The claims of successful earthquake predictions by VAN are based on magnitudes said to be Ms (surface wave). However, they are larger by 1.0 unit, on the average, than those published in the Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (PDE), the authoritative source for Ms values. This discrepancy arises because VAN calculate Ms from ML (local magnitude) using the incorrect transformation Ms(VAN)=ML+0.5. Least squares regressions, based on the PDE data for Greece, yield Ms=1.50ML-2.62 and Ms=1.82mb-4.16 instead. An important part of many author's evaluations of VAN's claims is an assessment of whether their performance is better than that expected by random chance. If the random chance probability is defined using standard (PDE) seismicity data and magnitudes, whereas VAN's claims are based on a non-standard scale, the significance of VAN's successes will be overestimated strongly. Additional discrepancies are introduced because Ms(VAN) is based on preliminary ML values, or sometimes on newspaper reports, rather than those published in the final bulletin of the Seismological Institute of the National Observatory Athens (SI-NOA). The correct final magnitude should be used in all studies claiming success and evaluating these claims years after the earthquakes occurred. Inaccuracies in presenting an earthquake catalog also exist in Varotsos et al. [1981b>, who claimed a one-to-one correlation of seismic electric signals (SES) with the list of earthquakes with mostly ML>2.9 published by the SI-NOA. In fact, VAN had used instead a list called ''Ten Days Preliminary Seismogram Readings at Athens'' which is not a bulletin and contains no epicenters. As a consequence 37% of the earthquakes reported in the SI-NOA Monthly Bulletin (including the largest one) were not contained in the list of VAN, and 40% of the earthquakes VAN claimed had occurred, were not in the SI-NOA Bulletin. In addition, VAN added another 25% of events to the list. These latter events were identified as added, but there is no evidence that they were not explosions or other cultural disturbances. It is concluded that some of VAN's claims of correlations between SESs and earthquakes, and some of the evaluations of these claims, are based on incorrect earthquake lists. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1996