Beware of Beckett!

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Michael B

Adam,

So true. I have run into people with multiple bankruptcies that keep getting dismissed. How I dread running PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records for those who do not know) for one of those people. They have learned to play the game using legal stall tactics. It takes a judge to say no and threaten criminal prosecution to stop it in some cases.

As to this Marx case, I suspect a smart DA could argue criminal charges under RICO. Interstate business activity to defraud investors. It does not matter what they intended to do it is what they did do. Additionally, if they used the USPS to send the items to PSA there could be possible mail fraud.

If PSA first came out and said that they would return the items to the individual owners at no charge and then issued a statement saying that they would return at no charge except for shipping they may run into problems. I suspect that the first statement would hold, especially if it was in writing (implied contract?), as an offer that each owner could accept. I would defer to you on contract law.

Michael,

I'm with you in wondering if there isn't some mail fraud potential were the USPS or other carriers were used for inter-state deliveries. But in regards to what PSA was supposedly going to charge Marx submitters, the big difference to me wasn't whether they were going to charge them the postage to send their cards back, it was that in that Sports Collectors Daily article it said that PSA was going to grade their cards for free. That later post by Rich of the PSA official statement just said they'd return the cards. Based on that statement it sounded like they were just going to return the cards ungraded, exactly the opposite of what the article said. I'm waiting to get some clarification on exactly what PSA is going to do.