Starstock no longer accepting raw cards

[rms13]

Don’t know how many people here have used them but just got an email that they are suspending intake of raw cards and reorganizing business to focus on graded cards, wax, breaks and other collectibles. When they launched the entire business model was raw cards and seemed like a possible alternative to comc. I submitted a bunch of cards in the past that weren’t valuable enough to grade and seemed easier then listing individually on eBay. I will say their raw grading seemed questionable. Almost everything I sent in got Starstock B grade which killed any value they had. I’m definitely not a grading expert but I sent more valuable stuff to CSG and most got graded 9 or higher. To my eye there wasn’t much difference between stuff I had graded at CSG and stuff Starstock graded B which would equate to PSA 7-8 based on their scale.

[Sonnys88]

Don’t know how many people here have used them but just got an email that they are suspending intake of raw cards and reorganizing business to focus on graded cards, wax, breaks and other collectibles. When they launched the entire business model was raw cards and seemed like a possible alternative to comc. I submitted a bunch of cards in the past that weren’t valuable enough to grade and seemed easier then listing individually on eBay. I will say their raw grading seemed questionable. Almost everything I sent in got Starstock B grade which killed any value they had. I’m definitely not a grading expert but I sent more valuable stuff to CSG and most got graded 9 or higher. To my eye there wasn’t much difference between stuff I had graded at CSG and stuff Starstock graded B which would equate to PSA 7-8 based on their scale.

Not surprised at all. It was clear from their start that their business model for raw cards wasn't sustainable.

They began with no ingestion fees to gain users / submissions, then added a submission fee for raw cards after being overwhelmed with submissions (it was clear that would happen at some point even though they denied it over and over again).

Their "grading" scale for raw cards is basically useless as they don't show the actual card you are getting, and is clearly inaccurate for anyone who submitted or bought from them. I think when they were swamped with submissions they just assigned the "B" grade a lot of the time to play it safe and get through the submissions quickly.

I think they lost a ton of buyers and submitters for raw cards due to the reasons above and due to the hobby cooling off.

[RealDocStrange]

It’s the hobby cooling off part that got them. All the 2019 and 2020 basketball stuff just sits there. People are just far less interested in raw prospect cards from the new releases if you can’t send them to psa for a reasonable price.

I think they had something with a form of futures market that easy raw card transactions could mimic. But they never really had the deposit liquidity in their market place to fully support that.

I will say there has been about four times as much activity from my eyes over the last 24 hours.


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[RealDocStrange]

Just re reading their notice - so if you sent cards in say a week before the announcement. Postmarked and all. But they arrived Saturday, they aren’t going to accept them and they will “hold” the cards, or will mail them back to you?

Seems like they should at least accept the packages sent well in advance of their policy change.


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[boxbuster7]

I'm not sure why anybody would use this company over COMC

[Budler]

When they started, I was very interested in it. I messaged back and fore for several weeks asking questions and getting information. At the end both them and me figured it was not right for me. What I wanted to do was not what they were planning on doing.

Glad I double check with them before just sending cards to them.

[premium1981]

Never heard of them.

[mc1]

Starstock fired over 50 employees on Friday.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZWyJkSJej0/?hl=en

[Swipe79]

He reiterates over and over in the video that he has one source, and he's not sure if it's true, etc. So, not a verifiable fact, but something to consider.

Doesn't sound super positive if it's true.

Starstock fired over 50 employees on Friday.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZWyJkSJej0/?hl=en

[mc1]

Correct, the video does have that disclaimer.

The post mentions multiple sources.

[Swipe79]

CEO of Starstock this morning:

https://youtu.be/3AUOHrKJPS8

[Swipe79]

Having listened to that - it just seems like a poorly run company.

We let a bunch of people go...we're also having staffing issues...we can't process or ship cards in a reasonable amount of time. We're not profitable, so we're changing directions instead of analyzing what's working v what's not.

Lots of company speak in the video - plenty or reassurances and claims of business as usual (except maybe waiting months for ship home requests).

[RealDocStrange]

I took that video - and their “star stock NFT twitter” account activity today - as saying they are going to plow into NFTs. Probably a smart thing to do from a valuation perspective if they aren’t too late to catch the wave! Need to compete with all the other startups (there are hundreds!)

