Very interesting reading

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Posted By: barrysloate

Daniel- you need to log back in, and then you will get the "edit message" at the bottom.

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Posted By: leon

You need to email me privately with your contact info in the next few hours or I will be forced to delete your posts....thanks

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Posted By: warshawlaw

At the National last year. I found ML to be charmingly old school in the sense of "my cards great, your cards bad" dealer approach to my offer of some vintage cards for sale. My response was basically "then don't friggin' buy them"; they bought them rather than let me walk. I did find it rather amusing when one of the sales reps (not JP) started to lecture me on the rarity and value of the British ciggie boxing cards they were auctioning off.

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

I think most of you who are defending JP Cohen are missing the point here. I can understand and appreciate why someone who has had all positive experiences with him would want to defend him. I respect loyalty, but that loyalty seems to be blinding some to the real issue, at least as I see it.

Go back and read Frank's post above. That is the real issue, if you ask me. It's not about whether or not a Memory Lane card has been trimmed or not. The fact is, how can anyone know they haven't been scammed in their auctions?

How can anyone who has ever left a max bid at Memory Lane not wonder if they were bumped up a bid or two, even if it wasn't all the way to their max? Of course, one could wonder this with any auction house, but how can you possibly not see how there would be a greater chance of being scammed from the auction house run by someone convicted of defrauding thousands of people out of thousands of dollars over a number of years?

The faithful JP Cohen supporters might still bid away in Memory Lane auctions, but I'll bet quite a few bidders no longer will. If you are a consignor and unaware of Cohen's fraudulent record, don't you think that might be pertinent information you'd like to have before deciding to consign your material to an auction house that will now be losing some portion of its registered bidders?

Memory Lane auctions might have always been on the up and up, but I'd honestly be surpised if they can survive at all now. Maybe that's the price you pay for having an auction run by a convicted con artist.

Some of the diehard JP Cohen fans remind me of Robin Williams in "The World According To Garp" when he and his wife are looking at houses to buy and a plane crashes into the one they happen to be looking at as they are standing there. Robin Williams says something like "We'll take it! The odds of another plane crashing into this house are astronomical!"

This guy's been ripping people off his whole life. How could he possibly keep doing it now that he runs a major auction house, right?

-Ryan

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Posted By: whitehse

once again its arguments like this that make me glad I dont have the money to participate in auction house auctions. When you have so much money at stake why are any of us surprised when a certain element of society gets involved.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

A person using an alias "poorjackman" (who I don't believe has ever posted here before - sound like anyone else supporting JP here today?) stated:

"Daniel asked, in part:

"....how does knowing that someone you deal with ....STOLE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS from regular Joes and Jills, impact on your need to buy and sell cards from and through him?"

It would make me have some negative thoughts.

Then, the fact that the person was punished, pretty
much gets rid of those thoughts."

So you're saying that just because JP was punished and sent to prison for his decades of defrauding innocent people that you have absolutely zero concern that he might still be defrauding people today in his unregulated auction house? Just a couple years after being released from prison? Seriously, you know you don't believe that and you know that you have a very thinly veiled bias wouldn't you say?

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Posted By: leon

You might want to keep asking those questions of Poorjack, quickly. His anonymity time is running out. I only wonder if it's only irony in the way the name sounds and the way "JP" sounds? PJ=Poorjack and backwards could be .....it's only a thought....

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Posted By: barrysloate

You might be right Leon. I don't understand someone making controversial posts anonymously. They have no meaning to me if they are not connected to an identifiable person.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Poorjackman's post did not strike me as either controversial or persuasive.

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Posted By: leon

Poorjackman has politely contacted me via email. He is not JP. He has no axe to grind but does want to stay anonymous. I told him not in this thread but in others he can do that. If anyone "has" to know who he is email me and I will email him and we can see how we can do it. I do want to protect each person but within the forum rules. I would prefer no anonymity in this thread. Call it the dictator's priviledge but it is what it is.....Peter- I hear ya....I just don't want anonymity in this thread though...best regards

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Poorjackman, sure one pays their debt to society, but with certain crimes there are restrictions after incarceration.

"The system" does not let child molesters live near a school, nor does it allow felons to to work in law enforcement. It does allow thieves to work in "retail", but seriously, would you buy a used car from this guy? How about a $5,000 sports card?

