Bulldog for $89

[d mowery]

I guass you have never had something like that happen and been been stuck, like that all Im saying let it iron out and just maby we will have another honest dealer to work with , He is now looking for another supplier and i put him on to a few that we all know and invited him to join and let us know what he is doing to get this mess cleard up - So we agree to disagree on our opinion of this person that is trying to get a small bus going - If interested to talk to him yourself - ask and I will post name and number for all -now im off my soap box

[Tulsa]

He's drop shipping someone elses product. He's not a dealer. He's a middleman. I won't deal with middlemen. If he can't buy it, don't sell it! Plain and simple.

[d mowery]

Bull Feathers a lot of sellers do that all the time where do you think a lot of poker chip, tool sellers and yes some pachislo and other sellers do , there are a lot of companyes out there that put your name on ther catalogs and you sell from ther warehouse , Boating industery if well noted for that , Yoyu can sell 100 lines of goods and have all drop shipped from catalogs an rely on the company to ship what thay say , Check it out - He did nothing dif than any other catalog person would do except get screwed by a supplier that did not do his part-how about selling tokens and the token co drop shipping the tokens to dif addresses and sending the wrong ones -Same story dif stuff
DON

[Tulsa]

Well where is he with the Bulldogs he promised? I really don't care that he got screwed, not my problem. However one of our users got screwed in the process and that stinks! So either he comes up with his bulldogs as promised or give back the money and get out of selling something he doesn't own!

[Tulsa]

Funny that one of the newest members is called larlin7601_bulldog... :?:

[Davis]

He didnt get screwed, Gwarzin got screwed! This guy should have know better, he shoudl have made sure he new exactly what machiens he was selling, or at least made sure the auction said it was luck of the draw! Reminds me of a kirby salesman I once spole with! :lol:

[d mowery]

First check with the one that orderd the bull dog- I believe he is getting one from the suplier as we speak it should be on the way , Now no one is screwed here as you say only inconveninced some what , mabe better than getting a broken machine .Relizing not your problem , it is his and I believe he will get strighted out - I will sell Arby tattos 'MOM" and he may put a "WOW" on them , Just cant help what some suppliers do , so that would be my fault also? :grin:

[gwarzin]

I should know what's really going on by tomorrow. He's faxing me the documentation that he received from the wholesaler that he says will prove that the wholesaler said he could sell specific machines. My guess is that it will be a bit ambiguous, but I should be able to tell if a reasonable person could come to that conclusion.

I've also talked to the wholesaler who said he would make sure everything was taken care of. Of course, he also said he'd look in the warehouse for a Bulldog and call be back in a half hour. I never did get that call. So right now, I looking for both of them to sort this out, but don't really have any faith in either of them. At least I've still got a machine in my hands.

[Tulsa]

If he makes it right by Gary, fine! However, there's no way I'd chance a purchase from him.

[d mowery]

Thats what Im doing to , Im more tward him than the dist as I have delt with them, lets hope it all clears up , We all get messed up sometimes in busenes amnd It su--s , We be magic men lets make this happen :lol:

[Davis]

Well hes on my block list!

[d mowery]

He is a new member -Post him and check for yourself

[Davis]

check what?

[gwarzin]

Here's the latest info.

Today I got an email from Larry at Larlin Gaming. He copied me on an email he received from Trademarkpoker.com. Larry's claim was that this email was the one that would show me that Trademark said he could sell those specific machines. All is was was an email with several attached JPG files of pachilsos. The text said something like "attached are sample photos of assorted machines."

How he ever thought that was authorization to sell those specific machines is beyond me. There was no mention of quantity on hand, any being reserved for him, or anything else that would make someone think these machines would even still be available weeks later when his auctions ended. So, in short, it looks like he was selling machines he did have.

The most charitable conclusion I can come to is that Larry just had no idea how this business works. He must have thought they had an infinite supply of those models.

In the end he was not able to produce any convincing paperwork that would indicate that this whole mess wasn't totally his fault.

The good news is that I also received an email from Mark at Trademark Poker. He says is going to make good on all of Larry's completed auctions. He says he has located all the machines in question and will be contacting me tomorrow to arrange for the pickup of the Double Challenge machine and the delivery of the Bulldog. I have to say, if he follows through on all this (and I have no reason to believe he won't) he is really coming off looking like a stand up kind of guy.

Trademark's deal is a $100 (plus shipping) wholesale price on random machines. You get whatever is the next machine to come out of the warehouse. I suppose this works to places like Costco.

For them to go through the trouble of digging 20 specific machines out of their stock and refurbing them specifically to fill Larry's orders (and doing it at the same random pick price) makes me think they must be a pretty good company.

But back to Larry. He told me he was paying $100 a machine and selling them for $89.95. He planned on making his money on shipping. He was charging $79 but he was being billed only $40 or $50 by the wholesaler. He said after all his eBay and PayPal fees he would make $7 on a machine. He knew that wasn't much but thought he'd make it up on volume.

I think this highlights the problem with a lot of people that try to start a business selling things on eBay. They have no idea of what it takes to run a real business. At $7 per machine all it takes is one screw up to eat your total profit for months. (And he managed 20 screw ups in the first week).

It's a lot like the recent thread where someone thought dealers should sell tokens at a fraction of a cent over cost. If vendors don't make a reasonable profit, they don't stay in business. I doubt that we'll see Larlin Gaming selling many more pachislos. At least not at $89.95.

I'll post an update when the Bulldog arrives.

[logicprobe]

Thanks for the update, gwarzin!

Here's hoping that everything works out for you... and everyone else that got a machine they didn't know would be randomly chosen.

Trying to cover a loss with shipping, huh? 'Nuff said.

[cwstnsko]

I'm glad to hear that the people involved in this are trying to make good on their promises. I hope it all turns out good for the buyers in the end. Have they offered you any sweetheart deal to just hang on to the double challenge?

My view on drop shipping is that it is an fine and efficient delivery mechanism for brand-new, name brand merchandise. For used, refurbished merchandise, I think it is unethical to sell it drop-shipped without the seller being very clear that he has no 1st hand knowledge of the condition of the product being sold. If he ran his auction as "Pachi-Roulette", and showed a number of "representative" models in the ad, then made general statements about the type of refurbishment that has been done, that would be OK. But how many of us would bid on one of those auctions for more than about $50+shipping??

When I shop used stuff on e-bay, I check the seller's closed auctions. You'd be surprised how often I find them re-using old photos of stuff they sold months earlier and claiming the photos are the current item. Even after I called one guy on it, he still sent me an item completely different from the photo. It cost him 50% of his sales price in shipping charges by the time we had the mess straightened out. In the end, he made good on the auction, but it cost him all of his profit and it inconvenienced me to have to package and ship back his incorrect junk! :-x Even though he made it right, I'll never buy from him again unless it's a smoking deal, and I'd caution my friends to be careful in dealing with him.

Chris W