PROBATION DISCUSSIONS 21 21

[Subliminal]

Can someone post some pictures of the amount of dups, extent of water damage etc? I think it would be good for people to get a look at the merchandise.

 

 

[burntboy]

Can someone post some pictures of the amount of dups, extent of water damage etc? I think it would be good for people to get a look at the merchandise.

 

 

YUP - and I'll wait for Dice's report with pics before making up my mind.

 

it'll all be about;

 

1. Amount of water damage.

 

2. number of DC/Marvel books.

 

3. any dupes in excess of 5 copies.

 

4. whether ANY copies of the books pictured in the sales thread (or similar) are included.

 

5. presence of any books (other than the Heroes packing copies) that grade VF or better.

 

[MyNameIsLegion]

I'll back up CS a bit here.

 

First of all, from his sales thread it looks like he sold 18 long boxes and not 15. I can believe that if there were water damaged books, especially if heavily damaged, that he pulled those out. But even if not, so what. I'll grant that his discussion leans towards selling the boxes "the same as he got them from Filter81" Still, in the sales thread Qualtiycomics early on mentions that they went from Koch to Neat Stuff to Filter and had been culled all along the way.

 

Plus if you believe that the water damaged boxes were pulled and you factor in postage, he really is selling them for about what he paid. He was selling them for $150 shipped and postage via media mail is about $18 per.

 

They are then being sold as a mystery box. Everyone gets their panties in a twist if they are out $75 but if they happen to make $150 nobody comes running back sharing the profits. It's similar to buying a NM book and sending it to CGC, getting an 8.5 and demanding a refund but you get a 9.8 and HAHAHAHA.

 

As a seller CS has hurt his reputation. Whether grossly or only slightly misrepresenting what is sold - it hurts his reputation. The self policing on this board has done a nice job as usual.

 

But the outrage for being scammed is getting a bit much. It sounds like most folks were out 10% of the number of books with another 10% were over duplicated than advertised. Plus some in less than advertised condition. I partly feel like you get what you pay for. Sort of like paying money to a Carney and not winning the big prize.

 

From a disinterested party's point of view I'd go with a $50 refund per box as fair compensation. Tempest in a teapot here folks.

 

 

Link to the Original CS Sales Thread

 

Ed, honest to god, you'd be hard pressed to break even at $75 a box. That's 25 cents apiece. Of the 4 boxes, if I blew them out at a show, I might git rid of one box worth, but the rest would languish for years due to the extreme number of dupes from a very narrow range of 3rd-tier titles. If I got $75 a box refunded, I'd still be in the hole and doing sergio a favor for taking these off his hands. Deception by omission and some very misleading photos is what sold the books. I'm the one that asked for pics of the boxes to get an idea of what was there. He claimed most titles were there. Not even close. Most single issues are not warehouse copies, they are old comic store stock in vg from a hand-full of comics stores. If this were ebay, and he presented these as such, he'd have nothing but negative feedback.

[Vtcomics]

Well after reading these sparkling reviews of the boxes that have been received, I just can't wait to get the one that I ordered...

 

Same here. Damn it.

[ChasingKingKirby]

I am done defending myself because there is nothing to defend!

 

The decription of each long box is exactly as described and I even added the Heroes Inc #1's as padding for free.

 

I am sorry if there weren't comics of expectation for some buyer.

 

Each and every box had Marvel and DC comics, not more than 5 of the same issue per box, all VG to VF/NM, all 1970's Bronze.

 

Again I have about 700 water damaged bronze comics that anyone can have if they choose.

 

 

 

 

I've not received mine yet, but just because you're acting this way, I'll document mine from receipt, to opening the box, and show pictures of everything I get in it.

 

I'm not saying that I've been scammed because I've not received them yet, but I'll have plenty of evidence to back it up either way. This is for my protection because someone is not telling the truth, you...or everyone else. We'll see who it is.

 

 

+1

[MyNameIsLegion]

I suggest refusing to receive shipment and filing a paypal claim.

[DiceX]

I'll back up CS a bit here.

 

First of all, from his sales thread it looks like he sold 18 long boxes and not 15. I can believe that if there were water damaged books, especially if heavily damaged, that he pulled those out. But even if not, so what. I'll grant that his discussion leans towards selling the boxes "the same as he got them from Filter81" Still, in the sales thread Qualtiycomics early on mentions that they went from Koch to Neat Stuff to Filter and had been culled all along the way.

 

Plus if you believe that the water damaged boxes were pulled and you factor in postage, he really is selling them for about what he paid. He was selling them for $150 shipped and postage via media mail is about $18 per.

