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 Replies: 171 / Views: 41,487 |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
5029 Posts |
This reads like a dang soap opera to say the least. And I agree with trout it was a troubling to see members taking a hammer to the OP while showing close to no empathy to the OP regarding the fact the coin showed up at PCGS in one state and left in other after it was graded. Mistakes happen all the time - and this thread has many - but for some reason the one that is most glaring to me is the fact this coin was damaged after it was graded and prior to leaving PCGS. I could not care less about the $15 value sent in or the dealer involved - those were mistakes and lessons learned and it appears the dealer made his part right.
What concerns me is the fact this coin apparently was damaged at PCGS after it was graded and that "OOPS" moment was not fessed up to by whomever did it. That does speak to the companies reputation - as employees are what makes a reputation and name for a company. Mistakes do happen. Owning up or not owning up shows the character of the person that made it - and in turn is a reflection of the company they work for.
Edited by scopru
11/30/2016 09:16 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5211 Posts |
Say what now?  PCGS are the grand wizards of the coin industry. And in the other thread when I criticized PCGS at least 3 people said my post should be deleted  I have a Kool Aid stand if anyone has $45 for a cup or submission.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
790 Posts |
IF it makes anybody feel better, this thread sealed it for me. I will not do business with PCGS. I agree that the first problem is with the dealer who undervalued the coin, and PCGS simply did what their legal disclaimers say they'll do. But THEY damaged the coin, and THEY DOCUMENTED THAT FACT, so they can't claim that it happened elsewhere. Anybody with a thread of integrity would make it right, PERIOD. They have enough info to know the coin's true worth, and should hold themselves accountable for their negligence.
It's too damned bad we live in a world where if you don't read every jot and tittle of the fine print and protect yourself, people won't do what they ethically should do regardless. When I know about a business that operates this way, I won't do business with them, and if I have the experience myself, so that I can speak with firsthand knowledge, I warn others off as well. So I want to thank the original poster for letting me know who NOT to trust with my coins!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
790 Posts |
Also, the submitting dealer wasn't named, but I'd avoid them too. They probably thought they were doing the OP a favor, saving some money on insurance, but they also took a huge risk if they didn't either do the research and insure for a good estimated value, or ask the OP what insurance they wanted to carry. The submission could have gone astray and if they similarly undervalued other coins, their client(s) would be out a LOT of money! They may have meant well, but its concerning.
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Valued Member
United States
66 Posts |
I was just reading through this forum. PCGS handled this very poorly.
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New Member
United States
28 Posts |
"They probably thought they were doing the OP a favor, saving some money on insurance"
I doubt it.
I highly doubt it.
Much more likely, he was "playing the odds rather than the stakes" by using something other than Registered Mail.
The USPS specifically limits their insurance liability for coins (and a few other items) to $15, REGARDLESS of how much insurance is purchased.
I don't want to pay for Registered Mai. Who does? I don't want to endure the delays inherent in the Registered Mail procedure. (EVERY person who handles the mail must sign for it, and is PERSONALLY LIABLE for ANY loss. In one case a postal worker who somehow managed to lose an item that was insured for over fifty grand is having monthly payments deducted from his pay.
N.B.: I'm not a postal worker - but, I was.
PS: Edited to add that because I don't want to pay for Registered Mail or endure the delays, I use third party insurance.
PPS: Edited again to add that yeah, I know I'm resurrecting an old thread, but I think this is a VERY important issue that is sadly given very little attention.
Edited by Howard Black
04/16/2019 03:20 am
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New Member
United States
28 Posts |
"i still dont see how the coin got slabbed after it was damaged, other than an employee going "whoops, lets just slab it and hope no one notices" (troubling thought, but I've seen worse attempts at a cover up)"
As long as I've reopened this can of worms, I might as well drop this little wiggler into the ball: In an earlier life, I had a camera repair business. Retail/wholesale.
One day, one of the technicians handed in his resignation, no warning this was coming, no explanation.
A week or so later, one of the route drivers brought back a re-do. Oh, joy, work for free. Oh, well, cost of doing business.
It was a Kodak 8mm movie projector. I put it on the bench and began to try to find out why it was not working properly.
What I discovered was that on this projector, the main chassis was made of bakelite. Bakelite is a quite hard, and quite brittle material.
The bakelite chassis had been broken in half. Yes, in half. It had then been superglued together, and the tag filled out as DONE and the projector sent back on the next delivery run.
I looked up who it was who had (ahem) "repaired" this unit. Surprise, surprise. Yup, you guessed it.
Edited by Howard Black
04/16/2019 04:43 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
789 Posts |
Quote:
I looked up who it was who had (ahem) "repaired" this unit. Surprise, surprise. Yup, you guessed it. I also had a repair business that started out as AV equipment repair. Whenever I hired a tech I told them the worst thing you can do (besides stealing) is trying to deep six your mistakes. I only had very few problems with that through many years. Had a lot of other problems though. But that brings us back to this PCGS mistake. I believe they are only obligated for the declared value of the coin. What they do in house to the person that damaged it is up to them. I'd bet they have policies in place to deal with this sort of thing. While I do sympathize with the OP, I don't think they have much recourse, other than to refuse to do business with PCGS. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1005 Posts |
This thread now has a read count of over 25000. I would think the vast majority agree that PCGS is in the wrong; jaxenro's points above are a fair assessment of the situation. From a business perspective, this is a pretty bad look - this thread and deserved negative publicity has lost PCGS far more revenue than it would have cost to make things right from the start. It's probably lost at least that much in future business from me alone because of this
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Quote:
This thread now has a read count of over 25000. I would think the vast majority agree that PCGS is in the wrong; Doubtful. This thread started 6 years ago, until the recent respondes the last response was really 3 years ago. Very few felt they should pay out more for a submission trying to cheat the system. As has been stated countless times in the thread the coins value was under-declared upon submission. The stated value on the submission form is the max they are required to pay out. It was improperly submitted to pay a lower submission fee and the once in a blue moon even happened and trying to save a few submission fee dollars bit them. It happened so long ago it is completely irrelevant Edited by basebal21
04/16/2019 10:03 am
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New Member
United States
28 Posts |
"It happened so long ago it is completely irrelevant"
I think you should have prefixed that sentence with "I think" or "In my opinion."
