11/1/15 UPDATE- TOPPS IS FINISHED! They've been looking for a buyer for over a year with no interest at all. This is why they've been treating all their customers so HORRIBLY over the last two years or more. The people running Customer Service (Minerva and Sabrina) are both hobby know-nothings, plus they don't even know anything about sports in general. So how could they possibly send collectors replacement cards they will like. IT'S NOT POSSIBLE!!!
I actually tweeted Topps and they responded telling me to call Topps Customer Service. This shows how little Topps employees who do know the hobby- know what's going in in the rest of the company: ABSOLUTE CHAOS! Most collectors and dealers have known for a while now that Topps Executives all BLOCKED themselves from phone calls and e-mails from outside of Topps. SO THEY HAVE NO CLUE HOW COLLECTORS AND DEALERS ARE GETTING SCREWED ACROSS THE COUNTRY EVERY DAY FOR YEARS NOW!Topps still owes me a $100 redemption replacements that Minerva said she sent, when what she actually sent was a $15sticker autograph from a PREVIOUS SCREW-UP SHE MADE! Plus they owe me two 2013 UFC Superstar ON CARD Autographs. On their worthless redemption UPDATE site they stated: Topps is working very hard getting owed UFC autographs which was listed in March 2014- SO WHERE ARE MY AUTOGRAPHS???
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It took me almost 3-months (1/31-3/25/14) to get any kind of response from Topps & IT WAS A PRE-PRINTED Letter showing their Customer Service address as Duryea, PA which I've been told by many sources (especially Topps) that they CLOSED that location!!!
This is regarding the AWFUL 2013 Topps Platinum Eddie Lacy/ Gio Bernard DUAL AUTO/PATCH card #11/25 I personally pulled from a box. The Bernard Autograph look almost NOTHING like his autograph and the Lacy autograph is POOR at best signed lazily with a dry pen. This is the card:
I first tried calling & got "Mike" after being ON HOLD forever (20+ minutes). He told me to send him scans of the card to compare to their scans which I did & HE NEVER REPLIED BACK AGAIN!!! Useless SOB.
Then I tried e-mailing Anyone at support@topps.com, same result: NO RESPONSE at all.
Next I tried their online Customer Support system. I first posted my issue there on 2/20/14 & got the standard pre-print reply with Incident #140220-0000XX:
"Thank you for contacting The Topps Company. We have received your request, and will happily respond as soon as we possibly can. We look forward to speaking with you, and hope to resolve your issue to your utmost satisfaction. Sincerely, Customer Service Team
To update this question by email, please reply to this message. Because your reply will be automatically processed, you must enter your reply in the space below. Text entered into any other part of this message will be discarded.
[===> Please enter your reply below this line <===]
[===> Please enter your reply above this line <===]"
If your issue remains unresolved, please update this question here.
Then I followed-up (as they requested) several times (every couple of weeks or so until present). Then I FINALLY get my very first response today 3/25/14. This is the exact response:
"Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response. Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.
If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reopen it within the next 7 days.
Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.
To update this question by email, please reply to this message. Because your reply will be automatically processed, you must enter your reply in the space below. Text entered into any other part of this message will be discarded.
[===> Please enter your reply below this line <===]
[===> Please enter your reply above this line <===]"
If your issue remains unresolved, please update this question here.
LOOK FAMILIAR???
It is nearly the exact same PRE-PRINTED response that I started with on 2/20/14!!! Plus they give the Duryea, PA address which several reliable sources including Topps SUPERVISORS (who no longer work for Topps) told me that Topps' Duryea, PA location NO LONGER EXISTS at least not to help collectors in any way!!!
Do you think I'm going to send a $120.00 card to an address that may no longer exists? ABSOLUTELY NOT, and it goes to show just how little Topps cares about it's customers.
June, 2014 UPDATE: I GAVE THIS $120.00 CARD AWAY FOR A CHARITABLE CAUSE. The person who I sent it to should have a connection at Topps to get a much better replacement and not have to fear never seeing the card again which is my fear, so at least I helped someone else. I'm happy with that.
June, 2014 UPDATE: I GAVE THIS $120.00 CARD AWAY FOR A CHARITABLE CAUSE. The person who I sent it to should have a connection at Topps to get a much better replacement and not have to fear never seeing the card again which is my fear, so at least I helped someone else. I'm happy with that.
I waited 3-months for a reply about an UNQUESTIONABLY DAMAGED TOPPS CARD & the response was initiated by a human, but was a pre-typed generic response & that's the best they could do after angering a 25+ year Topps collector.
I DEFENDED Topps while I exposed direct fraud that EVERY other card company committed from 2002 on back. It was actually quite easy to find fraud that every other card company did. But I could never ONCE find proof that Topps ever purposely did anything that directly hurt collectors. And the mistakes they did make were always acknowledged and fixed eventually.
After the economy collapsed in 2009, it seems Topps joined every other card company and committed any fraud they thought they could get away with.
I DON'T TRUST ANY CARD COMPANY TO DO THE RIGHT THING EVERY TIME AT ALL ANYMORE! And it's been many years that I've felt this way. All collectors need to feel this way or I promise you will get screwed at some point.
ALWAYS GET THE NAME OF THE CARD COMPANY PERSON YOU SPEAK TO BECAUSE IF YOU HAVE TO CALL BACK AND SPEAK TO ANOTHER EMPLOYEE, THEY WILL ASK WHO GAVE YOU WHATEVER INFO LAST TIME.
The only thing worth collecting: ON CARD Certified Autograph Inserts are WAY TOO EXPENSIVE now since it seems everyone caught on to what I've been saying OVER & OVER AGAIN since 1999.
