Thanks for the replies @kemost @joetehman @failsafe94 . That really sucks to hear… Risking customer paid money on other purchases sounds like a lawsuit to me
2 Likes
It’s looks like all his personal profiles are now set to private.
1 Like
Hi all, I think I can add a lot to this discussion as I submitted close to 1500 cards with Ludkins UK from 2020-2021 and have been in an ongoing legal dispute with them for over 8 months!
I became concerned with the actions of Ludkins towards the end of 2021 when their regular updates stopped and it was brought to my attention that they had a notice to be struck off placed on the UK Gov website.
Since then their return submissions stopped, as well as any form of communication. Please bare in mind having sent an astonishing amount of cards through their service and having spent a lot of money with Ludkins, I was on very good terms with them prior to any issues.
I spoke to my solicitor before moving forward as I wanted to establish where the liability for my cards lay and my solicitor confirmed without any doubt that I had a legally binding contract with Ludkins and that they were accountable. I also confirmed that in the eyes of the law they had breached my contract as it had far exceeded the timeframe that would be considered reasonable (even with the PSA delays).
Moving forward from here I managed to make some progress by threatening legal action in email. This email was immediately responded to by Barney and I was promised one of my 4 outstanding submissions back within 2 weeks. After 2 weeks I was told there was an issue and it would take a little longer. over the space of 2 months I was given empty promises in writing that my cards would be returned and then eventually they stopped all contact with me for over 2 weeks.
At this point I wrote a letter before claim stating that I would be taking them to court if they did not resolve my issues within a stated time period. After receiving this letter Ludkins UK went out of their way to fast track one of my 4 outstanding orders back to me and I received it about 2 months ago. I had a phone call with Barney that I recorded (I cannot share this as I may need it as evidence in the future) he apologised for my issues and said that my future orders would be processed in the coming months. At this point I felt like things were taking a turn for the better however after reading this thread and speaking to a few other collectors I know, I am now very worried and will likely re-open my legal case for my last 3 submissions.
Edit - It is also worth nothing that I have it in writing from Barney that all submissions were submitted under Anthos One LTD. and not Ludkins UK LTD.
21 Likes
Our of interest have you managed to explore any lines of enquiries with PSA? If so, any success in collaborating or disputing information given by Ludkins/Anthos One?
2 Likes
Wow, this looks bad. I would not be calm reading this if I still had cards stuck with them.
2 Likes
I have been led to believe for quite a while now that PSA have indeed graded all of these submissions and that the reason they have not returned is because of financial issues with Ludkins/Anthos One.
What really concerns me about this is that I was aware of this before Ludkins announced that they would become PSA UK. I have absolutely no idea how that announcement became a reality with these issues present in the background.
I have not tried directly contacting PSA about my cards as my solicitor made it absolutely clear that all liability and accountability sits with Ludkins/Anthos One
6 Likes
The stress Ludkins has caused me over the last two years in unbelievable. Fortunately I chose to diversify and start using MGC in the UK about a year ago and this helped save my business from collapse despite the astronomical amount of capital locked into my outstanding submissions.
I have recently started grading at PSA again but obviously not through PSA UK!
4 Likes
Yep. Same for me, first year it wasnt as bad as there was no reason to believe that things could go wrong. People had graded cards for many years and not once did I hear any horror stories.
The stress started to increase ever since february/march when the live document didnt move anymore. And it didn’t move for a good 7/8 months. Now it showed little progression 2 months back and I was feeling positive again. Now I find myself keeping track of this thread to keep myself updated as much as possible.
I honestly do not know where to go from here. Can I ever expect these cards back? The thought of losing all that money in grading fees on top of a very valuable submission makes me sick in my stomach. Do I need to start looking into legal actions? Surely I cant accept them not paying PSA but taking my money in grading fees and my expensive cards. There are people taking others to court for a couple of grand and I shipped 20k worth and I feel helpless. Been in the dark for a good 2 years and it feels like they are buying time to pull a runner.
I dont like PSA in this either. They had stated that Ludkins is their official partner. Even rebranded as PSA UK and they refuse to give any info or help to those who are in this giant mess? Doesn’t sit well with me. It really destroys the fun in Pokemon aswell. I like collecting, but if it really goes down the route of me not ever getting those cards back then I can never look at pokemon cards the same again.
2 Likes
I don’t know what PSA can do besides process the cards. Middlemen are just another customer. Its the same as if Bill doesn’t pay his bill.
4 Likes
Do we think though that PSA would return cards that cannot be paid for ungraded?
Or even to crack cases open to issue the raw cards back to Ludkins?
For me its not about the money but getting my cards back.
If Ludkins/PSA UK were to stop trading surely we would still be fully entitled to getting our cards back graded or ungraded as they were never legally the owner of the cards. All they provided was a ‘middleman’ service.
Hoping someone can shed some light as this is the part thats worrying me the most…
1 Like
I disagree.
Too easy, sure if Ludkins was one of many then its a different story. They brand themselves even as PSA UK and were named “official PSA partner” at the time. If you advertise a partnership then there has to be some sort of accountability.
2 Likes
I get this is frustrating but this is displaced anger. Partnering with a company is just an on or off switch. All they can do is cut ties, which it sounds like that might have already happened.
1 Like
Just to jump in here. Ive actuallu issued my claim against Anthos One LTD - the brosure and other emails containing service fees, XLS sheets and so on all make up your contract with Anthos One. Speaking as a lawyer they have awful terms and conditions and dont even identify which company you are contracting with or exclude liability for themselves - great for us though! Ive claimed for the return of all service fees paid, plus the raw value of my cards (this took ages as i had 100 submitted) allong with interest from the estimated return date. The court fee was £115 and the process to issue the claim was easy. This is the only way to make companies like Anthos One (aka Ludkins aka PSA UK) really pay attention to you, they are just going to keep lying to you all as they are stalling for time to pay or set up another company to escape liability. Anthos One has plenty of assets go after them while you still can. Pn the PSA side, they are trying their best but need Barney to novate or assign our customer contracts over to them so that thay can fulfil them or indeed get him to pay up and take delivery (though I would not trust him at all the return our slabs).
7 Likes
Yeah, maybe you are right. I saw in the other thread that PSA director said they are “looking into it”. So I hope to see a statement at some point.
If I dont hear or see anythin the next two months I will start looking into legal actions against them. Although I doubt it’ll do much but I feel I have to do something to get them back. At this point I dont even care about the grading service. I just want my cards back whether it be raw or graded.
Thank you for sharing this. It is the same route I took however Ludkins actually ended up sending me some of my cards back. I will likely re-submit a Letter Before Claim on Monday.
I also agree with @smpratte on PSA and so does my solicitor, Ludkins/Anthos One are the company liable and all PSA can do is cut ties with them. Lets just hope PSA go out of their way to find out who’s cards are who and try and get them back.
2 Likes
https://www.psacard.com/dealers/detail/ludkins-collectables/3173
They just removed him off their site as a registered dealer
5 Likes
Ouch
1 Like
Good news? At least I hope? Maybe theyve been able to get him to assign or novate our contracts over to PSA so they can directly return our cards? Is that being too optomistic?
Do you think the cards are still at PSA or with Ludkins? Hopefully they are still at PSA as I cant imagine that they would want to keep those hostage much longer. If they were already shipped out to be distributed by Ludkins then its game over I think.
I should stop looking at this thread. Kinda makes me depressed knowing there is a good chance I wont ever get my cards back )=
1 Like
If anything IMO it’s bad news. Cutting ties, recognising PSA UK/Ludkins/Anthos One is unfit to be a partner.
1 Like