I am not sure you can bid in an auction like ML's but when you can and then when you can run an auction house like ML, you can issue statements when you have lapses in judgement. Why do they need to make a statement? It is all over the internet? They are in contact with the parties who matter. You are not part of a party that matters, trust me on that one.

I disagree and find all three members to be valued members who, unlike you, have plenty to offer the community. And you would not be able to identify a debate. You only know how to insult people.

I will take it a step further...as Peter stated, from a legal standpoint it is his opinion, with or without advice from insurance carriers, police or lawyers, that letting the auction run with the lots does not rise to the level of fraud. Now how that does not frustrate the Business and Professions code in the state of CA, is beyond me.

Now before we upset King Trent and Bigfoot even further, we really need to start chatting on other threads that they approve of.

"Trent ..no function
Beer
Well without "

ML
 

Lorewalker-

Let me get this straight. You couldn't follow a direct statement I made,
then accused me of failing to recognize a debate. Sure, sounds lucid to me...

I'll amend my original blowhard count in this thread to 4. Think you can
figure out who I've added? Or is that beyond your comprehension as well?
On second thought, never mind. (It may just be that you are the party who
doesn't matter, Chachi.)

Trent King

The auction is based in California. I guess you didn’t know that?

This is exactly what you do. You just value your bs opinion more than others. Good for you.

And YOU are complaining about people throwing stuff at each other? LOL hysterical. You surely lead this site in terms of personal invective per post, by a large margin. Anger management might be in order.

Oh, and you've now committed what to you is the ultimate sin, going off topic. See what happens when you get triggered?

Pot..meet kettle!

However,
I only value the facts which memory lane decided to adhere to.

I can appreciate the opinions of experienced people and consignors. I will refute opinions based on fiction and people's feelings. Sorry, I'm not sorry, but all opinions are not equal

No actually I did not.:o

Agreed. You have certainly proved to me that some opinions are not so bright and should be discounted. So you have succeeded in a way. Nicely done.

ML
 

Peter Spaeth-

There's so much stupidity in your most recent post- 80 or so on this topic
alone, as I recall- that it's difficult to assign order to a response:

1) I absolutely don't "lead the forum" in invective. The vast majority of my
comments are about cards (crazy, right!) or private messages. You and
the other members of the double digit IQ club might want to explore
PMs...

2) "Anger management is in order". From your lips to God's ears, partner.
I'll get on it right away.

3) My first 2 posts were directly on topic, then you mopes chimed in. Do you
even realize that this thread went "off topic" FIVE HUNDRED messages
ago? Of course you don't, you live in the realm. It's getting past time for
you to understand that your words aren't as clever or valuable as you
believe they are.

4) Your use of the word "triggered" is an automatic signal that you have
been outwitted- again. If I'm "triggered" at 5 posts, what does that make
you? (It's rhetorical, don't try to answer or we will all be treated to 20
additional posts).

TLDR- You 4 are clowns.

Trent King

Add another off-topic, invective-laden post to your tally. It's rich LOL.

King Trent really resents it when you hold up the mirror for him...in case you have not noticed. Nobody here comes unraveled and resorts to insults faster. Everything is personal with him. He was not even a part of this thread and his first post was attacking 3 people who I think most of us would unequivocally state are valued members.

Two of my favorite Memory Lane wins:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...34c13965_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...879b21b1_c.jpg

That Gertenrich is fantastic, the Cobb is amazing.

The Cobb is insane, Holy…

Thanks, guys. I'm thankful neither card was sent to a Best Western Plus via FedEx. Of course I have other wins that I wish had been lost before I paid.

Truly. Might be a tad overgraded due to the upper right but hard to find that combo in any grade, let alone any E94 that nice. Outstanding piece, once again.

Jeff, the Lou Gertenrich Ruth is amazing! One of my favorite cards. The back is absolutely beautiful. If you ever want to sell it let me know.

Peter, I'm curious about something. Suppose an AH, to generate interest (which would benefit the consignors,) lists in its auction a T206 Doyle error card, which it doesn't actually have. After the auction ends, the winner of the Doyle is told, sorry, they aren't getting the card because the AH doesn't have it.

If your standard is as above, would this scenario be ok? If nobody was damaged, then no problem, right?

I realize of course this is not what happened with ML, in terms of initial intent, but the central fact (a card at auction couldn't be delivered to the eventual high bidder) is what the ML auction evolved into once the theft occurred.

