HGA grading

[kabrune2]

Originally Posted by dontpanic3

Well, so far my experience with HGA customer service has been horrible. My order was several days past the guaranteed 30-day time, so I reached out to the refunds email address twice and never got a response.

When my order finally arrived, 3 of the 5 cards had label issues (which I've detailed elsewhere in this thread). Of the 2 that didn't have a label mistake, 1 had a patch of glue residue on the back. So 4/5 of my slabs had problems that shouldn't have made it past quality control. I contacted them using the messenger on their site, mentioning the slab issues and their lateness, and they directed me to the refunds email address that I had used the week before and said to send them back the slabs that have mistakes.

At this point I'd pretty much lost faith in them, so I instead asked them to please just refund and return my 3 other submissions that are in their possession. They immediately canceled those orders without responding to my message. I followed up a day later asking when I should expect updates on the refund and the return, and they said that the refund should be processed in 2-5 business days. I followed-up again asking when I should expect a tracking number for my cards, and it's been another day and they still haven't answered.

Your mileage may vary, but as someone who was optimistic enough to submit 4 orders, as soon as I get my money and cards back I'm done with this company.

tl;dr: HGA missed their guaranteed deadline and ignored my messages, messed up 80% of my submission, and then has continued to duck my messages when I asked them to return my remaining orders.

Ok, 1 thing at a time here…

Label Mistakes - shouldn’t happen but they do. What was the mistake vs how should it have read? How did you fill out the online form, did you make a mistake and they just repeated it? A couple of variables that could explain it, not having a huge database prebuilt is an issue and will be fixed given time. Having 4 types of 2017 Bowman Chrome Acuna BCP127 needs to be fixed.

Glue Residue - you said it’s a patch, can we see a picture? Just curious if a little oozed out, or just a dab, but should be a simple send in and get fixed, they turn that stuff around in 7-10 days without cost (same for label mistakes)

Several days late on 30 days (which is 6 weeks) - did you time from HGA having them in hand, did you count holidays (Memorial Day), and seriously, several days to me says it was 2-3 days late, which warrants an email, but the way you’ve come off is a bit abrasive, so I can see a customer service rep just hitting delete or ignoring it. How long did it take for your cards to ship after you contacted them?

Refund - sure, ask for it, it was late, but I’m not asking for anything unless it goes past 5 days. Every TPG’er is way behind, but HGA set themselves up offering refunds one level down and we need to make them hold up that deal.

Bottom line you got cards back in 7? Weeks for $35/card, plus a 7-10 day detour to fix stuff. Also, be detailed when blasting a service (dates, pictures, etc), I’m generally curious how they screwed up, especially since you admitted they said to send it in and they’d fix it. Is it ideal, no, but they offered to make it right.

[salthill]

Originally Posted by kabrune2

Ok, 1 thing at a time here…

You’re doing a lot of work for “they”. What’s your interest in themsplaining?

[kabrune2]

Originally Posted by salthill

You’re doing a lot of work for “they”. What’s your interest in themsplaining?

I’d like to know what the mistakes are, are they minor, are they major, is the glue oozing from the case or did they just lay the case in the wrong spot, was the order 2 days late or 20 days late. I’m extremely curious what the level of issues were, is it fixable or is there a issue with their process.

[dontpanic3]

Originally Posted by kabrune2

Ok, 1 thing at a time here…

Label Mistakes - shouldn’t happen but they do. What was the mistake vs how should it have read? How did you fill out the online form, did you make a mistake and they just repeated it? A couple of variables that could explain it, not having a huge database prebuilt is an issue and will be fixed given time. Having 4 types of 2017 Bowman Chrome Acuna BCP127 needs to be fixed.

Glue Residue - you said it’s a patch, can we see a picture? Just curious if a little oozed out, or just a dab, but should be a simple send in and get fixed, they turn that stuff around in 7-10 days without cost (same for label mistakes)

Several days late on 30 days (which is 6 weeks) - did you time from HGA having them in hand, did you count holidays (Memorial Day), and seriously, several days to me says it was 2-3 days late, which warrants an email, but the way you’ve come off is a bit abrasive, so I can see a customer service rep just hitting delete or ignoring it. How long did it take for your cards to ship after you contacted them?

Refund - sure, ask for it, it was late, but I’m not asking for anything unless it goes past 5 days. Every TPG’er is way behind, but HGA set themselves up offering refunds one level down and we need to make them hold up that deal.

Bottom line you got cards back in 7? Weeks for $35/card, plus a 7-10 day detour to fix stuff. Also, be detailed when blasting a service (dates, pictures, etc), I’m generally curious how they screwed up, especially since you admitted they said to send it in and they’d fix it. Is it ideal, no, but they offered to make it right.