But seriously the market functionality was the absolute best thing they developed. I think that interface is better than any other bid/ask/sell for cards that I’ve seen. No reason they couldn’t have scaled and marketed that properly.

But that YouTube is basically saying “we are abandoning that marketplace”.


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[bloodwings19]

Another black eye for the sports cards market. Another finance guy companies not prepare for the base card depression. Ebay just got stronger.

[boxbuster7]

Having listened to that - it just seems like a poorly run company.

We let a bunch of people go...we're also having staffing issues...we can't process or ship cards in a reasonable amount of time. We're not profitable, so we're changing directions instead of analyzing what's working v what's not.

Lots of company speak in the video - plenty or reassurances and claims of business as usual (except maybe waiting months for ship home requests).

I kind of feel bad for them because it was so clear to me from day 1 that they weren't card people. The gravy train wasn't going to last forever with base cards, and any person who has been in the hobby long enough should've seen that coming (and been able to forecast properly).

[rms13]

Sports Cards Nonsense podcast talked about this today. Starstock was formerly a sponsor and they reached out to the CEO to come on the show to address the situation but he apparently declined or ignored them. I guess they are focusing on their NFT business whatever that means. And yes it seems they laid off almost their entire staff so good luck getting cards back. Sounds like they were just a very poorly run business. They had a good idea at first but then decided to pivot to graded cards then they pivoted to wax then they pivoted to breaks and now NFT so it sounds like they were just throwing things at the wall hoping something sticks.

[KhalDrogo]

Having listened to that - it just seems like a poorly run company.

We let a bunch of people go...we're also having staffing issues...we can't process or ship cards in a reasonable amount of time. We're not profitable, so we're changing directions instead of analyzing what's working v what's not.

Lots of company speak in the video - plenty or reassurances and claims of business as usual (except maybe waiting months for ship home requests).
If you don’t have physical possession of your cards, you better be careful with who is holding them. Grading companies, storage companies, marketplaces, etc. There’s not enough room for everyone at the table. And you’re already seeing some of these bozo companies go bye bye.

[mintacular]

I knew these morons would never make it when:

1) They didn't scan actual cards. Any card buyer wants to see a scan
2) They only accepted "rookie cards" (unnecessary limitation)
3) They started to shift to wax, breaks, graded cards, etc. (i.e. desperation set in)

[Swipe79]

Agreed - full disclosure, I have a couple hundred rookie cards that I've already requested shipment for. Not a crazy amount of stuff but enough to make me worry a bit. After conclusion of business with them, it will probably be a rear window for the site as I am not interested in the NFT stuff.

If you don’t have physical possession of your cards, you better be careful with who is holding them. Grading companies, storage companies, marketplaces, etc. There’s not enough room for everyone at the table. And you’re already seeing some of these bozo companies go bye bye.

[jamcas997]

Again as I have said on the COMC board it is so much better to keep and control my own cards. While I like COMC and places like Ship My Cards for outside US buyers so they can buy from us without large postal fees I just cant see letting someone else hold and sell my cards.

[seanrs1]

Wanted to get the temperature of the room? Is everyone here that uses starstock cashing out and requesting their cards back immediately? Is there fear that the company will go out of business within the near future?

[Swipe79]

I requested my raw stuff yesterday - if it's going to take a while, I want to be in queue. It seems like they've just abandoned one part of their business instead of doing the right thing for their customers and scaling down over time. I don't think they go out of business soon but based on past decisions, they seem to be burning through money and it will eventually run out.

Seems like those in charge don't or never did understand much about sports cards.

Wanted to get the temperature of the room? Is everyone here that uses starstock cashing out and requesting their cards back immediately? Is there fear that the company will go out of business within the near future?

[seanrs1]

Anyone on here trying to take advantage of the situation by making low offers on low end raw cards and hoping people just want to cash out? If you are in no hurry to to receive the card (and assuming they stay in business) this might be a great strategy.