Anyway, in my hypothetical: "Who was damaged, and in what amount?"

I think he is going to say in this case there was intent to harm because the house simply put the card there to attract bidders, assuming that truth came out. As to damages, I am guessing the house would have to produce a Doyle error card to the winner.

Context my friend. Someone asked a specific question about requesting items back. I was in no way saying what you seem to think I was.

edited

Well, that's been interesting.

Some industries have peculiar and particular defintions of things that seem off to people not in that industry.

I think that's what we're seeing here.
There's a dictionary definition of a word, then there's how that act is legally defined. And they don't quite match.

My wife is in computers, and we argue like this fairly often. My all time favorite one was a warning that read "virtual memory minimum too low"
WTF. how can a minimum be too low?!?!
Apparently it actually means that the virtual memory was set from X to Y and that X wasn't enough even if Y was more than plenty. Somehow even with my needs falling well within that range, it caused a problem. Until she got tired of me complaining and ridiculing whoever had written that and changed the minimum.

Been there on a very small scale. Won a small lot of cards on Ebay at a great price. The seller cancelled after, saying they'd sold the cards over the weekend and just didn't get around to removing the auction. (yeah right)
Did they allow a sale of something they didn't have? maybe? at least thar was their claim.
Did I feel ripped off? Yes, especially since their solution was to offer a discount on their very sketchy autographs.
Did I report them to ebay? Yes, and while they were off ebay soon after I doubt it was because of me.

Even if there was enough money involved, which there wasn't could I win a suit? I'm thinking no, because they had a borderline plausible explanation and I wasn't out any money.
Sort of the same thing here.

Mark, to quote one of my favorite legal quotes, and it may have been (gasp) Robert Bork, just because there's a slippery slope doesn't mean you have to ski it to the bottom. Yes, your example feels sleazy, despite the no harm.

Yes, that's the long and short of it. There's harm to Memory Lane bidders kept in the dark in a very general sense (e.g., wasted time, opportunity cost), but not "compensable damages" in the practical and legal sense.

That's why most of the comments about Memory Lane's approach have been focused on their reputational hit, rather than actual legal consequences. They picked the approach that best served their consignors (to whom they owe a fiduciary duty), at the expense of their customers (where the relationship is defined by boilerplate terms of bidding).

I think Memory Lane probably made the correct call from a fiduciary perspective. They also made it clear that they're willing to deceive customers and waste their time if they decide it's in the company's financial interest. Their customers are entitled to be upset that they're on the losing side of that calculus, even if they can't prove calculable damages.

I doubt there will be much reputational consequence.

Speaking for myself, their reputation has taken a big hit in the sense that I'll always think of Memory Lane as the bumbling auction house that shipped seven figures worth of cards to a motel and put themselves in a situation where concealing material facts from bidders was their best option.

But their reputation probably won't stop me from bidding again if I see something I really want that I can't get somewhere else. Sort of like the collectibles version of "Too big to fail." If consignors keep giving them cool stuff, I'll hold my nose and cross my fingers.

Stuff. It overrides almost anything. I think most if not all will do the same.

As far as a reputational hit I just don't see it. I think most posters ITT feel that the shipping of the cards in such a manner was a mistake and that the handling of the problem was less than ideal.

So you mean to tell me in a world where felons whose crimes were in THIS industry are welcomed back with open arms; a world where known bad actors are still very active; where companies that bend the hell out of the law on a regular basis are incredibly successful, a lapse of judgement or two (which when you boil it down is how a lot of people seem to see the situation) is going to have lasting repercussions for ML? I just don't see it.

And just in case I haven't said it lately. I have no relationship with ML, couldn't pick anyone who works there out of a lineup and I've never done business with them.

I see this comment often, but how often does an auction house truly have something that is so rare that it overcomes a negative reputation? In all the years Memory Lane has been running auctions they only had one item that I had to have enough for me to hold my nose.

Goldin has never had an item that was so rare and desirable that I would win it from them.

Glad you both brought up this topic, because I had discussed a similar scenario with friends at a card show this weekend.

My scenario was an auction house wants to sell a signed Ty Cobb bat in the future. No current comps for that piece, so the AH puts a fake listing in their next auction to get a comp. The fake listing sells, the buyer doesn't get it, bingo, comp for a future auction. Again, from reading this thread, most would not have a problem with this, because legally, no one is harmed.

