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Wata price hikes / turnaround time increases


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From a casual observer, it seems in the past 12 months, WATA has been more interested in price hikes, price pumps, Pawn Stars, than what they are advertising their services ie. to grade the games!

Another thing, due to all the hype and hysteria, I can only imagine them being backlogged with hundreds of CIB Mario Bros 1/2/3, and a mother load of CIB black boxes!

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1 hour ago, GPX said:

From a casual observer, it seems in the past 12 months, WATA has been more interested in price hikes, price pumps, Pawn Stars, than what they are advertising their services ie. to grade the games!

 

They are one and the same. 

If wata graded games sell for big money, IMO that's the best advertisement of their services they could have because ultimately sellers will use whatever service they think will get them the best price.

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26 minutes ago, Bronty said:

They are one and the same. 

If wata graded games sell for big money, IMO that's the best advertisement of their services they could have because ultimately sellers will use whatever service they think will get them the best price.

No doubt the promotional aspect of the company is a raging success. It just seems the promotion is way out of proportion to their level of meeting with the demands.

Hopefully things will improve in 2020.

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4 minutes ago, Richardhead said:

How do you get your games out of those plastic cases when you wanna play them?😜

This argument is moot with CIB graded games. Plenty of CIBs to go around for everyone. And if you have the urge to play original games, then one has to wonder why you would bother buying a graded game in the first place? 🙂

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2 hours ago, GPX said:

This argument is moot with CIB graded games. Plenty of CIBs to go around for everyone. And if you have the urge to play original games, then one has to wonder why you would bother buying a graded game in the first place? 🙂

It’s a joke, brother

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7 hours ago, jonebone said:

To be honest I think the effect of CIB grading is a bit overblown.  No doubt it was very significant over the summer and most of last year when CIB grading was so cheap and CIBs were doing crazy numbers on HA, but a lot of that has cooled off.  And CIB grading does cost more than Sealed grading, and prices did go up by 25-50% across the board.

But yes, I think you should at least double the turnaround time, consider it all business days and then hope you get the grade around then.  Then probably wait another several weeks until it return ships.  I also am fairly disappointed that they reworked their tiers and posted updated turnaround times like they had ironed out some kinks and these turnarounds were realistic.  Clearly they aren't. 

I think it’s reasonnable to assume that the cib grading pipeline got jammed before the Price increases? (Heck even sealed as well) Wata probably saw a large influx of orders at the  end of November, contributing to the still extreme delays...

hopefully a couple months from now things settle. If not then perhaps they need more employees and manage expectations way, WAY better

 

 

Edited by Jim Jimmer
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My guess is the majority of submissions before October were turbo and select, and since December they’re likely receiving all speed-runs and warp zones...which would have been pretty hard to predict.

bright side; rob arrived mid December and seems to be a workhorse, and we r seeing progress on turnaround and communication...so as long as it’s three steps forward for every one or two steps back, I’m good:)

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12 hours ago, Dkaps82 said:

My guess is the majority of submissions before October were turbo and select, and since December they’re likely receiving all speed-runs and warp zones...which would have been pretty hard to predict.

bright side; rob arrived mid December and seems to be a workhorse, and we r seeing progress on turnaround and communication...so as long as it’s three steps forward for every one or two steps back, I’m good:)

Who’s Rob?

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On 1/6/2020 at 9:15 AM, GPX said:

From a casual observer, it seems in the past 12 months, WATA has been more interested in price hikes, price pumps, Pawn Stars, than what they are advertising their services ie. to grade the games!

Another thing, due to all the hype and hysteria, I can only imagine them being backlogged with hundreds of CIB Mario Bros 1/2/3, and a mother load of CIB black boxes!

They have probably put like .25% of their time into promotion, unless you count the conventions. It doesn't take a lot of time to answer a call and some questions for an interviewer, and most of the time it's been sellers initiating it anyway. There are plenty of things to criticize legitimately, but the promotion thing is way overblown. Especially since promotion is a good thing anyway.

Edited by ExplodedHamster
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On 1/7/2020 at 12:16 AM, Dkaps82 said:

My guess is the majority of submissions before October were turbo and select, and since December they’re likely receiving all speed-runs and warp zones...which would have been pretty hard to predict.

bright side; rob arrived mid December and seems to be a workhorse, and we r seeing progress on turnaround and communication...so as long as it’s three steps forward for every one or two steps back, I’m good:)

It was likely designed to lead to such results, so probably quite predicable.

That notwithstanding, operations have been moving faster. Still not hitting some deadlines, but significantly faster than before. Hopefully the improvement continues.

Edited by ExplodedHamster
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12 hours ago, ExplodedHamster said:

It was likely designed to lead to such results, so probably quite predicable.

That notwithstanding, operations have been moving faster. Still not hitting some deadlines, but significantly faster than before. Hopefully the improvement continues.

I was going to say speak for yourself but I did finally get a shipment notification today... on Speed Runs that I submitted before Thanksgiving.  (They were 5 day turns then and now they're 10 day.)  Needless to say, unless you do a Warp Zone +$100, you cross your fingers and hope that you get the grades anywhere close to your expected time, then double it and hope they return ship around then.  That's been my experiences with sending in a Speed Run order about once a month anyway. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Administrator · Posted
On 1/10/2020 at 11:29 AM, jonebone said:

I was going to say speak for yourself but I did finally get a shipment notification today... on Speed Runs that I submitted before Thanksgiving.  (They were 5 day turns then and now they're 10 day.)  Needless to say, unless you do a Warp Zone +$100, you cross your fingers and hope that you get the grades anywhere close to your expected time, then double it and hope they return ship around then.  That's been my experiences with sending in a Speed Run order about once a month anyway. 

