Nov. 2014- FAKE ULTIMATE COLLEGE JERSEYS: UPPER DECK NEW HOBBY FRAUD COMMITTED!!!

2013-2014 UD Ultimate FB College Jerseys/Patches are FAKE!

11/25/14 7:45PM

Just when I started thinking maybe Upper Deck will have enough sense to stay on the straight and narrow now that someone else is in charge (even if McWilliam is not dead, he's not in charge of UD anymore) I'm proved VERY WRONG! But it's nice knowing (as terminally sick as I am) I'm one of the very few collectors who discovered the complete TRUTH about these worthless Brand New COLLEGE jersey swatches and patches of players like: Barry Sanders, John Elway, Bo Jackson, Dan Marino, Jerry Rice, Jerome Bettis, etc. on this fairly newly released "2013" UD Ultimate product. The majority of these cards seem to have been showing up on eBay in the last month or so only. Granted I'm not on eBay as a member at all (for a few months now), but I still search for new products weekly to follow what's going on in the hobby and what items sell for. These "memorabilia" cards (as Upper Deck calls them!) from 2013 Ultimate Football sell for OUTRAGIOUS prices like a Barry Sanders dual college Patch card /60 that sold today for $41.98 <<<< click to see the listing. THAT'S WHAT REAL GAME-USED BARRY SANDERS COLLEGE PATCH CARDS SHOULD SELL FOR!!! The seller of that card has the largest selection of these WORTHLESS "memorabilia" cards on eBay right now. Boy, he must be pissed off! Even thought the autographs are ON CARD, that doesn't make up for all the pissed off collectors there will be once they read the fine print on the card backs and realize what it means.

These "memorabilia" cards read exactly this:

"CONGRATULATIONS! You have received a trading card with (player names) Player Worn Football Memorabilia. The jerseys were worn by the athletes for Upper Deck."

This means they are BRAND NEW STORE BOUGHT JERSEYS, NEVER USED IN ANY GAME OR AT ANY EVENT! That means they are not memorabilia in any definition ever used in the history of this hobby (or on Webster.com) before! UPPER DECK DECEIVED US AGAIN AND ALMOST GOT AWAY WITH IT UNTIL I GOT INVOLVED!

Here is the Webster.com definition of the word "Memorabilia" (please take into consideration that they know nothing about our hobby!):

"mem·o·ra·bil·ia noun plural \ˌme-mə-rə-ˈbi-lē-ə, -ˈbē-lē-ə, -ˈbil-yə\ 
: objects or materials that are collected because they are related to a
particular event, person, etc. : things collected as souvenirs

Full Definition of MEMORABILIA

1:  things that are remarkable and worthy of remembrance

2:  things that stir recollection or are valued or collected for their
association with a particular field or interest :  mementos <baseball
memorabilia> "

These 2013 UD Ultimate Memorabilia cards do not fall into ANY of the definitions of memorabilia by a book that has nothing to do with our hobby! So how can people IN OUR HOBBY call these memorabilia cards (like Upper Deck itself did???)! They LIED to sell a product regardless of the future repercussions by collectors because from what I've recently heard: Upper Deck is in the middle of selling their company!!! So why would they care if they screwed the hobby with one of their last BIG products when they don't have to deal with the fallback from LYING? Jason Masherah (current President of Upper Deck) will certainly be gone when new owners take over so why would he care? When card company's are facing bankruptcy or are in the middle of selling the company (which can easily take a year or more with all the legal paperwork, etc.) the company could basically pull whatever fraud they 3want because they know that the responsible parties will only have to hear complaints for a very limited period of time. plus they surround themselves with lower employees that take the direct heat from direct buy dealers and collectors. So the Executives don't care at all. This is what I believe happened with these USELESS "memorabilia" college jersey cards Upper Deck has been releasing for several years now.

 

This explains why eBay sellers are dumping these Upper Deck college jersey "Memorabilia" cards & patches in HUGE NUMBERS lately because they realized that they are worthless junk, but they'd NEVER admit that they knew this. I asked several eBay large sports card sellers if these are "game-used" college jerseys and several said "YES THEY ARE." So they arte willing to outright lie to make what money back they can on cards that they now know are worthless.

 

EVERY COLLECTOR WHO BOUGHT ANY COLLEGE JERSEY/PATCH CARDS FROM UPPER DECK PRODUCTS MADE SINCE 2010 NEED TO ASK THEIR SELLERS IF THESE ARE "Game-Used" COLLEG JERSEY SWATCHES!

If your seller replies "yes" when the backs of the cards do not specify, or say what 2013 Ultimate says: player worn for Upper Deck, you need to let the seller know that you now know that these are NOT game-used or event-used so they are worthless. Then ask what the seller is willing to do about this. If they say anything other than "send it back for a full refund including return shipping." You need to report the seller to eBay.  

 

Now everyone has to ask themselves: ARE ANY UPPER DECK FOOTBALL CARDS I OWN SINCE 2010 MADE WITH COLLEGE JERSEY/PATCH SWATCHES ALL FAKE AS WELL?  

 

I never saw these cards until a couple of months ago. Yet release dates are stated as October to December 2013??? Was this just another product delayed forever so that they could get as many autographs in the product as possible without too many redemption cards?  Especially after seeing what redemption cards did to Topps! THEY NEARLY BANKRUPTED THEM THANKS TO MICHAEL EISNER (Corporate Asshole)!!!

This $63.00 or so "box" has one pack with four cards inside: one autograph card, one jersey/patch card, one RC #'ed to 199 or less, and one base card. Since the "memorabilia" cards are NOT memorabilia in any sense of the word: the people that bought cases of this product were ripped off something awful!!! The bad players on the checklist for autographs and jersey/patch cards includes a ton of worthless (but 2013 fairly highly touted) 2013 rookies like Terrence Williams, Matt Barkley, Robert Woods, Stedman Bailey, Landry Jones, Manti Te'o, and a long list of unproven "star" rookies like Geno Smith, Tavon Austin, Mike Glennon, etc.

"Memorabilia Cards" and "Autographed Memorabilia Cards" are the exact terms Upper Deck, and Dave & Adam's Card World used for these worthless jerseys they used for this product.. On eBay "Piece Of Authentic" is chosen in the Card Attributes area on most of these cards sold by eBay sellers which is WRONG and unscrupulous. But most of us know that most of the card sellers left on eBay would sell their own mothers for $10.00, so we can't expect much of them.

If you buy these cards, buy them ONLY for the ON CARD autographs. If you pay a penny more because it has a FAKE WORTHLESS JERSEY OR PATCH (or dual of either) on it- then that stupidity is on you.

 

These are scans of the exact 2013 Ultimate cards in question here:

 



eBay (as of 11/1/15 FORMER) Improvements Regarding Reasonable Shipping Fees & Sports Cards

                                                  11/1/15  VERY SAD UPDATE-          
eBay went back to their 2011-2013 tactics where they no longer care about sellers breaking ANY eBay Rules and they are giving buyers who call them about these bad sellers the run-around for HOURS and it's just a total waste of time.
I had a friend fight a seller who charged him a HIDDEN S&H fee of $1.00 (for EACH additional item won) for one extra regular sized card he won on the same day as another card!  THIS CLEARLY BREAKS EBAY'S HIDDEN FEE RULE AND FALLS UNDER FEE AVOIDANCE RULES AS WELL. The seller's TOTAL allowable eBay Reasonable Shipping fee rules for his 3-ounce package $2.54. It was $2.04 eBay PRINT SHIPPING LABEL postage, and .20 cents for the cheap NO-NAME bubble envelope he used. The top-loaders were USED and had irremovable tape on them, so they could NOT be charged for and no other expense was over a penny or two. THIS SELLER WAS CHARGED $3.99 S&H & EBAY MADE EMPTY PROMISES AND EVEN TOLD MY FRIEND TO LEAVE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK WHICH EBAY REMOVED??? Then the seller left Positive/NEGATIVE feedback against the buyer, and the buyer no longer could get eBay on the phone after trying for over an hour.  
eBay was showing hope there for a FULL 6-months, but they flushed it all down the toilet AGAIN! This should finish eBay for all honest/honorable buyers and sellers very soon.


