Grading does not need to be a thing for video game collecting. Don't let these vultures pretending to be "preservationists" dig their roots into the video game community.
Naturally when there's millions and possibly billions of dollars circulating around a certain market, us consumers need confirmation and validation that everything is real or else there would be many many more scams
not if the video game is sealed and you want to keep it that way. For games that are 20-30 years old, you do need to preserve them with grading unfortunately
@@sorrycashonly5651 no way. not true at all. you can pickup a videogame grading slab and preserve it yourself. the company doesn't do anything fancy. if anything they'll just mess it up more.
@@matthewchavez5322 exactly that’s what I was thinking they gotta keep those 9-10 for themselves. I hope he sue them because even the pictures they send him once they received the games don’t have writing on the front.
It definitely is in my opinion. The plastic stretch marks on the front match up pretty well to the before pictures. That would be impossible to imitate. They clearly lost the package in transit and the carrier probably wrote on the front. If that was done by WATA then holy shit that's bad.
Just heard about this on the CUPodcast. That sucks dude. Another great reason to avoid sending anything to, or buying anything from WATA. That company needs to go down. The quicker the better. And the best way to make that happen is for everyone to stop using their service or purchasing anything that they have graded. Unless the courts take them down first for all of their shady business practices….
I feel really bad for you. I would be extremely upset with what happened here. This is absolutely unreal! They basically lost your game (better copy) and gave you a different game in much worse condition. I am speechless!
Super sorry to see how terribly they treated your game... hopefully they take responsibility and make it right!! If not theres a whole community of hardcore collectors that are ready to come down on them!! Between the market manipulation and then something like this.. just cannot be tolerated!
I'm no defender of Wata but the rip being there before or not is inconclusive based on what is shown. The rip is very close to where the sticker was and that can be evaluated by taking a snippet at 5:04 and comparing it to 5:43. The angles are different so its very tough to tell but I agree that it probably happened in removing the sticker. Filming sticker removal is a great idea as someone mentioned. However, you cant tell if the marker is on the acrylic or the game itself? There is a space between the case and the game itself. That's unreal if indeed on the game.
Man, sorry to see that happened. This is legit the craziest grading mishap I've seen. Tearing the seal, and then writing on the game. Just when you thought WATA couldn't get any worse.
I would have not tried to remove that sticker. Those security tags with the square pattern underneath are incredibly difficult to remove, even on the more durable plastic on a new ps2 game for example. With how fragile a gameboy plastic seal is, you are guranteed to damage the seal. I have removed those security tags from a ps2 game, and even if removed the plastic is still impressed from that seal and wont look good. In any case yes, WATA ripped the seal trying to remove the sticker it was an impossible task, and they are obviously too incompetent for the task regardless
bro this is kinda more depressing than the taliban.. :( how could they do that to you. but that target sticker was kinda crack... and in the future if target ever died. that coulda have made it worth more... im so sorry you put your trust in them. you should find more people since wata opened that has issues with this "cleaning" service" and open a lawsuit.
I mean you could easily assume there are a limited number of these games still sealed. Every "9/10" they receive they could theoretically mark or accidentally rip and turn their handful of 8s into 9s by ruining the few solid 9/10s honest people are sending in to them. And with these wait times who knows what could be happening. It's all the more reason to not bother with shady companies like Wata.
Damn dude, this whole saga has been beyond a nightmare for you. So frustrating to see, and sorry you’re having to go through this. I knew from IG there was writing on the front, but man when i saw your reaction as you turned it over, my heart sank for you.
Mann im beyond sorry this happened! Hopefully with everything going on in the news and Karl's video makes them really step up their grading game. Aswell as deffinatly hope they compensate you for that. Thats disgusting
How did you manage to keep your cool? I wouldve leapt through the email at WATA as soon as i turned it over and seen that BS! Goodluck with dealing with their next round of excuses, i am devastated that after all this crap...this is the result!
