Problem: Inaccurate or misleading ad
06-25-2002: Denvelle initiated process
06-27-2002: Lordgorian submitted response
Denvelle describes the events as follows:
This person (Lordgorian) has blantantly stolen my description of the SAME speakers, which he was offering to purchase from ME, but did not. And NOW he has placed an advertisement SELLING these speakers - WHICH HE DOES NOT OWN - for a much higher price than he offered to purchase from me. He also fraudulently claimed that the screw holes in the speakers were "professional" done which is an absolute lie. His description reads as follows:
About Seller Lordgorian (81)
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Pay Terms Money Order, Personal Check, PayPal
Description
One of the best monitors on the planet - period. The Millenium versions are a significant improvement over the previous SE model. These were upgraded late last year to complete Millenium status by Merlin. These monitors have rock solid bass, and among the best midrange and treble of any comparable speaker.
These speakers have special small woodscrew holes in the bottom of the cabinets as they were PROFESSIONALY ALTERED in order to securely attach them to a pair of Osiris stands. The speakers are in perfect condition with the exception of these holes. The Osiris Stands are known to be one of the best stands ever produced especially for the money. Please read the review on them below. I would prefer to sell the stands with the speakers, but will sell separately as well. Add 200.00 to the final price of the speakers, add shipping, and they are yours. Buyer to pay all shipping and insurance. These have the Black Ice Blue clearcoat finish, and retail new for 3200.00 - the stands sold new for 479.00. Paypal is 2.5% extra.
Denvelle is requesting the following resultion:
This person should be barred completely from selling on this website ever again. He is a fraud, a lowballer, and dishonest. I will certainly leave negative feedback on him. I think he was planning on selling the speakers and actually having them shipped by me to the new owner's address - can there be a more dishonest tactic? I think not. Get rid of him.
Denvelle
Lordgorian describes the events as follows:
Alright here is my side of the argument. Those who rule on this “dispute” should read my bentire defense /b in order to make this as fair as possible. My defense is particularly lengthy but remaining a trusted member on this site is very important to me.
centerh4My response to the accusations /h4 /center
I often buy on ebay or from dealers and sell on Audiogon and this is how I found these merlins. (Please read below to get a better idea of what I do and why I do it) Now I am not entirely sure why Dennis is upset as nothing bad has happened, especially to him. He wanted 1200.00 dollars for his speakers and I am paying 1200.00 dollars so he got every penny he wanted. Now when I saw them I knew that this was a really cheap price for them and I was considering buying them for a second system. Anyways I went on audiogon to check what else was up and there was a pair of the same speakers selling for 1600.00 and I was trying to sell mine for 1700.00 but ….. the other ones lacked the upgraded finish … a 700.00 dollar option!!! Now mine are about the same price and have a much nicer finish, certainly I am giving audiogoners a good deal. Also I was planning on selling them for 1600.00 but I put the price a little higher so when people low ball me I can meet them half way. Also for those of you who know merlins and especially the TSMs then you will know just how much better the upgraded finish looks. The speakers are downright ugly in the standard black finish ( I should know as I just saw them a few hours ago) but are actually quite attractive in their high gloss automotive finish and it is very much worth its extra price, much more so then finish upgrades on almost any other speaker. Anyways so as you can see I was offering them at a good price. Essentially the same price as the black finish but my product was vastly superior.
Anyways now as for what dennis is accusing me of above: “And NOW he has placed an advertisement SELLING these speakers - WHICH HE DOES NOT OWN - for a much higher price than he offered to purchase from me. He also fraudulently claimed that the screw holes in the speakers were "professional" done which is an absolute lie” Now lets take this apart. He is right I did place an advertisement selling the speakers for a much higher price than I offered to purchase them from him. Now I understand how he could be upset at such an action as he realizes that he could have made more money or that my purchasing of his speakers were not with the best intentions, but there is nothing wrong with me selling them, after all they are my speakers and I can do what I want with them. Besides who’s to say I will actually get my selling price? This comment appears to be of little relevance.
Now as for the other accusations… that they were not mine, this is also wrong. He agreed that the speakers were “mine” to buy and I was buying them. The money orders were purchased and were ready to go out today and he had agreed to sell them to me. Now granted they were not in my hands yet but really they were mine as I had essentially already purchased them and once I own them I can do whatever I want with them. So really I don’t think that this part of his argument is particularly valid as we both agreed on my purchasing of them. Furthermore if for some reason the deal fell through and someone wanted to buy them from me I can just tell the prospective buyer that they are already sold and that I was sorry with no harm done to anyone.
As for the next part … I guess he is right… I really did think that they were done professionally. When I go back and read his old ad again it doesn’t mention it in particular but when I read it I guess I just assumed that it was done professionally because who would trust themselves to such an important matter unless you yourself were particularly adept at such a task, which would make you, in a sense, a professional. I also did not capitalize it the way he shows I do in the ad, it appears he altered what I wrote to help better his point. Anyways, apparently he feels that this was false and I am assuming that he is right… but it was not intentional. So I guess this whole tribulation, which has caused me much stress, is based upon this accidental misrepresentation about who conducted the drilling of the tiny holes located on the base portion of these speakers.
