Its about time, i say!

[Denisrichard]

3rd Party Autograph Authenticating
Companies and the F.B.I.


It certainly appears most everyone has had enough of the 3rd party autograph authenticating companies. These companies claim they can authenticate autographs. Not one has a bonafied “autograph expert” on their payroll. Not one has taken a single autograph educational course sponsored by autograph organizations and not a single person working for the authenticating companies has at the minimum taken the free educational course offered on the homepage of this web site.

Yet, for a fee these companies will not give you a guarantee of their work but simply offer you their opinion, which is backed by nothing. Opinions from an incompetent person has no value and eventually causes much damage. However the industry for the last decade has been glutted with Certificates of Authenticity that have erroneous opinions/guesses. Thousands upon thousands of Certificates stating that secretarial signatures, rubber stamped signatures, forged signatures, machine signed signatures and printed signatures are genuine.

These mistakes have caused collectors to spend multi millions of dollars for pure junk. These authenticating companies are so bad at authenticating that one had a very common machine signed signature of Bill Clinton on a photograph that was used in their advertisement in a hobby publication. The ultimate embarrassment.

For five years collectors and dealers have been complaining to www.autographalert.com about their horrific experiences with the high profile authenticating companies. Our files are bulging with actual experiences these collectors have experienced.

Apparently, the third party authenticating companies are just in this business to make a buck and nothing else. They certainly could care less about image as the high profile companies have as associates those who have very dark sides in this hobby. One is an admitted forger, another has admitted to purchasing autographs from two different forgers and a third who is associated with multi high profile companies holds the hobby’s world record for participating in the sale of over seven million dollars worth of Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy forgeries.

One well-known and respected veteran of the hobby has had enough. Under the condition of anonymity, he informed autographalert.com that he has been working with two F.B.I. agents and advising them about how horrific this situation is. It is now way past being out of control. This individual has written a very lengthy and informative letter to the Director of the F.B.I. He tells it like it is and pulls no punches. Many of you have been victimized by these third party authenticators and the Director of the F.B.I. gets to hear your side of the story.

Something is being done for the health of the autograph hobby and it is suggested if you have had a bad experience in the past with one of the high profile autograph authenticating companies or when you have a bad experience in the future that you sit down, do your part and write a letter explaining how you have been victimized to:

Office of Director, Robert S. Mueller, III
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20535-0001

For your info two Special Agents with the F.B.I. are also actively working on autograph fraud and they are well aware of 3rd party autograph authentication.

Take your complaint/observations one step further, send a copy of your complaint to:

Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Don’t forget to copy autographalert.com: eMail

It is time for the hobby to come together and fight back. Advise law enforcement of autograph authenticating companies atrocities. Help them build a huge file. Hobbyists and consumers should no longer be loosing millions of dollars a year purchasing forgeries and other non authentic signatures authenticated as genuine.