Quote:
Originally Posted by benjulmag
Material omissions are as much acts of fraud as are material misrepresentations.
Also, when did I say anything about the practice of an auction house bidding against its own customers? For the record, I am against such a practice as I don't believe an auction house should be wearing two hats. I'm simply pointing out the inconsistency and hypocrisy of you criticizing them for not maximizing the return to the family that consigned this find, while simultaneously criticizing them for maximizing it through the practice of house bidding.
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Actually "material omissions" are not fraud unless you have some duty to disclose the facts. You might have such a duty if other things you have said would be misleading without further disclosure but absent an untrue or misleading statement or some special relationship with the buyer, there is no duty to disclose a fact like this (i.e., that you found a lot more of these high grade cards). In any sale, there are lots of facts the buyer or seller would want to know that would affect the price. We may think it's nice that the family left a lot of money on the table by having/letting Heritage disclose the existence of the other cards in the find, but it would not have been illegal or unethical not to have made such disclosures. Personally I think it was foolish but I understand why others feel it's admirable.