annual struggle with decision to renew APS membership

Nothing above is off the mark. I ditched APS many years ago. Still kind of a 'member' though, because of my continued affiliation with Motor City Stamp & Cover Club.

Many local clubs have an APS membership. This provides access to all the APS's services for the club's members. When I lived in the city, I usually got to read our AP mag eventually, but like ferthalangur I wasn't reading them in a timely manner when they had my name on them anyway, so nothing lost there. All in all, not too bad a return for MCSCC's US$6/yr membership fee.

Poorly worded sentence on my part. Not APS bankruptcy, but bankruptcy of a member due in part to a sudden/unexpected illness ~2 yrs ago and a major failure of the person assigned to wind down his business. I'm not going to name any names, but it was a major established auction house, and the owner had a pretty good reputation (at least to me, anyway). I bought 2 items from their auction in the past, but had to return one. They refunded me return shipping, even though I didn't request.

I'm OK with him not being expelled, as it really wasn't his fault. But others have been expelled before when it "wasn't their fault". My issue is that the elite are treated differently from the average collector.

The average member, if someone makes a claim of philatelic indebtedness, is written a letter requesting explanation or a plan to pay the debt (or return the item). When there is both proof of indebtedness and no reply to the request, the member is expelled. There is none of this garbage about waiting for criminal case or fear of litigation. Seriously, someone is going to sue because they were expelled from the APS?!? The bad publicity alone would tarnish that person's reputation forever.

But I write too quickly. A prominent member (not under expulsion or threat of expulsion) did sue APS and another member a little more than a decade ago for non-financial reasons. I don't know what came of that case, as I left the APS soon after that silliness. Needless to say, that person's reputation was tarnished badly, as well as the member he sued. An extremely knowledgeable collector, but his quirkiness got the best of him. I quit corresponding with him before all that happened. Great source of information, but very in-your-face with really weird takes on what you say/do and on life. I decided to heed the warning signs and discontinue correspondence. It had a profound effect on my current hesitation to participate where establishment collectors congregate.

Getting back to expulsion issues. The problem is the non-expulsion or failure to act until conviction of a prominent member happens on a grand scale every decade. Meanwhile, numerous APS members are out 4-5 figure amounts, and some of the convictions involve amounts in excess of 7 figures!!! I always hear this "fear of litigation" to defend the APS. What ever happened to "do the right thing" and be willing to "testify to what you saw/read?". Why should I pay to support an organization that won't watch out for the little guy, but is intent on disregarding the continued malfeasance of a very small number of establishment members?

Of course, I'm no angel. There are some people who owe me money and stamps, but it's no big deal. I don't think I owe anybody any money, but I do know I still owe some people stamps (sometimes, a large amount of stamps) -- but I am still working on trying to get those things done. What the APS does is turn a blind eye to the complaints (with documented proof) of multiple members when an establishment member is accused. Meanwhile, the accused member continues to conduct business, accruing even more debt & legal issues, with no intent to make good.

I used to buy from one major APS/ASDA dealer ~15 years ago. Very nice and knowledgeable dealer. Always delivered, and always promised me no questions asked if there was ever a problem. One day he just disappeared. I found out later he had been arrested and convicted of fraud/theft. I won't go into details, but it had to do with disappearance of philatelic items in his business transactions. I was shocked. But sometimes the pressure of maintaining success gets to you, and you do things you normally wouldn't do. To this dealer's credit, another dealer was working to correct issues while he was in jail. I respect that he is admitting his mistakes and working on restitution, staying out of the stamp business. But it did get me wondering -- with all the warning signs & complaints, why wasn't anything done until he was sitting in jail? It could have been me that lost $100s/1000s. But I still like him. He had cool last name and I loved his catalogs.

Enough of my rant...

I don't want to get us sued.

The dealer I was referring to, I am pretty sure nobody here knows him. I did read his statement given at sentencing. It was very contrite, and he made good on his intent to make amends while staying out of the stamp business. Kudos. People make mistakes. The ones I respect are the ones that learn from their mistakes, keep their distance from repeating wrongs, and become better persons afterwards.

But yeah, there are a number of other well-known dealers with interesting last names that are no longer APS/ASDA members, OK.

I don't know their policy now, but back in the day, Linn's would no longer accept advertising from members expelled from APS/ASDA. So if a long-time advertiser suddenly disappeared from Linn's, they either retired, died, or got convicted/expelled. I remember after reading about the infamous bid-rigging scandal a few years after the fact, recognizing some of the names of long-time advertisers that suddenly quite running. I had assumed at the time, they had simply reached retirement age.

Anyway, I've meandered from the thread topic.

I've got another week before they expel me for inattentiveness.

I am an APS life member (was grandfathered in the automatic life after 50 years).

I have had my complaints about APS over the years and do not really use many of their services. I occasionally find something interesting in the AP. I have used the library once to get an article. I do not use the stampstore (old or new), expertizing, circuit books, etc. The videso in the education library are a motley collection. There has been no real coordinated attempt at education for a while. When pushed the response is they rely on member contributions.

The Match Factory debt was paid off and that credit goes mostly to a few sizeable member estate donations. But APS did avoid stupid investments that squandered money years back.

They had balked at having an inside expert for web work. There was always some other priority. COVID was a wake up call.

I still think APS should have moved closer to a metropolitan area.  My idea was Charlottesville or Roanoke, VA.

I took a quick look at the APS website. I admit, I haven't really taken a look in over a year, and I think that was just to renew my membership.

It has definitely improved (at least to me). The library section has tentacles in assorted directions, but a nice sampler. Hopefully, there will be continued progress toward a "long-term" plan as mentioned by angore. I have to say I'm a little impressed with the progress.

Being old fashioned, I don't need all the bells & whistles. I'll settle for access to raw resources and worry about where to look for specific info later. I thumb through books all the time, no big deal for me to click through view-only files/webpages. I'm used to searching the internet for hits, and then delving into a website to try to find the exact info I'm looking for. To me, it's all about access without having to fly/drive over to Bellefonte.

Well, I was impressed enough with the progress on the APS/APRL website that I renewed my membership! Guess I'm a creature of habit.

Actually, that's my excuse to cover up the facts that:
1) I enjoy this annual ritual and gritting my teeth and reviewing all my past gripes and adding some new ones.
2) I'm too shy to write a letter to APS listing out the reasons I'm not renewing, as angore suggested.

k, a little more poorer