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!

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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!!!  

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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??? 
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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

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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.

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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

Final Post- Leaf Wrestling Problems & eBay Fraud Updates

This will most likely be my final post. All my illnesses took a very bad turn for the worst, including my terminal Myasthenia Gravis.

LEAF REALLY SCREWED-UP 2012 LEAF ORIGINALS WRESTLING!

 

When I saw the first Leaf Wrestling Autograph ever, I was in shock! All these autographed cards are missing the Autograph Authenticity Statement that ALL Autographed Card Company cards have had since 2000! That's correct, NOT ONE BIG CARD COMPANY IS MISSING AN AUTO AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT OR STAMP (in some earlier cases) EXCEPT FOR 2012 LEAF WRESTLING!

Plus ALL the printing plates are missing the Autograph Statement, 1/1 statement, AND what color the plate is!!!

 

I first noticed this on November 9th and immediately began e-mailing every hobby contact I had about this, especially the OWNER OF LEAF: Brian Gray. I of course blasted him a new asshole because I knew he did this so he didn't have to pay ANYONE for any licensing and thought if he condoned the authenticity of the autograph, then he'd be libel automatically for licensing rights! HE DID THIS BECAUSE HE'S CHEAP! Because of this, these autographs are practically worthless to those who collect ONLY Certified Autograph Card Company cards like myself. The reason being that ALL CARD COMPANY AUTOGRAPHS HAVE AN AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT! These cards don't even have the word AUTOGRAPH or SIGNATURE printed anywhere on ANY of these cards!!! Most didn't care, no price guide even responded and all sellers said they don't see what the issue is.

Am I the only person in this hobby that complains TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE when a major issue pops up? Because now ALL OF A SUDDEN everyone seems to be complaining about the very same  things I've been complaining about for almost TWO MONTHS & NON-STOP!

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I finally got an answer as to why message board/bloggers bash me with all lies on a regular basis. Instead of them using the information I provided from my past investigations (especially when I wasn't sick) and start investigations of their own, they expected me to continue fighting for them (for free as always) at the same level as when I wasn't sick??? THIS IS THE ONLY REASON THEY ARE BASHING ME!
I wan't you to see the exact response from a big MESSAGE BOARD ADMINISTRATOR who was bashing me all over the Internet. I asked him this: "WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?" & this was his EXACT response:

"You and I had it out on the BMB (Beckett Message Boards) in 2004. You keep on rambling about all this crap, and how big a difference you (alone) made. You've made not one. Single bit of difference. The companies still do everything you stopped them from doing. It just gets old seeing these ramblings of yours everywhere. Especially when no one cares and people still buy the crap that Topps, UD, Panini still put out."

Besides his poor grammar, he makes no sense at all. He posted that I'm an eBay scammer, I never did anything to help the hobby and I'm basically a liar about everything. So why didn't he say any of that in his response??? Because he's useless scum, and I hate to say this but I think most who post on these boards/blogs are useless scum. You can blame catdaddyscards@gmail.com .

Many think I never did any fraud fighting until I got online in 1997. I started collecting in 1987 and felt sick every time I heard rumors from reliable sources about certain big dealers getting all kinds of stuff dirt cheap from several different illegal sources. But there was and NEVER HAS BEEN a governing agency in this hobby watching for fraud and then fighting it. This is why I started doing what I could locally when I gained enough hobby knowledge by 1992. I was born & raised in NYC, but lived in FL which I loved as often as I could (9-years of my 45-years of life). I've been stuck living in AWFUL living conditions since 2003 when I had to move back to NYC to get medical benefits & SSD.

So I guess I have to list some major that I accomplished starting in 1992:

1992: I fought sellers of many complete sets of 1992 Topps Real Gold cards (not Winners) from being sold BEFORE 1992 Topps was even released. A Florida dealer got most of these from his friend who worked at the printing company in NJ that put the gold foil & gloss on Topp's cards. Topps busted a ring that was selling large quantities of Topps cards illegally nationwide because of my tipping them off to this dealer who gave up everyone to get off easy himself.

