I take issue with the tone of the posts. I do have some questions though. You alluded to having authority from the board of Authenticators. What gives that board their power? And are you and the other authenticators on that board? The reason I ask is because I am a professional in my field. I had to get college degrees and professional certifications. I answer to a state board that has been empowered to enforce the laws and rules of my profession. I had to pass a very stringent national exam and meet education and experience requirements.
If I present myself in my professional capacity, whether I receive compensation or not, I must do so by following professional standards that are dictated by a totally independent authority, that being the state board where I am licensed. Bottom line? What are your qualifications to be considered not just a knowledgeable person, but an expert? I don’t present myself as a handbag Authenticator so I would like to know. If it’s just experience, anyone could learn to do this. I’ve learned much on my own.
I just don’t understand why this forum can’t be focused in a more positive direction. Whatever your feelings are you should’ve helped the person who asked for it. Lacking that you should’ve remained silent. That would’ve been more professional. That person will likely never come to this group again for advice.
You said "
You alluded to having authority from the board of Authenticators. What gives that board their power?"
What the heck are you talking about? Where and when did I say this?
Show me. And what in dog's name is a Board of Authenticators? No such entity exists, to the very best of my knowledge. Again, show me where I supposedly said. this. Authenticators receive
no professional training, attend
no university classes, take
no examinations, earn
NO diplomas or certificates, and do absolutely NOTHING in front of ANYONE to prove their fitness to authenticate, as is proven everty day by people who call thenselves authenticators but couldn't tell a Vuitton from a futon.
Where are you getting this information? The only thing that would make me use the term "professional authenticator" is because that person gets paid for their services. PERIOD. Authenticators are basically self-taught and we're as good as our results. Someone who keeps making authentication mistakes SHOULD IMO have no right to call themself an authenticator of any kind, professional or otherwise, but there's no way to prevent them from doing so. If you're looking for a Board with some kind of oversight, you'll be looking for a very long time.
"I just don’t understand why this forum can’t be focused in a more positive direction."
Again, the negativity began when "someone" who thought of himself as an authenticator but kept making not only mistakes in his authentication advice, but who also apparently had a number of fakes removed by Ebay, started bad-mouthing this site, the members here, and apparently several regular posters at the Ebay forum when they tried to correct his mistakes and advise him on how to avoid making them. That led to him making negative comments not just at the Ebay forum (and if you read those links carefully, you'll find them) but also at his own private sites such as his Facebook page(s). He can bloviate all he likes on his own site, but when he starts denigrating other authenticators who DO manage to get it right almost every single time, that's not acceptable. Trying to sully someone's reputation just because they had the bloody nerve to tell you that you were wrong is a damned poor excuse for verbal retaliation and insults, wouldn't you say? And it's been going on for a long time.
Enough is enough. We've tried to give him good advice (which he completely denies in his Ebay posts when he whines that "no one wants to help him". (I wonder why?) and then calls us DECEIVING for not sharing all our knowledge with him. That isn't the mark of a rational adult, it's the whinging of a spoiled child who wants everything handed to him on a silver platter and all his sins forgiven even though he keeps commiting the same sins over and over again. So NO, I'm not going to spend another SECOND of what's left of my life helping him in any way just do he can keep calling us deceptive and demanding that our time and efforts at getting to the level of experience we've reached by our own efforts be shared with him
gratis. Sorry, Ace, if you want to get to the same level of expertise that we have, then put in the same amount of time and effort that we did
.
He wants to share? FINE. He can share the expenses then. Share the cost of all the
Coach catalogs I've bought over the years, average 25-30 dollars each. Share the wear and tear on my computer(s), I'm on number 3 going on 4, half the cost of a new one will be fine. I need to find space for over 60,000 photo files and hundreds of text files plus the new ones I'll be adding, Share the cost of the storage media for those files, including backups- thumb drives, dvds and cloud. Share the cost of buying bags and wallets I don't need just so I have them for comparison to make it earier to spot fakes. Share the thousands of hours I and the others spend doing all this for FREE, with
no reimbursement whatsoever. Ask my husband how many hours a week I put into this. And he can share the expense of new glasses every 3 or 4 years as my eyes get worse and worse from looking at tiny or blurry photos trying to see if the length of the underscore in the abbreviation "No" in the serial number is the right length for the year, plant code and style number on a barely legible creed stamp in a 26-year old handbag. He wants to share? Tell him to get out his checkbook..
And what's the purpose of sending several of his "people" here within 3 hours of my posting a public refusal to spend any more time helping him make money? (It certainly wasn't just a coincidence, even if they came of their own accord). Aren't the obscene markups on some of his bags enough? His people may not notice, but others do. While it's every businessperson's duty to make money for their business, there comes a point when I look at things like a sixty- or a hundred-dollar purchase marked up by a seller to over nine hundred dollars and I just see GREED. Sorry, Gordon Gekko, greed is NOT good. Not at that level anyway. I do what I do here to SAVE people from getting ripped off, not to feel that I'm contributing to it.
If you have any more questions, ask. But read the thinly- or barely-veiled insults in some of the person-in-question's more recent Ebay posts and tell me again that I don't have the right to be fed up to my eyeballs.