 

They are then being sold as a mystery box. Everyone gets their panties in a twist if they are out $75 but if they happen to make $150 nobody comes running back sharing the profits. It's similar to buying a NM book and sending it to CGC, getting an 8.5 and demanding a refund but you get a 9.8 and HAHAHAHA.

 

As a seller CS has hurt his reputation. Whether grossly or only slightly misrepresenting what is sold - it hurts his reputation. The self policing on this board has done a nice job as usual.

 

But the outrage for being scammed is getting a bit much. It sounds like most folks were out 10% of the number of books with another 10% were over duplicated than advertised. Plus some in less than advertised condition. I partly feel like you get what you pay for. Sort of like paying money to a Carney and not winning the big prize.

 

From a disinterested party's point of view I'd go with a $50 refund per box as fair compensation. Tempest in a teapot here folks.

 

 

Link to the Original CS Sales Thread

 

You can step down from the self righteous soap box now.

If the seller mislead anyone, that's his fault. Don't try to throw this on the buyer because they thought they were getting a good deal. The seller KNEW what he was selling, and chose to misrepresent it to make the sale. Wrong is wrong. Don't act like the morality police because it's a weak and flawed spin on the argument.

 

 

[DR.X]

I am done defending myself because there is nothing to defend!

 

The decription of each long box is exactly as described and I even added the Heroes Inc #1's as padding for free.

 

I am sorry if there weren't comics of expectation for some buyer.

 

Each and every box had Marvel and DC comics, not more than 5 of the same issue per box, all VG to VF/NM, all 1970's Bronze.

 

Again I have about 700 water damaged bronze comics that anyone can have if they choose.

 

 

 

 

I've not received mine yet, but just because you're acting this way, I'll document mine from receipt, to opening the box, and show pictures of everything I get in it.

 

I'm not saying that I've been scammed because I've not received them yet, but I'll have plenty of evidence to back it up either way. This is for my protection because someone is not telling the truth, you...or everyone else. We'll see who it is.

 

 

I cant wait for your review, and the pics.

 

DRX

[User 01001010]

Since the mods are hands off with this and we as board members have to self monitor, why don't we as a community come up with definate rules to oversee the transactions. would it be wrong to say that if it came to be known that 95% of the members decide that if you have 2 or 3 "strikes" then you are banned from selling or buying?

 

i guess what i'm saying is we as a whole have to come to a consensus as to what will be allowable and what will not since the mods will not have any hand in this and start to police ourselves in a more thourogh manner with defined limits and accountability?

 

the last thing i want to see is it get so bad here that the selling boards are removed completely.

 

j

[JerryZ]

I'll back up CS a bit here.

 

First of all, from his sales thread it looks like he sold 18 long boxes and not 15. I can believe that if there were water damaged books, especially if heavily damaged, that he pulled those out. But even if not, so what. I'll grant that his discussion leans towards selling the boxes "the same as he got them from Filter81" Still, in the sales thread Qualtiycomics early on mentions that they went from Koch to Neat Stuff to Filter and had been culled all along the way.

 

Plus if you believe that the water damaged boxes were pulled and you factor in postage, he really is selling them for about what he paid. He was selling them for $150 shipped and postage via media mail is about $18 per.

 

They are then being sold as a mystery box. Everyone gets their panties in a twist if they are out $75 but if they happen to make $150 nobody comes running back sharing the profits. It's similar to buying a NM book and sending it to CGC, getting an 8.5 and demanding a refund but you get a 9.8 and HAHAHAHA.

 

As a seller CS has hurt his reputation. Whether grossly or only slightly misrepresenting what is sold - it hurts his reputation. The self policing on this board has done a nice job as usual.

 

But the outrage for being scammed is getting a bit much. It sounds like most folks were out 10% of the number of books with another 10% were over duplicated than advertised. Plus some in less than advertised condition. I partly feel like you get what you pay for. Sort of like paying money to a Carney and not winning the big prize.

 

From a disinterested party's point of view I'd go with a $50 refund per box as fair compensation. Tempest in a teapot here folks.

 

 

Link to the Original CS Sales Thread

 

You can step down from the self righteous soap box now.

If the seller mislead anyone, that's his fault. Don't try to throw this on the buyer because they thought they were getting a good deal. The seller KNEW what he was selling, and chose to misrepresent it to make the sale. Wrong is wrong. Don't act like the morality police because it's a weak and flawed spin on the argument.

 

 

Took the words right out of my mouth sir.