Concur, onto the next auction!

LOL. Not for me, but I wasn't bidding before either.

If the consignors aren’t made whole I hope there would be some reluctance to do business with them.

I would think there's very little chance ML is not going to make them whole.

I too think ML will make consignors whole. If they have to come out of pocket for this that price to pay is much smaller...I think...than if they decided to not make consignors whole and the hit they would take to their rep. However it appears there are many on here who might still do business with them in light of that.

Broadly speaking, yes. I spend a great deal of my time, professionally speaking, advising clients about things that may subject them to criminal or civil liability. The obvious ones are easy. There are many situations where the answer is less of a black and white and more of a risk-reward assessment. My job in those cases is to advise the client on the pitfalls of each approach. Either way, the client has the final say and does whatever he or she wants. In other words 'my lawyer told me to' is a cop-out defense. I see it all the time with insurers when they are sued for bad faith and they assert an advice of counsel defense. That might get you clear of some aspects that require intent, but even then there is a limit on how credible it is as a defense. I don't see many murderers getting by on an advice of counsel defense. ML might as well try the Steve Martin defense instead:

You say, “Steve.. what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, ‘You.. have never paid taxes’?” Two simple words. Two simple words in the English language:

“I forgot!”

How many times do we let ourselves get into terrible situations because we don’t say “I forgot”? Let’s say you’re on trial for armed robbery. You say to the judge, “I forgot armed robbery was illegal.” Let’s suppose he says back to you, “You have committed a foul crime. you have stolen hundreds and thousands of dollars from people at random, and you say, ‘I forgot’?” Two simple words:

"Excuuuuuse me!!“

I am confused by the false equivalencies being posted.

How can people not understand the difference between intentionally operating in bad faith (posting a fake listing to drum up business, or create a comp point) and operating in good faith and having something go horribly wrong?

I don't think anyone credible is saying that the auctioneer was not operating in good faith and did not have something go horribly wrong. The disagreement is about what the auctioneer did after something went horribly wrong. The choice there was really simple: let bidders think they will get the cards they win or end the lots and not let bidders think they will get the cards they win. Me, personally, I choose the route that doesn't involve misleading innocent people. I don't see why that is a big stretch.

My thought's exactly...it's not a big stretch.

I think the one wrinkle is that maybe there was a chance that ML recovers the items before the auction ends, or shortly thereafter?

I realize that hope springs eternal, and hope is not much of a strategy, but it's not completely crazy to proceed on that basis. Of course, once you head down the road of not shutting it down, it gets a lot more exciting the closer you get to the end of the auction without having recovered the items.

A few years ago, in a thread regarding shill bidding, we discussed this notion of fake comps (items bid up by shill bidders who don't pay,) and then the general outcry was that everyone was harmed by the false value information it put into the market.

But now the standard seems to have shifted, for some, to "No harm, no foul."

Shill (fake) bidding is bad; phantom auction items are okay. And what's weird is, only half of us see the hypocrisy.

The no harm no foul was not proposed (at least by me) as some general overarching standard applying universally to every possible situation, and my answer to your hypothetical made that clear. It was proposed as a reason under the unique circumstances of this case what ML did in response to a no win situation was not "fraud." Was it a bad look, of course. As Scott writes, do people here really have no ability to see nuance and complexity and are able to think and live only in terms of black and white rigid rules and standards?

So your "gotcha" is a straw man as far as I am concerned. I'm more than content to take each situation on its terms, guided by general principles but not inflexible ones.

I thought you were saying, if there were no damages, there was no fraud.

Shill bidding produces no sale, no exchange of money or goods, but leaves information, as though it had been a completed sale, in the marketplace.

Continuing phantom auction lots produce no sale, no exchange of money or goods, but leaves information, as though it had been a completed sale, in the marketplace.

I see your flexibility not as reasoned nuance, but as basic inconsistency.

According to Emerson, little minds insist on a foolish consistency. You can characterize it however you want, to me each situation is different and sometimes you can't thread the needle with a perfect rule so you go by general principles, experience, judgment, and an innate sense of right and wrong. If you can't tell the difference between what ML did and ordinary shill bidding, I am sorry. That you can find some overarching words that apply to both is beside the point.

Thanks for telling me I have a little mind. And I'll confess, I've probably never sniffed $2 million in cards either. I mostly collect game flannels, but I don't sniff them much, either.

