Opinion on this comic deal please!

[ronm3-migration]

This deal goes back almost 16 months. I was dealing with a large comic dealer and just did a 2 deals for 15k. i had another deal pending with the same dealer for 13k. I gave him 4k and told him i would pay him over the next couple of months. Plus we were working on a deal for 1 book for over 50k. When i first bought the other books I sent them into CGC and all of them came back a grade lower. I am not a professional comic grader I do the best that I can but I was relying more on the so called professional for their accuracy with grading. Well all of the money i spent was now worth alot less than it was when i first bought the books. At first i was pissed off and didnt want to finish the new deal with this comic dealer so I held off and figured i would get to it but alot of things came up at work and at home and I forgot all about it. The dealer tried to call me for a couple of months and said if I didnt get back to him he would either send me back 1200.00 of the 4k I sent him or he would send me back my 4k when he sold all of the books we had agreed on. Over a year passes and I finally spoke to the comic dealer the other day and he is telling me he tried for months to get in touch with me and that for his time I should pay him and that I lost him potential sales for that period. He told me that he doesnt have any of the books anymore or at least he thinks he doesnt. What do you guys think? What is the right approach for me. I was being charged specific grade prices and none of them came back the grade they were graded. if I invested 3500 in a book because it was a 9.2 it came back a 9.0 and now it is cut in half. Same for all of them. How would some of you approach it?

[MikeS]

Wow, I can't believe you let 4k sit around for over a year with a dealer and not do anything about it....

 

It sounds as if he tried to get in touch with you earlier on, and you choose not to respond to him. It sucks that he can't grade, but you were responsible for getting in touch with him and did waste his time.

 

Since he doesn't think he has the books anymore, there really isn't a "comic deal" anymore.

 

If I were you, I would be begging and pleading to get my 4k back. At the least, maybe you can get credit from him for some other books he might have.

 

Good luck!

[Silver Surfer]

So let me get this straight and please don't take this the wrong way. You basically spent about $90K with this one dealer and you didn't stipulate some sort of reimbursement if the grades did not pan out as advertised? Also, why would you place this guy on ignore for a year when he is holding $4,000 of your money? What were you trying to accomplish by contacting this dealer a year later when it obviously seems like you had written off your deposit with him? I can understand his frustration and if I were you I would just get whatever money back that you can. Maybe next time you should think through your next big transaction before you commit your money.

[shadroch]

Here is a suggestion.for future transactions.

If the seller is agreeable,the two of you sit down and agree on a series of prices that you will pay for the CGC graded books. He ships them to CGC and when they come back all you need do is compare the grades to the pricelist you both agreed upon.

The drawback for you is that you are now paying for CGC books which almost always sell at a premium,but you are paying for the correct grade.But you will have completely eliminated the chance that the books were restored,which is a very big plus.

Drawback for the dealer is that he needs to wait that much longer for his money,but he will end up getting better money for his books. If he can grade.He'd most likely want a hefty deposit from you,as well.

I can't comment on this transaction as there are too many variables that you don't mention,and I'm sure the dealer has a very different perspective on it as well.

[sckao]

He didn't spend 90k.. he did 2 deals for 15k and the deal for 13k of which he put down 4k as a deposit. The 50k deal was a possible deal that never happened.

 

So he's out 19k, 15k of which he has already received comics for that came back a grade lower than expected.

 

The 13k deal he put on hold himself since he received the books back from the first 15k deal and was disappointed.

 

This put the dealer in the untenable position of not being able to sell the 13k books since a deposit had already been placed on them. The dealer should have returned the deposit money prior to selling the books. The dealer and buyer could also have pre-negotiated a kill fee for the deal in case it became apparent that the buyer was no longer interested in completing the transaction. (The kill fee the dealer apparently tried to negotiate was $2800 of the $4000 or the entire $4000 when the books were subsequently sold. If this is true, then the dealer basically offered to refund the entire amount.)

 

A tough situation. I think a kill fee IS warranted in this situation, although the amount ($2800) seems rather large.

[Wardschenk]

Soulnds like you leagaly have the right to some or all of your $4K back but that would depend on what kind of written contract you had with the dealer. It sounds like he tried to get in touch with you for several months and you failed to respond, thus you failed to pay and in a sense "quit" the transaction. He may have a leg to stand on and charge you since your deposit on the books did keep him from selling them and you failed to complete the transaction. The whole grading aspect of the deal is almost irrelevant unless you had a written guarantee about the final outcome of the grade, which is, even with CGC subjective. Good luck. I would have to agree with the other guy. Start to beg and plea for your money back and a little crying wouldn't hurt.

[Aces]

 

I think you shouldn't have let things go so long.

Maybe ask for $4000 worth of books because I think he might have spent that cash already. I doubt he kept it in escrow waiting for a year for you to decide to pick up the phone.

[Kermit the frog]

sorry, but that's a strange behaviour (from a buyer) to me...

[buttock]

You have no recourse. Buyer beware. You should never drop that kind of cash without being educated. That's one problem with CGC - it lets any insufficiently_thoughtful_person that has no idea how to grade be an all-star dealer.