The Small Businessman

Review: I recently had some excess computer equipment and found RocklinEverything.com online and finally went there as he had told me he buys older emacs. To complain about how he took advantage of my 'starving student' status and my slight desperation giving me less than 15% of market value for my electronic devices isn't really valid. Especially if I went there 2 or 3 times. The story here is that he NEVER asked for ID when I went up there to sell him things. That makes me a little nervous wondering if there might be some stolen things in his store. Isn't that against the law? Additionally, when I entered into a consignment agreement with said owner of establishment, I figured that he would naturally practices within the framework of the law, showing all sales receipts and consignment fee schedules upon request. Yet he now does not even acknowledge my request for paperwork as I would not have even got any compensation for the projector I had put on consignment with him if I hadn't mentioned it nonchalantly the last time I was there, "Hey did you ever sell that projector?" to which he replied, "Oh....er....uh...." then made some excuse and threw $40 at me and said that's all he got. A $300 (according to ebay) projector and I get $40. Won't show me any paperwork and calls me a financial turnip and someone with serious mental issues.

Product_Or_Service: consignmentDesired Settlement: We had talked about a price of $160 to sell the projector for. I don't know where he got off throwing me $40 and denying me seeing any paperwork. Plus he refuses to return my two cables that I left there, an HDMI to VGA cable and a regular 25 foot HDMI cable. I would like to be compensated the $40 that he was short on the projector, I want my cables back, and I want a $50 good faith refund for the way he took advantage of me when purchasing my items (without ID).

Business

Response:

Mr [redacted] initially came to my store on a busy day to get rid of some electronics items he had for sale. He needed cash. Unfortunately, [redacted] had on a tank top and smelled terrible and arrived in a dirty old car with electronic items scattered everywhere. I wanted to finish with him so I could deal with my other customers. I initially told him that I wasn’t interested because I don’t have much cash and they were old computers that few people would want. So he kept lowering his price saying that he couldn’t pay his phone bill, or some such thing. I believe I actually took some items and helped him with paying that at that time. I still haven’t sold much of the things he sold to me and I had to replace components and reload operating systems to make them work at all. Most were over 10 years old. I felt sorry for him.

Later he came back with more stuff including a projector to be consigned for whatever I could get. I assumed he was in financial trouble again and again purchased the things I really could not afford.

Then he came back a third time to sell me some more stuff and asked if I sold the projector. I again said I couldn’t afford to buy anything, but that the projector sold for around $60. I paid him $40 (more than the usual) and after he dropped his prices, I paid him more for the other stuff after checking to make sure it worked better than the stuff he sold me before. We made a package deal and we shook on it. Again I paid him cash and he didn’t ask for any paper work. I wished him luck.

About a month later he wrote me the first of many increasingly scathing emails. He complained that he forgot some cables and that I should have called him about that. Because I didn’t, he felt I tried to steal them. I didn’t even know he was missing his used cables. I have literally hundreds of cables and if he left them with the computers. Each are worth about $8 new at Fry’s, and I would have been more than happy to pay him regardless of not necessarily believing him based on the tone of his email.

He would end up threatening to report me to the police, the Revdex.com and everything else, noting some of my past accomplishments that showed on the Internet and could lead some to believe I made money at some point in my life. He now wanted me to me to pay him more money for his last sale to me. As the emails progressed, they got meaner and more threatening as he attempted to extort more money or that he would go the Revdex.com and every other Intenet thing he could think of. I imagined he must have needed the money pretty badly. He always said so when he convinced me to buy his stuff.

I feel [redacted] was unjust and unfair and unethical in his dealings with me, especially deciding a month after the fact that I should have paid him more money for his old and broken things, again most of which I’m still stuck with.

I will send you a copy of these emails following this initial response. Note that in all the years I’ve been in business, he is my first complainer and I am not going to let him extort money from me by threatening use of the Revdex.com, etc.