Haven’t fact checked this myself but basically it seems that they don’t have insurance - at least on their guarantee - to the point where it’s a legitimate risk to their business
Self insurance is very common and reasonable at proper scale. Wal-Mart self insures much of what they do, as paying another separate, for profit entity makes no sense. Insurance is to avoid wipeout risk and spread a small entity’s risk into a large risk pool, which insurance companies do as a business for a premium.
I’ve long said grading fees are too low. Their ridiculous (but good for the consumer) financial guarantee is an insurance policy unlike any other that exists in the world as far as I can tell. You pay up front for a lifetime guarantee of their work some infinitesimal fraction of not what you paid, but whatever future value your card could achieve. There are literally thousands of cards insured for $10,000+, $100,000+, hell probably dozens or hundreds $1,000,000+ that were charged $10, $50 or less in grading fees. Let that sink in.
They run that part of the business like any other.
I understand what you’re saying however, how they price the grading fees are their own choice. Whether they should cost more is subjective. I’m fine with the pricing on all service levels aside from bulk. I actually think it should be cheaper. If people choose to submit their own high end cards for a cheap service, then they should accept a cheap insurance. Irregardless of this, if the card a customer submitted at a $50 service level is now worth $100k, then they will receive the insurance that is relatable to the service level they paid for. I personally think psa should contact the customer to advise them to increase the insurance when it comes to shipping but people shouldn’t be forced to pay more for it. It’s their choice.
While that is ideal, it’s unrealistic. People already blame Psa for why their marriage didn’t work. There was a guy who cracked a Bgs 9.5 mint 1st edition Charizard sent it at declaration of $1, and complained because Psa graded it a 5.
Psa needs the tier cost system. They need to enforce it pre-grade though, not post grade.
That is a scary thought to think about how this business model could come back to bite them in the butt. However, what would happen if events like this happened and PSA had to close? This is all hypothetical, but what would happen to graded cards?
At what point in the process did you agree to have them take your money? You signed your name on the submission form entering into that agreement. I am asking because I genuinely don’t know what it says on there and a quick scan of it didn’t answer my question.
Surely this must be satire or some kind of joke that went over my head. A company with a highly desired product, and demand far outstripping their supply should lower prices? Like 1 million+ card backlog and several month turnaround times kind of delay and they should entice more cards in?
@hisoka107, I think PSA bankrupting themselves with financial guarantee payouts is extremely unlikely/impossible as they payout is easily avoided by PSA just standing by their initial opinion. Even in the face of immense evidence to the contrary, say hypothetically a 7 figure card was trimmed/altered etc. I bet they would say “in our professional opinion it isn’t, and it still deserves the grade” to avoid the payout. I’ve seen them turn down some reasonable attempted claims on 10’s that would have only amounted to low 4 figure payouts saying that the grade was correct. I’ve only personally had success dropping a card from a 10 when it was blatant that the card was a 6 or less.
They take the money upon a completed submission, which is then supposed to be sent to you. Because of the current situation, it’s highly unlikely that they will send the order to me. I just called them as their customer service is working from home. They had 2 people in the office to try push out orders that are near complete.
Satire? Just because they have an in demand product/ service doesn’t mean they HAVE to increase their fees. I think it’s satire you want them to have increased fees considering they are constantly behind on promised turn around times.
Also, I’ve been lurking this forum for a very long time. I always see that you argue/ disagree on sooo many threads. Do you just disagree just to disagree? I’m generally curious.
To add to this. If they want to help backlog, maybe they should hire people with more knowledge of the hobby. People have been calling for this for years.
@opmystic , I don’t disagree to disagree. I genuinely don’t get how someone could “think they should be cheaper” and I am very interested to hear why you think they should be?
I mean if you wished they were cheaper, then yeah I get it because you’d save money if they were. Your profit margins would increase. There is an underlying motivation behind why you would wish for that.
I wish they charged me nothing, but I don’t think they should. Thinking they should be cheaper though completely baffles me. I guess the only reason is if you think they do a really shitty job and their service isn’t worth what they are charging? That’d be your own opinion and you could think that if you wanted to, but clearly the market as a whole thinks they are well worth what they are charging, because again demand is outstripping supply and generally when that happens you either need to increase supply, or increase price to bring the demand into equilibrium. I think they’ve worked on that a bit from both sides recently, but not enough to slow the growth of their backlog. The addition of backlog due to the Coronavirus obviously can’t be put on them though as this is all unprecedented.
You hit the nail on the head. I don’t mind a company increasing their fees if it is justified. With psa, I think it is justified to an extent. The hours the employees must work and to pay for more workers wages etc… I get it. But their service has been going down hill in my opinion and not only have they increased fees but to reach the maximum bulk level pricing you have to also have an increased number of cards. So yeah, I disagree with it because of the service. I’ve been grading thousands of cards consistently for 4 years. Been involved in the hobby consistently for 8 and because of the growing market their services have definitely taken a hit. We can all see that. They have taken some rather “meh” measures to decrease backlog and other issues but it’s not enough. As I said, they need to hire actual experts and improve their services all round to justify the increased fees. Again, my opinion. I was grading cards way before I started it as a business so the profit is a bonus but not my main reasoning. Just to note - I don’t think psa is a terrible company. They are the best grading company imo. I think they do very well considering the huge numbers of orders they have but they can definitely improve.
@opmystic@gottaketchumall
Talking about price point, after this pandemic or at least in a few months, I would imagine PSA and many businesses/companies will increase prices regardless.
Companies don’t typically increase/decrease prices because they feel like it, as they calculated that current price for a reason. If anything on their resources changes, such as the price/source or availability of plastic that they may import from China ultimately would drive the price up. If factories are seeing a shortage/backlog from the forced closures or other materials used.