1993: I reported a frequent card show seller (a real jerk too) who had two complete sets of UNSIGNED 1992 Pro Line Autograph cards at one show & was selling them as singles for up to $30.00 for the top stars like Emmitt Smith, Dan Marino, John Elway, etc. and was charging $3.00 each for commons. When I started asking him about these cards he offered me a complete set for $350.00! I spoke directly to my friend Bill Barron who made these cards as Director of the NFLPA at the time. These cards were confiscated from this dealer along with other illegal cards he had and he was fined a nice hefty amount.

I started fighting Shop At Home for lying constantly on air about the cards they were selling. I taped especially bad shows and started sending copies to the NFLPA & MLBPA. I fought them until they finally stopped selling cards by 2002 or so.

As soon as my very first website went up in 1997 I immediately started fighting the Score Board bankruptcy knowing that collectors would get screwed just like they did with Signature Rookies Redemptions. I wrote several letters directly to Judge Gloria Burns who of course didn't know the first thing about our hobby. So I explained it to her. All my letters are on file in this case in Cherry Hill, NJ to this day & forever so anyone can check to see when I started fighting hobby fraud. I didn't win over the judge, but I did win over Fleer who gave away 5,000 autographs to anyone who could prove that they were owed a redemption prior to the bankruptcy being filed. Everyone got a letter in the mail from the court so this was easy. Fleer didn't even run out of autographs! So I accomplished that.
Then I interned for over 200-hours to become a Forensic Document Examiner. Then I busted the largest sports autograph forgery ring EVER on eBay. The main ID was AL SALES, and the seller was Scott Davis. I even have his SS#. He was using MANY different ID's & I found and bust3ed each one. They were all permanently banned from eBay. BUT ACCORDING TO MOST ON MESSAGE BOARDS/BLOGS- I NEVER DID ANYTHING???

But with then NEW eBay, it doesn't matter because anyone banned can sign right back up. Even if you were banned YESTERDAY, you can sign back up today with the same name, address, phone and Paypal Account!!! The only thing you have to change is your user ID. HOW INSANE IS THAT???

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Fraud means PURPOSELY doing something morally wrong or illegal according to their licensing from each sport league that licenses them. You'd think that the leagues would monitor card company activity, BUT THEY DON'T! In fact the NFL goes out of it's way to HIDE fraud committed in our hobby! I saw that first hand while fighting all the fraud Playoff committed in 2001 that I had UNQUESTIONABLE proof of: back door selling, printing an illegal Ichiro Retro RC for early 2001 release, withholding up to 25% of expensive inserts from boxes, plus other stuff. The NFLPA, specifically Dawn Ridley-Nash helped Playoff bury the evidence I had against them!!! But thank goodness the MLBPA intervened and finally brought Playoff down years later. At least I stopped Playoff from back dooring cards from 2002-2008 for sure. If there was any back dooring, it was an employee stealing and not corporate back dooring. I'm sure all kinds of things went out the back door once they realized they were losing their baseball license. All those tons of close-out boxes of 2008-2009 Donruss/Playoff stuff on Dave & Adam's Card World came from somewhere & not legally either. You need to understand that I not only was a main reason that they lost their baseball license. This caused a domino effect that bankrupted Ann Blake-Powell too and made her fear being in our hobby! That was nothing but good news for ALL collectors that she will NEVER be in this hobby again. She did WHATEVER IT TOOK to make money. She tried to bribe me a few times with 5-figures!!! Plus she bribed anyone who ever stood in her way including the NFLPA. In 2001 when they requested to view all the autographed helmets for 2001 Absolute Football boxes she came to me in a panic saying "we need to get those in boxes this week to ship next week, but the NFLPA won' let me because they want to see them first". What most people don't know is that in 2001 (and most likely after) & all years before that I know of, the licensing agencies wanted to see all on item autographs BEFORE they went into products. THIS IS WHY THEY PUT AUTOGRAPH STICKERS ON CARDS- TO BYPASS THE LEAGUE VIEWING THE AUTOGRAPHS BEFORE THEY SHIP! I don't know why Ann was ignorant to think these helmets would be an exception! Then suddenly 2001 Absolute Football shipped on time??? Ann wouldn't tell me why either. She must have bribed the NFLPA (Dawn Ridley-Nash) to allow them to go out without the NFLPA's approval. How do I feel so strongly about this to put it in writing knowing full well that I could be libel to the NFLPA if I'm lying? Because of all the bribing I witnessed in-person by Ann Blake-Powell, and the fact that I told Dawn Ridley-Nash all the facts about the fraud playoff was committing & the NFLPA could have viewed all the evidence I had against Playoff at any time but never did, plus Playoff kept my entire personal collection of autographed inserts worth over $50,000 and the NFLPA did NOTHING! Luckily, I sent some Playoff evidence to a friend (with evidence against others as well) which is & always has been in a very safe place. This is why no one ever came after me and no one ever will!    

