WATA Finally Getting Sued?

[Super Nintendo Chalmers | 53]

There is certainly room for improvement as far as WATA is concerned. Will wait and see but I doubt there will be any major impacts as a result of this "action".  For one, referencing KJ and that journo as being convincing, along with reaching out to the nimrods on that sub reddit speaks voulmes about the stance. In saying that I do think KJ raised some okay talking points regarding the market and hobby, but there are also points which are formed via assumptions, guesswork, ignorance and misinformation. So utlising that particular content as a key plank doesn't sound reassuring.

The peanut gallery who make up the bulk of that sub reddit are going to be sorely disappointed if the expectation on their end is that WATA is abolished and the arse falls out the new/sealed/graded market as a result. More transparancy and accountability when it comes to particular grading services? Sure, that's a good thing.

Regardless, interesting to see how it plays out and if anything comes of it.

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Super Nintendo Chalmers

[Gulag Joe | 582]

Reddit is the prime example of a poorly educated populace believing absolutely everything they read on the internet is truth. It will be extremely embarrassing when, if this lawsuit ever does go through (it won’t), the first question the judge will ask is “did everyone get their games back? Yes? Ok, place the counselor under arrest for time theft. Case dismissed.”

[Californication | 1,477]

7 hours ago, ExplodedHamster said:

Tough to judge capacity when supply chain issues keep the uncertainty going, and mire importantly demand in collectibles spiked exponentially in a short time across the board during covid. Every company got flooded with demand beyond capacity and got way behind. You either shut down business or keep working and accept customers will be pissed off and try to work through it. I’ve had late service after late service because of supply chain issues the past two years. My windows were 6 months late as an example. PSA has been a year late, VGA many months, CGC months behind, windows, lumber, copper, cars, it goes on and on and on. 
 

Seems more like a “stop using the business if the service does not meet your standards” than a class action lawsuit type thing.  A successful suit here would open Pandora’s Box, and I think a judge would recognize that. 

 

 

Again, accepting work that you do not have capacity for is not a supply chain issue.

Supply chain issues are happenening, but there are also many company's crying wolf and using it as a catch all excuse for business failures. 

If a business offers something, you pay for it, and they do not provide the service/good as expected the business should have to make you whole, period.

It's funny that you are moving the responsibility to the customer for the businesses failures by saying it's the customer's responsibility to not use the service. Lolz.

 

 

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

[MrWunderful | 2,926]

23 hours ago, Zach said:

This is a textbook example of the pot calling the kettle black. Seems like you just MIGHT be projecting a little bit there lol

 

 

Found em!

 

Missed you Bro

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

12 hours ago, Californication said:

Again, accepting work that you do not have capacity for is not a supply chain issue.

Supply chain issues are happenening, but there are also many company's crying wolf and using it as a catch all excuse for business failures. 

If a business offers something, you pay for it, and they do not provide the service/good as expected the business should have to make you whole, period.

It's funny that you are moving the responsibility to the customer for the businesses failures by saying it's the customer's responsibility to not use the service. Lolz.

 

 

Again, many of the delays are due to supply chain issues and not "accepting work they do not have capacity for." Grading of games has not been an issue for close to a year at this point, the issue is they keep ordering supplies, told they will get them, and then they don't get the materials because of significant delays. Same thing is happening all across the globe. What would you tell businesses in general to do in this situation?  Either they take money and survive knowing customers will be mad or just shut it down and take significant financial loss, which would be fatal to many companies. 

Define "make you whole" in this situation. What are your damages? People are getting their games back, there were no guarantees for refunds, and the times were listed as estimates with caveats attached. You're writing the complaint, tell me what you're telling the court damages amount to. 

I didn't move any responsibility to anyone, I'm saying I don't think courts as a matter of public policy will want to side with customers during these situations in the context of covid. They'll say it's up to the customers to decide moving forward if they want to harm these companies by finding someone better to do the work. 

[Californication | 1,477]

1 hour ago, ExplodedHamster said:

Again, many of the delays are due to supply chain issues and not "accepting work they do not have capacity for." Grading of games has not been an issue for close to a year at this point, the issue is they keep ordering supplies, told they will get them, and then they don't get the materials because of significant delays. Same thing is happening all across the globe. What would you tell businesses in general to do in this situation?  Either they take money and survive knowing customers will be mad or just shut it down and take significant financial loss, which would be fatal to many companies. 

Define "make you whole" in this situation. What are your damages? People are getting their games back, there were no guarantees for refunds, and the times were listed as estimates with caveats attached. You're writing the complaint, tell me what you're telling the court damages amount to. 

I didn't move any responsibility to anyone, I'm saying I don't think courts as a matter of public policy will want to side with customers during these situations in the context of covid. They'll say it's up to the customers to decide moving forward if they want to harm these companies by finding someone better to do the work. 

Wata is infamous for delays and its many pricing tiers that it uses to offer people hope that they will get a more normal return time if they pay more. They have essentially set up a business model where they are incentivized to not return games in a reasonable amount of time. 

[Gulag Joe | 582]

Well, wata said 30 day TAT for modern beta submissions. We’ll see how that goes, but it seems like the pile of overdue orders is shrinking. Might be because less people are submitting games now. IGS just opened up their economy tier. Seems like the video game submission market is cooling down in some respects. And CGC is still not open for business. Yikes.

[final fight cd | 185]

8 hours ago, Californication said:

Wata is infamous for delays and its many pricing tiers that it uses to offer people hope that they will get a more normal return time if they pay more. They have essentially set up a business model where they are incentivized to not return games in a reasonable amount of time. 

didn’t they also cut out the lower price tiers, while forcing the consumer to use the higher price tier.  Also, were the turnaround times ever adjusted on the site? Like, did they ever let the consumer know a game submission was going to take up to a year to be returned? 

