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Message:: [QUOTE="ziggy29, post: 12610, member: 1113"]This is true.  I'd imagine it's hard to prove fraud and not just "loose grading standards" unless you have some evidence that the graders knew their grading was much more liberal than the market's in general, and that they intended to exploit this for personal gain. If someone found a smoking-gun memo (or legally taped telephone conversation) that indicated they knew they were going to "pay" a $50,000 debt by giving coins worth $20,000 but overgraded to *look* like they were giving out $50K in value, you'd have intent and a solid fraud case.  Without that proof of intent, criminal action is very hard to pursue.  In and of itself, putting AU-58 sliders and MS-62 coins into MS-65 slabs is not grounds for a solid fraud indictment -- even if you profit from the overgrading.  You need to show that intent to defraud. But it's still cause for civil action, which in this case is much easier.  You wouldn't have to prove intent to defraud there, merely a preponderance of the evidence to show that the person being "paid" in coins clearly didn't receive the value they were promised.  And just looking at the standard difference between the sale prices of a common-date MS-65 Morgan slabbed by PCGS/NGC versus some other "MS-65" Morgan in a disrespected slab, you can clearly show you didn't get the value you negotiated.[/QUOTE]