This is a thorn that's been in my side for a long, long time now, and it's not an isolated incident. It's occurred a few times, and usually by the same authenticator, and the worse occurrence happened at the National in Anaheim in, I believe, 1998, but don't hold me to that. 

I live in Anaheim, so it was a no-brainer that I would be there, and I shelled out the bucks to get the best accessibility to the pro's as I could, and I came away with 19 autographs. It was the only convention that I know of that had ex-champion fighters. These guys were unbelievable. While the baseball players sat at a table, many of them not even looking up at you, the fighters had a ring set up, and when someone asked if they would pose for a group photo, they all jumped into the ring and let us fire away with our cameras. I'm talkin' about Roberto Duran, Leon Spinks, Arron Pryor, Carmen Basillio  (who was something else) Iran Barkley, Jimmy Ellis, and even Jake LaMotta showed up, and more. They didn't hide, or engage in conversation with someone else while you tried to talk to them. I have never witnessed anything like it in my life. Needless to say, I had my picture taken with a half dozen of them, and this is where the problems are.

There was a professional photographer on the scene, and a clean & clear 5x7 was ready for a signature within minutes. These were placed in a cardboard folder that had a large opening to resemble a frame. An employee of PSA was there to take care of the authentication. It didn't occur to me at the time, nor did it occur to me years later to check the numbers on the  item against the number on the 3x5 card that was the Certificate of Authenticity. It so happens that PSA's website reveals that of the six auto's that I got of six different fighters, only three of the numbers match. One fighter has two different numbers assigned to him, while two others have numbers that are not in PSA's bank. Furthermore, all of the stickers were placed on the back of the cardboard folder/frame, and not anywhere on the photo, rendering the authentication process worthless and useless, but allowing a fake auto to replace the authentic auto if someone wanted to do so.

I also purchased a new NFL football for Paul Hornug and Dick Butkus to sign, which they did. However, both of the PSA stickers are hanging on by a thread, if that. I'm afraid to touch them for fear that I would be accused of tampering, and as such, no one would authenticate those signatures again because they wouldn't want to get involved.

This is only one incident that PSA has disappointed me, because there were others, but that's another story, and I'd love to hear others.