Posted By:
Dan MathewsonWell... First of all, that card has traveled a lot as Mr. Freeman admitted as well. And, that is what I intended to point out.
Mr. Freeman also stated: "When it comes to PRO graded cards, it is Buyer Beware." OK...what I said, exactly, was "A rule of thumb lately SEEMS to be: don't buy anything in a PRO holder." I did not say it as directly or all-inclusively as Mr Freeman did. Yet, I think that is also an important point to consider.
Mr Freeman goes on to state this: "I think it is also important to point out that even though the sellers Dan referred to were selling PRO graded cards, it is unfair to say that their cards were trimmed. Dan should exercise better judgment before drawing such damning conclusions." <Laugh Out Loud> OK...ONCE AGAIN, please go back to my entry so you can see how Mr Freeman is misquoting me. I did not say "they were selling PRO graded cards, and their cards were trimmed". In fact, that would be a damning and unfair "generalization". I did not make that generalization. What I did say is this: "Interestingly, "places" has been selling many trimmed, worthless cards on eBay in PRO holders. (Go look at her feedback, she has been defrauding people left and right, you'll see that in her negative feedback items she has been getting)". That is a direct quote from my entry. Now, if you do go to eBay and look, there are 7 negative entries of this nature (from 7 separate transactions) in the last 8 months of her history. That is significant. Two of them are not in red highlights, as they appear as follow-ups to comments (the buyers found out later that the cards had been trimmed after initially leaving positive feedback upon delivery). Each of these persons were defrauded and they said so, saying the cards were trimmed. Is my repeating their direct comments any different or "slanderous", simply by telling people to "Buyer Beware" and by telling them where to look for that information?? I think not... Many people on eBay are my friends, and I think it's important that we all tell each other about this sort of activity. That isn't "being a cop on the eBay beat..." as Mr Freeman puts it. It's looking out for the well-being of your friends. Mr Freeman may be the type who walks by an incident and says nothing while someone is being victimized, or never stops to help them out. Mr Mathewson is not that type of person.
I clearly included that information because the complaints are in her eBay history and feedback file. Please, go look at it; just go back 8 months or so. Several people complained about being bilked in this manner; and many, many of us have seen e-mails from other people who have also claimed fraud. Else, I would not have put that in writing in this forum.
Additionally, what I pointed out was that the several feedback complaints that one eBay user has in particular, related specifically to this practice of selling trimmed cards in PRO holders. Sorry...it isn't slander if I'm simply relating information which can be researched on eBay. It's right there in living color, right under that person's username by several different people.
I then went on to recommend the professional grading services that I prefer, based on my personal experience with them as well as the comments I hear from other people about grading services. I can pass on those recommendations as well. I like those services, I use them, I prefer them, I think they are great. I'll advise my friends the good places I think they should take a look at and give a try; and I try to tell my friends of pitfalls they should avoid, and why they should avoid them.
With all of Mr Freeman's misinformation, I'm literally scratching my head trying to understand why he is angry and completely misquoting the things I said in my earlier entry, as well as making false statements about my reputation on eBay. Then, I saw the links to articles on my court case with the police department which he included into this forum about baseball cards.
I think Mr. Freeman would like me to be embarrassed for fighting for my civil rights. Or, perhaps for being a cop. Or, perhaps for being gay. Well, I'm not. Otherwise, I wouldn't have ever taken a very tough fight to Federal Court where I knew it would likely get public coverage. Yes, I lost the case, but I went there knowing that "winning in court" was unlikely. Still, I'm very proud of that fight, even as difficult as it was; and the several officers who testified on my behalf (a couple were of very high rank) supported me and what was asserted. When a person fights for his/her civil rights, you do not decide to "fight the fights that can be won. You must fight the fights that need fighting." Some things needed to be documented. And, the key is that the City was put on notice. Myself and the others at that department who had done exceptional jobs for that department, but were treated in a discriminatory manner until we were forced to resign, are hopefully the last ones that the department will treat that way. THAT ALONE was worth the battle. Discrimination is probably the toughest civil claim to prove, especially when the biggest violations are things done carefully and succinctly by high ranking professionals who don't leave an easy trail to follow, or much of one at all. Mr Freeman's comments on this unrelated topic, oddly interjected into a conversation about baseball cards on eBay, apparently is meant to embarrass or degrade me, but I won't be ashamed of myself or my fight for my civil rights. Sometimes, the fight must benefit others who follow later and I believe a person must be selfless and forthright in that regard.
I never expected a baseball card conversation to get to a level where a person with a chip on his shoulder about cops, or civil rights, or gay persons (or all three, who knows...) would take personal, hate/bias matters to such a vindictive level, and try to introduce that subject matter as if it were relevant to the baseball/eBay auctions that were discussed.
Nevertheless, and back to the topic of baseball cards, I still think it is wise for all of us to be aware of the scams on eBay and be kind enough to one another to warn friends when this occurs so they don't end up buying worthless junk. This was simply a "buyer beware" kinda thing, that's all.
My personal apologies to the rest of the readers in this forum for weird tangent that this conversation twisted to -- I only meant to continue a conversation that has been going on for far longer than I have been on eBay myself. My best to you all, even to you Mr Freeman. Quite honestly, even though you seem to misquote a great deal and state misinformation, I hope that nobody on eBay rips you off, as I would hope for anyone else. I simply believe that people should be honest in their transactions and completely disclose everything about their merchandise. And, when persons are not honest, I hope that everyone who recognizes it makes noise about it so nobody else is hurt by them.
-dan
PS. I did notice one other thing, now, before sending this with the "Respond!" key. The system seems to indicate that Mr Freeman's e-mail response address is seattleguy@address.com -- Seattle being where I am from and it's the area where I was a cop for over 10 years. Since I dealt with literally thousands of people in my career as a cop, I haven't made the connection yet...but, being an interesting coincidence, I'm beginning to think that perhaps this could be an unfortunate, personal vendetta of some sort. Again, my apologies to the forum.