I collect in a way to avoid the fraud, drama, and garbage that comes with any hobby in which peoples financial stakes are such that ethics are easily shoved aside. The prevalent fraud is more annoying than personally affecting. In 20 years I've yet to be scammed. I'm sure it will happen one day.
I buy low grade. There's not a graded card or sharp corner in sight. Heck, there's not even a plastic sleeve in sight at all most of the time.
I don't buy mega expensive cards that if it turns out it's altered and suddenly worthless, I just lost the downpayment on a house. Every penny spent is treated as money lost, beer money without the liver damage.
I focus on rarities, cards and master sets I like that scammers are generally not targeting, or for which the scams are blatantly obvious. I have as much fun outside of Baseball as in it.
I trade with fellow collectors who think alike and am friends with outside the cards alone whenever possible. Swapping $10 of cards back and forth whenever we can help each other isn't liable to produce fraud.
I operate with the philosophy that if it doesn't make sense, don't buy it. Cards from 1910 shouldn't be NM-MT condition. Legitimate signed cards of players who died before autographed card collecting was popular exist in tiny, tiny numbers. For every card undersized and unaltered there should be a roughly equal number of oversized ones.
I have a great time researching my tobacco sets, putting together the mysteries and unknowns, check listing master sets, the minutia that altering doesn't affect and doesn't even cost a cent.
No one is altering fair grade T42's, making copies of T220's, trimming 1971 Topps cards in Good with a crease. And if they are, since I don't care about condition and just enjoy the images and building sets, it doesn't really matter to me. If it turns out my t206 common with 18 creases was trimmed, oh well. I hate the fraud, but I have a grand time with the hobby. I'm not going to make money, but I have a good time and good friends in the hobby. that's enough. If you avoid the areas of the hobby that are dominated by scammers and for which it can be reasonably expected that that will be prevalent (which would you focus on if you were an unethical scammer, $20,000 cards or $2 ones?), it's as much fun as it has ever been, in some ways better than ever.
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