Agree 100%.

Not sure if this is related by there’s a post of a member/Board Member who just got banned. I’m not sure what the criteria are to be a Board Member but I assume it means he is very knowledgeable. Regardless, if this recent post is related then I agree with the ban.

How great would it be to hear Bill talk about the Wagner.

I'm with the "it depends" group.

How big of a hobby crime, and what?
And oddly I agree with Snowman, who decides what a hobby crime is?
I'm against cutting up the surviving strip card strips. and think of it as a sort of hobby crime. Others only see the money and say "cut away!" I wouldn't want someone banned if their crime was a fairly minor one.

Someone like Mastro had to have a decent amount of knowledge and connections to do what he did. And yes, that would be a tough call whether the knowledge outweighed the crimes.

I also really doubt that if we go the route of absolutes anyone would still be here.

Was Mastro ever a part of Net54?

Leon- Do a “mashup” using their eBay ID and display their Feedback rating in parenthesis next to their userid on this forum. I’ll bet 90%+ are on eBay.


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I don't think so, though I know he has read, or reads, it.

And to Steve right above, I think if you went to jail for something you did in the hobby, that is my definition of a hobby crime. If you are well known, with evidence, as someone who commits fraud in the hobby, that would probably be the same. Think Moser, Desmond etc...
On top of that, if anyone knows any member that has completely reneged in an auction, I would appreciate a PM (kept anonymous) to follow up on.

I appreciate a lot of members saying leave it up to me, but that was what I was hoping not to do :). It's been a good discussion so far and I am not surprised by the results. It's not a black and white subject.

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Why would I care if someone is on ebay?
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Positive or Negative feedback rating could give you a current indication of their trustworthiness at least in the BST section.


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eBay feedback ratings are a joke. You can't leave feedback for buyers and if you leave a negative feedback for a seller, eBay just removes it 90% of the time anyhow.

It’s at least an available tool that has feedback for scamming sellers. I’d think people would want that if the BST is to be opened up to even well-known fraudsters. I still cannot imagine why anyone besides a scammer would want to allow scammers and fraudsters into the BST in the first place. Looks like we’re at about 19% that are okay with it or approve.

Actually, around 30% are ok with it, accounting for the "I don't care" votes . But that is still 70% not ok.
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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a great musical, Peter.

Perhaps I am an optimist these days, but I suspect the abstention votes are not thinking in terms of the BST.

Well I voted I Don't Care because I trust your judgment, but if you would like my opinion, I doubt that somebody whose whole life has been based on bullshit would somehow start telling the truth so I wouldn't expect any great positive value to this site. If he really does want to confess his sins he should write a book.

It doesn't bother me if he is on BST because I can't imagine buying a card from him. There are many people on this site that I know and trust and it's enough for me to buy and trade with them.

It's brilliant. Was it Lloyd Webber's first hit, I don't recall.

Doug Allen sure was.

Anyone at the Net54 dinner, in 2019, knows that. He might have been better off not being here.
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I valued the help and info from him, while picking his useful hobby brain on here; most grateful.

Ben

"I love baseball history backstory; especially when it involves cards."

For the record, I also voted "I don't care" because I trust your judgement, Leon.

Net54 is a privately run and moderated forum of a very small percentage of the hobby players and it is a privilege to post here or use the BST. I don't see anything wrong with not allowing a convicted criminal the privilege of participating here. There are plenty of other forums an places where they can participate in the hobby again after they get out of prison. I don't care what knowledge they have to share. Hobby knowledge is not worth that much to me and you all supply enough of it already for me. We have extremely knowledgeable members here in many many different areas that already contribute plenty. And if a criminal joined a different forum and started spilling the beans about something, I'm pretty sure one of you would post a link to that thread right here on this forum so we could all read it for ourselves anyway. So why do they have to post it here? I don't think I'm being unfair or mean or anything like that. I'm thinking of my fellow board members that I share this forum with and the BST with. I don't want convicted criminals having any chance of screwing any of you over. Maybe they wouldn't do it again. Maybe. But why take the chance? Sorry if my opinions bother any of you, but it's a great discussion where we can all share our thoughts freely and not feel like we will be attacked. At least that's what I feel.



