If you can't take reading PSA criticism and you are annoyed by complaining leave this thread now. This is an unsolvable problem. There is nothing that can be done. Constructive criticism is not going to help reverse the damage that has been done to my cards. All I can do is send this to PSA and hope they up their standards in the future and train their employees to handle cards the correct way.
Some of you might have seen [this](https://www.elitefourum.com/t/what-causes-this-on-or-in-a-psa-case/20630/1) thread I posted. After calling PSA on June 15th and explaining the issue with the case having markings on the inside they first wanted to tell me the cost of reholdering the card. I explained how I didn't believe I should have to pay for it considering it's a defect with their product so the helpful lady on the phone talked to her manager, set me up with a label, and boom, off went my card for a free reholder. They received the card and checked it into their system on June 25th. The next day it was already shipped out! Today, the 27th, I received the card from USPS. Awesome service, right?
I open the box to see the usual consignment ads, copies of paperwork, and bubble wrap. I pull out the case and first notice there’s scratching already on it. Yep, the brand new case already has scratching on it but hey, it’s just a case right? That’s what it’s there for; to absorb damage. No need to complain. I’ll simply polish the case like I do with all of my cards, throw it in a sleeve, and enjoy it.
Before I go to polish the case I started having a look at the card and I noticed the following. Please understand that I only have scans and one picture of the card's face that I took before sending it in. This is because my focus was on the back since that was my reason for sending it in. I tried taking an "after" photo with the same lighting and from the same angle to compare. This is shown in the last pic.
Why do they touch the card’s face?
Employees at PSA should be trained more thoroughly in card handling. You don’t make contact with a card using your oily fingers and there’s no legitimate reason to touch a Pokemon card anywhere besides on it’s edges in the first place. If feeling the card is how you authenticate it I don’t want you authenticating anything of mine.
How do they crack their cases?
Could it really be safer for me to use wire cutters and a knife to open up a case than sending it in to them? This seems preposterous. Why is a card with an $1800 marked and documented value being treated like this?
I marked it’s value on the form yet it was treated like dog shit. Unacceptable.
Why has this happened to me numerous times?
This is the only card I’ve ever had reholdered besides one order that was damaged by USPS but I’ve had two cards reviewed and both came back with wear that wasn’t there before. Both are worth a four figure sum.
Now I get that some people would look the other way and not want to bring up the issue because let’s face it, pointing out problems with high value cards isn’t going to build confidence in PSA or add any value to the card itself but this is just ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. It gets me so frustrated. This is the graded card business. This is the best we have. This quality of work is considered top tier.
I did notice on my last submission almost all my 200 card’s cases had a decent amount of scratching, some were very bad. Not sure why the cases are scratching so bad, sucks.
They need to learn from Beckett. BGS sleeves each of the graded cards they send back. I’m not sure if they do that for bulk, but for the few orders I’ve had under 20 cards all the cards have been sleeved.
Why did PSA try to sleeve pokemon cards and then stop doing that? I don’t get why sleeves are such a problem for them, but I’m guessing it’s a time issue.
Do you think that would have prevented this damage though? They still have to handle the card, right? The damage had to occur outside the case so the only way I see a sleeve working is if they examined it while it was sleeved by popping some of the card out and holding it by the sleeve instead of directly touching he card.
I recently received a reholder order back and 5 out of the 6 cases were lightly scuffed and the most expensive card had holo scratches and another had edgewear that i didnt notice before. Very dissapointing
Interestingly, the cases before these new ones weren’t as susceptible to those light surface scratches. Maybe it has something to do with the way they stack?
No thanks on those sleeves. They ripple and distort. No concern though. With the new cases there no room for them inside.
Being over burdened with Pokemon and everyine complaining about the wait time they recently hired several new people. It will take them a while to learn.
I don’t buy it. To become the person handling two thousand dollar cards you should have better training. It’s as simple as that. I would NEVER grab a card by the face and put my oily fingers right on the foil. It’s just stupid.
And besides that, I have had this happen way before the influx of orders.
I put the value as what I paid which was $1800. Maybe to some folks that’s cheap but to the average person it’s definitely not.
@admiral I don’t believe that’s any better, that they should let the new people learn on cheap stuff first. That’s so crazy.
“It’s okay Billy, he only paid $20 for the card. It’s fine that you ruined it and now we have to pay him.” How bout train them properly in card handling and the whole thing would be a non issue.
But you’re definitely right. For some people even a 25 USD card can already be expensive. And regardless of what a card is worth, if the graders (whether it’s a beginner or somehow who does it for years) can’t grade without damaging the card or case, they shouldn’t have this job to begin with.
I haven’t send all that much cards for grading to PSA myself, but from what I’ve seen here on the forum the quality of PSA-grading seems worse than a few years back. Then again, they are peaking right now with the amounts of cards that are being send in for grading, so with more cards and more pressure to finish everything in time to not get behind schedule, of course more things seem to go wrong than before.
Regardless, the scratches on the case and card in your pictures are just very sloppy on their part. Is it possible to get a reimbursement somehow? Because with your before-pictures as prove, and the scratch making it a 9 instead of 10, the value certainly decreased by a significant amount… Certainly keep us in the loop of what PSA responses are.
@zap2 - Just got my Venusaur back from PSA after they left a nice chunk of plastic in it when it was being re-encap’d… And now this is what it looks like . [ On a side note, no damage to the card from the plastic ]
The finger prints made me giggle aloud a little. You can’t convince me that someone from PSA needs TRAINING to know not to thumb up holo cards. That’s just blatant I-don’t-give-a-fuck negligence, not innocent ignorance.
. [ On a side note, no damage to the card from the plastic 
]
