PSA Lawsuit 2026, Everything We Know About the Fraud, RICO, and Antitrust Cases Against the Trading Card Grading Giant

Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), the dominant trading card grading company, and its parent company Collectors Holdings Inc. are currently facing three separate federal lawsuits filed between April and July 2026. The cases allege, respectively: (1) consumer fraud and civil RICO violations tied to PSA’s grading practices, (2) individual claims of grading manipulation and insider conflicts of interest, and (3) antitrust violations stemming from Collectors’ acquisitions of competing grading companies SGC and Beckett. None of the cases have been resolved, no settlement exists, and there is currently no consumer claim form to file — these are proposed class actions and individual suits still in early litigation.

Quick Facts

Defendants	PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator); Collectors Holdings Inc.; in the antitrust case, also SGC and Beckett
Number of active lawsuits	3 (Funk, Lichtman, Rasmussen)
Lead fraud/RICO case	Funk v. Collectors Universe Inc. et al., Case No. 1:26-cv-02933, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
Individual grading-conflict case	Lichtman v. Collectors Universe Inc. et al., Case No. 8:26-cv-02048, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
Antitrust case	Rasmussen v. Collectors Holdings Inc. et al., Case No. 8:26-cv-00897, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
Funk case filed	July 28, 2026
Lichtman case filed	July 21, 2026 (state court); removed to federal court July 30, 2026
Rasmussen case filed	April 2026; amended complaint proposed August 3, 2026
Class status	All proposed/putative — no class has been certified by a court yet
Settlement reached?	No
Is there a claim form?	No — nothing to file yet; these cases have not reached a settlement stage

Background: Who Is PSA, and Why Does Its Grading Matter?

PSA is the largest sports and trading card grading company in the world, assigning condition grades on a 1-to-10 scale that heavily influence what a card is worth on the secondary market. A “PSA 10” (Gem Mint) grade can be worth many multiples of the same card graded lower. PSA has been owned by Collectors Holdings Inc. (formerly Collectors Universe) since 2021.

Collectors has expanded well beyond grading in recent years. In addition to PSA, the company owns:

• SGC, a competing grading service acquired in February 2024
• Beckett, another major competing grader, acquired more recently
• CardLadder, a card price-tracking and data platform
• PSA Vault, a card storage service
• Collectors Financial Services and PSA Partner Offers, additional financial and marketplace products

That combination — one company grading cards, tracking their prices, storing them, financing them, and facilitating their resale — is the common thread running through all three lawsuits.

PSA has also been dealing with an operational crisis in 2026: a submission backlog that reached roughly 10 million cards by May, prompting PSA to temporarily pause its lower-cost Value, Value Bulk, Value Plus, and Value Max submission tiers in June. By July 28, 2026, the backlog had grown to approximately 12.4 million cards. PSA has said a newly opened grading facility in Plano, Texas will add capacity as it works toward reopening the paused tiers.

Related case: California Aquarium Lobster Lawsuit, Inside the Maine Lobstermen vs. Monterey Bay Aquarium Defamation Fight

Lawsuit #1: Funk v. Collectors Universe — Fraud and RICO Claims

This is the broadest and most consumer-facing of the three cases, and the one most people mean when they search “PSA lawsuit.”

Who filed it: Nicholas Funk, a Baltimore-area collector, filed the case July 28, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The complaint runs 188 pages. Funk is represented by the law firm Eldridge Crandell LLC.

Funk’s personal claim: Funk says he submitted about seven cards, including Cal Ripken Jr. rookie cards, for grading through a Maryland intermediary (rather than his own PSA account) in March 2025, paying roughly $300 in fees. That detail matters legally: Funk argues that because he submitted through an intermediary rather than opening his own PSA account, he never personally agreed to PSA’s arbitration clause and class action waiver — a provision that might otherwise block a class action like this one from proceeding.

Who the case wants to represent: A proposed nationwide class of customers who paid PSA grading fees, particularly those who — like Funk — submitted cards through dealers, card shops, or other intermediaries rather than through their own PSA accounts.