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Beware of the Dunning Kruger Effect.

I'm probably ok with it depending on how they act currently.
To get jail time for a hobby fraud I think you probably have to be at a pretty high level. And to get there you need a decent amount of knowledge.
Getting extra scrutiny would go right along with that, as well as not being touchy about the massive amount of static they'll get here.

If someone wants to come share that knowledge I'm ok with that.

Sort of an "Info trumps all" thing as opposed to a "Stuff trumps all".

Reminds me of the Groucho quoto "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member"

fraudsters
 

Years ago, long before there was such a thing as doctored cards and big money had entered the picture, a dealer wrote a piece in SCD about being approached by an old guy, a walk in, at a regional card show. Seems as if the man had a cigar box filled with Crackerjacks. The author of the piece, who had a table at the show, offered him a buck each for the cards,
which the man, who was totally unaware of what he owned, accepted.

This was in the mid-seventies, but even then Crackerjacks were probably going for $15 a pop.

The author bragged about his big score. Maybe later on he blacktopped the man's 60 foot driveway for ten thousand dollars as a favor.

There was a lot of that in ancient times. Guys would advertise in the sport section of newspapers that they would be at the Holiday Inn on Route 35 all weekend paying cash for gum cards stashed away in a closet....And they would pay pennies on the dollar.

It was all legal. Of course it was morally bankrupt, too.

There is just all kinds of crime.
lumberjack

So, if you were at a show or flea market and saw someone selling a card you wanted for half of what you believed it was worth, and you bought it, you'd automatically pay him/her double the asking price???

I would think it varies greatly by each situation and money is made buying cards not selling when a dealer. At least in my experiance.

On the other side I bought a card from a member that he had listed for months on here, I turned around and sold it for close to 10 times what I paid. I sent the guy I bought it from a nice cash gift.

On another occasion I bought a complete 1959 Fleer Ted Williams set from a member. When it arrived it was in way better condition than what I was looking for. He said he sold it cheap because he really needed the money. Shortly after his computer died so I bought him a new one.

So it can go both ways.:D

Making a living by taking advantage of ignorant people is not an honorable career.

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What difference does it make if a person is a buyer or a seller, a dealer or collector? The implication was that paying someone less than what something may actually be worth is tantamount to being a crime, and the person getting the deal is therefore somehow a criminal. Otherwise, why resort to using a line like, "There is just all kinds of crime.", or reference the person buying the cards as being "morally bankrupt"?

In the poster's story the party with the cards approached the dealer looking to sell them, not the other way around. So, when the dealer makes him an initial offer to buy, and the seller accepts without making a counter-office, or maybe going around to others at the show first to see if someone else may offer more, why is it the dealer's fault the guy sold so low, and he's now possibly perceived as a morally bankrupt criminal as a result?

Remember, dealers are in business to make money so none of them are ever going to offer full market value to buy for what to them is simply inventory they need to make a profit on. So what, are all dealers now automatically morally bankrupt criminals of some sort for merely trying to turn a profit? And if you're going to argue that based on that story he paid too little, how do you know what that dealer's costs and expenses are, and therefore what profit margin he needs to make? In which case now you're subjectively, not objectively, making someone out to be some type of criminal.

Now, if the dealer went out of his way to lie to the guy and told him things like maybe the cards were fake, or that they were worth next to nothing due to condition or some other made up reason(s), now THAT is a different story. But based on all the person posting said about this, we don't know what the dealer may have said to this guy. So now it looks like this poster could be accusing this dealer of things based merely on assumptions which may be wrong. I don't know.

But my question to him was a legitimate question as to if that is how he felt about the dealer in his story, how would he act were he suddenly to be in a somewhat similar position to that dealer himself?

Ben, you're a good guy, and I get and applaud that you go out of your way to be fair in dealing with others. But you also did not imply someone may be morally bankrupt, or possibly some type of criminal, based on a story/event where all the pertinent and relevant facts may not be known.

So Bob, if someone who truly had no idea what they had offered you a nice 311 Mantle for $50, would you just pull out your wallet?

I would.

