My experience with GAI....
VintageBallCards
Posts: 24
I hesitated to post this in here as both Steve and Mike are my "friends" and hoped that this was a fluke screw up on their part and wouldn't happen again....
About 2 months before the National this year (about June time) me and a buddy of mine went partners on a deal of 2,200 SI for Kids Lebron Magazine's, as I am sure you remember these cards were ON FIRE at the time. A PSA 10 had closed for $5k and 9's were trading at over $100 all day long. Anyways we paid $6 a piece for the magazines and spent 2 days going through every one to pull out the "no bleeds" so we can get ready to submit. We found about 300 nice no bleeds so then we started thinking about who to submit them too. We had no skill at all in ripping them out of the sheets so we decided to go with GAI as they had offered a service for $0.50 each they will have their "experts" tear them out for you. We figured it was worth it and gave it a try. So the next day we drove down to the GAI office and gave Steve all of the sheets along with some money for tearing and grading fee's. He said it would take about 3 days for them to tear them and about another 3-4 days for them to pregrade them and I would be called when they were done. We were cool with that so we went along. A week passed by and I hadn't gotten a phone call so I gave them a call to find out that they hadn't got to the tearing out yet (now time was avery sensitive issue on these cards as they were dropping in price by the day) I made Steve aware of this and he assured me they would be done immediatley. Another 4 or 5 days later I called again and he said that they tore threw about half of them and should be done with the other half by the end of the day. Well they finally finished tearing them 3 days later. So now it was time to pregrade-the 3 day process. Well that took them about 2 weeks and finally Danny called me back and said "Hey dude what's up, I finally got your grades on the SI Lebron's" I was getting excited hoping to get a handful of 9.5's a bunch of 9's and maybe even a 10 as these were all cherry picked and torn out by the experts. Then he said "You didn't do as well as you hoped" So I said "Just give me the details" (at the time of submission I told Steve to just go ahead and slab all of the 8.5's or better and give me the rest raw) So he goes on and tells me the cards weren't that nice, bla bla bla and I had gotten 2 8.5's, no 9s no 9.5s, no 10s and the rest were 7.5s and below?!?!?!?!?! What?? I was furious as not only had it taken them nearly a month to grade but after I paid them to take them out for me they crushed me saying they weren't that nice. Now I wasn't born yesterday, I have been grading cards for years and know what to look for. I wouldnt have given them sheets with scratches or bent corners, or creases or any of that. So I talked to Steve and urged him to have these relooked at as this is insane and he said he would give them to Sean to relook at and he should have an answer by the next day. Well a week goes by and I call back to hear Danny tell me that there was no improvment. I told him to just send my cards back. Now to make this already long story end quicker...I just got my raw lebrons back from them 3 weeks ago after hearing numerous times that they were already shipped, I must have misplaced the package, maybe it got lost and all those stories. Thats right 6 months after I had submitted them I finally got my virtually worthless Lebrons. At the time of the submission I was one of GAI's biggest submitters if not the biggest submitter of modern era cards and had plans with Steve to grade about 1,500-2,000 cards onsite at the National-this was the last order I ever sent to them, I did not grade one card with them the whole week in Atlantic City. It was a horrible experience that I lost my *** on. Since I received the cards I have gotten numerous emails and phone calls from Steve asking "how I am doing? and if there's anything Global can do to help me" I just don't want to have anything to do with it anymore, too much headache.