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

On 4/28/2022 at 11:45 PM, Californication said:

Wata is infamous for delays and its many pricing tiers that it uses to offer people hope that they will get a more normal return time if they pay more. They have essentially set up a business model where they are incentivized to not return games in a reasonable amount of time. 

They used the same business model that most other grading companies have used for a long time. It’s the standard business model in this category. All of these companies have been able to meet deadlines in the past, but got hammered with insane demand and supply issues during covid, so you end up with a lot of pissed off customers across the board. 

Edited April 30, 2022 by ExplodedHamster

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

Look at the guy who made a million dollars from his graded game defend these terrible business practices. 

LOL

[OptOut | 8,881]

4 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Look at the guy who made a million dollars from his graded game defend these terrible business practices. 

LOL

Two million.

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by ExplodedHamster

[Gloves | 11,760]

I wish I had a million dollars I'd just retire.

[OptOut | 8,881]

13 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I wish I had a million dollars I'd just retire.

Lol, as if a million dollars is enough to retire these days!

#tellmeyouarepoor

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

9 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Lol, as if a million dollars is enough to retire these days!

#tellmeyouarepoor

Dude a Subway meal is like $15 now. Soon, it'll be a 50...50...50 dollar foot loooong. 

A lot depends on where you live, really. There's such a large discrepancy in costs of living in various parts of the US. In some places, you can retire on a million, in others you'd be lucky to retire if you made a million at 90 years old. Depends how much medication you need. 

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by ExplodedHamster

[Gloves | 11,760]

6 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Lol, as if a million dollars is enough to retire these days!

#tellmeyouarepoor

Gimme a Mil and I'll make it work.

[OptOut | 8,881]

1 minute ago, Gloves said:

Gimme a Mil and I'll make it work.

Can't wait to see the art @CasualCart comes up with for THAT subscription tier! 

[Gloves | 11,760]

5 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Can't wait to see the art @CasualCart comes up with for THAT subscription tier! 

Literally just... 

[OptOut | 8,881]

13 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Literally just... 

It's just a 404 error message saying that the site is gone, thanks losers, and some burnout tire tracks sound on loop! 

[mlbfan10 | 340]

Regardless of the convo around bad business practices and what not, covid and demand for grading across the board exploded. TAT's were going to get hit and it's not only WATA. VGA, PSA, BGS are in horrible spots as well. If I don't spend top dollar for grading I know I won't see them for a while. Which I'm fine with to save money.

I'm still waiting for a bulk PSA order that's over a year at this point.

Edited May 2, 2022 by mlbfan10

[T-Pac | 7,513]

11 hours ago, OptOut said:

Can't wait to see the art @CasualCart comes up with for THAT subscription tier! 

The "million-dollar subscription tier":
@Gloves leaves us for dead and buys every PVM and arcade shooter PCB on the market...

-CasualCart

[inasuma | 1,203]

On 4/28/2022 at 9:34 PM, ExplodedHamster said:

Again, many of the delays are due to supply chain issues and not "accepting work they do not have capacity for." Grading of games has not been an issue for close to a year at this point, the issue is they keep ordering supplies, told they will get them, and then they don't get the materials because of significant delays.

I’m surprised you have this take honestly considering you use wata’s services as much as you do. I’ve used wata for non-DVD sized games, speedrun, and had my orders take 9 months. That was just recently too. Know of at least two others with turbo orders from *2020* that only just got their orders back, or are still waiting.

Edited May 2, 2022 by inasuma

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

3 hours ago, inasuma said:

I’m surprised you have this take honestly considering you use wata’s services as much as you do. I’ve used wata for non-DVD sized games, speedrun, and had my orders take 9 months. That was just recently too. Know of at least two others with turbo orders from *2020* that only just got their orders back, or are still waiting.

Trust me, I’ve had stuff take forever and done my fair share of being pissed off throughout the process. Two years plus for some of the snail pace ones. But the issue they, and other grading companies have had, is that higher speed tiers jump the line. And so what you end up with is that supply chain issues keep just enough cases for the Warp Zones and maybe some Speed Run, but then the rest get neglected because by the time supplies come in, you get more WarpZone and Speed Run orders. 

So, there are two options. You shut everything down except maybe the top tier, as PSA did, and focus on the backlog. Then people get pissed your service is shut down when the market is hot and only catering to the “elites” using your top tier (there was plenty of this kind of sentiment on PSA groups, esp because PSA jacked prices on top tier they kept open), or you keep pressing, hope supply chain issues slow, and deal with the backlash for longer wait times on the Speed Runs and slower orders. I can understand why a company would choose either option tbh, but the smaller startups probably would tend towards staying open because the income stream is more of a necessity than for example a giant like PSA. I don’t blame customers for being pissed, but there really isn’t a way to get things done without a lot of customers being pissed, and these supply chain issues are a menace across the globe to businesses everywhere atm. Many are left facing these kinds of choices and many customers are pissed off daily.

This isn’t to say WATA was as ramped up as it should have been, but I imagine rapid expansion in the middle of covid, which likely would require relocation for many, is easier said than done, and supplies were always going to be a significant bottleneck regardless. Demand definitely outpaced supplies and expansion. Nobody was prepared for it across the board.

Also, context here again is we are talking about a lawsuit. I’m not saying customers shouldn’t be upset, I’m saying the factors associated with covid is something a judge will likely and should consider in any such claim at the moment.

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by ExplodedHamster

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

Now, one thing I will say, is at some point WATA could and probably should have changed their estimates on the lower tiers. I doubt it’s legally actionable, but it likely would have helped them from a PR perspective and curbed some of the anger. I think that’s a fair criticism for sure.