Clearly for years the money spent wasn’t used to actually grade the cards. Where did the money go?
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I get that emotions are high and the lack of information will lead people to fill in the blanks however they want. But I think the levels of accusation here are beyond what could be made with current evidence.
There is no evidence of malicious or fraudulent intent at the time I’m writing this. A business has expenses. If your expenses exceed your revenue, you could end up with a situation like this one. There are non-malicious explanations that could explain this mess
I only have a partial idea of what’s happening because the information landscape here is pretty barren. But if you want to depend on the courts to settle this matter, it doesn’t make sense to produce libelous statements in the process.
What I recommend is to assume the least amount of malice as possible from the evidence you have. I think criticism of business practices or communication is all fair game, but accusations of criminal intent are counter-productive unless you have really strong evidence to make those accusations
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Deleting the spreadsheet is pretty dodgy don’t you think?
Carrying on accepting orders only to go radio-silent on customers and then inform them that their orders are now being returned instead.
Then there is posting/showing off his new car on insta whilst claiming he’s poor and had to sell off his assets.
The guy is dodgy AF
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Speculation but I think he deleted them to maintain his negotiation position with PSA…if they had the customer data they could cut him out at any point
It’s definitely terrible optics on the documents. People are rightful upset. It also makes it much harder to fill out that form from PSA. The reason why it happened is not clear at all though and it’s all speculation. Again, another communication breakdown. But filling in the missing information with libelous accusations only puts you at legal exposure.
I think that image with the car was from 2020. I also wouldn’t consider that evidence of much.
I’m not here to tell people what to think. To be transparent, I’ve had in-person interactions with Barney at past World’s. But I haven’t talked to him about any of this and trying to be impartial to this situation. What I am trying to do is to draw a line where the evidence is. You can think whatever you want but when you take your emotions and translate them into public criminal accusations, i just think you’re doing a disservice to yourself
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How do you know he did not end up selling his car is part of the process of liquidating his collection? If I recall, all of those pictures were from well over a year ago.
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Also remember, you want him to provide info to psa about your submissions, resolving this as amicably as possible is ideal.
It doesn’t mean what has transpired is acceptable, but don’t go on a witch hunt.
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Agree with both sides,
From my own perspective - I trusted them with my most valuable cards from 2016-Now. My expensive cards would always seemingly come back in the top grades and the service was flawless (Until now). With this in mind I don’t consider anyone at the company to be thieves or scammers. Its obvious the company has been run in a way that leveraged itself, and that can definitely be scrutinised.
When i used to email Ludkins there were at least 2 other employees…meaning that Barney was not only looking after himself in this situation . Over the pandemic I presume this is where the issue developed…outgoings were still there but PSA were not still accepting submissions.
I presume his way out of this was to become incorporated into PSA - Which he was unable to achieve. Ultimately the comms and this business approach was flawed.
It looks like he was still looking for a way to ensure the survival of the company and still get cards back to people.
I feel torn about the entire situation, just my opinion.
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Business is tough to understand from the outside looking in. I’ve never owned a multi-million dollar company, but I’ve owned reasonably successful ones with 30-50 employees. You’d be surprised at just how easily they can crumble, especially when a black swan event happens, such as Covid. The message does at parts read as blame displacement, but from a business aspect everything described is entirely plausible. You can do everything right and something nobody saw coming can still pop up and snowball out of control in a matter of weeks/months. It’s a rough situation all around and I have nothing but sympathy for everyone involved. As @pfm said it’s all speculation at this point but I think what really matters now is that everyone’s cards appear to be safe and will be returned to their owners in time.
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Yeah and just to be very clear, I think the emotions here are 100% valid from the consumer side.
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I think it would have made a difference if they opened up about it. In the 2 years that my cards were in their hands not once did they message me (and I assume others) without me messaging them first.
They ghosted their customers for the longest time. And whenever you messages for an update you got the usual copy & paste meaningless message. If it wasnt for PSA then Ludkins would have no problems keeping us longer in the dark for many more months to come. All trying to buy themselves time and hoping for a miracle to happen.
And now they expect people to show sympathy? His post on FB is basically a giant slap in the face for all those who are waiting for 2 years to get their cards back. Not a shred of accountability. Seems like a common theme in this hobby
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I would be surprised if there was malicious intent. This doesn’t excuse how poorly everything was handled. I’ll go further and say the US side also has terrible communication. There are other companies and individuals who were removed from PSA that never stated it publicly. Ironically the self preservation ends up backfiring. If people just came out and said what was going on, I think that would be received better than PSA having to daddy up.
Ultimately Ludkins fumbled the bag. Communication along the way would have softened the blow.
