Do you not offer your opinion on many topics throughout this forum? I hope it was at the advice of counsel or LE because on its face it seems like such a bad move. I believe the head of the AH is permanently enjoined from make false misrepresentations in connection with the sale of goods and services so there would have to be cover on that front.

As soon as ya'll run a major auction company, you can do whatever it is you like. It's so easy.
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Well an education probably would have taught you there is fact vs opinion. "The bottom line" may or may not be related to a million dollar loss to an auction house or the upsetting the Supreme Court. You decide, but I couldn't sustain a loss like that.

Education obviously means little most of the time. I personally love the few posters that like to post their opinion like it is a fact and then argue it is a fact like their life depends on it. It is quit entertaining if you can get past how silly it is.

Certainly makes a case to NOT use the ignore feature

Methinks they should've used a Motel 6. They would have at least left the lights on....

What specific claim to fact by the people who are not fans of the fraudulent auction is even being objected to?

As a consignor, even if I didn't have one of the 54 stolen lots, I'd be pissed. It would leave a massive negative impression on the entire auction. I've said it before I think pulling that many key lots actually HURTS the remaining lots.

Correct integrity goes a long way :-)

Either continue the auction or end the whole thing. Just pulling the stolen lots would have been a terrible idea.

I agree.

I honestly don't know what I would've done in a similar situation. It's just not as black and white as people want it to be.

It does, but I dont have the photoshop skills.
I mentioned we needed a thing of a dead horse jumping a shark and suprisingly got exactly that.

I'm quite happy with it as-is. :D

A few observations
- Memory Lane (possibly other AH's) needs to take into consideration some points good and bad that have been made in these posts
- ML I believe was in a Catch 22 as evidenced by some that agree with what they did and some that are calling the auction fraudulent
- I tend to think if I was in the position ML was in I would at the very least notify the bidders of the stolen items halted bidding and/or pulled the items but I'm not and I don't know everything the ML higher ups know so this is just an observation from the outside
- Notification and pulling the cards would have at least allow bidders to go after some other items with their available funds and when the cards are located then they can be put up for auction when in ML hands
- While I don't agree that they kept the auction going for the stolen items without any notification to the bidders I plan to place bids with them in the future if they have items I am interested in
- I was a bidder and winner in this last auction and I don't feel like ML committed fraud on me but my items were not some of the stolen property at least that I know of...

Glad we have this forum where we can agree, disagree and discuss collecting baseball cards!

Good news is



MEMORY LANE IS ACCEPTING SUMMER CONSIGNMENTS!!

Anyone know their shipping address for Fed ex??

Wha (sic) too soon?

Just drop your collection off at the local BW and they will arrange pick up in 3 days.

I don't want to be talking out of school, but my friend is a Realtor in Texas and she just got a new client...who coincidentally enough is a chambermaid at a certain Best Western Plus hotel. Her current residence is the top picture, but just made an all cash offer on the bottom property. Hmmm...

Attachment 621512

So, deceive bidders to benefit the consigners?

Suppose a bidder on a stolen lot called with some questions about it. Like, will you ship it out expedited so as to be presented as a birthday gift? Or, will you ship it UPS instead of Fedex, because my local Fedex driver is unreliable?

If you chose to continue the auction with the stolen lots, and you were on the phone with a bidder on some of those lots, would you basically lie directly to them, if it was necessary to continue the deceit? And I don't mean YOU, I mean the AH in this hypothetical.

One thing to consider that I hadn't really thought about, and I haven't read every post so maybe it's been discussed, is this: was it kosher for ML not to tell consignors for days that their cards had been stolen and were missing? To get Scott's take, would you feel comfortable not telling consignors, on the theory that you'd make them whole in the end anyhow?

It seems like the side that is ok with running the fake auction has in mind establishing value from the results. If that was the purpose you can’t let the situation be known to consignors or anyone else or those results would be called even more into question. Pulling the items instead of running a fake auction would have allowed immediate communication with consignors.

Yes absolutely. If you continue the auction, you have to keep it from them. So is that OK?

I will say if like ML and my legal council, Insurance company, and the PoPo all told me to run the auction. I would run the auction. To me it really is that simple. For anyone who missed it several hundred posts ago one of the few people that actually know what they are talking about posted that was what happened.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!

This means nothing. ML's legal team has one job: Do what's in their clients' best interest. Nobody here is saying ML didn't do what was in their best interest.

Question is, was it in the best interest of bidders and consigners? Was it ethical or right?

Even without their legal team the insurance company and the POLICE said to run the auction. Would you seriously not do what they recommended?:confused:

No one said they know this is what happened and it seems rather doubtful to many.

The Energizer Bunny.....it keeps going....and going....and going....

Actually it was said that is what happened. It doesn't fit your opinion so you probably ignored it.

Point me to it, please.

Sometimes it needs a little prod but yes it does.:D

Start at post one. It is much less reading than going back from the here.:D

This is one of those threads (and there are not too many) that you just gotta say "WTF". Attachment 621520Attachment 621520Attachment 621520

I get it, and obviously I'm talking in hypotheticals as well, when not talking completely out of my ass.

I just can't imagine ML doing this without advice of counsel and possibly law enforcement. So I would have to turn to them in the scenario you outlined.

