Fanatics Collectibles Ceases Autograph-Only Graded Card Sales

Fanatics Collectibles, a seller of digital and physical trading cards and memorabilia, announced on July 21st that they will be halting sales of autograph-only graded cards. This comes after an over two-week dispute in which a content creator received a fake copy of Underground Sea with an authentic artist signature.

On July 5th, Rebell, a member of the Commander Advisory Group and the content creator in question, first posted on Twitter about this issue. In her posts, she tagged Fanatics Collectibles. She also showed the counterfeit nature of the card in great detail. While the fake copy of Underground Sea appeared to be real in the listings, a closer examination proved its inauthenticity. However, artist Rob Alexander did, indeed, sign the card.

Commander's Herald has reached out to Rebell for a statement providing further clarification surrounding the situation. Rebell responded with an extensive account of what happened:

I discovered Fanatics Collect or what was originally called PWCC a month ago and decided to check it out, since I've never collected slabs before and it seemed like a good place to start my collection that way. I did initial research on the company and found that PWCC in the past was banned from eBay for listing or bidding practices, but recent posts on sports collecting subreddits have mentioned PWCC as a safe place to buy cards from. Specifically their unique vault system where everything gets mailed in and inspected, verified, then placed in a vault made me believe there was no chance there would be fake cards on the platform.

 

I checked out the Magic listings and saw a Timetwister sell for something like $800, I don't exactly remember the number but I thought it was a ridiculous deal. I didn't understand how it could be sold for that little, but I figured not a lot of Magic collectors know about PWCC and the weird UX/UI contributed to some listings not being seen by users. So I decided to go big on an Underground Sea and an Ancestral Recall. Before I committed too far, I sent images of the Underground Sea to a friend of mine who worked at a large MTG singles trading company to see if the card seemed fake to them. They mentioned that the card is graded for the autograph only, so there's a chance the card itself could be fake, but based on how the coloring of the digital listing, the front seemed extremely authentic. I ultimately won the Underground Sea and let the Recall go. I paid for the card and it was mailed to me pretty quickly.

 

I missed the initial delivery so the card was brought back to my post office where I picked it up. When I opened the package my heart sank because I could tell immediately the card was fake, which is when I posted my tweet online with a video to show why it's fake. The coloring in person is completely different than how they color graded the card on the listing, which is what threw both me and my friend off initially. I sent photos of the card to more traders and they also confirmed that the front is actually quite convincing through a photo, but the photo and video I took made it abundantly clear it was fake.

In order to ensure Fanatics Collect is the most trusted platform for collectors, we are implementing an important policy update.

Effective today, we will no longer permit the sale of Autograph-Only Authenticated Cards on our marketplace.
Feedback from the collecting community has made it clear that the authenticity of Autograph-Only Authenticated Cards can be misinterpreted.

This decision ensures that every collector can trust that they are buying a complete, verified product with the highest standards of authenticity.

We look forward to continuing to provide you with an exceptional marketplace experience.

Fanatics Collect

An update from Fanatics Collect regarding autograph-only authenticated cards. pic.twitter.com/bLNArmM6Bo

— Fanatics Collect (@FanaticsCollect) July 20, 2024

According to Rebell's account from this point:

So I reached out to PWCC immediately because they have a 48 hour clause on when you can get a return or refund, and since I picked it up on a Friday I didn't want the weekend to somehow contribute to them denying my refund. Then by Monday I received an email that simply said my refund was denied. I emailed them again for further details, which I got a customer service agent to email me back and forth, essentially repeating that because the card was only authenticated for the autograph it never stated the card itself was authentic, and that information was labeled on the listing page itself. While that is true, my perspective was that it was very deceptive given that they are listing it as an autographed 'trading card' under the 'Magic: The Gathering' section alongside other authentic Magic: The Gathering cards. And regardless, they should not be trading fake cards no matter how PSA graded it.

 

Nothing made them budge, so I took the issue further online. I'm thankful that I have a large platform and many others came to my aid to make it known to PWCC. But despite all our tweets and messages, they did not communicate with me further on the matter. I got a Fanatics customer rep to talk to me on Twitter, since PWCC was owned by Fanatics. But since it was a PWCC matter they couldn't help me either.

 

PWCC then rebranded to Fanatics Collect, and that's when I saw my opening to make my voice really heard. I decided to make parody ads based on their new ads to promote their new app. The tweet went viral and I went to bed thinking nothing was going to happen, but I had a good laugh.

Thankfully, the CEO of Fanatics Collectibles called Rebell and issued a refund to the content creator. 

According to Rebell's account regarding the resolution of this issue:

Then Saturday afternoon while I was at a cafe waiting to go to dance class, I got a text from Nick Bell, CEO of Fanatics Collect. He introduced who he was and said he would like to hop on a call when I have time. I was pretty nervous, given the approach I've taken with PWCC and Fanatics Collect at this point, but since I had time I texted back asking if now was a good time to talk. So we hopped on the phone and Nick immediately apologized for the experience I had, he mentioned how he read through every thread and was furious about specific customer service experiences I've had in this whole ordeal, such as using a chatbot that kept repeating 'I don't understand' when I said 'I have a fake card.' He asked me how they could make it right to me and I offered I just wanted a refund. He offered he was personally handling my refund, and then we talked about who I was as a collector and my experience with Magic and collecting in general. I offered some perspectives to him as an entrenched Magic collector about how this world of collecting is quite new to TCGs compared to Sports cards collecting, since TCGs are games first so many of us don't aspire to grading what we open, unlike sports cards collecting. Nick also told me that they were changing their policy internally to not list autograph only cards, given that it's obviously confusing to new collectors and can lead to bad experiences, which I agreed with.

 

Ultimately things have resolved positively, the company has changed their policy and I get to return the card and get a refund. I've also advised Nick to offer the same deal I was given to return the fake card for a refund and for Fanatics Collect to destroy to take out of the market, with other customers who also purchased these kind of cards. The list of customers are quite small and easily trackable given the listing title is unique with 'trading card' under a game section. So if you're reading this and you bought one of these cards from PWCC/Fanatics Collect, I would contact Fanatics Collect as well.