So what does "fighting them, or fighting fraud" mean? Doing countless hours of research to get BOTH sides of the story to make sure I have as much truth about the issue as possible. Getting as many people's contact information (e-mails, phone extensions, names & exact positions). Then I would ask all these people the exact same questions that were carefully thought out so they were not "leading' questions. I tried to be as impartial as possible for two reasons. I didn't want to scare off the supposed crooks and I didn't want to accuse in case the rumors were wrong.
Most card companies asked me to call them, especially once I got to management. They all wanted to speak on the phone at one point or another because they had no idea that I was taping EVERY CONVERSATION, but I was. They wrongly assumed that it was not legal to tape conversations. In both states I lived in while fighting hobby fraud, it was legal to tape record phone conversations as long as one of the party's knew they were being taped (I knew so it was legal). By early 1999, I had set up a nice system which recorded crystal clearly using a headset & microphone hooked directly into my dual tape deck. 

How can change be stable unless someone is making sure the same issues don't start up again? If they do- someone MUST stop the card companies from doing it!  The changes I made from 1999-2001 lasted until about 2010. That's not too bad being that the card companies were so afraid to: do things that were illegal according to their Player Association licensing, sell cards out the back door, or purposely do anything wrong that I knew of.  I made it clear in 2004 when I ended my website that I wanted all the hobby facts on my site to stay online to help people in the future. I got thousands of hits a month - not bad for a privately run site which ONLY fought sports card fraud. I had few links, no ads and no funding (other than my pocket), plus I rarely put my site in search engines. So most of my hits were collectors telling other collectors. I wish I could have afforded to keep that site up. I explained this 6-months before I had to shut it down. Then a Beckett Message Board asshole bought my site to "make a better hobby website" as he stated & it's been EXACTLY the same nothing since 2004. Look for yourself: www.cardcop.org  Don't bother sending him an e-mail, he never checks it!!!

I'M TRYING TO MOTIVATE ALL OF YOU TO FIGHT FOR YOURSELVES BECAUSE I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO AT ALL SINCE 2009!!! All I've been able to do is fight some things that were very obvious & easy for me like NSA fake GU cards and now the Leaf Wrestling Autograph cards that are missing any autograph authenticity statement. But now I cannot even do that, so it's YOUR TURN! I've posted enough information to make it easy for you, but according to almost everyone who posts/blogs: the hobby is worse than ever as far as fraud goes.

If you don't fight for yourself, of course things will continue to get worse! IS EVERYONE THAT IGNORANT THAT I HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS! 

 

There is a ten year old on You Tube who goes to retail stores & busts pack searchers in the act with his cell phone to record. THAT WAS A FANTASTIC IDEA & A TEN YEAR OLD CAME UP WITH THE IDEA HIMSELF! So don't say you can't make a difference! If you still do after reading this LONG post, then you are just lazy and need to keep YOUR MOUTH SHUT!

Some bloggers are stupid enough to ask me why I keep telling them I'm so sick- NOW YOU KNOW: TO EXPLAIN WHY I CANNOT FIGHT FRAUD ANYMORE & TO INSPIRE YOU TO FIGHT FRAUD YOURSELVES, OK? Then there's the complete idiots who say I'm not sick at all until I send them medical documentation, then the don't respond to me ever again or blog about me ever again either??? If anyone wants to see medical documentation OR have ANY questions e-mail me: cardcop04@gmail.com . Medical information is PRIVATE & cannot be sent to anyone else but to whom I send it to directly.

