GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

[hblakewolf]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Forum readers-
Although this recent post is not related to the Grey Flannel LOA issue, it proves that the various auction houses do indeed read The Forum! This is not the first time Lelands has been called on an issue, however, I do give them credit for at least responding to previous and current posts and issues discussed here.

I believe we have asked the same from the folks at Grey Flannel on the Palmiero and Arod issue, however, I'm not aware of any response. Chris Cavilier indicated he had contacted them. Chris, any update?

Richard, thanks for providing your information on the subject. All my best to Josh and Mike.

Howard Wolf
hblakewolf@patmedia.net

[ChrisCavalier]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

I believe we have asked the same from the folks at Grey Flannel on the Palmiero and Arod issue, however, I'm not aware of any response. Chris Cavilier indicated he had contacted them. Chris, any update?

Hello Howard-

I have not heard back from Grey Flannel yet. I will update the forum as soon as I hear anything.

Sincerely,
Chris

[CollectGU]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

In defense of Richard Bond, I purchased a number of items from the Decmber auction and had an issue with one of the items. After calling Rich and explaining to Rich my reservations about the item, he took the item back no questions asked and provided a full refund. He was never rude or impolite...

[silverschmidts]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Well, since Mr. Bond replied to my post, I can't resist the temptation to set the record straight. While I'm sure he doesn't want to admit this to everyone on this forum, in fact he was quite rude and insulting to me yesterday. When I asked him why he hadn't sent the "lost in the mail" LOA by overnight delivery or some other traceable service, he said, "well, I would have if I had realized that you were going to be such an . . . ." Wow. That's a fine way to treat a customer, especially a customer who has paid you a lot of money and after three months you still haven't managed to deliver the goods. As for truthfulness, I won't bore the forum readers with all the gory details; however, suffice it to say I was told different things by different Lelands employees over the last three months that were inconsistent. In the end, Mr. Bond's answer was, "it must have been lost in the mail." You can decide for yourself if that's a satisfying (or truthful) answer. I guess the most amazing thing about this episode is that even though Lelands admits it dropped the ball on this (no pun intended), rather than apologize to me or display any urgency in trying to make things right, they basically blamed the victim. That's a shameless tactic, usually employed by a party who has something to hide or who is guilty of doing the thing for which they're accused. Again, my point is that nearly every auction house, even the big ones, are guilty of very poor customer service, so I wasn't surprised at all when GF told one of our forum members "to get a life." They're gracious enough when they're trying to lure in your business, but after the sale, their customer service is frequently pretty terrible. Some of this may be due to what Mr. Bond stated to me yesteday; i.e., they are so busy trying to make the next sale that they don't really have time to follow through making good on the sales that have already been banked. Of course, even worse than this customer service issue is the authentication problem that was the original source of this thread. When you put the two together (items of dubious authentication and poor customer service) the picture that begins to crystalize is simply this: many of these establishments, despite the fancy catalogs and flowery rhetoric, are not very high quality enterprises and the buyer must truly beware when he/she decides to do business with them. I'm not saying that every auction house is like this, but I would say most of the ones dealing in sports memorabilia are. I've had some good experiences with sports auction houses to offset the bad experiences, but the bottom-line is the quality of their services is inconsistent. And that's why there is so much bashing of the "insiders" on this forum. If these insiders consistently had their act together, they would receive more praise and respect. Unfortunately, they frequently sacrifice high quality standards for making a quick buck, and that sometimes get them in trouble. And when happens, they deserve to be criticized. Thank goodness, though, there is a forum like this that can at least shine a little light on some of poor practices that occur in the hobby. --Steve

[Mike Heffner]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Mr. Silverman, I have to laugh a little reading your elaborate and dramatic portrayal of yesterday's conversation. Anyone that knows me well (you don't) knows I am a fair and honest person within this fine hobby. I prefer to let other serious clients come to their own conclusions about me. I am not worried one bit. I honestly wish you much luck with your collection in the future, and if I can help you with a nice piece you wish to bid on in a Leland's Auction, again, please do not hesitate to call me. I am there from 9-6 just about every day. Have a fantastic evening Steve...Richard

[norristrophy]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Mike or Richard,

Just curious when a preview and/or bidding will commence on the lelands site for the April auction.