I would feel ashamed as I whipped out my wallet and offered him $40.

I would say, "Even though I've got $60 into this Gregg Jefferies rookie card, I'll offer it up in a one-for-one trade."

Give me the Donruss AND the Score Jeffries, and I'll do it!

How often have we heard people on here talk about some of the great deals they've come across, or finding that rare variation that no one knows about and getting it for a song? Isn't that why many of us still go to flea markets and garage sales, hoping to come across that rare item no one knows about that we can purchase for a song. Heck, I remember threads here on the forum where it was discussed how you don't even try asking some advanced collectors about the rare cards or variants in certain sets, they wanted to keep that to themselves so as to keep down demand and competition, and if they did come across such rare and valuable cards, get them for as cheap as they could.

Over time, I've asked a lot of people questions on here they don't want to respond to and answer for whatever reasons, and that includes you. So instead of letting you blindside me and maybe try to put me down or belittle me in some manner by answering your question, lets first wait to see what the person I originally asked my question of has to say in response first. I wasn't the one implying anyone was morally bankrupt or possibly some kind of criminal for taking advantage of a deal that was offered to them, especially in a situation that we don't really know all the facts about either. Wouldn't things possibly be better served by you directing your question to that person making such implications, rather than deflecting and trying to change the narrative somehow. Or is that poster another friend of yours you somehow think you have to defend?

Here's a related question back at you then while we wait to hear back from this other person so I can then answer your question. You're a lawyer, so how about explaining to everyone about how contingent fees work. You, or some other attorney(s), agree to do work for someone not for your typical hourly rate or set fee, but for a specified percentage of whatever the client ends up getting. And let's say you have a client involved in a horrific accident that they will have life-long medical bills and issues from, and will need every cent they can get. An attorney, like yourself, takes the case for, what's a typical contingent fee rate attorneys charge these days, 30%, 35%, 40%? Let's say they take it for 35%, and low and behold, not too long after filing suit the other party caves and settles for $1MM, meaning you (or whatever attorney took the case) just made $350K. But here's the thing, you knew the defendant had no real assets to speak of, but did have a liability policy for $1MM. So you knew pretty quick from the start that you wouldn't really be able to get the client any more than that $1MM settlement, and also knew the defendant and their insurance company would likely settle quickly to minimize additional legal costs and expenses. But the thing is, they ended up agreeing and settling so quickly, even at your highest hourly rate you've ever charged, your bill would have only come to $35K, not the $350K contingent fee you're going to collect. And yet you know the client is going to need every penny they can get to help with their injuries for the rest of their life. So what do you, or most other attorneys that belong to your profession, do in such a case so you/they don't get accused of being morally bankrupt, or possibly even some kind of criminal?

And I'll give you an option for not waiting till after I hear back from the other poster first before I answer your question. Go and get an actual '52 Topps Mantle and actually offer it to for me $50, and I'll answer by how we go forward with the deal or not. :D

I move to strike that answer as completely non responsive. Motion allowed. What on earth do contingent fee arrangements have to do with my question? SMH.

It’s a gift to use so many words to say absolutely nothing :D

Leon's poll and question was should a person convicted of a hobby fraud be allowed on here as a member and so far in the thread it has escalated to comparing that to a second chance in society in general to people that have committed crimes outside the hobby being accepted here and back in society. Now we're involving the moral issue which can get very broad.

Peter, if you purchased an old book at an antique store and when you got home you found a T206 Wagner in it would you take it back to the antique store?

The many many many words is the best part.

Plus the biggest and by far most important question has not been addressed yet. Who is the criminal friends with? Really that seems to be by far the most important thing.

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Andy (CobbSpikedMe) shared my opinion and points too.

Many of us have heard the saying “Screw me once, shame on you; Screw me twice, shame on me”. Key is not putting yourself in position or environment inwhich second occurrence may take place. That includes who you associate or socialize with. I do not pretend to live in a bubble but I do have limited ability to choose some of what happens around me or am exposed to.

Caveat Emptor is reminded occasionally when dealing in B/S/T area. Do we need to raise that level of concern in forum space by knowingly adding individual(s) with checkered past to Old Cardboard membership ?

