Cancellation of eBay Tape Order

Well, my tape is supposedly on the way...

I'll believe it when I actually see it.

My dialogue today went like this:

Me:
Dear megaboxwarehouse,

Just a warning...you don't realize how many of the Buyers you had on the Ampex 406 and BASF 911 1/2-inch 2500' reels of tape know each other and are discussing this issue as I type. We are part of an online forum community, and at least a half-dozen of us so far are discussing how we have been wronged by your business practices.

There is no way that you simply didn't realize that you didn't have all that inventory, that you 'do not have the [tape] available' prior to listing, especially when you went to the trouble of ordering/printing shipping labels (I got the notices).

This is a peacable demand for an honest answer about what is going on, because we (and the list is growing) are not satisfied nor confident in your story.


- sweet_beats
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Megaboxwarehouse:
Dear sweet_beats,

Hello,

I understand what the buyers are going through, and it was never my intention for this to happen. In fact its pretty bad business practice in the first place to have mistakes like this. When I was researching the product, we found little to no information online. We knew that the products were new, but we did not the how many variations of the product we had. When it came time to ship, we matched up the physical product to the listing, and we weren't sure if it was the correct item. So we immediately canceled the auction and gave everyone complete refunds rather than give force them to wait longer. We are already taking a financial hit because of this incident.

We saw that you had purchased a large amount from us, so we made sure that the inventory was available to you, which it is now after we straightening everything out. We would really hate to lose your business for this awful mistake and we would really like to move these products out of the warehouse.

I understand that these are very hard to find items especially at the price I was offering them, and I didn't want to lose your business. We are taking a lot of flack for the mistake, but I hope to salvage whatever possible transactions there are left.

It's really up to you whether you want to complete the transaction, but just know there was never any malicious intent on my part. We really do want to deliver the goods in the quickest possible time.


- megaboxwarehouse
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Dear sweet_beats,

And also, please forgive me for the non-paid item dispute. There is no unpaid penalty on your part since the seller is the one initiating the Agreement to end the transaction, and there are no strikes against your account. I wish there was a smoother way for eBay to issue refunds, but unfortunately there is none.


- megaboxwarehouse
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Me:
Dear megaboxwarehouse,

So the items I wanted ARE available? It was 8 of the BASF 911 and 3 of the Ampex 406, all 1/2-inch x 2500'.


- sweet_beats
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Dear megaboxwarehouse,

If the items I had ordered are indeed available I most certainly wish to complete the transaction so long as it is at no additional cost than what I had originally paid.

I appreciate your response, and I accept and appreciate the apology.


- sweet_beats
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Megaboxwarehouse:
Dear sweet_beats,

I appreciate you understanding my predicament in this situation. The items are available and we will get them out as soon as we can. I have sent you three invoices earlier that are copies of the last transactions we had. Go ahead and pay for those again. Then in the item dispute console, go ahead and select to go forward with the transaction. Neither of us will suffer a penalty for the dispute.

Thank you for your patience. If you have any more questions don't hesitate to contact me.


- megaboxwarehouse
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So I went ahead and disagreed with the three cancelation notices, checked to see that original funds were indeed refunded, and then responded to the new invoice they put together. They bundled everything on one charge, but the proper quantities of the proper tape were itemized in the invoice, and the total charges are equal to before.

We shall see.
 
My plan right now is to hold off on feedback until my pending refund is complete. And then I will be watching for the same tapes to come up by the same seller or another seller over the next couple months. If that occurs I will be filing a complaint with eBay and leaving negative feedback.

But until then I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and be patient until I have a clear picture of what went wrong. It’s definitely strange that they sold a total of 50 tapes and now say they never had them. If there is any hocus pocus going on then yes, I’m all for dinging them with negative feedback if/when that time comes. But let us be patient and gracious until all the facts are in.

Just remember there’s a human being on the other side of this and they may be loosing sleep over it, feeling terrible about the mistake and praying everything will work out.

