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UDA - My disgust with Upper Deck Authentication - My disapointments

For the last 15 years or I've I have loved Upper Deck and thought they were the best autograph company in the game. They had to be didn't they? All their items are signed in person. They have a 5 step gaurentee.
Growing up I purchased a lot of photos by them ( I had to have the real thing and photos were all I could afford). As a huge Michael Jordan fan I needed some of his items but it took me a very long time to get any.
As I got older and earned more money I started building my collection. 1st a photo, then a baseball, then finally the Ultimate a jersey!!!
These were Upper Deck items I thought. They are proven to be the real thing no doubt for life.

A few months ago I was admiring my collection and for interest sake started entering the numbers in the verification on their site. For 95% of my items the number didn't exist on their system. A message flashed up.
"Upper Deck may not have items on their data base that were signed before 2002"
Oh well I thought. No drama. I have the item and the Coa in front of me. It's Upper Deck I'm safe.

I purchased another Jersey, this one limited to 25. Maybe I should sell my other one now, I don't need to be greedy.
For the life of me I couldn't find the Coa. That's ok I thought. I've seen other items for sale before with a replacement, and the replacement looks better then the original so that's ok.
I enter the number on Upper Deck. I get the same message "Items signed before 2002 will not be on the data base. Contact us to register.
So no worries I contact them.
I get an email back asking me what the item is?
I'm thinking, shouldn't they know what the item is?
I tell them the item, its a jersey signed by Jordan.
I get a reply
" This item is not in our data base so we cannot comment on it.
I start to get heated up and send them photos. Look this is your hologram, look at the auto.
I get another reply saying the same thing.
"This item is not in our data base so we cannot comment."
I now get more angry, I tell them I have brought their items for 15 years. I have spent thousands of dollers. This is your item, how can you not comment.
I receive the same message back from them.

I am totally now disgusted in them and am too scared to bother entering or registering my other items.
How can they sell thousands of MJ autos and not be able to comment?
They say their system is unfraudable. 5 step gaurentee. What about this item? They can not comment? I paid $1000 for this. They say their holograms are tamper proof so the holo isn't fake.
If its not in their data base because its too old does that mean every other auto from the same time this applys to?
At signings are the holos in order? The item number before or after mine, was that from a Jordan signing?
Don't they have experts that have seen Jordan sign thousands of times that could verify the autograph?

This all sounds so strange to me and I cannot believe they have just left a long time customer out to dry like this.

You say your items are real, you say cannot be forged. You then don't stand up for your product and just say "we cannot comment because its not in our system.

What if a regular dealer did that?

I'm totally disgusted by them. Their items sell for double/triple the amount of any similar items, based in their promise and gaurentee. Then they do this??

What do you guys think about this?
Has it happened to anyone else?

Tags: Basketball, Deck, James, Jordan, Lebron, Michael, UDA, Upper, verification

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Comment by Mike P on February 7, 2013 at 5:32am: I understand your frustration completely, but maybe a solution is getting it dual authenticated if you have the.feeling you need a coa. I've seen people sell items with.a uda.sticker.and other ones as we'll. In addition, the autograph should speak.for itself so I'm sure people can tell the difference between a real Jordan and a fake.

Comment by Fuddjcal on February 7, 2013 at 7:52am: not to be a dick Myka, but this is what's wrong with the hobby.

Who gives a rats ass about the stupid Certificate??? If it has an upperdeck hologram on it, there's a 99.99% chance it's authentic. You just can't take these off and reapply them. You don't need to deal with industry jack offs. All companies are like this these days. Customer service is a rare commodity. All those years you've been collecting Jordan, was a good opportunity actually learning his autograph, don't you think? You did the second best thing, despite what the idiots at upperdeck told you. Do you really need that extra affirmation?...NO you don't. Stop being so anal like all the other anal collectors out there.

I have never seen such anal people in my life when it comes to these stupid certificates. I sold a Curt Flood Baseball this week that had a "10" signature on the sweet spot. I knew the stupid thing was real, but I thought I would PSA "quick opinion" it because I was asking 280.00. (Most sell for 400+ not close to this condition. I usually just guarantee it will pass PSA or JSA like I give a s..., but the stupid moronic buyers do.