[RealDocStrange]

I requested my raw stuff yesterday - if it's going to take a while, I want to be in queue. It seems like they've just abandoned one part of their business instead of doing the right thing for their customers and scaling down over time. I don't think they go out of business soon but based on past decisions, they seem to be burning through money and it will eventually run out.

Seems like those in charge don't or never did understand much about sports cards.


Requested about 60 of my better raw and almost all graded cards.
Wasn't worth shipping back much of the other raw stuff at $0.50 per card. Been trying firesale approach and honestly the market was kind of humming (maybe 200 sales since Saturday?) Cheap prices but nice volume compared to maybe 8-10 cards sold per day on average over past year.

I'll probably keep the cards left at starstock, what's left for me is stuff that otherwise would be sitting on my shelf and hard to move anyway or a few players I tried to hoard on the site and have pretty large quantity of $.75 or lower value cards. Not much to do with those.

[boxbuster7]

Wanted to get the temperature of the room? Is everyone here that uses starstock cashing out and requesting their cards back immediately? Is there fear that the company will go out of business within the near future?

I don't think they are going anywhere, So I wouldn't panic. They are VC backed. With that said, I wouldn't be rushing to buy cards there. I've got about $200 worth of cards on their site.

[Swipe79]

Well...maybe...

Anyone on here trying to take advantage of the situation by making low offers on low end raw cards and hoping people just want to cash out? If you are in no hurry to to receive the card (and assuming they stay in business) this might be a great strategy.

[rms13]

I don't think they are going anywhere, So I wouldn't panic. They are VC backed. With that said, I wouldn't be rushing to buy cards there. I've got about $200 worth of cards on their site.


They got about $10 million total investment the last was April 2021. They have a vault in NH and office space in NY. They hired 35 people after the last funding who were mostly software developers and engineers so not minimum wage workers. They’ve been doing breaks so I assume they’ve been buying cases of cards this whole time and we all know how much those have costed in the past year. Rent is expensive in NY. They have been putting a lot of resources toward development of an app which still doesn’t exist. They just laid off half their staff. It’s not a stretch to believe they have blown through $10 million by now.

[boxbuster7]

They got about $10 million total investment the last was April 2021. They have a vault in NH and office space in NY. They hired 35 people after the last funding who were mostly software developers and engineers so not minimum wage workers. They’ve been doing breaks so I assume they’ve been buying cases of cards this whole time and we all know how much those have costed in the past year. Rent is expensive in NY. They have been putting a lot of resources toward development of an app which still doesn’t exist. They just laid off half their staff. It’s not a stretch to believe they have blown through $10 million by now.

Fair points. I'm just keeping what I have there, and not adding any more money.

[KhalDrogo]

An anonymous employee spoke to Sports Cards Nonsense this week. Sounds like it’s a ghost town there now. Shipping cards out is not going to be a priority.

[rms13]

An anonymous employee spoke to Sports Cards Nonsense this week. Sounds like it’s a ghost town there now. Shipping cards out is not going to be a priority.


Apparently they had about 35 employees and added another 35 last year. The new hires were mostly software developers. They just laid off half their staff to focus on NFT. I’m guessing the half they laid off were the people responsible for handling physical cards. So I’m imagining two guys running around their vault/warehouse trying to ship out 1.5 million raw cards. My analysis is a guess from info I’ve read from online articles when they launched, when they got added capital investment last year and from this latest announcement

[Swipe79]

A competent manager of a well run company wouldn't have dropped a bombshell like this on a Friday out of the blue.

If they wanted to retain customers, they should have phased out the raw cards and kept those employees until they worked past the back log. Sure, it would have cost them additional money but it also would take away a lot of the negativity about the site right now.

[rms13]

A competent manager of a well run company wouldn't have dropped a bombshell like this on a Friday out of the blue.

If they wanted to retain customers, they should have phased out the raw cards and kept those employees until they worked past the back log. Sure, it would have cost them additional money but it also would take away a lot of the negativity about the site right now.


Which is more reason to think they are running out of money

[clarencewhirly]

A competent manager of a well run company wouldn't have dropped a bombshell like this on a Friday out of the blue.

If they wanted to retain customers, they should have phased out the raw cards and kept those employees until they worked past the back log. Sure, it would have cost them additional money but it also would take away a lot of the negativity about the site right now.

