Regency Stamp Auctions In St. Louis

"Losing money is one thing, but questioning if a dying man is really dying is pretty bad"

Disagree! One could present themselves as having sterling reputation on the surface, but underneath, they're just another scammer, cheating and lying to protect their image. I'm beginning to sense this might be the case with Kols.

Sorry, but my money is much more important than this guy, who I've never met in person, and will probably never meet because he'll likely be going to hell.

Don,

I get that, but selling off some unused postage is a far cry from bilking consignors cumulatively out of 5 (6? 7?) figures.

Who's to say that some consignor didn't need that money to pay bills, supplement retirement income, etc.? Why is the sympathy automatically given to Kols when, for all we know, some of the affected consignors could be in similar straits? He had a mechanism at his disposal to steal wantonly from others and apparently used it.

No, it's not to the scale of Bernie Madoff ruining the lives of thousands of people by his criminal actions, but the method is somewhat similar, and for those who may have counted on that money, the end result for them could be just as tragic as Kol's.

Am I overstating things? Possibly. I just can't condone giving Kols a pass based on his health status.

Taking the food off of someone table is indeed very, very bad. And I was trying to relate that I fully understand that emotional response to that. And if karma is at work, then folks should be rooting for financial retribution; not personal harm. Emotional thinking never got me any good decisions.

I would never say give Kols a pass. His company should be held financially responsible. And if fraud is involved, then he and/or is heirs should be held financially responsible.

And there are others who also have a responsibility too, although at a much lesser level.

So moving forward what can be done to prevent others from being in the same situation in the future? How badly do people have to get burned before the philatelic press and organizations begin to communicate some of the transaction pitfalls that can be encountered in our hobby?
Don

jmaaron,
I understand. But let me ask you, if you had Kols in the same room as you be willing to kill him over money? (Please do NOT answer this rhetorical question.) As someone who was in this position, and it made a large impact on me. You are owed money, not someone's life or health.
Don

I think the original post on this subject was not about kicking a sick man over money when he's down, but pondering whether the illness might be feigned to deflect attention from his misdeeds -- which in my opinion is not an unreasonable speculation when one is talking about possible fraud or other shenanigans.

Whether or not Kols is ill has zero bearing on the issue of funds not paid and/or gone missing. This man should be accorded no empathy. He is a thief. Kols is the American Philip Ryle.

Perhaps you mean if funds have gone missing? What has happened to 'due process'? Are we not supposed to presume innocence until proven guilty? I thought this country had a second amendment. It could be that this was just bad business practices.

If fraud and other misdoings are proven, then there are both lawful and civil recourses for the victims to follow. If it is proven, then there may be recourse beyond just the business assets.

And if they find fraud, and/or if it comes to light that he has faked his illness, I will be the first one to call him out. But until all the facts come out, we only know that the business has failed and some people appear to have lost significant amounts of money.

But perhaps some can take solace from him dying. Slowly dying from cancer is absolutely horrible. First, just getting a terminal prognosis messes with your head. It forces you to come to grips with your mortality and drives you into depression and other shattering levels of emotional distress.

Medically, they start by chopping and hacking out the affected body parts. Your quality of life drops to survival mode. After a months of that and when it fails they move to 'poison and burn' (chemo and radiation). The entire processes is incredibly painful often to the point where you wish you would simply die, but it also strips you of any dignity. There is no such thing as 'dying with dignity', dying is an incredibly messy affair.

And as bad as it might be for you, it is even harder on your family and friends. No matter what happens to you they are left with the fallout including the financial wreckage. (My medical bills for the last 2 years is now just south of $3 million. The new chemo drug they have me on is $34,800 per DOSE.) And emotionally your family is forced to watch you suffer and eventually die, their feeling of helplessness can be overwhelming.

So even if folks do not want to cut this man any slack, have a bit of empathy for his family.
Don

$34,800 per dose?... now THAT is a crime. Don't get me started on Big Pharma.

It's wonderful for those that have a need for it (and also have a way to pay for it), but IMO medicine and profit are two things that inherently have a conflict of interest... especially when you get into extreme billings like that. Yes, I realize it's easy to have that opinion until/unless you are confronted with a similar situation, but $35K per dose? Egads.

$3 million??? Compared with free in the UK. That is truly awful.

Umm... medical care in the UK isn't free. SOMEONE is paying for it, but you just never see the bill.

But good news, the drug company has accepted me in their 'compassion' program, so they 'only' charge me $8k per dose. Perhaps stamp sellers ought to try this marketing method. Jack up a $10 stamp to $10,000 but then cut a deep 'compassion' discount at time of sale.

I won't even go into the DaVita dialysis EpoGen scam, they are a 12 BILLION dollar company who made $800 million last year, 40% of that was on EpoGen. They call it 'liquid gold' at the center where I get dialysis.

Few people understand this but USA has had socialized medicine since 1972. Nixon admin passed legislation which puts anyone with renal failure automatically on disability and Medicare. So all Americans are paying for dialysis costs for the 450,000 of us who are on it. This cost currently represents 1% of the US budget. For comparison, the Department of Education gets 2% of the total budget.

51studebaker wrote "jmaaron, I understand. But let me ask you, if you had Kols in the same room as you be willing to kill him over money? (Please do NOT answer this rhetorical question.) As someone who was in this position, and it made a large impact on me. You are owed money, not someone's life or health. Don"

Well, I have no sympathy for him whatsoever. Could care less about him or his health, which again to me may just be a hoax as part of his fraud. The bottom line is that he basically stole money from me and until I pressed the issue, never received any type of communication from him that consignments would not be paid. It took me countless number of emails to finally just get his attorney's name, and even then, his attorney never responded to me until after several emails.

People like Kols count on a lack of consensus amongst the folks debating whether he is a scumbag or a fraction of a scumbag. Forget the hand ringing. Kols should be thankful that he does not live in a Country where he would lose body parts involuntarily for his actions.

Did both of these things happen? Buyers did not receive the goods that they paid for and sellers did not receive payments for their goods that were sold. The fault lies in the middleman who did not fulfill his business obligations but somehow got both the payments and goods out of it.

I am not a fan of his, but he really has terminal cancer. Hate him all you like for how he treated his consignors, but don't make stuff up out of frustration or you will not help your cause.