posted on April 14, 2004 06:25:51 AM
I sell a decent amount of sports cards, some of which contain memorabilia pieces, like a jersey swatch, etc. One of my buyers sent these links to me -- a new kind of sports card fraud to watch out for.
Check out these auctions. This guy bought a card containing a jersey swatch numbered 31/50 (meaning, it is a numbered piece and there is only one card with that number on it:
The same week, he bid on another auction that was selling Miami Dolphin patches. While he didn't win that one, it's clear he bought a similar patch elsewhere, because...
Here's his original card he won, still a 31/50, only now instead of a piece of jersey, a piece of the Miami Dolphins patch has been put into the memorabilia slot of the card! You can see the orange border that matches up to the patch. He even has the nerve to say it is now a 1/1, and that this is the only "patch version" of the card he's ever seen:
Just another thing to watch out for. In this guy's case, he was stupid enough to buy all the pieces of his fabricated/modified card on Ebay, leaving a trail.
posted on April 14, 2004 07:28:16 AM
I didn't -- it was ended when I heard of it. I'm guessing a potential buyer did it. I agree though, great detective work! People who know that card series would know that it wasn't released with a patch piece.
posted on April 14, 2004 09:34:26 AM
I think what he is doing is more than fraud on eBay. I think it is (for lack of better words) big time fraud. I think it falls into the catagory of fake autographs. Anyone else think this? Sports memorbelia is difficult to sell because of this kind of fraud. When there is a seller that is honest I will bet there are two that aren't.
