Ebay related stuff.

[read_em-migration]

"Which questions would you like me to answer? Be specific."

I believe he is refering to the final lines of Fantastic Four's post at 07/12/02 12:48 PM. Very specific questions there.

[BachelorOfComix]

"Which questions would you like me to answer? Be specific."

 

I believe he is referring to Bob's post too at 07/11/02 11:29 AM. Very specific set of events there.

[fantastic_four]

I think everything that needs to be said about this guy by me has been said, and he's shown you just about everything you need to know about him through his replies. I'm done directly talking to him here, although I'm talking to some people via e-mail he's hosed in the past and they may post another viewpoint. This is exactly how he was when I encountered him a year and a half ago. Even when he gets his hand caught RIGHT in the cookie jar, his ego is so massive he thinks he can get out of it by eloquently and endlessly arguing one or two limited facets of a multi-faceted issue. Back when he was going through the alleged theft of his comics, he spouted out three hugely long totally fluff e-mails when asked a simple question--"why did you collect our money when you KNEW you didn't have comics to give us?"--and he's doing it again now. It's like high-school debate all over again, where everybody thinks that whoever spouts out the best-sounding BS wins, and the truth becomes a nagging detail that you have to come up with more and more filibustering to avoid. Debating with people like that is pointless.

 

I've encoutered three shady characters since I started using E-Bay:

• phd2lou/louiebotts/neat_stuff4u -- This guy's a complete crook. He sells then never ships, he restores with a felt-tip pen, he breaks open restored CGC slabs to sell them as unrestored, he breaks open high-grade slabs and shoves low-grade ones in to replace them, and probably much, much more. He's the worst. He has so many e-bay accounts that it's probably not useful to list those 3 above which are all banned by E-Bay now. He's getting his butt sued right now by a lawyer he tried to screw out of $1500. Finally, JUSTICE!
• "The Doctor" -- I have no first-hand knowledge of any wrongdoing by him, but a lot of other people do. Every national dealer has warned me about him. He's a great conversationalist and I love talking with him, but NOBODY as smart as he is sells that many 9.4 to 9.9 key comics at 1x to 3x Overstreet when you could get them slabbed and get 5x to 20x guide.
• infinitecapacity/silverage-fan/notch_top -- he appears to be more unethical than criminal. I still haven't heard anyone say he stole their money. The worst he may be doing is listing comics with undisclosed restoration (I have no evidence of this, but anybody who has read this thread should see that it's a possibility. I did buy one unslabbed Spidey 14 VF+ from him a few years ago, but I'm not sure if there's any restoration), bidding to get his name out there then never paying (here's one he did that on: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ruddj/Spidey39-40.htm ), and dreaming up new shady ways to make a quick buck.

The first two on this list are quite possibly life-long sociopaths, but Matt here just seems like a highly self-centered, small-time schemer with a decent amount of cash to spend on comics. Since he's only about 27, It's not too late for him to clean up, but two years after I first met him, he's doing the same , so it may never happen. He's rather intelligent and could be one of the great dealers in comics like Nathanson, Wilson, Roter, Fishler, Storms, etc.

[Guest]

JAMES,

First of all, none of these posts were done by myself as I would be referring to myself in the third person in some of them. I am registered on this board no longer anonymous. The anonymous poster has alot of my same view points on this hobby and has said them far more articulative than I could manage.

I am done defending myself on this board.

But will leave you with a couple questions.

The ASM 14 VF+ you purchased from me for almost $1000, you said you suspect possible restoration. You purchased this copy 3 years ago and have not submitted it to CGC?

The asm 39 and 40 CGC 9.6 I did not purchase, I mistyped in a bid of $7500 in place of $5700 at the last few seconds of auctions closing as you can see by the bisd history, see how it goes from $100 increments to $1000's.

The seller would not work with me and I chose not to pay, wish I would have . Those books are well worth the small investment then if I would have had it to spend at the time.

Nice chatting with you.

Take care

M

[notch_top]

Additioanally..

Thank you for the good words, I have no doubt that if you were made aware of what has really been happening to me these last couple years, your perspectve would completely change.

Regarding restoration of books, None of my books are restored copies. I guarantee against that, albeit you believe that "warranty" is not enforced?

I have not one dissatisfied customer thus far.

Take care all!

M

[fantastic_four]

I haven't slabbed the Spidey 14 because I don't sell comics. What's the point of slabbing if you're not selling? The only reason I'd send it off is if I were upgrading and wanted to sell it, or if I suspect restoration. I've been tempted to slab it due to the latter reason.

 

Again, focusing on one facet of a multi-faceted issue! What about the dozen or so other high-dollar auctions you've welched on?

 

You're really exasperating, Matt. Every time I ASK you a question to see your side of things, you either lie, BS, or most often, ignore the question entirely. So I really doubt there's much more to know if I were in your shoes; I think I've got a pretty accurate picture of your ethics. 'Nuff said.

