BGS Black Labels, Joe Clemons (eBay ID: wjc75056), and Illegitimate Grading

[Buddyzee]

Originally Posted by JLEICHTER35

How in the hell do TWO not one, TWO 18 year old cards receive PRISTINE BLACK LABELS!!!!??

Has anyone looked at this card?? How did it get a BL10??

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Tiger-Woods-...orig_cvip=true

[blackbears86]

I am still begrudgingly reserving judgement regarding Joe clemons, but I will admit, the circumstantial evidence is compelling. I guess I'm a pitchfork guy?


I do appreciate him releasing the information to Dan, however, I wonder why he did not do this days ago and here we are 40++ pages later.


The tiger submission sticks in my mind: the timing of the grading after he won a major, the two blacks after 18 years, and the fact that he would LOSE MONEY ON ALL THESE COMMON CARD SUBMISSIONS UNLESS HE GOT A BLACK. There's a reason people don't grade common cards---you lose money unless you get a black. (or ten)

My thoughts:

1. How far back/how many orders will he let Dan view? Will he be able to cherry pick what Dan sees or will Dan have full access?
2. For those who are concerned there might be some "manipulation of data" I would think this would be quite difficult as we already have bits and pieces of data to compare. I would think think any descrepencies would be detected by BODA.
3. what is the consensus regarding the acceptable proportion of BGS 10 and black labels? 5%? more? Less?



Looking forward to the data.

[Rooftop]

BG: With respect to Joe, he does work for us on a contract basis.

Joe: Yes, I work at Leaf and am proud to do so

BG: However, for me to fire an employee and risk a termination related lawsuit, the threshold of "evidence" will have to be high and more concrete than it is so far.

So which one is it? Is he an independent contractor or an actual employee?

[3XDAD]

There only seems to be evidence coming from one side and delay tactics and non-answers from the other. If you want to prove your innocence in this matter I would imagine you would provide evidence of such. But no, only delays and no real information.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dmanrico]

For me, it's really this simple:

I don't want blood. I'm not interested in taking down Joe or any individual as purely a "mob" not interested in facts.

I believe the information we have been able to discover to date shows the number of BGS 10s and Black Labels received by Joe is well beyond any standard deviation or success rate achieved by the industry. I have not seen any collector, business owner, professional grader, bulk sub grader, etc come forward saying they've experienced or seen anything like the rate of BGS 10s and BLs achieved by Joe. And there are a lot of experienced industry veterans on this board.

Does this mean that something fraudulent or illegal is being done by Joe? Not necessarily. But I think the information to date justifies further exploration of the matter.

Is this an unreasonable position? Is this a "mob"mentality that keeps getting thrown around?

[RickyFace]

Good lord, this is like watching someone trying to convince Scientologists that they are being had. The Cult of Card Grading has a powerful grip on these souls.

If you've been around card collecting for the past 20 years and didn't easily see through the whole grade-buy-regrade scam in fifteen minutes, or didn't realize these auction houses are simply convincing naive people with money to play a game of hot potato and pass the same high dollar cards back and forth among each other, or that the graders and the consignment companies are in cahootz with each other, or that "Mastro is the rule, not the exception", ..... wow, don't know what to say

Looks like they cheated some pretty wealthy people. Cheating wealthy people may be lucrative, but never ends well.

[blackbears86]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

This is exactly why he didn't want to share. Whatever he provides will not be good enough for you guys. He doesn't owe anything to people on blowout and probably felt he didn't need to prove anything to you guys.

But someone convinced him to provide access to his account and now he's accused of manipulating the info on his BGS account.

If he just pastes his subs in the thread, he will be questioned that it wasn't the full submission or that he removed items or that he's still hiding something.

If he ignores you, people say "if he was innocent, he would respond and prove it"

If he responds, he's being defensive.

He's honestly at the point where he can't win no matter what evidence he provides. It has reached that point with the mob.

j24ai3: The people of blowout are trying to make this hobby BETTER by rooting out corrupt practices (trimming/shilling,etc..) and level the playing field for everyone.

You have seen what this has done in the PWCC thread (whom you also defended) They are in the process of exposing one of the biggest frauds in years.



If Joe is proven innocent, I will be one of the first to apologize.

[EricTownsend88]

Originally Posted by Buddyzee

Has anyone looked at this card?? How did it get a BL10??

