Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jason D on May 16, 2014 at 6:13am

SM.COM has been doing this for years now. They copy a sellers item on eBay and they double the price and then try to sell it on their site or amazon or one of the other sites. Now that they are owned by Fanatics maybe they will stop this practice but doubtful.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carl Ryan on May 16, 2014 at 4:20pm

Great find!!!

They are probably fakes or copies then. Ebay seller Ben92522 is selling known forgeries and hopefully we can get the law involved here to take care of him and his outfit

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mike Kaminski on May 16, 2014 at 4:37pm

I'm not sure about other items, but Jason is right here.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carl Ryan on May 16, 2014 at 4:45pm

Interesting, i did some research on the Diver Down Van Halen LP he has for sale certed by PSA. I too was able to trace it back at one time to sportsmemorabilia. He may be buying his items from there. But i think the original source of the Diver Down LP was Press Pass Collectibles. It appears to be genuine, so its hard to say what is going on here. I imagine he just has several authentic pieces certed by the major players (JSA,PSA,Epperson)  so he can say..."Look i have some authentic items, and they are certed by PSA and JSA, so my items must be real". But for every authentic item he has up for sale, he has 30 fake ones. In situations like this, there is just no way the seller doesnt know exactly what hes doing. He had to switch names once b/c he got exposed on this site for doing it, and now he his in the spotlight again.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Micko on May 17, 2014 at 12:45am

Interesting stuff guys. The thing that threw me was that if two sites were selling the same item at the same time and sportsmemorabilia were simply doubling the price of the ebay item and copying it, how come the two pictures are slightly different? And really, what guarantee would you have if you bought it from the Ebay seller who has proven forgeries actually sending you the genuine item if you bought it?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carl Ryan on May 17, 2014 at 1:52am

You definetly found something here Micko. It wouldnt surprise me at all if the ebay seller and the company were somehow related. If it is for sale currently at both places, then there is definetly an issue. The next step may be to alert sportsmemorabilia of what is going on and see if they get back to you. If they dont, then thats a bad sign. Or maybe we could invite sportsmemorabilila here to try and clear that issue up. Its interesting that the Van Halen psa item they have up also came from sportsmemorabilia at one time. I dont mind emailing sportsmemorabilia and will send them an email and see if they respond. As for the ebay seller, i give up asking crooked sellers to come here and comment, but if anyone wants to drop ol Ben a line and let him know he is being called out here and his items exposed, more power to you. Ebay wont do anything about the fakes, heck, they wouldnt even do anything if what me and you, Micko, suspect to be true turns out to be fact. They just dont care lately

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on May 17, 2014 at 4:08am

Most of Sportsmemorabilia.com's inventory is on consignment to them. Other sellers may have the same item on consignment from the same supplier. Each seller sets their own price. The supplier typically drop ships the piece to the collector.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carl Ryan on May 17, 2014 at 8:44am

Thank you Steve. No need to email them then. As usual, you clear things up pretty quickly. That would explain things. If only Ben's forgeries could be explained so easily

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Micko on May 17, 2014 at 3:38pm

Thanks for the input Carl, most informative. As you say Steve has explained how these situations arise. Always worth questioning these things. That's why I'm on this site.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Micko on May 17, 2014 at 3:36pm

Okay, thanks Steve, that's interesting to know how it all works. My concern was that there was two separate items being sold with the same PSA cert, now I get it. It is of course a shame that this is only one genuine item amongst a lot of forgeries on the Ebay sellers site.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jason D on May 17, 2014 at 4:23pm

The items that are on eBay are not necessarily on consignment from the eBay seller to SM.com. I've been down this road before with sellers of items that had absolutely no clue that their items were being sold on SM.com for double the asking eBay price. What SM.com does is take the eBay sellers photo's and either use them the way they are or Photoshop them or crop them in a way that they look slightly different. SM then lists the items for sale on their site or Amazon for double the price and when they sell it they either do a buy it now or submit an offer to the eBay seller the eBay seller then ships it to SM and they in turn ship it to the buyer. It's a very complicated process but I guess it works for them. There is no out of pocket cost to SM.com and they don't have to hold the inventory. Now that SM.com is owned by Fanatics I don't know if they will change this way of business or not but that is how they operate at this point in time..

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on May 17, 2014 at 4:35pm

As far as I knew, a consignor would consign the same piece to a number of sellers; Sportsmemorabilia.com, other websites, eBay sellers, Amazon sellers, etc. I'm not aware of them selling things that belonged to another seller without their knowledge.

• ▶ Reply