Beckett suing store for fraudulent Kelce signatures
 

Hahahahahaha.

Hahahhahahhaaaaa. Ha!

So, let me see if I have this right :

An opinion seller, paid somebody for their opinion, then sold that opinion as their own, THEN figured out that they were lied to?

Hahahahaha......

Amazing, stuff.

One would think it would be a simple case to decide by simply asking Kelce if he signed the stuff as claimed.

He won't remember exactly what he signed and when. Rock stars have no idea, they don't pay attention to what they're doing when they are tasked with signing a pile of stuff, He was just signing what was put in front of him while chit-chatting with whoever was in the room.

+1

He might remember signing over 1,000 items, or what city he was in that day. I would suspect signing that many items would involve a pile of cash, so he should have some sort of record. In fact, the company paying him would have records, including perhaps a dated check. Legit businesses would claim the expense of such a signing as a business deduction and would therefore have documentation.

If it was on or ten items I'd agree, but we're talking over a thousand.

You would be surprised how clueless they can be.

I have a former boss who if asked "hey did you sign 1000 various items in the this particular city on this particular day?" he would most likely reply "I don't know, ask Doug."

Reading the article, there was no opinions offered or sold in this case. Beckett entered a contract with someone to act as witness to a signing, so it would get the Beckett Witnessed designation (which some people prefer to authenticated, because it shouldn't be a matter of opinion that something was signed in your presence) instead of the Beckett Authenticated. That person then claimed to have witnessed the signing, but did not in fact, ever show up. It turns out that Kelce was also never at the event the witness was supposed to attend - he was booked at a signing elsewhere the same day (which makes this look like a planned and coordinated schemed between the "witness" and the forgers). The "event organizers" then forged the items, which were submitted along with the "witness' paperwork certifying they had watched Kelce sign, so Beckett then slabbed/stickered the items accordingly.
This is hardly a defense of Beckett, I would argue this even worse than if they had just screwed up on 1138 signatures (which would be pretty bad on it's own). Many people (myself included) assumed that "Beckett Witnessed" meant signed in the presence of a Beckett employee. The revelation that they contract others to act as witnesses immediately makes you wonder how many times this has happened that they just didn't catch. Certainly, any signing that this "witness" had previously been contracted for are suspect.Also, since Beckett figured this out after the Jason Kelce scheduling conflict was brought to their attention, you have to wonder why they didn't check on that prior to contracting someone to witness an event that wasn't actually happening.

Then Doug would know. And there would be records of schedules, payments, and so on, so even if Kelce is walking around with his head up his seat, he or his people should easily be able to confirm or debunk.

They have done this for some years now, much like the Topps and Panini. I have a friend that primarily collects soccer and he’s found instances of Messi “BAS Witnessed” items originating from shows where he cancelled his appearances and was still on another continent. He’s also of the opinion that none of the major soccer stars (Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappe, etc) sign their certified autos and that handlers both sign the cards and the paperwork certifying them.

Simple fix, video record all signings.

I remember seeing a lot of "witness" certificates but I can't remember any of them mentioning the circumstances of the signing. Is that standard practice now? How does one go about finding out where an item was signed and witnessed?

When I get stuff signed, I take a picture of the athlete holding each item he signs. Much better than a LOA or guarantee. Examples of Bud Grant and Alan Merrick:

I tend to take a photo of the athlete signing in person, if possible.

It's far better than third party authentication (which is somebody's opinion) or a LOA (which can be forged or worthless to begin with.)

Nobody will ever question the authenticity of this Kent Hrbek signed Metropolitan Stadium seat back that I got autographed this week:

Seems like a solid business model smh

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I agree but couldn't help but think about the Wagner guy photo.... :)
Hrbek was always a favorite of mine. Glad he seems to be doing well!