But frankly, I'm not seeing your superiority in defending the deception of hundreds of bidders in an auction.

You're the one who says "Stuff trumps all" and you are currently defending that credo with one small tweak. Your new motto should be: Stuff (and money) trumps all." And if a deception is run in the chase for stuff and money, so what? Nobody is damaged.

I will again end with the caveat that if ML continued the phantom lots at the bequest of law enforcement, I would certainly consider that to be a legitimate reason to do so.

I would love more info on why ML decided to move forward with the lots in the auction. To me, that is very relevant before anyone here can possibly conclude if their intent was pure or not.

Assuming it was, what they concluded was the best of all the choices might have ended up being misleading but it was not being done with an intent to deceive or harm others. And I do not see it in the same light at all as shill bidding which not only has measurable damages but is also clearly done with an intent to deceive.

As you wish. Feel free to mischaracterize.

The straw man army has come home to roost. People can come up with any number of scenarios to support their opinion. Except the one surrounding the issue at hand, it's too much of a stretch

Also, as I understand it from what someone said, if the cards are recovered, and assuming insurance issues can be worked through, the winning bidders still have an option to pay for and receive the cards they "won." Another indicator IMO this was not a "fraud" as I understand the term.

If you simply look at it from the point of view of the house, what did they have to gain by letting the auction go with 54 key lots that at the time the auction ended they could not ship? They were now going to have to tell 54 people, possibly, what happened. What is the upside there?

They allegedly told nobody outside of the company about the theft until the auction was concluded and they very well might not have insurance coverage for this and will be writing a check. Yes disappointing and it sucks to think you can win something that you cannot take possession of but I just see no advantage to them in having done so. It might not be the best look for them but they look awful shipping the box as they did. To me, the rest of it is moot.

What they gain of course is an infinitely easier path to reimburse consignors and deal with insurance issues. Otherwise, it's a hot mess as most of these cards do not have commodity values. Nothing at all sinister about this. Context matters unless you live by a dictionary.

That was my failed attempt at the point. It was done for their consignors. The house does not benefit at all from having done this.

I did raise the question the other day that Ryan and the house had already estimated the values of his consignments. Not sure if all 54 cards stolen were his but there was an agreement as to what they both felt the cards would sell for. I know that estimate prior to consignment being sent is not the same as the auctions having run their course but the house was not in total darkness about what those lots were worth. Turned out they were close to spot on. It begs the question if they really needed to leave the lots in there for valuation purposes.

I guess the only question in my mind is whether the parties went into it feeling that the estimates were high estimates or low estimates. And whether the parties would have attempted to revisit those original estimates based on no additional information. By letting it run, in theory, the potential for valuation disputes is reduced.

Their valuations on specific lots were all over the map according to what Ryan posted, they just happened to work out in the aggregate. Not sure insurance is going to just accept a pre auction estimate either as you point out.

I doubt they would take fake auction results either. If there is coverage.

“They” meaning the insurance company?

Or “they” meaning the consignors?

I suspect the consignors might be okay with using that valuation method.

The insurance company, if there is one or more providing coverage.

Though I very strongly disagree with Peter here, I don't see how he and Lorewalker can possibly be called blowhards. A blowhard is a talkative and boastful braggart, nobody here is bragging in this thread (except for Republican's repeatedly stated class warfare) whatsoever. Talkative, that is true of, I suppose, every poster who has posted in it more than once.

A person is independent of an idea. I have probably disagreed with Carter more intensely than anyone else in this thread historically [as Clementefan does not appear to have any real position in most threads beyond attacking people he doesn't like, frequently in ways demonstrably false, making it difficult to really disagree with any point he has as there is no point], but we are on the 'same side' here because the idea or claim is independent of the user ID. I oft agree with people I normally disagree with, or even dislike, and frequently disagree with people I like. I believe I have only insulted Republican over his very explicit classism and religious discrimination expressed in this thread (I would assume he is trying to get it locked because criticizing Memory Lane and Cohen is clearly one hell of a taboo and is not actually this disgustingly prejudicial). I suppose calling Cohen a fraudster can be considered an insult, but as he was found guilty in court, went to prison for it, and not even his army of fanboys here is pretending he was innocent and wrongfully convicted it is hard to see how this is not a simple fact, albeit unpopular and undesirable to be observed.


