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
.

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.



.

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.

Then, if we don’t need rules or definitions or reasonable criteria, it shouldn’t be difficult to determine if I am or am not a hobby criminal, for this act of X, where X represents the crime we cannot term.

The line between tough parenting and child abuse, and I am not a lawyer, is defined in every states law, as the later is a prosecutable offense, and a very serious one. Like all moral judgements it is arbitrary (ant least I am unable to think of any that are not) and some may not agree, but this is not some undefined offense whatsoever.

It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to meaningfully engage with an idea of a moral crime that cannot term the offense, cannot define it, cannot identify any of the boundaries between right and wrong, and for which the moral judgement on which the moral argument hinges appears to be your gut feeling at the moment. It’s not a very logical case, or one another person can do much of anything which. I would certainly not take my gut feeling of distaste for another’s actions to mean they are guilty of a crime, moral or actual, if I cannot specify how.

With that you can have the last word. Good discussion, interesting subject.

This sounds right.

Mark