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

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/8/2022 at 4:56 PM, Domo Arigato said:

I haven't seen this addressed yet.....so I may be misreading it.  

Slugshots Comics is now in possession of the book.  He had Omaha-CGC-Comics list it for sale here as a consignment. 

Did Slugshot then list the book for sale on his Instagram as well?

If so, this is against forum selling rules.  Specifically, the one listed below:

A sale thread must be an exclusive Boards-only offer. If the book is offered for sale through another venue such as a personal site, dealer site, eBay, etc., then it should not be offered here. If a book is offered elsewhere, it should be offered in the Sales Advertising board.

 

I don’t believe Slugshots had it for sale. He had made some posts showing it off, how much he liked it, etc - but no discussion on whether it was for sale or not.

[Domo Arigato]

On 7/7/2022 at 2:11 PM, Dr. Balls said:

I am a little surprised at the culture of selling books on consignment and not disclosing that you don't have possession of the book. Clearly these sellers and auction houses know that not telling buyers they don't have the book in hand could discourage a sale.

The business philosophy of purposefully omitting important details of the transaction in order to secure a sale is not something I subscribe to. Intermediary or not, I now find the whole concept of consignment incredibly shady unless you are actually holding the book.

If a forum member does not have physical possession of a book they're selling for someone else....then they should be required to note in their sales thread that it's a consignment and they don't have the book in hand.

I  would be all for having @CGC Mike add this to the Marketplace Rules.

 

[Artboy99]

the seller used Comiclink and Dr. Balls as a method of "price checking" the book. Wasted everyone's time.

[CGC Mike]

On 7/8/2022 at 7:23 PM, Domo Arigato said:

If a forum member does not have physical possession of a book they're selling for someone else....then they should be required to note in their sales thread that it's a consignment and they don't have the book in hand.

I  would be all for having @CGC Mike add this to the Marketplace Rules.

 

As far as changes to the marketplace guidelines, I recommend that a poll is started by a forum member.  In most cases, I will go with the majorities decision.  

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/8/2022 at 6:01 PM, Artboy99 said:

the seller used Comiclink and Dr. Balls as a method of "price checking" the book. Wasted everyone's time.

Yeah, it’s pretty obvious what happened - I paid $8075 for it, two people later are trying to sell it for $9200 - less 10% commission (I assume - that seems pretty lean for the shatshow this turned into) bringing it down to…$8075. 
 

The problem is that it sat in Omaha’s thread for almost three weeks with no takers at $9200. So is it really worth $8000, but no one wants to give up an extra 10%? The numbnut who traded it off obviously got way more than $7200 in trade, otherwise he wouldn’t have backed out on the deal. I think the price checking going on establishes it as worth less than what I paid for it. Now, will someone else pay $8k? I would - but clearly no one is interested in $9k.

I now know that at $8k, I am backwards on my investment. I believe long-term it can be recouped - but the guy thinking he can flip it at $9200 with commission in two weeks has been shown that won’t work.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Dr. Balls

[Domo Arigato]

On 7/8/2022 at 7:23 PM, CGC Mike said:

As far as changes to the marketplace guidelines, I recommend that a poll is started by a forum member.  In most cases, I will go with the majorities decision.  

Done.

Link

 

Edited July 9, 2022 by Domo Arigato

[Domo Arigato]

Also @CGC Mike......I wasn't sure where to put the poll, so I just put it in Comics General to get the most eyes on it.....and then posted a note and link to the poll in the Marketplace Forum (General Discussion Thread).

If you need to move this poll/thread to another area, please do so.

 

[ComicsAndCode]

On 7/7/2022 at 5:27 AM, Dr. Balls said:

True. I understand the nature of FB and IG sellers being on there to get around huge selling fees, but man - it’s sketchy most of the time. And not just comics, the record scene also has more than their fair share of shady IG and FB sellers. 

The unfortunate issue is that one of those shady IG sellers made their way into ComicLink and brought their craptastic sense of ethics behavior with them and smeared it all over CLink and two other sellers. I’m sure CLink isn’t happy that there is a thread with 2K views reading about how their deal went bad because this numbnut flaked out of a sale and left us hanging for over a month. 

One can only hope CLink ban this guy from buying/selling and starts sending a message that if you go back on a legally binding agreement there will be a price to pay for it.

I think the consequence should be more than just banning the seller. When the seller break a binding contract like this, they should be responsible for the 10% to CL. StockX does this.

