Long Time suspected FAKE baggies scam / seller

[xbomber]

I must confess that I am somewhat flabbergasted that all those involved with this 'expose' didn't think it appropriate to confront Jeff privately first. I realise that the evidence appears damning but it's not absolutely conclusive that he is manufacturing and distributing these things; what is conclusive however, is that Jeff's reputation in this hobby is now in shreds.

I'm in the same boat as Martins comments, doesn't sit well with me either, I'd like to have thought they'd approach the bloke first and seek out what his comments were, whether he has done anything dubious or not no longer matters now, his name has been dragged through the mud and if he is innocent then this will always be connected to him.

I hope it's factual for initial post as this post is massively slanderous.

Im in the same boat here. I'm perturbed this thread has happened the way it has. This has been trial by forum, and Jeff has been hung drawn and quartered. Its not like he's not prepared to talk. Be different if it was someone aloof like Toy Toni. Real bad taste in the mouth. I said late yesterday this place is like home. It is, but I just walked in on grandad shagging the family dog. I can't unsee that image...

:lol:

Bloody hell.

Neither can I now.

:lol:

 

[Grant_C]

Frank- theres no question of your authority on baggies, you've helped me so, so many times. so pleased excuse me if I state that the baggies are just 'questionable' rather than fake. Hope you can understand what I mean.

Through your investigation, how many baggies do you believe are questionable?

Why do you feel that the questionable baggies have only been made/purchased over the last few years rather than the last few decades?

I have other questions, but want to step gently out of respect as I know both you and Jeff.

 

[Mr-shifter]

I just used an ink stamper I had lying around on a plastic bag, just to see what it does. Scary.

I think I found the one you used your ink stamper on. Was it this one?

 

[tiefighterboy]

I just used an ink stamper I had lying around on a plastic bag, just to see what it does. Scary.

I think I found the one you used your ink stamper on. Was it this one?

IMG_0095.JPG

Needs more hair and about a foot longer.

 

[Commander Clint]

Thanks to all involved, in bringing this to light. I hope that all the parties involved will be able to comment on the accusations.

If you guys don't mind, I'll put a link on TXI and try to get everyone to comment here as requested.

 

[turkdlit]

I think you guys handled this whole situation well. This isn't just one guys opinion - its a dozen people with many examples, evidence, history, high res photos. I don't see the point in giving the person suspected of this a heads up and a reason to come up with an explanation before making it public. If there is a legit explanation, it will be posted here, and I'm sure Frankie will be the first to apologize.

The other benefit of putting it out quickly is to stop the bleeding so to speak.

So IMO - kudos to you Frankie for presenting a well thought out argument and for warning the community.

 

[Frunkstar]

It's been a very very long & extremely stressful day for me guys, I have spoken to Jeff on the phone for an hour & a half tonight & urged him to come on here & present any evidence he has to clear this up if it is indeed something more innocent & less damming that it appears, fingers crossed he will come forward, I need some sleep so will keep this short & come back tomorrow to try to answer some of your questions to the best of my abilities.

The one point I will clear up right away is the one name that was dropped from the list, the person in question who will remain nameless was not in agreement about just a single baggie type & wanted to be removed from this list of names due to that point alone & also have the images he provided to the investigations group omitted, so I had little choice but to grant that request, I am not putting a gun to anyone's head to share their info with the community & he had the right to be removed if he so wished.

 

[Drakon]

Hope this gets cleared up. Too much crap is going on in this hobby nowadays.

 

[momike]

I don't think that there was ever going to be an easy way to break this news to the collecting community and to say frank should of contacted Jeff first hand is just silly imo

I was part of this investigation and know first hand how hard this has been on frank, anyone who knows frank knows his passion for baggies and for the hobby in general is of the most high, unfortunately with frank being the Baggie guru he was always going to be the one in the firing line when push came to shove with this, on the one hand he/we could bury our heads in the sand and ignore it or we could do something about it, either way it's a shitty outcome but we chose to do the right thing here. I know from speaking to frank at times he was ready for walking away from the hobby and calling it quits, franks built a terrific guide about baggies and is always willing to help others when it comes to baggies so don't think for one minute this has been an easy thing for him to do, fact is this has the potential to ruin baggie collecting and destroy everything frank holds dear in the collecting world....point being he has not gone in to the this half hearted!!!

Someone said on a previous page that if frank has got it wrong he will apologise, franks not got it wrong these baggies are fake not questionable FAKE, I back frank 110% on that.....As for Jeff it's possible he was not aware they were fake it's possible he was, either way he is involved and needs to say where they originated from

Sadly no way to sugar coat all this as it's just a total shitter and was always going to be a bitter pill to swollow

 

[momike]

Sorry clarkspie&chips I don't know your name, pics are not the clearest but the bossk mailer you got from ff does appear to have the iffy sw-a baggie mate, if you post some clearer shots in better light of the font and top seal of the Baggie will be able to say with more certainty

 

[Lucas1977]

Surely the police should have been involved first so as not to give him chance of getting all the evidence away.
This is just going to be so hard to prove now and if your not 100% rock solid with the evidence then this will be all a waste of time.

