Just a reminder
03/03/07 11:13 PersonalGeneral Yammering
Over on the CU forums this week there was a brutally
ugly exposure of a guy who had been organizing pack
rips for a bunch of guys on the board. He would
purchase unopened "vintage" (mostly 1980s) cases from
BBCE, collect the money from all the participants,
and then ship out unopened boxes. He started threads
for the CU forum members where they could share scans
with their best pulls as they were ripping their
packs. It seemed like a lot of fun - from experience,
it's definitely a lot of fun to share scans on
message boards, and is a great way to build
excitement about a set. I've been participating in a
thread like that for two years, and it's shaped my
entire collection.
Anyway, after a couple cases of off-center stars, bad collation, suspicious wrappers and few big-name cards, some guys got suspicious enough to do some detective work. Seems that the guy was buying wrappers and large lots of commons from the years of the pack rips, and re-sealing commons into packs, dropping them in boxes, and shipping them out. Then he was, I guess, keeping the unopened material to himself. You can read the whole thing over at CU.
Reading the thread made for great drama but I couldn't help but think that this guy bilked a lot of people out of a decent amount of money. But more importantly than that, he betrayed a lot of people.
I guess if you're a scumbag you're a scumbag, and you don't care who you betray. So this note is for the NON-scumbags who get to know other people on message boards: before you trust someone you've never looked in the eye, be really, really sure. If something seems fishy - like if a guy insists on shipping the individual boxes of unopened packs out to you rather than having them ship from the seller's warehouse - it probably is.
On a related note, last night I got together with a bunch of guys who I know from message boards at the Reading show. In light of all the above, it would have been pretty easy to be suspicious and wary of each other, but not so. I've been pretty lucky to have met a bunch of outstanding collectors and friends, and it was great to see them. I drove all the way to Reading and spent $35 on a Henry Johnson common that I already had (which I didn't realize when I bought it - gotta start carrying lists around again), but had a great time anyway because I spent it with friends.
One interesting point related to tie together my last blog post and this one - word at the show was that cards in Global holders were being submitted to PSA and SGC in large quantities for crossover, accompanied by comments like "I don't care how the cards grade - just get them out of those holders."
Really.
Anyway, after a couple cases of off-center stars, bad collation, suspicious wrappers and few big-name cards, some guys got suspicious enough to do some detective work. Seems that the guy was buying wrappers and large lots of commons from the years of the pack rips, and re-sealing commons into packs, dropping them in boxes, and shipping them out. Then he was, I guess, keeping the unopened material to himself. You can read the whole thing over at CU.
Reading the thread made for great drama but I couldn't help but think that this guy bilked a lot of people out of a decent amount of money. But more importantly than that, he betrayed a lot of people.
I guess if you're a scumbag you're a scumbag, and you don't care who you betray. So this note is for the NON-scumbags who get to know other people on message boards: before you trust someone you've never looked in the eye, be really, really sure. If something seems fishy - like if a guy insists on shipping the individual boxes of unopened packs out to you rather than having them ship from the seller's warehouse - it probably is.
On a related note, last night I got together with a bunch of guys who I know from message boards at the Reading show. In light of all the above, it would have been pretty easy to be suspicious and wary of each other, but not so. I've been pretty lucky to have met a bunch of outstanding collectors and friends, and it was great to see them. I drove all the way to Reading and spent $35 on a Henry Johnson common that I already had (which I didn't realize when I bought it - gotta start carrying lists around again), but had a great time anyway because I spent it with friends.
One interesting point related to tie together my last blog post and this one - word at the show was that cards in Global holders were being submitted to PSA and SGC in large quantities for crossover, accompanied by comments like "I don't care how the cards grade - just get them out of those holders."
Really.
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