This is a good point, and is kind of on brand for the site to date

Stopping ingestion makes sense given the marketplace's performance. The shipping issue is more concerning--why lay off shippers until you have cleared out a lot of the vault? What's odd is there's basically a 50c/card picking fee, so if they have any sort of organization to how they store the cards (only 100,000 unique cards), it should be at least close to self-sustaining.

Out of the 1.7m cards, I would guess most are not worth shipping at 50c/card. This makes it more likely they'll be able to handle the exodus. For instance, there are ~92,000 non-numbered, raw 2020 topps series 1 baseball cards in the vault. Of these, how many will ship? Yordan, Bo, Randy, some parallels, maybe like Lux if someone feels spicy. But the 2500 Tony Gonsolins aren't going anywhere. To their credit, the guy mentioned maybe figuring out a bulk option in the future for the cheap cards (which should have been done like a year ago), but for now they're staying.

So say they have to ship 500,000 cards. Even if they are picking at a 10c or 20c loss per card, that's only $50-$100k, which seems like a very low price to pay to maintain confidence in their brand--assuming they plan to maintain any part of the business.

On the other hand, their behavior and lack of communication of a real plan means they may not be actually able/willing to execute this. So who knows? The whole thing is a shame. There were some cool features, and I think there was some potential that could have been unlocked if the people in charge were more willing to pivot based on market feedback.

I'm still buying (lower end) until I actually see it (the shipping) start to fail, but I'm not risk averse, and it really won't hurt me if what I'm buying gets locked up for a long time or worse. It's just a matter of figuring out what I'll pay for a 70% chance of getting a 2011 Topps Freddie Freeman sometime between 1 and 36 months from now.

[RealDocStrange]

Has anyone had any progress on their withdrawals or shipments? Shipments I believe are going to take a good while but withdrawals (cash) I would hope are done in the normal one week time.

I have the following outstanding:

- 2 shipments which were in process or had just landed when the changes happened. I’ve been told by support that they are shipping all of these back. No “option” to hold was mentioned. No idea on the timing for this but would be reasonable to assume they can get the boxes out in a day or two if all they need to do is relabel them. I wonder how they will treat insurance?

- about 70 cards from my account mix of Slabs and raw. Put the ship request in the day of the changes. No update yet. Am a bit worried now about insuring these when they ship home. They have withdrawn the funds to pay for this already. Cards are no longer listed in my account. These would normally take 3-4 weeks I think but believe we can expect longer here.

- check withdrawal made same weekend as the changes. No update yet.


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[jjkscicvwar]

Can't speak for checks, but I got my PayPal withdrawal today. I put it in on 1/31, so I contacted Support Friday afternoon when I hadn't yet received my money. Got a reply Sunday, funds procured today.

[Sonnys88]

Has anyone had any progress on their withdrawals or shipments? Shipments I believe are going to take a good while but withdrawals (cash) I would hope are done in the normal one week time.

I have the following outstanding:

- 2 shipments which were in process or had just landed when the changes happened. I’ve been told by support that they are shipping all of these back. No “option” to hold was mentioned. No idea on the timing for this but would be reasonable to assume they can get the boxes out in a day or two if all they need to do is relabel them. I wonder how they will treat insurance?

- about 70 cards from my account mix of Slabs and raw. Put the ship request in the day of the changes. No update yet. Am a bit worried now about insuring these when they ship home. They have withdrawn the funds to pay for this already. Cards are no longer listed in my account. These would normally take 3-4 weeks I think but believe we can expect longer here.

- check withdrawal made same weekend as the changes. No update yet.


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I requested a shipment on 1/31 of (11) wax boxes and (3) factory sets. And got an email yesterday (2/7) with the shipment tracking info. So, they were on target with the 5 business days they quoted for shipment of unopened material.

[RealDocStrange]

Thought I'd give a quick update on status of cards/money at starstock since I've had some movement this week:

1) I had requested a check about two weeks ago. Funds were withdrawn and email was sent with confirmation of a check being mailed today.