Ha, sure, I’ll play. I would accuse you of working for HGA, but you gave a much more comprehensive response to something I’ve written than they have (and with far fewer exclamation points), so I think you’re probably in the clear.

1. Label Mistakes — As I’ve mentioned a couple pages ago, I’m referring to color match errors here. Three of my cards have colors that have orange accents on black and yellow cards, which match neither the team nor the card. As I mentioned in my previous post, I've already referenced that here, so feel free to look that up. Either way, this is part of their service that did not arrive as it was advertised.

Your point reminds me, though, that I actually contacted them before my cards were graded because I noticed formatting errors in how they entered my different orders. Two of my orders included Topps Now cards, and in one order they entered it as “Topps Topps Now” and in the other it was entered as “Topps Now.” I brought this to their attention, and they fixed it. So, while I appreciate you wondering whether the formatting errors are mine—they weren’t, and that’s actually due to me preemptively contacting them. I didn't count this as a strike against them at the time, but it also shouldn't be my job to do editorial work for them.

2. Glue residue — It’s not on the side. It’s on the back. It’s tough to get a good photo due to the lighting at this point in the day, but it’s the opaque circle on the back, which makes a raised bump. It's not a huge deal, but I’m also surprised they decided “yeah this is fine” and shipped it out without fixing it.

Put another way: if I felt comfortable that I could send cards to them and they would get things right I would have them fix it. But I don't, so I won't.



3. Several days late — I started the timer when I got the email saying my cards were checked in, and I accounted for national holidays in between. On business day 31 I sent them an email to touch base, asking for an update on when to expect my order, and for a clarification on their “guarantee” policy, and they did not respond. I’ll note that I did not ask for a refund — just an update and a clarification of their own policies.

On business day 33 I again asked for an update on my order, and I received no response. I believe my order was returned to me on business day 38, with still no response to my emails. By this point I assumed that I had the wrong email address, until I checked it against the one provided to me by the rep on their messenger (and I then provided them with screenshots of my unanswered emails from before, which they also did not address).

4. Refund — As noted above, I did not ask for a refund on this order. I asked for clarification on their policies, which I did not receive.

I asked for a refund/return on my 3 outstanding orders. They were happy to cancel those orders, so I’ll be relieved when my downpayment (and those cards) are returned to me.

Ultimately, the bottom line is exactly my tl;dr from my previous post. I don’t believe I owe you any more of an explanation than what I've provided, to be honest. Like I said, your mileage may vary. Good luck to you.

[kabrune2]

Thanks for the detailed response, it’s important to lay out the issues so everyone knows what to watch for. I’d ask for the labels to get corrected too ( I actually have 2 back with them now for correction, the lettering blends into the custom label way too much where it’s hard to read). I’m not going to worry about if they miss their mark by a few days, but like you I’ll sure as heck ask about it after 3 days. The glue thing worried me more than anything, if it was on the side I’d be worried about it dried inside the case giving off whatever fumes inside the case, but it seems someone just got a little bit on the back. I didn’t put 2 and 2 together that your issue was already on another post, so I apologize that you had to rehash it. All in all I think I can live with these issues as they’re correctable, but I’m cautious now.

[thewesdub]

I'd detailed in the thread about my issues with HGA. To their credit they refunded me $155, which was 25% of my order total. It took a few days to get to that point, but their CS rep Cole/Edward was very responsive.

After looking at each slab I noticed a bunch of label problems; chips, miscuts, ink blots, etc. I notified them of the issue and they offered to have them re-slabbed, but I opted cut my losses and just offloaded them on eBay this week. I managed to make my money back, surprisingly.

In the future, I'll stick with the known commodities.

[allhustlenoluck]

I submitted 5 cards.. 4 9s and one 9.5... around what i expected as far as grades... paid for 10 days.. got it back over a month later... was promised a refund for service I got... then was never responded to again and no refund...Worst part is three of the cards are moving around in the case and only the 2 slightly thicker cards are stable..... will never send another card to them again.

[Cards and 401K]

1st 6-12 months of new TPG's have big learning curves, I think pokemon will help in August but Quality Control should rule big time now in order to continue to grow.

[kabrune2]

Originally Posted by Cards and 401K

1st 6-12 months of new TPG's have big learning curves, I think pokemon will help in August but Quality Control should rule big time now in order to continue to grow.

I agree, label mistakes will get better as they build out their database. Turnaround time I don’t think will get better, they keep adding capacity which is great but I’d rather see them get caught up for a few weeks before they grew to 7500 submissions per raffle queue each Tuesday and Friday. Right now I can deal with these issues as long as they’ll continue to correct them and offer a service discount if they miss their turnaround time by more than a few days.

I’ve seen people complaining that their grading is too strict so that’s a good thing, but HGA has to tighten up the centering subgrade, still see way too many questionable 9.0-9.5 both good and bad that aren’t even close.