Those who listened to me early on (and I know several who did) now have very respectable collections that cannot be replaced unless they are willing to spend 2-3 TIMES+ what they originally paid for their cards! I was telling people to buy up as many 1991-92 Nabisco, Big League Chew, or Jimmy Dean Autographs as they could afford (with the separate COA card) which were $2-$4 each for all the living players from 2004-2011 or so. I personally bought over (100) of them and I never paid more than $3 and change each for: Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Phil Neikro, Jim Palmer, etc. I even bought several Willie Stargell & Catfish Hunter autographs for $5-$6 each at that time after they passed away! I gave most of them away as gifts to hospital employees (several to very special employees) who did their job the RIGHT WAY all the time, I am disabled so I feel it's my responsibility to let these employees know that they are appreciated so they continue doing their jobs right. A "THANK YOU" is nice, but a thank you with a cool gift is better.
Now these cards ALL sell for $10-$25 each. The Ernie Banks gets $20-$25 regularly. I had over (20) of his Nabisco autographs because he was the best living player available left and I bought every one I found. Now I just have one full set of each of the Nabisco sets and have as many different Jimmy Dean and Big League Chew Certified Autographs I found real cheap. I love my Don Drysdale from 1991 Nabisco as he died before they started sending the autographs out. Nabisco initially got 1,000 cards of each player signed, then based on the number of orders they received they had the option to get up to 5,000 cards maximum signed. So there were only 1,000 Nabisco Drysdale autographs made & that's his ONLY Certified Autograph card. On 99% of his cards he signed up his leg so it could be more easily seen (mostly dark background), but mine was signed straight across the card but where the background wasn't too dark. I consider things like this to be variations. This is why Beckett NEEDS to make a yearly CERTIFIED AUTOGRAPH ONLY Price Guide or ATLAS. But they never will as I've been telling them to do this since at least 2001!
Those who listened to me early on (and I know several who did) now have very respectable collections that cannot be replaced unless they are willing to spend 2-3 TIMES+ what they originally paid for their cards! I was telling people to buy up as many 1991-92 Nabisco, Big League Chew, or Jimmy Dean Autographs as they could afford (with the separate COA card) which were $2-$4 each for all the living players from 2004-2011 or so. I personally bought over (100) of them and I never paid more than $3 and change each for: Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Phil Neikro, Jim Palmer, etc. I even bought several Willie Stargell & Catfish Hunter autographs for $5-$6 each at that time after they passed away! I gave most of them away as gifts to hospital employees (several to very special employees) who did their job the RIGHT WAY all the time, I am disabled so I feel it's my responsibility to let these employees know that they are appreciated so they continue doing their jobs right. A "THANK YOU" is nice, but a thank you with a cool gift is better.
Now these cards ALL sell for $10-$25 each. The Ernie Banks gets $20-$25 regularly. I had over (20) of his Nabisco autographs because he was the best living player available left and I bought every one I found. Now I just have one full set of each of the Nabisco sets and have as many different Jimmy Dean and Big League Chew Certified Autographs I found real cheap. I love my Don Drysdale from 1991 Nabisco as he died before they started sending the autographs out. Nabisco initially got 1,000 cards of each player signed, then based on the number of orders they received they had the option to get up to 5,000 cards maximum signed. So there were only 1,000 Nabisco Drysdale autographs made & that's his ONLY Certified Autograph card. On 99% of his cards he signed up his leg so it could be more easily seen (mostly dark background), but mine was signed straight across the card but where the background wasn't too dark. I consider things like this to be variations. This is why Beckett NEEDS to make a yearly CERTIFIED AUTOGRAPH ONLY Price Guide or ATLAS. But they never will as I've been telling them to do this since at least 2001!
NOW IS THE TIME TO WAIT TO BUY CERTIFIED ON CARD AUTOGRAPHS OF STARS/SUPERSTARS. Once the rest of the hobby continues to collapse and all the greedy, scum get out of our hobby for good, then we REAL collectors can start to buy ON CARD Certified Autograph Inserts (for the quality of the autograph, NEVER for the serial numbering or "rarity") for far less than Beckett Media "LOW" prices again. I wish Beckett would stop using that LOW/HIGH column in their price guides. They themselves changed the reasons they do that and what each column means at least three times and no one really uses one column or the other.
Think you know about a big name card company that released forgery versions of ON CARD Certified Autograph Insert (more than 5% of the print run)?
The average non-numbered Certified Autograph in large print run products is 2,000 autographs per player, so there would have to be at least (100) known forgery versions for it to count. Anything else could be an honest mistake where the card company accidentally put blank non-autograph Certified Autos in packs and someone else forged the card(s) when they were pulled from boxes.
PLEASE send me the name of the player, the card company and set name & year it was made. A scan/digital picture of the card would be great too! Remember it must be a card company obtained & released autograph. If you've only seen one or only heard of one existing, then you cannot blame the card company for anything but releasing a auto card missing the auto. Then some collector signed his version of the auto to sell or trade at some point: I'm not interested in those.
I know about the 1994 Press Pass VIP auto common driver (a mostly yellow card) who had half his autographs signed by someone else, I know about the 1994 Errict Rhett Signature Rookies forgery version, and the 1997 UD Legends Donnie Shell forgeries (2/3rd's of the 3,000 he signed are forgeries) plus the other 97 UD Legends FB forgeries of superstars who supposedly gave away blank versions to friends & family members. Then when prices skyrocketed on those cards, suddenly forgery versions popped up.
REAL AUTO VERSION
Thank you & BE CAREFUL! So many sellers lie on a regular basis now (especially on eBay with HIDDEN SUPER HIGH COMBINED SHIPPING FEES) to squeeze what little they still can from OUR hobby. Once the money is gone, those sellers will be gone too. I'll still be here as long as I can still type & breathe...
James