2) I had sent a package literally arrived the day the stoppage of raw cards was issued. This package had a few slabs and a large lot of raw cards. The raw cards were received at home yesterday. Looked like had never been touched. The slabs though, were posted to my account a few days ago. That struck me as very odd as now would be subject to a fee to have them sent home. It's only a few and shockingly I sold one of them (Yordan Topps Chrome PSA 10) for a few dollars above eBay comps - will take it!

3) I have a package in "limbo". Had a raw card shipment arrive several weeks before shut-off and they have told me these will also be sent home. Guess they are working backwards.

4) Batch of 70 cards I paid to have shipped home from my account the day after shut-off. Mix of slabs and raw cards of higher value. No update on these but they did quote 8-9 weeks at the time.

The market itself is mostly dead. I sold a whole lot of under $1 cards in the first few weeks after shutoff (maybe 200). Some good deals to be had by buyers, but since you have to pay $.50 per card to ship home don't think they would have ever moved otherwise.

[Swipe79]

It worries me that they basically stopped using the regular Starstock account on Twitter for communication and are only using the NFT one to pump stuff.

[learning]

Has anybody got a shipment request recently?

[Swipe79]

I think they were saying 6-8 weeks after the change. I have one that hit four weeks today...

They haven't really updated their website to reflect the changes.

Has anybody got a shipment request recently?

[Swipe79]

I am curious if anyone has reached out to or heard back from Starstock at all during the last month.

[Cleghorn]

I received a shipment from Starstock yesterday, March 3rd. I put my request in on March 1st. I only had some wax boxes shipped to me. I have not requested any individual cards yet. I was expecting 2-4 weeks and was shocked it only took 2 days.

[grade]

WTF?
Did not realize Starstock was in this bad situation. Got some boxes and decent rookies there . Time to request shipment. Time to check up on these sports collectible sites i got cards on more often.

Thanks BO.

[Swipe79]

Today is week six since my first ship-home after the announcement. I thought I would check in and sent an email. Here is the response.

Our estimated turnaround time on ship home requests are 6-8 weeks. Please note this is an ever-changing estimate. We prioritize graded only orders, so if there is an influx of graded only requests, the turnaround time for raw orders may increase. Once you submit the request, the cards are removed from your collection. Once the order has shipped, you will receive an automatic email with the USPS tracking number. I hope this update helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[RealDocStrange]

Today is week six since my first ship-home after the announcement. I thought I would check in and sent an email. Here is the response.

Our estimated turnaround time on ship home requests are 6-8 weeks. Please note this is an ever-changing estimate. We prioritize graded only orders, so if there is an influx of graded only requests, the turnaround time for raw orders may increase. Once you submit the request, the cards are removed from your collection. Once the order has shipped, you will receive an automatic email with the USPS tracking number. I hope this update helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.


Same email last week. I was a bit ahead of six weeks at the time.

I am wondering if I can pay them for insurance. Have about $3k-ish in cards coming back mix of graded and ungraded.

The market actually picked up a bit this week with baseball restarting . Lots of prospectors combing for deals. Down to just 1,000 raw cards from maybe 2,000 at the peak.


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[Swipe79]

Interesting email regarding raw card shipments, I assume they’re refunding those of us who have not been processed yet.

[boxbuster7]

Interesting email regarding raw card shipments, I assume they’re refunding those of us who have not been processed yet.

what was it?

[RealDocStrange]

Interesting email regarding raw card shipments, I assume they’re refunding those of us who have not been processed yet.



The complete through date was a nice data point. Unfortunately it is January 22 which is one week before the “changes”. So the queue must be exponential from this point forward.


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[Swipe79]

FWIW - They already added the funds back to my account.

what was it?

StarStock Friends and Customers,

Effective today, StarStock will be lowering the shipping costs on raw cards from $0.50 to $0.20 for all outstanding and future orders. We will still be offering the same fixed rates for ship home requests as detailed in our FAQ. For any user who has an outstanding raw card ship home request, we will credit the balance difference to your account for the initial cost you paid.

Our current complete through date for orders containing raw cards is 1/22/22. We will post updates on our complete through dates in our FAQ, and will continue to keep users updated on any further changes to the process.