[fantastic_four]

There is one more point to make so everybody understands why guarantees of no restoration can work FOR a fraudulent seller, not against him.

 

If I start restoring comics today and list them as "guaranteed unrestored" throughout the entire time the buyer owns them, how many comics do you think will get returned to me? And how many negative feedbacks on E-Bay do you think I'd get from selling that way? Very few to none. Why? Because thankfully most buyers are collectors, not dealers, so only a few people are going to send a comic off to CGC to get it checked. And 99.99% of collectors can't detect restoration on their own. And even if they do find the restoration on their own or with CGC, the odds are that they've already left positive Ebay feedback, or that they don't discover the restoration in time to leave negative feedback. Or they're too afraid of getting retaliatory negative feedback. Or the seller takes the return and the buyer doesn't realize they're dealing with a pro who knows how to play the E-Bay fraud game. E-Bay's feedback system is really minimally effective because of issues like this.

 

What happens when somebody does return a comic to me because it's restored? That's easy. Since most of my other customers still haven't found the restoration on their comics and my feedback is clean, then I can just claim that I didn't realize the restoration was there. After all, 99.99% of collectors can't find restoration, and I'm just another member of the herd, right? "Darnit! I didn't realize it was there any more than you did!" If things get too bad, you can just ditch your current E-Bay account and create another one. Matt has already done this several times, and he's given a fake name to people also.

 

It's the guarantee of no restoration that led me to comment Matt's auctions are becoming indistinguishable from comic-keys' auctions. That, along with the private auctions, the Spidey 3 scan from a comic-keys auction, a very similar auction description and content format, and the selling of unslabbed high-price books. He even mentions in his current Spidey 3 auction that the previous Spidey 3 he was selling was a private auction because he "borrowed some listing ideas from another seller." What other comics seller do we know that has private auctions and sells unslabbed rare books? The main difference between the two sellers is that I've seen no evidence that Matt directly restores comics himself. He's decades younger than comic-keys, so I assume he lacks the skill at this point. Plus, Matt does use CGC, whereas comic-keys wouldn't and possibly COULDN'T use CGC for his comics since they know him well. If Matt is selling any restored comics, it's quite likely he bought them that way, but we'll see how his technique progresses and how much more like comic-keys he tries to become since it appears he's going as strong now as he was a few years ago.

 

Also take note that I'm not saying Matt definitely IS selling any restored comics. I'm just presenting the evidence that he MIGHT be selling them, and showing you why guarantees of no restoration is a pretty flimsy guarantee unless the buyer immediately sends the book off to CGC or can detect restoration on their own.

 

With E-Bay's current policies, this sort of scam is really easy to do, although it takes a bit of time to learn and perfect. If they'd improve the ability leave and edit feedback and do at least a limited identity check on sellers to prevent people from hopping from account to account to escape fraud and bad feedback, it would be much less widespread.

[Guest]

Matt,

You'll NEVER be done defending yourself on THIS board unless every item you sell is sent first to CGC. This is NOT an open-minded "chat/message-Board". This is a CGC propaganda/Hate-Board. And after all, quite frankly, I respect that as it IS CGCs Board and will attract CGC-only Zealots whose firm belief, deluded as it may seem, is that the ONLY comic collectible, or seller of any validity go the CGC route or nothing at all and must be guilty of some kind of indescretion because he hasn't gone the exclusively slabbed way. You can't argue with these people anymore than you can log onto a pro-Radical Moslem Hate Board and suggest that destroying 6,000 non-Moslems was inhumane. You'd be branded an infidel just the same as you have been here for not selling exclusively CGCed books! Not to compare the severity of the two in any way, but it IS a similar kind of thinking and you'd be spinning your wheels just as you are here to think that you'd get a fair shake here. There's millions of message boards that cater to them and will put us in touch with like-thinking people. They feed off of each other's hatred of others without the same ideas and some go through great single-minded, one-dimensional lenghts, almost to the exclusion of ANY other kind of activity or stimulation to impress their mania on as many as possible. Possibly they weren't listened to or felt ignored while attaining adulthood and now that they've found an audience of kindred souls, will go WAY overboard to sad extents once they're being responded to. Matt, could you imagine having enough time on your hands to write almost 500 posts in three months, each with an average length of a political pamphlet, and almost all saying the exact same thing over and over again, ad nauseum?? You have to ask yourself, "why doesn't this person take some of those totally wasted hours that he'll never have again and do something positive?". Read books a few hours a week to terminally ill children, give out blankets to the homeless...ANYTHING positive whatsoever other than at least 1000 hours wasted the last 3 months concocting 500 long-winded posts that could have been condensed into 3. What a terrible shame.

[drbanner]

Dude, your post reminds me of an episode of Seinfeld, but alas, I can't remember the name of the character the show was about. Anyhow, for example, let's say his name was "Matt". Half the show he was talking about "The Matt" in the 3rd person, with the punchline being that the person he kept referring to was himself.

