Today's Wash. Post has major piece re the BB card fraud

[samosa4u]

I'm no lawyer, but wouldn't Brent have to get charged first? If he hasn't been charged with any crime yet, then why would he hire a criminal lawyer?

[ruth-gehrig]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

I'm no lawyer, but wouldn't Brent have to get charged first? If he hasn't been charged with any crime yet, then why would he hire a criminal lawyer?

Its Brent's hope that this PREVENTS him from being charged, hence all the cooperation and restitution. Question is will all this cooperation prevent Brent from going to jail which is where Jeff has previously said he belongs?

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

Who is responsible for providing information on weather a card has been altered (or conserved)?

Back to my original scenario, if Dealer X consigned 5,000 since 2012 through PWCC and has now been "outed" as a potential card doctor. What is the process for notifying victims? How many are notified?

Maybe 100 of the 5,000 cards have been publicly outed. What is the process? Do you start with the publicly outed "clearly altered cards" then politely ask Dealer X if any others were "clearly altered?" Is it a threshold?

I'm not trying to criticize the process, again, I'm just curious.

Every card that an 'outed' dealer/consignor has provided to PWCC is not a bad card. Some cards were cracked out and resubmitted; some had a corner pressed down. Not every card in a submission is bad when there is 1, 2 or even 10 bad ones in a submission.

As to who is providing info on bad cards, keep in mind that I don't represent every person who consigned to PWCC. With the government's help, with the help of the Blowout guys who did incredible work here, we're able to determine some of the bad cards. The government has sources who have provided them info about cards, some of that is shared with us and a discussion is had. I can tell you that we are erring on the side of giving refunds back. This is a fluid situation as I have said. It is not a perfect situation by any means, but it's a start.

Originally Posted by ruth-gehrig

Its Brent's hope that this PREVENTS him from being charged, hence all the cooperation and restitution. Question is will all this cooperation prevent Brent from going to jail which is where Jeff has previously said he belongs?

Michael, this decision isn't up to me. I took the case primarily to accomplish something more for buyers harmed than what had previously occurred in other hobby cases. As for my opinions on the people involved, whatever I said I believed but was before significant assistance has been provided to the government. But punishment is not my decision.

I'll speak more about this as time goes on and I'm willing to be contacted with any bad cards that need to be refunded.

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Every card that an 'outed' dealer/consignor has provided to PWCC is not a bad card. Some cards were cracked out and resubmitted; some had a corner pressed down. Not every card in a submission is bad when there is 1, 2 or even 10 bad ones in a submission.

As to who is providing info on bad cards, keep in mind that I don't represent every person who consigned to PWCC. With the government's help, with the help of the Blowout guys who did incredible work here, we're able to determine some of the bad cards. The government has sources who have provided them info about cards, some of that is shared with us and a discussion is had. I can tell you that we are erring on the side of giving refunds back. This is a fluid situation as I have said. It is not a perfect situation by any means, but it's a start.

I agree that the Blowout guys are doing great work - they're identifying victims. What steps is Brent taking to identifying additional victims?

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

I guess (not that Jeff can be expected to answer) my big question is whether or not PWCC is still trying to portray themselves as innocent victims of the card doctoring "community" or are they being upfront about the fact that they were in cahoots with them.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

I guess (not that Jeff can be expected to answer) my big question is whether or not PWCC is still trying to portray themselves as innocent victims of the card doctoring "community" or are they being upfront about the fact that they were in cahoots with them.

It should be obvious based on my posts what our position is I'd hope.

Originally Posted by drcy

Though it is kind of funny if Brent said "Uh oh. I'm in such big trouble that I'd better get El Chapo's lawyer."

Though, obviously, Jeffrey has knowledge of this particular hobby, which it seems is what one would want for a lawyer on either side. You don't want to hire a lawyer who collects beanie babies or funky earrings-- totally different law. I'm sure Brent has also gone into this knowing that Jeffrey is a dog person ("Betsy, we can't chance it. Hide the cat! Oh, shoot, the closet's full. Call it Fido and maybe he won't notice.")

I recently befriended a neighborhood cat named Hobo and am pretty into him. We meet at night and in the morning during dog walks.

And as you guessed, I'm not exactly in need of baseball hobby cases with the stuff I'm doing now. But I'd rather deal with this stuff from the inside than to be on the outside, screaming my head off and not accomplishing anything.

[drcy]

Originally Posted by calvindog

I recently befriended a neighborhood cat named Hobo and am pretty into him. We meet at night and in the morning during dog walks.

I'm a dog person, but pet cats I meet on my walk home. Stay away from the raccoons.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by calvindog

It should be obvious based on my posts what our position is I'd hope.

My question wasn't about YOUR position. I also didn't expect an answer from you simply because of attorney client privilege, not because I thought you'd be evasive.