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/9/2022 at 2:58 AM, ComicsAndCode said:

I think the consequence should be more than just banning the seller. When the seller break a binding contract like this, they should be responsible for the 10% to CL. StockX does this.

That’s true - breaking a binding contract should have a little more consequence than just shrugging your shoulders when you get banned and creating a new seller account with a different name. 

[ComicsAndCode]

On 7/9/2022 at 7:45 AM, Dr. Balls said:

That’s true - breaking a binding contract should have a little more consequence than just shrugging your shoulders when you get banned and creating a new seller account with a different name. 

..by the way, sorry to hear you and our wife had to go through that b*llsh*t. What an utter waste of time!

Exactly. Any comic dealers or exchange out there that do collect a penalty fee? I'm not aware. As a dealer, I require items be shipped in advance to avoid this sort of mess, but in the future, if I let them hold, then I'll be enforcing a penalty fee.

Also perhaps worth noting, a similar situation happened to me about a year ago with Comic Connect / Metropolis Comics and as a result, I won't be doing business with them again. It was for an ASM #3 listed in their market or exchange section. Sent check, they cashed it. Dealt with a Jeff Maza who never responded to my request for tracking info over a two-week period. I reached out to Rob Reynolds who finally bore the news to me that the seller backed out. Within a couple days, I received my refund check. In my case, I didn't bother finding out who the seller was. Simply too time-consuming. But maybe I should have. I suspect it was as you mentioned, one of those IG sellers who made their way into Comic Connect.

So I do believe this is a bigger problem in the industry and clearly not isolated to just Comic Link. And I think the consignee should be held fully accountable because they are providing the service. In my opinion, I have my doubts that they will ever effectively address the problem, either because A) it's too costly to change a broken process, B) requires a skill set that they do not possess in-house, C) a fear of losing consignors' business or D) all of the above.

Edited July 12, 2022 by ComicsAndCode

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/9/2022 at 9:21 AM, ComicsAndCode said:

I do believe this is a bigger problem in the industry and clearly not isolated to just Comic Link. And I think the consignee should be held fully accountable because they are providing the service. In my opinion, I have my doubts that they will ever effectively address the problem, either because A) it's too costly to change a broken process, B) requires a skill set that they do not possess in-house, C) a fear of losing consignors' business or D) all of the above.

In dealing with various auction places, I see that a real effective solution to ComicLink's issue with the exchange is to insure and store all consignment books on site like the other guys. But, that comes with it's own set of problems and procedures and it might be like you said: too costly to change a broken process.

[Gaard]

I'm totally ignorant when it comes to BIN buying on other auction sites that have the books in hand. What kind of problems do buyers experience?

[Dr. Balls]

Update: Received our check from ComicLink and deposited. I would encourage everyone who had to read about this donkey flogging waste of time weigh in on the CGC Board poll about sellers having to disclose if they have a consigned book in-hand in sales threads (it will help make OUR sales threads continue to be one of the best places to buy books):

That poll can be found here.

Thanks to everyone for sympathy and words of encouragement in the thread. We are off to find another Chamber of Chills 19. 

[oakman29]

I would be 8000x pisse d . What kind of shady stuff is this.

[oakman29]

On 7/8/2022 at 4:23 PM, Domo Arigato said:

If a forum member does not have physical possession of a book they're selling for someone else....then they should be required to note in their sales thread that it's a consignment and they don't have the book in hand.

I  would be all for having @CGC Mike add this to the Marketplace Rules.

 

You would think it common knowledge. 

[Beastfeast]

On 7/12/2022 at 6:37 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Update: Received our check from ComicLink and deposited. I would encourage everyone who had to read about this donkey flogging waste of time weigh in on the CGC Board poll about sellers having to disclose if they have a consigned book in-hand in sales threads (it will help make OUR sales threads continue to be one of the best places to buy books):

That poll can be found here.

Thanks to everyone for sympathy and words of encouragement in the thread. We are off to find another Chamber of Chills 19. 

What a wild ride.  Glad you got your money back and that suckssss you missed out on that book.  Here's to hoping you get it for half in the near future.  

[Ltpink2002]

Consider contacting marmat on the board. He had a nice universal cgc 6.5 for sale last year.

 

Good luck

[Ltpink2002]

 

[shadroch]

I'm glad you got your money back. 

Edited July 13, 2022 by shadroch

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 7/13/2022 at 9:13 AM, shadroch said:

I'm glad you got your money back. 

+1