Paid for a book on CLink Exchange, we never get the book - shows up for sale on the Boards 10 10

[Dr. Balls]

So before I get into the details here, I approached the current seller @Omaha-CGC-Comics asking if he had recently purchased the book, to which I got a reply that he was "selling for a friend". He has provided me with the owners contact information, and I would like to make it clear that this is not an issue with Omaha-CGC-Comics or with ComicLink - but with the owner of the book, whom I am trying to contact now.

On June 3rd we negotiated a deal for Chamber of Chills #19 CGC 2.5 for $8000 on ComicLink Exchange:

We paid by check and if I recall, our check was cashed on June 10th. I'm not sure of the exact protocol Clink has for sellers to send books in, but one would assume that the seller was notified June 10th that the funds were available. We didn't think anything was up at Clink until our auction books (that closed well after we paid for the CoC book) showed up a few weeks later without the CoC book enclosed. This is when we opened up a discussion with them. After several phone calls to several different people my wife talked with Spencer in Billing, who was very nice and professional in trying to reach out to the seller.

Our concerns were the fact that we had $8000 hanging out there that no one seemingly followed up on the missing book (we did that). The seller stated the book had become lost, he felt bad, etc. Not sure how you lose an $8000 book, but that's a story for another day. Spencer did tell us that he regretted that this was our first experience with the Exchange and it'd worked out so poorly. He re-assured us we would be getting our money back (which I believe) and we feel ComicLink did their level best to remedy the situation - which is mostly out of their hands and at the mercy of trusting sellers on the Exchange.

However, today as I was cruising the sales threads, I find the book we bought was posted on June 14th here.. Posted after we paid for it, and posted for $1200 more than the price agreed upon. Now, the odd thing is that the seller accepted our price. If they wanted more, they simply could have just declined our offer.

The purpose of this post? This was a shady deal. Normally, I'd let a reneged deal just go on by - however, it's a different ball game when someone backs out on a deal and I haven't received my money back. Plus, it's on ComicLink's Exchange which has had it's problems in the past from what I have read about sellers not sending in books. Again, I don't blame CLink because they have to trust sellers to do the right thing. And dealers, I'd probably exercise more caution in posting up books for friends if this is the kind of things that happen. It can't be good for the reputation to be fencing a book someone else has paid for.

I also don't believe that in the time of our check being cashed and the time of the book being posted (4 days) that the owner of the CoC book had sold it to someone else. This is the book we bought, and that the owner wanted more money for it. Which is fine - but you need to have decided that before taking my money.

If the "friend" who this book belongs to is reading this post, I would say that you have a little time left to contact Spencer at CLink and make the deal right and send me the book we paid for.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Dr. Balls
Edited June 6th for June 3rd, the correct date and added link to sales thread.

[Stronguy]

[Timmay]

 

[thehumantorch]

This doesn't look good.

@Omaha-CGC-Comics what's going on?

[Omaha-CGC-Comics]

I am pulling the book from the thread and I will get you the owners info. I'm staying out of it...

[MatterEaterLad]

If the seller accepted the offer and clink cashed the check, the seller has some explaining to do. 

[southern cross]

🍿

[Omaha-CGC-Comics]

Apparently the guy I sell some books for received it in a trade. He is contacting the person from whom he received it. That's all I know as of now.

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/6/2022 at 11:06 AM, Omaha-CGC-Comics said:

Apparently the guy I sell some books for received it in a trade. He is contacting the person from whom he received it. That's all I know as of now.

I have sent a message to the guy that Omaha knows via Instagram and am waiting for a follow-up.

[iggykoopa]

All I can say is wow.

[Lightning55]

And I get worried when a $100 deal seems to go sideways.  Yeesh.

[MattTheDuck]

This is one I haven't heard before in my admittedly short time around CL and the Boards.  Going to be interesting to see where your money ended up - I assume it's with the original CL seller who may have sold his or her last comic book on CL.

[WolverineX]

On 7/6/2022 at 1:49 PM, MattTheDuck said:

This is one I haven't heard before in my admittedly short time around CL and the Boards.  Going to be interesting to see where your money ended up - I assume it's with the original CL seller who may have sold his or her last comic book on CL.

Yeah.  With CL, I think you will get your money back no matter what.  But still very annoying.  

[MattTheDuck]

On 7/6/2022 at 10:51 AM, Wolverinex said:

Yeah.  With CL, I think you will get your money back no matter what.  But still very annoying.  

I've had a couple of glitchy financial things on my end that they dealt with very well.  Have also had no problems ordering Exchange books, including adding them to an existing Auction win book to save on shipping.  My experience is that they have their act together and the OP will be made whole.

[WolverineX]

On 7/6/2022 at 1:53 PM, MattTheDuck said:

I've had a couple of glitchy financial things on my end that they dealt with very well.  Have also had no problems ordering Exchange books, including adding them to an existing Auction win book to save on shipping.  My experience is that they have their act together and the OP will be made whole.

Agreed.

 

Sounds like the original seller may have listed the book and then traded it to this new owner for something else and then never followed up with CL.  Anyway, this is why you buy big books through a trusted intermediary.... imagine the hell dealing with a person who cashes 8k and then drops all communication.  