Jeff could just say he didn't know,
I think this is the wrong way to accuse someone at this scale of fraud without contacting the police.
There's no way he'd admit it so I just cannot understand the outing this way. IMO

 

[Lom]

Someone said on a previous page that if frank has got it wrong he will apologise, franks not got it wrong these baggies are fake not questionable FAKE, I back frank 110% on that.....As for Jeff it's possible he was not aware they were fake it's possible he was, either way he is involved and needs to say where they originated from

This paragraph sums up exactly why I think Jeff should have been contacted first before going public; both Frank and yourself have conceded that there is a possibility that he has been duped and, if that was the case, he should have been part of the investigation not pilloried by it. If Frank says they're fake then they're fake, no arguments from me; but if there's even the remotest possibility that Jeff was also on the receiving end of a scam himself, then this story should have been broken in a different way. And I'm not suggesting for a second that the story shouldn't have come out, it had to come out for the good of the hobby and I applaud each and everyone involved in bringing it to light, but I can't help thinking that Jeff should have been confronted privately for his side of the story before being thrown under the proverbial bus. I don't think waiting another couple of hours to get his input before breaking the story would have hurt. If he's guilty of perpetrating this fraud then he deserves all that's coming to him (and probably more), if he's not guilty though...

 

[Palifan]

Unfortunately I just don't think the police would really have any interest in this matter. I can't imagine the impact on the community is anywhere near the impact Toni had on it and they weren't interested in that. It's a real shame for all those who may have been caught out (I for one was with Toni), but I can't see this being very high on their radar.

It's hard to know how this will all play out over the next few days but I can't really imagine any long term member on here not defending themselves immediately if something was being said about them which wasn't true. Admittedly I've no idea if Jeff is part of this forum (although the fact that he has a stall at FF makes me think that he probably is), this maybe why we've not heard anything but for someone trading in vintage Star Wars I think they need to have a voice. Hopefully we will hear from him and get to the bottom of this.

As for how this has been handled I feel the research was done and a decision was made to present it this way. Remember it's not just Frank who is involved in all of this and probably was the one willing to write this whole thread with he others involved agreement. I put no blame to Frank over this as I know that it's more than one person involved and I've always found him professional enough to do the right thing. I'm sure he'd love to hear that there's been some massive misunderstanding but the evidence makes me think otherwise.

It's another sad day for collectors but I'm hoping that some of the pictures supplied at the start of the thread help some of us to avoid being stung.

Ian

 

[Palifan]

Someone said on a previous page that if frank has got it wrong he will apologise, franks not got it wrong these baggies are fake not questionable FAKE, I back frank 110% on that.....As for Jeff it's possible he was not aware they were fake it's possible he was, either way he is involved and needs to say where they originated from

This paragraph sums up exactly why I think Jeff should have been contacted first before going public; both Frank and yourself have conceded that there is a possibility that he has been duped and, if that was the case, he should have been part of the investigation not pilloried by it. If Frank says they're fake then they're fake, no arguments from me; but if there's even the remotest possibility that Jeff was also on the receiving end of a scam himself, then this story should have been broken in a different way. And I'm not suggesting for a second that the story shouldn't have come out, it had to come out for the good of the hobby and I applaud each and everyone involved in bringing it to light, but I can't help thinking that Jeff should have been confronted privately for his side of the story before being thrown under the proverbial bus. I don't think waiting another couple of hours to get his input before breaking the story would have hurt. If he's guilty of perpetrating this fraud then he deserves all that's coming to him (and probably more), if he's not guilty though...

All good points and I understand where you're coming from but I'm still struggling with the information that Jeff was told they were fakes and then still listed them anyway with no warning. Maybe it was another seller but if not that does seem very odd to me.

Ian

 

[Lafos]

Surely the police should have been involved first so as not to give him chance of getting all the evidence away.

I can´t recall the police investigated the TT case, so this incident is again a community thing.

Did Jeff reacted to this thread in any direction ?

