Damian Lillard is a superstar in the NBA. He has over 1.4 million followers on Twitter, where he regularly interacts with fans via the social media platform.
Recently fans were sending Lillard links of items for sale on eBay – asking the NBA superstar if the signatures were real or fake.
In the tweet below, an eBay listing was shown to Lillard – to which he replied “Fake Signature”
The tweet Lillard replies to is “unavailable” because the seller of the item deleted the tweet. However here is a screen shot of the the tweet the seller, Joel Alpert of A_A_Autographs, deleted:
If Lillard giving his opinion on his own signature one time wasn’t enough – a fan asked Lillard a second time if the above pictured autograph was real. To which Lillard replied “That ain’t my signature”
Lillard looked at the autograph for sale on eBay not once – but twice, and told his 1.4 million followers the autograph was fake.
You’d think that would close the book on the story, as an educated, highly successful young man in the prime of his life could easily tell his signature from a fake.
But not in the sleazy, slimy and often fraudulent mind of sports autograph “authenticators”
After Damian Lillard said the autograph was fake – twice – Beckett Authentication Services (BAS) had the audacity to ask Lillard to look at the autograph A THIRD TIME. Beckett’s rational was comparing Lillard’s signature to 5 examples anyone could have found searching Google.
Beckett provided no further evidence Lillard signed the item in question. No video of Lillard signing the item, no document related to why Beckett certified the autograph in question to begin with. No evidence the authentication sticker applied to the item wasn’t tampered with or fake. Beckett provided no evidence the 5 signatures they used to show Lillard were in fact authentic either.
To Lillard’s credit, he did not respond to the sleazy autograph authenticator asking him to look at his own signature a third time.
But the story doesn’t end. Leaf Trading Cards decided to also claim Lillard can’t look twice at his own signature and tell fans if it’s real or fake.
Leaf’s claim is Lillard can look at his autograph twice and be mistaken, but Leaf can be certain because they saw Lillard sign 5 years ago when they had him under contract?
Unfortunately the sleazy nature of these autograph “authenticators” doesn’t end there. Leaf Trading cards starting making the false accusation that Damian Lillard had deleted the two tweets saying the autograph was fake.
Here’s one tweet from Leaf saying Lillard deleted his tweet – but in fact Lillard’s tweet is visible for everyone to see – meaning it was not deleted.
Leaf can’t even read Lillard’s tweets, yet can be certain they know Lillard’s signature better than himself??
Here are more examples of Leaf spreading #FakeNews about Lillard deleting tweets in an effort to make the company (and Beckett) look good.
Again, Leaf tweeted THREE TIMES Lillard deleted tweets – which was a bold face lie. Yet we’re supposed to believe Leaf can authenticate Lillard’s signature better than he can???
Not to be outdone Beckett Authentication Services re-tweeted #FakeNews about Lillard deleting his tweets in an effort to make the company look good.
Four examples of a bold face lie by these “authenticators” in an effort to discredit & spread #FakeNews about Damian Lillard. The only person deserving of an apology is Lillard – as Leaf & Beckett tried to lie about him deleting tweets in an effort to make their sleazy autograph businesses seem more legit.
There’s a reason why the autograph “authentication” business has a sleazy reputation. Blatantly lying to an athlete & customers isn’t going to improve this stigma anytime soon.
Sports Card Radio received and e-mail from the fake Damian Lillard autograph seller Joel Alpert of A_A_Autographs:
It’s odd an autograph dealer could be chummy enough with his authenticator (Steve Grad of Beckett) that he could offer him up to come on a podcast! I wonder how closely Beckett is looking at this dealers autographs if that’s the case.