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The PSA UK Facebook page has been removed ~
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You know what’s funny? Our 2020 submissions (and I assume 2021 aswell if anyone can confirm) on Ludkins were paid to a certain Ronald Hurlocker from Black Card X LLC, a US company that to my knowledge is run by Charlie Hurlocker, a well known person here, former director of Ludkins US. Did Ludkins UK use our grading money to fund Black Card X LLC?
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Still up, it’s now called LC UK
Edit: For some reason the link keeps showing as ‘redirecting’. But /LCUK1 is the url suffix
It’s a really easy process. My brother @thurco posted a link to a video I done a while ago of how to sub to CGC from the UK - the process is basically the same for PSA (for what its worth, I’m going to do another video in the next few weeks to help UK/EU people out).
Long and short of it is, you send it out preferably using FedEx (via a third party such as parcelhero, parcel2go since its way cheaper) to the FedEx address that PSA advise on their forms. You mark it as Repair/Return option. It reaches PSA, they will grade it and then when you get the notification it is coming back to you, contact gtsclearance@fedex.com immediately with the return FedEx tracking ID as the subject title, tell them this package is coming back to you marked as Repair/Return and give them the original export tracking ID. It should clear customs within 24-72 hours when it reaches the UK. FedEx will also call you when it enters the UK to obtain the same information. You pay a £21 disbursement fee to FedEx, you dont pay any customs on the value of your cards etc so no need to worry about that, just a flat £21 every sub.
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I must say that I am happy to be able atleast share my feelings about this and getting all the information on here regarding this matter aswell as tips regarding customs and what not.
The only thing that has kept me in relatively good spirit is knowing that I wasnt alone in this. Surpringly very few talk about this in the groups on FB I visit
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Top man thanks for sharing that’s great info 
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On the topic, it’s a really difficult situation for everyone involved. And I understand customers thinking on the subject from an emotional place because people have sentimental and/or valuable cards in someone elses possession, in a situation that is out of their hands. Essentially, people are helpless.
What I will say is a huge amount of the complaints people have aren’t really Ludkins fault - they are not in control of turnaround times at PSA. Nobody foreseen what happened through Covid and the demand that was driven as a result which ultimately has caused peoples submissions to take so long. The recent situation aside with cards not being returned for reasons we are not 100% privy too only takes up a small block of the past ~2 years. The truth is nobody will know whats went on or who lies at fault - we are seeing two sides of a story and the truth is likely to be somewhat inbetween.
Having only met Barney once at Worlds recently and having never met nor spoken with him before (or since), is that I take what he is telling people in his statement at face value. I only spoke with him briefly over a beer and some walks between pubs and everything he told me was months ago so before all this happened. But he told me how difficult the past few years has been for his company and he was excited that the doors to PSA were now opening so that he could help people again. He told me the same as what he put in his statement - that he found it really difficult because he had to sell off his collection to keep the doors open & staff employed at Ludkins and to get peoples cards back and he found that side really difficult but he was hoping with the new development as PSA UK that things would pick up and he could start making money to build his collection back up. He also told me some things that tie in with what he said about how he was offered an exclusive rate for 3 months only for PSA to go and better it themselves a while later and how he was hoping some other deals would work out better for us UK collectors in the next few months. I feel really bad for him because I could see how excited he was to hopefully start building up his company again and helping collectors and to see that being taken away somehow must be very difficult.
I know its difficult for people to think rationally, but I really believe that there is a lot of truth in what Barney’s statement says. But it will be easier for people to listen to PSA because of the emotions around the subject and just the simple fact that whoever shouts loudest often wins.
In saying all of the above, I really hope it opens peoples eyes to how risky it is to use Middle Men, especially when we see situations that we’ve seen over the past few months with people like Graded Gem, Marx Cards etc. Not to mention the other UK middle men that are now being advertised as a PSA alternative who actually put customers subs through companies like Ludkins and Graded Gem anyway (so even if you think you used a different MM, you could also be affected).
In my opinion, its better to see how easy the whole submission process is yourself, take everything within your control and be responsible for your cards. Often it works out the same price and you get better turnaround times (I’d be willing to be that people that subbed back in 2020/21 would have their cards back now if they went direct).
I hope that people get their cards back soon. I can’t imagine how worrying it must be. But at the same time, realise its a collective failing and not down to one person but instead its down to several companies and several environmental conditions that are probably never going to pop up again, all combining to make a bit of a clusterfuck.
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My heart goes out to all collectors on here that are affected by this debacle of a situation.
I really hope you get your cards bac kand without too crazy of a delay.
Hopefully justice is served.