Thanks and sorry for the novel-
VBC
About 2 months before the National this year (about June time) me and a buddy of mine went partners on a deal of 2,200 SI for Kids Lebron Magazine's, as I am sure you remember these cards were ON FIRE at the time. A PSA 10 had closed for $5k and 9's were trading at over $100 all day long. Anyways we paid $6 a piece for the magazines and spent 2 days going through every one to pull out the "no bleeds" so we can get ready to submit. We found about 300 nice no bleeds so then we started thinking about who to submit them too. We had no skill at all in ripping them out of the sheets so we decided to go with GAI as they had offered a service for $0.50 each they will have their "experts" tear them out for you. We figured it was worth it and gave it a try. So the next day we drove down to the GAI office and gave Steve all of the sheets along with some money for tearing and grading fee's. He said it would take about 3 days for them to tear them and about another 3-4 days for them to pregrade them and I would be called when they were done. We were cool with that so we went along. A week passed by and I hadn't gotten a phone call so I gave them a call to find out that they hadn't got to the tearing out yet (now time was avery sensitive issue on these cards as they were dropping in price by the day) I made Steve aware of this and he assured me they would be done immediatley. Another 4 or 5 days later I called again and he said that they tore threw about half of them and should be done with the other half by the end of the day. Well they finally finished tearing them 3 days later. So now it was time to pregrade-the 3 day process. Well that took them about 2 weeks and finally Danny called me back and said "Hey dude what's up, I finally got your grades on the SI Lebron's" I was getting excited hoping to get a handful of 9.5's a bunch of 9's and maybe even a 10 as these were all cherry picked and torn out by the experts. Then he said "You didn't do as well as you hoped" So I said "Just give me the details" (at the time of submission I told Steve to just go ahead and slab all of the 8.5's or better and give me the rest raw) So he goes on and tells me the cards weren't that nice, bla bla bla and I had gotten 2 8.5's, no 9s no 9.5s, no 10s and the rest were 7.5s and below?!?!?!?!?! What?? I was furious as not only had it taken them nearly a month to grade but after I paid them to take them out for me they crushed me saying they weren't that nice. Now I wasn't born yesterday, I have been grading cards for years and know what to look for. I wouldnt have given them sheets with scratches or bent corners, or creases or any of that. So I talked to Steve and urged him to have these relooked at as this is insane and he said he would give them to Sean to relook at and he should have an answer by the next day. Well a week goes by and I call back to hear Danny tell me that there was no improvment. I told him to just send my cards back. Now to make this already long story end quicker...I just got my raw lebrons back from them 3 weeks ago after hearing numerous times that they were already shipped, I must have misplaced the package, maybe it got lost and all those stories. Thats right 6 months after I had submitted them I finally got my virtually worthless Lebrons. At the time of the submission I was one of GAI's biggest submitters if not the biggest submitter of modern era cards and had plans with Steve to grade about 1,500-2,000 cards onsite at the National-this was the last order I ever sent to them, I did not grade one card with them the whole week in Atlantic City. It was a horrible experience that I lost my *** on. Since I received the cards I have gotten numerous emails and phone calls from Steve asking "how I am doing? and if there's anything Global can do to help me" I just don't want to have anything to do with it anymore, too much headache.
Thanks and sorry for the novel-
VBC
0
Comments
Tough Story!!!Did you read the other thread about GAI.If this is anywhere near the service that they give,they won't be a viable grading service for long.Too Bad.Competition is a good thing.It seems that there should be some level of compensation available for you.I would wait a few days and then send them a link to this thread.Sorry to hear about an obvious screwup on their part.
Vic
VBC
Always looking for 1957 Topps BB in PSA 9!
<< <i>Yea it was brutal, we had invested over $14,000 on the deal including grading fee's >>
OUCH! If I took a beating like that, I'd jump off a bridge
Website: http://www.qualitycards.com
<< <i>
<< <i>Yea it was brutal, we had invested over $14,000 on the deal including grading fee's >>
OUCH! If I took a beating like that, I'd jump off a bridge
Careful what you suggest, Jay -- VBC's got a San Fransisco icon!
VBC:
Thanks for sharing the story. It must've been painful for you to
even type that out, and I'm sorry to hear it was such a disaster.
I know that hindsight is 20/20, but maybe you would've made out better
had you ripped the cards out yourself. Y'know, do some research on the
best techniques (maybe even ask your buds at GAI how *they* do it), or
do a lot of practicing on the other cards that had bleed. Either way,
GAI should definitely refund your grading fees for taking so long.
<< <i>
Careful what you suggest, Jay -- VBC's got a San Fransisco icon!
VBC:
Thanks for sharing the story. It must've been painful for you to
even type that out, and I'm sorry to hear it was such a disaster.
I know that hindsight is 20/20, but maybe you would've made out better
had you ripped the cards out yourself. Y'know, do some research on the
best techniques (maybe even ask your buds at GAI how *they* do it), or
do a lot of practicing on the other cards that had bleed. Either way,
GAI should definitely refund your grading fees for taking so long. >>
Yea we practiced on some of the common guys tearin em out and we weren't feelin it. I called Steve and asked him how they do it and he told me briefly then gave me the offer of them tearing em out for me saying that they have done over 20,000 of them. Of course now I wish I didn't take his word for it, I wish I never even submitted them but what can you do. Thats part of the grading game I guess and you have to take some losses to appreciate the gains, just hope in the long run the gains outweigh the losses significantly.
VBC
<< <i>Tough Story!!!Did you read the other thread about GAI. >>
yes, honestly,
Please read the other thread
about other's problems with GAI...
LINK to other Thread
I sent in a yankees team ball from the 70's with munson for the free grade with membership. The ball was lost and after 8 months of waiting as they were looking for a replacement, I finally asked for a check.
