“Heritage Auctions wishes it had been given the opportunity to respond before the video’s publication, because there are numerous misstatements of fact and inaccurate conclusions contained within the piece.
“Heritage strongly refutes any allegation that it or its officers are involved in shill bidding, “market manipulation” or any similarly illegal or unethical practices. Heritage prides itself on our transparency and being a place built by and for collectors."
Karl is going to have an interview with Jeff Meyer from GoCollect next week. I’m definitely interested in that more so than hearing Heritage, Dr. Eric and others be mad.
Bit of a tangent question here - but how do these companies know 100% that the game is factory sealed?
I imagine it wouldn’t be rocket science for someone to capitalise on this by buying mint games then just resealing them?
Same situation as buying a booster box - you have to know which prints were released with which seals in which regions, and then have the means with which to identify them. Reseals and fakes have been a problem when collecting games for years, and I dread to think how many new buyers have bought reseals and fakes over the past year not knowing how convincing they can be on an eBay image. I have seen fake red-strip Nintendo seals and fake Xbox 360 security seals - yes, there are eBay sellers which trade on resealing $20 Xbox 360 games. I assume grading companies have robust methods of forensic authentication for seals, and this is what WATA claim they have, although this hasn’t been WATA’s most confidence-inspiring week
It’s a bit rich for Rudy to criticize the graded video game market as being “manipulated” and “shady” when he knows full well that segments of the MTG market are equally as manipulated.
I can recall dozens of instances of Rudy spouting blatant misinformation about vintage Magic cards/sealed product. As much as I enjoy his videos (and agree with much of what he says), Rudy is himself a market manipulator.
I agree, but here there is a different point. WATA and HA seems to manipulate the market in a illegal and fraudulent way… that’s much different from saying to folks to buy some MTG products before they increase in value or make statements like that. I take Rudy’s words with a grain of salt but this seems all another level of fraud. If jobst is right on Halperin they sucks.
“(4) If the auctioneer knowingly receives a bid on the seller’s behalf or the seller makes or procures such a bid, and notice has not been given that liberty for such bidding is reserved, the buyer may at his option avoid the sale or take the goods at the price of the last good faith bid prior to the completion of the sale. This subsection shall not apply to any bid at a forced sale.”
I believe in layman’s terms this says, if a buyer wasn’t given prior notice that shill bids (bid on the seller’s behalf or the seller makes or procures such a bid) may occur, they can purchase the goods at the last non-shill bid, or avoid the purchase all together. Otherwise, shill biding is fair game.