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Tiger-Woods-...orig_cvip=true

Because it was Joe's. Same way a 1 sub Robert Acuna base card gets a BL. Or that Vlad Jr. that had HORRIBLE corners. The proof is right here staring us all in the face and yet there's still people posting in the last hour defending this BS. At least the one guy got a nice vacation from it.

[jr24ai3]

Originally Posted by blackbears86

j24ai3: The people of blowout are trying to make this hobby BETTER by rooting out corrupt practices (trimming/shilling,etc..) and level the playing field for everyone.

You have seen what this has done in the PWCC thread (whom you also defended) They are in the process of exposing one of the biggest frauds in years.



If Joe is proven innocent, I will be one of the first to apologize.

I defended PWCC as far as selling graded cards that someone consigns with them that end up being trimmed - as long as they didn't know ahead of time of the trimming. I don't feel it's their responsibility to research every graded card they receive to see if it may have been trimmed.
It is PROFESSIONALLY graded. I said that trimmed cards in a graded holder comes back to the grading companies more than PWCC. I also said I don't have a problem with PWCC unless it is proven that they have worked directly with the trimmers/they did the trimming/etc.

[pejc300]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

This is exactly why he didn't want to share. Whatever he provides will not be good enough for you guys. He doesn't owe anything to people on blowout and probably felt he didn't need to prove anything to you guys.

But someone convinced him to provide access to his account and now he's accused of manipulating the info on his BGS account.

If he just pastes his subs in the thread, he will be questioned that it wasn't the full submission or that he removed items or that he's still hiding something.

If he ignores you, people say "if he was innocent, he would respond and prove it"

If he responds, he's being defensive.

He's honestly at the point where he can't win no matter what evidence he provides. It has reached that point with the mob.

Poor Joe. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. Hard not to feel sorry for the guy.

[Astros19]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

This is exactly why he didn't want to share. Whatever he provides will not be good enough for you guys. He doesn't owe anything to people on blowout and probably felt he didn't need to prove anything to you guys.

But someone convinced him to provide access to his account and now he's accused of manipulating the info on his BGS account.

If he just pastes his subs in the thread, he will be questioned that it wasn't the full submission or that he removed items or that he's still hiding something.

If he ignores you, people say "if he was innocent, he would respond and prove it"

If he responds, he's being defensive.

He's honestly at the point where he can't win no matter what evidence he provides. It has reached that point with the mob.

I didn't think it would take long for one of his defenders to chime in with something like this.

Pray tell, what reasons would he have NOT to show proof of innocence as quickly as possible if he had it? And we all know he had this information, there really is no "if" about it. Anyone in their right mind, if accused of these kinds of things wouldn't hesitate to prove his innocence. Just another anomaly in this saga that just doesn't make sense.
But by all means keep up the defense brother.

[cking]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

I also said I don't have a problem with PWCC unless it is proven that they have worked directly with the trimmers/they did the trimming/etc.

Have you not seen this thread? That has been 100% proven. You should read it.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1297351

[Super8er]

Originally Posted by kyaa

Completely irrelevant. If this were all attributable to changing grading standards then many of us would be getting similar results to Joe. We aren't.

I know it's not directly related to this thread's main topic, but I thought it might be tangentially related, and speak to BGS' highly subjective sliding scale of quality standards... especially if they truly were offering more higher-grading cards in higher-volume orders.

Apologies if this is off-track.

[kyaa]

Joe could have settled this matter in an hour if he was innocent. Instead of writing his wall of words response, he could have posted screenshots of 1) his submission history and 2) screenshots of the results of each submission. It certainly would have taken a lot less time than it did for him to post mulitple times last week, including delaying hours before his wall of words.

If those results showed a percentage of Black Labels and 10s that was at least possibly in line with other BGS customers, I would have been the first to admit I jumped the gun. Instead, we've got nothing but silence from Joe/BGS, and deflection from Brian Gray.

So while I have a measure of respect for those of you trying to imagine how Joe might be innocent or making theorerical arguments about how Joe might be getting his 1 in a trillion results or why BGS numbers his orders differently, or why he grades low end, etc., please consider stepping back. If Joe and BGS won't mount a vigorous, evidence-based defense, they do not deserve your support.

[chezball]

Originally Posted by lisu

He actually did defend himself, but the thread got deleted. He also said in his thread that he was not going to post about it again.

He actually has told his friends not to defend him because he doesn't think it's worth the energy or time to do so.

It didn't get deleted it got merged.

[Astros19]

Originally Posted by lisu

He actually did defend himself, but the thread got deleted. He also said in his thread that he was not going to post about it again.

