As a follow-up to recent articles, today an “Auction Depot LA” (auctiondepotla1) customer left 22 negative feedback reports on eBay’s auction service under their Feedback Profile, all with the same comment:
ALL PROPS ARE FAKE & UNDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION! CAUTION BUYERS! FBI NOTIFIED
The eBay member who left the feedback, nascarpitcrew, has an eBay rating of 9369, indicating that he or she has received positive feedback from 9,369 other eBay members. [Read more…]
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released it’s 2007 Internet Crime Report last week.
The IC3 is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). Per their webpage: [Read more…]
I thought it might be interesting for readers to reflect back on governmental efforts in the U.S. circa 2000 to address the issue of counterfeit sports and entertainment memorabilia, which was part of a three-year investigation.
While this investigation was predominantly focused on sports memorabilia and autographs, there are some obvious parallels with the hobby of collecting original props and wardrobe, particularly the employment of certificates of authenticity and consumers’ reliance on these documents.
What follows is a press release from the United States Department of Justice (see usdoj.gov website): [Read more…]
I thought the Internet Crime Complaint Center would be a potentially important resource for any original prop collector that becomes a victim of fraud. Given that significant dollar amounts are typically at risk in hobby-related transactions, and communication and/or payment usually involve the Internet, this is a valuable resource to be aware of. [Read more…]