Well, I have learned that up is down, that intentionally lying to thousands of bidders is not deceitful, and that selling things you do not have and cannot deliver is just fine (as long as you are rich, rule not applicable to poors on the BST). I ca not wait for the next lesson I will learn in Cardland to expand my limited knowledge.

I thought one of the possible explanations for allowing the auction to continue with the stolen lots was to obtain a price for insurance purposes (whether or not proposed by the insurance company). Why do you think the insurance company wouldn't accept the auction results as legitimate values if there is no evidence of improper bidding?

The policy language will drive everything but when there is an insured loss valuation is typically a hot button issue, often involving competing experts. The results of a fake auction or any recent auction could be a data point in one side’s arsenal but, depending on policy language, would probably not carry the day.

I like that this thread has brought us closer. True story!

I often disagree with Greg but it's certainly not personal and I respect his intelligence and tenacity. And when you're having a discussion among people with strong views sometimes it takes some back and forth. That's the nature of a debate. We can't all be efficient in our posts like Trent, but then again when all you have to add is to demean people, it may not take many posts.

Wait, can we pause this thread for a day or two? It's going to take my little mind some time to digest all this.

I know fraudulent and fraud are similar words, but if someone had a fake auction, but didn't take any payment(s) for anything, they didn't commit fraud, correct?

I propose to all that want to drag this out until the end of time, schedule a conference, rent a banquet hall, lock it, and don't come out until all is settled.....for Christ's sake!

Ugh...you again?

Lol

So, 2 weeks ago you join a chat forum (where people discuss things - that's the general idea) and your contributions to the discussion are:





What is your purpose?

Consumer fraud is defined by statutes and some would have different definitions. Advertising goods for sale without the intention of selling them is defined as fraud in some jurisdictions.

The most important of all purposes. He and Clementefan are here to unite us all together again so we have something to agree on and remind us that however much all the actual posters might sometimes get on each others nerves or criticize ideas, we still have something we can unite around :)

I started to try to read through the last 2 pages of posts to catch myself up on this thread, but then I realized we’re talking about baseball cards and it never needs to get this serious.

Note to self, don’t mail cards to best western.

We exited the arguing phase and are now singing kumbaya around the campfire together, united again.

People are literally posting hypotheticals where an auction is acting in bad faith from the get-go and saying, "If what ML did was OK then this is OK too, right?"

I could make almost any proposition look wrong and inconsistent using the Socratic method. But so what? It's a useful exercise in some contexts and can be fun (not in the first year of law school when you're on the receiving end, perhaps), but at the end of the day it has significant limitations. These "gotcha" posts don't establish anything about the specific ML situation IMO. Life is complex, everything doesn't reduce to clean lines, deal with it.

Exactly. My hypothetical examples were meant to expand on the notion (which I inferred from your posts) that if nobody suffers measurable damages, there is no real problem.

The point I was clumsily trying to make with the comparison to the shill bidding thread of years gone by is that, at that time, the "damages" were the phony sales that were left hanging out there. Whether the bidder can't (or won't) honor the bid, or the AH won't (or in this case can't) complete the sale, the end result is non-sales looking like sales.

I was NOT in any way comparing what ML did, to the act of shill bidding and I'm sorry if that impression was given. I was aiming at the similarity of a party knowingly advancing the impression a sale was actually happening, when it was not. And, that in the previous discussion, this was seen as a decidedly damaging impact on the hobby.

Hopefully ML has retroactively removed those phantom lots from their auction results.

In short I was trying to establish whether deceit and phantom sales were ok, generally, if a lawyer couldn't bring suit (nobody hurt, no damages.) My journey down the slippery slope produced nothing conclusive.

My mind is big enough to recognize ML had to choose between a few bad options.

I would argue that as long as nobody shill bid on the 54 lots that had been stolen, and nobody who was bidding had any knowledge the cards had been stolen, then I would see no reason to remove those sales from results. If each winner had the intention of paying for those lots at the hammer price, then those are valid prices. The consignors are being paid based on that. Just that the money is 100% not coming from the the winners.

Even you are capable of rational thought, but your opinion still doesn't supercede legal advice....or matter to anyone in your delusional cardland or otherwise.


Peoples opinions are not equal. Some are wrong ,as they don't coincide with facts.

We have now seen we have plenty of people who should be on a 5150 hold, welcome to express their opinions as fact.

LOL, see they returned.:D:D:D