Shipped Wrong Artwork - Trying To Get It Back From Karl Dignam at The Grid Games in Manchester, CT 2 2

[MAY1979]

On 7/22/2024 at 8:55 AM, batman_fan said:

I won a piece of artwork on Heritage.  They sent me the wrong piece (worth a fraction of what I won).  I contacted them and had to mail the piece back before they would send me mine.

If you had received a more valuable piece by accident, you can be sure legal action would have at minimum be threatend fron minute 1

[tth2]

On 7/23/2024 at 4:45 AM, MAR1979 said:

On 7/22/2024 at 8:55 PM, batman_fan said:

I won a piece of artwork on Heritage.  They sent me the wrong piece (worth a fraction of what I won).  I contacted them and had to mail the piece back before they would send me mine.

If you had received a more valuable piece by accident, you can be sure legal action would have at minimum be threatend fron minute 1

Considering what a big customer Batman_Fan must be of Heritage's, I highly doubt it.

[MAY1979]

On 7/22/2024 at 4:44 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Yeah, it kinda truly is. I feel pity for someone's who's integrity is bought for $245. We're all human, and it's in our nature to do wrong or stupid things when no one is looking - but when they are looking, you kind of figure that you're coerced into doing the right thing. As a business owner myself, I find that I have to step aside from any personal perceptions or ideas that will affect me, and focus on how those decisions will affect my business, or in this case, how my business looks. I would never steal or short a customer simply because I thought I'd never see them again.

He has been making facebook posts over the past 5 days, so I know he's online and has likely read my requests. My guess is that he's just going to ignore them and keep the artwork. 

Standard MO LCS owner - probably already sold it.  

Order of least honest physical goods sellers;

1. Comic Shop Owner

2. Trading Card Seller/Dealer

3. Comic Book Dealer

4. Original Comic Book Art Dealer

5. Used Car Sales Person

 

Edited July 23 by MAR1979

[batman_fan]

On 7/22/2024 at 2:45 PM, MAR1979 said:

If you had received a more valuable piece by accident, you can be sure legal action would have at minimum be threatend fron minute 1

For myself, I would never consider keeping something sent to me on accident but had it been a Ditko Spiderman page with lots of action you can bet I would have got some high resolution images before shipping it back !

[gregreece]

To be clear, I did not say I would go to the store and light the guy up. I used the word figuratively as in "light him up in 50,000 watts for all to see". And I would have no fear of criminal prosecution for doing so. I hope you get your art back but this many days later does not bode well.

[Silver Surfer]

Sorry to hear that. I did that once or twice before but luckily the buyers were super nice about it. Metro shipped me a piece of OA that was for someone else but it was krap and they quickly mailed out a return FedEx label so I just had to drop it off. 

[PhilipB2k17]

On 7/20/2024 at 2:24 PM, gregreece said:

I'm in the other camp. I'd allow plenty of time but if the guy tries to cash in on an honest mistake, I'd light him up. Best of luck!

If he was honest, he would seek to return the page. Or, at the very least, if he wants to keep it -- kick in the extra value for the page he received. 

[PhilipB2k17]

On 7/20/2024 at 8:30 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Then you'd probably end up facing criminal charges.

Unless the law has changed recently--and I don't think it has--then the person who received the artwork is now the legal owner of it and has no legal obligation to return it.

My mother worked for the USPS for many years, and part of her career dealing with high-value packages on a daily basis. This exact situation arose from time to time, and without exception, the person who made the errant shipment had no recourse. Some mistakes are costly.

That's not true. The agreed upon transaction was the sale of a specific piece of art for a specific price. The seller accidentally sent the wrong piece of art. He is entitled to either get it back, or get the difference in value. 

[DougC]

For outing who it is, I think there is a very big difference in clients:

1. If it were some random ebay buyer; outing doesn't serve a purpose other than petty revenge and ends up just looking bad on both parties.
2. As this is a comic store owner and knows full well what happened; it should be used as a deterrent for others who may deal with them in the future.

If this person is taking this route over $100, imagine what kind of "adjustments" they do on the daily for their business? selling books as complete without a centerfold, undisclosed but known restoration, maybe a little trimming to help with marvel chipping? Or even more underhanded swapping out books to unsuspecting customers to "maximize" value/profit.

I guarantee if the situation was reversed the owner would be screaming about getting scammed on all social media platforms in order to get their art back (and sympathy). While it may not be worth outing the name of a common person with shady morals, it helps protect the community to do so for business owners.

[AndyFish]

This has happened to me several times over the years, and it always works out.

I was hoping the Comic Shop Owner was on vacation, or hadn't opened your package, or hadn't had time to check his (or her) email.  Unfortunately since time has passed and they now seem to be actively ignoring you my vote is to out the shop owner.  I want to know what potential problems I have dealing with people.

[thethedew]

On 7/23/2024 at 9:53 AM, AndyFish said:

This has happened to me several times over the years, and it always works out.

I was hoping the Comic Shop Owner was on vacation, or hadn't opened your package, or hadn't had time to check his (or her) email.  Unfortunately since time has passed and they now seem to be actively ignoring you my vote is to out the shop owner.  I want to know what potential problems I have dealing with people.

I would suggest One Last Chance - let him know by one last PM that you intend to Name Names publicly.  His name, and the name of his establishment.  Just keep it factual.

Would that be considered a 'threat'?  I dunno, others can argue that.  I'd actually call it a courtesy. 'From a Certain Point of View'

Edited July 23 by thethedew

[jimbo_7071]

On 7/23/2024 at 9:27 AM, PhilipB2k17 said:

That's not true. The agreed upon transaction was the sale of a specific piece of art for a specific price. The seller accidentally sent the wrong piece of art. He is entitled to either get it back, or get the difference in value. 