                                                  11/02/14
I was contacted by a woman who has taken it upon herself to find that there are now three different eBay Customer Service pages describing what sellers CAN and CANNOT charge for Shipping & Handling. She also said she contacted eBay and confirmed specifics with an eBay S&H Specialist. This woman knew what she was talking about because she mentioned things that ONLY a person who really did the research would know. These are things memorized in my memory that confirmed that everything she said was truthful.

      SO eBay COLLECTORS HAVE A REASON TO BE HAPPY! 

Sellers can NO LONGER charge $3.00 to start, then charge you .25 cents, .50 cents, OR MORE  for each additional item (especially with no maximum fee). I've been fighting eBay to reinstate the rules that they removed in 2010 regarding Overcharging Shipping & Handling fees ever since then to STOP GREEDY SELLERS from paying their eBay/PayPal fees with their VERY HIGH Shipping & Handling charges.
For a few years, you couldn't find anything in the Customer Service search box if you typed "overcharging shipping fees", or other similar terms. eBay made it that you had to SPECIFICALLY type the word "Unreasonable" or "Reasonable" ONLY in regards to finding high shipping fee rules. Then the rules were so loosely described that NO ONE agreed what they meant! WELL, EBAY CHANGED ALL OF THAT NOW!  If you are a Buyer or a Seller of sports cards on eBay, you need to read these eBay Rules pages:

 SELLER SHIPPING RULES: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-practices.html#postage

MORE SHIPPING FEE RULES: Type "high shipping fees", or "overcharging shipping fees", or "unreasonable shipping fees" in the CS search box and eBay will take you to a SIMPLIFIED page describing what sellers can and cannot charge in their shipping fees.

SELLER GENERAL RULES: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/rules.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOW WE CAN DISCUSS HOW TO GET SELLERS TO FOLLOW THESE RULES AND HOW TO GET EBAY EMPLOYEES TO UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION WHEN A SELLER OVERCHARGES YOU FOR SHIPPING.

Sadly in the Sports Card hobby on eBay, nearly all sellers old and new are disgruntled at EVERYONE! They are mad at eBay, PayPal, card companies, price guides, the economy, Obama, the government as a whole, the world, and the list goes on & on. I personally made a lot of money from this hobby on eBay in the short desperate times in my life where I couldn't find a job or wasn't making enough to live on when I lived in Florida. There was not one year since 1989 that I did not donate 30,000 sports cards or more in any year! So I am grateful to this hobby forever for the help it provided me, and the ability it gave me to donate a huge number of cards every year for 25-years.

So why are these disgruntled sellers so mad? I have no idea- you'll have to ask them because I can't for the life of me figure out why they'd take out their frustration of the ONLY people (eBay BUYERS) that are still enabling them to sell ANYTHING! With the way the hobby fell apart in 2010, sports card sellers are lucky to still be able to sell anything at all! If these knuckleheads who OVERCHARGE BUYERS for shipping had any common-sense they'd only charge the actual postage cost and eat the rest of the cost just to keep buyers HAPPY that will buy from you again!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, OK now that we know sellers will try to get every penny they can from you let's discuss what they CAN & CANNOT charge you for in the Shipping & handling cost specific to sports cards and you should use this guide to explain these things to eBay as well if your seller charges you $4.50 to ship (4) single cards that cost them $2.17 in postage, .25 cents for a bubble envelope and used top-loaders (they CAN'T charge you for used top-loaders!!!). It is eBay's opinion that sellers must try to find the cheapest way to ship, pack, and care for your items. So I'm making it easy, here I'll put the cheapest way (and most effective way) to ship sports cards! Send a link of this page to sellers if they are doing things that are dumb costing YOU MORE MONEY in Shipping Fees because your seller is IGNORANT!!!

Firstly they must use eBay's PRINT SHIPPING LABEL service because they charge the LOWEST price for actual postage, period. You simply print the shipping label on plain paper which you tape to the bubble envelope. If you don't have a printer, YOU SHOULDN'T BE SELLING ON EBAY! Printer's cost $35-$40 these days as you only need a BLACK INK cartridge set on DRAFT and your ink will last to print literally several hundred shipping labels!
The Post Office is still facing bankruptcy, so the LAST THING they want is you to waste their time at the Post Office window causing the Post Office to pay employees to stand there and do what sellers NEED TO BE DOING FROM HOME FOR LESS MONEY! For example, a 3-OZ package will cost you $2.17 ($2.07 for a 2-OZ package) in postage using eBay's Print Shipping Label Service. The same envelope will cost you $3.37 from any Post Office window!!! To those who do not know: TRACKING HAS BEEN FREE FROM BOTH THE POST OFFICE WINDOW AND EBAY FOR WELL OVER A YEAR NOW! So eBay's statement that sellers can add tracking costs to handling fees is OUTDATED and VOID!

*** USE ONLY EBAY'S PRINT SHIPPING LABEL SERVICE FOR YOUR POSTAGE AND TO PRINT SHIPPING LABELS! 



I can't believe that there are still ignorant sellers paying $1.49 or more for shipping envelopes at the Post Office when quality bubble envelopes of many different sizes cost .25 cents each RIGHT ON EBAY in lots of (25) or more. Size #000 is best for a 2-3 REALLY THICK cards or up to (8) cards in regular top-loaders.

 

You no longer need to put something like a Styrofoam Peanut in the envelope to make it thick enough for TRACKING! That stopped when the Post Office made tracking FREE well over a year ago (if not two years!). 

SELLERS: STOP PUTTING UNREMOVABLE "INVISIBLE" TAPE ALL OVER THE PLACE MAKING IT SO DIFFICULT TO GET CARDS OUT OF YOUR UNNECESSARY WRAPPING!!!

The best tape to use BY FAR is blue masking tape on top-loaders as it can easily be removed without leaving glue all over the place! All you need to put is a VERY SMALL piece just on the tops of loaders. You only need to put tape across the open end of top-loaders to keep cards from sliding out. It is never necessary to put tape around several top-loaders and wrap the tape AROUND AND AROUND two or three times: all that does is it DESTROYS the reuse of every top-loader you used. I can't tell you how upsetting it is when I get cards in brand new top-loaders with "invisible"
 tape on top of each one. Even folding over an end doesn't work, especially in winter. Colder air makes the glue UNREMOVABLE with "invisible" tape no matter what! THAT MAKES THOSE TOP-LOADERS GARBAGE! Most (if not all) collectors have their own way of keeping their cards in top-loaders. Some don't put anything on top of the loaders but many do just to keep the cards from sliding out or around if you drop the top-loader. NO ONE wants a crooked piece of irremovable UGLY tape on top of their top-loaders!!! SCOTCH (or any brand of) INVISIBLE TAPE IS IRREMOVABLE!

eBay CONSIDERS .25 CENTS TO BE THE MAXIMUM HANDLING FEE THAT SHOULD BE CHARGED FOR SEVERAL ITEM SPORTS CARDS SHIPPING IN THE SAME ENVELOPE!

To those sellers who think it's OK to charge .50 cents extra S&H for each additional card won: IT IS NOT ALLOWED ANYMORE AND IS CONSIDERED UNREASONABLE SHIPPING FEES BY EBAY! Let's break this down for the slow sellers:

1) We already established that a 3-OZ envelope costs you $2.17 in postage (extra ounces are like .07-.10 cents using eBay's Print Shipping Label Service).

2) We already established that sellers can buy quality bubble envelopes right on eBay for .25 cents each (OR LESS)!

3) We already established that the maximum handling fee allowed for multiple items shipped in the same envelope is .25 cents.

So $2.17 + .25 + .25 = $2.67 & rounding off to $3.00 is OK as far as I'm concerned (to pay for top-loaders if BRAND NEW with blue masking tape ONLY on tops) and that is the MOST any sports card seller should charge you for shipping MULTIPLE sports cards to you safely packaged. That $3.00 amount is for an average package. If you win only one thin card, sellers should adjust accordingly. There are some sellers who understand the new rules, and have common-sense. These sellers are charging $2.32 average Shipping & Handling AND NO EXTRA CHARGE FOR ADDITIONAL CARDS WON! This is the RIGHT WAY to sell sports cards on eBay!!! I congratulate & recommend those sellers who do not charge for extra items won! THANK YOU!

