Terms of
Service.

Last updated: July 1, 2026

These Terms of Service are a binding agreement between you and CCA Universe, the company behind CCA Card (ccacard.com). Please read them carefully, they cover how our grading services work, how and when you are charged, our insurance and liability limits, and your responsibilities when using the site.

1. Who We Are & Acceptance of These Terms

CCA Universe (“CCA,” “CCA Card,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) operates the website ccacard.com and provides professional trading card grading, authentication, and encapsulation services, together with a public certification database, population reports, a personal collection registry, community features (forum, news, help center), and an online merchandise shop (collectively, the “Services”).

By creating an account, submitting cards for grading, placing an order, or otherwise using the Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service (the “Terms”) and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

You must be at least 18 years old (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction) to submit cards or make purchases. If you are under 18, you may use the Services only with the involvement and consent of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to these Terms on your behalf.

2. Your Account

Certain Services require an account. You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information (including your legal name, email address, and shipping address) and to keep it up to date. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, that we reasonably believe are engaged in fraud or abuse, or that are used to circumvent a prior suspension. Where an account is banned, associated sessions are revoked and access to the Services may be blocked.

3. Grading Services

CCA grades trading cards, including Pokémon and other trading card games as well as sports cards, using a combination of expert human review and technology-assisted analysis (for example, AI-assisted centering measurement). Each card is evaluated on four sub-grades (Centering, Corners, Edges, and Surface) which combine into a single overall grade on a 1–10 scale. Details of our grade descriptors and designations are published on our Grading Standards page.

In addition to (or instead of) a numeric grade, a card may receive a designation such as Authenticated (AUTH), Autographed, Do Not Holder (returned unencapsulated at your request), or Unable to Authenticate. Genuine print-error cards may be recognized as their own catalog variant.

GRADING IS AN EXPERT OPINION. Card grading is inherently subjective, and reasonable experts can disagree. The grade assigned by CCA reflects our professional opinion of a card’s condition and authenticity at the time of review. It is not a promise, appraisal, or guarantee of market value, and we make no representation that any other grading company would assign the same grade. Except as expressly provided in our published Guarantee, all grades are final.

Our guarantee covering graded trading cards and sports cards is described on our Guarantee page, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

4. Service Levels, Pricing & Turnaround

We offer multiple service levels, currently: Bulk ($8 per card, 10-card minimum), Standard ($10 per card), Express ($25 per card), and Walk-Through ($75 per card). Current pricing is displayed during the submission process and on our Pricing page; prices may change from time to time, but the price shown when you finalize a submission is the price that applies to that submission.

Published turnaround times are good-faith estimates measured from the date we receive and verify your cards, they are not guarantees. Turnaround may be affected by submission volume, card count, holidays, carrier delays, or issues identified during verification (for example, a discrepancy between the cards received and the cards listed on your submission).

5. Submissions

When you create a submission you must identify each card (from our catalog or via manual entry) and assign an accurate declared value reflecting the card’s fair market value in the condition submitted. Declared values are used to determine insurance coverage and our maximum liability; intentionally overstating or understating declared value may result in adjustment, rejection, or cancellation of the submission.

By submitting cards, you represent and warrant that: (a) you own the cards or are authorized by the owner to submit them; (b) the cards are not stolen, misappropriated, or subject to any lien or dispute; and (c) you are not knowingly submitting counterfeit or altered items in an attempt to obtain a favorable result.

You are responsible for securely packaging your cards and shipping them to the address printed on your mailing label (CCA CARD, ATTN: SUBMISSIONS, P.O. BOX 1654, Huntington Beach, CA 92647). We strongly recommend a tracked, insured shipping method. CARDS IN TRANSIT TO US ARE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY: we are not liable for loss or damage occurring before we take physical possession of your package, and our responsibility for your cards ends when the return shipment is delivered to the carrier, except to the extent of the return-shipping insurance included with your order.

If we receive items that do not match your submission, cannot be graded, or violate these Terms, we may contact you, return the items at your expense, or hold them pending resolution. Fees for authentication or handling work actually performed may still apply to cards that cannot receive a numeric grade.

6. Payment Terms

Payments are processed by Stripe. To finalize a grading submission you must keep at least one valid payment card on file with a billing address. You are NOT charged when you submit; instead, an itemized invoice (grading fees, insurance, and shipping) is created at submission, and your saved card is charged when grading is complete and your order is ready to ship.

If we need to adjust an invoice after submission (for example, to add return-shipping insurance for a card whose value exceeds its declared value), we will record the change and the reason, and the new total requires your approval before your card is charged. Where your bank requires additional authentication (3-D Secure), you must complete it from your billing dashboard before the payment can succeed.

You authorize us to charge your saved payment method for the approved invoice total. If payment fails and is not resolved within a reasonable time, we may withhold return shipment of your cards until payment is completed, and unpaid orders may be subject to storage or handling fees or, after extended non-payment and notice, treated as abandoned to the extent permitted by law.

Shop purchases are charged at checkout. All amounts are in U.S. dollars.

7. Insurance, Declared Value & Limitation of Liability for Cards

Every service level includes insurance coverage per card while your cards are in our care, custody, and control and during insured return shipping: currently $100 per card (Bulk), $250 per card (Standard), $500 per card (Express), and $1,500 per card (Walk-Through). Your order’s included coverage equals the per-card amount multiplied by the number of cards. You may purchase additional coverage above the included amount for 5% of the excess value at checkout.