 

At this point I think you'd be better off staying underground...Matt..c****k***, or whoever you are. It's pretty obvious that you're not going to win anyone over with your responses here, so it's probably just a waste of everyone's time for you to keep trying...

[fantastic_four]

We're quite open-minded...what was your name again? I missed it somehow. I should have figured it out from the style of the language and from the Holden Caulfield reference, but for some reason I didn't. I think I've got it now.

 

The reason I post so much here is because writing helps develop ideas and reaffirm knowledge. Writing and teaching (which I did the last five years) is one of the best paths to self-improvement I've ever found. You're a pretty good and long-winded writer yourself, comic-keys, so you know what I'm talking about, despite your attempt to cast it in a negative light. Hopefully, the positive effect on others is education. Which is the enemy of people who rely on deception and ignorance, so I can understand why you probably think it's a waste.

[murph0]

Good conspiracy theory Anonymous..glad to see you care enough to post but can't post using a real name. Once again, you don't like what's being said on the boards.. leave.. I think I've seen another one of your posts complaining about people saying someone with a comic that costs more then 1,000 dollars have it CGC graded to prove its not restored. Thereoticall situation. Would you rather buy the 2,000 dollar comic from "Anonymous" seller unslabbed with him saying its a VF 8.0 and unrestored...or a book thats CGC slabbed unrestored and a VF 8.0. I think the choice is simple here, I don't play with my money..maybe you do with yours.

 

Brian

[Bronty]

Funny how the only people who seem to see your side of it are "anonymous."

 

One would almost think you're pretending to be someone else.. Hmm, what a coincidence...

 

Anyway, I'm also done with this discussion, it's obviously fruitless.

 

As to your earlier question regarding my identity, feel free to check my profile.

 

 

[scottish]

Feel better now? Yeesh!

 

Just for the record this board is not just pro-CGC. It is a collector's society board, but Steve and company do not censor anyone. All are free to speak their mind.

 

Additionally for the record some on here do not buy slabbed books alone. I buy non-CGC books from a few dealers on the Internet and eBay. If they are known, respected and can grade conservatively I'll gladly purchase their books.

 

The issue that sticks in my craw is all of you Anonymous posters defending questionable seller ethics. While you are able to post, your anonymity gives you zero credibility. You same anonymous whiners rag on CGC and other posters that back up their statements with logical thoughts, whereas you (the anonymous ninnys) do not.

 

In closing, if you took a few moments to read more posts you would see that almost every poster on this board has been critical of CGC's operation in one form or another. Yes. A lot of posters do support them since they brought stability and a measure of credibility when buying and selling on eBay. Does that give them a blank check? No. CGC has much to improve upon (as Steve and Paul has acknowledged) and will continue to improve with time.

 

My apologies for the rant...we now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

On a side note - Anyone see that 'Nick Fury' is on Sci-Fi tonight? David Hasselhof? What the hell is that?

 

[BachelorOfComix]

Interesting thread...isn't it amazing how these threads can evolve (or devolve?)

[CGCMINT]

I've seen the Nick Fury movie and I still have it on tape (I still have no idea why I haven't erased it). It's 2 hrs I've wasted away which I'll never get back. Damn you David Hasselhoff , damn you to hell...

 

John

[CGCMINT]

Matt,

 

What does religion have to do w/ CGC?! Why Moslems? Why didn't you use, Evangelical Christians or Zionists?

 

 

[Darthdiesel]

I was just getting ready to watch that tonight on sci fi! maybe it's as bad as witchblade...potentially great characters, bad actors/actresses to protray them...

I enjoy wasting 2 hours of my life away....maybe I'll tape it, and "anonymously" donate it to terminally ill children instead of reading to them, so that it may ease their suffering or will it actually put them out of this misery...god bless this "hate" board . without it my bitter life has no meaning...let be get on those other hate boards and spread the word...

 

fear and hatred are the ways of the dark side....I type as I stare at my icon, Dath Vader's Photomosaic directly in front of me...these things are neat! - got a yoda photomosaic too to me left...

[fantastic_four]

I don't think that was Matt, I think it was comic-keys. I may have been mistaken in assuming some of the previous posts were from Matt. I've asked the forum moderator, Architect, to identify whether the anonymous posts in this thread were posted from the same computer that notch_top uses. Hopefully he will.

[Guest]

Has nothing to do with comics whatsoever. I didn't say it did. I merely pointed out that it's the same kind of fanaticism in one's train of thought and tolerance for others who DON'T share your views that every comic over a certain value should be submitted to CGC or not transacted at all.

[Darthdiesel]

I feel strongly that all comics should be submitted to cgc...then we can use slabbed comics as currency...from the supermarket Archie books to the platinum age crumbly pages - slab it all and be merry!

 

I will slab every comic I get a chance to, until there are no more ungraded comics ever...

 

There is no reason that I can find not to slab a comic...it should be the next thing in your mind after you walk out of the comic shop..."How soon can I get this to CGC?"

 

Long Live CGC! Down with unslabbed comics!