HGA grading

[dontpanic3]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

They needed an influx of outside cash and fire a good portion of their staff to be able to stay afloat. They are prioritizing things like TCG grading and horizontal slabs because those can bring in new revenue that they desperately need. God only knows how many cards they have waiting to be graded, but all of those are realized revenue already.

The threat of bankruptcy is real IMO. And when that happens, there are going to be a lot of very upset people. No clue what the verbiage says on the submission form, but I’d be looking at that if I had cards there. They may not have the money to ship your cards back, and they certainly won’t be coming back graded.

They won't, but they have the credit card numbers of the people who submitted and they'll just charge those. Though I suppose that assumes they'll retain enough staff to process those returns, which will likely be a huge mess based on their current levels of customer service.

When they messed up my order last spring/summer and I requested that they cancel the other orders I had in submission, they sent all three orders back to me in separate packaging despite generating the labels at the same time. I was not thrilled that they managed to charge me $45 to return my cards to me when it easily could have been done for 1/3 the cost.

[Cannae]

HGA responded to my customer service inquiry and told me they are experiencing a 37-45 BUSINESS day delay in processing my 90 day order.

[SupermanBrandon]

Where 60 days means 145 days

[Eckstein197]

All of the HGA stans are eerily quiet as of recent

[rms13]

Originally Posted by Eckstein197

All of the HGA stans are eerily quiet as of recent

I kind of figured they were out of business by now

[KhalDrogo]

HGA did an update today to let everyone know they are 38-40 business days behind. Although there are plenty of people posting that they are much further behind that that. Oops.

[Macswain]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

HGA did an update today to let everyone know they are 38-40 business days behind. Although there are plenty of people posting that they are much further behind that that. Oops.

It's disappointing to hear spin from HGA that is so readily disproven.

Here's the breakdown of a simple 10 card order from August (with no custom labels requested).

Received: 8/26
Scanned: 11/08
Graded: 1/14
Printed: TBD
Slabbed: TBD
Shipping: TBD

Now sitting at 112 business days on a 60 day order.

That is 52 business days behind and counting, not 38-40. Actual performance is well past the representation being made to the public.

I enjoy the HGA labels and subgrades but have been disheartened by the widening credibility gap with this company.

[TawkCards]

at this point I would be impressed if this doesn't end with bankruptcy and bunch of people with lost cards.

[SupermanBrandon]

Is ANYONE actually still sending them cards?

[ThoseBackPages]

any update on the new video?

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by SupermanBrandon

Is ANYONE actually still sending them cards?

Reading the social media tea leaves, I’m pretty sure most people stopped by October. Only see comments from people with outstanding August and September subs, even though anything subbed in October would be late as well.

[ReggieBush22]

I said this from the beginning, you should NEVER submit cards to a start up grading company. They have to PROVE their worth over time. This grading thing isn't easy. Takes so much actual knowledge.

Sorry to say but any $$ spent on HGA was wasted. You paid $$ to a re-holdering company, NOT a grading company.

[ReggieBush22]

Originally Posted by Eckstein197

All of the HGA stans are eerily quiet as of recent

I am assuming the vast majority of them are young and were caught by how much the holders "popped" and ignored more important factors.

[SupermanBrandon]

Originally Posted by ReggieBush22

I said this from the beginning, you should NEVER submit cards to a start up grading company. They have to PROVE their worth over time. This grading thing isn't easy. Takes so much actual knowledge.

Sorry to say but any $$ spent on HGA was wasted. You paid $$ to a re-holdering company, NOT a grading company.

BINGO! Zero reason to be someone else's Guinea Pig in this racket. IF for some reason they take over the market you can just move your cards over to their holders, if you choose.

[discodanman45]

I miss skunkbush here. We used to talk negative about HGA and he got upset and sent submissions to prove how awesome their service is. It is no fun without a HGA fanboi here.

My order received on 12/1 still hasn't been scanned. The AI must be backed up. Had a SGC order received on the same day and I have had it back for a month. We need another pretty lady video Tyler. Nothing more attractive than a lady saying, "Minimum intra-class variance image binarization."

[300baud]

Originally Posted by ReggieBush22

I said this from the beginning, you should NEVER submit cards to a start up grading company. They have to PROVE their worth over time. This grading thing isn't easy. Takes so much actual knowledge.