Pat interesting question. That feels more like just dumb luck than taking advantage of someone, but it probably could be argued the other way too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat R View Post
Leon's poll and question was should a person convicted of a hobby fraud be allowed on here as a member and so far in the thread it has escalated to comparing that to a second chance in society in general to people that have committed crimes outside the hobby being accepted here and back in society. Now we're involving the moral issue which can get very broad.

Peter, if you purchased an old book at an antique store and when you got home you found a T206 Wagner in it would you take it back to the antique store?

Pat interesting question. That feels more like just dumb luck than taking advantage of someone, but it probably could be argued the other way too.

I would think that finding a T206 in a book that you bought and taking it back would be more of a moral issue rather than a hobby crime one.

Just because someone did time for their bad deeds doesn’t mean they changed or learned from it. That’s why we have lots of repeat offenders. Con artists always try to con.
Bruce


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We could change the timing a bit and make it less about luck. What if you noticed the Wagner in the book before you bought it, would you buy the book anyway?

As with any survey, you can change the responses pretty dramatically by changing the wording of the question. You should get plenty of "No" to "Should Hobby Criminals Be on Here?" (which reads like "How do you feel about crime?") but plenty of "Yes" if you ask whether people who were convicted at one point should be allowed to reintegrate in the community provided that they have served their sentences (which is more like asking people whether justice/forgiveness is ever possible).

Personally, I'm okay just leaving the choice of who deserves a ban and for how long up to Leon and letting him just decide it case by case, but I'm not in theory opposed to having lifetime bans for certain infractions. Nor do I think all people who have been convicted in a court of law necessarily need a stricter sentence here than all people who haven't. There are some people here that I would have booted long ago but that probably have no criminal record, but I'm fine with being part of a community where someone else is making those calls.

Fine use of the Socratic method. :D

What's a Wagner these days, $3,000,000? I wish I was so rich that I could just put a book with one back on the shelf and walk out. I am suspicious of anyone who says they wouldn't buy it for $4.99. I'd like to think I'd cut a check to the bookstore for a significant sum after the gain is realized, but pretty much nobody is going to not take that deal to be alright for the rest of their life.

Why would you buy the book when you can just put the Wagner in your pocket and walk out? Buying the book at that point makes no sense.;):rolleyes:

I believe buying the book makes it not theft.

A steal but not theft.

I think that was the question.

Here is the question-

After paying their dues, should hobbyists who committed fraud be allowed back ?

But if you pulled the book off the shelf and leafed through it and found the Wagner then you were likely interested in the book to begin with so I would probably still buy the book (after taking out the Wagner and putting in a spare toploader that I always carry for just this situation and then into my pocket). ;):rolleyes:

That was a question. The title of the thread is the other question.

The title of the thread wasn't the Poll question, but duly noted and changed. thanks
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So buying the Mantle for $50 is a crime?

That's why I asked Peter, because there's probably a lot wider range of opinions on moral issues. Morally I personally think the Wagner example would be worse than the Mantle or even the Cracker Jacks because if someone can't spend 20 seconds on their phone or computer to google mantle card or they take the first offer on a cigar box full of cards at a show where there are other dealers then they played a big part in the bad deal they got. With the Wagner the person who sold or consigned the book and the antique dealer most likely wouldn't know it was in there.

Maybe the reason for my gut distinction is that the Mantle hypo is face to face, but the Wagner isn't, and there's no deal to be made, the book owner has already given up the book? Not sure.

Fair enough I can understand that reasoning.

A new phrase for everyone wanting to allow this to happen...

Caveat Letthescumbagscausemayhemptor

I realize that this viewpoint is almost certainly in the minority here, but in my view, there isn't much distance between anything Bill Mastro ever did and being the guy who knowingly purchases a million dollar card for $50 from some innocent lady who inherited it from her father (or however else she acquired it) and just didn't know what it was worth. Whether or not something is punishable by law has no bearing on whether its right or wrong. It is theft under any definition of the word that should matter, regardless of what your dictionary or your background in law has to say on the matter.

