Beware Of Fake AutoGraph

I hope this will help you avoid the fake Autographs on eBay.

I have now been selling on eBay for over 6 years, and collecting since i was 12 years old when i first met the Rolling Stones in March 1965 (the building they played at is now an old peoples home!). I have been a full time autograph dealer for 15 years, and work with both the Police and Trading Standards in tracking and prosecuting forgers. I am also the UACC ethics board member for the UK, and organise the 'Autographica' event in London. To help you avoid the forgers on ebay i have come up with these 'Golden Rules' ignore them at your peril!

This guide is aimed at the relative newcomer to eBay, so those of you who have more experience will know that there are indeed genuine sellers on eBay who may seem to break some of the rules below. But the point is that you should always read the full eBay listing, check out the seller as much as you can, and don't take risks with your money. If an item seems too good to be true, then you can be pretty damn sure that its a fake, so don't take chances.


1/ Never never buy anything from any seller who uses the PRIVATE option (Private Feedback or Private bidding), unless you are a very very very experienced ebayer!


There is not one single good reason why any legitimate seller would use either of these PRIVATE options, the UACC have banned it, and so should eBay. Don’t fall for their old tosh about protecting your privacy, it’s their privacy they are concerned with not yours! Fall for this one, and the chances are 100 to 1 that you will be buying fakes, forgeries or just plain rubbish.

The PRIVATE bidding option prevents you (the buyer) from finding out what they (the seller) has previously sold, it prevents other eBay members from warning you about their fakes or scams, and worst of all, it allows the seller to bid against you without you knowing! (yes that’s right, a seller using the PRIVATE auction option is able to bid on their own auctions and push up the final price without you knowing! Now if that is not cheating, I don’t know what is). So always look out for the PRIVATE auction warning at the top of every ebay listing, and if you see it, avoid it. You will often find these sellers have changed the ID many times too, just click on ID History to check. They change their name normally because they have had some bad press somewhere (isitreal.com etc) and so change it to try and hide.

2/ Always pay for items using PayPal, if you don’t have an account then open one, worst case pay using your credit card. That way if anything goes wrong you will get you money back, and in the case of PayPal it is a very easy thing to do. If the seller does not accept either, and you have any doubts about the seller, then don’t bid. There are now an increasing number of fraudulent sellers who are no longer accepting PayPal, why? Because Paypal have barred their accounts because of the number of refunds they have had to give unfortunate customers. If the seller wants you to pay in cash or Via Western Union, and does not accept Paypal or a credit card then run away. I know PayPal can be a pain, and they are not perfect, but its still by far the best way to safely pay for anything on eBay. Asking for Payment via Cash or Western Uinon is against eBay UK rules, so avoid these sellers.


3/ Always check the location of the seller. On the top right in the Sellers Information box, it tells you where the seller is registered, does this tie in with what it says next to Item Location? Does it have any location stated at all? If it says ‘Fastest shipper on ebay’ or similar where it should say the location, avoid the seller, (not putting the location is actually against eBay rules). If the registered location is different to the location stated, then avoid the seller. Please be aware that there are now a growing number of forgers who are in a different country to which they are selling in. The reason is simply because you as the buyer are much less likely to be able to do anything about it. There are also known forgers operating from some of the eastern countries too, Poland Romania, Russia etc. Also consider this, why is a man in Spain, Greece, Italy, Cyprus or Australia! selling David Beckham etc signed items which he claims to have got in person! Lately we have seen in increase in forgeries from the Liverpool area. All claim excelent contacts with the club, and one even claims to be a member of a group who are working with eBay and trading standards! Unless you can be 1000% certain, stay away from sellers in far off lands, chances are you will also end up being stung for import duty on fake items from a seller you will never get a refund from. We have reports now of a man in Italy selling signed football covers. He shows the real thing, but sends you a forgery, and he shill bids his own auctions too. The signs are there in his auctions, but can you see them? Avoid this seller at all cost.

4/ Check to see what other items the seller has sold in the past 30 days, if they have sold more of the same Elvis signed photos etc (or similar hard to find items), then avoid them. To check their sales go to Advanced Search (top right corner) then Search by Seller and remember to click on Include Completed Listings. Ebay will then give you a full list of all the items the seller has sold in the last 30 days. This can be quite eye opening when you see how many ‘Rare’ David Beckham signed shirts they have sold in 4 weeks! This method also works for those who use the PRIVATE option too.