Everyone of you has an ability or many abilities. Use your abilities that you have to fight fraud with any time you have & fight the wrongs in this hobby! I'm not asking anyone to change the world, just do what you can! Some of you are Private Investigators, so teach other collectors how to get information out of people when they don't want to talk. It's EASY when you know how. I had to teach myself which took a LONG time, but once I got it, it was truly easy.

I got Fleer (Lloyd Pawlak) to admit to me (on tape) by phone that Fleer purposely withheld all serial numbered RC's & autographs from 2001 RETAIL boxes because the distributor (the middle-man between the card company & the retail stores) told Fleer that they wanted them to do something to stop so much theft. So Fleer solution was not not put any expensive inserts in these boxes. YET THE PRICE STAYED THE SAME!!! Fleer literally STOLE FROM EVERYONE WHO BOUGHT these $19.99-$34.99 boxes and I'm the only one who caught it! Six different products were involved including Fleer Greats Of The Game which stated on the boxes that autographs were 1:40 packs & there were NONE! I had to buy ten boxes of each product to prove this to Fleer & get them to admit the truth to me. I reported everything to Beckett and the other guides, but as always they never said a word!
The Price Guides would have to change if all of you went after them too! But instead most of you say nothing publicly & the ones that do only complain  to other collectors on message boards & blogs that no price guides or card companies read!!! THAT DOES NO GOOD AT ALL!

YOU ALL HAVE YOURSELVES TO BLAME FOR THE STATE THAT THIS HOBBY IS IN! IF YOU'VE DONE NOTHING TO FIX THE PROBLEMS DIRECTLY, THEN YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEMS!

 

Here's info most people will say you can't get anywhere.

 

 

Who prints card company cards???

 Upper Deck is the only card company to print their own cards that I'm aware of. All these companies: Press Pass, Topps, Fleer, Donruss/Playoff, Pinnacle, and others had cards printed by: Great Western Inc. 13465 Jupiter Rd. Dallas, TX 75238. Website: www.gwiinc.com  since 2000 or earlier. Personally I think that is a conflict of interest having the same private company print cards for all the same card companies especially since I know Ann Blake was part owner of this company!

 

How do you get a card company executive to talk to you on the phone?

YOU HAVE TO LIE! Call their Customer Service phone number. Whoever picks up say "you are the second wrong person I've been transferred to, I'm the owner of Great Western in Texas and need to speak directly to" and pick a name from below. 

 

 

Want card company executive e-mails? Here they are:

 

Topps:

ashorin@topps.com (Arthur Shorin -CEO), mappel@topps.com (Marty Appel - Senior Executive), wfriss@topps.com (Warren Friss -Vice-President), aweinstock@topps.com, (Ari Weinstock -Manager), jhaza@topps.com (Jeff Haza -Manager), jsechrist@topps.com (John Sechrist -Manager).

 

Panini-

thackler@paniniamerica.net (Tracy Hackler - Senior Manger. Switches from Playoff/Panini to Beckett once a year on average since 2000).

 

Leaf:

brian@leaftradingcards.com (Brian Gray -Owner), adam@leaftradingcards.com (Adam Berk -Hobby Sales), cassandra@leaftradingcards.com (Customer Service)

 

Beckett:

colds@beckett.com (Chris Olds - Senior Managing Editor), bfleischer@beckett.com (Brian Fleischer -long time writer & book writer for Beckett).

 

NFLPA:

demaurice.smith@nflplayers.com (President of NFLPA), carl.francis@nflplayers.com (Hobby Licensing Manager).

 

These are just a few to get you started, call any company when you are POSITIVE that they are closed and go through their voice mail system entering a random three letters to see if you get a name which also usually gives you their position. Then follow the same e-mail examples as above- like if they use the full name: THEN ALL EMPLOYEES LOOK THE SAME WAY! This is true for almost any company in any field!

 

Good luck & FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT!

 

 

 



James McCay aka Cardcop

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours: Blocked eBay Bidders & the FLIP side!

