[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Sorry, I intended to address your question earlier, but got sidetracked. I will concede that someone at the FBI (Brusokas?) clearly shares your view that this behavior amounts to fraud, or they wouldn't have even bothered pursuing it.

My argument since the beginning though was that they would eventually discover that their views are not shared by the majority. I forget who it was, but one of the larger hobby content creators recently shared that they ran a poll with their audience and were shocked to learn that 30% of their followers thought it was perfectly acceptable behavior and saw nothing wrong with it whatsoever. And those are people *in this hobby*. Add in the percentage of collectors who are on the fence about it, and those who think it's unethical but not criminal, and then extrapolate that data to people *outside* the hobby, and it becomes quite clear that getting a jury to buy your argument and actually convict someone of fraud is an uphill battle.

Well I have no special insight into the government but my supposition is that the US Attorney thought they didn't have enough ADMISSIBLE evidence to guarantee a win, rather than that too many people on a jury would not see the problem. But I don't know. Again, though, if it's so OK, why does nobody disclose it? Why do they all, other than Mathis, deny it?