Mastro did not simply take advantage of huge bargains when the opportunity presented itself, like a dumb seller selling a Mantle for $50 or a book dealer selling a card they don’t know is in the book to a buyer.

My point wasn't to make what Mastro did sound less serious than it was. My point was to state that I think being the $50 buyer of the million dollar card places one on par with the likes of Mastro. I think it's every bit as criminal. Perhaps even worse.

I'd take advantage of every lucky strike I can. Any seller who is offering an item for sale without knowing what it is or what is in it is foolish. Not the same as knowingly cheating collectors for years. But we don't need to get into these complex hypotheticals because the question is really simple: do we want people who've greatly and intentionally harmed so many collectors to post here? IMO, no. It isn't a tough line to draw. Card doctors, shillers, dishonest sellers and auctioneers, forgers...

Adam,

Thanks for trying to get this thread back on track. It really is spinning out of control with all these hypotheticals. I also say no to hobby criminals that have been caught, convicted and gone to prison for their crimes.



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Comparing buying a card at a bargain price to what Mastro did, indeed declaring taking advantage of a bargain is worse, is absolutely making what Mastro did “sound less serious than it was”. This is not what Mastro did, not even close. I find it difficult to believe a single member here has never paid below market for a card and taken advantage of a seller pricing something low.

But now you're attacking a straw man, Travis didn't say it's criminal/immoral to buy a card at a bargain price, his observation on its face was limited to the extreme example of paying someone $50 for a million dollar card which could only take place under circumstances where the seller had absolutely no clue what they had and was probably infirm in some way, not just made a mistake.

Buying a card for $50 when a seller offers it to you for that, when it is worth a million, is, very literally and exactly "buy[ing] a card at a bargain price". It's an extreme example, but that is precisely what it is. Thus, it is not a straw man at all. Nice try.

I see you've added an 'infirmity' into the mix, after the fact now. This does not seem at all relevant to what was said before you added this element in. EDIT: The original post very clearly states in the example that it is an uninformed seller, not a mentally addled one.

I am happy to be informed what crime this is. I have never seen a law that if somebody offers me something worth X% more than their asking price that it is criminal for me to buy it. I would love to be shown such a law in the US.

It's wrong and dangerous to drive 120 in a 55 MPH zone.

But everybody speeds.

That's your logic. You can't just expand the extreme example to its logical limit and then attack the general principle just because it's an example of it.

Again, I don't see where Travis said it's wrong to buy a card at a bargain price, just because the extreme example he objects to may be an example of buying a card for a bargain.

My logic is that the law is 55mph, therefore 56 is speeding and so is 120 and so is 120,000. There may be different degrees of bad or guilt, but none are accepted. Once you cross the line, you are in bad or criminal territory, the degree of bad varies by the circumstances and the gap between right or legal and what was done, but over the line is still over that line. If I tell a judge someone else was going 80 when I was going 75, guess who is still getting a ticket?

So where are we drawing the line? Can I buy a card for half it's value if the seller offers that? 10X?. Last year I bought a card item for less than 1% of what I was offered for it shortly later. Am I morally wrong for getting the piece at a large bargain? Have I committed a wrongful sin? What crime did I commit when doing so? Or is 1% still okay?

I'd really like to see this alleged crime. I'm not aware of it, and am worried that much of the board and myself are now criminals if there are limits in the law on the bargains we are allowed to get in auctions or negotiations.

I think he meant criminal in a moral or colloquial sense, no of course it is not a crime.

And as to line drawing, slippery slope logic. The fact that it may be hard to draw a line on the slope doesn't make an observation about something at the top of the slope wrong.

We'll drop that part of the charge then. Have I committed a *moral crime* when I have bought a card for half it's value? 1/10th? Was I a moral criminal to secure the card for less than 1% of what I was offered within a few weeks of acquisition? Does a seller, who is uninformed but easily could be with a 30 second search engine input, have no obligation to educate themselves and that moral obligation is on the buyer? What is the biggest bargain you've gotten? Do you consider that bargain a moral crime?

If so, how is this worse than Mastro's open fraud, shill bidding, and more?

Is it moral to sell a bottle of water to someone dying of thirst for $1000?

