Old News About Stamp Fraud

Artful;

You are 100% correct, but ethically-challenged people who spend years getting away with their misdeeds actually bilk people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It all flys under the radar of law enforcement and then to add insult to injury, companies like ebay choose to allow the misdeeds to continue unabated. The "British Cartel" has been at it for at least 3-4 years or longer. GS was at it for many years (and still might be for all I know!). I have letters in my records from ebay reps who acknowledge ongoing investigations and claim they have a difficult task in trying to stop the "cartel" (believed now to be just one person!). Amazing.....

ikey - you don't understand - the ring guys were the big gorillas of auction buying in the the types of lots they colluded in. On many of the lots they colluded on, there was no one else who was going to outbid them. One of them was going to win the lot, and what they did was cause the winning price to be much lower than if it had been an honest auction.

New news about old auction fraud:




http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/b...s-at-91.html

... and it even includes links to the book!

A few things needed to be added to this story about this gang . First it was done at five different stamp auction firms ,these firm handled the larger unpicked over lots and sold the bigger size estate lots .One of the results of this group was the major stamp auction firms started to break these huge lots down ,which invited more smaller dealers and the stamp collectors to compete against the whales on the auction floor .