I am kinda happy in a way that PSA offers the opportunity to get the cards back from them. At this point if it wasnt for that and Ludkins had asked me money for upcharges then I wouldnt trust them anymore. So atleast hopefully I only have to deal with the PSA in regards of getting my cards back.
Also read the FB post of Barney? Kinda surreal he’s looking to gain sympathy after spending our money on things he shouldnt have. Especially after deleting all files regarding the submissions and willingly refusing PSA’s offer to ship the cards unpaid. Knowing he would lose the legal battle against a big company and rather have us, “the fellow collectors”, chasing him. Id sacrifice my entire submission to be 5 minutes in the same room as him.
2 years has passed by and this is how it turned out. Still in disbelieve eventhough all signs were there the last 6 months
Yeah I can’t believe it. We will never truly know who is telling the truth as we aren’t there but it’s a big mess. I have about 200 cards over 4 subs in this vortex (not as many as some I know) but these cards have a huge sentimental value to me a lot are 1st editions.
I’ll be filling in the document as well with my evidence - emails, PayPal transactions and the spreadsheets I have on my PC; luckily I have everything well documented with when they were submitted to LC and quantities.
Is it worth seeking legal action against Ludkins probably and morally we should to stand up for ourselves/consumer rights. Realistically though this is a long and arduous process with most likely little reward 1) our cards will hopefully be back before it goes anywhere 2) if they go bankrupt, CCJ etc etc then it will be hard to even get a penny from them 3) Larney Budkins reputation as a business owner is shattered no one will touch him again after this circus
Just my initial thoughts waking up this morning to the two statements. Tell me if I’m wrong.
Yeah, I am roughly in a similar position like you. I also have 200-ish cards with them, mostly containing 1st edition WOTC cards, goldstars and shinings. Because irreplacible stuff. I have a video, pictures, PayPal payments, all confirmations aswell as the quantity of cards confirmed by Ludkins also a ton of emails between me and ludkins. Basically everything except the Excel document. I’ll have to manually go through each card by that video as I never expected it would turn out like this so I never made a copy of that sheet.
I probably only end up just going to the police. Dont think it makes much difference but not doing anything is not an option. It helps that PSA is willing to ship those cards back to us without asking for the fees again (unless I miss understood). So if I do get my cards back all safe and sound without much additional cost there is no incentive for me to go above and beyond for Ludkins.
I might aswell get on it right now as there is no way I could go back to sleep after all of this (woke up to reading this in the middle of the night)
Disgusting situation this is - someone needs to get more evidence then report to U.K. Companies House for director fraud / mishandling of funds if they were intentionally spending customer money on none business activities though still difficult to see what the actual story is.
What I read is because they had no new orders coming in during lock down they couldn’t pay for their old orders? I don’t care if one person from grandma’s basement filled every order just get it done. No excuses. This sounds like a Ponzi scheme…
Google form completed for PSA last night and I’ve also written a formal letter to Ludkins/Anthos One summoning them to court.
I wish you all the best of luck in both getting your cards back from PSA and also bringing this crook to justice.
If your missing cards are below £10,000 in value or if you don’t want high legal costs/hassle I recommend a small claims court proceeding. To do this you must write a letter before claim stating your full name and address, what your are claiming for, why you are claiming and also how the figures you are claiming for are calculated. You must state they have 14 days to respond before being taken to court along with some other legallities that can be found on citizens advice. Sadly the maximum that can be claimed back through this method is just £10,000 but it is a quick process.
For higher amounts you will need a solicitor and a full legal case opened against them. This is costly and lengthy but means you can go for full damages up to any amount. The risk with this is that you can end up spending thousands on legal fees and if Anthos/Ludkins end up bankrupt at the end you lose out.
If anyone needs any further help or advice feel free to reach out to me on instagram
Still waiting on 1690 cards submitted from Nov 2020 - March 2021. Just in the process of submitting all the info to PSA.
Just curious where everyone elses payments were to during 2020-2021 submissions? All mine were to Black Card X LLC through paypal.
This situation is terrible. Before PSA is 100% certain who the cards are, it could take years. Malicious people could contact psa saying that the cards are his by falsifying the data, or even Ludkins could share this data with other people. The second terrible thing is the taxes! Since PSA will ship the cards back to their owners and not Ludkins, it may not be considered a “return” so people may have to pay taxes! Imagine a € / £ 5000 shipping and having to pay +1000 € / £ in taxes where those cards have already lost a lot of value over time.
Could you not just provide the Sheet they had on their drive? Even better Ludkins themselves could provide those Sheets with customer names and everything. Sure its a hassle for PSA to clean this up, but this way they have a valid data source noone can do scammy things with.
It’ll be easier now to report than later due to Anthos One/Ludkins Collectables dissolving.
Perhaps these two entities might be able to obtain the important spreadsheet document everyone needs to verify whose cards are whose without scammers attempting to steal your cards.
PSA have a made a great move to only charge Ludkins customers for shipping.
Someone said Barney Ludkins had just bought a Mustang on his Instagram which contradicts his already shaky self-sacrificial “I’m the victim” statement. Who on earth runs a business without the margins for price rises?
Also it’s pretty cowardly not communicating a response until they had no choice after PSA published theirs.
Just compiling all the emails to and from confirming cards received and payment received etc. I will provide PayPal transactions if requested by PSA further down the line however, currently don’t think it’s required as luckily everything needed is in the emails I have.
Luckily I didn’t send my boxing cards – but going to wait a year or so to send these cards (provided a another PSA authenticated middleman enters the fold) ~
Barney released a statement… but why wait so long to communicate with us. The way Ludkins UK conducted business was kinda shady… so many different LLC’s an operating names. I also believe that PSA, from a business perspective, waited for them to die out slowly so they can operate their business more efficiently and not rely on any middleman services… it was kinda the perfect storm for them to kick all middlemen services out. Its not like they dont have the customer demand. And im sure they are planning to expand their grading offices to Europe and UK on their own. They have the cash and resources to do so ever since they went private.
They say they’re gonna return our cards if they’re still in the PO box or offices in the UK.
How are we supposed to trust that they will be sent back insured and protected, let alone sent back at all? What about our costs to package and send cards safely? What about tracking information?
So many, probably deliberately, unanswered questions.
The Ludkins Collectables UK Facebook group is a complete dumpster fire right now.
Another good point raised is why did Barney Ludkins delete the spreadsheet with everyone’s details and cards on?! He failed to address this in his statement.
Everyone’s money most likely is gone through Ludkins incompetence.
Just filled in the googledoc form by PSA. Luckily i had the spreadsheet, payment details and pictures of the cards. Sadly i do not have a lot of email corrospondence as i changed emailadress a year ago…
on the googledoc it also asked of ordernumbers of submissions the cards were supposed to be in. I have never received this info and i expect others don’t have this information as well. I expect that it will be harder to find the cards without submissionnumbers as I expect there are hunderds of submissions out there.
Hopefully PSA can figure it out so that i eventually see my cards again. Just want them back. Luckily it’s only 100 cards with most of them not too expensive but still…
