6 charged with fraud

[solarlottry]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

This post is also off-topic but it seems as if the thread is moving into the Love-JO/Hate-JO realm rather than focusing on the matter at hand.

I agree with Mark 100%.

I have been trying to match some of my older 49er gamers and it is NOT EASY! Even with knowing what game the shirt was worn, having the shirt in hand and watching the dvd, it still is tough to come up with a match on some shirts.

Take, for instance, the 1994 William Floyd rookie gamer I have that was worn vs the Raiders. It was his first regular season game and he only had 2 carries for 8 yards and no catches. He did play on special teams though but obtaining a clear image of him during the game that will allow me to photo-match his jersey is tough. Plus with the lack of snaps the jersey is fairly clean. A style match is not tough though.

Knowing these facts should I not purchase the jersey because it lacks a definitive photo-match? It has an authentic team letter, is style matched and has the equipment managers tape on the nameplate. For me that is more than enough to be comfortable with the purchase. Obviously a definitive photo-match would be great on my entire collection but it is not realistic.

If I had to have a photo-match for all of the vintage 49er gamers in my collection I would not own many of the ones I have. I think taking into account all of the factors that Mark mentioned surrounding a jersey, should help make or break a purchase.

With regards to the original thread I think it is problematic that JO is caught up in all of this. To me it makes no difference when the alleged acts occurred and whether or not their team items are authentic or not. It is the fact that he allowed himself and his reputation to get caught up in something like this that is troubling. Jarod knows this business well so one would hope that he knows who he is dealing with and what they are selling.

With team and player deals in place it is Jarod's duty to be absolutely transparent as any discretion can tarnish his reputation and put the deals at risk. Evidently he may not have done this although once the facts are made public, this may change.

Whenever I dealt with JO I dealt with Robert and he has always done right by me so i will reserve any other comments until Jarod's statement and the investigation is complete.

Always buying 49er gamers!
Paul
garciajones@yahoo.com

[dcgreg25]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

The dialogue in this thread is critically important and of interest to just about every one of the members of GUU. However, I would ask that everyone try to limit their posts to comments that could be construed as helpful/useful to others.

I think the majority of the regular members have chimed in with an opinion and some very compelling points have been made on various sides of the issue, many of which I had not considered.

Unfortunately, some of the recent posts have veered towards arguing for the sake of arguing. As a collector, and a moderator, I am interested in useful content not who is right or wrong in an arguement. I have no problems with disagreement that brings new insight to a situation. However, further posts made to just "stir things up" will be deleted as they are not helpful to anyone.

[David]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

Those collectors who chose to buy from dealers they know to have cheated or faked shall thus lose the right to complain in the future about all the crooked sellers in the hobby. Because it is they, those collectors, who keep the crooked dealers in business. They are financial enablers.

[David]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

I also don't understand the logic, rather morals, of collectors who buy from dealers who they know cheat others, "as long as they don't cheat me." Do you call 911 when you see a someone burglarizing your neighbor's house, or do you save the phone call for only when yours is broken into?

Lastly, if you buy from a company you know has cheated and you know the hobby knows has cheated. do you disclose this provenance at sale or do you suppress it? Is hiding this provenance to preserve your sell price ethical? Is it legal?

[masp3392]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

I also don't understand the logic, rather morals, of collectors who buy from dealers who they know cheat others, "as long as they don't cheat me." Do you call 911 when you see a someone burglarizing your neighbor's house, or do you save the phone call for only when yours is broken into?

Lastly, if you buy from a company you know has cheated and you know the hobby knows has cheated. do you disclose this provenance at sale or do you suppress it? Is hiding this provenance to preserve your sell price ethical? Is it legal?

Im personally not saying im ok with JO cheating other people. My position is yes, i'll continue to buy from JO because I myself have purchased items that are photomatched and ive done my homework on, and im 100% satisfactory in these purchases. The point is regardless of reputation wether its good or bad, people need to do there homework as a safety net.

1) yes i agree, when you pay that much money for something you should not have to sweat wether its legit or not.

2) yes i agree, that a company who does remotely any fraudulant business is in fact immoral and should be punished to the extent of the law. (Lets wait and see what comes out first to judge)

3) I still maintain that w/e purchase should be examined if you have any doubts about it whatsoever. If i get a eerie sense on any jersey not being up to par, i simply dont spend the $$$, i dont take it a chance on it.

[jppopma]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

I also don't understand the logic, rather morals, of collectors who buy from dealers who they know cheat others, "as long as they don't cheat me." Do you call 911 when you see a someone burglarizing your neighbor's house, or do you save the phone call for only when yours is broken into?

Lastly, if you buy from a company you know has cheated and you know the hobby knows has cheated. do you disclose this provenance at sale or do you suppress it? Is hiding this provenance to preserve your sell price ethical? Is it legal?