Then add on like a month cuz I'm in Canada. 😞

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/30/2019 at 4:04 PM, snk2d4ever said:

Is it business days or calendar days for the select tier?

That is in second Tuesdays of never days - I paid for the Turbo (30 day) something like 60 days ago, I message to ask if I was going to be refunded the extra 15$ I paid for the faster tier and they never even bothered to respond.

Kinda shitty service if you ak me

Edited by c0op3r
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5 minutes ago, c0op3r said:

That is in second Tuesdays of never days - I paid for the Turbo (30 day) something like 60 days ago, I message to ask if I was going to be refunded the extra 15$ I paid for the faster tier and they never even bothered to respond.

Kinda shitty service if you ak me

My last order was 5 day speed run. They scanned my package Dec 7th. I got my shipping notice yesterday. Best to think of their pricing tiers as Patrion: everyone is getting the same slow tier but you can choose to donate more if you want.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/30/2020 at 12:05 AM, Startyde said:

My last order was 5 day speed run. They scanned my package Dec 7th. I got my shipping notice yesterday. Best to think of their pricing tiers as Patrion: everyone is getting the same slow tier but you can choose to donate more if you want.

I wanted to follow up my post about my experience with WATA and hope this helps others in how to handle them;  As stated I sent a sealed game to get graded (side not the end result of the cased item is great) I paid for the 'Turbo' I did not receive the Turbo return speed.  I contacted WATA and we had an email exchange that got to the point of not being so friendly or cordial anymore.  SO without the details, but a short version they admitted they did not provide the Turbo (30Days) when I asked for a refund on the additional Turbo fee I was told "we do not issue refunds".

So I ended up telling them no problem I will take it up with the Credit Card Paying system I used, finish the game and return it (graded).  They did return it, and I did take it up with PayPal (who I used to pay for the service) I filed the claim and they did not try to fight the dispute, they just refunded the 17$ Turbo fee.

So the moral of this story is DO NOT ACCEPT PAYING  WATA FOR SOMETHING THEY DID NOT PROVIDE if you paid for the faster service, hold their feet to the fire and make them do it or make them refund you the price you paid for what you did not get.

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Administrator · Posted
15 minutes ago, c0op3r said:

I wanted to follow up my post about my experience with WATA and hope this helps others in how to handle them;  As stated I sent a sealed game to get graded (side not the end result of the cased item is great) I paid for the 'Turbo' I did not receive the Turbo return speed.  I contacted WATA and we had an email exchange that got to the point of not being so friendly or cordial anymore.  SO without the details, but a short version they admitted they did not provide the Turbo (30Days) when I asked for a refund on the additional Turbo fee I was told "we do not issue refunds".

So I ended up telling them no problem I will take it up with the Credit Card Paying system I used, finish the game and return it (graded).  They did return it, and I did take it up with PayPal (who I used to pay for the service) I filed the claim and they did not try to fight the dispute, they just refunded the 17$ Turbo fee.

So the moral of this story is DO NOT ACCEPT PAYING  WATA FOR SOMETHING THEY DID NOT PROVIDE if you paid for the faster service, hold their feet to the fire and make them do it or make them refund you the price you paid for what you did not get.

Never accept paying for a service you end up not receiving, regardless of who it is. Anti-consumer behavior should not be accepted in any instance. This is a business and they need to fulfill their promises. 

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3 hours ago, Gloves said:

Never accept paying for a service you end up not receiving, regardless of who it is. Anti-consumer behavior should not be accepted in any instance. This is a business and they need to fulfill their promises. 

Just a plug that VGA offers guaranteed dates for your order completion with the selected tier. I just send in an Archval tier 8 days ago and It is already shipped and I have 9 games coming back tomorrow. VGA has never been more on their game and it makes Wata look like amateur hour.

I really don't care if Wata doesn't have enough people to fulfill their services. If they're knowing accepting money for services they know they cannot provide then they should be reported. In my experience they have two tiers: 

Pay $135 a game to get it graded in 48 hours

Pay $35 to $75 a game to get it graded whenever they feel like

Edited by Startyde
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Administrator · Posted
13 minutes ago, Startyde said:

Just a plug that VGA offers guaranteed dates for your order completion with the selected tier. I just send in an Archval tier 8 days ago and It is already shipped and I have 9 games coming back tomorrow.

I really don't care if Wata doesn't have enough people to fulfill their services. If they're knowing accepting money for services they know they cannot provide then they should be reported. In my experience they have two tiers: 

Pay$135 a game to get it graded in 48 hours

Pay $35 to $75 a game to get it graded whenever they feel like

If they don't have enough people to fulfill orders they should shut down the service until they've cleared their backlog.

Mind you, that's an ethical and moral "should", and we're talking about a business.

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4 minutes ago, Gloves said:

If they don't have enough people to fulfill orders they should shut down the service until they've cleared their backlog.

Mind you, that's an ethical and moral "should", and we're talking about a business.

I agree with this but I feel like they are out to make a quick buck on a fad. Time will only tell if collecting graded games stays the course like comics and coins. 
 

In the least bit they should have a press release that acknowledges they are in over their heads and turnaround times will be significantly longer than expected. That and remove the higher priced turn around services as an option. 

Edited by a3quit4s
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7 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I agree with this but I feel like they are out to make a quick buck on a fad. Time will only tell if collecting graded games stays the course like comics and coins. 
 

In the least bit they should have a press release that acknowledges they are in over their heads and turnaround times will be significantly longer than expected. That and remove the higher priced turn around services as an option. 

That is another issue altogether. In their November update they said all tiers would reopen Dec 1st, 2019. The Speedrun (10 day) has NEVER been reopened, again, lending itself to the fact that they have two tiers, pay $135 for speed, or pay $35 to $50 for whatever who cares.

Edited by Startyde
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