If you have any questions, please contact support@starstock.com.

StarStock Team

[Swipe79]

Week seven as of today.

Also have a withdrawal of about $80 that is six days old...sketchy.

[Swipe79]

My withdrawal was due Monday but never showed. I contacted customer service and they took care of it the next day.

Still waiting for them to ship out cards.

They haven't posted on Twitter since January 28th but continue to use the Starstock NFT account on there. It's also worrying that they haven't even done an NFT Remint in over two weeks now...sounds like things are going the wrong way.

[Swipe79]

I sent an email because we are now at the 8 week mark on my first shipment. Just to remind our viewers at home - the shipping update they sent out two weeks ago said their complete through date was 1/22. The reply was...

Hey Ben,

We’re working through ship outs as fast as we can. Our current complete thru date is 1/22/22. We’re going to do a better job and update our FAQ and to keep that date updated as frequently as possible. We had a major rush of ship outs at the end of January and early February and is where a bulk of the backlog is currently. We’re working on it as quickly as possible. Check back in a few days and we’ll have the complete thru date up on the FAQ.

Best,

Jared


Here is my reply:

Thank you for your reply.

I'm very concerned at this point because the 1/22 work through date is the same as the date listed in the update about two weeks ago. In two weeks, the needle hasn't moved?

When your company decided to make all those changes, we were given a 6-8 week window for shipment. I've been patiently waiting for two months at this point to receive the cards and now I'm being asked to wait additional time? Starstock knew there would be fall out from their decision to no longer accept raw cards and did nothing to prepare for it (based on the news, it sounds like your company actually reduced capacity to ship).

How is your company going to be successful moving forward if you can't even meet your basic requirements for business?

Some of this behavior is surely starting to look and feel fraudulent.

[rms13]

I sent an email because we are now at the 8 week mark on my first shipment. Just to remind our viewers at home - the shipping update they sent out two weeks ago said their complete through date was 1/22. The reply was...

Hey Ben,

We’re working through ship outs as fast as we can. Our current complete thru date is 1/22/22. We’re going to do a better job and update our FAQ and to keep that date updated as frequently as possible. We had a major rush of ship outs at the end of January and early February and is where a bulk of the backlog is currently. We’re working on it as quickly as possible. Check back in a few days and we’ll have the complete thru date up on the FAQ.

Best,

Jared


Here is my reply:

Thank you for your reply.

I'm very concerned at this point because the 1/22 work through date is the same as the date listed in the update about two weeks ago. In two weeks, the needle hasn't moved?

When your company decided to make all those changes, we were given a 6-8 week window for shipment. I've been patiently waiting for two months at this point to receive the cards and now I'm being asked to wait additional time? Starstock knew there would be fall out from their decision to no longer accept raw cards and did nothing to prepare for it (based on the news, it sounds like your company actually reduced capacity to ship).

How is your company going to be successful moving forward if you can't even meet your basic requirements for business?

Some of this behavior is surely starting to look and feel fraudulent.


Is there a company going forward? I was listening to Sports Cards Nonsense podcast a couple of days ago and they called Starstock on the air to try to get to bottom of thing and the customer service person basically just hung up on them. Granted I think the guy from that podcast is a little too confrontational. Seems like they could be more forthcoming to their customers. I’m glad I cashed out and got my money paid out before this fiasco started and I hope everyone else eventually gets their cards and/or money from them. I’m definitely not getting involved with any consignment or platforms where I am not in possession of my cards again

[RealDocStrange]

On card shipments I imagine they got forty or fifty times the usual daily card shipment requests on Jan 26/27 - this was the day they announced the changes.

So I’m not surprised they are taking a long long time.

I have received all my cash outs including for some recent sales.


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[rms13]

They sent an update email today. I’m not going to paste it here because it’s long. But they are saying 2-3 months shipping for raw card requests and 1 month for graded cards. They are still accepting graded and wax submissions in case anyone wants to send them more stuff

[Swipe79]

Extremely slimy - lots of talk and no action. Anyone noticed that the NFT Remints have even stopped posting - hasn't been one in weeks. They're paying the customer service guys to string us along is what I'm guessing.

