Hey folks!

I’m not much in to the graded aspect of NES collecting, but decided to submit a sealed game I own simply for protection and to also see how the process plays out.

For those who have submitted, does it generally take the full 45 days for completion of the grading process?

thanks!
NQ

They are swamped as hell, so yeah it will take close to the 45 days, and keep in mind that is business days, so closer to two months.

Cool. Glad to see the start up has turned into a thriving business. I have a couple other items I may send their way, has the overall experience with them been positive overall?

Incredibly, yes. Only thing I’d say as caution is expect CIB stuff in particular to be graded on a raw, objective scale. Meaning something you might personally think is a 9.4, because it’s better than 95% of the stuff you see, might actually be an 8.0 because it’s not graded on scale but in a vaccuum on its own. If that makes sense? A 7.5 overall CIB, though, is something I’d say a number of people would describe as “mint.” The grading has been entirely consistent, which is the most important thing. 
 

It depends on tier too, if you pay for faster services you can get them back quicker. You decide what is more important, time in receiving them back or grading them as cheap as you can.

I submitted 60 games at select level (45 days) and got half of them early at MGC (paid a small expedite fee) got the other half on time if you count them as business days which isn't clearly defined on the site (or maybe it is in small print) either way I am a happy Wata customer.

Dang....I'm growing a little impatient. No updates to the order when I log in, no answers to emails....

I submitted my select order at the end of may and still waiting. Would be about the same timeframe as yours.

Sent in a turbo (15days) order a month ago and got the grades this week so they were running about 1 week late on that tier. It'll happen at some point keep the fate!

I'm starting to get my mid-late April Select grades and all of my Turbos (15 day) are caught up. They're starting to make significant progress.

Took about 6 weeks to get the grades on my 15 day sub, so about double the projected time. It's been two weeks since that and it hasn't shipped, but as others have said, things are moving.

At this point, it would really behoove them to send another mass email just explaining where the current estimates are and how long they think this will be the case. People are reasonable, any information is better than zero communication.

One of Wata's strength's are that they are "from the community." Well speak to your community guys. 

I want to send in a dozen or so games just worries me with them soo busy something could happen and they get lost in the shuffle.

My select order was June 10 so sounds like I've got maybe a month or two to go still...

See that’s my thing.  If they’re communitcating with you, it’s very easy to be forgiving.  I’m getting ZERO response to multiple inquiries.  If you have a selling point, essentially a business “promise”, and you’re not even close to living up to it, be more upfront about it.  

I’m generally pretty patient person, but getting close to the point of saying, “cancel my order, return my game.  I’m sending it to the other guy.”
 

The company is in its infancy and growing pains shouldn't come as a surprise. I got a couple late night notifications a few weeks back about a deep badge & a shipping notice, which tells me these guys are grinding hard to get caught up so I'm pretty forgiving.

How long did it take between the time you got your grades and the time you got the shipping notice?

Completely agree. It doesn't take long to reply to e-mails. A little goodwill goes a long way.
 

Another week passes since my latest email sent....still zero response. Have any of you had any direct response from them?

Wata etc are all sites I'd stay away from. They are helping to convoluted the gaming world more so than they already, especially with how sites like NA have brought so many more people to the "hobby". Good luck with your resolution.

I wouldn't give this "Wata" one cent of my hard earned money.

Wanted to pass along some communication I have seen from the Wata FB in the last 24 hours.....

Recent Wata Posts in the last 24 hours via Facebook on 9/5

Hello everyone, this is Deniz Kahn. Things are cranking up here at Wata and we have a backlog of games to grade and send out. As you can imagine, we have put all of our resources to working through them all and as a result we have focused on both grading and shipping a substantial amount of games each day, albeit to the detriment of our social media and email management. I would like to personally apologize for not only the delay but the lack of communication. Our customers are incredibly important to us and your patience and patronage means the world to us. As such, we are adding more people to the Wata team; one of them is our new social media person, Bryan, who is going to man our social media accounts. Bryan will be able to answer questions regularly and accurately, and will be able to funnel requests to the proper channels when required. We have more people coming on board to help with the operations and are committed to working around the clock (literally) so that we can minimize our backlog and get your orders completed as soon as possible.

We are committed to providing you the same quality in service and product that we have stood by since day one. Thank you to everyone who's sending us games and more importantly thank you all for your patience during this exciting time of growth.


2nd Post----

I see a lot of concern with delays, we are working our best to address all of your concerns. Here are some Do's and Don'ts that will assist in preventing further delays.

Do's and Don'ts:

DO:

1) Please pack your games with Scotch Tape (or no tape) so that we can unpack easily without having to worry about damaging the item.

2) Please put your submission form in the box with your games. If we do not have your order number at minimum, there will be a delay in processing your order.

DON'T:

1) Do not DROP SHIP your games to us. Wata will no longer process drop shipped games. There are several reasons for this. First of all, people sometimes think that Wata Games purchased the games which is actually against Wata policy. Wata does not buy or sell games. The second reason is that it is difficult to track down who actually owns the items. If there is no submission form or order number in the box, then it takes a lot of time and effort on our part which slows down the processing of all orders. This creates a major delay.

2) Do not overpack your games and then tape with heavy packing tape. It is very difficult to unpack these as we have to be extra careful to not damage the games while getting the tape off. This is why we prefer Scotch Tape.

3) Do not send in any oversized games. Take the time to refer to our FAQ for what games we can currently grade. If you send in something oversized or odd, you will have to wait until we can encapsulate it.

4) Do not add a note to the order if it's something we need to know early in the process. The notes are only for the graders and they're not seen until grading. For example, if you want us to make a note of something before grading, please put a note on the game itself.

5) Do not ask us "pre-grade" crossovers. If you submit a game that's encapsulated by another grading company, we really cannot accurately assess any flaws, condition, or authenticity without removing the game from the case. We can and will safely remove the game but please do not ask for any kind of accurate assessment beforehand.

6) Do not ask us to "pre-screen" orders. Do not submit five examples of something and say, "please choose the best one." This may be a service we offer later but at this point, with our current backlog it's not something we can offer.

Nice to see an update on the actual shipping times. My 15 day submission was placed 7/17, and though it is marked as completed, I haven't received any indication that it is shipped or will be shipped.

Me neither - i have like 4 separate orders marked as complete and have no indication that it's shipped or will be shipped. They typically send an email saying an order is shipping correct?

Yes, an email from Wata and 2 from Fedex.

I often wonder...how do you "learn" to be a professional video game grader? Where do you get a universal grading scale from? Do places like WATA create their own guidelines and go from there? So basically you are paying someone for their "professional" opinion?

the only thing worse than long wait times for games to be graded is to actually have your games done and graded but just sitting there waiting to ship.

No true ill will - i mean Wata games is arguably the single biggest reason this hobby has gone ape the past 6 months (100K sale hype helped obvs), and made alot of you gibronis rich, just kinda funny thinking about graded games sitting there waiting for someone to chuck them in a box and ship.