Core allegations:

• PSA markets its grading as objective, standardized, and independent, while the complaint alleges the process actually relies on subjective “eye appeal” judgments — including internal criteria reportedly framed around what the market will accept for a given card.
• The complaint alleges grading outcomes are shaped by production quotas, compressed review windows, and criteria that change without being disclosed to customers.
• Funk’s complaint alleges PSA manages how many cards receive top “Gem Mint 10” grades through ratio-based practices, and applies heightened scrutiny to cards featuring premium players or characters — effectively controlling supply of the highest, most valuable grades.
• The complaint opens with an allegation about PSA’s very first certified card: a T206 Honus Wagner assigned certification number 00000001. Funk alleges PSA knew the card had been trimmed — an alteration that, under PSA’s own published standards, should have disqualified it from receiving a numerical grade at all — but assigned it an NM-MT 8 anyway, never disclosed the alteration, and never withdrew the certification. The complaint frames this as symbolic of the company’s foundation.
• The lawsuit also targets PSA’s “value upcharge” practice: when a card’s post-grading market value exceeds the maximum insured value a customer originally selected, PSA charges more. Funk argues this doesn’t reflect any additional grading cost and functions as a disguised extra grading fee rather than a legitimate insurance charge.
• The complaint places these allegations in the context of Collectors’ broader business, arguing that Collectors sits on multiple sides of grading-dependent transactions — grading the card, tracking and publishing its price data, storing it, financing it, and facilitating its resale — creating financial incentives that conflict with objective grading.

Legal claims: Federal civil RICO violations based on alleged mail and wire fraud, along with Maryland consumer protection law claims and common-law claims.

Relief sought: Recovery of grading-related charges paid, restitution, treble (triple) damages where available under RICO, and an injunction against the challenged practices.

Status: PSA and Collectors had not filed a formal response as of early August 2026. The allegations are unproven.

Lawsuit #2: Lichtman v. Collectors Universe — An Individual High-End Collector’s Case

This case is narrower and more personal than the Funk case, brought by a single high-value collector rather than as a proposed class action.

Who filed it: Steve Lichtman, whose collection reportedly includes high-grade Honus Wagner, Mickey Mantle, and Wilt Chamberlain cards. He filed in Orange County Superior Court on July 21, 2026; the case was removed to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on July 30, 2026.

Core allegations:

• Lichtman alleges PSA undergraded some of his cards, refused to “cross” (re-certify under the PSA label) cards that had been graded by competing services, and applied stricter standards to his recent submissions while preserving older grades on other cards that he says were inflated.
• The complaint alleges some of PSA’s grading decisions were influenced by the financial interests of Collectors executives, investors, or shareholders who personally own competing examples of the same cards — a practice the complaint calls “population control,” where PSA allegedly limits how many examples of a prominent card receive high grades in order to protect the value of existing graded examples.
• The lawsuit specifically names Collectors CEO Nat Turner, whose personal collection reportedly includes between 15,000 and 20,000 PSA-graded cards. Lichtman alleges PSA treated him unfairly after he questioned whether Turner’s ownership of a highly graded 1952 Bowman Mickey Mantle card influenced PSA’s refusal to cross a competing card Lichtman owned, and that Turner reacted with hostility.
• Lichtman disputes PSA’s likely defense that grading is inherently subjective, arguing the company markets grading to consumers as a consistent, objective service worth paying for.
• The complaint also extends to Collectors’ handling of SGC after acquiring it in February 2024. Collectors said at the time that SGC would keep operating independently; Lichtman alleges Collectors instead curtailed SGC’s operations and controlled its pricing to prevent it from competing with PSA, damaging the value of cards graded by SGC.

Relief sought: Lichtman says his losses exceed $5 million and is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, restitution, and an injunction requiring grading practices insulated from insider conflicts of interest.

Collectors’ response: A company spokesperson told The Athletic that Lichtman’s claims are without merit and that PSA would never compromise its grading independence, characterizing a grade as an expert opinion whose value depends on not being influenced by pressure or litigation. The company framed the case as a dispute with a collector unhappy that PSA wouldn’t assign the grades he wanted.

Lawsuit #3: Rasmussen v. Collectors Holdings — The Antitrust Case

This is the oldest and most financially focused of the three cases, targeting Collectors’ consolidation of the grading market rather than individual grading decisions.

Who filed it: Michael Rasmussen filed the case in April 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, naming Collectors, PSA, SGC, and Beckett as defendants.

Core allegations:

