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It was the golden age of eBay. Optimistic bidders went online to the world's largest flea market, ready to spend cash on everything from garden gnomes to Mercedes convertibles. Among them were art collectors willing to spend big money on unseen paintings, hoping to buy valuable pieces of art at below-market prices. EBay also attracted the occasional con artist unable to resist the temptation of abusing a system that prided itself on being "based on trust." Walton--once a lawyer bound by the ethics of his profession--was seduced by just such a con artist and, eventually, became one himself. What started out as a satisfying exercise in reselling thrift store paintings in order to pay back student loans and mounting credit card debt soon became an addiction to the subtle deception of luring unsuspecting bidders into overpaying for paintings of questionable origins.--From publisher description.… (more)
User reviews
In Walton's case, this
In working with Fetterman and a few others, Walton touches on the merely unethical (vague auction listings that deliberately imply famous authorship where none is warranted), to the unethical (shill bidding with multiple accounts), to the absolutely illegal (knowingly selling forged artwork). What could have been a dull dissertation on auction postings, e-mails and phone calls is instead a memoir that is crisply written that reads as well as any beach-read thriller.
There are points where the book philosophizes a bit much, and at times it is hard to swallow the, "of course, I only forged one signature ever" claim, but this is typical of most true crime memoirs written by the perpetrators.