My fiduciary duty is to my consignor, that does NOT allow me to operate in bad faith with my buyers using that duty as a cover. With that in mind that is why I feel very strongly that this decision wasn't made lightly, or even independently of advice from counsel or an outright request form law enforcement.

Sorry to keep copping out, but I would do what my attorney and law enforcement told me.

What would I LIKE to do? Tell the consignors immediately, give everyone the option to pull their items (or remaining items as the case may be) and if too many consignors wanted out because of the situation, cancel the auction, tell everyone what happened and rely on insurance to make my affected consignors whole and return the items if consignors didn't want to reschedule them. I simply don't know if that was a possibility.

ad nauseam

With literally MILLIONS at stake you should have your head examined if you think they didn't ask insurance or legal what they should do.

Hence why the opinions of those making assumptions, who could not walk by, let alone purchase, millions of dollars in cards, don't matter.

The insurance angle was thrown out without being stated to be true but a possibility, then the side that wants to justify the fake auction latched onto it. It is obviously not the case. No one can produce a single example of an insurance plan, policy, demand, decision or communique telling a claimant they must host a fake auction to assign value in all of human history for a reason - this is not how it works. This angle is pretty obviously false.

I would be a little surprised if their attorneys would have directly advised a course of action that seems to violate California consumer law, but it's possible. 'Maybe the police asked them to' is probably the best of these three possible justifications as none of us disgusting filthy poors who should not have any right to post an opinion have access to that investigation, so I don't know why they latched onto this clear falsehood so hard when there were better avenues to take.

Any auction house that embraces the principle of hosting fake fraudulent auctions to deceive bidders should lose bidders, but of course they won't. Stuff dictates ethics and the complete lack thereof. Even if that means covering up a theft of consigners property from consigners, and hosting a fraudulent auction lying to all of their bidders. If someone was handling my property, and it was stolen, don't we think I have a right to know that? Well, we would in any other case but not this one because we have priorities here $$$$$$$$$$$. Any of us bothered by this have probably already made the decision to not do business with Memory Lane considering Cohen's conviction for fraud and resulting prison term (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news...ing-activities).

I think if consignors were notified ahead of time, it would have been a bigger issue. I’m curious as to the bidding patterns of the stolen items. Was a house account set up to bid and win back. From all my reading only a few people knew about the heist before the auction closed. Plus, how’s the investigation going on this, as it’s been a month now.

Who knew about it before the closing and where did you read that?

A 'bigger issue' in the sense that it might hurt the money train for some people?

I am hard pressed to think of any example where lying to everyone and cover ups are the right path to take. I cannot think of a single one.

But then again, I do not know if I am rich enough to have an opinion or not, so this approach of 'hey maybe honesty is good' may need to be redacted.

How did you find out about that artricle in the above link?

Some ML employees and didn’t someone have to alert the police a 2 million dollar box is missing?

OK I thought you meant people outside ML, which I had not seen. I would presume when Joe showed up and the box was missing, he reported the theft.

So if your attorney recommended you lie directly to your bidders, you would follow that advice, in order to keep the phantom auction lots alive and not risk revealing the true situation?

Here you seem to be saying you would go against your attorney's advice, if it meant dealing with your buyers in bad faith.

Everyone who is simplifying this down to: "Do what your attorney says" is basically saying: "your attorney will advise according to your self-interest, so do that - do what is in your self interest. Then hide behind your attorney."

Stuff (and money) trumps all.

I just searched "J.P. Cohen fraud conviction" for it to provide a contemporary source. It's not a new revelation, a lot of people just like to sweep it under the rug (PSA's board, at least, used to censor any mention of it and still might) because inconvenient facts do not serve their desired narrative. Memory Lane is run by a convicted fraudster who was sentenced to over three years in prison (I think he served 2, off memory) for wire fraud and mail fraud.

This thread would be very, very, very different if someone who was not Memory Lane or similarly popular with a certain crowd did the exact same act.

I think you have a flawed idea of an attorney's job. He isn't there to advise you to do what's in your best interest.

What if my best interest is to burn my business down to collect insurance? My attorney will tell me, hey, moron, that's a bad idea.

Attorneys on the board please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine your duty to your client involves giving them sound legal advice, not merely telling them what they want to hear.

An attorney will not recommend illegal activity. But the attorney does represent the client and his interests. Also, we don't know how the consultation with the attorney(s) went down. It could've been the client saying, "Could I proceed this way?" And the attorney saying, "You could..." But that's all speculation.

I think you're posing a false either or. Obviously one would not advise a client to break a law in a clear-cut situation. But many situations calling for legal advice are not so simple and one would certainly need to understand and take into account a client's business objectives and the consequences of different options.

Strictly hypothetical Scott and I won't hold your feet to the fire, but what do you think the consignors would have decided re; keeping the auction going, if they had been made aware of the situation a day after it happened?
I have no idea at what point they were notified so this is just a thought experiment.

I have no opinion on whether or not the auction should have continued. I can convince myself either way that either choice is valid but I think it is ok to not have told the consignors until the end of the auction. The consignors were selling their cards. I think letting the auction run was favoring them anyway.

It was an exaggeration to make a point, what are your thoughts on my last sentence, that was the serious one.

Let's put it this way, I'm not 100% but if I had been a consignor, my knee-jerk reaction, I would've wanted my stuff back, but I could've been talked out of that if presented with a compelling argument.