Bill Mastro denies widespread fraud in his auctions -- yesterday.

[oldjudge]

Jeff--if we have a specific item in mind that we think could have been shilled, can we get a yea or nay from someone?

[drcy]

By design and intention, much shilling is covert, hidden. The victims are not supposed to know they are being shilled. An auction house or consignor never sends you an email notice that they are bidding against you on lot #256. Many bidders never know their win price was artificially inflated.

On a side note, my guess/opinion is that these days it's more likely a consignor (or associates) places a shill bid than an auction house. Even where there are suspiciously high prices, if an auction house denies they shilled, they may be telling the truth.

[autograf]

Agree completely on a consignor......I would love to see substantive proof of me being shilled. I need to look back through the items I'd won......

[Exhibitman]

Classic scumbaggery. Let's gloss over the fact that I cheated people and lied my arse off and let's instead focus on the fact that only 2 people wrote to the judge...

Maybe Nash can give Mastro lessons on proper prisoner deportment. Which gang shot caller does one fellate first? How much in canteen payments will it cost not to be beaten up each day? When purchasing a shank does one have to pay cash or is credit offered?

Letter I am planning to send to the court:

I am writing to you in connection with the above-referenced matter not as an attorney but as a collector and researcher in the sports card hobby, to provide some assessment of the impact of Mr. Mastro’s acts on the hobby. I am a contributor to The Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards as well as the author of America’s Great Boxing Cards, an encyclopedia devoted to the subject. I have also written articles for periodicals such as Vintage and Classic Baseball Collector and Old Cardboard. I do not know if my purchases from his company were fraudulent. In my opinion Mr. Mastro’s actions have caused damage far beyond merely the immediate victims of his fraudulent acts. Researchers like me rely on results of sales published by auction houses to establish values for the cards sold when preparing our books and articles. To the extent that there were fraudulent sales reported as actual sales resulting from bid manipulation on the part of Mr. Mastro and the others involved in his scam, it resulted in the dissemination of inaccurate card pricing data into the researching community. Sorting the fake data from the real data is going to take years and is probably impossible to correct until items are resold and new price points emerge. Card prices are like the prices for any other investment: accuracy is key. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Mastro’s actions undermined the accuracy of the prices reported for cards that his company allegedly sold, which hurts all collectors.

[ALR-bishop]

Good one Adam

[jcmtiger]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Jeff--if we have a specific item in mind that we think could have been shilled, can we get a yea or nay from someone?

I agree Jay, I won many items from Mastro Auctions and never put in a Maximum bid. I won all the items I wanted without a maximum bid. Certainly this does not address any fake items or items not describe accurately. I see that there are some members on a witch hunt. This happens all the time with celebrities, sports stars etc. But, I know Bill Mastro has admitted some wrong doings in the court, the Wagner being the big one. I don't see shill bidding anywhere. This will certainly get some feedback. Let's see the proof of shilling, name the items.

Joe

[botn]

Jeff Lichtman is either in possession of or has seen the bidder records many times as he has alluded to it over and over. He has also said hundreds if not thousands of bidders were shilled. How do we get to see bidder records to see if we are victims?

[mightyq]

figured i would throw my story out there,

I bid on a ton of mastro auctions nonsports cards over the years, probably from 2002-08 going into legendary. anyway i forget the auction date, but i went to bed with ceiling bids on 7 lots, each was well off my ceiling and i was the winner on most. next day comes and i find out i won all 7 lots and the bidding stopped within 1 bid of each auction that would have out bid me. figure i paid thousands more that day for putting the ceiling bids in. never did that again. matter of fact that was the start of the end for me. although i had no proof i didnt need it to know that to have all 7 lots reach my ceiling was anything but shill bidding. now i dont know for sure, but i would guess that bill himself didnt do this all night long. I would assume some very in the know employees did lots if not all the dirty work, and when bill takes the stand to throw a few under the bus real soon we will get an idea as to how and who done this. pretty sure bill will be singing away when the time comes. If i were a part of bills all star team of the mastro years i would be getting ready to have my life ruined by him and ready for my family to get embarassed when articles are written for weeks to come. we will never know who what and the monetary value of all the shilling, but rest assured the govt. isnt spending all this money and man power to put this together just to catch bill. could you imagine the puppets that did the dirty work, full well knowing their guilty. they wake up each morning knowing its one day closer to their own demise.

[tbob]

Originally Posted by mightyq

figured i would throw my story out there,

I bid on a ton of mastro auctions nonsports cards over the years, probably from 2002-08 going into legendary. anyway i forget the auction date, but i went to bed with ceiling bids on 7 lots, each was well off my ceiling and i was the winner on most. next day comes and i find out i won all 7 lots and the bidding stopped within 1 bid of each auction that would have out bid me. figure i paid thousands more that day for putting the ceiling bids in. never did that again. matter of fact that was the start of the end for me. although i had no proof i didnt need it to know that to have all 7 lots reach my ceiling was anything but shill bidding. now i dont know for sure, but i would guess that bill himself didnt do this all night long. I would assume some very in the know employees did lots if not all the dirty work, and when bill takes the stand to throw a few under the bus real soon we will get an idea as to how and who done this. pretty sure bill will be singing away when the time comes. If i were a part of bills all star team of the mastro years i would be getting ready to have my life ruined by him and ready for my family to get embarassed when articles are written for weeks to come. we will never know who what and the monetary value of all the shilling, but rest assured the govt. isnt spending all this money and man power to put this together just to catch bill. could you imagine the puppets that did the dirty work, full well knowing their guilty. they wake up each morning knowing its one day closer to their own demise.