Dude I thought we had bad experiences….I honestly think that might not be the same game you sent in. Stickers don’t seem to be lined up the same…I could be way off. Ive been suspect of them selling our own games and possibly replacing them and that’s why some stuff has been taking so long. Me and my partner Korey both still have speed run orders we haven’t gotten back yet from April. Total fucking bullshit. They’ve all but lost credibility with us. This vid just puts it over the top. I’m not surprised unfortunately. We are sorry for your loss - Jim @NM
I know this is bad mate but any publicity is good publicity as they say I’m afraid to say I never heard of you before this but you’ve now gained a new sub in me n I reckon your subs will shoot up abit from all this so there’s a silver lining to all clouds I look forward to checking out your previous content 😉👍
This is why I NEVER would think about paying WATA to "Heavy Clean" my games. If I feel comfortable removing a sticker with Bestine, I'll do it. Otherwise I just keep them on. Not worth damaging. These security stickers are a PITA to remove, especially from delicate shrink-wrap.
I lined up the pre image with what they sent you, and it definitely looks like they tore it. I also can't tell, due to lighting differences and the case and everything, but I'm not sure the puckering lines up between the two. And that "Receiving" on the front is a huge wtf. If this is the one you sent them, they were probably trying to figure out how to clean off the sharpie.
The twist at the end was so good, my heart legit skipped a beat. Bro, I feel sorry for you, for real. Good job on the video, though, I'm sure it will pay off. (Sub'd)
Wow. Cant believe you had such a terrible experience with the grading. As a "new collector" definitely appreciate having this kind of knowledge before sending my own games to grading. New to the channel but definitely love the content. 👍
I'm pretty sure the writing is on the inner plastic holder. Still crazy though that someone didn't notice that or at least... look at the game before shipping it to you. 😒
Oooooof. I feel for you dude. That is a mess WATA has had my copy of Budokai since mid-March. They dodge my questions constantly. Definitely won’t be working with them again myself. I hope you get compensated for you definite loss!
I'm guessing they over saturated it with steam and tried to peel it off with tweezers rather than scrape it with a small very sharp blade. I've removed a lot of stickers from sealed games I've graded, that is so hard to look at especially because it was so clean to begin with.
I don't think the game is swapped. The sticker angle and position are correct (the outer edges of the sticker would be where they are if the core was positioned like that. It is all correct). It says, "Receiving" on the front. It is possible they write on all the games (probably a dry erase marker) and forgot to wipe it off because they were so focused on their error on the back.
What I hate about emailing customer service for anything is most of the time, you get that copy and paste bs response which is extremely irritating, especially when the reason you contacted them in the first place was for an important issue
Absolutely mind boggling bad.... If you want to try and get the writing off, generally a magic eraser would take that off quite easily(with a tiny bit of 91-99 percent alcohol. If its just on the WATA case, shouldn't be hard at all. If its on the game, that definitely more tricky but doable
Or just use a dry erase marker if it's sharpie because dry erase markers have a solvent in them for sharpie. Scribble over the marker on it and use a cloth to clean it off.
As a coin collector coin grading by PCGS and NGC predated game grading by many decades. They’ve been doing it since the mid 1980s. However unlike Game grading if PCGS or NGC damages your coin during the grading process they will pay you the fair market value of the coin or replace it with a replacement of the same coin of equal condition. In this case WATA should pay Ryan the fair market value of a similar condition copy of Pokemon Red OR replace his copy with another sealed authentic copy of Pokemon Red in equal condition to his.
Also, those anti theft stickers are notoriously hard to remove. Surprised they offer “deep cleaning” for those kinds of stickers (and that they don’t f it up more often).
My theory is that the Target employee pressed the sticker against the box to the right, so when they took it off, the stress was relieved and the shrink wrap went back to where it was originally. As for the "receiving" writing, yeah that's a colossal fuck-up, what in the holy hell even happened. I can't imagine any situation where they'd deliberately write that on the game though, I'm 99.9% sure it's on the protective casing inside. Both copies have the same subtle indent on the middle-right where the seam lines up, so they must be the same copies.
Bruh, I'm so sorry to hear that this was the outcome of your experience with WATA. They really messed up and didn't make it right. Lawyer up? They really need to compensate you for this atrocity.
I swear they graded my box a 7 and cart 7… i feel like the box is an 8.5 and my cart was minty… i don’t get it. I have 2 other orders i hope they come back fairly graded this time. Great video 🔥 and sorry about the situation… unreal. Like we all said “oh wata mess”
they over graded everything in 2019 and 2020 so in 2021, theyre purposely downgrading everything to make pop reports look more realistic when they release them...
