"Enough of Lampson", or "Is there a lawyer in the house?"

[Nathan]

There are two items out there at auctions houses (Grey Flannel and Historic) that simply reek. One is represented as a Troy Polamalu 2006 white Steelers jersey, the other is a 1996 Willie McGinest white Patriots jersey. The problem with both is that the names are misspelled ("POLOMALU" and "McGINIST"). Both of them are "authenticated" by Lou Lampson.

At what point do we as collectors stop laughing and rolling our eyes and start looking at any way that legal options can be pursued against Lampson/100% Authentic/auction houses that carry this stuff? I figure that, bare minimum, various forms of fraud are being committed by either negligently authenticating something without due diligence in research OR willfully by looking at a bad item and writing a letter for it for the sake of collecting fees.

Is there a lawyer in the house who can comment on this at all? Forget the civil action of simply attempting to get a refund (most of which would be eaten up by legal fees anyway), is there criminal action that can be pursued for passing off who knows how many bogus items?

[staindsox]

I have been thinking the same exact thing forever. Maybe GUU should start a fund. We can paypal money to the forum and hire a lawyer to go after Lou. I think we have enough proof on these countless threads to make a case.

[Marichal27]

Lampson, GFC, MEARS, etc are all in the same boat. Thier "COA's" are only worth the paper they are written on. GFC has a Bonds HR #531 "GU" jersey, on their premeir auction. Those "HR" Bonds jerseys have made the rounds more times than a merry go round. Fakes!

[kylehess10]

I have been thinking the same exact thing forever. Maybe GUU should start a fund. We can paypal money to the forum and hire a lawyer to go after Lou. I think we have enough proof on these countless threads to make a case.

I agree 100% with this idea. We have so much proof to bring this guy down and a fund would be perfect

[ChrisCavalier]

I have been thinking the same exact thing forever. Maybe GUU should start a fund. We can paypal money to the forum and hire a lawyer to go after Lou. I think we have enough proof on these countless threads to make a case.

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick note here. Please keep in mind that the purpose behind the forum is to provide a platform for collectors to share information and help each other. While I am not making any statements regarding whether or not ideas like these have merit, please note that forming a legal team, etc. is beyond the current scope of what we are looking to do with this site. As such, any individual or group wishing to pursue such an effort would have to do so on their own.

Please feel free to let me know if anyone has any further questions in this area.

Sincerely,
Chris Cavalier

[sylbry]

Lawyering up may be a bit of a challenge.

An idea would be to start a separate website detailing Lampson's screw ups. You could enter the item, the problem with it, and the auctionhouse & date which is was sold (if it was sold at auction.) The result would be threefold.

1) Have a list of Lampson's noted screwups.

2) Attach the names of auctionhouses with his screwups. They may not be as eager to use him if their name is directly involved.

3) Have a online resource to refute the constant barrage of "Lou Lampson is the foremost authority.... BS that all auctionhouses use in their descriptions of him. Currently this forum is the only place to find out the truth about him. If you had a website that came up through a web search that showed his incompetence then people would start to change their minds.

It could be called "The collecting publics opinion on Lou Lampson's opinions."

[worldchamps]

What I would like to know is if the auction houses go after the consignors in the situations. I would hope they would be banned of consigning more items????

Anyone have any knowledge of the houses practices on this?

[Frank]

While IANAL but I am for Lou to stop authenticating, what would you sue for and under what?

I don't think you could sue him for a specific jersey being incorrectly authenticated. Even if you purchased it, he doesn't give any guarantee (obviously) for his work and so Lou doesn't have any sort of contract with the purchaser. Additionally, you personally aren't suffering any loss by him (i.e. that you could prove in court).

I also wouldn't think you could sue someone to stop doing their job. He is producing "Letters of Opinion" and therefore are you going to ask a court to force someone to stop giving their opinion? Opinions can be wrong (as we see with him frequently) and that is why they are opinions.

Other than educating the industry as to his practices, I'm not sure what other recourse you would have.

If someone is an actual lawyer, I would love to know if I'm wrong on any of this and also if we can do anything in the court system.

[staindsox]

All you need is one person who has bought a bogus Lampson item to take it to court. I think there is a deliberate intent to defraud and is why I believe there is a case...knowingly a part of passing along counterfeit items. Although I work in the law field, I am not a lawyer, so I would love to hear thoughts from a pro.

My point is this: we can keep bitching and bitching and bitching about him, but how many actually get off our asses and do something about it? How many of you still buy items with a Lampson LOA? How many of you will still buy from Historic after they block out links to this site? I think Bryan is on to something with his suggestion, but what I'm saying is that it takes more than one person. WE ARE THE HOBBY...if none of us bought anything, Lampson would be waiting drive-thru at Mickey D's. I think it's put up or shut up. Bitching about it on a forum isn't enough. If you're not willing to do anything about it, stop whining about Ol' Lou in these repetitive posts.

Chris

[Frank]

All you need is one person who has bought a bogus Lampson item to take it to court. I think there is a deliberate intent to defraud and is why I believe there is a case...knowingly a part of passing along counterfeit items. Although I work in the law field, I am not a lawyer, so I would love to hear thoughts from a pro.

My point is this: we can keep bitching and bitching and bitching about him, but how many actually get off our asses and do something about it? How many of you still buy items with a Lampson LOA? How many of you will still buy from Historic after they block out links to this site? I think Bryan is on to something with his suggestion, but what I'm saying is that it takes more than one person. WE ARE THE HOBBY...if none of us bought anything, Lampson would be waiting drive-thru at Mickey D's. I think it's put up or shut up. Bitching about it on a forum isn't enough. If you're not willing to do anything about it, stop whining about Ol' Lou in these repetitive posts.

Chris

I agree that action should be taken. Education and not buying Lou items is a huge start.

However, showing a deliberate intent to defraud I think would be much harder because the court is going to look at the relationships of the parties. Lou is providing his opinion to an auction house and not directly to the customer. He is not mass-producing fake jerseys in order to produce a huge profit (assumingly) and is only telling what he thinks about an item. They would probably look at his intent also. If you compiled a full list of all his mistakes, I'm guessing it would be a small number, percentage-wise, to the number that you don't have on your list. Let's assume it is even around 5% (I'm guessing he write a LOT of letters). If malicious intent is determined by 5% of being wrong (assuming you could, in a court of law, prove every single one was wrong) then a lot of companies/people inside and outside of our industry would be in trouble.

I'm just saying that I think it is going to be tough to prove deliberate intent to defraud to some judge that doesn't understand the industry and just wants to move on to the next case. In court you have to prove things to be able to use them against somebody.

I think it would be smarter to "prove" with our wallets and education that we are tired of him authenticating anything. If everybody stopped bidding on any item that had a Lou letter, it would cause auction houses to notice and stop using him.

If a real lawyer (and not my e-lawyer ideas) could give us some direction, that would be great!