Marty I share your experience as a lot of us have gone through the myriad of emotions over this whole mess, including surprise, denial, frustration and finally anger. I do wonder, though, how much his associates and employees have to worry about. It's not that I think that he will be a martyr and bite the bullet for the whole crew, but I am not sure there will be the all-encompassing web of justice you anticipate. Maybe someone will be indicted and get probation but I doubt anyone is going to get the whole story and all responsible individuals brought to justice. Hope I'm wrong....

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by tbob

Marty I share your experience as a lot of us have gone through the myriad of emotions over this whole mess, including surprise, denial, frustration and finally anger. I do wonder, though, how much his associates and employees have to worry about. It's not that I think that he will be a martyr and bite the bullet for the whole crew, but I am not sure there will be the all-encompassing web of justice you anticipate. Maybe someone will be indicted and get probation but I doubt anyone is going to get the whole story and all responsible individuals brought to justice. Hope I'm wrong....

Bill isn't biting the bullet for anyone. On the very day he was indicted in this case, his lawyer indicated he was cooperating with the feds. Bill Mastro is for one person: Bill Mastro. He's clearly pissed that he's receiving any grief for his crimes because, after all, this has been a tough time for him and his family.

[drcy]

I thought that in Catholicism, lying was considered a sin.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by tbob

Marty I share your experience as a lot of us have gone through the myriad of emotions over this whole mess, including surprise, denial, frustration and finally anger. I do wonder, though, how much his associates and employees have to worry about. It's not that I think that he will be a martyr and bite the bullet for the whole crew, but I am not sure there will be the all-encompassing web of justice you anticipate. Maybe someone will be indicted and get probation but I doubt anyone is going to get the whole story and all responsible individuals brought to justice. Hope I'm wrong....

Are you not aware that two others were indicted?

[ScottFandango]

Originally Posted by mightyq

figured i would throw my story out there,

I bid on a ton of mastro auctions nonsports cards over the years, probably from 2002-08 going into legendary. anyway i forget the auction date, but i went to bed with ceiling bids on 7 lots, each was well off my ceiling and i was the winner on most. next day comes and i find out i won all 7 lots and the bidding stopped within 1 bid of each auction that would have out bid me. figure i paid thousands more that day for putting the ceiling bids in. never did that again. matter of fact that was the start of the end for me. although i had no proof i didnt need it to know that to have all 7 lots reach my ceiling was anything but shill bidding. now i dont know for sure, but i would guess that bill himself didnt do this all night long. I would assume some very in the know employees did lots if not all the dirty work, and when bill takes the stand to throw a few under the bus real soon we will get an idea as to how and who done this. pretty sure bill will be singing away when the time comes. If i were a part of bills all star team of the mastro years i would be getting ready to have my life ruined by him and ready for my family to get embarassed when articles are written for weeks to come. we will never know who what and the monetary value of all the shilling, but rest assured the govt. isnt spending all this money and man power to put this together just to catch bill. could you imagine the puppets that did the dirty work, full well knowing their guilty. they wake up each morning knowing its one day closer to their own demise.

GREAT POST, thanks

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by botn

Jeff Lichtman is either in possession of or has seen the bidder records many times as he has alluded to it over and over. He has also said hundreds if not thousands of bidders were shilled. How do we get to see bidder records to see if we are victims?

By the way, Greg, I have seen some of the Mastro bidding records. And wouldn't you know it, even some consignors shill bid their own lots. Even some people on this thread. Can you imagine that?

[nsaddict]

Very interesting Jeff, can you give us a hint without names? Let's say post number(s)

Tom, you got me...Bill and I made a killing on the Beanie Baby craze haha

[autograf]

So what's gonna happen to those people? That information should be released so we can all view it. Will that ever happen or will it be seals for some reason? I don't doubt that cons ignore shill their own items.

Richard....I'm thinking post 62.....

[calvindog]

Probably people who bid in Mastro's auctions should consider hiring a lawyer (not me) to contact the court and see if these records can be released so that a determination of whether they were defrauded can be made. Or else a lawsuit against Mastro should be brought and the records subpoenaed. I'm not getting involved of any of it and honestly all I would like to see is for the crooks to disgorge their ill-gotten gains.

PS definitely poster #63.

[Fred]

I have a question -

Did the Mastro auctions bidding system allow them (Bill and his crew) access to who was bidding and how much they were bidding, including information regarding what the bidder top bids were?

I can remember a time where you had to either phone in a bid and no computers were used. I suppose that would give the auction house the ability to really hose over their bidders.

Perhaps I'm a bit naive and I always believed that most of the top auctions were always on the level.

The shill bidding bugs me but the one thing that I've been finally waiting to hear is what everybody seems to have known about for a long time - the trimmed Wagner.

Maybe Bill will have some time to reflect when he's in his cell and maybe he'll come to terms with what he did and own up to what he did.

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by calvindog

By the way, Greg, I have seen some of the Mastro bidding records. And wouldn't you know it, even some consignors shill bid their own lots. Even some people on this thread. Can you imagine that?

I am shocked such things go on.