The Berkbridge Foundation - Questions Regarding Legitimacy 8 8

[Jaylam]

All we’ve been asking for is some transparency concerning their foundation. In the spirit of the common interest, fellowship and camaraderie that that I’d like to think we all share here (Berkbridge included), it would have been nice if they could have taken the opportunity that was being provided by the original poster, to openly explain the work of their charity and to maybe divulge at least in some way, that they helped (X) single mothers with (X) dollars, (X) goods and/or (X) services in (X) community or communities over the past year or whatever time frame. Instead we all know the response we got which did nothing to put anyone at ease or quell any curiosities that were being expressed and for them, an opportunity lost to promote and make an appeal for their cause and to gather a broader base of support.

[James J Johnson]

29 minutes ago, kav said:

I've always been very eager to tell how I helped people.

Not me. I do what I do, trying to make a difference for the betterment of others if it's within my power to do so, for one reason alone. Because if I didn't, I wouldn't be me. Being recognized is nice; being appreciated, but had nothing to do with my actions or efforts.

Now that said, I'm not a charity. I don't function in the same capacity as a charitable organization. No donations, no compensation expected for anything I do that can be deemed helpful. But if I were a charitable organization, I would want a searchlight beamed on every act of charity we perform, because I would want as much help as I can get; volunteers and charitable donations to apply where the most good will be accomplished. I'd want to reach out to the public to make as many as I could teammates in my cause, and the only way you do that is by total transparency and reporting exactly what it is you've done, and are trying to do for people, with the public's help.

In this respect, the Berkbridge Foundation is a mystery. I can find nothing online, no anecdotes, no resources, no articles, nothing about their work, other than, "we provide support...…..yatta, yatta".

very odd for a charitable organization to operate in seemingly such a clandestine and mysterious manor.

Edited September 14, 2019 by James J Johnson

[thehumantorch]

12 hours ago, Jaylam said:

All we’ve been asking for is some transparency concerning their foundation. In the spirit of the common interest, fellowship and camaraderie that that I’d like to think we all share here (Berkbridge included), it would have been nice if they could have taken the opportunity that was being provided by the original poster, to openly explain the work of their charity and to maybe divulge at least in some way, that they helped (X) single mothers with (X) dollars, (X) goods and/or (X) services in (X) community or communities over the past year or whatever time frame. Instead we all know the response we got which did nothing to put anyone at ease or quell any curiosities that were being expressed and for them, an opportunity lost to promote and make an appeal for their cause and to gather a broader base of support.

And their only post threatened legal action and stated it would be the only post they would make on the subject.  

A charity that wont divulge it's effectiveness and attempts to silence reasonable discussion can't be trusted.

[Buzzetta]

12 hours ago, kav said:

what if multiple people were accusing you of being selfish would you then explain how you had helped people or just take it on the chin?

It depends... if I do something silently for someone I have no need to talk about what I did. 

A charitable organization is dependent upon donation or raising funding for their various projects.  They need to show their contributors where the money goes and how effective it is in order to continue raising their money.  

[James J Johnson]

20 hours ago, kav said:

what if multiple people were accusing you of being selfish would you then explain how you had helped people or just take it on the chin?

If it was imperative to me to not only be taken seriously as a charity, I would want to be known as a good one, doing good work, and want to shine as illuminative spotlight on my work as I could so I could recruit other like minded philanthropists to partner with me or contribute what they can. I would do this by trumpeting the good deeds that my charity has done, is doing, and plans to do with sufficient assistance.

I haven't been able to find any instances of this about the Berkbridge Foundation. No testimonials, no stories online that I can find of who they have helped and in what way.

Edited September 14, 2019 by James J Johnson

[James J Johnson]

40 minutes ago, kav said:

I can trumpet stuff up the yin yang about my good deeds.  Or my bad deeds if thats your preference  

The bad would be more interesting, I'm sure. It usually is to most (which is why I avoid news channels). But knowing what I do of you, I'd be hard pressed to imagine that there'd be anything but good to be reported.

[James J Johnson]

4 minutes ago, kav said:

Well not really anymore but in my younger days I had some road rage doozies that would curl your toenails!

We've all had them. Getting behind the wheel can be intoxicating, turning even the lambs among us into lions! 

[Jaylam]

kav displaying his stealth mode skills while driving...

[Catwomancomics]

@kav

And this one?

[ADAMANTIUM]

9 minutes ago, kav said:

Thats the come at me bro.

go go gadget anything  

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 minute ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

go go gadget anything  

[Naphtha]

On 9/12/2019 at 9:30 AM, comicwiz said:

There are so many things going on here that it's difficult to really pin down what's happening. It hasn't helped that the only post from @BerkbridgeFoundation has been to threaten as an attempt to quell discussion.

I see the main issues as i) being the nuanced aspect of allegedly using a charity to drive up prices, and ii) the impact these data points could have in a scenario where past sales data is lazily used, or absent of context. 

In this regard, @gpanalysis should hopefully be able to glean enough from the discussion happening in this thread to help them determine whether charitable listings should be either omitted or specially marked as outliers with some notation for context. Whichever approach, I think it should be a retroactive methodology.

