6 charged with fraud

[freddiefreeman5]

SaintGeaux,

FreddieFreeman5, I am not sure if you are being facetious ... but I will promise you that it is easy to give a lifetime guarantee when you are 100% sure the items you sell are 100% legitimate.

Lifetime means the life of the item, and the life of the company as long as I am in charge.

I don't think my comments were inappropiate so no I was not being facetious.
I did think the Snoopy comment was funny though.

[BrianK]

I'm hoping for a fire sale at JO.

Some of the NFL's member clubs may have been wise enough to get clauses in their contracts with JO Sports which will void their contracts under certain circumstances. But, by and large, there was intelligence (not speaking to integrity) in market pricing dynamics built into the distribution model in so much that JO assured themselves monopolistic pricing power in their team contracts. Sure, some items still would make it to NFL auctions (where traffic/demand far outpaced limited supply) but JO appeared to have eliminated other retail distribution.

So, now, NFL member organizations which failed to do their DD on JO Sports now will find their options limited to the clauses they got into the deals they signed. In some cases, the fans who have in recent times been adversely affected by JO's virtual monopoly will still find themselves forced to either deal with JO, or wait out the contracts' expiration.

At the end of the day, the NFL's member organizations should have been less focused on the benefits of the enhanced revenues that derived from JO's virtual monopoly on distribution, and more focused on the ultimate risk of marrying their brand to JO's. I'm not suggesting teams should have anticipated this particular bad outcome, but they certainly could have anticipated the array of potential bad outcomes and considered that there were no grassroots benefit to their franchises in marrying their brands to JO.

We can all observe the Pittsburgh Steelers weren't quick to jump on the "lets push it throuh JO" bandwagon. One of the best and smartest brands in the NFL. Maybe too conservative, but great risk-management.

[jhunt28]

Seems like there's a lot of "piling on" happening in this thread.....before any determination of guilt or innocence has even been made.

I've done business with JO Sports for over 2 years now and have never encountered any issues regarding authenticity whatsoever. Quite the contrary, I can generally photomatch any item from their inventory that I'm interested in long before any purchase is made.

Robert Kovacs has been my JO representative from the beginning and is a study in courtesy and professionalism. So, while others may seem to want to rush to judgement, I have nothing but positive things to say about a company that has been instrumental in the building of my Bears collection and are largely responsible for its contents today.

Finally, someone from the other side of the fence. It's great to have you here, it's lonely on this end!! I have been reading this entire thread, and I'm starting to lose sight of reality. I have also read somewhere in here that someone is now skeptical of photomatches, because they think that JO is now using photomatching sites to doctor jerseys???

I mean seriously...do some of you think that JO Sports Co receives boxes of game issued jerseys, and then proceeds to have a team of runners wear them to get them sweaty and smelly? And then have a group of people put on those same jerseys to go play football in the backyard, to give them ball marks, hit marks, grass, mud, and turf stains? Then once the game is over, everyone takes their "fabricated" game issued jerseys to a group of seamstresses who manufacture team repairs, and also add any further customizations for each specific player on the roster?

Clearly I'm being cynical...but do some of you really think that 100% of what is sold on the JO Sports website is fake?? And do you think that every equipment manager from each NFL team they have a contract with is in on the scam too? Seems like a hell of a lot of work in order to turn some game issued jerseys into game worn, no???

And does anyone even know the details of this case? Can anyone speak intelligently as to JO's involvment in this case? All that I have seen are people making insane accusations about how everything JO sells is fake, and that people don't put any faith in team LOA/COA's, or photomatches.

Let's use this example: Person A knows someone at a Card Company (Person C) who wants to buy a game worn jeresey in order to cut into pieces. Person B knows how to get in touch with Person C at the Card Company. Person A uses Person B as a middle man, and Person C at the Card Company gets what they think is a game worn jersey, cut it up into pieces and put into baseball cards. The jersey coming from Person A was a retail or game issued jersey. Person C thought it was game used. Person C cuts the jersey into pieces and sells is as a game worn insert. This scenario is entirely possible...but it doesn't seem to me like everything person B now touches should be considered fake, does it?

Just a few thoughts...now let the abuse begin!!!

[BarryMeisel]

Freddie,

I did not say your comments were inappropriate, I said I was not sure if you were being facetious ... meaning I was not sure if you meant it literally, or were typing with tongue in cheek.

Barry

[project 4]

I wonder, so if we have recently purchased from JO, does that mean we get our money back for falsifying information?

[freddiefreeman5]

Freddie,

I did not say your comments were inappropriate, I said I was not sure if you were being facetious ... meaning I was not sure if you meant it literally, or were typing with tongue in cheek.

Barry

Just tongue in cheek. No hard feelings here, I trust your integrity.

I always thought facetious meant inappropriate jesting.

[gingi79]

Obviously, not everything JO sells is fake. I have seen plenty of authentic photomatched jerseys for sale on their site.

The issue is (As I read it at least): The FBI has proof JO sold jerseys with manufactured wear. (According to the notes in this thread and the articles in national newspapers) If this is so, your company is now hanging out in the Lou Lampson side of the pool.

Whether it is one jersey or 500, it is the same thing to many collectors. Once you take a shirt and knowingly misrepresent it, collectors will abandon your company in droves. You lose integrity, you lose respect and in a hobby as tight knit as ours, it isn't something that just goes away. Even Lou Lampson was right on some jerseys.

MeiGray's business model is untouchable. People may not agree with their prices or feel they had some influence on sets or wear or other sour grapes but I have NEVER heard of a fake or added wear jersey coming from them. They are transparent, provide access to every single tag number on their website without having to contact the company and give details on wear dates. The few times people have had issue, MeiGray did right by them at Barry's expense.

My last note on pricing. JO takes flak for the $20k Sanchez and the low end jerseys starting higher than the hobby feels is sane. The Oven-Chicken example with MeiGray just illustrates how different the high ends in hockey are versus football. MeiGray sold 40 JERSEYS at $7500. That means the price scale is in collector norms. Others may think it is high but the market begs to differ.

[34swtns]

I wonder, so if we have recently purchased from JO, does that mean we get our money back for falsifying information?

That's ridiculous.

[cubbs1232]

That's ridiculous.

how is that? They justify their prices by offering 100% legit jerseys now that its not the case, those jerseys,imo, aren't worth what they were.

[jhunt28]

how is that? They justify their prices by offering 100% legit jerseys now that its not the case, those jerseys,imo, aren't worth what they were.

Why is it "not the case" anymore? This is getting insane...not a single person on this thread has brought any photographic, or tangible evidence that something that they had purchased from JO Sports was not authentic. These charges are stemming from an incident, in which NO ONE knows the details of, and was before JO even had a website.