He actually has told his friends not to defend him because he doesn't think it's worth the energy or time to do so.

Oh come on. Not worth the time and energy to do so? Seriously?
Hey Joe, did you know there's a lot of people on BO accusing you of fraud amid other shady things? Yea, I know, but I don't care, not worth my time and effort.
Quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever read on this message board, and that says a lot.

[jr24ai3]

Originally Posted by kyaa

Joe could have settled this matter in an hour if he was innocent. Instead of writing his wall of words response, he could have posted screenshots of 1) his submission history and 2) screenshots of the results of each submission. It certainly would have taken a lot less time than it did for him to post mulitple times last week, including delaying hours before his wall of words.

If those results showed a percentage of Black Labels and 10s that was at least possibly in line with other BGS customers, I would have been the first to admit I jumped the gun. Instead, we've got nothing but silence from Joe/BGS, and deflection from Brian Gray.

So while I have a measure of respect for those of you trying to imagine how Joe might be innocent or making theorerical arguments about how Joe might be getting his 1 in a trillion results or why BGS numbers his orders differently, or why he grades low end, etc., please consider stepping back. If Joe and BGS won't mount a vigorous, evidence-based defense, they do not deserve your support.

He owes you nothing. You are just some random guy on a message board.

[jr24ai3]

Originally Posted by cking

Have you not seen this thread? That has been 100% proven. You should read it.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1297351

I don't have time to read it this second but I will. Above I was stating what I actually said about PWCC 10 days ago. If more info has come out where they are directly involved in trimming, my opinion will surely change.

[fenwaykid]

Originally Posted by RickyFace

Good lord, this is like watching someone trying to convince Scientologists that they are being had. The Cult of Card Grading has a powerful grip on these souls.

If you've been around card collecting for the past 20 years and didn't easily see through the whole grade-buy-regrade scam in fifteen minutes, or didn't realize these auction houses are simply convincing naive people with money to play a game of hot potato and pass the same high dollar cards back and forth among each other, or that the graders and the consignment companies are in cahootz with each other, or that "Mastro is the rule, not the exception", ..... wow, don't know what to say

Looks like they cheated some pretty wealthy people. Cheating wealthy people may be lucrative, but never ends well.

Welcome to the boards!

[jr24ai3]

Originally Posted by kyaa

This case has little to do with serial numbers. It's the amount of Black Labels and 10s vs. total cards graded and the consistentcy of orders consistenting of only Black Labels.

Even Joe has admitted that his small orders 3/3 Blacks, 8/8 Blacks, 22/22 Blacks, were not part of larger batches. So please stop suggesting that they were. Please, please be decent and stop clogging up the thread.

I know you want him to answer your questions but you never answered mine. Where did Joe specifically state the 22/22 black labels were not part of a larger batch?

I honestly looked and couldn't find it. Can you show me where Joe says he went 22/22 and it wasn't part of a larger batch?

[cking]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

I don't have time to read it this second but I will. Above I was stating what I actually said about PWCC 10 days ago. If more info has come out where they are directly involved in trimming, my opinion will surely change.

Your opinion will change. I can promise you that.

Its actually a good read.

[mrdallas]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

I defended PWCC as far as selling graded cards that someone consigns with them that end up being trimmed - as long as they didn't know ahead of time of the trimming. I don't feel it's their responsibility to research every graded card they receive to see if it may have been trimmed.
It is PROFESSIONALLY graded. I said that trimmed cards in a graded holder comes back to the grading companies more than PWCC. I also said I don't have a problem with PWCC unless it is proven that they have worked directly with the trimmers/they did the trimming/etc.

You need to read all the PWCC threads? This has all been exposed.

[Onepocketj]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

I know you want him to answer your questions but you never answered mine. Where did Joe specifically state the 22/22 black labels were not part of a larger batch?

I honestly looked and couldn't find it. Can you show me where Joe says he went 22/22 and it wasn't part of a larger batch?

You are starting to sound like pgis. This has been asked and answered numerous times.

[Astros19]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

He owes you nothing. You are just some random guy on a message board.

Starting to wonder what you owe Joe.

[rogermaris]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

He owes you nothing. You are just some random guy on a message board.

Except he took the time to write a longwinded post defending himself.

But interestingly, he won't take two seconds to provide the evidence that would exonerate him.

To anyone who doesn't find that suspicious: I have a bridge to sell you.