 

[Stuart Skinner]

Someone said on a previous page that if frank has got it wrong he will apologise, franks not got it wrong these baggies are fake not questionable FAKE, I back frank 110% on that.....As for Jeff it's possible he was not aware they were fake it's possible he was, either way he is involved and needs to say where they originated from

This paragraph sums up exactly why I think Jeff should have been contacted first before going public; both Frank and yourself have conceded that there is a possibility that he has been duped and, if that was the case, he should have been part of the investigation not pilloried by it. If Frank says they're fake then they're fake, no arguments from me; but if there's even the remotest possibility that Jeff was also on the receiving end of a scam himself, then this story should have been broken in a different way. And I'm not suggesting for a second that the story shouldn't have come out, it had to come out for the good of the hobby and I applaud each and everyone involved in bringing it to light, but I can't help thinking that Jeff should have been confronted privately for his side of the story before being thrown under the proverbial bus. I don't think waiting another couple of hours to get his input before breaking the story would have hurt. If he's guilty of perpetrating this fraud then he deserves all that's coming to him (and probably more), if he's not guilty though...

PRECISELY

I understand why you need to highlight the fact that there are a vast amount of fake baggies out there and show the work from the investigation that has taken place, im fine with that. But what I'd have preferred is the opening paragraph to read more like;

'It saddens me to bring this to light, but we are aware of a vast amount of fake baggies rife within the collecting community. Below is the results of our investigation and how you can tell these baggies in question are legit. We are aware of someone who we believe has been selling these items in quantity. We're unaware how much he is involved though, whether he is creating them, selling them with the knowledge they're fake or whether he is selling them unknowingly, so until a time we are satisfied with what his involvement is within this scam we will not name him. We have however produced the evidence we have built up below so this said person can gage what has gone on and hopefully give us a credible response to his participation'.

Then you could have shown all your evidence like you did, that way no one would have been thrown under the bus, the community would know that there was an issue and what to look out for and you could have continued your investigation.

I think this has been handled appallingly and am shocked to see certain names in this thread just taking everything as gospel that Jeff is sitting at home putting figures into plastic bags rather than waiting to see the whole picture.

 

[wrighty]

So what was the result after Frank's 1.5hr conversation with Jeff? Surely he didn't just say I did it, there must be an explanation!!

 

[talldroid77]

For my part I first encountered Jeff in 2014 I think it was - I bought a couple of things off him on eBay then by email - all genuine nice items. Since then he occasionally buys eBay items I've listed (£100 +). He's always been ok with me and left nice feedback straight away. All this is a bit of a shocking revelation - I don't know him personally though so can't really say much more than the above.

It will be interesting to hear the result of this conversation. Some good work by frank in bringing the issues to light with expert knowledge I have to say.

 

[Grant_C]

Someone said on a previous page that if frank has got it wrong he will apologise, franks not got it wrong these baggies are fake not questionable FAKE, I back frank 110% on that.....As for Jeff it's possible he was not aware they were fake it's possible he was, either way he is involved and needs to say where they originated from

This paragraph sums up exactly why I think Jeff should have been contacted first before going public; both Frank and yourself have conceded that there is a possibility that he has been duped and, if that was the case, he should have been part of the investigation not pilloried by it. If Frank says they're fake then they're fake, no arguments from me; but if there's even the remotest possibility that Jeff was also on the receiving end of a scam himself, then this story should have been broken in a different way. And I'm not suggesting for a second that the story shouldn't have come out, it had to come out for the good of the hobby and I applaud each and everyone involved in bringing it to light, but I can't help thinking that Jeff should have been confronted privately for his side of the story before being thrown under the proverbial bus. I don't think waiting another couple of hours to get his input before breaking the story would have hurt. If he's guilty of perpetrating this fraud then he deserves all that's coming to him (and probably more), if he's not guilty though...

With all due respect to everyone involved, but this post nails it.

Hopefully both parties can provide more enlightenment.

 

[edd_jedi]

As my name is on the list I feel I should explain my involvement.

First of all I am no authority on baggies - I know little about them. However in the last six months I have bought ten from Jeff both in person at FF and from eBay (in good faith may I add) and that is why I was asked to contribute my baggies as evidence. Of the 10 I bought, two are suspected to be fake.

As Frank said this is not a knee-jerk reaction, it is years worth of research affecting potentially hundreds of baggies almost all of which are 100% known to originate from the same person.

I appreciate peoples thoughts on the approach and with hindsight perhaps it could have been worded better, but due to the overwhelming amount of evidence I do think it was reasonable for Frank to make it public and name the accused. If this was just a few baggies here and there, sure it could have been handled behind closed doors. But this is on almost as big a scale as the Toy Toni incident with these being in the hands of dozens of collectors and having the potential to completely ruin a whole area of the hobby, so although there really was no nice way to deliver the news, I agree with Frank that it had to be done.

I wasn't pleased when Toni was outed in public either, I bought a significant amount of items from him over a 10 year period so was equally gutted to find out somebody I trusted was being dishonest. It's a **** sandwich whichever way you look at it.

It was posted on this forum purely so that there was a focal point for the evidence and discussion.