I’ll line up to put another 9 cards in tonight, should start seeing my 60 day submissions start to pop soon, 1 scanned in grading and 1 grading is done, excited to see how they were graded and look, I cracked most of them so I have a good idea what they should grade (2 BGS 9.0, and 8 PSA 9’s that looked like 10’s).

[Cards and 401K]

Good points yes my 1 PSA9 graded HGA9, my 60 day labels should be printed with the new printers. I think the slabs are my favorite in the market right now. Will send in a couple Tatis Jr to see how the look in the new H-slab soon too

[kabrune2]

Just saw my grades for my first PC order, won’t be selling this… unfortunately they’re all 9’s but it’s a tough grade… a full set of 1992-93 UD Fanimation Jordan/Bird/Mutumno/Malone/Jordan-Bird… got the matching card splash, can’t wait to get them later this week or next.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

You must be new here. I hate BGS. I'm just a realist.

The realist in me says HGA's "AI" is bunk. Which is why they have yet to reveal any of it, and why their centering standards are a moving target that is firmly demonstrated by the discrepancy in grading examples we've seen. HGA should have just started a custom slab company and taken the grading out of it. I see the appeal of the flips, even though I would never want one for myself.

Confirmed.

[kabrune2]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Confirmed.

Yep, confirmed you’re a troll.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by kabrune2

Yep, confirmed you’re a troll.

Is their promotional video a troll job too?

[kabrune2]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Is their promotional video a troll job too?

Lol, no, it’s just bad, like 1985 camcorder recorded by dad bad. However it just shows they suck at producing videos, and while their office space in some areas doesn’t look top of the line, it’s not awful. But so far their end product has looked great and only been 1 week late at worst for me on a 60 day, 3 days late on a 10 day. I know some have had a litany of label errors and some centering issues, but those issues will work itself out. I’m actually becoming a believer of their grading standards the more I see. I’ve submitted stuff I had in PSA 9 and BGs 9 holders and getting an HGA 9 back so far, and the raw stuff I sent in has seemed fair, though I was bummed not one of five Fanimation didn’t get a 9.5, I thought 3 had a legit shot at PSA 10 if they were open, with a 4th on the fence, the 5th had backside centering issues around 60/40 so that was just a prayer.

If they prove the grades are reliable after a year and have great slabs/labels, they’ll stick around.

[Cards and 401K]

I was sold when they said the Slabs are made locally, Made in the USA...

[kabrune2]

Originally Posted by Cards and 401K

I was sold when they said the Slabs are made locally, Made in the USA...

They should’ve had a graphic of an American flag and an eagle busting through as they said that 😂

[The_Reverend]

Thoughts of all the supporters of HGA after the Twitter video? How many are no longer supporters of their promotion about “AI” technology? I would have never done such a video. Keeping their customers in the “dark” was working. What happens now?

[Cards and 401K]

From a Facebook comment who may know something not officially posted?
I’m excited to see the AI implementation in September!
more to come?

[SupermanBrandon]

They create "Game Changing AI Tech" but they produce and release a video that looks like it was shot on a 2005 Canon handheld and put together by 6 year old. Sure...they totally created AI Tech.

[TSonn]

Originally Posted by Cards and 401K

From a Facebook comment who may know something not officially posted?
I’m excited to see the AI implementation in September!
more to come?

Yeah, someone commented that they were disappointed by the lack of depth into the AI process and the owner responded that they should be able to show it in detail in September after the patent process is complete.

Not sure if that's an actual excuse or if it's a "my taxes are being audited" situation.

If September comes and goes with nothing, then yikes HGA.

[The_Reverend]

Originally Posted by TSonn

Yeah, someone commented that they were disappointed by the lack of depth into the AI process and the owner responded that they should be able to show it in detail in September after the patent process is complete.

Not sure if that's an actual excuse or if it's a "my taxes are being audited" situation.

If September comes and goes with nothing, then yikes HGA.

Kick the can down the street response. They have given “it is coming” responses before. However they have pretty labels.

[TSonn]

Originally Posted by The_Reverend

Kick the can down the street response. They have given “it is coming” responses before. However they have pretty labels.

True. But saying September is a deadline of sorts. If we get to October with nothing and there's a new excuse, then all they have is a high res scanner and nothing proprietary.

[Hectekk]

They still offer a good product, strict grading, fixing their mistakes quickly, and great customer service. But do have to admit that video looked amateurish and the workers looked like Walmart workers. But would be hard to compare with PSA Newport Beach workers...lol

[althea1287]

Originally Posted by Hectekk

They still offer a good product, strict grading, fixing their mistakes quickly, and great customer service. But do have to admit that video looked amateurish and the workers looked like Walmart workers. But would be hard to compare with PSA Newport Beach workers...lol

^^^^Totally agree