Anthony's Llc Dismal PF Report Card = Follow Up To 10/23/17 Discussion

You can't swing a dead cat in a roomful of classic U.S. collectors without hitting a few attorneys. You'd think that at some point, the facts are going to line up, the right (wrong) person is going to get stung, and someone will take a run at this.

One of my other interests is wine, and the wine world spent years watching fights over fraud unfold in a rather public way. It took a few very dedicated people to follow through and make the collector market a better place (though still far from perfect). You can look back now and see what their detractors were saying about them at the early stages. It wasn't pretty. Many influential people who should have known better were on the wrong side of those issues.

Alas, if that hasn't happened by now, it is unlikely to happen in the future. The collectors with enough money to take that on are unlikely to find themselves in this type of situation. Those collectors don't buy from dealers like Anthony's or anyone else at that level.

Don says...... "APS has a HUGE marketing advantage with the fact they actually vet sellers..." "...stumbled and squandered this advantage for years with two selling mechanisms..."

There is as posting in Delphi's Stamp Collectors form, titled "Fake Washington/Franklin coils" dated 4/8/14, where I commented about the many fraudulent W/F coils showing up in APS circuit book. There are comment from Ken Martin and Tom Horn about the APS' involvement in "vetting" circuit books. Basically, that they just don't have the manpower or time to insure what is in circuit books is what it is said to be. Fraudulent W/F coils are still in circuit books today.

CBS news reports on 10/20/17. Bill Koch spent $35 Million to confront a $400,000 bottle of wine that was never owned by the great Thomas Jefferson. Now that standing up to principal to maybe a fault.

I sent about $500 with PF to expose this Fraud. Complaints cost nothing and this discussion has been priceless to me.

Since this thread started with a new collector getting ripped off by Anthony's, and despite getting slightly derailed at times, has continued to be about Anthony's and their deceptive practices, I am going to throw out this idea; I had mentioned earlier that I had a rep @ ebay that has been very helpful with some past eBay-related issues, including forcing Anthony's to rename their ebay user account. I know from this thread that ebay has coddled (if not downright protected) Anthony's in the past, but what if anybody reading this who has a personal Anthony's horror story were to contact me, and I were to present a litany of offenses to my rep at one time? I know that Anthony's aren't the only offenders (NY Stamp and the syndicate were both referenced for selling altered stamps), but I believe Anthony's may be the absolute worst when it comes to selling outright counterfeits. I have documented numerous instances where they have marketed relatively worthless stamps, that have been trimmed or perforated to impersonate rarities, such as experimental coils, #356, #389, #491, #519, etc, etc, etc.... But, I digress.... If I were to give my ebay rep testimonial after testimonial from actual Anthony's victims, perhaps...just perhaps, ebay might take some action. I realize purging ebay of Anthony's won't solve all of its (or our) problems, but it sure would be a move in the right direction. I know that there will be a faction that will say that this a problem that we just can't solve. So, inaction is an alternative, albeit a poor one IMHO. Thoughts?? You can PM me, or email me privately if you don't want to further this discussion here on an open forum.

You must have 50 posts to receive or send PM.

The perils of being a newbie! ...and, thank you for that info. Quite honestly, I wish I had discovered this forum years ago.

My company's webstore is http://reedededge.com and just use the "contact us" feature, and I will personally address all correspondences. Please put Anthony's in the subject line.

Reedededge - What you propose is fantastic and you are to be applauded. The approach is also excellent in putting all of the focus and energy on one entity, Anthony's. If this gains traction and good things come of it for the stamp community it will unequivocally send a message to the other bad actors on ebay.

If your inbox remains empty after your offer no one should ever complain again because they will have missed a golden opportunity to put words into action.

Hoping for the best.

Reedededge, I wish the best for your efforts. The experience I witnessed with the young doctor in Scottsdale and his Anthony's zeps that I described in a previous post forewarned me in 1999 and I have never bought anything from them, on or off ebay. So I won't be able to help you with a personal example.

Late to the party on this thread. I could write for days, but there is one important notion that needs to be quashed, that SAN is somehow a safe haven. It is not. It is a sales platform that many auction houses and direct sellers masquerading as auction houses operate on.

Some of the most egregious ethical/moral repeat offenders in philately sell on SAN.

You have no more recourse as a buyer on SAN than you do on ebay, and in fact I would posit that your average buyer has MORE protection on ebay than on SAN, since the terms and conditions for your SAN purchases devolve to those of the individual seller. THERE IS NO OVERARCHING BUYER PROTECTION ON SAN!

Like ebay, there are good sellers/houses on SAN, just as there are on ebay. Granted, you are dealing with a much lower population of sellers and it requires a significant financial commitment to list on SAN, so you are dealing with businesses, not individual sellers/collectors. That alone DOES potentially limit your risk somewhat, but at the end of the day you can still be ripped off by a seller on SAN, and ultimately the buyer has to know what the [CENSORED] they are doing, lest they buy something they should not have.

Don't get me wrong, I have bought a lot of material from sellers/auction houses on SAN, just as I have on ebay. It's a great platform. You just need to perform due diligence and research regardless of where you are buying, and approach any major purchase with a healthy dose of caveat emptor.

The problem with reedededge's plan is it only addresses the supply side of the equation. I don't know why people refuse to acknowledge the fact that Anthony's crap is offered, and sells, because there are buyers for it. What are you going to do to protect the buyers from themselves?

Winston I'd be happy to join you in adding a paragraph to my ebay auctions referring people to this Forum and to Stampsmarter. Maybe some other ebay sellers could join us.

I don't know if you remember but several years ago on the other forum Bill Weiss and I agreed to do this. We worked out a paragraph and added it to our listings. I expected push back from ebay but there were no problems and Bill and I used the paragraph for a few years. However I never had any feedback as a result. No one ever mentioned following the advise in the paragraph, so I don't know if it was worth it or not.

There is no comparing SAN to ebay. There just isn't. Amazing how some already take issue with trying a solution. Why the resistance to trying to improve something that is hurting people? The insinuation seems to be that everything is the buyers fault at the end of the day.

Rev - Could you share who on SAN rises to the level of fraud of Anthony's or Philip Ryle?

Stop putting words in my mouth!

1. I never said the above attempt wasn't a laudable goal.

2. The ONLY part of this meandering thread I was addressing was the notion earlier that somehow SAN is a safe haven. That is a dangerous bit of advice for novice collectors to read.

3. Who is resisting anything?

4. I never said "everything is the buyer's fault". My point is that every potential buyer should do their research before buying on ANY platform. That is the PRUDENT manner in which to approach purchases.

5. Read some older threads. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out who the most blatant offenders are. One has a very poor reputation with respect to U.S. revenues, and the other is one of the most complained about dealers in all of philately.

I know that you have an axe to grind on anything and everything ebay, but I do NOT appreciate being misrepresented.

Rev - My comments were not directed at you in any way shape or form. Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion. By the by I think that ebay has great potential. They do need to stop looking the other way for the sake of the fee. And starting with Anthony's would be a great start. Cheers!