Thanks.

[Mike Heffner]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

The auction went up on our site today and is open for bidding. If anyone has any questions regarding any items in the auction, please feel free to call me our Richard Bond at the office (516-409-9700). Thanks and good luck.

Mike

[trsent]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Thats not surprising.

If you met him you would see his shadiness.

Don't judge a book by its cover...

(It's Saturday night, anyone get the Rocky Horror Picture Show reference?)

[ChrisCavalier]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Hello Howard-

I have not heard back from Grey Flannel yet. I will update the forum as soon as I hear anything.

Hello Everyone-

I wanted to let everyone know that Keith Vari was kind enough to return my call and provide his perspective on the jersey. According to Keith, Grey Flannel had two jerseys (a Pudge Rodriguez and the Palmeiro) for which Keith called MeiGray to check against their database. According to Keith, he called on a Thursday and was told by the gentleman who answered the phone that Stu, the person who could check on the jerseys, was out at that moment and asked that Keith call back the following day (Friday) to do the verification. Subsequently, Keith said he was out of the office that Friday and the person at Grey Flannel in charge of putting items on their site accidentally posted it before the verification was made against the MeiGray database. Further, Keith noted that once the issue was identified the jersey was pulled off the website.

Please feel free to let me know if that answers the questions on the forum regarding Grey Flannel. Personally, I think it appears to be an honest mistake by Grey Flannel and I am grateful to Keith Vari for returning my call and providing his perspective.

Once again, please feel free to let me know if that adequately answers the question regarding Grey Flannel raised here previously.

Sincerely,
Christopher Cavalier

[both-teams-played-hard]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

... he called on a Thursday and was told by the gentleman who answered the phone that Stu, the person who could check on the jerseys, was out at that moment and asked that Keith call back the following day (Friday) to do the verification. Subsequently, Keith said he was out of the office that Friday and the person at Grey Flannel in charge of putting items on their site accidentally posted it before the verification was made against the MeiGray database.

No further questions. The prosecution rests. The members of this forum should be ashamed of themselves for pre-judging Grey Flannel. Honest mistake.

"c'mon...you know Keith Hernandez? Get outta here! You expect me to believe that you know Keith Hernandez?...c'mon"

[BULBUS]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Chris,
Did he explain the letter for the AROD jersey on Ebay? Did Meigray not return his call then? If it was just one jersey, I would accept it as an honest mistake, just not twice.

[kingjammy24]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

While everyone's free to form their own impressions and opinions, my personal feeling is that the explanation is rubbish.

The jersey was "accidentally" put up? If I had gone ahead on the Website and purchased it, would they accidentally have accepted my money?

Secondly, GFC owned these 2 jerseys and did not check them prior to purchasing them? Are these jerseys consignments? If not, then I have a very tough time believing that GFC would blindly purchase 2 jerseys like these with the intent to check them out after purchasing them. You don't buy a jersey and then start making calls. GFC knows exactly what it has in it's inventory.

Thirdly, why wait for Stu specifically? Personally, I just email Barry directly and he always gladly checks out any numbers I ask. On this particular jersey, Barry emailed me back literally within 5 min.

Fourthly, since when is GFC in the business of selling game-issued jerseys?All I've ever seen in their inventory are "game worn" jerseys. Of course, I guess they didn't know the jersey was game-issued when they bought it. They were going to check it out after purchasing it, right?

Fifthly, while saying it was accidental is one thing for the Palmeiro, did they have an answer for the Rodriguez, Chris? They sold an ARod with a GFC letter stating "game used" when it was in fact, game-issued. Did they accidentally put that one up for auction and sell it?

