without taking a good look at the back