Need some help regarding a sale...fraud?

[mtgcollector01]

I recently put some items on Y! auctions, the auction went smoothly, and the buyer paid immedietely. I was like, great, I'll ship this stuff Monday or Tuesday. But it didn't get shipped monday or Tuesday, so I offered to refund shipping when he safely got it. He didn't reply to that email if I remember.

Lo and behold, he gets it. I'm ready to refund the shipping, when he all of a sudden says, 'The rarer cards are not there.'
I really doubted this, as I had specifically packaged them in bubble wrap to be sure they were all there and in order. So I reply telling him that I would search for them in my house, and see what happened.

I searched, and searched, and searched. Nothing was to be found but a few cards lying here and there around my house. So I email him back telling him this, and he starts shouting FRAUD. He's been overwhelmingly threatening me and supposedly he's filed to the IFCC, and I don't want to have to take him to court or anything.

Does anyone have any advice for me or him?

 

[pulse8]

Keep his money and move on. It's your word against his.

I believe that when people start threatening immediately, it's because they are trying to hide something.

 

[mtgcollector01]

I don't know, I don't wanna make either party angry, but I don't know what to do.

 

[mtgcollector01]

Anyone else got some advice?

 

[Ns1]

how much was the deal worth?

 

[Azraele]

You could offer a full refund if he returns the goods you shipped. Once he ships them and mails you with a tracking #, then send out a refund, including the cost to ship the items back to you.

 

[MrCodeDude]

<< You could offer a full refund if he returns the goods you shipped. Once he ships them and mails you with a tracking #, then send out a refund, including the cost to ship the items back to you. >>


But then if he did get the RARE cards and didn't send them back. He gets the good cards for free.
-- mrcodedude

 

[pulse8]

If he does that and the guy is lying that he didn't receive these "rare cards", then he's lost those because the guy can just not send them back.

 

[Ns1]

but anyway, tell me if i'm wrong, but if he's bringing you to court, the burden of proof is on him, and he can't exactly prove anything unless he videotaped himself opening the box and whatnot



and judging from your name i assume they're mtg cards

 

[mtgcollector01]

Yes, they are MTG cards. My lawyer thinks it is an easy time in court, but I really don't want to pay him if it is so easy.

I think I'll have a counter-sue the guy for wasting my money and get my court costs back, + money for time lost.

 

[ericb]

I think you're ok...all of my bad auctions like that turned out fine when I called their bluff.

 

[bexar]

Since Nima was "kind" enough to send me this link, I thought I would reply. I am the other party in this transaction. I thought some people might want to hear the rest of the story.

To start with, I can categorically state that I do not have the cards in question. I have gone through everything that was sent to me numerous times. The last time, I even went through the trouble of taking all of the boxes apart so they woul lie flat just to make sure that I did not miss anything. I did not.

Also, I did not start threatening immediately as some seem to think. I sent the money immediately as in within a few hours of the close of auction. I waited 9 days for anything. In that time, I e-mailed the seller 3 times to get the tracking number. I got no response from any of the e-mails. Finally, I sent an e-mail stating that I would start legal actions. I did get a response then which said that the carrier had not picked it up because of address problems.

It took quite a while longer to get any of the cards. During that time I asked for the tracking number again and never got it. I thought it was over when I finally got the package. I went to work immediately sorting the cards for re-sell. I had gone through all of the cards (rough sorting by color only as there were over 10,000 cards). I was looking for one card in particular but had not seen it. I went back through all of the cards with some friends help this time. Still not. That is when I realized the cards were not there.

The first thing I did was to go back through the packing material. Nothing. That is when I e-mailed the seller again. Since it had taken a threat to illicit any response before, that is where I started. Anything else would have been ignored.

I don't want my money back. I want what I paid for. It should not be that difficult. I should not have to file complaints and start lawsuits. I will though. Maybe I will lose in court. That is not the point. The point is I was cheated and want what I paid for. If that means going to court and losing, so be it. But I cannot just let it be.

Al Hetzel

 

[Ranger X]

Is this card worth the trouble of bringing him to court?

 

[bexar]

It is not just one card but 195 cards which are worth over $650 retail. Admittedly, I would only get half of that or less when I sold them. But even if that was only $6, just letting someone get away with my money without putting up some kind of fight just does not seem like the right thing to do.

Al

 

[perry]

Link to the auction.......?

 

[MacBaine]

Just a suggestion, but if you have the packing material, and something that states the shipping weight, you could put everything back together and weight it. This would at least show if they were included or not. I am assuming it is a ton of cards, so it should be easy to see if there were 200 or so cards missing.

-MB

 

[bexar]

For perry, the link to the auction is: http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/56495512. The cards that are missing are all of the ones actually listed in the auction.

For MacBaine, good idea but it wouldn't work. First of all, UPS lists it as exactly 49 pounds. Even if it was an exact weight (which I doubt), less than 200 cards out of 10,000+ would barely register. Second, when I got the cards I was not expecting this kind of problem. I separated the packing out since I recycle it for my own auctions. I keep boxes of bubble wrap and packing peanuts for re-use. The packing is in there with the rest of it. I still have it, but have no way to separate it back out.

 

[bunker]

There is no way this will be resolved on an internet forum. It's one party's word against another and there is no way any of us here can know who is telling the truth. If you want this solved, take it to court.

 

[Croton]

man......................

where are the cards then??

 

[ItsStillUS]

This is why i don't like trading, buying, or auctioning anything online. MY guess is that MTG thought the cards were there but were not. and by the way, What are MTG cards???

 

[MacBaine]

MTG = Magic: The Gathering

 

[ItsStillUS]

people still play that? Man i'm out of the loop

 

[clarkmo]

<< OK, this is it. About 7000 cards left. A couple hundred rares in there as well.. Here is a partial list : >>

It sounds like there were some other auctions. Were the cards sold in these other auctions? Inadvertently perhaps? It sounds like these were the primary cards in the auction, the rest generally easy and cheap cards to acquire, unless you got luckyy with some of the 7000.
From another auction:

<< There are also about 200 rares that are all Tier2 that I am desperately searching for ,and the high bidder will automatically get! >>

You are selling something you are desperately searching for? You need to get better organized. It seems totally believable that you put these cards in another package or never recieved them from another purchase. Since you can't be certain, I'd send the guy these cards. I mean, how would he know that you didn't carefully package them so you would know the rares were included? And yet he claims that all are missing and you can't say whether or not they were actually in the package, just that you can't find them at home. There's gotta be a better way to sort these cards. It's mind numbing.

 

[bexar]

clarkmo,

I just have to say thank you. I never even considered looking at the sellers past auctions. Those 200 rares mentioned sound exactly like the ones that were suppose to be sent to me. Once I find that winner's address, I can verify this.

Thanks to your help, what could have been a messy case of finger pointing might actually turn out to be a fairly simple case to prove conclusively.

Thanks again,

Al

 

[Michael]

If you paid by credit card, charge back. That includes credit card via Paypal. Charge back right now before too much more time passes.

I buy MTG cards all the time via Ebay and I always pay by credit card and I don't hesitate to charge back if I have to. So far, with over 250 transactions, I have charged back twice. Paypal is next to useless in protecting the buyer, I just treat them like an agent of my CC comapny and charge back.

Michael