Frank

[edited for grammar]

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Posted By: barrysloate

I don't think anybody "has" to know- I just feel if I had a strong opinion I wished to express I would want to attach my name to it, since I consider what I have to say a reflection of who I am (for better or worse). If you have something to say but are afraid to step forth, I just think that is kind of wimpy.

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Posted By: Dan Koteles

why give more money to a guy who didnt earn it in an honest way. It doesnt matter if he did not rip off anyone of cards, but .....
why pay a cheater more money ? He simply doesnt deserve any kind
acknowledgement.....PERIOD !

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Frank, how about a used CARD??

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Ouch!!

Frank

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Posted By: B.C.Daniels

isn't it?


http://www.psacard.com/articles/article_view.chtml?artid=4852&universeid=314



BcD

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Prices were strong in the recent Memory Lane auction in contrast to the soft prices overall for Mastro.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Almost 5k with the juice for a 59 Koufax PSA 8, a card one can find almost any week on ebay in the 450-600 range. Nice card for sure, but to pay 10 times what it's worth? I wish the winner would make me some comparable offers.

http://www.memorylaneinc.com/site/bid/bidplace.asp?itemid=5319&getauctionid=64

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Posted By: ramram

A reported scammer who has lost his source of income to support his lifestyle surely wouldn't turn to scamming some simple-minded card collectors, would he?

Rob

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Posted By: B.C.Daniels

Proverbs 26:11

11 As a dog returns to its vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly.

BcD

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Posted By: joe

Kind of late in this posting, but Barry you are right that laundering money in this hobby would the place to do it. Also, how many of you read operation Bullpen about the fake autographs. Some of this stuff was going on long before the internet, and collectors talked. With the 24/7 internet and news we see it more often now. And we can speculate and discuss till days end. There were always collectors and dealers that we were suspicious about in the 70's and 80's too.

Joe

Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: JK

Just curious, anyone receive their cards won in the December auction from ML yet?

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Nope.

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Posted By: Duncan Harvey

yes , I received my cards a week after the auction ended. I have never had a problem with buying from Meory Lane and I have won several items well below my proxy bids but this information is disturbing. Not from a card buying perspective as I wil not bid more than I want to pay if he shills me or not , but from a human nature perspective. It will be tough for me to jsutify bidding with a guy who scammed charities and continued to find loopholes to continue scamming after they were caught and the fact that legally they did not have to give up much to the charities and they were still so greedy that they couldn't do that.

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Posted By: howard

"Paying one's debt to society" is just a cliched term meaning that someone spent time in prison. When this JP fellow returns the money to everyone he ripped off I will agree that he has really repaid his debt. I still wouldn't trust him, though.

Howard
No criminal record, no arrests

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Posted By: cmoking

"Just curious, anyone receive their cards won in the December auction from ML yet?"

nope.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

I looked at the FTC website in order to ascertain what presumably are the facts about this matter, and this seemed to be a pertinent excerpt. Link to the entire article below.

The Settlement

The stipulated order for permanent injunction announced today resolves the litigation against Cohen. The order bans him from further fundraising activities, and from engaging in future telemarketing, and it prohibits Cohen from making misrepresentations in connection with the sale of goods or services. Based on financial information submitted to the court in his criminal case, the order does not require Cohen to pay consumer redress. However, the order includes an avalanche clause that imposes a $10 million judgment against Cohen if it is found that he lied on his financial statements. The settlement also contains various recordkeeping requirements to assist the FTC in monitoring Cohen's compliance.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/05/jpcohen.htm>

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Posted By: David Smith

Let's see; a convicted con artist is running a sports card and memorabilia business and auction (an unregulated business). His latest auction does gang buster business, setting "record" after "record".

To me, this has shill written all over it. Why? To get great headlines and better consignments. That way, in a couple of years, JP can either sell the business for BIG bucks (the business will then fail unless the new owner also shills auctions) or JP will take the company public and again fleece an unknowing and unwary public.

If you can steal money from people in the guise of helping injured and dead policemen, firemen and children, I see no reason why trimming a card or shilling an auction is out of bounds.

David Smith

No arrests or convictions but three speeding tickets.

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Posted By: David Smith

Peter,

So, if I am reading your post correctly, if just ONE item in his auctions is found to be misrepresented then he will have a judgemnet rendered against him??

If that is correct, then if I were JP, I would have NEVER gotten into the auction business to begin with. But, then again, a pathological criminal LIVES for the thrill.

So, shilling an auction (stealing while practically looking at the victim) would psychologically fit in.


