There has been a member that was on this site before that spammed and made libelous claims about members on here and the site in general. The member has multiple usernames such as: crinus/bullet/wwepatriot. Recently this degenerate posted a scathing article about us and Pokegym. Here is the link. I must warn you, reading this article will be difficult. He undermines the integrity of all collectors on this site while making delusional claims about collecting in general.
My purpose in posting this is to ask members to report the videos linked as Fraud. If you click on the video you can click “report” which should be a flag icon right underneath the bottom right hand corner of the video. After clicking report, you can then select “spam and misleading”. Once you have clicked this section you can select fraud.
Not only is the person making egregious claims about this site and the gym, but he thinks people are reproducing pokemon cards and that PSA grades them…Ironically, he is the only one actually making counterfeit items and has people offering real cards and money for them.
Hopefully we can get enough people reporting this member so they will not be allowed to insult the hobby anymore than they already have. Also, if you run across any other videos where people are making counterfeit reprints please post them as soon as possible so they can be reported. Making illegal counterfeits is self explanatory, they are illegal and should not exist. We do not want fraudulent reprints to exist. Hopefully we can report these videos and and others alike to help maintain the integrity of the hobby.
This guy must have some really big issues with UPCCC. His article should perhaps be brought to to the attention of PSA for comments as well.
I’m intrigue about the fake Illustrator though. It looks good on the video but I’m quite certain on hand, you can tell something is wrong with the card.
That illustrator does not have a background layer printed on it…it is raw holo. Whoever made it took acetone to a holographic card and glued a print out of an illustrator card on it You can even tell they cut out the background of the illustrator to let the holofoil show through.
If you actually held the card it would be a dead giveaway that it is fake…and if you sent it to PSA…they would laugh.
That’s why I’m surprised this guy would even take it seriously and use it to put forward his argument. (I’m assuming this person is a he.)
Should we just ignore him and his article and not give it the attention he’s obviously craving for? For Pokemon’s sake, this person can’t even construct his sentences properly.
I went ahead and reported as I saw fit. It really is sad to see such hatred toward an accepting community that literally goes out of their way to encourage and include new collectors.
Videos Reported. The guy on that blog really lacks a brain, just like coins there are certain specific guidelines they must follow to determine authenticity and grade, it’s not like you can print out a card and send it to them expecting to fool PSA who have been at card authentication for years!
Can I be honest for a second. I think the UPCCC needs to reinvent itself just a bit. We are all serious collectors who have a passion for Pokemon cards. Although, not every member dabbles in trophy cards, each member takes pride in their collection. If we want to include and welcome new members into the collecting community our forum needs to become a bit more structured. This in turn would only help our credibility.
a few things stand out:
1.) bluey has been doing a great job with our skins. Her newest looks fantastic, much more modern and professional. I think adopting this new look could only help. First impressions are everything.
2.) I love the freedom this forum gives over others. However, there is an inherent lack of rules. I can not count how many times people try to sell stuff on here. We need to establish this place as a collecting community first and sales a distant, distant second. I think new rules/guidelines should be developed and be put in a place that is more visible than the second thread under “general”.
3.) We need to offer something that no other forum can. Whether it is our collective knowledge of collecting or …whatever we need to present in such a way that people keep coming back and are willing to trust us.
We should not even be dignifying people like this guy with a response. If we want to appear above above negative accusations we need a good reputation/image that will speak for it self.
I hate people that join forums only to sell, they make it look as if it were a flea market of sorts, the 100 post count before selling is a good rule, I cannot access the area yet, but a good rule is to tag pics too with the member’s name, date and forum name for good measure, this is to avoid potential scammers using pictures from other sources.
I’ve had good experience as a moderator on 1 watch forum and as a janitor on a popular image board; so most of my experiences are with Vbulletin mod tools, I wouldn’t mind helping the forum, my info is posted all over the internet if you search my nickname, lol.
I have experience with a puzzle collecting forum that has been similarly constructed. Here are the things that make it stand out as a unique forum that includes a large community of high-end collectors, but also is not overly exclusive so that it’s success is limited.
A Museum. We know that the major Pokemon forums maintain photo databases and/or scan archives. So many members here own exclusive items and already go to the trouble of scanning them in high quality and posting them on their respective blogs/websites. Finding a way to unify these images on this site while still crediting the owners/photographers or scanners could offer a boost in traffic, resource, and credibility. Alongside this could be all known information on the card.
Solid moderation. It doesn’t have to be a large staff. The other forum I’m a part of has a marketplace portion that is not the focus of the website. It is basically identical in its goals. When they switched to an “around-the-clock” moderation staff, including strategically selected individuals that can be active throughout a 24 hour period based on their location around the globe, they saw a decrease in the number of sales-only members and the quick joiners looking for a sale alone. Also, the staff has sort of a sub-staff. When certain administrators and/or moderators hit a part of life that doesn’t allow them to maintain the activity that is expected of them, they can step down for the necessary amount of time and one of the sub-staff members can step up. I think the UPCCC community has enough of a common goal and relationship within itself to support such a system. I don’t see the core group here getting upset over a user title. So they could handle stepping down for the week or months that they need to to get to a place where they can actively moderate again.
A personal collection feature. Now while this might be significantly down the road for this forum (I don’t know enough about the function of the site in terms of coding, feature addition, code staffing, etc. to make any specific time claims), one very cool feature of the other site is the ability for any member, upon joining, to keep track of their own collection on the site. Existing scans can be utilized to maintain the progress of your own collection. While this is more difficult here, as new cards are still being brought to our attention, it’s an idea worth toying with. Who knows what could be done with this idea.
Limited acceptance. You have to apply for membership to the other forum. This might need to be used once this forum has grown a little more. by requiring a quick breakdown of yourself (Intentions, how you heard about the forum, name, location, collection specialties, favorite card, etc.), you quickly cut down on the people looking for the quick sell. It becomes really obvious if someone doesn’t avidly desire participation in a collecting community. While this can discourage some people, it primarily results in only having people that have something to contribute. People that are already known in similar communities easily gain access as their names are known and describing their interests should be easy. People such as myself, with a large interest but relatively smaller collection for any reasons (mine being limited income) make it in if they simply communicate how much they love the hobby. It’s really a solid system. And it maintains the exclusive nature without halting community growth.
These are just a few ideas. If I have more I’ll share them. I’m just speaking from extremely similar experience. What is done with these suggestions is, of course, out of my control. But I can serve as an idea-liaison if interest is had in knowing more about the other community’s course of action.
You can even tell they cut out the background of the illustrator to let the holofoil show through.