If you explain everything I stated here to a sports card seller (especially more than once or one way) and asked for a refund of the amount they overcharged ($1.50, or $2.00 in most cases- I wouldn't bother for anything less but I still would tell the seller they are breaking eBay rules and send them a link of the Shipping Rules page) and they keep saying "I DID NOT OVERCHARGE YOU FOR SHIPPING!" Then call eBay and tell the eBay Specialist (ask if they are) that a Sports Card seller OVERCHARGED YOU for Shipping & Handling according to eBay's Reasonable Shipping Rules and you want to file a complaint against the seller. You can add that the seller refused to refund the amount that you were overcharged.

To end this page I want everyone to think back to collecting in 2001 when baseball was ON FIRE!!! This was before the steroid era, before Corporate assholes ran card companies, back when anyone could actually talk to card company and price guide big shots on the phone! Remember those great days? I certainly do. Would you sellers who are now trying to get all your eBay and PayPal fees out of buyer's Shipping Fees would have done this WRONGFUL ACT in 2001? Of course not. No one did this (for the most part) until 2009 when the economy began to collapse and cards stopped selling for as much as they used to.

Sellers taking out their anger on their buyers is the stupidest thing any seller could do because: it stops buyers from buying from you, it stops bidders from bidding on items they really don't want- but bid anyway while it's cheap just so they can justify paying the $3.00 shipping fee a little better.

SELLERS ARE LOSING MORE MONEY THAN THEY ARE MAKING BY CHARGING .25 CENTS OR MORE FOR EACH ADDITIONAL ITEM WON BUT THEY HAVE BECOME SO BLINDED BY FRUSTRATION THAT THEY CAN'T SEE IT- SO WE BUYERS HAVE TO TEACH THEM! This is perfectly OK according to eBay's Rules and eBay will no longer put strikes against your account by complaining about BAD sellers who are breaking  eBay rules!



2014 UPDATES: Topps, eBay, State Of The Hobby, etc.

Let's Start With Topps

Over a month ago (mid-June) I received seven (7) of the THIRTEEN Topps Redemptions I'm owed from OVER A YEAR AGO! But the only reason that I believe I received these when I did is due to my relentless e-mails I kept sending to Topps Customer Service. I finally got my four 2013 Bowman Inception BB Corey Seager Prospect Autographs which I really wanted and nothing else I really cared whether I got or not- so I donate those.

I'm still UNPATIENTLY waiting for the only two 2013 UFC Knockout Base Card autographs I wanted for my collection (now I really don't care anymore): Alistair Overeem and Antonio Nogueira. But since Topps sends ABSOLUTE CRAP replacements, I'll have to wait for these cards. I'll never waste my time trying to call Topps on the phone again after being put on HOLD for over 30-minutes the last several times I called and NEVER DID GET A HUMAN: I had to give up instead because I couldn't hold my phone anymore (I have MD).

Aug. 4th 2014 UPDATE- I received two more of the cheapest redemptions that I was owed from Topps for over a year. There's only two left that I care about getting (2013 UFC On Card Autos: Overeem & Nogueira) and who knows if I'll ever get them.
 

 

I have to blame Topps complete downfall of their Customer Service Department on Michael Eisner. With his 100% Corporate background, he thought he could run a sports card company with a Corporate Asshole mentality: THAT'S NOT WORKING and if he bothered to test the waters and see if it would, he would have seen that being a Corporate Asshole Company DOESN'T FIT in this or any hobby like this!!!

 

Topps has a Facebook July 21, 2014 Redemption Update here:

 

 http://toppscards.tumblr.com/post/92423494973/topps-redemption-update-july-21st-2014

 

But it's the first time I've ever seen it (as I don't live on Twitter, or Facebook, or ANY "Social Networks" because you literally have to live on those sites to keep up with everything these days- STUPID!!!), and it only shows one month's worth of updates: July 2014. NOT ONE of the redemptions I'm waiting for from Topps was on their FOUR lists, so what good did these updates do for me? NONE!

So I scrolled down Topps' Twitter page (all the way back to Jan. 2014) for the Facebook Update links and found only FOUR previous Redemption Updates covering only July 2014 so obviously this is a new Topps thing (that should have been done ALL ALONG!!!).

So why aren't all the TOPPS REDEMPTION UPDATES on the same page so we can check old updates if we missed any??? Oh why do I bother? I can teach anyone other than stupid & Topps is STUPID!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now On To eBay...

With all the Topps On Card Baseball Autograph releases in July (Ginter, Gypsy Queen, Tier One, Bowman Inception, plus others), I had to buy several to add to my next (and likely last) card donation in December 2014 to Beth Israel/Mount Sinai Pediatric Surgery Unit whom I've periodically been bringing smaller donations to every three months since the start of 2014.  I bought a whole bunch of Bowman Inception autographs since many Prospects this year are NY Yankees and Mets. I paid an average of $3.00 per autograph (with S&H calculated in). Those make great NY hospital donations!

 

As always, I went after sellers who drastically overcharged for shipping. eBay almost got me believing that they had finally woken up to realize that THEY HAVE RULES that THEY WROTE REGARDING OVERCHARGINBG SHIPPING & HANDLING FEES! The first two sellers I called eBay to complain about overcharged me for shipping fees both stated in their listings "WE COMBINE SHIPPING", but all it said in ANY of their listings was $3.00 Standard Shipping & Handling. There was no mention of any extra fee for additional cards won. According to eBay's rules (that stand NOW) those sellers were only allowed to charge $3.00 Shipping NO MATTER HOW MANY ITEMS I WON on the same day! One seller charged .50 cents for each additional item and the other charged $1.00 for each additional item won. Both sellers had over 2,000 PERFECT seller feedbacks!!! I first tried by being polite explaining that they cannot charge more than $3.00 shipping the way they have their listings set-up and worded. Then the sellers got nasty: BOTH OF THEM! VERY, VERY NASTY- LIKE I DID SOMETHING WRONG??? This is the attitude of most regular eBay sports card sellers. They got this way because cards are not selling for what they used to, so these morons are taking it out on their buyers. ALMOST NOTHING MAKES LESS SENSE!

 

So I called eBay expecting that I'd have to go through their Call Center IDIOT and explain everything just to be transferred to a REAL eBay Specialist and I'd have to explain everything AGAIN! Well, they shocked me! An actual eBay Specialist was the first person who answered the phone! ARE THE CALL CENTER MORONS GONE? Who knows yet, I don't??? Well I just explained the minimum and the eBay Specialist (male) started finishing my sentences saying "the seller cannot charge above the highest shipping fee listed if they say: we combine shipping". So the first eBay Specialist forcibly refunded the $3.00 overcharge I paid from the seller's account. YEAH! Justice was served!

When I called the second time THE SAME THING HAPPENED! I got an eBay Specialist from the start once again, and again he knew EXACTLY what I was talking about agreeing 100% that the seller broke a few eBay rules. I got a $4.00 forced refund on that one.
UPDATE- I should have known that wouldn't last. The third person I called (female with a very foreign accent) told me "then the seller can charge $3.00 shipping for EACH ITEM!" WHICH IS TOTALLY WRONG AND AGAINST EBAY'S WRITTEN RULES. It seems that perhaps there's a Call Center for overflow calls when eBay Customer Service gets busy!

 

Next I searched eBay's Customer Service pages to see if they added new rules for shipping for sellers AND THEY DID! You see back in 2010-11 eBay removed all of the correctly worded eBay Rules and replaced them with HARD TO FIND pages that could be interpreted five different ways by five different people. So the next few times I got any seller who broke the new rules, I sent them a link to eBay's Rules page for charging CORRECT Shipping & Handling! It's not that easy to find, so let me tell you how: the only words you can use in the CS search box that work are "UNREASONABLE SHIPPING FEES" which will take you to the SELLER OVERVIEW page. Then look for Shipping & Handling Fees and you will find the list of what sellers can charge for - and what they CANNOT charge for in shipping fees!!! THIS WILL HELP EVERY BUYER WHO IS SICK OF SELLERS MAKING NICE PROFITS FROM THEIR OVERINFLATED SHIPPING FEES! Sellers who use the excuse that they have to spend money on gas & their time to go to the Post Office- NOT ALLOWED TO BE ADDED INTO THE SHIPPING FEES! Sellers who use the excuse that they have to pay for bubble envelopes, top-loaders, penny sleeves, team bags. You tell them this: quality bubble envelopes can be bought RIGHT ON EBAY in lots of (25) or more for .25 cents each (with S&H calculated in), top-loaders are less than .10 cents each, and if you are so cheap that you have to charge me for a penny sleeve and a penny team bag then maybe you should choose another hobby! That's what I tell them & if you want eBay to ever improve THAT'S WHAT YOU NEED TO TELL THEM!