[BengoughingForAwhile]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

I agree that the Blowout guys are doing great work - they're identifying victims. What steps is Brent taking to identifying additional victims?

If PWCC just released the complete list to the public of all Moser related cards that have gone through their auction house it would save the Blowout guys and all the buyers of these cards a whole lot of time and trouble. Is every buyer of every card in the history of PWCC auctions supposed to go over every card they ever purchased and try and do research to determine if they were defrauded??? That's ridiculous.

[Wite3]

Thanks Jeff for the info.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by BengoughingForAwhile

If PWCC just released the complete list to the public of all Moser related cards that have gone through their auction house it would save the Blowout guys and all the buyers of these cards a whole lot of time and trouble. Is every buyer of every card in the history of PWCC auctions supposed to go over every card they ever purchased and try and do research to determine if they were defrauded??? That's ridiculous.

I am quite sure it isn't just Gary. One piece of the puzzle only.

[drcy]

No fan of PSA and wouldn't mind seeing it go down due to their being unable to do their job. However, I understand and appreciate their sentiment that the card doctors and their knowing facilitators be the ones to take the financial punishment. They would be the criminals not PSA.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by calvindog

the Blowout guys who did incredible work here,

I agree with this.

My only comments to this thread are:

Thank you Blowout! Please keep up the great work. It is making a difference. The collecting community appreciates your efforts. Go BODA!

Jeff, please do your best to do good.

[OldOriole]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Jeff, please do your best to do good.

Amen.

[SMPEP]

Jeff - I've never met you. And I do believe you are trying to do the right thing.

But the question I raise to you - is that even possible?

Is there anyone connected to this hobby that can truly be an honest arbiter?

Every card taken out of circulation by the FBI - makes other cards more valuable. Are those in your collection? Or the collections of friends of yours?

Every owner of high end cards has an interest in the outcome. Some gain by preserving the status quo. Some gain from the destroying the status quo.

So all an FBI investigation can do at this point is shuffling the winners and losers.

The only guaranteed loser is the history of the hobby - as cards are taken out of circulation. And while some cards can easily be removed from the hobby with minimal impact, some of these cards are truly scarce to begin with and valuable regardless or doctoring. Taking them out of the hobby just makes the hobby poorer and the owners of the unremoved cards richer.

The approach you are describing throws the baby and the bathwater out. And the real loser is the hobby.

[bounce]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Every card that an 'outed' dealer/consignor has provided to PWCC is not a bad card. Some cards were cracked out and resubmitted; some had a corner pressed down. Not every card in a submission is bad when there is 1, 2 or even 10 bad ones in a submission.

No doubt what you've said is true. However, this whole process speeds up exponentially if just the information around the submissions is shared in some manner. Start with the entire suspect population, break it down from there (a lot of that work is probably already done, but I doubt it's complete).

Appreciate what you're doing, but if there isn't going to be real transparency in this cleaning up then we aren't that much further along. "Trust me" aren't words most of the community is going to be satisfied with. "Show us" would go much further.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Brent has been selling cards for Gary since at least the late 2000s and I believe it was earlier than that. I imagine most of those cards are no longer with the original purchasers out of prewarcardcollector/PWCC and cannot be traced. And as stated, Gary is just one piece of the PWCC puzzle. Obviously whatever can be done to get these cards off the market is better than nothing, but the ability to rectify decades of fraud is quite limited.

[bounce]

Peter - agree with you, but why can’t we just start with what we know already and go from there?

There is a big piece of this that is a pretty simple reconciliation project if some minimal information would be shared. But so far, even those who are supposedly cooperating aren’t really sharing.

Maybe the FBI is doing the work? How anyone who hasn’t already been contacted directly for refund would know that I’m not sure.

So far, it’s all still happening in the background with a bunch of trust me’s and be patient. This thing has had pretty public legs for months now, if they’d just share a little more info on what we already know most of those cards could be mopped up in a few days.

The older stuff, agree much more difficult. The recent stuff, it’s really not that hard of anyone really wanted to get it done.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by bounce

Peter - agree with you, but why can’t we just start with what we know already and go from there?

There is a big piece of this that is a pretty simple reconciliation project if some minimal information would be shared. But so far, even those who are supposedly cooperating aren’t really sharing.

Maybe the FBI is doing the work? How anyone who hasn’t already been contacted directly for refund would know that I’m not sure.

So far, it’s all still happening in the background with a bunch of trust me’s and be patient. This thing has had pretty public legs for months now, if they’d just share a little more info on what we already know most of those cards could be mopped up in a few days.

The older stuff, agree much more difficult. The recent stuff, it’s really not that hard of anyone really wanted to get it done.

Trust me and be patient are the best. It is code for shut up so this can all disappear. Look how well it worked with the recent autograph scandal.