Ah just been reading through their FB update from 1h ago. They’re saying they’ve now sent back “97%” of all cards that were in the office waiting to be sent back to PSA. Maybe I’m in the last 3%…. They also said if customers don’t receive cards by next Monday then they are definitely at PSA. I’ll start asking questions if postie doesn’t turn up on Monday, as it seems v unlikely that PSA received my cards on 28th September when Ludkins only received them on 23rd.
Got my cards back today from my economy submission in September! Relieved to have them back but they were sent back ungraded and I already paid the grading fees and haven’t heard anything about a refund yet.
Hopefully you get a refund. No idea how a company with no money is going to do that? Anyone know?
You’ll have to do a charge back via the bank. In essence the company gets to keep the money they spent. The bank refunds.
I wonder what ludkins is actually doing after all this does it exist anymore in any sense?
Only in the minds of many traumatized collectors…
Got my not-sent-to-PSA cards back in today’s post . Now to open a PayPal case to get my fees back….
Ive seen a few people manage to get paypal to refund their service fees if they are in the 180 day window, so good luck to all doing that. Sadly Ludkins left it too late for me and Im left here wondering who is behind the Paypal Account we all paid fees to “Black Card X LLC” and what is their relationship to Ludkins. Were they innocently acting as just a paying agent or actively involved in the UK / EU business somehow. Now that my option and the option of many who are outside the paypal refund window is only small claims court, we may have to name them as paying agent in our claims. I just wish I knew more about their role here. So fed up, Im down 2k and no idea if I will ever see my cards again.
PSA or and ludkins have about 15k worth of my cards, sadly i cant get confirmation from PSA if they have my cards or not theres a major lack of communication from PSA and we are its customers even if we went through ludkins.
Yes and no guatantee we will get them back, just a few flimsy statements on social media and who knows what state the frames will be in after 1 yr in storage? Its a goodwill gesture as far as I can see on PSAs side. I just really hate that Ludkins has my money and Id like to know the full story behind what happend and why we all had to pay another company - were they connected ? Its just so murky.
In my case because i sent them in early 2021 im pretty sure PSA has them its just a matter of them confirming that and them figuring out whos are whos cards, either way this is a giant shit show and will take time to resolve even though some of us have been waiting close to two years.
We’re lucky PSA is helping as much as they are, really. It was never PSA’s responsibility to manage Ludkins’ finances, (despite Barney’s Facebook post subtly alluding to the idea that they were) and it’s only out of guilt through brand association that PSA - luckily for us - feel some level of moral responsibility towards Ludkins customers. They don’t have to send our cards anywhere seeing as their services haven’t been paid for, but thankfully they’re a company of sufficient size that they can easily eat those costs and buy themselves a little positive PR in the process. 90% of the anxiety I had about this situation was washed away when PSA said they’d step in and help. The remaining 10% is about getting our money back from Ludkins for all the cards that were sent but not graded. What I personally don’t agree with is all those people on the Facebook groups and LCUK pages shouting about chargebacks through their banks for last year’s submissions. Your cards have been graded, you’re getting them back, albeit in a less-than-desirable fashion, but you’re still receiving the grading service you paid for.
I went for a Paypal claim and got my funds refunded for a 2022 sub, I understand the case that we will (likely) get the cards back from PSA without needing to pay, but after thinking about it, it still does sit right with me. Its PSAs goodwill to send them back, so why should Ludkins keep the money after not providing the service.
On top of that, we will still need to pay shipping and chance of import fees. Then there is also the potential for cards to not come back/ more issues etc. (although I don’t think this will be the case).
Its also frustrating that we have no idea how much longer this process will take….The whole situation has been pretty stressful and time intensive as well.
I did debate not claiming as they were good in the past, but ultimately it still doesn’t excuse it for me.
If you need to clear your conscience about PSA grading your cards for free, you could always send a few Weedles in at a $100 service level, effectively donating that money to them and making up for the free services you received
I’m not sure how clear-cut this situation is as far as moral values go, so I do understand your take on it and how it would be seen as a form of compensation. That said, we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes between PSA and Ludkins. PSA will probably go after Barney for monies owed for services provided, which will be made more difficult with Ludkins customers having opened up chargebacks for cards that have received the service. Then again, we don’t know what Barney’s play is going to be in all this, and whether he would make it difficult for PSA regardless of whether anyone charged-back or not . My personal view is that I’ve paid for a service that I’ll have received, the wait hasn’t stressed me out that much, so I would feel as though I would be being seedy if I then went and claimed all that money back.
no they should help PSA associated themself with Ludkins(guilty by association) and advertised them as their partner its fully PSA’s responsibility lets get that clear not just morally but legally since ludkins was their partner whom PSA advertised to send cards to outside of the US even agreeing something to have ludkins change name to PSA UK and for years they didnt complain about taking all the money from ludkins, not that ludkins are not to blame but PSA had no issue taking peoples money for a good year while they fully knew hey we have too many cards being sent us but we will take peoples money anyway, thus leading to many middle men going bankrupt
and a 2 year+ backlog, end of the day it comes down to this PSA’s greed.
Like I said, PSA were guilty by association, they knew this hence their eagerness to help. But Ludkins is the liable party here, they are a separate company to PSA and therefore responsible for their own finances. It’s not PSA’s fault that Ludkins are going under. If Ludkins had kept cautious cash reserves and put limits on, or even declined services instead of using customer funds to expand their own operations, they would still be operating. It’s a show of poor character on Barney’s part in his blaming of PSA for Ludkins’ issues. I’ve no doubt that he may feel ‘strung along’ by PSA, but I’ll reiterate: PSA have never been responsible for the financial management of Ludkins.
I think the argument is not that PSA is responsible for the finances of their submitters but rather they played a role in the branding of PSA UK and also made an active choice to deal with some middleman companies and not others. They consciously tied themselves to Ludkins.
In the same way a bank is not responsible for the finances of who they lend money to. But there’s a level of due diligence needed on who to lend money to because if the lendee goes under, the bank suffers too.
All this is to say that the individual submitters are the least at fault parties involved here. You should not feel bad for getting your money back.
Ludkins claimed in a Facebook post that PSA is working on another 3rd party dealer to ship the cards to rather then dealing with all individual customers. I guess that would make it a little easier dealing with customs. Although I do not like this thought.
I am getting slightly annoyed with PSA giving so little information and updates. I am sure they are working on it, but its only a little effort communicating whats going on. I like to know if it’s true that Ludkins have provided all needed info (order numbers, customer data) for.
Going just by what Ludkins says on FB is very hard knowing they have been lieing for so long.
I rang my bank and unfortunately they said they couldn’t do a charge back request on a bank transfer unless it was a scam. They felt with the description I gave them it did not fall into that category and they advised me to contact citizens advice. Wish I had paid by PayPal now!