The 1/22 through date is the same date that was given in the update email two weeks prior...you're telling me in two weeks it hasn't moved?

The fact that they moved back the shipping times says a lot as well...I have three shipments, two of which are now past the eight week mark which was the original plan. Now I need to add another month!

What a joke.

[RealDocStrange]

Is the site working for anyone? Can’t log in and can’t even search or view transactions on my end.


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[Drake1978]

Is the site working for anyone? Can’t log in and can’t even search or view transactions on my end.


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I have been having that issue all night as well. Checked their IG and FB and nothing posted in a while.

[fungi2510]

Is the site working for anyone? Can’t log in and can’t even search or view transactions on my end.


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I wonder how many people are taking huge baths on this site? I am glad that I never bought in too deep. I am sure that I still have cards on there, but they are lost forever. Totally packed up and ran to a different country situation going on here. Maybe they are vacationing with haiku.

[Drake1978]

Site is back up.

[Swipe79]

I asked about a ship through date and was told 01/25 is where they are now. When they hit 1/28 it's going to take a while to get through that pile I would assume as that's when the majority of folks asked for ship home.

This company is so dodgy.

If I were an investor, I'd be very concerned with the future of this venture.

[boxbuster7]

I requested a check for my store credit on 3/28. Last monday. Will be interesting to see when it actually shows up...

my account balance is still showing that I have the amount I withdrew available...odd

[RealDocStrange]

Another update email from the team. Summary:

- They are still processing the bow wave of late January requests for home shipment and it will be some time. No surprises here, but lack of guidance on actual timing is frustrating.

- They are hiring (!?) people for their vault. Given they don't accept new shipments this is odd to say the least.

- New pricing of just shipping to send home your submissions which never sold (majority of these are no doubt "dime cards" for those familiar with starstock.)

- Some of their PSA subs are trickling back in. But silly to put them is customers accounts rather than ship straight to customer. I never partook in this feature but would be frustrating to go to back of queue on shipping these home when it is entirely uncessary.

[RealDocStrange]

Update- Cards from my January request received. A bit less than five months since request which came the weekend the business model changed.

I was pleased with the shipping. All raw cards top loaded and slabs carefully wrapped.

Looking at stuff I had bought raw on the site and I’m pretty ok with their grading On the As.

Now need to figure out what to do with all this!


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[waluwhute]

I emailed them today about a request I made Feb 20 to have some cards sent to me. They said they are now caught up to the first week of Feb. I was pleasantly surprised they responded in about 2 hours.

[clarencewhirly]

Got a shipment today that was requested Feb 9, so they're still going. Everything was toploaded, even quarter cards, which was a nice bonus. No packing slip/list as usual and no signature conf, but everything seemed to be there, conditions were as expected.

[NiceGuy2]

Looks like an old post of mine was deleted? **Extremely shady company** Massive amounts of cards and balances in question. No response phone/email for months. Accounts disappearing/rats fled?? Where is the CEO Scott Greenberg?

[Placid]

I was very excited when this company first started. So disappointing that is was so poorly run.

[rms13]

Looks like an old post of mine was deleted? **Extremely shady company** Massive amounts of cards and balances in question. No response phone/email for months. Accounts disappearing/rats fled?? Where is the CEO Scott Greenberg?I listen to Sportscards Nonsense podcast. Starstock was a sponsor for a while. When things got shady they called and got a couple of employees on air and eventually got the CEO on. CEO seems like typical millennial shady serial entrepreneur type. Decided to start the business at height of card boom and as soon as market went down they kept trying to pivot the business until they ran it into the ground. One of the employees they got on the phone who sounded like a teenager said he was basically the only one handling all shipping because the first thing they did when business was down was fire all of those employees and kept the one kid making minimum wage to try to ship millions of cards. Bottom line is it sounds like they were way over their heads and had nobody that had ever run a business before.

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[jamcas997]

I listen to Sportscards Nonsense podcast. Starstock was a sponsor for a while. When things got shady they called and got a couple of employees on air and eventually got the CEO on. CEO seems like typical millennial shady serial entrepreneur type. Decided to start the business at height of card boom and as soon as market went down they kept trying to pivot the business until they ran it into the ground. One of the employees they got on the phone who sounded like a teenager said he was basically the only one handling all shipping because the first thing they did when business was down was fire all of those employees and kept the one kid making minimum wage to try to ship millions of cards. Bottom line is it sounds like they were way over their heads and had nobody that had ever run a business before.