Also this nonsense of "sharing the profits" after someone gets a deal and gets it graded etc,,Cmon thats ridiculous! If buyer and seller are happy with the transaction then its great ,but in this case the buyers are NOT VERY happy with the purchase..

Misleading people to make a sale is just wrong..Im sure all the pissed of buyers will love you suggesting a 50 dollar refund per box I think thats up to them not you..I thank god didnt get taken but if I did I would expect a FULL refund be given..And if this seller "filled the boxes' with the heroes books...Why would he do that? He said in an earlier post or someone pointed out he said that they sell for 15 bux each?? So you stuff these boxes with what you say is 450 bucks worth of "FILLER"???

[ft88]

 

 

Ed, honest to god, you'd be hard pressed to break even at $75 a box. That's 25 cents apiece. Of the 4 boxes, if I blew them out at a show, I might git rid of one box worth, but the rest would languish for years due to the extreme number of dupes from a very narrow range of 3rd-tier titles. If I got $75 a box refunded, I'd still be in the hole and doing sergio a favor for taking these off his hands. Deception by omission and some very misleading photos is what sold the books. I'm the one that asked for pics of the boxes to get an idea of what was there. He claimed most titles were there. Not even close. Most single issues are not warehouse copies, they are old comic store stock in vg from a hand-full of comics stores. If this were ebay, and he presented these as such, he'd have nothing but negative feedback.

 

No argument that you will lose money here but you took a chance and lost. CS takes a hit to his reputation as he deserves. But his refund should be based on what he promoted that turned out to not be true. Ie how many comics at no more than 5 copies of any one issue did you get? The percent less than 300 you should get refunded. You can only do that on a per box basis and not in aggreagate if you bought more than one box. Same with condition to a point. But some of the allegations seem as over the top as CS saying he did nothing wrong.

 

In the end I don't have much sympathy for those buying mystery boxes and then being outraged when they are disappointed. The misrepresentation - yes, value for what you paid - no.

[the blob]

"WTF am I going to do with 100 copies of 5 issue of mid grade Star Wars, or Marvel Tales, Conan, Marvel Premiere 3-D man, etc. I'm going to end of throwing them out is what."

 

First off, there's no reason to throw them out. Donate them to your local library or something. Second of all, those are all perfectly acceptable 50 cent or dollar box books. If you had a store or sold cheap stuff at shows, that's where they'd go and they'd probably get bought up over the course of 6 months. One of my LCSes puts stuff like that in their 3 for $2 box and it never hangs around for long (other than water damaged stuff, which does). Sure, you don't spend $150 to get a box of stuff like this. My LCS would probably pay whichever homeless guy brought them in 5-10 cents each.

 

Even assuming no outright dishonesty, one should really look at boxes before making specific representations about them or say "I don't know what's in there and don't have the time to look"

 

I think a lot of people had high expectations because someone else made a post that made it sound like these were great books, having seen them when filter had them, etc.. That's why I almost bought a box. With that, weren't we being a bit unrealistic in thinking we'd be getting a box of 300 relatively sharp 70's comics without too many dupes? I had visions of paying for the whole shebang with the best 20-30 books out of the box.

 

 

 

[the blob]

Agreed, but buying unsearched BA longboxes for $100 each, cherry picking them, and then selling them off for $150 (*exactly* what he paid? WTF!) each?

-------------------------

 

well, i don't think it would be dishonest for him to include his cost of shipping to get the books to him in his subsequent price. how much does a long box cost to ship media nowadays?

[ft88]

 

You can step down from the self righteous soap box now.

If the seller mislead anyone, that's his fault. Don't try to throw this on the buyer because they thought they were getting a good deal. The seller KNEW what he was selling, and chose to misrepresent it to make the sale. Wrong is wrong. Don't act like the morality police because it's a weak and flawed spin on the argument.

 

 

I agree with you, but a lot of the allegations are without basis - 1. That he cherry picked 2. That all the books are water logged 3. That he claimed via paypal that the Heroes were worth $15 each (I actually believe this but I can't verify he did in fact say this, context is everything). A lot of this is either conjecture (I am not a lawyer but I watch LA law) or doesn't matter a heck of a lot. But yes, any misrepresenting should be paid back in full.

 

And I hope I am not acting like the morality police just posting a different viewpoint.

 

As a morality policeman I would suggest that he either refund in full or to an agreed upon amount to protect his reputation. I would also suggest he not sell items like this again. I would also suggest buyers not buy mystery boxes or items that appear too good to be true.

 

I would only suggest these things if I were a morality policeman..... which I am not.

