Interesting, David, a very interesting view. I googled your David & Goliath tale, but to no avail. Search led me to your blog, and although I didn't find the Sotheby story, I liked what I read enough to plan on going back to read your blog more thoroughly.
So thank you for taking the time to write an account of these events. I tend to be a lurker -- mainly because I have so little time to construct email responses -- so this makes me fully appreciate the time it takes to write a detailed account, as you did. Again, thank you. ________________________________ From: David Kusumoto <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2012 5:11 PM Subject: Re: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid Geraldine - * My fight against FedEx and Sotheby's did not result in published news stories and is not searchable on the Internet. I used very detailed, semi-proprietary lists of contacts I have with national and international editors, with their phone numbers and e-mails whited out - to demonstrate my knowledge of media relations and how I would go about positioning my cases as semi-"class action" grievances - to make them relevant to consumers. This method prevented my complaints from being positioned by FedEx and Sotheby's as an "isolated case involving a disgruntled customer" - thus making them more newsworthy to greedy editors. My controlled and measured responses resulted in their finally being shot up to the executive ladder where settlements were reached. In the case of FedEx, it refused to pay a claim for "hidden damage" of a water color painting I bought when I was in Brugge, Belgium - that I had shipped to the U.S. In the case of Sotheby's, I would not accept a "refund" as its proposed "remedy" for my purchase of a "Hard Day's Night" BQ poster I bought in L.A. that I later discovered was a repro. I have no second thoughts about my actions in those cases because I was incensed by the involvement of lawyers - because I have routinely tangled with a corporation's hardball threats through lawyers when I was a writer/reporter/consumer activist in the news biz. (I've never had a case against me brought to court, ever - despite countless threats over 30 years, because I know the differences between libel/defamation/slander laws in the U.S. vs. in other countries.) * However, there have been other instances where my actions resulted in published stories, the most notable being my complaints against Christie's London in December 2003 and the "claimed" destruction - by a consignor - of a rare six-sheet from "The Outlaw" - an action designed to preserve Christie's marketing claim of auctioning the only copy of this title in this format in the world. * My angle was to assail the purposeful destruction of art (as noted in a statement issued by Christie's) - to boost perceived rarity - while expressing scepticism of the claim that the consignor's "extra copy" was destroyed. My actions resulted in stories published in many publications, including the London Evening Standard, the London Daily Telegraph, the Antiques Trade Gazette and the San Francisco Chronicle, the latter being the news organization closest to the consignor's residence. In subsequent years, the hobby learned the claimed "destruction" of extra copies of "The Outlaw" six-sheets was an outright lie - as the same consignor - through intermediaries - brought more copies he had in storage to the auction block. All of this happened during my years as a writer and consumer activist specific to the poster hobby and the practices of auction houses worldwide. I ended such campaigns when I decided to get out of the hobby and re-think my priorities after the wildfires swept through our area in 2003 and 2007. * In relation to your complaints, in my view, the media would NOT be interested in your tale unless you were able to prove a large loss and/or a pattern of errors from Heritage similar to yours. If I were in your shoes, I would take another stab at trying to work things out with Heritage's customer relations and P.R. departments - so you can put this incident behind you in a less combative way, regardless of your consignment intentions in the future. In my experience, dealing direct with P.R. and customer relations personnel is almost always more effective than dealing with lawyers. Within corporations, there is constant friction between legal and P.R. departments - and I strongly feel consumers can get more things done when dealing with such people because they are paid to be responsive to complaints to protect a company's image. Dealing with in-house lawyers who love to battle consumers with threats of court action get you nowhere and only makes consumers angrier. Again, bad P.R. is generally way more damaging to a company than a lawsuit - unless that lawsuit is brought by a consumer as a class-action complaint. David ________________________________ Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2012 07:29:40 -0700 From: [email protected] Subject: Fw: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid To: [email protected] ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Geraldine Kudaka <[email protected]> To: David Kusumoto <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2012 9:23 AM Subject: Re: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid Very interesting. I'll have to google your name to see what this David vs. Goliath case against Sotheby's was. I had intended to post to the whole group initially and did not realize I had merely replied to Bruce. But the time gap was accidentally fortuitous. Between my initial response to Bruce privately and my group posting, I retained legal counsel. The cost of consigning my posters with Heritage has gone up. ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Geraldine Kudaka <[email protected]> To: David Kusumoto <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2012 9:04 AM Subject: Re: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid Thank you David. I had not intended this issue to become a newsworthy story on par with the tylenol poisonings or The Komen/Planned Parenthood issue. I would find it amusing if it did... it would indicate not much is going on in the world... really, little conflicts within niche groups do not make it to to the big screen. Rather than an attack on Heritage, my intention is to warn newbie sellers not to be tempted by the big $$$ signs some auction houses offer. If the cost to collect your money ends up being a lot of hassle, or having to prove you did send in X,Y & Z, is it really worth it? If you sell, as the sellers at the West Berkshire auction did, can you collect your money? ________________________________ Fom: David Kusumoto <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, April 6, 2012 7:10 PM Subject: Re: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid * That's true. If Geraldine posts again, we'll know more. But even if we presume her e-mail program has a predictive text function - there's a big jump between the "B" in Bruce and the "M" in MoPo List. Her note to the group seems - on the surface at least - intentional to me. One other thing I forgot to mention. Having once worked at a Fortune 500 company, I know the following as FACTS. Big corporations are rarely fearful of litigation. That's what their lawyers are for. One strategy is to drain a plaintiff's or a defendant's pool of funds covering legal fees. And once the lawyers are involved, they almost ALWAYS counsel NO response to further public attacks, e.g., putting up a stone wall of silence to preserve their positions in potential litigation. * However, these same corporations are almost ALWAYS WAY MORE FEARFUL of bad press. They can't control the press - and the bad stories ultimately reaches stakeholders/customers whose reactions - can have an adverse effect on a corporation's revenues and industry reputation. Public opinion, not fear of lawsuits, are responsible for the "180s" we see in the most prominent case histories, e.g., Bank of America and the Komen Foundation. BTW, this is the way environmental groups, for example, operate. Lacking budgetary resources to fight lawsuits, they are very creative in their efforts to garner media attention, feeding into the conflict-driven agendas of newsrooms. When I was a reporter, I was always told to "test the demonstrators" by seeing if they marched and shouted ONLY when the media was present. If they stopped when the cameras left, it was a stunt. I was told to report the "demonstration" - but to report it accurately as being staged for media consumption. PETA operates on a similar principle, but its over-the-top actions, while GUARANTEEING coverage, results in an extremely divided view of that group's reputation. Heritage is a large company that has been down the road of adverse (and positive) press before. The risk is losing control of a dispute whereby third parties (the media) - can sway public opinion in an adverse way that disrupts operations. * When I took on FedEx and Sotheby's during the 1990s, it was the controlled, managed use of potentially adverse press relations that resulted in resolving my disputes with them. The lawyers came out with their knives intending to bleed my bank accounts dry. But knowing how to spin "David vs. Goliath" stories in a way that reflects a trend of errors affecting others like me - "spreads the number of potential victims" out so that my woes served as a "poster child" or a "proxy" - or a "tip of the iceberg illustration" - of greater problems impacting consumers. This forces the responsibility out of the hands of lawyers and goes all the way up the executive ladder. For most big companies facing potentially bad press, it isn't worth battling in public if small change is involved. If they're smart, they settle quietly and the problem goes away quickly. But once it hits the press, it's impossible to reel everything back in and it becomes a nightmare. I've made my living working both sides of the fence and it's an ugly business. I am so glad that my experience in the news media has equipped me well enough to battle - or to "re-direct" reporters when my clients are attacked, whether they are corporations or a little guy trying to influence public opinion. In sum, I'm not Heritage, but if I was handling its P.R., I would do everything in my power to make this problem go away - or to keep it confined within the borders of a small group. It's not worth fighting a volatile situation that can be solved - that risks turning into an issue that becomes "everybody's problem," including present and prospective consumers who would not otherwise care absent third party involvement. -d. ________________________________ Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2012 17:25:18 -0500 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: An auction house to avoid To: [email protected] David is certainly correct, but there is still the possibility that she did not mean to post it to the list. Perhaps she thought of something she had forgotten two days earlier and planned to send me that info, but instead accidentally forwarded it to the list. We will only know if and when she chooses to post again. As for getting a response, I suspect this is what we will find: Bruce On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 5:19 PM, David