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours: Blocked eBay Bidders

I totally agree with you. Since I've been on eBay in 1997 (as a buyer & seller), I've always paid in 48-hours NO MATTER WHAT even though I have a very rare type of Muscular Dystrophy where I can barely move most days & even snuck out of the hospital more than once to get my eBay stuff in order. SO HEALTHY PEOPLE HAVE NO EXCUSE AT ALL!

But on the flip-side there are just as many cheap sellers who penny pinch every way they can think of regardless of eBay's Excessive S&H rules. I disagree with eBay's policies like charging that RIDICULOUS S&H fee to sellers, but that's no excuse to overcharge buyers!!! We are supposed to be peers here: BOTH buyers & sellers. Plus it makes BAD business sense to anger a buyer. I can't tell you how many sellers charge $3.00 to start, then .50 cents or more for each additional item. Then they send the (5) single card items I won with either no penny sleeves, or with them but no top-loaders at all & taped all over the place needlessly making it easy to damage cards cutting them out of this cocoon! If you charge me $2.00-$2.50 for unlimited shipping (like I ALWAYS did) you can package my cards anyway you wish, so long as they arrive in the same shape they were when I bought them & don't get damaged by you OVER taping them up. I always shipped in top-loaders for single cards with 1/2 inch crystal clear tape along the entire top making it almost air-tight & the tape never obscured the card anywhere. I never taped cards together either, or taped "dummy" cards around the top-loaders & I NEVER ONCE had a buyer receive a damaged card from me out of thousands of packages.
I often lost money on shipping but SO WHAT! If you are losing that much money selling cards that you cannot spend $1.00 out of your profit to make a buyer extra happy: IT'S TIME TO STOP SELLING- LIKE I DID! When/if the hobby improves, I'll sell again.

Those who charge more than $3.00 for a package weighing less than 4-ounces are OVERCHARGING no matter how many auctions the buyer won! Regardless whether eBay does anything, I still report every buyer who really overcharges for shipping & so should everyone.

The End Of eBay: How & Why!

                                                                                                                12/21/11
                                              HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Regular readers of my posts know by now that I was kicked off of eBay for fighting fraud in the sports card & memorabilia areas after 14-years of them praising me for doing this. In mid-2010, they decided that people like me were costing them money so we were eradicated. The details are in previous posts so I don't need to repeat myself.

I didn't quite finish getting cards to add to my 40,000 card donation this year, so I decided to try signing up on eBay again without lying about anything which I was certain would not work. Well it did! I was a full member of eBay with ID cert-auto-inserts & the only things I changed were of course the User ID & e-mail address I used. Keep in mind: I wasn't suspended, I was banned for life according to a  nasty eBay Safety supervisor who couldn't give me a straight answer as to WHY & she actually hung up on me when she ran out of lame excuses which I retorted which made her look retarted. Every regular eBay phone employee still thinks I'm suspended for a short period & they all think my account should have been reinstated by now??? Sounds like they don't have a clue what they are doing, right? CORRECT!!!

With my new ID I bought over (300) items in a little over 2-months & eBay never contacted me once about me not being allowed to be on eBay! Then once I got most of what I needed to finish my donation, I started sending e-mails to honest collectors & sellers warning them about eBay's new lack of empathy for anyone but themselves & why. So after a week of doing this, eBay FINALLY suspended my new account with their BIG BROTHER e-mail scanning software. These idiots were so paranoid that I was going to publicize this that they deleted every single item I won from their database going (200) items back!!! THAT'S THE CRAZIEST THING I EVER HEARD! That caused every seller (who I bought from) headaches they didn't deserve! EBAY DID THIS, NOT ME & IN 14-YEARS OF USING EBAY & FIGHTING FRAUD ON EBAY I NEVER SAW THEM DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEFORE. They erased the existance of (200+) items that I won, paid for & 95% of them were already received by me. So why delete them???

So here I was: PUBLIC ENEMY #1 ACCORDING TO EBAY'S Safety Supervisors (yet con-men like tntnorthnj are NEVER suspended???). I decided to see if they'd let me have a new account with the SAME Paypal account & same master Paypal e-mail account (the 1st account they suspended: cardcop05) BTW & used the new ID for over 2-months & I busted myself basically or eBay NEVER would have caught me. IS THIS CRAZINESS OR WHAT?

