OT: EBay Reps Meet With Dealers/Sellers At 2018 National

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by SetBuilder

You guys are wasting your time. Trying to stop the forgers is a never ending game of whack-a-mole. They just pop up again with a different account and a different COA.

The real solution is for people to stop buying their goods. They're in business because there is demand for what they sell. Once people become aware that 90% of autographs are fake, demand will drop, and they'll be out of business.

The only real way to get the forgers to disappear is for buyers to become educated on the signatures they buy and to be more skeptical.

Let's face it, most experienced collectors on this forum will never buy one of those shady autographs. It's only novices that buy them.

I've never seen a marketing campaign aimed at increasing awareness of forgeries. Very few autograph buyers even know forums like this exist. Why is that?

It's like the war on drugs. Everyone knows it's pointless to try to stop the supply. Look how that's worked out in the real world. Stop one druglord, and the next one is waiting to take his place. The real way to stop the drug cartels is for people to stop doing drugs. You stop the problem by shutting off the demand, not trying to stop the supply. If someone is willing to die to sell a bag of drugs, there isn't much of a deterrent that can stop them.

Nancy Reagan said "Just say no." How's that working out?
Aside from forums like this what can be done to stop people from buying forgeries?