[BlowUpTheMoon]

On 7/6/2022 at 1:58 PM, Wolverinex said:

Anyway, this is why you buy big books through a trusted intermediary....

ComicLink is supposed to be the "trusted intermediary". 

[Dr. Balls]

So, I am assuming this is probably the end of the road on this, so here's the update.

I was given the name of the seller Slugshots Comics and his Instagram feed @Slugshots.Comics, and contacted him there. Slugshots Comics had obtained/posted the book on June 15th on his Instagram feed, a day after having it posted here on the Boards for sale by Omaha.

In response to "Im not sure what i can do for you", I said "you could provide me the name of the person you got the trade from, because the explanation was not quite as simple as it sounds, and that ComicLink would like to speak to him." He saw that message 45 minutes ago and has not responded. Take that for what you will, but if a guy traded me a book that was already sold and the owner of the book was breathing down my neck, I don't think I'd hold out on the guys name.

So, with all that being said and screencapped - I have turned all this over to CLink, as they know the name of the original consignor and they can do whatever they need to do on that end. We will be made whole by CLink, I have no doubt about that. Special thank you again to Spencer, who has been attentive and professional with this. Thank you to Omaha-CGC-Comics for recognizing some next-level BS and helping me out without a bunch of arm-twisting.

The reason I am picking pepper out of gnat shiat on this deal is that because my wife and I chose to buy a big book through a reputable source, and I think it's wrong for a seller to pull this kind of BS especially after they have a deal. I don't care if it's comic books, cars or baseball cards. A deal is a deal, and if you're going to renege - then it's fair game for people to discuss it.

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Dr. Balls

[MattTheDuck]

On 7/6/2022 at 11:17 AM, Dr. Balls said:

So, I am assuming this is probably the end of the road on this, so here's the update.

I was given the name of the seller Slugshots Comics and his Instagram feed @Slugshots.Comics, and contacted him there. Slugshots Comics had obtained/posted the book on June 15th on his Instagram feed, a day after having it posted here on the Boards for sale by Omaha.

In response to "Im not sure what i can do for you", I said "you could provide me the name of the person you got the trade from, because the explanation was not quite as simple as it sounds, and that ComicLink would like to speak to him." He saw that message 45 minutes ago and has not responded. Take that for what you will, but if a guy traded me a book that was already sold and the owner of the book was breathing down my neck, I don't think I'd hold out on the guys name.

So, with all that being said and screencapped - I have turned all this over to CLink, as they know the name of the original consignor and they can do whatever they need to do on that end. We will be made whole by CLink, I have no doubt about that. Special thank you again to Spencer, who has been attentive and professional with this. Thank you to Omaha-CGC-Comics for recognizing some next-level BS and helping me out without a bunch of arm-twisting.

The reason I am picking pepper out of gnat on this deal is that because my wife and I chose to buy a big book through a reputable source, and I think it's wrong for a seller to pull this kind of BS especially after they have a deal. I don't care if it's comic books, cars or baseball cards. A deal is a deal, and if you're going to renege - then it's fair game for people to discuss it.

 

I would also say it doesn't matter if it's a "big book."  People who want to transact business at any level have to do it honestly and above board.  Slugshots Comics is risking its business by not fully cooperating with you to make this right.

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/6/2022 at 12:28 PM, MattTheDuck said:

I would also say it doesn't matter if it's a "big book."  People who want to transact business at any level have to do it honestly and above board.  Slugshots Comics is risking its business by not fully cooperating with you to make this right.

It's pretty black and white. We own this book. We paid for it. We have not been given our money back. We will, of course, but until that happens - we own the book.

Part of doing business is trying to make things right when they are wrong. In my original message to Slugshots, I asked him to contact Spencer at ComicLink to set things right as the book was sold. His response was that he got it on a trade, and I have to take that at face value. But, he clearly wants to sell the book - otherwise why ask Omaha to sell it for him? I'm not going to force someone to do what I believe is the right thing, but I would think that if you're in the middle of a shiatshow you may want to take the ethical way out. It's not like he has to give up the book and lose his money, he would be paid by ComicLink. Edit: however, at this point, I don't think I would opt for anyone to do that only because it's a hugely convoluted mess.

Edit: Slugshots Comics has disclosed the name of the original owner whom he made the trade with, I have forwarded that onto ComicLink because he is no longer in possession of it - but I'm still going to ask what's up.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Dr. Balls

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/6/2022 at 11:58 AM, Wolverinex said:

Sounds like the original seller may have listed the book and then traded it to this new owner for something else and then never followed up with CL.

He approved the negotiated price of the book on June 3, and payment to CLink arrived 3 days later, with funds available 4 days after that. He would have either traded that book before he sold it and sold it anyways or after knowing he sold it. So, like I said - the whole thing is shady on someone's part.

And it's really neither here nor there at this point - but selling that book through ComicLink likely is a legally binding agreement of some kind. I think that a person who is going to go back on that probably needs to be outed.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Dr. Balls
Clarification