 

There are still STUPID eBay sellers that mail from the Post Office window (which happens to be TWICE as expensive as a much easier way), many of these sellers also buy the $1.29 padded envelopes that the Post Office sells! Both eBay employees that I spoke to told me that it is the seller's RESPONSIBILITY to find the cheapest way possible (as long as it is as safe as other methods) to ship your items won & then charge shipping fees accordingly. This is what I've been saying since eBay sellers shipping fees started getting out of hand by 2005-06 (ironically when the bottom fell out on MANY card prices).

eBay sellers MUST use eBay's PRINT SHIPPING LABEL service which is free and costs almost half of what they charge for postage at the Post Office window! For example a 3-ounce bubble envelope costs $1.93 postage using eBay's PRINT SHIPPING LABEL service, it's $3.37 (or so) from the Post Office. Both ways give you the Post Office's FREE tracking service! If you are too cheap to buy a $40 BRAND NEW printer then you shouldn't be selling on eBay. You set the printing quality to DRAFT and that free black ink cartridge that comes with your $40 printer will print over (500) pages!!! You print your eBay shipping label on plain paper, and then tape it to the bubble envelope.

PLUS: If you send just one item by Priority Mail, the Post Office will pick up all the packages (1st Class Mail/Parcel Post too) AT THE LOCATION OF YOUR CHOICE: home or work or wherever FOR FREE the next day!!! In other words- don't be such a cheapskate and spend an extra $2.05 to ship an expensive card you sold and then you don't even have to leave your house to mail ALL your outgoing eBay items for a few day period! Also you can order all Priority Mail: boxes, tape, bubble envelopes (which you can use as padding INSIDE boxes) to be shipped to your location FOR FREE as well.

 

Now why is it that I have to teach every eBay seller how to do these things is beyond my comprehension. THAT'S EBAY'S JOB!!! But hell, I'm in a decent mood so you got more info here to save you more money and in turn you can charge your buyers MUCH CHEAPER shipping fees. Like start with $3.00 S&H and say "NO ADDITIONAL FEES FOR COMBINED SHIPPING ON EXTRA ITEMS WON IN 24-HOURS" or 48-HOURS, or whatever you wish... As long as you sell many items each week, and sell a good selection of items (especially ON CARD CERTIFIED AUTOGRAPH INSERTS) - after a few months you'll find that you will be getting so many more repeat buyers, many more multiple bids by the same bidders, and much more money for the exact same cards that cheapskate ASSHOLE sellers are selling. After the majority of sports card sellers switch over to my method, watch and see how many more buyers return to eBay which makes EVERYONE benefit!!!

 

My method has been used by me from 1997-2011 and I NEVER CHANGED MY METHODS no matter what happened to the economy, or the Post Office fees, or eBay's fees, or PayPal's fees. PUNISHING YOUR BUYERS BECAUSE THOSE ASSHOLES DON'T KNOW HOW TO BE HAPPY WITH WHAT THEY HAVE IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!

 

One last thing. BAD SELLERS ban together on blowoutcards.com message boards (where they won't even let me post for NO REASON & I e-mailed the owner with NO REPLY: PUSSY!) to get eBay to suspend honorable eBay buyers who try to get sellers to follow eBay's rules. Well it's time for eBay BUYERS to get even and ban together against the worst eBay sports card sellers like TNTNORTHNJ who averages (40) negative/neutral feedbacks EVERY MONTH!!! I don't care how many items he sells each month, his bad feedbacks are all for the same few reasons- THEY ARE CROOKS!!!  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

KEEP BUYING THE SINGLE CARDS (or lots of cards) YOU WANT & STOP BUYING NEW BOXES OF CARDS SOON AFTER THEY ARE RELEASED! HOW MANY BOXES DO YOU OPEN WHERE YOU GET 2-3 CARDS THAT GET YOU CLOSE TO BREAKING EVEN ON THE BOX PRICE IF YOU WERE TO SELL THOSE 2-3 CARDS? MAYBE 1 or 2 in 10 BOXES??? STOP WASTING YOUR MONEY, ALL IT'S DOING IS EMPOWERING THE GREEDY CARD COMPANIES TO CONTINUE TREATING US ALL LIKE CRAP!

The corporate executives have monthly meeting where someone will bring up the issue regarding all of the complaints they are getting from collectors. Then the big shot executive asks: where are our sales figures for that period? Then someone says "about the same". And the big shot executive replies "then the hell with those complaining collectors!". DON'T THINK FOR A SECOND THAT THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN!  Don't forget that I was once a Senior Manager at a BIG Card Company in on those monthly meetings!

From 1992-2008 I was able to buy boxes and sell the best 2-3 cards per box and break even with 8 out of 10 boxes. Then there were boxes that I doubled or tripled my box price on with a great hit. That made up for the bad 2 out of 10 boxes I'd bust, but those days have been gone since 2008 for me. This is how I donated 30,000+ cards to hospitalized children every year from 1992-2008. The few years before & after those years that I donated I either took a personal loss gladly, or had help from those who couldn't care less whether they had the boxes they sent me to help or not.

 

PLEASE! DO THE RIGHT THINGS, OR GET OUT OF THIS HOBBY! Otherwise this hobby will be gone in a few years.

 

Topps Lives- or does it?

11/1/15 UPDATE- TOPPS IS FINISHED! They've been looking for a buyer for over a year with no interest at all. This is why they've been treating all their customers so HORRIBLY over the last two years or more. The people running Customer Service (Minerva and Sabrina) are both hobby know-nothings, plus they don't even know anything about sports in general. So how could they possibly send collectors replacement cards they will like. IT'S NOT POSSIBLE!!!

I actually tweeted Topps and they responded telling me to call Topps Customer Service. This shows how little Topps employees who do know the hobby- know what's going in in the rest of the company: ABSOLUTE CHAOS! Most collectors and dealers have known for a while now that Topps Executives all BLOCKED themselves from phone calls and e-mails from outside of Topps. SO THEY HAVE NO CLUE HOW COLLECTORS AND DEALERS ARE GETTING SCREWED ACROSS THE COUNTRY EVERY DAY FOR YEARS NOW!
Topps still owes me a $100 redemption replacements that Minerva said she sent, when what she actually sent was a $15sticker autograph from a PREVIOUS SCREW-UP SHE MADE! Plus they owe me two 2013 UFC Superstar ON CARD Autographs. On their worthless redemption UPDATE site they stated: Topps is working very hard getting owed UFC autographs which was listed in March 2014- SO WHERE ARE MY AUTOGRAPHS??? 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took me almost 3-months (1/31-3/25/14) to get any kind of response from Topps & IT WAS A PRE-PRINTED Letter showing their Customer Service address as Duryea, PA which I've been told by many sources (especially Topps) that they CLOSED that location!!!

This is regarding the AWFUL 2013 Topps Platinum Eddie Lacy/ Gio Bernard DUAL AUTO/PATCH card #11/25 I personally pulled from a box. The Bernard Autograph look almost NOTHING like his autograph and the Lacy autograph is POOR at best signed lazily with a dry pen. This is the card:

I first tried calling & got "Mike" after being ON HOLD forever (20+ minutes). He told me to send him scans of the card to compare to their scans which I did & HE NEVER REPLIED BACK AGAIN!!! Useless SOB.
Then I tried e-mailing Anyone at support@topps.com, same result: NO RESPONSE at all.
Next I tried their online Customer Support system. I first posted my issue there on 2/20/14 & got the standard pre-print reply with Incident #140220-000​0XX:

"Thank you for contacting The Topps Company. We have received your request, and will happily respond as soon as we possibly can. We look forward to speaking with you, and hope to resolve your issue to your utmost satisfaction. Sincerely, Customer Service Team

To update this question by email, please reply to this message. Because your reply will be automatically processed, you must enter your reply in the space below. Text entered into any other part of this message will be discarded.

[===> Please enter your reply below this line <===]

[===> Please enter your reply above this line <===]"

If your issue remains unresolved, please update this question here.