Kusumoto <[email protected]> wrote: > My goodness, of course it was meant for the entire list. Just look at the time stamps. There's a two-day spread between the original note "Geraldine Kudaka" sent to Bruce - and when the note was FORWARDED to the entire MoPo group from Geraldine herself. She is obviously a MoPo member. There is no other way an e-mail like that could be posted to the group without first enrolling as a member. Unfairly or not, I interpreted the note as an attack on Heritage, an attempt to force a public or private response from group members - or from Grey himself. In PR and news, there's a rule we follow: In the business world, there is no such thing as a true "surprise." Most disputes broil beneath the surface for weeks or months - before they finally explode into the public eye. They are usually the penultimate step before the "course of last resort," e.g., taking grievances to the media for widespread dissemination to audiences outside the core group most interested in the outcome. It is at that point that a client is at risk losing control of a story and is forever put on defense until a counterattack or well-understood response is mapped out and executed. Successful response case histories: Tylenol poisonings, beef percentages questioned in Taco Bell products, antenna issues with the iPhone. Unsuccessful or "too late" response case histories: Pink slime, Bank of America's $5 debit fee proposal, and the Komen Foundation's "180" with Planned Parenthood. -d. ________________________________ Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2012 17:44:25 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Fw: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid To: [email protected] Was wondering that myself. Peter From:MoPo List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of lovenoir2 Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 2:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [MOPO] Fw: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid An interesting read. Was this meant to go to the entire MOPO list? On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Geraldine Kudaka <[email protected]> wrote: ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Geraldine Kudaka <[email protected]> To: Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, April 3, 2012 11:45 AM Subject: Re: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid Your favorite auction house, Bruce -- Heritage. My husband, Charley, was a Hollywood executive. When we first did a Heritage consignment through Rudy Franchi, everything went fine. So fine, we sent a 2nd batch using my UPS account & return label which had my name on it. I use my maiden name, so I guess Heritage thought it was a cold submission from nobody. Thought we'd hear from them -- nada. We are pretty busy here and knew from our first consignment that Heritage plans their auction schedule months in advance. When I finally called Heritage to see when the posters were going to be auctioned. Carter told they had received the posters, and wanted to know if we wanted to put them in the weekly auction as there was nothing of value in the lot. I said, "What? What about the Get Carter and Lennon posters? Or the Fillmore posters?" Heritage claimed they had not received these posters in the lot we sent. I had mentioned this event on this newsgroup before. You responded with a derogatory comment about Rudy, then Grey threatened us with lawyers and I posted a comment here batting for Rudy. At that time this was going on, I did not want to deal with Heritage because we were building a house and had a high weekly payroll to meet. The headache of dealing with this Heritage problem was small potatoes compared to being the General Contractor on a house. After Grey threatened me with lawyers and I batted for Rudy, Rudy contacted me. He had spoken with Grey and the upshot was we were offered a deal for future submissions.. That was months ago. I've come to the conclusion I don't want to do future business with Heritage. It's one thing to have a consignment set up by Rudy for my husband, Charley Lippincott, who had hired John Van Hammersveld to do the Get Carter poster and has the largest, most complete collection of John's work -- even more than John -- and another thing when little wifey using her UPS business account sends the 2nd consignment batch. As nobody me, if posters disappeared from my lot, who is to say that this doesn't happen to other people? On principle, I don't want to do business with Heritage. Life is too short, Charley's collection too huge, and it's just not worth my time. If Grey wants to have his lawyers come after me, fine. ________________________________ From:Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]> To: Geraldine Kudaka <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2012 6:21 PM Subject: Re: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid Which auction was it? On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 8:54 AM, Geraldine Kudaka <[email protected]> wrote: I sent things to a US auction house who, 6 months later, claimed they never got the high value posters.... and threatened me with a lawyer. ________________________________ From:Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 10:45 PM Subject: [MOPO] An auction house to avoid http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/2012/west-berkshire-auction-house-cameo-refutes-customers-payment-claims Customers claim West Berkshire auction house owes them cash Bruce Hershenson and the other 24 members of the eMoviePoster.com team P.O. 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