Have the laws changed since the late 80s/early 90s? I vividly remember discussing this issue with my mother when she worked for the USPS. There were cases like this where the shipper was just out of luck.

I also remember the rationale for the applicable statute: Apparently, way back when, unscrupulous companies would ship people things that they hadn't ordered and then proceed to try to bill those people.

Some law was passed to the effect that if you ship someone something that the person didn't order, then you essentially gave that person a gift, intentionally or not. It did not apply to items that were correctly addressed but misdelivered, but if the package was addressed to the person, it belonged to that person unless the person had agreed to pay for it prior to shipment.

My mother is not an attorney, but she was in a position to know how these cases were dealt with while she was working for the USPS.

It would not surprise me if the law has changed, but it also wouldn't surprise me if there's an obscure law regarding this issue that most attorneys don't even know about.

Edited July 23 by jimbo_7071

[MAY1979]

^ what you have mentioned is correct but not applicable.  

This is a case where 2 parties entered into a business agreement. One party made a legitimate error. 

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/23/2024 at 8:39 AM, DougC said:

For outing who it is, I think there is a very big difference in clients:

1. If it were some random ebay buyer; outing doesn't serve a purpose other than petty revenge and ends up just looking bad on both parties.
2. As this is a comic store owner and knows full well what happened; it should be used as a deterrent for others who may deal with them in the future.

This is where I - personally - am a bit hung up on. I think I expect more out of a business owner. I mean, I can even understand a person not bringing it up to the seller that he sent the wrong art, but when it's asked about repeatedly, I feel that it's a little dirtbaggy to continue to ignore me even though he knows he has something he didn't pay for. I did contact him through Ebay and Instagram - and he has posted many times in the past few days, so I know he's seen it. I will probably make public knowledge of who he is and post up the artwork he has versus what he bought.

 

On 7/23/2024 at 9:52 AM, thethedew said:

I would suggest One Last Chance - let him know by one last PM that you intend to Name Names publicly.  His name, and the name of his establishment.  Just keep it factual.

Would that be considered a 'threat'?  I dunno, others can argue that.  I'd actually call it a courtesy. 'From a Certain Point of View'

I am off to do that right now. 

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/23/2024 at 8:53 AM, AndyFish said:

This has happened to me several times over the years, and it always works out.

I was hoping the Comic Shop Owner was on vacation, or hadn't opened your package, or hadn't had time to check his (or her) email.  Unfortunately since time has passed and they now seem to be actively ignoring you my vote is to out the shop owner.  I want to know what potential problems I have dealing with people.

Yeah, I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt on that - the package arrived on July 15, it's the 23rd today - even on my busiest of weeks, I don't think I've gone longer than 3-4 days opening a package, and even then, I try to open them to make sure everything was kosher on my end of the purchase. 8 days is plenty, and I caught this mistake three days after it was delivered, so there's been time - and if he were on vacation and still posting on Facebook, you'd think that he would have contacted me to tell me he'd look into it, he'd check when he gets home, etc. Something.

[Xatari]

At this point, if he has been online and seen your messages, there is really no excuse for not responding.  Have you tried to contact him via the store directly?  I think you have been fair and deliberate in your response.  Let the shaming begin. 

[Michael Browning]

On 7/22/2024 at 4:57 PM, MAR1979 said:

Standard MO LCS owner - probably already sold it.  

Order of least honest physical goods sellers;

1. Comic Shop Owner

2. Trading Card Seller/Dealer

3. Comic Book Dealer

4. Original Comic Book Art Dealer

5. Used Car Sales Person

 

You ain’t wrong.

[Michael Browning]

On 7/23/2024 at 6:18 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Yeah, I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt on that - the package arrived on July 15, it's the 23rd today - even on my busiest of weeks, I don't think I've gone longer than 3-4 days opening a package, and even then, I try to open them to make sure everything was kosher on my end of the purchase. 8 days is plenty, and I caught this mistake three days after it was delivered, so there's been time - and if he were on vacation and still posting on Facebook, you'd think that he would have contacted me to tell me he'd look into it, he'd check when he gets home, etc. Something.

Have you contacted eBay customer service?

[thethedew]

I once had a prominent comic art dealer (you've all heard the name) accidentally send me the wrong piece. 
When I opened up his shipment, (expecting a Micronauts page IIRC) what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a freak'n JOHN BYRNE COVER.  (You all would recognize it).  

Yeah, I called him back right away on THAT one.  While he was grateful for the quick fix, he didn't offer a future discount or anything tangible as a 'thanks'.  Which I don't hold against him at all - doing what's right is it's own reward.  

Now, if you all would excuse me, I have to go to the chiropractor to get my arm fixed - from patting myself on the back too hard, I suspect.  

Edited July 24 by thethedew

[thethedew]

On 7/23/2024 at 5:21 PM, Xatari said:

Have you tried to contact him via the store directly? 

This also is worth considering.  If you feel strongly enough to post here about it, hopefully you wouldn't feel too shy about Googling the store's phone number and get a personal explanation direct from the horse's mouth.  A bit confrontational, wouldn't be MY favorite scene, but then I'm from Minnesota.  Frontal confrontation isn't our strong suit here.  (Passive-aggressive, on the other hand, we're all over that.)

If he has the stones to hang up on you, you'd certainly have your answer then.

Edited July 24 by thethedew