Then I followed-up (as they requested) several times (every couple of weeks or so until present). Then I FINALLY get my very first response today 3/25/14. This is the exact response:

"Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response. Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reopen it within the next 7 days.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

To update this question by email, please reply to this message. Because your reply will be automatically processed, you must enter your reply in the space below. Text entered into any other part of this message will be discarded.

[===> Please enter your reply below this line <===]

[===> Please enter your reply above this line <===]"

If your issue remains unresolved, please update this question here.

LOOK FAMILIAR???

It is nearly the exact same PRE-PRINTED response that I started with on 2/20/14!!! Plus they give the Duryea, PA address which several reliable sources including Topps SUPERVISORS (who no longer work for Topps) told me that Topps' Duryea, PA location NO LONGER EXISTS at least not to help collectors in any way!!!

 

 

Do you think I'm going to send a $120.00 card to an address that may no longer exists? ABSOLUTELY NOT, and it goes to show just how little Topps cares about it's customers.

June, 2014 UPDATE: I GAVE THIS $120.00 CARD AWAY FOR A CHARITABLE CAUSE. The person who I sent it to should have a connection at Topps to get a much better replacement and not have to fear never seeing the card again which is my fear, so at least I helped someone else. I'm happy with that.

 

I waited 3-months for a reply about an UNQUESTIONABLY DAMAGED TOPPS CARD & the response was initiated by a human, but was a pre-typed generic response & that's the best they could do after angering a 25+ year Topps collector.

I DEFENDED Topps while I exposed direct fraud that EVERY other card company committed from 2002 on back. It was actually quite easy to find fraud that every other card company did. But I could never ONCE find proof that Topps ever purposely did anything that directly hurt collectors. And the mistakes they did make were always acknowledged and fixed eventually.

After the economy collapsed in 2009, it seems Topps joined every other card company and committed any fraud they thought they could get away with.

 

I DON'T TRUST ANY CARD COMPANY TO DO THE RIGHT THING EVERY TIME AT ALL ANYMORE! And it's been many years that I've felt this way. All collectors need to feel this way or I promise you will get screwed at some point.

ALWAYS GET THE NAME OF THE CARD COMPANY PERSON YOU SPEAK TO BECAUSE IF YOU HAVE TO CALL BACK AND SPEAK TO ANOTHER EMPLOYEE, THEY WILL ASK WHO GAVE YOU WHATEVER INFO LAST TIME.

 

The only thing worth collecting: ON CARD Certified Autograph Inserts are WAY TOO EXPENSIVE now since it seems everyone caught on to what I've been saying OVER & OVER AGAIN since 1999.
Those who listened to me early on (and I know several who did) now have very respectable collections that cannot be replaced unless they are willing to spend 2-3 TIMES+ what they originally paid for their cards! I was telling people to buy up as many 1991-92 Nabisco, Big League Chew, or Jimmy Dean Autographs as they could afford (with the separate COA card) which were $2-$4 each for all the living players from 2004-2011 or so. I personally bought over (100) of them and I never paid more than $3 and change each for: Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Phil Neikro, Jim Palmer, etc. I even bought several Willie Stargell & Catfish Hunter autographs for $5-$6 each at that time after they passed away! I gave most of them away as gifts to hospital employees (several to very special employees) who did their job the RIGHT WAY all the time, I am disabled so I feel it's my responsibility to let these employees know that they are appreciated so they continue doing their jobs right. A "THANK YOU" is nice, but a thank you with a cool gift is better.
Now these cards ALL sell for $10-$25 each. The Ernie Banks gets $20-$25 regularly. I had over (20) of his Nabisco autographs because he was the best living player available left and I bought every one I found. Now I just have one full set of each of the Nabisco sets and have as many different Jimmy Dean and Big League Chew Certified Autographs I found real cheap. I love my Don Drysdale from 1991 Nabisco as he died before they started sending the autographs out. Nabisco initially got 1,000 cards of each player signed, then based on the number of orders they received they had the option to get up to 5,000 cards maximum signed. So there were only 1,000 Nabisco Drysdale autographs made & that's his ONLY Certified Autograph card. On 99% of his cards he signed up his leg so it could be more easily seen (mostly dark background), but mine was signed straight across the card but where the background wasn't too dark. I consider things like this to be variations. This is why Beckett NEEDS to make a yearly CERTIFIED AUTOGRAPH ONLY Price Guide or ATLAS. But they never will as I've been telling them to do this since at least 2001!

 

NOW IS THE TIME TO WAIT TO BUY CERTIFIED ON CARD AUTOGRAPHS OF STARS/SUPERSTARS. Once the rest of the hobby continues to collapse and all the greedy, scum get out of our hobby for good, then we REAL collectors can start to buy ON CARD Certified Autograph Inserts (for the quality of the autograph, NEVER for the serial numbering or "rarity") for far less than Beckett Media "LOW" prices again.  I wish Beckett would stop using that LOW/HIGH column in their price guides. They themselves changed the reasons they do that and what each column means at least three times and no one really uses one column or the other.

 

Think you know about a big name card company that released forgery versions of ON CARD Certified Autograph Insert (more than 5% of the print run)?

The average non-numbered Certified Autograph in large print run products is 2,000 autographs per player, so there would have to be at least (100) known forgery versions for it to count. Anything else could be an honest mistake where the card company accidentally put blank non-autograph Certified Autos in packs and someone else forged the card(s) when they were pulled from boxes. 

PLEASE send me the name of the player, the card company and set name & year it was made. A scan/digital picture of the card would be great too! Remember it must be a card company obtained & released autograph. If you've only seen one or only heard of one existing, then you cannot blame the card company for anything but releasing a auto card missing the auto. Then some collector signed his version of the auto to sell or trade at some point: I'm not interested in those.
 

I know about the 1994 Press Pass VIP auto common driver (a mostly yellow card) who had half his autographs signed by someone else, I know about the 1994 Errict Rhett Signature Rookies forgery version, and the 1997 UD Legends Donnie Shell forgeries (2/3rd's of the 3,000 he signed are forgeries) plus the other 97 UD Legends FB forgeries of superstars who supposedly gave away blank versions to friends & family members. Then when prices skyrocketed on those cards, suddenly forgery versions popped up.

 

                                                                FORGERY VERSION

                                                            REAL AUTO VERSION

 

 

Thank you & BE CAREFUL! So many sellers lie on a regular basis now (especially on eBay with HIDDEN SUPER HIGH COMBINED SHIPPING FEES) to squeeze what little they still can from OUR hobby.  Once the money is gone, those sellers will be gone too. I'll still be here as long as I can still type & breathe...

 

James

cardcop04@gmail.com

Hobby Fraud/eBay Lies/Fighting Back!: How Sports Card/Autograph Crooks Return on eBay

March 2014 UPDATE:

3/11/14



Well it's pretty much official: once again most things I predicted or knew before almost anyone else came to pass on eBay. Yes, I'm patting myself on the back- practically NO ONE else does...



eBay changed more stupid rules with more stupid/more confusing crazier rules in one shot from Feb-Mar 2014 than EVER in the history of eBay! This is because as I predicted, their lack of empathy for any of their members (mainly buyers) since 2009 caused them to bankrupted themselves! You can no longer see who bought what from any particular seller (the ID is scrambled randomly), so members can NEVER AGAIN bust a seller for shill bidding. Plus so many page formats were changed needlessly which just confuses everyone. Ever confuse a dumb person? Well, more eBay members are dumb that not = CHAOS!



I also stated in 2011 that I found out that eBay wanted to be a better Amazon. I knew that would never happen. So eBay pushed & pushed sellers to the point where 75% of all items on eBay became BUY IT NOW instead of auctions- that was 2012. Now that ratio is 90% BUY IT NOW/10% Auction and many auction prices START way above what anyone in their right mind would pay.  I only check Sports Cards & Memorabilia on eBay, but I'm pretty sure every other category had a similar change.

Sadly there are many more people NOT in their right minds than most of us care to admit or want to know. This was caused by: society in general, overpopulation, corrupt financial institutions, a corrupt government (that we lost ANY control over many decades ago) and more liars in the USA than not is what caused this mostly from the 1970's-present. 