Well said, it is amazing that there are so many people that will be accepting of these things unless it happens to them. For the sake of the hobby, we need to support the feds identifying and removing these bad jerseys from the market.

Innocent until proven guilty....Palehose, I think most members are just stating their opinions and options to chose who to deal with. Some are willing to take a chance with JO and others won't touch them with a 10 foot stick right now. The term innocent until proven guilty is only a legal term; within one's opinion, they have the right to cast doubt or guilt for as minor reason as they want.

Alot of it comes down to morals and reputation. Many collectors hold their morals to a high level and take major offense to the thought that they have been taken, or moreso risk their reputation when they resell items.

Speaking of morals, reputation, and opinion. While some posts say they are just playing devil's advocate, many opinions are being made about people's acceptance of the lack of morals...

[Trublubrucru]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

Now that this has happened, Maybe its time for the NFL to follow MLB and do their own authenticating. This has worked out well for baseball, and if football can do it in house, it would solidify the usage, and practically eliminate the need for second tier companies to do authenticating or dealers doing their own "research". The NFL has enough employees and resources that surely this could be done. It is time.

As for JO sports, years back, the first thing I saw for sale from them was a Jamarcus Russell helmet at $2500.00 . I laughed and knew these guys weren't for me, and I never bothered to look at any of their stuff again.

[dplettn]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

Now that this has happened, Maybe its time for the NFL to follow MLB and do their own authenticating. This has worked out well for baseball, and if football can do it in house, it would solidify the usage, and practically eliminate the need for second tier companies to do authenticating or dealers doing their own "research". The NFL has enough employees and resources that surely this could be done. It is time.

I certainly agree. The hard thing for us to realize in the hobby is that the game used merchandising segment is not particularly financially relevant to the leagues (or teams).

Only MLB and NFL could speak on behalf of their own positions, but clearly MLB created a high standard already and is pretty far along not only in scaling up its authentications but in refining its processes to authenticate more relevant items.

MLB had two purposes (beyond financial) that I can recognize. 1) Its sport has a strong historic element and it has a clear need for grassroots benefits, 2) its authentic items and false items were challenging to differentiate in the marketplace

Given that the NFL has a comparatively larger influx of young fans from the fantasy hobby and the pace and contact nature of its game, I expect that investing in an authentication process similar to MLB has not been a priority.

However, now that MLB has set the standard and a number of its member organizations have been caught with their pants down after signing with JO, the NFL very well may determine to create its own system for authentic merchandise.

[legaleagle92481]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

There is no excuse as to why any sports league does not have a system to track all jerseys that involves installing something on a jersey to do so before it is ever even worn. I believe the NBA did that last season. This is a big business and many teams whether through JO or otherwise sell their jerseys in some way shape or form so the leagues should make what in the big picture is a small investment that would be a major step toward cleaning up the industry going forward. The idea of photomatching every purchase is great in theory but in my opinion in practice it is highly idealistic. As other posters have said you cannot photomatch washed jerseys, for lesser players and older jerseys pictures may not be available and in other cases a match may not just be possible due to the lack of distinctive markings on the jersey such as many NBA jerseys, QB and kicker jerseys. Plus NFL Auctions often provides terrible photos of the products they are offering that would be impossible in most cases to use for a photomatch. And try asking them for additional pictures that request is not likely to be fulfilled if the way they normally respond to questions is an indication. Yes of course you have the option not to buy but it limits ones ability to collect greatly. I also think when you buy from companies like JO, Steiner and MeiGray, as when you buy directly from the league you pay a premium over what you would pay from a smaller seller and the purpose of that premium is to receive peace of mind and a no doubt about it authentic product. The onus to do the work should not be on the collector in these situations but the seller, thats what your paying extra for.

[David]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

PSA/DNA uses that invisible DNA marker on items, and has catalogued stuff for NFL Auctions before. There's an idea of how the NFL could have things marked and verified.

[legaleagle92481]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

PSA/DNA uses that invisible DNA marker on items, and has catalogued stuff for NFL Auctions before. There's an idea of how the NFL could have things marked and verified.

Do they do that before or after the item is worn? Another way is how Barry does it in his hockey program with a special tag I believe.

[Jags Fan Dan]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

Did JO change their name? Just got an email from them that said it was from "Game Worn NFL".

[schubert1970]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

Did JO change their name? Just got an email from them that said it was from "Game Worn NFL".

I don't know, but I would like to have and LOA attesting to this change so I know it's really happened.

[b.heagy]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

Did JO change their name? Just got an email from them that said it was from "Game Worn NFL".

I got one too. JO Logo is still incorporated into the email.

[SkubeBats]

Re: 6 charged with fraud

I did notice under their section "Partnership team" the college team names they work with have been removed. Does anyone know if they lost their deals with these teams or what?