Something definelty needs to be done with them. They need to be held accountable when the fuck up someone's item this badly. If it was like a 100$ item, whatever, but this is terrible. They should be embarrassed that they provided this grading, cleaning and customer service.
Jeepers....I can unfortunately understand the tear caused by the attempted removal of the sticker (I can't believe they didn't admit fault for that), but the writing on the front.....the worst.
Unacceptable. I’d write a VERY strongly worded email to them, and demand a refund for both the grading, and the los of value. This might be grounds for a lawsuit
That's fkd up. I leave stickers on unless they are very obtrusive. Security tags are a PIA and hard to remove for a reason -theft prevention , 90% of time will tear the seal. Price stickers use Goo Gone, soak for 5-10 min if difficult. GL next time.
Wow what a horrific business…safe to say I will never ever grade anything with WATA. If you can’t respect the customers who keep your lights on you shouldn’t be in business, hope you can get some sort of compensation for your terrible experience
The angle of the magnetic sticker and the clear portion around it matches the way the sticker was angled originally so I don't think they swapped your game. However that writing on the front has to be a joke. WTF is that!
Well you got scammed. Are You shore that is You actual copy. They just keeped your and send You the crappy one of other client. The position of the alarm looks off
Wata Slogan :”Wata U talkin About”
Grading does not need to be a thing for video game collecting. Don't let these vultures pretending to be "preservationists" dig their roots into the video game community.
Fr that’s why I open all my shit
Naturally when there's millions and possibly billions of dollars circulating around a certain market, us consumers need confirmation and validation that everything is real or else there would be many many more scams
not if the video game is sealed and you want to keep it that way.
For games that are 20-30 years old, you do need to preserve them with grading unfortunately
@@sorrycashonly5651 no way. not true at all. you can pickup a videogame grading slab and preserve it yourself. the company doesn't do anything fancy. if anything they'll just mess it up more.
wrong
You should compare the games in detail, its still possible they lost your game and just said they "found it" and replaced it with that defect copy
Lost, or tried switching copies to stockpile their 10's?
@@matthewchavez5322 exactly that’s what I was thinking they gotta keep those 9-10 for themselves. I hope he sue them because even the pictures they send him once they received the games don’t have writing on the front.
"WATA, where our accountability to your valuable collectibles, is NADA"
Most likely that isn't your game even, the magnetic sticker is much farther right.
They might have lost the game or someone swapped it somewhere.
It definitely is in my opinion. The plastic stretch marks on the front match up pretty well to the before pictures. That would be impossible to imitate. They clearly lost the package in transit and the carrier probably wrote on the front. If that was done by WATA then holy shit that's bad.
And they didn't even remove all of the security sticker either, so it looks more of a mess than when it had the full Target sticker on it.
It was fubar to even try and mess with that security sticker, both this dude and Wata are idiots and need to stay away from video games
Just heard about this on the CUPodcast. That sucks dude. Another great reason to avoid sending anything to, or buying anything from WATA. That company needs to go down. The quicker the better. And the best way to make that happen is for everyone to stop using their service or purchasing anything that they have graded.
Unless the courts take them down first for all of their shady business practices….
I wonder if they swapped out your game and send you some kind of replacement they found online.
I don’t understand what would cause anyone at any grading company to write on the product
Super sorry to hear about this. Glad to hear your buddies are all in NJ now though!
I feel really bad for you. I would be extremely upset with what happened here. This is absolutely unreal! They basically lost your game (better copy) and gave you a different game in much worse condition. I am speechless!
Take them to court man
- They need to be accountable
- You got it graded to be displayed?
$ure.......
Yeah man Karl Jobst just did a whole in depth video about the shadiness of that company certainly best to stay away from WATA....
Yeah his video was a good watch
Super sorry to see how terribly they treated your game... hopefully they take responsibility and make it right!! If not theres a whole community of hardcore collectors that are ready to come down on them!! Between the market manipulation and then something like this.. just cannot be tolerated!
Yeah everyone knows bro
His video came out some weeks back. Ryan sent this months ago.