If I can knock others, then I should turn that on myself. I'm the first to admit that I have General Anxiety Disorder & get occasional Panic Attacks, but I'm in my "right mind" ALWAYS. I think anyone with a 126 IQ who used EVERY ONE of those points to learn as much as I possibly could about anything that interested me and then shared that info to help others for free (only) would develop an anxiety disorder after dealing with knuckleheads for decades. I was the first kid in my WHOLE family (mother & father's side) to get some college education. Being stuck with a Sociopath mother as my only parent from age 2-18 (I left home literally the DAY I turned 18 on 1/7/85) made it all the more awful. I've been autodidactic my whole life (self educated), but I learn well from others as long as it's a subject I'm interested in. For instance, I passed three Regent's exams in Science in Junior High (Earth Science, Biology) and High School (Chemistry). I HATED CHEMISTRY because of a teacher who taught it HIS way! Once we got passed the Periotic Table, and basic chemistry which I loved, my NERD teacher decided to teach Chemistry with Advanced Algebra WHICH I ALSO HATED. At age 47 now, I can honestly say that I NEVER ONCE used one formula from the Advanced Algebra class (forced to take in High School as well) in my whole adult life- just as I told my teacher!
Advanced Algebra in Grade 10 caused me to start cutting classes to go to the computer lab in 1983 and teach myself how to program in basic. After a couple of months the computer teacher had me teaching his classes as a substitute when he had to take a day off. So I never got in trouble for cutting class and passed a few classes I NEVER WENT TO!!!  
By Grade 11 I wanted to kill my mother for so screwing up my head by basically using me as her slave. I cooked our dinner EVERY night and cleaned the house (I did HER chores). At age 17 I had to be home by 10PM on WEEKENDS (8PM on school days)!  Just a few years ago I asked my mother "what did you teach me to prepare me for everyday life on my own". Her answer" I taught you how to cook and clean." AND THAT'S IT! But in fact she didn't even teach me those things, I figured it out by myself. My mother wanted a daughter BADLY, so in her sick mind she raised me as much as one as she could. I blame my father for having a child with that nut-job to this day & he knows it. I never really saw him until I was 15-years old or so. He was no help at all. As a good older female friend once told me- "lucky you didn't wind up gay.". So I had to spend a good three years after leaving home teaching myself how to live in society as a man. At age 20 while living with my grandparents who I helped take care of- I was very lucky to be hired by Medtronic (a Fortune 500 company) as a Pacemaker Test Technician and Advanced EKG Interpretation/Education eventually became my 16-year career. I was the very first non-college graduate hired to be a Pacemaker Tech. by Medtronic. Ironically, the guy who took a chance of me (Bill) in 1987 became my best friend (Craig) from childhood's father-in-law as Craig married his daughter which I didn't find out until many years later.
I'm lucky I got to live the life that I did even though it was shortened by a terminal illness (severe Myasthenia Gravis).  So I have absolutely no regrets.

HOW BUY IT NOW KILLED eBay SPORTS CARD SALES!

 

Since it costs sellers nothing to just post an item, 75% of BUY IT NOW sellers put prices on their items that are so high (with no MAKE AN OFFER either???) that not even the biggest rich moron would pay those prices under most circumstances (99.99% of the time). What these Sociopathic/IGNORANT sellers never think about is the effect their actions have on the general public in our hobby: they are making novice collectors believe their cards are worth WAY MORE than they truly are. Then when they go and buy many more similar cards for say 25% less than BUY IT NOW prices elsewhere (thinking they are worth so much more than they truly are). Then they eventually learn THE TRUTH and QUIT this hobby! Do you realize this happened to many THOUSANDS of collectors in our hobby thanks to eBay sellers? UNFORTUNATELY, THE MAJORITY OF ALL COLLECTORS ARE NOVICES! Here's the PROOF:

 

Back in 1999-00 the Senior Editor of Tuff Stuff (Rocky Landsverk) who is also a collector took my advice and went on eBay to help get more accurate pricing information for his Price Guide that HE was in charge of. I explained that there are more accurate SOLD sale prices on eBay than he could ever get from just store owners who LIE to get the prices listed higher so they could make more money. At the time, there were literally hundreds of eBay ENDED AUCTION prices for nearly any popular card you could think of. Compared to today on eBay, there were well over TEN TIMES the number of sports cards selling on a daily basis & they sold for HIGH prices. I LOVED THAT EBAY! But thanks to all the BAD changes eBay made & the greed of the Hobby Elite, they are a shadow of the site they used to be & so is this hobby. And back then there was no MAKE AN OFFER OR BUY IT NOW on eBay. So these were TRUE sale prices that couldn't be fudged. So Rocky in his infinite wisdom took the STARTING BID PRICES and thought that was what cards were selling for and printed that info in Tuff Stuff for one issue??? CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW STUPID YOU'D HAVE TO BE TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT. Rocky had my help yet he NEVER mentioned anything that even hinted to me that he had NO IDEA how eBay worked! How can a Senior Editor at a Price Guide have no idea how eBay worked in eBay's PRIME in sports cards? Well that's exactly what happened and I tore Rocky a new back hole. He never spoke to me again and I'm glad. I don't talk to people that are THAT stupid and/or ignorant.

 

I don't know how eBay hung on as long as they did, but they'll be gone in a year OR they'll totally re-tool the entire site (AGAIN) and maybe it will work/maybe it won't. All in all I think all card & autograph collectors would be MUCH BETTER OFF if eBay went bye-bye FOREVER!!!  So those relying on eBay sales better start to ePray (if religious) because you'll need to find a "REAL" job soon!

 

Now eBay sellers almost never state how much they charge per extra single card won because eBay REMOVED that rule and reworded something that was supposed to replace that rule but to anyone with half a brain: the interpretation can be taken TEN different ways. Obviously lawyers wrote these new rules! It used to be a listed RULE on eBay that sellers: "MUST LIST HOW MUCH EXTRA ITEMS WON COST FOR SHIPPING & HANDLING OR IT IS CONSIDERED HIDDEN FEES WHICH IS AGAINST EBAY RULES AND CAN RESULT IN SUSPENSION.". I spoke with several actual eBay employee Specialists in 2010 when I was still cardcop05 and they ALL told me same thing once they realized the weight of a card in a top-loader: it is against our Overcharging S&H rule to charge more than .25 cents for each additional card won AND no card seller can charge more than $5.00 as a maximum fee if the entire purchase fits in a flat rate small Priority Mail box where boxes are free and so is home pick-up. Then there's all the stupid eBay sellers who still go to the Post Office to get postage put on their packages. They don't know that the PO has been charging TWICE ($3.07 for a 2-ounce package) what eBay's PRINT SHIPPING LABEL service charges ($1.69 for a 3-ounce package). eBay's Specialist told me this regarding that in 2010: "it's the seller's responsibility to find the cheapest/safe way to ship and it is an iron-clad rule that sellers can never charge for trips to the Post Office, gas, their time, or more than .25 cents for bubble envelopes because they are easily bought right on eBay for that price for almost any size with S&H calculated in". I found out that this particular Shipping & Handling Specialist worked for eBay for over TEN YEARS and was fired in 2011 because she (LIKE ME) refused to follow the new STUPID & CONFUSING RULES that never needed to be changed!!! My cardcop05 ID with a PERFECT Buyer & Seller Rating was suspended for life. Their reason "we wish to part ways with you.". Then chicken-spit sellers like tntnorthnj who I went after for severely overcharging S&H fees or had high hidden fees started leaving bad lying follow-up feedback only AFTER I was suspended so I couldn't leave responses to their feedback.

I got a free copy of the April issue of Beckett Football (because I don't pay for issues more than twice a year- if that). Seems like they changed a lot of prices WITHOUT using arrows again. So collectors have to do extensive research to see what changed which is the one of the STUPIDEST THINGS I EVER HEARD OF! How is it that 2010-2012 Absolute RPM RC ON CARD Autographs #'ed to 25 are only worth 1.5 times the version numbered to 299 or less? There are only TWO versions of these cards, so the one #'ed to 25 SHOULD BE at least 2.5 times the base card. Yet UD SP Authentic RC Patch(which aren't REAL patches)/Autographs WITH NO LICENSING FROM THOSE YEARS (IN THEIR COLLEGE UNIFORMS ONLY) are 3X (THREE TIMES) for the cards #'ed to an avg. of 25 while the base RC/Autos are #'ed from 299-699??? THAT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL BECKETT!