Since it worked once, I tried it again. AND IT WORKED AGAIN!!! I tried ID ectopic-foci (an EKG medical term) & that account lasted as long as I wanted it to once again! This one lasted a month, then I told several sellers (who asked) how to donate cards to children's charities with the holidays coming up quick. This was obviously one of the RED FLAGS eBay's software e-mail search worm used to find me and I was suspended after 4-weeks - again.

The point here is that there are MANY sellers especially in the collectibles areas on eBay who rip people off as their main business practice just sign-up again when they get suspended & EBAY DOES NOTHING TO STOP THEM! As hard as it is these days to get eBay listen to you & ban these jerks from eBay you'd think eBay would take steps to keep these crooks off of eBay FOREVER: BUT THEY DON'T & I PROVED IT TWICE!!! All they'd have to look for is the last name and zip code, BUT THEY DON'T DO THIS LIKE NORMAL SITES???

All eBay cares about now is making money & every single bit of their honor & integrity that they once had is long gone. If you don't listen to me, you will be ripped-off with NO RECOURSE at some point in the near future & this is no 'IF" - this is a "WHEN" and I am trying to save you heartache now so please LISTEN TO ME: get off of eBay now!!!

Most of you can travel to 200+ table card shows (I can't because I have Muscular Dystrophy so I'm screwed): THESE ARE THE BEST PLACES TO BUY! So stick to these rules and you'll never lose:

1) Pay no more than LESS THAN LOW BECKETT PRICES- period.

2) Never believe rookie HYPE, or new release hype. Only buy cards that have been out for several months to a year or more.

3) NEVER buy loose packs in bulk lots from big dealers like Dave & Adam's Card World. These are the packs that sat on retail store (Target, K-Mart & Wal-Mart) for up to a full year & have been searched dozens of times- so every good hit has been LONG GONE from these packs!!! Also stay away from SUPER DISCOUNTED boxes from big dealers like DACW, card companies run out of all big hit inserts yet let the packaging continue. Then they sell these boxes dirt cheap to DACW & you think you are getting a bargain getting a $75.00 box for $29.95! BUT THESE BOXES HAVE NO DECENT INSERTS & IN MOST CASES CARD COMPANIES WILL DO NOTHING TO HELP YOU IF YOU CONTACT THEM! Their disclaimers on packs & boxes legally give them a right to NOT help you!!!

4) Only buy MINT cards or better made after 1985. Or NM-MT or better On Card Certified Autographed Inserts.

5) Your best bet for long-term collecting is to stick to HARD SIGNED (On Card) Certified Autographed Inserts (CAI's) from BIG card companies only- like Topps & Upper Deck, and Panini to a lesser degree. When Panini took over Playoff they kept most of the crooked Playoff employees, so I still don't trust them.

6) Buy what you like for personal reasons to collect, NOT with investments in mind. The days of reselling for profit are gone!

Price guides are useless for ten years now! They don't print the whole truth & NEVER print negative info about companies still in business. Plus they always push products based on the amount of advertising dollars they get from the companies. THIS IS ALL A COMPLETE CONFLICT OF INTEREST & IF THE SPORT LICENSING AGENCIES CARED ABOUT COLLECTORS, THEY WOULD STOP THESE PRACTICES!

PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELF ONLINE & BUY SMART! Everyone selling is looking to take your money & they don't care to tell you what I'm telling you here: EVER because that will lower the amount of money they make. This is why I never became any kind of dealer- I'm way too honest and care too much about fellow collectors: especially young ones.

I just had a collector today ask me what to do with a dealer who they won a fairly expensive itewm from for $1.00, then the seller just refunded the buyer's money & the buyer thought there was something I could tell them to help them. With eBay not caring about buyers anymore- WE ARE S*** OUT OF LUCK! So the only recourse is to STOP BUYING ON EBAY UNTIL THEY GET THEIR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT AGAIN >>>>IF THAT HAPPENS<<<< BEFORE THEY GO BANKRUPT!

I wish everyone the best & enjoy the holidays!

James McCay aka Cardcop