I can't speak on the other allegations, and not that allegations of improperly using tax exempt status as a tax avoidance strategy aren't serious, but a part of me hopes that whatever regulatory oversights are in place to deter and prevent such abuses, that they are doing their jobs and will be able to take action if this is an instance of abuse.

I was informed that in such cases a buyer (like in your case) has to be given notice, and failure to do so carries a penalty. I'm just not sure how it is enforced or how much time the charity has to provide you this information, but I would imagine at the very least they would have to do so prior to filing your tax return.

 

I agree with both of these points and think that somewhere in the thread the legitimacy of the charity completely derailed any meaningful discussion on the legitimacy of their sales. I agree that this type of behavior should be rooted, but once the dust settles, we're still left with trying to figure out how to appropriate prices on books based on GPA's data. The market is moving into completely unknown territory in the next few years, and I for one want to make sure that any blatant price setting and/or manipulation in any way is controlled and hopefully removed completely. This is likely next to impossible, but all legitimate markets adapt. If we continue to let any and all sales from ebay create gospel FMV without any plan to regulate or validate those sales, then we are moving into very dangerous territory.

There were two types of price manipulation that I could see. One where the book was listed, sold, and then immediately relisted at the same price using the last sale as bait. The other used two books of the same grade, one BIN and the other auction. The BIN (usually less desirable) would sell ~4-7 days prior to auction end so that last sale would again bait higher bids. I for one think that charitable sales should immediately be cut from GPA. If we are assuming that these books are being sold with either no consequence from a seller's perspective or that the interested buyer's are generally willing to pay more for a good cause, then they should not be used to generate FMV. Any situation in which a higher sale benefits the seller in any other way other than simply validating the price they paid should be exempt. I also don't mean to include situations where the seller is motivated due to health issues or personal reasons. This type of sale doesn't motivate buyers with tax deductions.

While there is no way to read through every ebay sale of every CGC issue, we could at least start by monitoring sales at certain prices for certain vendors. For example, every sale of $1,000 or more sold on ebay should be validated before listing.

I'm not sure how smaller dealers validate their prices on GPA, but I assume they submit paid invoices and the numbers are added individually. For ebay, it seems like the description and listing info auto populates these numbers once a confirmed sale happens. By confirmed sale, it could be simply hitting the button and waiting to cancel the transaction.

I'm in no way passing judgement on GPA in this regard. I have submitted multiple shill bid sales and they have responded within the hour every time, but as the number of sold CGC issues skyrockets in the next few years, we have to find a reasonable solution before it escalates to a much bigger issue and we no longer have any context or legitimate reference to fairly claim FMV.

 

Edited September 15, 2019 by Naphtha

[D84]

A quick solution is to do your own homework and stop treating GPA as the holy gospel that some do.

[Sweet Lou 14]

3 hours ago, D84 said:

A quick solution is to do your own homework and stop treating GPA as the holy gospel that some do.

I do tons of homework on the books I'm looking to buy, and I find GPA very useful.  Besides, all GPA is doing is collecting (some of) the data that you would otherwise have to go collect yourself.

If shill bids or other market manipulation results in misleading or even fraudulent sales figures for a particular book, what's the difference if you got that data from GPA or found it yourself through close observation of the various auctions and dealer sites?

Edited September 16, 2019 by Sweet Lou 14

[Naphtha]

9 minutes ago, Sweet Lou 14 said:

I do tons of homework on the books I'm looking to buy, and I find GPA very useful.  Besides, all GPA is doing is collecting (some of) the data that you would otherwise have to go collect yourself.

If shill bids or other market manipulation results in misleading or even fraudulent sales figures for a particular book, what's the difference if you got that data from GPA or found it yourself through close observation of the various auctions and dealer sites?

The idea is that eventually sales become muddled between what is within reason and what isn't to the point where it just gets lost within the aggregate.. While I completely agree with the caveat emptor approach, times change.

[James J Johnson]

5 hours ago, D84 said:

A quick solution is to do your own homework and stop treating GPA as the holy gospel that some do.

Loathe to do my own data gathering when GP can accomplish that task so much more effectively than I can, I guess I'm one of those that tend to view GP with awe and reverence.:

 

Edited September 16, 2019 by James J Johnson

[ADAMANTIUM]

8 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

Loathe to do my own data gathering when GP can accomplish that task so much more effectively than I can, I guess I'm one of those that tend to view GP with awe and reverence.:

 

well ya, ahem you do pay a subscription right?

[ADAMANTIUM]

if i paid for it, i'd expect the info to be all inclusive....

[ADAMANTIUM]

5 minutes ago, kav said:

offhand I cant think of anything you can pay for that is 100% guaranteed tho.

ya i don't mean to be snippy or anything, even cgc has newton rings....

suddenly the world feels very circular ...... @kav

Edited September 16, 2019 by ADAMANTIUM

[James J Johnson]

38 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

well ya, ahem you do pay a subscription right?

Gladly. Gratefully. Money well spent. A hobby essential. Overstreet was this hobby's gospel for centuries. Collectors would count the minutes during the yearly wait for the new Overstreet. Now we have GP. Updated hourly instead of yearly. A bargain at 10 times the subscription price to have all that info readily on tap.