PSA counterfeit cards!!! Beware
 

Posted By: <b>Brad Lewis</b><p>I have also bought cards from this guy on Craigslist. I remember<br />many of the cards you bought in his original listing and in discussions<br />over the phone. I purchased the '51 Bowman Mantle and that is what<br />I had up for auction when an EBay member wrote and informed that<br />the label was fake and case had been tampered with. I ended that auction and just sent my cards to PSA so I have not heard back yet but obviously they are going to come back as fakes. I did not purchase as many cards,<br />but in addition to the Mantle I bought a 1933 Goudey Gehrig #92 & Ruth #53<br />as PSA 5's, a 1954 Aaron PSA 6, and a 1955 Clemente PSA 6.<br /><br />Please let me know what is happening with the FBI and if there is a<br />particular agent that you have been in contact with at this point. I <br />can provide them with all the information that I have and hopefully we<br />can nail this guy and try to recover our money. Contact me at my <br />email address so we can help each other out with this.<br /><br />Brad

PSA counterfeit cards!!! Beware
 

Posted By: <b>Shannon</b><p>Please be patient with me; I haven't participated before.<br />I have been lurking for years however, and do understand<br />the rules. What brought me out of hiding, was a question:<br />I have never noticed the raised insignia on the reverse of<br />the PSA cases before. Being curious, I reviewed the ones<br />in my possession and found one that did not have it. Do the<br />earlier versions of the case not have this identifying<br />feature? The one in question is not one of the "first <br />generation" ones with that odd-looking font on the front. It <br />is one of the later versions prior to the one currently in<br />use. Thanks again.

PSA counterfeit cards!!! Beware
 

Posted By: <b>Dave</b><p>I did a national search of Craigslist for "Goudey" and found these brand new listings. Thought you might find them interesting:<br /><br /><a href="http://madison.craigslist.org/clt/574326217.html" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://madison.craigslist.org/clt/574326217.html</a><br /><a href="http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/clt/574328919.html" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/clt/574328919.html</a><br /><br />Is the same guy still at work?

PSA counterfeit cards!!! Beware
 

Posted By: <b>Linda</b><p>I also have dealt with this guy - I now have a dispute claim in Paypal...I would like to know how to report this to the FBI as you said you filed with them. I answered his ad on Craigslist in Sacramento, I only got taken for 1 card but it was expensive and now I will be refunding the money to the buyer. The buyer said it was a fake..but the buyer has not sent the card back to me but has filed a claim with paypal. I now can no longer reach "Jose Hernandez" by phone...I wonder if now the buyer is a phony buyer and is part of the scam...he has not returned the card but opened a paypal dispute and said he never received the card.

PSA counterfeit cards!!! Beware
 

Posted By: <b>Al Davis</b><p>Ed: I found your wife on Craigslist, too.

Bump because new collectors need to be made aware......there is a fake Aaron rookie PSA 7 ending on Ebay tonight. It is an obvious CL fake, yet bidders have bid it up to around $1,300. Someone is about to seriously get scammed. I have told Ebay to no avail.....

ebaY stands to make over a hundred bucks on this sham... Why would they pull it?

How do u know it's a fake?

Look at the card and not the case/flip. The colors are WAYYYY off....the hues are totally wrong.....there is a nice thread on Collector's Universe that explains how to tell the difference if you need more clarification.

Shoeless, if you go to page 5 of this 3 year old thread, there is a picture that still works and shows that many of these "Craigslist Fakes" have the same BAR CODE (T206 Cobb, Bowman Mantle, '54 Aaron, etc), similar to the same bare code as the PSA-6 Aaron on eBay a couple months ago and the PSA-7 Aaron on eBay right now (both in scan below). Like Kevin pointed out on page 5 of this thread, its not too easy to make unique Bar Codes so many of the fakes have exactly the same copied ones..... at least 2 different ones now known.