The dislikes are from the employees at wata that „lost“ or destroyed your game.
Thank godyou took photos of it before you sent it out.
I'm no defender of Wata but the rip being there before or not is inconclusive based on what is shown. The rip is very close to where the sticker was and that can be evaluated by taking a snippet at 5:04 and comparing it to 5:43. The angles are different so its very tough to tell but I agree that it probably happened in removing the sticker. Filming sticker removal is a great idea as someone mentioned. However, you cant tell if the marker is on the acrylic or the game itself? There is a space between the case and the game itself. That's unreal if indeed on the game.
This video makes me realize never to send any of my sealed collectables to anyone for any reason but to sell them
7:12 holy shit dude. My heart dropped. That is fucking insane. I will never use them after seeing this.
Man, sorry to see that happened. This is legit the craziest grading mishap I've seen. Tearing the seal, and then writing on the game. Just when you thought WATA couldn't get any worse.
I’m blown away you tried to get them to remove that sticker.
I would have not tried to remove that sticker. Those security tags with the square pattern underneath are incredibly difficult to remove, even on the more durable plastic on a new ps2 game for example. With how fragile a gameboy plastic seal is, you are guranteed to damage the seal. I have removed those security tags from a ps2 game, and even if removed the plastic is still impressed from that seal and wont look good. In any case yes, WATA ripped the seal trying to remove the sticker it was an impossible task, and they are obviously too incompetent for the task regardless
What the actual hell. I will never take my games there. That is absurd. They should compensate you for full value.
Dude. I'm so sorry man. That's rough man. I look forward to what they say to that.
bro this is kinda more depressing than the taliban.. :( how could they do that to you. but that target sticker was kinda crack... and in the future if target ever died. that coulda have made it worth more... im so sorry you put your trust in them. you should find more people since wata opened that has issues with this "cleaning" service" and open a lawsuit.
ps didnt realize the sticker was the metal sticker :((((
I guess they only want their copies to be worth more
I mean you could easily assume there are a limited number of these games still sealed. Every "9/10" they receive they could theoretically mark or accidentally rip and turn their handful of 8s into 9s by ruining the few solid 9/10s honest people are sending in to them. And with these wait times who knows what could be happening. It's all the more reason to not bother with shady companies like Wata.
Y'all make sure to like this video, this video needs to go viral. Absolutely unacceptable
Damn dude, this whole saga has been beyond a nightmare for you. So frustrating to see, and sorry you’re having to go through this. I knew from IG there was writing on the front, but man when i saw your reaction as you turned it over, my heart sank for you.
Mann im beyond sorry this happened! Hopefully with everything going on in the news and Karl's video makes them really step up their grading game. Aswell as deffinatly hope they compensate you for that. Thats disgusting
No, WATA needs to go away !
Their business practices isn't organic at all !
100% they gave your game to someone else. And they spent months trying to find it.
Absolutely this.
obviously
WTF?!?! 🤬 To quote the AVGN: „WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?!“
How did you manage to keep your cool? I wouldve leapt through the email at WATA as soon as i turned it over and seen that BS! Goodluck with dealing with their next round of excuses, i am devastated that after all this crap...this is the result!
Aw man I’m sorry 🥺 that’s not right! I hope they can rectify the situation properly with you! Good luck Ryan!
Shameful & unfortunate business operations :(
Sorry this happened to you
Also, sick room with all the tubs of goodies!
You know it's a good one when it starts with a cat.
Dude I thought we had bad experiences….I honestly think that might not be the same game you sent in. Stickers don’t seem to be lined up the same…I could be way off. Ive been suspect of them selling our own games and possibly replacing them and that’s why some stuff has been taking so long. Me and my partner Korey both still have speed run orders we haven’t gotten back yet from April. Total fucking bullshit. They’ve all but lost credibility with us. This vid just puts it over the top. I’m not surprised unfortunately. We are sorry for your loss - Jim @NM
I wonder what kind of security WATA has. Seems like maybe a good place to pull off a heist.
Yo was there an update on this tragedy? I’m searching your vids but don’t see anything. Maybe I missed it I dunno but I need an update!
They are supposed to replace it….still waiting lol
@@CTR damn dude. keep us posted if they ever do
I would be PISSED!
