The following is an email from a reader named Jeff. It says what other emails state, just clearer.
“I enjoy your site. I wanted to point out yet another reason some sellers use PSA and JSA. PSA has the ability to email eBay with their “Quick Opinion” findings, and eBay will then immediately hit a button and close the item down and remove it from the system. All based upon an email from PSA, without any info being given to the seller. If you have 5 Sophia Loren’s listed, and PSA decides in their infinite wisdom they don’t like them, eBay then (because of multiple closures) sends you an email that REQUIRES you as the seller to get every item you list in the autograph category pre-authenticated by one of their approved companies. And even worse, I’ve also heard from sellers who have been completely suspended due to these emails from PSA. Only PSA has this system set up with eBay….PSA charges $7.50 a pop, then “shares” the info a potential buyer paid with eBay. This really does give PSA sole authority over what is, and isn’t listed on eBay. There are tons of cases where PSA closes an item that’s 100% authentic. The seller is left holding the bag. eBay won’t share the email they got from PSA, and won’t give more than a canned response to any requests for info.
The only way to stop PSA from doing this is for sellers who have items closed down, and have been financially damaged, to file suit against PSA. A seller basically can’t sue eBay, as they have a ton of rules set up to protect them as part of the user agreement. IF enough people go after PSA, maybe the $7.50 an item won’t feel like enough to go through all the trouble.”
Signature Arts response is that many, for years, have been calling for a law suit to be filed against PSA. Some attorney needs to come forth and take on these incompetent authenticators who are scamming collectors. Collectors and dealers who have been harmed will come forward! For the record, eBay largest seller of autographs (over 100,000 feedbacks) got caught up in this authenticating scam. 100% authentic autographs were removed on eBay from the sellers site and they closed him down. He could not get back on unless he paid one of eBay’s incompetent autograph authenticators to go to his office and authentic the autographs he would put back on eBay. Could this be collusion between eBay and their so-called authenticators? Could the authenticating company have shared the money with eBay, sort of like a finders fee? It cost the dealer $5,000 to have an autograph authenticating imposter, approved by eBay to come over and attach stickers to every item the seller showed him. The seller told us that the authenticating imposter was not aware of many of the names he was placing the silly stickers on. After the scam was said and done the seller got a lousy tea shirt. You may find this hard to believe, but the same authenticating company asked this seller of autographs to be one of their authenticators. This seller is willing to tell his story to a judge in court.
For the record, this seller opened his own website, is holding weekly auctions, and after a year, sales are much better than they ever were on eBay. Not to mention no longer paying the buying and selling fees and being held hostage to Payal (owned by eBay).
A fabulous and we mean fabulous, alternative to eBay is coming. Scheduled for October 2010, in our opinion, sellers of autographs will be ecstatic when they hear the news.