here is a scan I made and put on the postwar side of Net54 (and other message boards)
Bobby and I have been pushing info on these fakes for a few days now :)


(The current eBay PSA-7 is in this pic below)

http://centuryoldcards.com/images/19...stexamples.jpg

Here is the auction that ends in 3+ hours
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=280604404994

Funny thing is the seller WAS answering the many questions for a couple days then stopped on the 19th. The last one he answered... the Q guy said that the others were saying his card was a fake to scam the seller, Oh well I hope he is the winner and it bites him in the ass :)

I wrote the seller 2-3 times and each time I told him detailed info on how to tell his card is a fake, I showed the scan I made above, the link to this post, and also pointed out the scan bar info, and the fact that all these fakes have very dark areas of print (most noticeable is the fingers and face of the smaller action pose)

Thanks for the info all. I bet u guys rock at those spot the differences pictures. Amazing. Thanks again for your knowledge.

Well, since Ebay isn't going to pull it, I hope the winning bidder is happy with his 4 figure fake! He will have a hard time reselling it to me, but who knows....

No shortage of bottom feeders out there unfortunately!

:mad:

I purchased a fake 1952 topps Mantle Rookie card. I call PSA before I purchased card.
 

I purchased a counterfeit 1952 Topps Mantle in a PSA holder. I called PSA before I made the purchase. I wanted to know if the card was stolen. The PSA rep said they don't have that information but make sure the Serial numbers match up. Of course they do. Why was I not informed about the scam. Asking questions should have raised a red flag with the PSA rep. I would have avoided the deal with any kind of warning. The president of PSA implied that I was an idiot and how dare I blame his rep. Really? Any suggestions as to what I should do?

I hope you bought it on eBay through PayPal? Or if not, did you buy it with a major credit card?

PSA Mantle
 

How did you acquire the card? Ebay, dealer, etc?

Can you post scans as well?

Tony

Nothing but learn a lesson. It's PSA for craps sake. Again I will say that they are the worst grading company out there. You really have to know your cards before buying a PSA slabbed card. A lot of repro's and badly graded cards out there by them. They should be voted off the island. Whooops wrong show:D

I'm new at this. Not able to post pictures at this time. I am more interested in why PSA would not give me more information when I called before purchasing this card. They had all the information I needed to know. Mike

It's possible that the serial number that you gave them is linked to an authentic PSA graded Mantle.

Without knowing all the facts, someone may have swapped out the authentic Mantle out of the PSA holder, and replaced it with a fake card.

You also may have a fake PSA slab and flip.

Where did you get the card, and how did you pay for it?

Tony

No, I paid cash. I thought I was doing the right thing by calling PSA before I made the deal. They told me to make sure the serial numbers match. I got no warning about Craigslist, tampering with PSA Cases Be Careful, I would have avoided the deal if given any information.

Beware

Cash
 

You're probably going to have a hard time gettng your money back, since you did the deal with cash. Just my opinion.

I wish you the best of luck.

Tony

Mike,

Sorry this happened to you as there are quite a bit of scammers out there, but some of the blame has to reside on your shoulders for not conducting a thorough research. How do you know it's fake? Unless you just rolled out of bed, there are numerous discussions on the internet about fake 1952 Topps Mantles and PSA slabbed cards. I mean, you found this thread buried deep in ARCHIVE. Although not a fan of PSA myself, how are they to know the specifics of every card residing in a holder? I'm assuming since you don't know how to scan a picture, you didn't provide them a copy either so at least they had a visual of what you were getting ready to purchase.

Where did you purchase this card? If from Craigslist or a newspaper, could you please give the location or name of the paper?

Again, sorry this happened as I never like hearing about collectors getting scammed.

Good luck.

r/
Frank

If you have a friend with a digital camera you can post pictures.
That would make it a lot easier for people here to help you.

As much as I dislike PSA, I'm not sure why you think any of this is their fault. There are probably many fakes out there with that same serial number.

