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Agence France Presse
Sydney, Nov 16: Australia's cricketers are being conned into giving autographs by fraudsters posing as sick or disabled fans who then sell them for thousands of dollars, officials said today. Among those caught out have been current captain Steve Waugh, former captain Mark Taylor and spin wizard Shane Warne.
A framed, autographed picture of Warne or Waugh fetches up to 1,300 US Dollars at memorabilia stores. With the cricket season in full swing and the peak Christmas gift period approaching, the Australian Board (ACB) says it will introduce an authenticity system.
Taylor's manager John Fordham told The Australian he alerted police when items signed for fans claiming to be ill turned up in a Sydney shop. He said Taylor, now a cricket commentator, continued to receive letters seeking his autograph.
``A month ago we detected the same text on letters when people send in cricket bats or photographs or whatever asking Mark to sign them,'' he said.``We found one letter exactly word for word from fourdifferent addresses and four different people. The approach was purportedly, `I'm an avid cricket fan, I'm wheelchair bound that sort of stuff.
``We discovered that Mark had signed a couple of those items and they ended up being sold by a retailer in Sydney."
Fake signatures on memorabilia was also a concern. ``There is a hell of a lot of counterfeit stuff going around,'' said Aussie Cricket Association chief executive Tim May.
ACB chief Mal Speed said the cricket memorabilia industry was growing rapidly and, together with the Players' Association, they were working on a system designed to protect the players and the authenticity of their products.
``It's very important that the public gets the real thing. We believe that certificates of authenticity are required. Over the next month we hope to finalise that.''
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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