But then again Beckett's Senior Editor (Chris Olds) is a fat, lazy, boring, turd because no one better wanted to work for Beckett Media apparently. I tried e-mailing this lazy jerk TEN times since 2010 and he never responded. So I sent him a "LAST CHANCE" e-mail and he told me "I never received an e-mail from you" (HE'S SUCH A BAD LIAR- I keep copies of everything and he received EVERYTHING I EVER SENT HIM!) & he said I should be nicer. Of course I'd be nicer if I GOT PAID like he does yet I do much more than he's ever done FOR FREE so I'll be as angry as I feel- like I told him. He never replied again- that big fat useless chicken. And Susan L. another Beckett Editor who's stories could be seen in all sports issues of Beckett QUIT in JAN. 2014.  So their only writers are people I NEVER heard of (OR NO ONE EVER HEARD OF) so why buy Beckett EVER??? Plus they stopped printing "READER'S WRITE" which was the only Beckett section where you might actually get some real hobby truth. This was cut from Beckett months ago from what I learned. 

Remember- I told everyone who would listen since 1999 to only collect ON CARD Certified Autograph Inserts from trusted card companies (with the Authenticity printed ON THE CARD) of current established semi-star players or better, or retired semi-stars or better and collect them for the quality of the autograph, NEVER for the low serial number. I suggested always paying LESS than Beckett's low price. If you did that you now have a collection to be proud of that would cost you much more to replace now.
 

James

 

SO WHY ARE STICKER AUTOGRAPHS KILLING WHAT'S LEFT OF OUR HOBBY?

Most of you have not had the opportunities I got myself involved in very early on (pre-1998) regarding Certified Autograph Inserts. I'm the type of person who must know everything about anything I decide to spent time on- otherwise I don't do it at all.

When I first heard that 1991 Pro Line Football was inserting an ON CARD autograph into every three boxes or so, I was hooked. The only autograph I pulled from a box back then was an Art Shell. But I loved the design, the dual authenticity (embossed seal, and no card number) method. Plus I liked the cleanliness of the cards and the fact that the 1992 series had one autograph per box. THIS WAS THE VERY FIRST FAIRLY EASY TO FIND ALL AUTOGRAPH INSERT SET OF AROUND (100+) DIFFERENT PLAYERS. Some cards has frayed edges, especially on the gray area on the backs, but that didn't seem to matter very much. In 1992, I pulled about a dozen autos from boxes. None where superstars, but one box didn't have an autograph so I wrote a letter to the NFL Properties and they quickly sent me the one missing autograph & it was a star which was VERY nice of them and created a lifelong Pro Line autograph fan.
What many may not remember is that 1992 Pro Line had company offers where if you send in a certain number of wrappers you'd get a FREE bonus autograph! I got about (20) bonus autographs because in addition to luckily saving my wrappers, they also had another contest where if you had all the autographs in a row printed on a promo sheet- you'd win a specific star autograph and I got the Dan Marino autograph! I was living in FL at the time so I was elated. Even though football was my second favorite sport by far (Baseball has always been #1), Pro Line autographs increased my interest in FB much more.
When Pro Line decided to sell their license to Score Board I had a bad feeling about that which almost instantly came true.  The 1993 release was back to one auto in every three boxes OR LESS. In this hobby you can't increase the HOTTEST item in the product, and the next year decrease it substantially.
But then Score Board returned to one autograph per box and a design improvement for 1994 and I was once again in love with Pro Line. By 1994-95, Ken Goldin was on Shop At Home hawking "extra" autographs for far more what they were worth- so I decided to wait until the heat of these cards died down a bit as I had a feeling all other card companies would get in on this action.

By 1999, I decided to trade my entire 1989-1999 card collection for Certified Autograph Inserts (which at that time were still all ON CARD autos). I can't tell you how happy I was that I did that. In late 1998, I had one Mint Mark McGwire RC (1985 Topps) and knew it was time to trade it for Certified Autographs. I got three 1997 Donruss Signature autos for the McGwire RC: Alex Rodriguez Millennium Marks, Randy Johnson Millennium Marks (ERR- no serial number on back), and a Juan Gonzalez Millennium Marks. Considering I got that McGwire many years earlier in a trade for the whole 1985 Topps set for my $100 Studio Promo/Insert set- I got the best of that deal by far.

Then came early-mid 2001 and these were introduced by Playoff:

THE UGLY, USELESS STICKER AUTOGRAPHS!

The INSTANT I saw sticker autographs: I HATED THEM. I was one of the first people outside of the Production Managers for 2001 Score Select to ever see them. I was at that point receiving boxes to review directly from Ann Blake (Playoff' former owner). 2001 Score Select Football was the VERY FIRST product to have sticker autographs. The first several Playoff products actually used holo-foil return address labels (that they bought at Office Depot) for autographs!!!

This caused players (ESPECIALLY ROOKIES) who had gotten used to signing as big as they wanted on cards up to jerseys and other equipment to have to UNNATURALLY shrink their autos to fit the small stickers. This caused them to sign off one sticker onto the next sticker, This also caused them to change the shape and consistency of their autographs. THIS IS NOTHING ANY TRUE AUTOGRAPH COLLECTOR WANTS TO SEE ON THEIR AUTOGRAPHS! But card companies were saving WAY too much money by using stickers, than by going through the more difficult process of getting ON CARD autographs.
At first Playoff used the LIE excuse that this would significantly cut down on REDEMPTION CARDS if not eradicate them all. It may have lowered the number of redemptions for a year, but by 2002 redemption STICKER autographs were popping up already. Now in 2014 there are MORE STICKER REDEMPTION CARDS than ON CARD autograph redemptions!!! How do card companies explain this???

To give a simple explanation to everyone whether they collect cards OR NOT, I'll explain this again. If you were to go to a ballgame and figured you'd try to get some autographs, would you bring cards, a baseball, football, etc. for the autographs OR would you bring a sheet of stickers to put on whatever item you want to when you get home?  THE ANSWER IS NEARLY THE SAME ALWAYS: no one would use stickers. The few who answer stickers never could explain WHY. So I have to disqualify the knuckleheads who said they'd bring stickers.
THE VERY SAME APPLIES FOR CARD COMPANY AUTOGRAPHS! There's no reason for sticker autos that helps collectors AT ALL, and it only saves card companies money. Since when have collectors cared about helping card companies since by the early 2000's they made it CRYSTAL CLEAR that they couldn't care less about collectors!

So next time you pull a scribbled UGLY autograph, know that 75% of the cause of these AWFUL autographs was caused by the implementation of STICKER AUTOGRAPHS which are on nearly 90% of all Topps & Panini products!  

WE CAN STOP THIS, WE JUST NEED TO COMPLAIN TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE! Go to the MLB, NFL, and even NHL Player Association websites and CONTACT anyone you can find a working e-mail for. Tell them the problems I stated here and add you own complaints. Then ask whomever you e-mailed to please forward your e-mail to the licensing person for merchandise and anyone else who they think might be able to SAVE OUR HOBBY! 

Can This Hobby Get Much Worse & What Will It Take for Card Companies to WAKE UP?

Sorry I've been unable to update for so long. My health just keeps getting worse. My healthy mind is trapped in a badly damaged body & this is beyond frustrating. You don't know how badly I wish I had the strength to do this daily and fight card companies/price guides directly. Because I know if the Executives got the TRUTH about what's truly going on in the hobby, they would make changes. They did it in the early 2000's when I caught Pacific and Playoff red-handed for committing fraud and it lasted until 2005 or so. When they all realized I was pretty much out of the picture they slowly but surely started up the FRAUD I stopped them from committing like selling left-over redemptions OUT THE BACK DOOR to their biggest direct buy dealers and withholding up to 25% of the most ex0pensive inserts from going into packs. Those are just two of dozens of terrible things that now ALL card companies have done at one time or another from 200-present INCLUDING TOPPS!