I'm going to buy a used Chevy Tahoe. Let me call General Motors to see if it was reported stolen. :rolleyes:

If the question was, "PSA, is this card # stolen?"; and if their answer was "No", then you have nothing to be upset with about what PSA did. They don't provide any service at all to potential buyers, and they knew not of the card being stolen.

Take some personal responsibility for the situation in which you've gotten yourself. Some lessons... be knowledgeable about what you're buying, buy from a reputable or trustworthy source, have a return policy.

Personally, I'd add be sufficiently knowledgeable about what you're buying that you don't need to rely on third party grading, which can be wrong (or as you've learned tampered with).

You want to call the authorities, not the sports authorities. I'm asuming,since you paid cash, you probably acquired the card in person. I'd do something, in person, but that's just me.

Paying that much money in cash for something off Craigslist? And I'm assuming you thought this was a bargain compared to the prices on ebay... You'll need to chalk it up to a very expensive lesson, and I don't think PSA deserves any blame here. I'm surprised Joe Orlando even took your call.

https://profiles.google.com/11693119...13984734/about

Something just doesn't add up here. If you really have 25 years in this hobby (and you're a dealer), surely you've heard of the Craigslist scams (or at least cracking slabs and replacing the cards).

???????????
 

David,

Nice work. This is going to get interesting.

Tony

Use the same method you use when posting your cards on EBAY.

"Introduction...I have lived in Delaware all my life and have always been a Phillies fan. I am fortunate enough to have turned my hobby into a business. And now with over 25 years experience in the sports card industry, I have developed a reputation for being fair and honest with great connections nationally."

Your introduction of being fair and HONEST is currently in question.

Good job David. Curious to see what his response will be (if he ever responds).

r/
Frank

Surprised you cannot post a picture since all your ebay listings have pictures. This now sounds really fishy!

Joshua

Looks like he just dismantled his website?

www.delawarevintage.com

I'm just getting error messages all over the page. Alien abduction?

Aloha! "Bookem Danno!":D

Part of it is still up but there is something Rotten in the State of Denmark Delaware.

The 52 mantle is right on his website banner. :)

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...key23/dwsc.jpg

Mike
 

I have to say out of fairness that I have set up at a few of the same shows as Mike and have done some wheeling and dealing with him and have always found him to be a honest and fair trade partner. I believe that he was an honest victim of a craigslist scammer.

We will likely never hear back, but I am very curious to hear if this was a Craigslist sale, and if Craigslist was mentioned at all to PSA. Although I wouldn't lay any blame on PSA, I would HOPE that if anyone called them and mentioned the word "Craigslist" that they (PSA) would tell the potential buyer to run away as quickly as possible. This should be standard procedure.


And perhaps even a little bit ironic, Delware Vintage has a PSA graded '52T Mantle in his banner.....

Bob,

I understand if he was scammed by someone from craigslist, but he came on here complaining about PSA and giving the impression he is a relatively new collector. He even made the statement that he is new and doesn't know how to post pictures all the while posting pictures on his ebay page. According to his website, he has been collecting for over 25 years. If that is in fact the case, he would know about fake 1952 Mantles and the scamming practice on Craigslist.

He has accountability for his dumb move and came on here wanting to place the blame elsewhere.

r/
Frank

I agree and he should have known better and in the few conversations we have had at shows over the years He seemed to be quite knowledgeable. I know that he deals more into memorabilia than cards and if I remember the cards he had were mostly raw. Perhaps he doesnt have a working knowledge of graded cards and went outside his area of expertise when purchasing the Mantle(I think we all have done this at one time or another trying to make a score).I do recall a trade that I made with him where I traded him some pennants and pins for some T206's, Playballs and Batter Ups and feel that I got the better of it. I recall sending these to SGC and was pleased with the grades. Why he is blaming PSA, I cannot understand.

Bob

Feels a lot better psychologically when one believes someone outside of themselves is to blame for the loss of potentially thousands of dollars....sucks that this can happen though..