Is anyone afraid to submit to PSA?

[robbiegrass]

I’m actually more agitated by their horrendous grading system not using FIFO.
For example

I have send in with Ludkins, ALL of their Januari and Februari cards have now been graded.
I am still waiting on my submission from November, it has been 70 business days now and still not a word.

First they up their return time from 45 to 65 business days (while I’ve send mine in the period it was still 45 business days). Then they even omit to grade mine within their new returns times even while over 20 submissions from Ludkins were graded within a few weeks. This is really hurting my business because I can’t sell and it’s hurting my cash flow. I was fine with 45 business days, not with 70

[KingPokemon]

@robbiegrass

I’m actually more agitated by their horrendous grading system not using FIFO.
For example

I have send in with Ludkins, ALL of their Januari and Februari cards have now been graded.
I am still waiting on my submission from November, it has been 70 business days now and still not a word.

First they up their return time from 45 to 65 business days (while I’ve send mine in the period it was still 45 business days). Then they even omit to grade mine within their new returns times even while over 20 submissions from Ludkins were graded within a few weeks. This is really hurting my business because I can’t sell and it’s hurting my cash flow. I was fine with 45 business days, not with 70

You should use the E4 grading service. I’d be willing to bet you’d get higher grades and quicker turnaround times. Plus youd be helping our great site and keeping the money in the family;)

[joetehman]

Nope. Just sent in a complete mint 1st ed base set without worry. They are professionals and the chance of damage is microscopically low. I trust them more than the random claims of damage from newer submitters, its easy to miss certain things.

[chris350dx]

@gottaketchumall

~1,000,000 cards graded a year. Maybe around 4,000 per business day. Yes cards are still botched and will continue to be botched. The thing is that you hear about nearly every one that is botched. Same way you hear about every fatal car accident near you and every time a plane crashes anywhere in the world. 99%+ of the time (99.9?, 99.99?, 99.999? Not sure exactly how many 9’s to put…) there are no issues and everything goes smoothly.

Issues with PSA are rare and shouldn’t be something you worry about to the extent that you don’t submit. There really is unfortunately no way to predict when it will happen nor prevent it from happening. Maybe if you are handling any card that is beyond what you could stomach or afford losing then you can take a high quality thorough video of each card before submission but realistically that will only prove it to yourself and not to anyone here or likely at PSA. Though I did hear of “tapes being reviewed” for a relatively recent incident. Not sure what came of that. So yeah maybe a thorough video on anything really high dollar.

Nothing came of it yet still WAITING for an answer on whats going on…been over a month and still nothing from them. ridiculous service.

[teraz]

@acebren

@cinnaminhbun

I think it’s a bit off as well. This is the whole reason I was so upset when they emailed me to tell me they damaged my Evolutions Charizard and my Burning Shadows Acerola during the encasing process. They compensated me for the values I put down (around $15 and $30, respectively) on the submission form and subsequently did not encase the cards, but I personally believed that since they had already given it a grade and then damaged it, I deserved the value of the graded card minus its new grade (presumably a 6).

They would also never ask for a receipt so the onus is also on us to be honest. They state that the declared value should be a “realistic, educated guess based on your own research, keeping in mind that the Declared Value is also used for insurance purposes”, which seems entirely fair to me. I valued it at a 9’s value because that’s also what I personally would value the card at even it its raw form. This is also why there are so many service levels- it factors in the maximum declared insurance value and thus it makes it very hard for someone to really game the system by declaring false or inflated values.

@missingno Exactly 101 cards. Percentage wise… I’m not doing so well haha. 3% is kind of insane honestly. I’m about to send a 100-200 card bulk as well, so here’s hoping I will drive my personal incident rate down.

From memory, I’m pretty sure even if you put $X declared value and your card is damaged and PSA takes responsibility, you’re not guaranteed to be compensated $X, if PSA think your declared value is off they will offer what they think the card is worth.

That’s what I remember reading anyway

I don’t know how they actually handle it, but that seems ludicrous to me. If all eBay sales show $150 but I am waiting for PSA to grade a card for a planned private sale of $250 because the buyer wants that particular copy for whatever reason, then if I declare $250 value, I expect to be reimbursed for that by PSA because that’s actually what it’s worth to me.

[acebren]

@teraz

@acebren

From memory, I’m pretty sure even if you put $X declared value and your card is damaged and PSA takes responsibility, you’re not guaranteed to be compensated $X, if PSA think your declared value is off they will offer what they think the card is worth.

That’s what I remember reading anyway

I don’t know how they actually handle it, but that seems ludicrous to me. If all eBay sales show $150 but I am waiting for PSA to grade a card for a planned private sale of $250 because the buyer wants that particular copy for whatever reason, then if I declare $250 value, I expect to be reimbursed for that by PSA because that’s actually what it’s worth to me.

From PSA’s terms and conditions;

PSA will exercise reasonable care in handling

cards submitted for grading, review, or reholder­ ing. However, if PSA determines that Customer’s

card was lost or damaged while in PSA’s possession,

Customer will be compensated based upon the fair

market value of the card as determined by PSA stan­ dard procedures which may include filing a claim

with our insurance carrier. The declared value you

stated on the front of this form is for estimating the

insurance coverage only, and the fair market value

of the card may be less than your declared value. IN

NO EVENT SHALL THE TOTAL LIABILITY

EXCEED THE DECLARED VALUE OF THE

CARD. Such compensation shall be Customer’s

exclusive remedy for any loss or damage.

[ecruteak]

Something to keep in mind is that you only hear about the bad things that customers have to say. You never hear about the thousands of great transactions that were processed without a problem, this is true for anything.

[fourthstartcg]

I have been submitting to PSA for several years, have submitted over 200 cards, I collect PSA 10s and I have never had any issues besides some weird postal service tracking issues and them occasionally taking a bit longer than the stated turnaround time.

I have no fears about submitting.

[Quuador]

If I’m completely honest: a bit. Thus far I’ve only send cards for grading that I had duplicates of or could easily replace. I definitely trust PSA enough, and don’t really care about damages as much as other people perhaps. It’s mainly the post office I don’t trust too much with my very rare cards, especially because from The Netherlands to the US (through Ludkins collectibles in the UK) is a long path (two times). A card worth 1k+ USD of which only a few copies exist and is close to irreplaceable I prefer to have ungraded but still in my possession, than graded with the risk of lost/damages. But maybe I’m biased because I was a postman in the past and know how things go down at the background sometimes (nothing to drastically or anything, but still…) I prefer to have most of my cards ungraded anyway, and the ones I would like to have graded are the very expensive and irreplaceable ones, so in that case I still keep them ungraded.

Having said that, I’m glad that the five cards I’ve send thus far all came back as a PSA-10. Currently waiting for three to return, which will most likely arrive somewhere at the start of next week.

Greetz,
Quuador