Sixthly, when a person alerts you to an error you've made and thereby saves you a huge hassle, do you respond by telling them to "get a life"?

Like I said, everyone's free to form their own opinions and these are mine.

Rudy.

[trsent]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Rudy, you do not know the relationship with Howard Wolf and Ritchie Russick, and neither do I, but I do believe there is some bad blood there.

Now, as usual, you have posted comments after an auction house responded to a situation and instead of making them more comfortable so maybe they'll respond to our next inquiry, they now feel no matter what they do or say someone will come back on here and bash them some more.

I don't care if their excuse is black or white, at least they addressed it and then you come back and call the kettle black.

[blackbeard]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Subsequently, Keith said he was out of the office that Friday and the person at Grey Flannel in charge of putting items on their site accidentally posted it before the verification was made against the MeiGray database.

Did the regular guy quit?

I have noticed a decrease in quality of photos on there.

[ChrisCavalier]

Re: GFC errs on another MeiGray Rangers jersey

Secondly, GFC owned these 2 jerseys and did not check them prior to purchasing them? Are these jerseys consignments? If not, then I have a very tough time believing that GFC would blindly purchase 2 jerseys like these with the intent to check them out after purchasing them. You don't buy a jersey and then start making calls. GFC knows exactly what it has in it's inventory.

Thirdly, why wait for Stu specifically? Personally, I just email Barry directly and he always gladly checks out any numbers I ask. On this particular jersey, Barry emailed me back literally within 5 min.

Fourthly, since when is GFC in the business of selling game-issued jerseys?All I've ever seen in their inventory are "game worn" jerseys. Of course, I guess they didn't know the jersey was game-issued when they bought it. They were going to check it out after purchasing it, right?

Fifthly, while saying it was accidental is one thing for the Palmeiro, did they have an answer for the Rodriguez, Chris? They sold an ARod with a GFC letter stating "game used" when it was in fact, game-issued. Did they accidentally put that one up for auction and sell it?

Hello Rudy-

I asked in my previous post if I had adequately answered the questions raised about Grey Flannel. I also agree everyone is entitled to formulate their own opinion. As such, I wanted to simply respond to your points above as I believe I solicited them in my previous post. Please note that I was not personally privy to what transpired and I am only relaying what I have been told. Thus, anything I post here is coming from an outsider who simply called Grey Flannel and relayed what was told to them.

I will only respond to points 2 through 5 since I have no opinions or perspectives on points 1 and 6 of your post.

Regarding point #2, I honestly have no idea (nor did I ask) if these jerseys were consigned to or owned by Grey Flannel. I pretty much approached the task as simply an attempt to provide Grey Flannel's perspective to the forum. I honestly didn't plan any additional questioning.

Regarding point #3, this is probably a question the people at MeiGray would need to answer. I can only relay what I was told from Keith in that Keith said the person at MeiGray told him he would need to speak with Stu and that Stu was not in that day. I honestly have no idea why no one else was asked. Once again, since I was not directly involved I cannot offer any additional perspective.

Regarding point #4, I am guessing this is based on the assumption that Grey Flannel purchased the jersey and it was not consigned to them. If they did purchase it I guess that goes back to your point #2.

Regarding point #5, I honestly did not ask Keith the specifics of the ARod jersey. I actually thought this thread was asking primarily about the Palmeiro so I did not ask him about anything else (including the ARod). As noted above, I approached the task simply to get Grey Flannel's perspective and provide it to the forum.

Please note that I am trying to answer your questions based on what I know as someone simply relaying what he was told and not someone involved in the situation. I wish I could be of more help but it appears the level of granularity you are seeking can only be answered by Keith or MeiGray. As such, I will have to leave it to them to respond. While I would love to be of more assistance, it appears these questions would involve more than simply relaying someone else's perspective (the only role I intended to play).

Rudy, please let me know if I have fairly addressed your questions based on what I know.

Sincerely,
Chris