In your example you were presumably dealing with someone who collected cards, yes?

I would say no, because one is essentially extorting somebody, or being complicit in a death if they do not give in. I am not a lawyer to know if this would be prosecuted as murder in the US, but it is very damn close to it.

In the actual example here, a seller who has done no research, has offered a hobbyist a card at a bargain price.

I know you are clever enough to see that has absolutely nothing to do with your situation here where one is extorting someone for money or they will let them die. Nobody is being killed in the card transaction. Nobody is being extorted. Indeed, it is the 'wronged' party that is proposing the trade in the actual topic, under no threat, danger or duress whatsoever. Come on, you know this is absurdism now.

Nobody was killed when I purchase a bargain :rolleyes:

Right, I was just exploring the limits of transactions at extreme prices, not suggesting it was analagous.

As to your example, the distinction may not ultimately hold up, but I want to distinguish between someone in the hobby who fails to do research, and someone completely outside the hobby who is just ignorant altogether.

So when is it a 'moral crime'? $50 for a million dollar item you think is. Is my 1% (closer to .75% actually) case a moral crime? If we believe an act is moral or immoral, there logically must be a point where it goes from moral or having no ethical value and becomes immoral. It's not a slippery slope or a heap paradox. There must be a point it becomes immoral, if you believe buying a card for 20% below, still a bargain, is moral. It will be somewhat arbitrary, as most moral evaluations are, but an arbitrary limit does not make it a heap or a slope. We use them in our societal and personal values every day.

I'm replying before you add in these additional points.

I bought an item in a set I am steeped in from an antique dealer for $90. They clearly did not know cards well. I was offered north of $10,000 for it shortly after. I got the item in what I would term fairness, it was publicly listed but poorly so, and I took advantage of that terrible listing to get a deal, but I did not lie to do so, did not extort, strong-arm, or change the situation in any real way. I didn't correct the seller, I didn't write them a check for more after I got it. Did I commit a moral crime?

I don't know. I know that driving 56 is not dangerous but 120 is. But damned if I know where I would draw the line in between. I guess saying, it depends, doesn't really help because it's still a line drawing problem its just adding variables. (E.g., it might be safe for Lewis Hamilton to drive 100 down Colorado Boulevard, but not me.)

If They/Them/Day/Dem, etc...

Commit HIERECY...

*Then it is Now Known to be a *Prerequisite to the Crime!

No Need to Ask Anymore!!

They're Not Getin' my Clubhouse!!!

The problem is that we must have a line, because we are relying on said line to even define what this crime you and Snowman are advocating even is.

For example, "speeding" is a thing most people consider to be wrong. It describes going 56 in a 55, or 120, or 200 or 1,500 if that was practically possible. 54 is fine, 50 is fine. Not everyone will draw the line in the exact same place, it is arbitrary, but generally understood and accepted. Even with a population of almost 100% speeders, the vast majority support the notion that speeding is wrong and that those doing so deserve some sort of punishment in the legal system, which is separate from morality.

You have said "getting a bargain" is the wrong and inaccurate term, even though that's quite literally exactly what buying a card a seller of their own free will offers for $50 when it is worth $1,000,000 is. So what one is doing is not the crime, it is a crime only at a certain point. But we cannot define what that point is at all. We cannot say if I am or am not a hobby criminal for the moral crime, which we can't define, of which I may or may not be guilty of because we cannot define it.

It leaves me with no definition or understanding of what this alleged moral crime even is. The general descriptor of what is happening, what we normally use for such things, is rejected, for an argument of degrees, that this bargain is fine but this bargain is not because it's too much of a bargain, but the degrees also cannot be stated. To be a wrong or a crime, I would think we would have to first be able to define what it even is, following the Socratic principle, which it seems cannot be done.

I still have no idea how this vague and indefinable 'crime' can be worse than Mastro's actual crimes and wrongs that do not rely on a new standard.

Lots of things are hard to define in life. Where is the line, for example, between tough but appropriate parenting and child abuse? Just because there are cases where it may be less than clear doesn't make an extreme case unclear, IMO. One doesn't always need a hard and fast rule or definition to make judgments.