John Rogers Home and Business Searched by the FBI

[WhenItWasAHobby]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Peter- here is something I don't understand, and maybe you can explain it: if I rendered an opinion on an autograph, and I got it wrong (I called a bogus autograph genuine) I agree that I could have simply given an erroneous opinion.

But if you gave me a thousand bogus autographs to authenticate, and I said all thousand were genuine, isn't there a tipping point where nobody would believe me? Wouldn't it at some point become obvious that I was committing fraud?

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Barry, if nobody believed you then is it fraud? At that point your opinion wouldn't be material.

But where I think you meant to go is where I was going with this originally: that at some point there can be enough circumstantial evidence that a seller knows his opinion is false; and if a seller knows his opinion is false that's just as fraudulent as affirmatively stating the item is genuine.

The key element of fraud is proving that the person knew that the material representation he made was false. The big problem is that someone can designate themselves as an "expert" and rubberstamp everything as authentic and as long as that stuff sells, its a win-win situation for both the expert and the seller of the bogus items and why even try to do a competent job by rejecting items? That would be leaving good money on the table. All the expert has to do is be vigilant in believing and communicating what he is authenticating is real.

For something like that to be shut down it would take either an FBI sting like what happened in Operation Bullpen or have a network TV news magazine like 20/20, Dateline or 60 Minutes give them knowingly bad items expose the gross incompetence or fraud and essentially force them out of business.

I recall around 2004, PSA had a World Series of Grading contest at the National. An independent group should do the same with the grading companies of cards, autographs and memorabilia. If done properly it could bring a lot of them problems to light.