I have found GAI never returns calls when they say they are going to . If you call , they ARE very responsive to your questions and will work with you. If you pay the money for the quick services(I did this twice on 2 high end packs) they will have your grades right away and turn it right out the door. My opinion is they lack the front end customer support and systems to be viable long term. they do a quality job on packs but there doesn't seem to be any automated procedures or systems in place which is necessary if you plan to be along term high volume corporation.
are there ANY nightmare stories like this with PSA?
-REPEATED "Lost" items?
-REPEATED "problems" with insert or slab inventory?
-REPEATED unreturned calls?
-REPEATED broken or unfulfilled promises?
-REPEATED bad customer service?
-REPEATED poor product treatment
(card and packs damaged or slipping in slabs!)
I mean come on...
I have never heard this kind of consistant level
of TERRIBLE product, service and/or support about
PSA! and I am not talking about an occasional
mistake that everyone might make, but GAI
is creating a Very Consistant history of
AWFUL service and customer care!
(and these guys are "supposed" to be the next psa?)
<< <i>
-REPEATED "problems" with insert or slab inventory? >>
The customer service problems sound really horrible, so I will definitely hold off on submitting to these guys.
However, I already own a few GAI cards, and right now, I have greater concerns about the GAI holder. The other post showed pictures of cards sliding around and someone suggested that the spacing between the clear plastic might be thick so that thicker modern cards can be accomodated. Another person has indicated that the extra space has allowed for the cards to start curling inside the GAI holder.
Does anyone know what the long term effect this will have to the cards that do not fit perfectly within the GAI holders?
I'm too new to the grading market to know anything other than 2 guys left PSA to start up GAI. However, those two stories along with the only GAI I own aren't real impressive. I've got three 1974 Rod Carew's in an 8; 2 from PSA and 1 from GAI. The GAI 8 looks like an easy 7 in comparison.
Plus, how do you start another grading company so far into the maturity of the market and not create a 1/2 point grading system?? Let's not forget about their "1st graded" marking. Big #%#^ deal!
From my experience SCD has done a superior job entering the market late in comparison.
Erik
I own 2 GAI cards - a '65 Topps Twins team that is a GAI 6.5, which deserves its grade, but would cross only to a PSA 6, and a '54 Bowman Gus Bell that is a GAI 6. The front of the Bell looks like an easy PSA 6 with a chance of a PSA 8(OC) holder. The back, however, has a thin notch that goes partway through the paper at the top of the card (as if it had been pressed against a sharp object). This sort of damage should disqualify a card from a 6 grade IMO. I certainly cannot rank GAI's grading skills as higher than those of other companies.
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
Need to buy something for the wife or girlfriend? Check out Vintage Designer Clothing.
These GAI stories are quite disturbing.
Seems like there's a dealer that constantly posts on other message boards.
I believe his intent is to inform collectors about troubles going on at grading companies.
Somebody should let him know about these problems at GAI
so that he can alert the rest of the good folks in the hobby that all is not well there.
If I remember right, his name is Craig ? ... or something like that ...
"How about a little fire Scarecrow ?"
Skycap
Unless they give us ex-military personnel great service and everyone else gets treated like crap...LOL.
Silver Coins
e-bay ID: grilloj39
e-mail: grilloj39@gmail.com
<< <i>Let this serve as a lesson to those who are greedy and who hope to make a killing on this moment's hot player. $15,000 down the toilet
Skycap >>
It has nothing to do with greed skycap, when your in this business and want to make money doing it you have to realize what's hot and adjust to times. I do not see that as being greedy
VBC
No I haven't noticed any curling of cards inside the holder, slipping through the border. I just reorganized my collection over the weekend (it was raining in San Antonio on Saturday) so I have looked at my cards recently.
Silver Coins
e-bay ID: grilloj39
e-mail: grilloj39@gmail.com
<< <i>Here in Boston there's a name I could use to describe a person like VintageBallCards, but out of etiquette and decency I won't use it here.
.......
<< <i>Here in Boston there's a name I could use to describe a person like VintageBallCards, but out of etiquette and decency I won't use it here.
SKYCAP,
dont be such a freakin' wuss!
if you are going to step out there
and bash someone, have the balls
to say it.
otherwise shut up.
VintageBallcards made a business deal
that BECAUSE OF GAI's Irresponsible
dealings and lies, cost him 15 Grand!
That is nothing to be upset with HIM about.
and if it happened to YOU, it would not
be so funny....
On a side note, I saw that Jtcards had a mess of '70s cards graded by GAI. I don't remember him having anything other than psa previously.
skycap - That's just wrong.