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Just imagine if this same scenario happened with COMC. They came close with all of the screw ups during the pandemic , but they managed to ride it out. With all of that I am glad I keep and sell my cards myself.

[ScottBreaks]

Seven months since I've requested and paid for all my cards to be shipped back. Thankfully I didn't have anything with a ton of value with them, but definitely some stuff I could throw and SportLots and sell with out issue.

[fungi2510]

Just imagine if this same scenario happened with COMC. They came close with all of the screw ups during the pandemic , but they managed to ride it out. With all of that I am glad I keep and sell my cards myself.

Lol. Not at all with COMC. They did have some problems, but they were established for 15 years before the pandemic. This company was terrible from the beginning. People had to see it.

[boxbuster7]

I listen to Sportscards Nonsense podcast. Starstock was a sponsor for a while. When things got shady they called and got a couple of employees on air and eventually got the CEO on. CEO seems like typical millennial shady serial entrepreneur type. Decided to start the business at height of card boom and as soon as market went down they kept trying to pivot the business until they ran it into the ground. One of the employees they got on the phone who sounded like a teenager said he was basically the only one handling all shipping because the first thing they did when business was down was fire all of those employees and kept the one kid making minimum wage to try to ship millions of cards. Bottom line is it sounds like they were way over their heads and had nobody that had ever run a business before.

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:D:D:D

[Budler]

Lol. Not at all with COMC. They did have some problems, but they were established for 15 years before the pandemic. This company was terrible from the beginning. People had to see it.

I got an E-mail when they started up. After a month of several back and fore E-Mails. We both figure the site was not right for me. I keep my eye on it and we were right. If you asked the right questions, you could tell things were not right from the start.

[boxbuster7]

I got an E-mail when they started up. After a month of several back and fore E-Mails. We both figure the site was not right for me. I keep my eye on it and we were right. If you asked the right questions, you could tell things were not right from the start.

Unfortunately, the card industry gets a lot of garbage influencers that peddle garbage to their listeners as gold.

And Starstock was getting a fair amount of hype, especially with investments from Kevin Durant. The only thing that kept me from putting more money in it was that the CEO was my age. Something didn't seem right about that.

And also Starstocks sales data ABSOLUTELY blows COMC out of the water. Plus some of their tools like profit/loss are pretty cool. But it is a garbage card platform, which nullifies any of these tools.

[Dragonman]

Just imagine if this same scenario happened with COMC. They came close with all of the screw ups during the pandemic , but they managed to ride it out. With all of that I am glad I keep and sell my cards myself.

Dumb comment.

COMC was never in any trouble...They were and are in great shape financially.

During the Pandemic the state of Washington crippled them...Comc needs employees on site to open packages, ship and other tasks and the state like the rest of the country overreacted to covid.

[RealDocStrange]

Starstock is back! Sort of…

Seems they got an investment from some online marketplace. They’ve been sending some pump emails for a few weeks but nothing major.

Today got a email that terms are changing:

Accepting raw cards for $1 per
Cross listed to eBay if priced at “comps”
Seller fee raised to 8%
New vault fee or 1 cent per card per month- and ATTENTION IF YOU HAVE OLD CARDS ON SITE AND ANY MONEY IN YOUR ACCOUNT - the new applies as of May 1 to old cards unless you “abandon” them.
So long to my 250 Sam Haggerty base topps RCs


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[RealDocStrange]

Quick reminder to anyone who still has cards and a balance in the starstock account - they will start charging 1c per month per card for storage in a few days.

I’m “abandoning” a couple hundred cards which will never sell and which would cost too much to ship home. Yay for the old free ingestion days.


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[KnucklePuckTime]

starstock is such crap

[anusinha]

how do you abandon cards?

[RealDocStrange]

how do you abandon cards?


You apparently have to email them. I will let you know the ultimate process when I’m done.


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