No compensation??? This needs to go viral. That must be thousands of dollars lost in value....
Im sorry you dealt with this company. So much has come out about them lately. I surely they compensate you for the product that was damaged
I know this is bad mate but any publicity is good publicity as they say I’m afraid to say I never heard of you before this but you’ve now gained a new sub in me n I reckon your subs will shoot up abit from all this so there’s a silver lining to all clouds I look forward to checking out your previous content 😉👍
We should spread the word about this and share the video around. This is unbelievable.
Turn off the light and shine a flashlight on the side, if the light shines behind the letters it's on the plastic case.
I’m a Jersey boy!!! Big things coming brotha
This is why I NEVER would think about paying WATA to "Heavy Clean" my games. If I feel comfortable removing a sticker with Bestine, I'll do it. Otherwise I just keep them on. Not worth damaging. These security stickers are a PITA to remove, especially from delicate shrink-wrap.
I lined up the pre image with what they sent you, and it definitely looks like they tore it. I also can't tell, due to lighting differences and the case and everything, but I'm not sure the puckering lines up between the two.
And that "Receiving" on the front is a huge wtf. If this is the one you sent them, they were probably trying to figure out how to clean off the sharpie.
The twist at the end was so good, my heart legit skipped a beat.
Bro, I feel sorry for you, for real. Good job on the video, though, I'm sure it will pay off.
(Sub'd)
Wow. Cant believe you had such a terrible experience with the grading. As a "new collector" definitely appreciate having this kind of knowledge before sending my own games to grading.
New to the channel but definitely love the content. 👍
Glad Contri covered your incident. Wata is a crock for a number of reasons it seems. Hope you can get something sorted out. GL.
I'm pretty sure the writing is on the inner plastic holder. Still crazy though that someone didn't notice that or at least... look at the game before shipping it to you. 😒
Yeah I’m sure it is too and yeah idk how you could miss it
Oooooof. I feel for you dude. That is a mess WATA has had my copy of Budokai since mid-March. They dodge my questions constantly. Definitely won’t be working with them again myself. I hope you get compensated for you definite loss!
I'm guessing they over saturated it with steam and tried to peel it off with tweezers rather than scrape it with a small very sharp blade. I've removed a lot of stickers from sealed games I've graded, that is so hard to look at especially because it was so clean to begin with.
What ever happened about the Sharpie on the front?
Just got back 3 of 12 games from WataGames and all 3 are damaged ... My video showing the damages will be live on 9/8/22 at 4pm PST.
Holy shit. I’m so sorry man.
I don't think the game is swapped. The sticker angle and position are correct (the outer edges of the sticker would be where they are if the core was positioned like that. It is all correct). It says, "Receiving" on the front. It is possible they write on all the games (probably a dry erase marker) and forgot to wipe it off because they were so focused on their error on the back.
gawd i want this to go viral! so sorry dude
Bro, what were they thinking?! Thats down right Terrible!! Someone needed an ear beating after that!!!
What I hate about emailing customer service for anything is most of the time, you get that copy and paste bs response which is extremely irritating, especially when the reason you contacted them in the first place was for an important issue
Hey, do you have any updates you can share on this?
Still waiting on Wata to find a replacement….going on 4 months lol
Absolutely mind boggling bad.... If you want to try and get the writing off, generally a magic eraser would take that off quite easily(with a tiny bit of 91-99 percent alcohol. If its just on the WATA case, shouldn't be hard at all. If its on the game, that definitely more tricky but doable
Or just use a dry erase marker if it's sharpie because dry erase markers have a solvent in them for sharpie. Scribble over the marker on it and use a cloth to clean it off.
What did they write on the cover? I could not make it out
It almost looks like "receiving" but the "n" looks weird
As a coin collector coin grading by PCGS and NGC predated game grading by many decades. They’ve been doing it since the mid 1980s.
However unlike Game grading if PCGS or NGC damages your coin during the grading process they will pay you the fair market value of the coin or replace it with a replacement of the same coin of equal condition.
In this case WATA should pay Ryan the fair market value of a similar condition copy of Pokemon Red OR replace his copy with another sealed authentic copy of Pokemon Red in equal condition to his.