• Before Collectors’ acquisitions, the complaint says four major independent grading companies existed: PSA (already owned by Collectors since 2021, controlling roughly 72% of the market), SGC (roughly 5%), Beckett, and others — with SGC and Beckett offering meaningfully lower prices and faster turnaround times that gave collectors real competitive alternatives to PSA.
• The complaint alleges Collectors’ acquisitions of SGC (February 2024) and Beckett created an illegal monopoly, and that the company used its resulting market power to raise prices and reduce service quality across its grading businesses.
• A proposed amended complaint filed August 3, 2026 adds new plaintiffs — California collector Erick Azarian and Pennsylvania collector Andrew Fedynyshyn — along with additional claims and factual detail. The proposed amendment alleges that before the acquisition, SGC offered grading for as little as $15 per card with turnaround estimates of five to ten business days; afterward, SGC’s lowest price rose to $18, expedited service jumped from $40 to $150, and turnaround estimates eventually stretched to 40–50 business days. The complaint further alleges Collectors moved staff and office space from SGC to PSA, shrinking SGC into a smaller boutique operation focused on vintage cards — with SGC’s monthly grading volume allegedly falling from about 150,000 cards in July 2025 to 50,000 by October, even as competing graders grew.
• The proposed amendment also adds allegations about Beckett, saying its in-person grading prices at card shows more than doubled after acquisition (from about $25 to $60), and that at the National Sports Collectors Convention, Beckett charged a minimum of roughly $125 per card compared to PSA’s roughly $230.
• The plaintiffs connect this to PSA’s own 2026 price and turnaround increases, including the June suspension of its lowest-cost submission tiers, arguing that keeping only higher-priced tiers open — while the backlog grew — reduced collectors’ access to affordable grading and temporarily made $74.99 the minimum price for a new PSA submission.

Collectors’ defense: The company has previously called the case “long on rhetoric but devoid of substance,” arguing that acquiring smaller grading companies to add capacity during a period of surging demand is a standard, procompetitive business response rather than an antitrust violation. Collectors has asked the court to dismiss the case or compel arbitration.

Status: As of early August 2026, the proposed amended complaint and a joint stipulation to allow it had been filed but not yet signed off on by the court.

What Ties the Three Cases Together

Although the legal theories differ — fraud and RICO in Funk, individual grading-conflict claims in Lichtman, antitrust in Rasmussen — all three center on the same underlying structural concern: PSA assigns the number that determines a huge amount of a trading card’s market value, while its parent company, Collectors Holdings, increasingly controls the businesses that price, store, finance, insure, and resell the very same cards. Critics — including Congressman Pat Ryan, who requested an FTC investigation in December 2025 — have argued this vertical integration gives Collectors control of more than 80% of the grading market while also shaping the pricing data and secondary sales built on top of it.

Is There a PSA Settlement or Claim Form Right Now?

No. All three cases are in early stages of litigation. None has reached a settlement, none has had a class certified by a court, and none of the allegations have been proven. If you’re searching for a “PSA lawsuit claim form” or payout, there isn’t one to file yet — this page will be updated if that changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is PSA being sued?

 Yes — PSA and parent company Collectors Holdings are currently defending three separate lawsuits filed in 2026: a proposed nationwide fraud and RICO class action (Funk), an individual high-value collector’s grading-conflict lawsuit (Lichtman), and a proposed antitrust class action over PSA’s acquisitions of SGC and Beckett (Rasmussen).

What is the PSA class action lawsuit about?

 The primary class action, filed by Nicholas Funk in Maryland federal court on July 28, 2026, alleges PSA misrepresents its grading process as objective while actually relying on subjective evaluations shaped by production pressure and undisclosed criteria changes, and brings federal civil RICO claims tied to those allegations.

Can I join the PSA lawsuit or file a claim? 

Not yet. These are proposed class actions and an individual suit, not settlements. No class has been certified, and there’s no claim form or payout process available at this stage.

Did PSA really grade a trimmed Honus Wagner card?

 That’s an allegation in the Funk complaint, not a proven fact. The lawsuit claims PSA’s first-ever certified card — a T206 Honus Wagner — had been trimmed, that PSA knew this, and that it assigned the card a grade anyway without disclosing the alteration. PSA has not publicly responded to that specific allegation as of this writing.

What is the PSA antitrust lawsuit about?

 Filed by Michael Rasmussen in April 2026 and currently being amended, this case alleges Collectors Holdings’ acquisitions of competing graders SGC and Beckett created an illegal monopoly in the card-grading market, leading to higher prices and reduced service quality — including at SGC, where prices allegedly rose and turnaround times allegedly lengthened dramatically after the acquisition.

How has PSA responded to these lawsuits?

 As of early August 2026, PSA and Collectors had not filed formal responses to the Funk or Rasmussen complaints. Regarding the Lichtman case, a Collectors spokesperson called the claims without merit and defended the independence of PSA’s grading process.

Sources: Dexerto (July 29, 2026); SEScoops (July 30, 2026); ICv2 (Aug. 4, 2026); Value Added Resource (Aug. 4, 2026); court filings in Funk v. Collectors Universe Inc. et al. (D. Md., No. 1:26-cv-02933), Lichtman v. Collectors Universe Inc. et al. (C.D. Cal., No. 8:26-cv-02048), and Rasmussen v. Collectors Holdings Inc. et al. (C.D. Cal., No. 8:26-cv-00897). This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. All allegations described are unproven claims from civil complaints unless otherwise noted.