But really in the end there is one particular aspect of this whole ordeal, which I do not understand. Why is he reporting this? Nothing bad has happened except for maybe the fact that I wont make the $400.00 that I counted on making out of this. The only person who could be upset with such an arrangement would be the buyer of these speakers, but considering that it never got to that point we will never know. In my past experiences I have yet to have an upset buyer and I would happily refund a buyers money if that’s what he or she wanted. So in the end because nothing really happened and nothing bad probably would have happened I don’t understand why the seller, of all people, is upset, especially as I was more than happy to give him his entire asking price for the speakers. Lastly this deal was not an audiogon based transaction but rather an EBAY one. I was buying the speakers off EBAY and maybe that would be a better forum to discuss this matter.
After doing so many deals just like the one that this man is so upset about, I don’t have any negative feedback, I guess with the exception of the feedback Dennis just gave me for this deal, which occurred on EBAY. Also because no money changed hands and the deal was conducted on a different site is it allowed for him to give me such negative feedback? Overall, I have tried to only be an asset to this site by helping other’s when they ask for help and making recommendations to help people gain from all that I have learned from reading hundreds of the forums on this site. I have posted about 70 forum responses and people regularly (about twice a week) email me to ask for advice with questions about their gear and I always happily help them.
centerh4Personal Background/center/h4
I found audiogon early last year. I am just a college student who makes very little money. I worked a full 40 hour work week in the summers only to make about 350.00 dollars a week. Now obviously when you make so little money and only during a small portion of the year, you will be very careful about what you buy.
I started looking for a new stereo for college. After hours upon hours of research I decided on a nakamichi receiver (which I still have) an onkyo dvd player and def tech speakers. As I slowly acquired more money from birthdays etc during the year I wanted to upgrade. I bought def tech BP 2002s and sold my pro monitor 100s for a small profit. I then upgraded again this time from the def techs to a pair of PMC LB1s and I sold the def techs for a healthy 300 dollar profit. I later sold my PMCs for an 1100.00-dollar profit. II made most of my money inadvertently as I upgraded my system. /I
It took me about a year to realize I should just buy and sell purely for profit. My first sale of this sort was a CAL Balanced CL 15 which I bought brand new on ebay for 900.00 and sold on audiogon for 1400.00. Now the seller worked at a store and got the piece for free basically… I got it at a great price and sold it at leastI 200.00 less than what I should have/I. For instanceb Used /b balanced ones were going for 1600.00 at the time. Why did I sell mine for so low? Because I have little to no capital and I cant have my money tied up in merchandise so I try to dump my product as quickly as possible at the expense of profit. But really I was happy making 500.00 dollars with little effort.
And so this is how it began…. Later an audio dealer was dropping a line and I bought a lot of their stock and sold it on audiogon for a tidy profit with the dealer shipping the product straight to the customer. This process worked so well that I decided to use this method occasionally, especially on objects that have very expensive shipping charges. This not only minimizes the chances of the equipment getting damaged but it also allows me to more competitively price my product because I don’t have to factor the additional shipping charges into account. You may also think that I rip people off when I sell my product on audiogon for profit and that I am not a good member… but this is not the case. As I stated above I sell my product very cheaply in an attempt to move it fast. If needed I have plenty of examples to speak of.
Now I have bought and sold for profit many times and have done about another 50 transactions on audiogon for myself, father, brother and friends. I never really bother to get feedback but all of these deals but two (which I will get to later) have gone perfectly smoothly. I am very careful with other people for two reasons. The main reason being that I am a very sensitive person who is very careful about my public appearance, and even on audiogon, I want to be respected and trusted. The second reason is because of these two other deals that happened on audiogon.
bI have lost $3110.00 on audiogon /b by people who I have sent money to and they have stolen from me. The first and worst occasion happened when I was buying a pair of Merlin VSM SE speakers for 2000.00 for myself. I sent 2110.00 to the seller (including shipping) and he just kept it and stopped communicating. I spent a long time on the phone with the police and they basically told me that If it was out of state there was nothing I could do short of driving to his city and filing a report there. Anyways I later lost 1000.00 dollars when someone sold me an amp that was DOA, and he then disappeared. Now I have probably been hurt worse than almost anyone else on this site… especially because 3000.00 dollars means so much more to me than to average people and I don’t want anyone to feel the way I did. Hence I try to be as courteous a seller as possible. Regardless I still buy all of my equipment from this site and have made many friends doing so.
Lastly I am very proud of my system, which is quite possibly the best college system in this country. My virtual system is the featured system in its category, and I am truly honored, because it means so much to me. I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours researching each component and it has taken me two and a half years to earn the money to buy it. I have only audiogon to thank for my beloved accomplishment for providing both the forum from which I can purchase my components and for also being the source for much of my income. If I thought what I was doing was truly wrong or a detriment to this site and its users then believe me I would not do it. Thanks a lot, - lordgorian
Lordgorian's proposed resolution:
I propose that my negative feedback is removed as this was an ebay deal and no money changed hands. Lastly no one was hurt in this situation and no one was going to be hurt. I also think that i should remain a member of this site. Thanks, lordgorian
Denvelle's rebuttal:
The facts are as I initially reported: He was attempting to sell speakers that he did not own (and in fact have been sold to another buyer because 1) he did not respond to my email asking him to confirm the purchase and 2) when I saw he was already attempting to sell them - even using my location - I suspected he could be in process of defrauding a potential buyer, hence my decision to call attention to this matter. This WAS NOT AN EBAY DEAL - he contacted me AFTER the auction was over, meaning that eBay was no longer involved with the transaction. I'm not disputing his right to sell a pair of speakers for more than I would have sold them for - I'm disputing his decision to attempt to sell speakers he didn't (and won't) ever own in the first place.
As of 06-28-2002, Audiogon is requesting input from members regarding this dispute. |