Is there an update to this because wow that’s so F’d!
NO WAY brother....
Also, those anti theft stickers are notoriously hard to remove. Surprised they offer “deep cleaning” for those kinds of stickers (and that they don’t f it up more often).
Why take off the stickers in a sealed game?
they didn't write on the box, they sent you another game, duh.
My theory is that the Target employee pressed the sticker against the box to the right, so when they took it off, the stress was relieved and the shrink wrap went back to where it was originally. As for the "receiving" writing, yeah that's a colossal fuck-up, what in the holy hell even happened. I can't imagine any situation where they'd deliberately write that on the game though, I'm 99.9% sure it's on the protective casing inside. Both copies have the same subtle indent on the middle-right where the seam lines up, so they must be the same copies.
Did you sell it?
What ever happened to this? Did you follow up with it?
They gave you a totally different game it looks like.
I would have just left the sticker there. You can never remove all of it anyway or there would be some residue left. Too much risk removing stickers.
Bruh, I'm so sorry to hear that this was the outcome of your experience with WATA. They really messed up and didn't make it right. Lawyer up? They really need to compensate you for this atrocity.
I swear they graded my box a 7 and cart 7… i feel like the box is an 8.5 and my cart was minty… i don’t get it. I have 2 other orders i hope they come back fairly graded this time. Great video 🔥 and sorry about the situation… unreal. Like we all said “oh wata mess”
they over graded everything in 2019 and 2020 so in 2021, theyre purposely downgrading everything to make pop reports look more realistic when they release them...
@@deedeemerry1295 dude I completely agree
Damn, that makes it look ugly. Makes you not even want to display it. There's no way I'd display that eyesore.
Something definelty needs to be done with them. They need to be held accountable when the fuck up someone's item this badly. If it was like a 100$ item, whatever, but this is terrible. They should be embarrassed that they provided this grading, cleaning and customer service.
Do you think they’re damaging someone else games to protect their (wata) owned games to keep those high prices and protect their investment?
I’m pretty sure there just switching them out with their own low grade inventory
I'm just gonna buy my own cases if I ever blow my money on a sealed game. Screw any of these services.
You handled this way better than I would’ve. I would’ve been flowing with apple juice if I was dealing with this. 🤦🏽♂️
What? Just…like…what? I’m baffled. This was a jaw dropper
thumbs on great video always keep up the great work
Jeepers....I can unfortunately understand the tear caused by the attempted removal of the sticker (I can't believe they didn't admit fault for that), but the writing on the front.....the worst.
Unacceptable. I’d write a VERY strongly worded email to them, and demand a refund for both the grading, and the los of value. This might be grounds for a lawsuit
This should be the last straw everyone needs to stop sending stuff to wata.
Heard really shady things regarding wata. But honestly you hear shady stuff from all grading companies not just gaming
That’s crazy man… you deserve a refund at the minimum or a free grade
What? he deserves the value of the sent copy.
@@danmac0 I definitely agree
Wow on the gsme ?
That's fkd up. I leave stickers on unless they are very obtrusive. Security tags are a PIA and hard to remove for a reason -theft prevention , 90% of time will tear the seal. Price stickers use Goo Gone, soak for 5-10 min if difficult. GL next time.
Wow this is infuriating 😬 what the hell did they do??? They need to be sued. Absolutely ridiculous.
Yikes that sucks dawg they did you dirty on that one
Wow what a horrific business…safe to say I will never ever grade anything with WATA. If you can’t respect the customers who keep your lights on you shouldn’t be in business, hope you can get some sort of compensation for your terrible experience
The angle of the magnetic sticker and the clear portion around it matches the way the sticker was angled originally so I don't think they swapped your game. However that writing on the front has to be a joke. WTF is that!
Thanks for sharing this bro.... I'll likely never use Wata
This is actually such a WTF experience. So sorry dude :(
Dude, did they write ✍ on your game???
It is VERY CLEAR to me that Wata ripped it during the deep cleaning. I feel bad that they did this to you :(
Ohhh shit pumped to hear about Pokémon radar moving!! Sorry to hear about your shit experience
Well you got scammed. Are You shore that is You actual copy. They just keeped your and send You the crappy one of other client. The position of the alarm looks off