Fake: Forgery, Lies, and eBay
By Kenneth Walton, Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2006

Reports of financial excess during the Internet boom continue to come in, leaving us to conclude that lots of people did stupid things with their own and other peoples’ money during the technology hysteria of the late twentieth century. In the case of Kenneth Walton, those stupid deeds added up to more than just financial ruin; the things he did in the quest for a quick Internet-based buck nearly destroyed his life. Now he’s sorry, presumably wiser, and ready to write a book about it all.

Walton’s decision concerned eBay. Walton came into the online auction game early, when it looked as if anyone could get rich by selling junk to suckers on the Internet. He was a young, bored lawyer wishing he was anywhere but his dull office in Sacramento. Enter Ken Fetterman, an old Army buddy whom Walton claims to have detested for his paranoia, uncouth habits and abrasive personality, but the two were not above sharing some male bonding time when Fetterman was in town. On this latest occasion, Fetterman came with a new scheme: he was now an art dealer who financed a fancy house by buying and selling thrift store paintings for gigantic profits on eBay. It was a goldmine, and he was offering Walton a piece of it.

From the very beginning the business arrangement between Fetterman and Walton looked shady. Fetterman claimed that he had too many paintings and too little time to sell them, and that if Walton were willing to conduct the online auctions to sell the excess Fetterman would split the proceeds with him. Walton logged on to eBay and started selling the paintings, watching with glee as paintings that cost just a few dollars brought in hundreds, if not thousands of dollars online.

Questionable activity began almost immediately when Fetterman, Walton and some of their associates began making shill bids on their own auctions. Shill bidding is when a seller makes bids on his own (or his friends’) auctions in order to drive up prices. Walton and Fetterman set up fake eBay accounts and bid on their own and each other’s auctions over and over again; Walton convinced himself that he was just “getting things going” and that there was really nothing wrong with shill bidding.

Things got worse when Fetterman gave Walton a few paintings with ambiguous signatures. These signatures looked like the marks of famous artists, but the pair were careful never to say that the paintings were actually authentic. Their unspoken plan was to make potential buyers suspect that the paintings were valuable, thereby sending prices through the roof while avoiding unsubstantiated claims and conveniently sidestepping potential charges of fraud. Walton got a little antsy when he began to suspect that Fetterman was actually forging the signatures, but the money was too good. Walton looked the other way.

By this time, Walton had the fever, and he went with Fetterman on art harvesting trips, happily sold the fraudulent paintings for thousands of dollars and continued to bid on his own auctions. The house of cards came down when Walton himself forged a famous signature on a painting; the subsequent auction closed with a bid of over $135,000, drawing the attention of the media all across the country. With just one quick, unwise move, the jig was up, as the investigative power of both the New York Times and the FBI closed in.

Ultimately, Walton seems like a nice enough guy who is genuinely sorry for what he did. On the other hand, it’s difficult to believe that he was as innocent as he claimed to be. He lays almost the entire blame on the influence of the odious Fetterman, but did Walton really think that shill bidding - an obviously unethical, if not outright illegal activity - was harmless? And what about the misleading auctions in which Walton implied that a painting was created by a famous artist, an implication that was almost certainly false? Sure, Walton can argue that his buyers were being unscrupulous, too - they were hoping to take advantage of a naive seller who didn’t know what he had - but that hardly makes Walton’s own behavior less morally problematic.

Regardless, one finishes the book feeling a little sorry for Walton. He committed fraud, no doubt, but the consequences he faces for his misdeeds seem somewhat extreme. Essentially, his life was nearly finished after his conviction. He owed big money in restitution and debt, not to mention his law career was over (after his mandatory disbarrment). Employers didn’t want to touch him, and he was banned from eBay.

Walton’s book leaves all us capitalists on especially muddy moral ground. Where does marketing end and fraud begin? Where does justice end and retribution begin? Should Walton be forgiven for silly mistakes and allowed to start over? Or is he a clever criminal who should be punished for the rest of his life? Should he even be allowed to write a book about his experience and thereby profit from his crime? Interesting questions all, and Fake suggests them in an entertaining manner. Walton has done well with the book, all his stupid choices aside.

Copyright 2006 Ad Media Inc.