5/ Always check the feedback. Every dealer, even good ones get some negative occasionally, you can’t please everyone. But some dealers have a huge amount of negative, often warning others about the fakes they sell etc, but still people bid on their items. Take a good look at the sellers feedback history, go back a good few pages, see what sort of feedback they give buyers too, see if you can see any kind of patterns. Check who they are buying from ‘See Feedback from Sellers’ this can show you where they are buying from, and in some cases you can then easily see they are buying fakes and reselling them. Look out also for negative comments left as a positive. Buyers are often concerned about leaving a negative feedback, so instead leave a negative comment as a positive feedback. All positive feedback is not always positive comment!


These are the 5 things you should always check before buying anything on ebay, break just one of these rules and you will very likely be buying a duffer, break all 5 and you are throwing your money away for sure.


6/ Avoid sellers who make excessive claims as to where they obtain their stock from etc. ‘I have worked in the music business for 30 years’ ‘item comes with an impeccable references from someone in the film industry’ ‘I buy my items from UACC dealers and other registered sources’ (the UACC do not allow anyone to make this claim unless they state EXACTLY who they purchased from, or they will be VERO'd off !) etc etc. Unless you already have considerable experience, then only buy from dealers who are actually members of the UACC, PADA or the IPDA (and can prove it), and be careful, anyone can join the UACC, it is after all a club for autograph collectors. Only Registered Dealers have been members for 3 years or more, and have proved they know what they are talking about, they have provided both references from other known dealers, and their stock has been checked on a regular basis by other dealers. There are very few genuine dealers who are not UACC members, but there are many unscrupulous dealers who make the claim that being a member of the UACC proves nothing and so refuse to join. The truth is that most of these 'sellers' have been refused membership or have already been thrown out! Its the provenance of the seller you need check, not the provenance of the item!

7/ If the seller only has Madonna, Harrison Ford, Elvis, etc all listed at the same time, way below their true market value, then they are 99.99% likely to be fake, so you know what to do! Avoid them. A real Elvis will cost you $500 plus minimum so forget about that $50 signed colour photo with loads of provenance that looks a bargain!

8/ Forget about any COA, an item is either real or its fake, and no amount of classy COA with triple holograms, a wax seal, fancy ribbon, DNA, or nice paper will make a poor fake into a genuine bargain. A COA is only as good as the seller is honest, and if the seller is a fraud, then your COA is no more useful than a used piece of toilet tissue!

9/ Learn how to bid. In other words, read the pages on ebay about how the proxy bidding system can work for you. Don’t wait until the last minute to bid and then get outbid by a sniper! Learn how it works, always bid slightly higher than you are prepared to pay and use it to your advantage. Find out about the sniper programs, thay are a must if you want to outbid your rivals.

10/ This may sound strange, and once the forgers read this they will change their wording, and my top ten tips will become nine! But I have noticed that there are only a few genuine dealers that use the term ‘Hand signed’ but almost every forger uses it ! I have no idea why this is, I think it must be some form of subliminal action, whereby as the forger has signed all his own items with his hand, it must therefore be hand signed!

I hope the above has been of some use to you. Buying autographs on ebay is a great way to build a collection, and at the moment its a buyers market, and with good knowledge (and with the use of a snipe program!) you can obtain some excellent bargains. Get to know the dealers, do they only sell on ebay? are they known by any of the other dealers? do they attend any of the more well known autograph events such as AUTOGRAPHICA (try a Google search)? or are they just a chancer selling fakes on ebay from a foreign land?

And one last thing, some collectors advise that you ask sellers questions about the item, this in most cases is a total waste of time. I get asked all the time 'is this item genuinely signed?' well as a UACC registered dealer of some years, i would be soon thrown out if it was not, but ask that question to an eBay forger, and what do you think he might say? 'No, its a forgery, don't buy it' No of course not, he will say whatever you want to hear won't he! You might however get a better insight into his business practice by asking about his previous criminal record!

Garry King. UACC Registered Dealer 179. UACC Ethics Board member.
We would like to thank Garry King for letting us use this