David

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

I don't want to give an opinion as to the legal meaning of that part of the FTC order, as the excerpt on the website is only a description and not the full text and I don't know all the facts of the case or the context. My point in posting it was that someone had mentioned repayment and it appears that at least as of the entry of the order described in the excerpt, Mr. Cohen was not ordered to make restitution ("consumer redress")-- at least not by the FTC. EDITED FOR CLARITY

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Posted By: David Smith

So, he could have the money hidden in foreign accounts. Therefor, he could buy items from his own auctions or have someone else buy the items and pay for them out of those foreign accounts. Then, turn right around and sell the items and launder that money. All the while thumbing his nose at authorites and not paying back those he stole from.

To quote the Guiness Beer commercials, "BRILLIANT!"


David

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Posted By: dstudeba

Brian -

You have mentioned time and again that you are not concerned with someone's personal life. However I do not see how someone defrauding a client is personal. What JP did was business, and I think that many are therefore worried about what his current busines practices are.

So when Michael Fanghella gets out of jail will there be a position for him at your firm since you aren't concerned with his personal life?

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Posted By: Brian

I've said I don't know any of the dealers personal or past lives that I've dealt with. Do you? What someone's done in the past is very important and one could argue is a very good indicator of what one will do in the future. I'm not the only collector out there that has worked with JP over the past few years. Like everyone else, I'll base my opinions on my personal experience. Please understand that I'm not and will never defend these articles or anyone's past. All I've ever asked is what's your experience with J.P. as a dealer today? I know everyone's opinion of the articles. I assume you've never worked with him either? I think at this point most collectors would like to have some feedback on this guy as a dealer.

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Posted By: howard

I, for one, don't give a rats ass about his reputation as a dealer. I would never do any kind of business with anyone with a record like his. If others want to give him a second chance that's fine with me but I'd rather give chances to people who earn them.

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Posted By: Steve

Sadly, I must concur with the guys that have basically stated that this guy does not deserve their money. For all i know the cards he peddles are ill gotten gains from his previous ilicit activities. Everyone deserves a second, and even a third chance. I would not have a problem if others buy and sell with him. I just won't.


Those that only care what he has done for them as a dealer can do as they wish. I will not speculate as to how he runs his auctions, I do not care.

Steve

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Posted By: TONY

I know someone who know's mr Cohen personally & he told me that he indeed did go to prison for the crimes listed here.....I also prefer not to deal with people with his background, that's a personal choice we all have to make. I'm sure due to this thread he will lose some previous customers who probably prefer to longer deal with him.....anyone who can drop $50K a nite gambling is is obviously making toooo much $$$ & has no concept of what to do with it

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Posted By: B.C.Daniels

"Memory Lane"
how did he acquire that name for his business?
What happened to the old Memory Lane of the 80's from LA that surely was not him?

BcD

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Posted By: Jason Jacobs

I have had numerous dealings with JP. Once I bought a PSA 8 1963 Fleer Willie Mays and found out it had a giant crease in the card. He did take it back. Does anyone else remember that he closed down around 2001-2002 and just started back up a year or two ago? He told me that he was quiting the card buisness and was going into day trading. If the timeline for his jailtime is correct he would of been in jail during the time he was no longer in the card buisness.

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Does anyone else remember that he closed down around 2001-2002 and just started back up a year or two ago? He told me that he was quiting the card buisness and was going into day trading. If the timeline for his jailtime is correct he would of been in jail during the time he was no longer in the card buisness.

That has been the whole point of this thread, Jason. Mr. C. was incarcerated during that time, not day trading.

Frank

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Posted By: Jason Jacobs

Ok, I thought it was still up in the air whether the person in the articles is the same JP that runs Memory Lane. I used to buy cards in auctions dating back to WIWAG's in the late 90's but stopped after all the increases in buyers premiums, account set up fees, outrageous shipping charges, the practice of increasing the auction's alloted time to allow previous bidders more time to bid, not knowing when an auction is actually over, always having your bid be maxed out. I don't think it's just JP that was doing this but as a whole the auction buisness is like printing your own money.

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Posted By: David Vargha

Day trading . . . "I will trade you this pack of cigarettes today for protection from your people against the gang in Cellblock D."

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

David, I was about to post something very similar to what you posted but stifled myself. Glad to see that you didn't.

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Posted By: BcD

because it has been recently discussed and is being reviewed by many. It's just easier in this format rather than archived.

BcD