The responsibility of a grading service in the event of a "mechanical error"?

[Beijim]

I honestly don't care what grading service slabbed this coin. You either honor your guarantee without screwing around trying to play games using semantics in order not to pay, or you lose the faith of the customer and your guarantee is meaningless and therefore your product is meaningless. Would anyone buy an insurance policy from a company that played games like this?

 

Exactly. Bravo.

 

Beijim

 

[Catch22-migration]

When you pay someone for a professional service there is a certain expectation of performance. In this case the service did not provide what could be reasonably considered even adequate.

 

All the noise over whether it was a mechanical error or simply an opinion and therefore not actionable seems a stretch to me.

 

If you sent in a Rembrandt painting for authentication and received authentication from a service only to later find out it is a fake, then I would think the authenticator failed to perform the service with the professional due dilligence expected.

 

All the grading services know that their opinions are used by the marketplace to determine value and therefore they have an obligation to see that obvious mistakes don't leave their office or they should shoulder the burden of their mistakes.

 

 

[gmarguli]

Two weeks since the last post. We need an update.

 

Did David Hall & PCGS weasel out of their responsibility or did they stand behind their guarantee and pay you for your loss?

[MarkFeld]

Greg, my credit card company has indicated that they are going to reverse the charge, which was $4892 of the total (of $5250 plus $50 postage) - I had a credit of $408 with Paypal, which was applied against the purchase price.

 

Even if that does occur, however, Paypal supposedly has the right to appeal the reversal, so, this might go on for some time.

[gmarguli]

If you have your bank account linked to the PayPal account, then PayPal might take the cash right out of your bank account.

 

Any more contact from David Hall & PCGS?

 

And as I mentioned to you before, expect PayPal to close your account if they get stuck with the bill.

[braddick]

By making your Credit Card responsible you are, in essence, making all of us responsible as it is fees paid via the interest we pay that goes to pay that charge reversal.

 

Now, does that sound fair?

[gmarguli]

Actually, the credit card company is just going to take the money from PayPal and there is nothing PayPal can do about it.

 

PayPal has the option of going after the seller and taking the money out of his PayPal account or bank account if it is linked up OR going after the buyer (Mark) and taking the money from his bank acount or PayPal account. Personally, I wouldn't have anyone pay me using that PayPal account. It's very possible that PayPal will just freeze that money.

[braddick]

Either way, someone pays other than the responsible party: the Grading Service.

[jom]

Interesting post! I learned a lot from this one...but I'm still a bit confused as to what happened between PayPal and credit card.

 

To me these services are being paid enough money to go after the submitters. That seems to be the best idea. I like the deducting from the salary idea from Braddick too!

 

TomB although I disagree with your take on the FH not being part of the grade, you hit the head on the nail when it comes to the sad state of affairs in the coin market. At this point, reality dictates that FH is part of the market grade since people are paying big bucks for this kind of thing. On the other hand, in many cases these premiums paid are not only absurd (given what you are getting in return) many of the coins are NOT fully struck. Another example of the market being overly influenced by the services....

 

jom

[jtryka]

This is a long way from over, as Paypal, the credit card company and the seller have yet to battle it out. Personally I am surprised that the credit card company agreed to the reversal since the item you returned to the seller is not the same as the one you bought (i.e. the coin might have been the same, but the holder was not). I am still convinced that the grading service should step up and accept responsibility for their mistake. Ultimately, in looks like this one will go the way of some many other situations in this world, the blame keeps being shifted and shuffled until finally it's everyone that ends up paying for it.

[gmarguli]

Personally I am surprised that the credit card company agreed to the reversal since the item you returned to the seller is not the same as the one you bought (i.e. the coin might have been the same, but the holder was not).

 

The credit card company can still put that charge back. Unless Mark has gotten the little written notice saying that they ruled in his favor, it is likely a temp reversal.