At the last minute I get a second bid that goes over the original bidder and he wins.,... Then the idiot e-mails me and says it was misleading I put PSA in my ad. I put the results of the PSA quick opinion with my usual no question asked return policy. The dumb ass says the "quick opinion is worthless"...NO S*** PSA is worthless too (LOL)...because the auto is Fen beautiful and authentic and you can look for 5 years and not find one at this price. Who needs the stupid cert? He asked to cancel and the underbidder bought in in 5 seconds...This is the kind of stupidity that has been rubbing me the wrong way for over a year. It's the reason I'm a seller and not a buyer. I HATE DEALING WITH JACK-OFFS and this hobby is infected with them...buyers and forgery salesman. Here's the ball for posterity sake.

This is the reason I only sell because buyers are just ANAL EDDIE's when it comes to crAP LIKE THIS... LEAVE IT ALONE...HATE UPPERDECK IF YOU WANT, but at least have some faith your item is real...with all the cheater f'ers out there trying to rip you off, take stock that you have a real item...I hope you enjoy it as much as I do...NOT

Comment by Rich on February 7, 2013 at 7:55am: That's unforgivable by UDA. They've been selling their authentication process as rock solid since the 90's, at least several years before 2002. Now they're basically confessing that their record keeping prior to 2002 was garbage and disowning all products before that time. Add to that the abysmal customer service. Unbelievable.

The problem with a second authentication, other than the fact that there's no way that should be necessary, is that you paid dearly for that Upper Deck name brand. You shouldn't have to pay more for an extra sticker from, arguably, a lesser authenticator.

Comment by shawn on February 7, 2013 at 8:42am: You know, there was a story about Upper Deck and Larry Bird floating around in the early 2000's that UD did not have a rep at a signing for Larry items and Larry's brother was signing them. They had mailed their items to Larry because of scheduling conflicts that continued to arise. I don't know if the story holds any water, but there were quite a few people convinced that this was true. To the point that one dealer in Maryland said that the Bird items he had acquired from their first ever signing with Larry, and the ones he had gotten during this (the mailed off signing) were strikingly different. He vowed never to deal with UDA again and went on to sell cars or something as he completely got out of the business (his whole intention was to sell and be a distributor of UDA items only).
I don't know if that helps you along. But there's got to be some sort of thing with UDA to work on this problem. It seems harmless, but in the long run, it's not. Please keep contacting them. Make some phone calls etc. Don't just email them. If you can get a person on the phone, you might get some answers more quickly.
And customer service across the board sucks. At nearly every job out there that deals with the public, customer service has been thrown out the window.

Comment by Rich on February 7, 2013 at 8:50am: That Bird story, if true, and any supporting evidence would make for a great thread in itself.

Comment by shawn on February 7, 2013 at 9:37am: Sorry, like I said, it was just a story. If I knew the guy in Maryland, I'd contact him. I bought a Larry Bird item off him from that initial first batch of the signings (not the notorious mail in batch). And I remember him packing it up and selling his shop, selling his stuff for basically cost and walking away completely after about 3 years of good business. I don't even remember his name any longer, it was quite a while ago.
I don't believe that it was just a rumor though. The second part of that story goes that apparently Larry didn't like the guy who was Repping UDA for the signings. He liked the CEO and some other people, but the guy who actually comes with the stuff and witnessed the signings, he didn't like. So Larry was trying to come to the UDA office to do the signings only and that's why there were so many scheduling conflicts. Apparently, UDA had tons of orders and people were getting antsy about where there stuff was because the signing dates kept being pushed and pushed to the point that it was nearly a year since they announced before they finally just decided to mail the stuff off.

Comment by Steve Zarelli on February 9, 2013 at 1:31pm: Perhaps there is some legal mumbo jumbo why they can't make any sort of definitive statement. But the response UDA gave would certainly lead me to wonder if there are counterfeit UDA holograms on the market and for one reason or another, UDA can't be sure which is real and which is fake prior to 2002.

Comment by joe camp on February 13, 2013 at 12:57pm: I've been in the same situation with UDA items pre-2002. They cannot be confirmed in the ONLINE database. However, when I contacted them, they asked me to email them pics of the item/hologram/LOA, and within 24 hours, they responding by confirming that all my items were authentic and were in their records. Online records are only good there for 10 years, but they have an offline database that goes back to inception of the company. As long as you have the Hologram#, someone should be able to verify it with not too much of a problem. Keep trying and Good Luck!!

Comment by Douglas Gustafson on February 19, 2013 at 2:54pm: i have a 93 ted williams ball signed from upperdeck called them up and got nothing but excellent customer service i would try calling again to maybe get a better person.