The Executives have always been shielded from the truth in this hobby. Now that many of the executives are new in this hobby, THEY HAVE NO CLUE WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN THEIR OWN COMPANIES & since most of their e-mails are BLOCKED from the public we can't even tell them. I am absolutely certain that I know more about what goes on behind closed doors in any card company than their CEO's/Presidents- even though I haven't worked for a card company since late 2001 because some things change, BUT MOST DO NOT in this hobby. This especially goes for Topps that is run by Corporate Assholes who NEVER knew anything much about this hobby. I just proved that several months ago fighting for redemption replacements that were up to A YEAR OLD! Out of over (31) redemption autographs I was owed- that are now ALL past their 15-week replacement time, I only received THREE of the actual cards I was owed in the last 18-months.

In the December 2013 Issue of Beckett Football the front top cover states "TOPPS TALKS REDEMPTIONS". So of course I wasted my money and bought the first Beckett issue I bought in MANY months (because Beckett is so USELESS). So what did Topps say about redemptions, or what did Beckett ASK about redemptions that had anything to do with the MAJOR PROBLEMS I mentioned above? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!  Nothing was mentioned about the tens of thousands (or HUNDREDS of thousands???) of redemption autographs owed to collectors that are over a YEAR old! Nothing was mentioned about all the LIES their Customer Service employees have been telling collectors since at least January, 2013 (that I personally have documented).

Topps used to ALWAYS send collectors an e-mail when their redemption was owed for 15-weeks. It was called the "LATE NOTIFY E-MAIL". They stopped doing this in late Jan. 2013, but never said why. It turns out their was a major scandal with employees STEALING LIKE CRAZY from their Duryea, PA offices. To anyone who receives a redemption or replacement- look at the return address: it's from Old Forge, PA. Apparently Topps tried to FIX the problems in Duryea, PA which took ALMOST A YEAR. When that failed, they just fired everyone and moved their PA offices to another town!!! Meanwhile Topps told NO ONE what was going on (ESPECIALLY BECKETT, the ONLY PRICE GUIDE LEFT) and many redemption holders are still waiting for their cards to this day!

THAT IS 100% BS AND YOU ALL NEED TO FIGHT TOPPS BEFORE THEY GO BANKRUPT & YOU GET NOTHING!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How many of you are still owed 2012 Allen & Ginter Relic Redemption cards which are well over a year OVERDUE now?

I made what I thought was going to be a MASTER SET of these for a terminally ill little girl who I've been buying more cards for than I've bought for myself in the last 5-years. I was owed ALL of the redemption relic cards I needed to complete this set. I was also owed several 2012 Ginter Autograph redemptions. One I was especially looking forward to getting was the Guy Bluford (1st African-American NASA Astronaut) Autograph. I never got that autograph, AND NEVER WILL! Then Topps started sending me ABSOLUTE JUNK replacements that I DID NOT ASK FOR! They were sending RANDOM COMMON PLAYER AUTOGRAPHS IN REFRACTOR FORM FOR $15 LISTED STARS YOU WERE OWED! In the past it used to be Topps' policy that they will not send replacements until you ask for them. I had waited over two years for redemptions from Topps before because I needed that particular ON CARD autograph for my collection. But now Topps isn't even giving collectors a choice anymore!
<<<<<I started this on another post>>>>> I even got a Topps Executive involved and his assistant Claudia. Then they sent me about HALF of what they told me they were sending on the phone and they send me sticker autographs as replacements for ON CARD redemptions I was owed even though I told them I HATE AN Y STICKER AUTOGRAPHS. It's possible that these two were so DUMB that they couldn't tell the difference between an ON CARD autograph & a sticker!!! These are CORPORATE ASSHOLES who do not know the first thing about our hobby. Boxes they sent me were missing inserts: so these were either dealer returns, or end of print run boxes that they eventually sell very cheap to BIG dealers like Dave & Adam's Card World. End of print run boxes are missing inserts because the inserts wound up on the print room floor and are given to the card companies to send as replacements. This is how card companies get some of the cards they'll send you if you say you are missing certain inserts "guaranteed" per box.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

 

I decided to give Chris Olds (Beckett's President Or Senior Editor or whatever they call their boss these days) ONE LAST TRY getting any answers from him via e-mail in Jan. 2014. He responded for the FIRST TIME out of almost a dozen tries in three years and he said "I NEVER RECEIVED ANY E-MAIL FROM YOU.". He added that I should be more polite and I might get more replies. So I told him to check his e-mails again because either he doesn't know how to work e-mail, or he IS LYING (the truth) because I never once received an e-mail returned from the "Mailer-Daemon" to him from me & I keep copies of ALL my SENT & RECEIVED MAIL. I told him he needs to MAN-UP (that fat, lazy, boring bastard!) and if he wanted politeness maybe HE SHOULD PAY ME like he's paid for doing NOTHING helpful to collectors!!! Of course he never replied again. He's just plain useless. I tried contacting his partner Susan L. as well (who is a voluntary watcher of my Twitter page) and she didn't BOTHER to respond either.  THEY ARE BOTH USELESS! 

 

I contacted the NFLPA asking for any left-over promo cards they may have from any events like the decent Panini promos I've seen over the last couple of years. I told them I'll be donating all but one of each of the cards. Since I'm homebound and mostly bed-ridden I haven't been able to go to a card shop, show or event in over 7-years. 

Even though it was the LAST thing I expected: they sent me over a dozen Panini and Topps hobby boxes from 2011-2013 which was VERY NICE of them. It seems the card companies send freebie boxes to NFLPA Executives, and some executives didn't want to open their boxes. I learn something new every year! I know for a fact that Playoff did not do this in 2001. In fact Ann Blake told me "the less the NFLPA knows about what we do- the better". That's most likely because of all the fraud I busted them for doing.

So I can review current NFL hobby boxes: THEY ALL MOSTLY SUCK (nearly every autograph is an UGLY sticker), and the boxes were nearly all not worth buying for HALF what they sold for except maybe 2011-12 Panini Absolute, 2013 Topps Chrome Football, or 2013 Panini Contenders (if you can get a hobby box for $60 or less- which you probably can't). At least SOME autographs from those are ON CARD (Absolute RPM RC Autos, Chrome RC Autos, & some Contender Autos). I got a total of five redemptions and three were EXPIRED... the unexpired redemptions were from Topps that I may never see either. I didn't get one of the Top 3 RC autographs from any year. But did get a RARE ERROR Dual Auto card from 2013 Topps Platinum. It's an Giovani Bernard/Eddie Lacy Dual PATCH/AUTO numbered to 25. The problem is that the Giovani Bernard has a JORDAN REED (Redskins TE) STICKER autograph where Bernard's sticker is supposed to be. I never pulled an error sticker with the wrong player before (because I don't buy boxes with sticker autos), but I have heard of it happening: QUITE A BIT! PLUS the Lacy autograph was signed with a dry pen. Topps "supposedly" has a company representative view "ALL SIGNINGS"- then why did this representative not hand Lacy A NEW PEN?
Actual card:

 

I contacted Mike at Topps Customer Service over a week ago (last couple of days of Jan. 2014) and he told me to send him scans of the card to confirm the ERROR. I did that, and considering the way he was speaking- I should have heard back from him already but DID NOT??? I may wind up keeping this card whether I want to or not. I'll figure a way to sell all the other sticker autographs to buy more cards to donate this year.

 

It's about time Upper Deck gets the publicity IT DESERVES FOR ALL THE PAIN IT HAS CAUSED OUR HOBBY!

The Village Voice (a famous NYC newspaper) will be doing a story about Upper Deck and the fraud they've (Richard McWilliam especially) been involved in since the start of Upper Deck in 1989. I was contacted and told them everything I know. They will be using me as a contact as they continue to investigate their story as I'm sure there are things I haven't thought about in years but will recall as soon as a topic is mentioned. I can't wait to see it published.

 

As I've stated many times before: collect ON CARD Certified Autographs of cards you like. Those will always hold their value. I was buying dozens of 1993-94 Nabisco Autographs for $2-$3 each on eBay to give as holiday gifts to my Ambullette drivers, hospital employees and doctors who were good to me. Every one of those cards now easily sell for $10+ on eBay. I have a full set from each year and am glad I bought them when I did. There are MANY players that are Hall Of Famers that can still be bought for under $10 each for nice ON CARD autographs. Beckett FINALLY stated this so I was told & I've been telling everyone this exact thing since pre-2000. If that doesn't show you how USELESS Beckett Media is now that Jim Beckett has been long gone, nothing will... 

 

Good luck my friends!

 

James