an interesting email of fraud
I got permission to post this per the person that sent it to me but I am taking out the names. We feel if more people know this is going on then the better it will be for the collecting community. This person that has sent me this has worked with authorities very recently, and I believe still is. He is a hobbyist and doesn't like to see fraud in our hobby. I received this email yesterday in some communication with him. He is the only other one I know that has spoken to this ringleader scammer mentioned on the board recently, who not ironically goes by the alias "Copperfield". This has to do with the SportsCollector id thread too. It is the same ring with that guy that was thrown in jail in California, a few weeks or so ago. I think his name was Den Prak...who is/was a pawn for this guy.
A guy that bought some high end cards from (known dealer) and I came out to xx last week to pick them up. He tried to pay some of the balance that he owed (known dealer) with an 86 Fleer Jordan PSA 10. (Known dealer) sent me a picture of it to check if it was good or not. Copperfield had 1000 Jordans printed and he's putting them in his fake slabs and trading them to people. I asked him to send me some and he sent me four of them with no slabs. I used the reprints as a reference and found out the card (known dealer) was being offered was one of the Mexican creations. I traced where the owner bought it back to a guy on eBay who had recently traded some of his stuff away to Copperfield and was about to send more to him. I informed him what was going on and he refunded the guy who bought his Jordan. I talked to Copperfield after that and told him that he wasn't going to get that guy anymore. He had already taken the poor guy for about 20k.
Just passing the story on so folks can be more aware. Most of what these guys do is on Craigslist, ebay, small shops etc.....and they mainly go for the higher graded cards of major stars. The scammer admits his stuff won't fool experts but it will fool greedy and inexperienced people. Who wouldn't want a '52 Topps Mantle in a 5 holder for few grand, or maybe five grand?
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