In lieu of that, it leaves me in the awkward position of being wrong, stupid, heretical, or some combination thereof, because I completely disagree.
After I posted my comments, I read the entire thread. It was a nontrivial endeavor for me; I'm "up in years" (man, they sure creep up fast!), in poor health (had my 4th ER visit of the year the day before yesterday and am still on the rebound) -- but I found the material to be anything but irrelevant.
Having read about what happened to this guy I have resolved to strike PCGS off my list of "companies to even consider doing business with." I did not see any resolution to what they did, and their legalese CYA fine-print -- and their doggedly adhering to it -- leaves a foul taste in my mouth and a fouler stench in the air.
The gilding touch was their persistent urging him to send it to them for evaluation so that they could determine whether or not to cover it under their warranty -- and only when the intelligent customer refused to budge until they gave him a number, they finally admitted that if it would be covered, they would pay him the grand sum of $15.
My jaw about struck the pavement when I read that.
What sane customer would even consider forking out a shipping amount in excess of any possible "coverage" -- $15 for a $500 coin they virtually destroyed?
Then yanking the rug from under him by de-certifying it was the coup de gras (minus the "gras" component).
I have no idea what they were thinking...
So, in closing (my final comment in this thread), consider me wrong, stupid, heretical, or whatever. I found the thread to be invaluable, regardless of when it happened. In fact, the length of time that has elapsed without them doing anything beyond pointing at the fine print only makes them look worse IN MY OPINION.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:
The USPS specifically limits their insurance liability for coins (and a few other items) to $15, REGARDLESS of how much insurance is purchased. No they limit their liability for bullion to $15, unless it is sent by Registered mail. Numismatic coins are paid at the numismatic value. They also limit the liability on anything shipped by registered mail out of the country to $49 no matter the declared value. I think PCGS did exactly the right thing. A claim was made that they damaged the coin. Like ANY insurance adjuster would do they asked to see the item and were refused. So like any adjuster the maximum payment would be the stated insured value which in this case was well less than the pre-damaged value of the item. (If you had a $5,000 item and insured it for a declared value of $1,000 why would you expect to be reimbursed for the full $5,000 value if something happened to it? The max you would get would be the $1,000 it was insured for.) As for decertifying the coin, they had to. It is still out their in a PCGS holder and they have already settled one claim against it (whether the OP took the money or not). But it remained a potential liability. If the OP sells it to someone else they might try and send it in for grade review with a high declared value and try to get PCGS to make a second settlement on the same coin. Since the OP didn't let them examine the coin and reholder it at its proper grade/condition the only way to protect themselves is to decertify the coin. I am a strongly anti-TPG person, and I have a particular dislike of PCGS, but PCGS acted properly in this case. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1005 Posts |
The point is that from a PR perspective, PCGS took the wrong move. It doesn't matter what liabilities are - too often people focus on legal channels and liability, but forget about being good, decent, and honest. When you mess up you make things right.
PCGS severely damaged a rare coin and refused to provide compensation for their mistake because of technical liability. Their business is based on reputation and this was a bad business move.
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Quote:
"It happened so long ago it is completely irrelevant"
I think you should have prefixed that sentence with "I think" or "In my opinion." It's irrelevant because they are under entirely new leadership. PCGS has a new President from when it happened and CU the parent company has someone else in charge now too. Once leadership completely changes as has the company past leaders decisions become irrelevant. Quote:
It doesn't matter what liabilities are - too often people focus on legal channels and liability, but forget about being good, decent, and honest. When you mess up you make things right. It absolutely does matter what their liabilities are. They did exactly what they should have for something that was trying to cheat the system. If you want to try and cheat fees you take the risk that it can backfire and in this case it did as it should have. Quote:
I think PCGS did exactly the right thing. A claim was made that they damaged the coin. Like ANY insurance adjuster would do they asked to see the item and were refused. So like any adjuster the maximum payment would be the stated insured value which in this case was well less than the pre-damaged value of the item. (If you had a $5,000 item and insured it for a declared value of $1,000 why would you expect to be reimbursed for the full $5,000 value if something happened to it? The max you would get would be the $1,000 it was insured for.)
As for decertifying the coin, they had to. It is still out their in a PCGS holder and they have already settled one claim against it (whether the OP took the money or not). But it remained a potential liability. If the OP sells it to someone else they might try and send it in for grade review with a high declared value and try to get PCGS to make a second settlement on the same coin. Since the OP didn't let them examine the coin and reholder it at its proper grade/condition the only way to protect themselves is to decertify the coin. 100% this |
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Moderator
United States
189502 Posts |
I think we can move on now.  |
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Replies: 171 / Views: 41,487 |
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Posted 12/01/2016 12:20 am