The only problem with this is that if everyone went by this standard for ALL new companies then no new companies would ever get off the ground and innovation would stagnate.

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by 300baud

The only problem with this is that if everyone went by this standard for ALL new companies then no new companies would ever get off the ground and innovation would stagnate.

Lots of people will sign up for being beta testers, however this situation was not for me. I was a beta tester for electric cars, which was a technology I believed in. I bought one of the first Chevy Bolts in California and it worked out for me. 80,000 miles on the car and besides wiper fluid/cabin air filters/tire rotations, the car has had absolutely no maintenance done for it. I spent less than $400 on the car since I had it. That includes a new set of tires. However, my battery is being recalled. They are replacing it and giving me a new 8 year/100,000 mile warranty on that. If things went sideways, I was fine with it. I was financially stable to deal with problems.

Now HGA was never a company that interested me. With vintage, I had absolutely no trust in them. Tyler even said in the beginning, send SGC your vintage cards. Let's not forget what HGA was designed to be. It was a company that Tyler started because PSA/SGC developed by backlogs and he couldn't flip cards as easily. HGA was a company designed by flippers and to be used by flippers. There big thing was 60 days means 60 days. Even the die-hard HGA fans are pissed off, because they want the cards back to flip as quickly as possible. Being a beta-tester for HGA was stupid for flippers. Especially flippers who depend on this for income and are not financially stable.

HGA's one goal should be to meet turnaround time. If they can't do this, which is fact now, they are doomed. 90% of the people that use HGA want high grades and quick turnaround times to make money. They don't care about the real grade or if HGA really uses "AI." If PSA has $50 grading with real 3-month turnaround time, every Tyler fanboy will switch back to PSA immediately. We all witnessed SGC's nightmare of them promising turnaround times in 2020 and falling on their face. It took over a year for people to trust them again and they lost some long-time customers because of it. This is a company that has 20 years in the industry! A startup that promised turnaround times and now is double will never recover from this. HGA is dead.

[PSA2Pac]

RIP HGA















































Tried to warn y’all..

[Skunkbush]

Love me some HGA

[Giroux]

Originally Posted by Skunkbush

Love me some HGA

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by Skunkbush

Love me some HGA

Tyler! Missed you!

Please submit another order for us!

[TSonn]

Tyler finally made an update on Facebook and it looks like HGA has lost most of their keyboard warrior supporters. Nearly all of the comments on the post were negative and calling them out for multiple failures.

At least they're getting honest feedback now.

I'd still be afraid if my cards were with HGA at this exact moment.

[HalfNipponese]

I've pretty much sold all of my HGA slabs that I don't plan on keeping forever. Up until last week I was still getting about 80% of PSA comps for Mint and lower grades.

Anyone else liquidating? If you do, don't send custom labels to auction for semi-modern cards. I got slaughtered on those. Custom labels consistently sold for less than a standard label.

[discodanman45]

The most positive comment was "Thanks for the update." No one is even standing up for HGA with the negative comments. This doesn't look good.

IMO, they should have had one label and everything else custom. Their Neutral Match Card label is really nice. Some of the other one's got them into trouble and slowed down their returns. The Match Team should never have been used. A lot of players get traded and it leads to confusion. Is it the team they are on now or the team they are on the card. I hate the splash labels and the neutral has no character.

At this point I doubt my cards are graded and I will eventually have to pay to get my cards returned to me ungraded. Maybe they will throw in acrylic cases and glue so I can slab the cards myself.

[TSonn]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

The most positive comment was "Thanks for the update." No one is even standing up for HGA with the negative comments. This doesn't look good.

IMO, they should have had one label and everything else custom. Their Neutral Match Card label is really nice. Some of the other one's got them into trouble and slowed down their returns. The Match Team should never have been used. A lot of players get traded and it leads to confusion. Is it the team they are on now or the team they are on the card. I hate the splash labels and the neutral has no character.

At this point I doubt my cards are graded and I will eventually have to pay to get my cards returned to me ungraded. Maybe they will throw in acrylic cases and glue so I can slab the cards myself.

Yep.

Neutral Card Match was always the way to go. When you send in a card that matches the neutral label design the result is pretty amazing:





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