OUR MAXIMUM LIABILITY FOR ANY LOSS OF OR DAMAGE TO A CARD IS THE LESSER OF (A) THE CARD’S DECLARED VALUE AND (B) ITS SHARE OF THE ORDER’S TOTAL INSURED COVERAGE. We are not liable for indirect losses such as lost profits, lost opportunity, or sentimental value. Claims must be reported promptly and may require documentation of the card’s value and condition.

8. Certification Database, Population Reports & Card Images

Every card we grade is assigned a unique certification number. Certification records, including the card’s identity, grade, designations, and high-resolution front and back scans, are published in our public certification database so that anyone can verify a CCA cert, and are aggregated into our public population reports. This public verification system is a core part of the service you purchase.

You grant CCA a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to capture, store, watermark, display, and distribute images of cards you submit, and to publish the associated certification data, in connection with operating and promoting the Services. Grades for a newly paid order may remain hidden from you until you choose to reveal them (our “Grade Reveal” feature); public cert pages may display grade information to other visitors in the meantime.

Card names, set names, character artwork, and related intellectual property belong to their respective owners (for example, The Pokémon Company International, Nintendo, or the applicable sports leagues, players’ associations, and publishers). CCA is an independent grading company and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of these rights holders.

9. Shop Purchases

Prices, descriptions, and availability of shop merchandise may change at any time. We re-validate prices and inventory at checkout; if a product in your cart has changed or sold out, you will need to review your order before paying. We may cancel and refund orders affected by obvious pricing errors or suspected fraud.

Shipping times for merchandise are estimates. Risk of loss for shop merchandise passes to you upon our delivery of the package to the carrier. If an order arrives damaged or incorrect, contact support promptly and we will make it right, which may include replacement or refund.

Product reviews may only be posted by customers who purchased the product, and must reflect your genuine experience.

10. Community Content & Conduct

The Services include community areas, our forum (including Q&A), news article comments, and help center comments, where you can post content. You retain ownership of what you post, but you grant CCA a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, display, reproduce, and moderate that content as part of operating the Services.

You agree not to post content that is unlawful, infringing, deceptive, harassing, hateful, obscene, spam, or that discloses another person’s private information; and not to use community areas to manipulate card markets or misrepresent grading outcomes. We may remove content, lock or pin threads, restrict voting, and suspend or ban accounts at our discretion, with or without notice. Community content can be reported by other users and is reviewed by our moderation team.

11. Acceptable Use of the Website

• Do not scrape, harvest, or bulk-download the certification database, population reports, or card catalog, or access the Services with automated tools except through interfaces we intentionally provide.
• Do not attempt to probe, disable, overburden, or interfere with the security or operation of the Services, or attempt to access accounts or data that are not yours.
• Do not reverse engineer, copy, resell, or create derivative works of the Services except as permitted by law.
• Do not use the Services to violate any applicable law, including consumer-protection, intellectual-property, and export laws.

12. Intellectual Property

The Services, including our name, logo, slab and label designs, website design, software, text, and the compilation of our certification database and population reports, are owned by CCA Universe or its licensors and are protected by intellectual-property laws. Except for the limited right to use the Services as intended, no license or ownership rights are transferred to you. You may link to public cert pages and share your own certification results.

13. Third-Party Services

The Services rely on third-party providers, including Stripe (payments), shipping carriers, and email delivery providers, whose own terms govern your relationship with them. We are not responsible for the acts or omissions of third parties, including carrier loss or delay, except as expressly stated in Section 7.

14. Disclaimers

EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY STATED IN THESE TERMS OR OUR PUBLISHED GUARANTEE, THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR SECURE, OR THAT POPULATION DATA, CATALOG DATA, OR PRICING REFERENCES ARE COMPLETE OR ERROR-FREE.

15. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW: (A) OUR LIABILITY FOR LOSS OF OR DAMAGE TO SUBMITTED CARDS IS LIMITED AS DESCRIBED IN SECTION 7; (B) FOR ALL OTHER CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICES, OUR AGGREGATE LIABILITY SHALL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID TO CCA IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM; AND (C) IN NO EVENT WILL CCA BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, OR LOSS OF GOODWILL. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN LIMITATIONS, SO SOME OF THESE LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

16. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless CCA Universe and its officers, employees, and agents from claims, damages, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of your breach of these Terms, your content, your violation of law, or your infringement of any third party’s rights, including claims that you submitted cards you were not entitled to submit.

17. Governing Law & Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Before filing any claim, you agree to first contact us and give us a good-faith opportunity to resolve the dispute informally within 30 days. Except where prohibited, any dispute that cannot be resolved informally shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Orange County, California, and each party consents to their jurisdiction. Nothing in this section prevents either party from pursuing a claim in small-claims court.

18. Changes to the Services & These Terms

We may modify the Services (including pricing, service levels, insurance amounts, and features) and these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be posted on this page with an updated “Last updated” date, and where changes materially affect in-progress submissions we will apply the terms in effect when you finalized that submission. Your continued use of the Services after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

19. Contact

CCA Universe · P.O. Box 1654, Huntington Beach, CA 92647, USA. Questions about these Terms can be sent to [email protected] or through our contact page at ccacard.com/contact.