Thanks for the positive comments made by others. I appreciate it.
Let me tell you about Frank Foremny (Frank5K).
First, lets set the record straight about these Babe Ruth photo. He did NOT consign them to me. He consigned them to a friend of mine. My friend asked me to send them back to him because I have a shipping department and as a favor, I did. That was my only involvement with those photos. Why Frank thought that I should be responsible for photos that he said were missing was never clear and my guess is that there were never any missing photos anyway. What was clear however was that Frank was desperate for money (which was why he was trying to sell the photos in the first place) and saw me as what he perceived to be an easy mark who would pay him to make him go away. Out of principle I would never do that, and when I told him to shove it, he went crazy. He sent a fax to every auction house telling them not to do business with me. I called the police in his hometown who told me that although they were quite familiar with him because of past problems that it was a civil matter. I then had an attorney in his hometown send him a cease and desist and I never hear anything more about it until now. As for my friend (I assume the one that he consigned the photos to) making good on them, I don't know anything about that as I would never have given Frank a penny. To this day Frank still owes me an apology, but it does not look like I am going to get it.
Frank represents every bad connotation of what people have in their mind when they think of this hobby. Frank is hobby legend. When dealers talk about the all-time hobby scumbags, he is always within the top 5. When you mention Frank's name to any old time sports auction house, it is always followed by a roll of the eyes and a chuckle. His reputation is of being (A) crazy and (B) a habitual reneger. Getting into a fight with Frank Foremny is like a rite of passage or a badge of honor. You have finally made it when Frank tries to take advantage of you. The first time that I met him he tried to sell me a fake Mickey Mantle game used bat that I later learned he knew was fake, a true sign of his dishonest character. In the 1990's he reneged on Christies for thousands of dollars after a sports auction that the then Christies consultant (Don Flanagan) told me that they were never able to collect. Another auction house had to ban Frank from bidding because of nonpayment. Frank then registered under a fake name, but was caught because this new “person” was bidding on the exact same items that Frank collected. Frank has never had a reputation for being particularly smart. Another auction house would only allow him to bid if he had enough consignments in the auction to cover his bids as they knew that they would never get paid otherwise. There are other similar stories, but I won't bore you. You get the idea.
However, the absolute worse Frank Foremny story (and the one that shows his truly despicable character) is one that I was told by the victim when comparing “crazy Frank Foremny” stories. It seems that this dealer had some items that Frank wanted and agreed to give Frank a set amount of time to pay for them (something like two weeks). When Frank didn't come up with the money in time, the dealer sold the items to somebody else. Frank went nuts. Shortly after the dealer was at a show doing some buying. Frank found out that he was there and called the local police and told him that this particular dealer was a wanted pedophile or some sort of sexual offender. By the time that the police showed up, luckily, the dealer was gone. But the fact that Frank would stoop to doing something that vile, mean and nasty over a sports memorabilia deal that went bad (which was Frank's fault by the way) should be a lesson to anybody that thinks about doing business with him.
Anybody that runs a business will tell you that unfortunately the Frank Foremny's of the world are out there. Like the mosquito, they seem to only exist to annoy and cause trouble for others. There is no way to avoid them. Having had tens of thousands of transactions, it is inevitable that some are going to go bad for one reason or another. Luckily those are few and far between.
Usually in these types of fights, nobody really wins, and I half expect Frank to do something insane to retaliate, but I can't let him call me a crook in a public forum without setting the record straight and letting people know about his character.
Finally, AL, please contact me and let me know what item you were unhappy with and when the transaction took place.
Thanks
Scott
|