Sort of Ethical Question Re Baseball Signed W-2 Forms

[MooseDog]

Thanks for the replies. Interested to see others chime in.

Blacking out the SSN information certainly seems to be the right thing to do, but on the other hand it's easy, for say a Mike Corkins W-2 but what about a Carl Yastrzemski fully executed contract? Both still living but one worth a couple of bucks and the other worth four figures.

While I totally agree in principle, I'm not sure I could run that marker over the Yaz document.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by MooseDog

Thanks for the replies. Interested to see others chime in.

Blacking out the SSN information certainly seems to be the right thing to do, but on the other hand it's easy, for say a Mike Corkins W-2 but what about a Carl Yastrzemski fully executed contract? Both still living but one worth a couple of bucks and the other worth four figures.

While I totally agree in principle, I'm not sure I could run that marker over the Yaz document.

The way I see it, it's not a baseball card. PSA or SGC isn't going to ding you for it on a condition scale.

I'd find it odd if a collector scaled back his bidding or buying process based on a Soc# being there or not.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by MooseDog

Thanks for the replies. Interested to see others chime in.

Blacking out the SSN information certainly seems to be the right thing to do, but on the other hand it's easy, for say a Mike Corkins W-2 but what about a Carl Yastrzemski fully executed contract? Both still living but one worth a couple of bucks and the other worth four figures.

While I totally agree in principle, I'm not sure I could run that marker over the Yaz document.

I definately agree. Common sense would have me believe that someone buying a Yaz contract for several thousand dollars in a major sports auction would likely not be doing it for the purpose of stealing his identity.

Speaking from personal experience, I own documents like we're discussing for focus players in my personal collection. I likely will not be selling these documents any time soon as I really enjoy owning them. The thought of ever exploiting this personal info would never cross my mind. If anything, I feel that on some level, that having a document in the hands of an advanced collector may actually protect the player from the possibilty of identity theft, if you follow my line of thinking. Would I like owning a contract less if this info were blacked out? Possibly, as it changes the way that the document existed prior to someone changing it from its original condition, IMHO. I'm sure others would possibly not view it this way, FWIW...

That being said, the world we live in today is a twisted place. If this personal info was available without requiring a huge expenditure of capital, cyber crooks would be all over it.

[drc]

I'd say start by digitally blocking the out in the auction listing. Whether or not you physically block them on the documents is a second question. That you aren't picturing them online is the biggest thing. It seems highly unlikely someone would buy one of the forms for identity theft, in major part because the winner's name and address is known to you, eBay and PayPal when he purchases it. That would not be a wise way to go about obtaining an SS number for criminal purposes.

Though if it was me, I'd cross out the numbers on the forms.