Collector Beware: Rip-Offs on Rise

For almost two months, Jim Pierce spent his evenings and weekends searching for something, anything, with an autograph of baseball superstar Ken Griffey Jr. It was to be a gift for his son Ronald’s 10th birthday.

Finally, at a swap meet in Arlington, Va., Pierce found the perfect gift: a Seattle Mariners baseball jersey with Griffey’s name scrawled across the back. He excitedly laid out $250 for the prize. But when he visited a sports-memorabilia shop a week later and saw a baseball card, a bat and a magazine cover bearing Griffey’s autographs, he was appalled.

“They looked nothing like the name on the jersey I bought,” said Pierce, 48. “I brought [the jersey] to the shop, and he told me I got ripped off.”

So have thousands of other autograph collectors across the nation. According to the FBI, a stunning 70% of all autographed sports memorabilia is fraudulent.

“That is a conservative estimate,” Chicago FBI agent Bob Long said. “Some indications are that it may be higher than that. But our policy is this: If you don’t personally see it getting signed, beware, because more than likely it’s phony.”

In an industry that has swelled to $750 million a year, the sports-memorabilia market is teeming with con artists, primarily because of the trusting nature of fans.

“A lot of these people aren’t savvy businessmen or expert collectors, they’re just fans who love an athlete,” Long said. “That’s what makes the crime especially hard on them. They think they’re buying a part of an athlete they worship, but in many cases they’re getting their dreams stolen.”

“We’ve taken some memorabilia to the athletes, and even they couldn’t tell us whether they had signed it or not,” Long said.

“It’s frightening how high the level of fraud has gotten,” said Jeff Doranz, owner of Jeff’s Baseball Corner in Springfield, Va. “I don’t buy many autographed things anymore, and I’m in the business. I tell youngsters if they want to get a real autograph of a star nowadays, their best bet is to go to the ballpark and try to get it themselves.”