Allegedly PCGS Damaged a Customer's Coin?!!

This is not really a question and it wasn't my coin at all, in fact, I don't even know who the coin belonged to. I just thought it was interesting that PCGS wouldn't offer a decent amount to make the customer whole after they allegedly damaged the guy's coin. I have heard how PCGS threats people on their collectors universe website, so you never know. According to the video, they only offered the person $15! I found this video on Youtube so I thought I would link it here for all to see. Comments anyone?

 

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Good to know.

 

TrueView still listed.

I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it.

 

That sucks

 

The coin's owner OR the submitter is at fault for "valuing" the coin at $15 just to save a few bucks.
But I'm curious as to why PCGS didn't at least also include as part of the return all the fees associated with S&H and insurance.

 

Maybe it's just me but it looks like the True View photo may have had the damage area phottoshoped out.

 

Blame it on Covid-19.

 

Imagine if it was a hundred thousand dollar coin.

I'd be incredibly mad at PCGS.

Especially when they promise to insure the coin while it's in their hands.

 

BUT they only insure it for what you claim it's worth.
If it were "a hundred thousand dollar coin" but you only put $15 on the submission form then they would insure it for **$15**.

 

Looks like the "damage" was a lamination just below the surface that got pushed up and folded back by the prong. Tough break, but stuff happens.

Speaking as the former Senior Authenticator for ANACS a long, long time ago, the value of the piece is the value declared on the form. Otherwise any lost or damaged coin is suddenly worth many times what it was worth before it was lost or damaged. I sent a coin by Mail Registered for $1,000 the other day. If it never gets there can I tell the Post Office that it was really worth $5,000 and they should pay me that much? Life does not work that way. The owner of the coin has a beef with the dealer that submitted the coin, not PCGS.

 

The least they should do is refund the submission cost. It's just bad public relations and PCGS has enough of that.

 

Another possibility is that this coin had a planchet defect at the rim and it became disturbed during holdering. It's a rather strangely shaped bit of damage that doesn't look like it was just dropped. Of course, I don't see any sign of a defect in the TrueView. As for the $15, it sounds pretty stingy on PCGS's part, but I'd like to hear the other side of the story. They should always refund grading fees if they end up damaging a coin.

What if it was a $376,000 coin? The unique Judd-13 Partrick-Norweb 1792 25c in white metal (50% lead, 48% tin) looked like this before NGC encapsulated it.



Here it is in the NGC holder



Sometime after it was sold at auction, it was put in a PCGS holder. This is the TrueView of the coin before being encapsulated by PCGS.

 

There should have been a record and pictures throughout the process, however, with the reputation of PCGS, who would have thought that they would have reacted this way. When I bought my first gold coin, the buyer (I've known for years.) offered to take it to a coin show that NGC would be at. He told me he could save me money. When it came back from NGC, it was graded "UNC Details - Scratches on the Obverse". I was disappointed, and the dealer was disappointed. That was the first coin I had ever bought. I have bought other coins that were already graded and other coins I bought, I have never had graded, mainly, because I'm not going to sell them. I'm sure my son will when I'm dead and gone, but NGC, PGCS, and all the rest will not ever touch coins of mine.

 

Wow, it looks like the pressure from the prongs pushed in the sides.

 

Remember, at the time they receive the coin, all they know is that it's valued at what the submitter wrote or typed on the form. Then they deliberately remove identifying information when the coin goes into the grading room.

If they discover it's actually worth far more, they will contact the submitter to ensure the proper fees are paid and the appropriate return insurance is applied. But there is no guarantee that will happen - the whole point of the exercise is to keep information from biasing the grading.

At the point when the grades are keyed in, they could do a compare, and if the difference is more than a trivial amount, red flag the transaction. I don't know if their software is coded that way, but it would be if I coded it.

 

Here is the original thread...happened in 2013.

https://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=162108

The issue was the $15 declared value. Now the big question, what would PCGS have done if the declared value was much higher? The payout would be higher but well below the declared value (as they pick a number based on some type of wholesale market value). The person submitting the coin would still end up unhappy.

In the end, there probably isn't much that would satisfy a person if the TPG damages a coin. However, it would be better (for a big company like PCGS) from a customer service/marketing perspective to go above and beyond the minimum effort to avoid bad publicity (although they might disagree as this episode didn't really do much to harm their bottom line going forward).

 

That's part of the problem with the big two TPGs. They control so much of the market things like this will have absolutely no bearing on their business.

 

You got that right! Their offer of only $15 shows that they don't really care to make the customer whole. Would have been much better for them to throw him $94 dollar bill and be done with it!! They wouldn't even have to return submission fees! Instead, they show their ugly side, which most of us have heard about before.

 

So if the owner declared $100...PCGS would pay that amount...what if the the coin had an error never seen before...how would a “Guesstimation” be handled? Aarrgh...they would go with the $15, right? That really knocked PCGS down on the grading ladder for me...the person that caused the damage and the “high & mighty” Supervisor should both ...grrrr ... keeping it clean...wishing them a lifetime of the recurring nightmares about how they were fired