Mastro, Noe and Shill Biding?

There is a fairly large controversy brewing in the Sports Collectible Auction Business. As the New York Daily News says,

"Mastro Auctions... may have engaged in shill bidding and other questionable practices that resulted in inflated prices and auction house commissions."

This is a serious allegation, and I sincerely hope it is not true. What makes it worse is that Mastro is tied up in the Ohio Coingate scandal involving Tom Noe. Stealing public fund to enrich themselves and the Republican Party is a scandal Mastro wants no part of; especially since Noe is probably headed to jail.

Mastro Auctions has since responded on the popular Vintage Baseball Card Forum.

First let me state that we at Mastro Auctions take very seriously the claims made in the New York Daily News article. Good customers/friends of ours like Richard Masson and Jay Miller understand just how important integrity is when in comes to conducting auctions both for my firm and for me personally. I appreciate their friendship and kind comments.

I am very disappointed but not surprised that the NYDN would run a story like this when their primary source was "unnamed" and the primary allegations were "unsubstantiated".

There is not much for me to say in response except that to my knowledge we are not under investigation and as a firm we have responded to every official inquiry that has come to us regarding Mr. Noe and have not held anything back. If more inquiries come our way, again we will be completely forthright in complying.

The most disturbing thing about this response is the "attack the messenger" attitude. When I see something like that my first response is to believe there is something to hide. Again, I hope this is just a case of Noe use Mastro to do his dirty deeds and not the other way around.