I understand your point and while it might not follow the definition of a scam, it surely threads dangerously closes to it when the biggest and most used company by TCG players has been recently known for buying cards from customers only to re-grade them up and sell it themselves on the market, creating a vortex of conflict of interest.

And I do understand the activity of rating, but I still fail to see how truly meaningful it is if all the companies have such wide margins of error that they'll give wildly different ratings to the same card if sent back again. It would make more sense if the company would limit itself to a) certifying that the card is not fake, and b) to note its main defects on the tag.

Grading from 1 to 10 is obviously a tactic to continuosly play with the market, creating scarcity when it is most convenient, and to enable the gambling addiction of customers who think that this time it'll surely get a grade 10; and so the customer has to pay for: shipping, fees (which are crazy expensive, and they get higher if your card is more expensive for some reason), the card holder made for shipping sold by the company, and a box also usually sold by the company.

People can do what they want with their money, if this is how one wants to collect, shall they do so. But when the whole market and felt value revolves around grading from a handful of companies, something is fishy. There are countless kids in the world convinced that the rare card they just got from their Pokémon booster is worthless if they don't spend a hundred bucks grading it.