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Permalink Reply by Mike T on June 11, 2015 at 5:46pm

Not based in the US, hard to take down and prosecute. Frankly anyone stupid enough to buy that crap deserves to have their wallets lightened.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Baldock on June 11, 2015 at 6:07pm

Only looked at the neatcrap website and wow, every great movie cast signed poster you can imagine averaging 150 dollars. What crooks.

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Permalink Reply by Dan Gregory on June 11, 2015 at 6:26pm

Sadly these are becoming common here in New Zealand and in Australia as people try to buy cheap and flip for a profit. I've been able to remove a lot of these but so many scammers out there.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Finlay on June 13, 2015 at 7:27am

I think one or both are actually US-based - the address is on their site.  Could be a fake address, but from what I've read online, people are getting poster tubes from WITHIN the US.

I understand your point about people being stupid, but when a regular Joe wants a signed Godfather poster for his father for Christmas, this is what he ends up buying, and probably a few more posters on top of this as well, like a signed THE DARK KNIGHT poster with Heath Ledger's signature on it (from a seemingly unlimited supply of them!).  It's completely unethical.  How are regular people - their clients - supposed to know this is fake?  They don't have the time to investigate.  They just trust it's real and $95 or $150 is to them still a high price - they're not used to this stuff.  On one of the sites, you can see how many of each poster they have sold.  These forgers are making an absolute killing.

I suppose what I'm really asking is:  These two websites are WELL KNOWN for selling forgeries, and very BAD ones.  They have been reported to the FBI (there is a section of the FBI website for reporting online fraud) many many times by various people.  They've possibly been reported by MANY other people to MANY other law enforcement agencies and offices throughout the world.  To my knowledge, no one has gotten a response.  There must be an international task force whose job it is to investigate these things?  This has been going on for years.  It's such a shame.

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Permalink Reply by Mike T on June 13, 2015 at 7:54am

If their business is not incorporated in the US, they do not have to follow US laws.  They may have a fake address or someone shipping stuff from the US, but that is not where their business is incorporated.

China, for example, has an entire market around selling counterfeit merchandise.  When it leaks over to the US, we try to stop it, but when you are dealing with online stores it is very difficult to do because they do not have to follow US law.

I agree that everything about it is wrong, but I think anyone with common sense should know that you cannot buy a full sized poster signed by a bunch of deceased actors for $100, and I think most do. The people that buy that crap desperately try to convince themselves that its real so they can feel like they got a good deal. It's our job here to educate people so they don't buy this garbage and these people go out of business.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Finlay on June 13, 2015 at 8:00am

That could be the reason - but I'm amazed that powerful law agencies all around the world, especially those who are committed to stamping out ONLINE FRAUD, have their hands tied.  They can't investigate and take the websites down?  Block the sites?  Nothing?!  It's amazing.

I don't think it's a common sense issue -- most regular Joe's are not buying a poster signed by deceased actors...  There might be one or two deceased actors on it, and they take a chance.  They have ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE of the trade at all.  There are authenticity sections of their websites that ASSURE people of authenticity, just like anyone else does, and people trust it.

I agree about educating people here and elsewhere about this stuff -- but most of the people who buy posters from these sites are not investigating anything or asking any questions.  They go online, find the poster they want, but it (with probably a few more), and there you go:  that's a SCARFACE poster for the brother, a GODFATHER poster for the Uncle for Xmas etc.  People don't have the time to ask questions or even come looking here (most people)...

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Permalink Reply by Mike T on June 13, 2015 at 8:19am

I know sites like neautograph have been moving around to different domains over the years so maybe they are starting to shut them down. But like anything else, it's the Internet, the government and huge media corporations have been trying and failing for years to shut down torrent sites and the like, it's just not easy to do - and I bet that is higher priority than some fake autographs.

Common sense is simply that if you do not know what you are doing, perhaps you shouldn't be doing it. I know nothing about collecting fine art, so I wouldn't walk into an art auction and throw down money simply because I wanted something.. I would take the time to understand it first, then I would know which auctions to stay away from and which are reputable.  Every hobby has forgeries and dark corners, no different here.

If people don't take time to ask questions or do some basic research first then they either don't care and don't want to be helped, or can't be helped and they will lose their money.

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