[MyNameIsLegion]

 

 

Ed, honest to god, you'd be hard pressed to break even at $75 a box. That's 25 cents apiece. Of the 4 boxes, if I blew them out at a show, I might git rid of one box worth, but the rest would languish for years due to the extreme number of dupes from a very narrow range of 3rd-tier titles. If I got $75 a box refunded, I'd still be in the hole and doing sergio a favor for taking these off his hands. Deception by omission and some very misleading photos is what sold the books. I'm the one that asked for pics of the boxes to get an idea of what was there. He claimed most titles were there. Not even close. Most single issues are not warehouse copies, they are old comic store stock in vg from a hand-full of comics stores. If this were ebay, and he presented these as such, he'd have nothing but negative feedback.

 

No argument that you will lose money here but you took a chance and lost. CS takes a hit to his reputation as he deserves. But his refund should be based on what he promoted that turned out to not be true. Ie how many comics at no more than 5 copies of any one issue did you get? The percent less than 300 you should get refunded. You can only do that on a per box basis and not in aggreagate if you bought more than one box. Same with condition to a point. But some of the allegations seem as over the top as CS saying he did nothing wrong.

 

In the end I don't have much sympathy for those buying mystery boxes and then being outraged when they are disappointed. The misrepresentation - yes, value for what you paid - no.

 

 

A number of the guys that got boxes are comparing notes, which is how we've come to figure out that every box is the same content fro the most part, with the same 3rd-tier issues in bulk. The "filler" of Heroes Inc, isn't filler, it's what go the sum to 300 per box. I've got 80 copies in 3 boxes. That's not as advertised. I had 5-10 copies of certain issues in certain boxes. If I can't take the aggregate of having multiple boxes, then the distribution is actually worse. I'm not going to take the aggregate in CS's favor that's for sure. There are not enough unique issues over the four boxes to ever get rid of them. I have a stack of Marvel Tales, Star Wars, BattleStar Galactica, Heroes, & Conan that fill one whole box and have maybe 20 unique issues. I've sent a paypal request for a 50% refund. That's my minimum acceptable restitution. I'll eat the other $300, as it's barely worth fooling with these books at all, the opportunity cost and labor is too high. If he balks at that, it will be a paypal dispute, I will use this thread as evidence, and I will encourage others to do the same. Paypal will track the number of complaints against a seller and it will impact him negatively. He has every means to make this right, if he digs in his heals over $1000 in refunds, it will cost him a helluva lot more in future business.

[the blob]

"I think a lot of people had high expectations because someone else made a post that made it sound like these were great books, having seen them when filter had them, etc.. That's why I almost bought a box."

 

It seems I misread the intent of qualitycomix's comment on these books. When he indicated these were "leftovers" from a group that had a ton of 9.2+ books that had been culled, I was thinking these were a lot of 6.0 - 8.5 books, not that 9.2 - 9.6 books were sitting alongside a bunch of waterstained beaters.

[MyNameIsLegion]

I should also point out that this was Advertised as Marvel and DC. I have more copies of Heroes Inc than I do DC comics. That theses are 85% Marvel makes a huge difference in a person making an informed purchase. I would not have done it, not one box.

[ft88]

If all you have is 20 unique issues, then this is grossly misrepresented. I can't imagine those types being all in G to G/VG unless there is overall water damage. But either way, a 50% or more refund seems to be in order.

 

My impression was about 50-70 individual issues where only a 25% refund might be in order.

 

BTW here's my point of reference. I have a warehouse seller who sells me long boxes all the time (see my Golden Key sales thread). He sends them to me first. I review and make an offer which so far he has accepted each time. Even then I get disappointed because there's only so much I can do with 25 cent Harvey's. But no way in he11 am I going to pay before I get to see them. It helps that we've been doing this for 3 years now so we have mutual trust, but I still wouldn't pay first.

 

That said, I feel for you, as having crappy books hanging around the house is a bear. I say eat the loss and move on, it's not worth the hassle other than a paypal dispute which you're following.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Good thing I didn't waste the time going down to Newport...what this guy should do is simply partially refund everyone's payment an amount the BUYER thinks is fair, Shipping long boxes back and forth is a spendy and fruitless endeavor, unless the seller pays for it. Hold his feet to the fire.

[MyNameIsLegion]

I agree Rock, the only person that makes out on this is the post office. I can't see how Sergio could possibly want these back. These comics are like toxic assets/ credit default swaps. These books were sliced and diced and repackaged just like all that financial chicanery. They were over-rated and now their true market value is coming to light. We need a bail -out!