SCP Auctions - poor customer service w/ auction item

[RichardSimon]

Auction LOA's,,, pre-certified,,, just more mumbo jumbo from authentication services.
You either examine an item or not.
Why are they allowed to get away with this?
"Well, yeah, we sort of looked at that autograph before the auction, but if you want us to REALLY look at it, ya gotta pay up, sucka."

[travrosty]

on their websites, these companies state that the purchaser of the auction item should really send it in to ensure their highest level of service.

they are admitting you are getting their lowest level to begin with. a 'preliminary' inspection.

preliminary just means sub-standard, why anyone should put up with that is a question i would like these auction houses to answer.


the drunk guy packed your chute, but if you pay us extra money, you can ensure our highest service of packing your chute.

[thecatspajamas]

Anyone have any idea what authenticators typically charge auction houses for these en masse authentications? Do they do it by the total number of lots, number of pieces, by the hour, by the day? Clearly it's not equivalent to adding up their standard rate for each individual signed item, but I'm just curious as to how they go about it.

If there's a previous thread that addresses this, I'd be happy for a point in the right direction. There's so much bashing and discussion of TPA's that it's hard to do a search for it.

[vintagechris]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

Auction LOA's,,, pre-certified,,, just more mumbo jumbo from authentication services.
You either examine an item or not.
Why are they allowed to get away with this?
"Well, yeah, we sort of looked at that autograph before the auction, but if you want us to REALLY look at it, ya gotta pay up, sucka."

The sad part Richard, I am really starting to believe that they don't even look at the stuff. I wish I had scanned some of this stuff to show people.

The sad part about the lot I purchased, it was about 350 cards. I myself could personally go through in about 15 minutes and pull out the questionable ones. Questionable meaning either I know they are fake or questionable meaning I have not seen many examples of that person's autograph.

Sadly about 30% of this lot were without question bad. WIth another 20% highly questionable. There were forgeries of Harry Carson and Charlie Joiner in this lot. Guys who have signed TTM for years and their signatures haven't changed much at all if any, and they didn't even look like the person TRIED to form the letters correctly.

How does someone who is a "professional" authenticator not know what a Charlie Joiner autograph looks like?!

These auction houses need to start being more careful because you are letting these guys scam you. Many times they are not even looking at this stuff. I used to question if they looked at them, after this last lot, I know without question this authenticator did not look at them.

As I said in previous post, the auction house allowed me to return it but if they continue to not hold these people accountable for their "mistakes" they will have lost my business.

[scooter729]

To follow up from my original post, Dan from SCP eventually did reach out to my friend over the weekend to offer a refund on the item if he would like, since they do not have the photomatch to authenticate the nameplate (which is why the item got the bids which it did).

The tough thing - my friend really wants to keep the nameplate, but bid higher on it because it was supposed to have a photomatch. So he now has to decide whether to return for the refund offered, or keep it at the full price despite not being fully as described.

[Wite3]

He can always ask for a partial refund. If SCP were any good at customer service, that would have been one of the options from the start (although, if they were any good, they would have the photomatch to begin with).

Joshua

[travrosty]

ask what day is the very latest you can return it, and in the meantime try to find a photo match yourself.

[travrosty]

there are a couple of photos of his office out there, looks like he had numerous nameplates.

here are two photos. several nameplates shown, but not the one you have.

i guess you would have to decide whether having an auerbach estate letter is good enough for you. it would be for me. the alternative is that the estate or someone else manufactured it out of whole cloth to try to fool somebody? seems unlikely. when he died, they probably gathered all his stuff, and this was in it. i would think it is his nameplate, owned by him. it didnt look like he only had one nameplate in or around his office all those years, probably many of them.

[scooter729]

Thanks for the help. Agreed - I feel 100% confident (as does my friend) that the nameplate is totally Red's. It's not a question of authenticity (at least not now - if he went to re-sell down the road, it could be, but that is not at all his intention. He's a die-hard Celtics fan.)

However, there were a couple of different nameplates SCP was auctioning, which were advertised as photomatches. Had this one been listed properly as not having the match, he likely would have bid more on one of the others instead of this one. Now they're all sold though, so it's his call on how to proceed.

So it's not about whether it's real or not - it's more the fact of not listing the item correctly, and then taking over a month to get back to a winning bidder about an item which wasn't described properly.