:)
 
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I think what bothers me the most is that I had asked them to clarify a discrepancy in the listing for the 406. The title and picture of the box indicated it was 1/2" tape but the description also said it was 1/4". So I asked if the picture was of the actual item and if it was indeed ½” tape. They answered yes to both questions. I also asked if the picture of the 911 was of the actual item. They said yes to that too.

So they had a total of 55 reels of 406, 5 lots of 10 and 5 individual reels. They sold all five individual reels and 3 lots of 406. They ended that auction early with 2 lots unsold. The early ending of the auction made me wonder if they had received a better offer and decided to sell everything outside of eBay. They sold all 15 of the SM 911.

It is hard to believe they made such a huge mistake, especially given that they had detailed photos of both types of tape.

I have not yet responded to the request to mutually agree not to complete the transaction, and I’m still ready to leave negative feedback and file a complaint with eBay if it turns out they sold the items outside of eBay. If that’s what happened we should definitely make sure they don’t reap the benefits they planned to.

We have time to wait and see, but if it does turn out to be an unscrupulous seller, several negative feedbacks and complaints to eBay should send the message loud and clear.
 
Beck and everybody,

I'm surprised nobody has commented on my post that I am supposedly getting my order after all.

I was hoping there was hope for the rest (and, again, I'm holding my breath after what has already transpired...)
 
sweetbeats said:
Beck and everybody,

I'm surprised nobody has commented on my post that I am supposedly getting my order after all.

I was hoping there was hope for the rest (and, again, I'm holding my breath after what has already transpired...)
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Yeah, I saw that... I was just waiting until you could report you actually got it. ;)

Plus I was the first of us to purchase tape in that auction, but have not received any offer from them to honor the transaction.

I'm in a wait and see holding pattern for now. My Bombay doors aren’t open yet, but I’m keeping the target in sight. :cool:
 
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I'm with Beck here...I ordered 2 reels of the 1/2" 911 literally minutes after the 1st post came up so I should have been one of the first to get anything but oh well, I hope you get your tapes. For me, well, I've got 4 good reels of 456 and 1 of 499 here when I bought my TSR-8 so I'm ok for tape for now. If I need more, it's RMGI I guess. Not that that's a bad thing...:)
 
saw that

Saw that and it kinda made me mad at them. You have the luck with you (we hope). It appeared that you told them that you wanted your stuff and they came through.

I just sent a message asking if there was just a few tapes that I could get. We will see if any are found.

They have 957 transactions, mpstly good. That is a lot of rep to throw away....
 
Hey I wrote them and their response was: "Sorry, All I have left are AMPEX 406 1/4" x 600'. That's the only substitute I can offer."

So apparently they just up and decided to mail sweet_beats the 1/2" reels and nobody else.

BTW: Beck, I asked those same questions about the discrepancies and received the same answers as you did.
 
Wow...

I hope I never do that to somebody in a transaction...we're all capable of doing bad things, and Tim is right to encourage the notion that we really have no idea what is happening on the Seller's end of the deal, but the outcome is not right.

I was hopeful that the encouraging news from the Seller was possibly good news for moreof us. I feel a little guilty...If my order actually comes in maybe cjacek can feel a little guilty with me, since some of the tapes are his...;)

I will definitely report the ultimate outcome, and I am certainly skeptical. I'm either wise for my quick action regarding the follow-up opportunity, or really stoopid...we'll see.

BTW, Tim, I totally agree with Daniel (regarding the original topic) no harm no foul. There is no way you could've seen this coming, and you are not responsible for what we do as individuals. I know completely that yo wouldn't have shared the opportunity if you knew there was bad news coming. In the end we are smarter for the experience.
 
sweetbeats said:
BTW, Tim, I totally agree with Daniel (regarding the original topic) no harm no foul. There is no way you could've seen this coming, and you are not responsible for what we do as individuals. I know completely that yo wouldn't have shared the opportunity if you knew there was bad news coming. In the end we are smarter for the experience.
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Thanks Cory. Yeah, it does bother me that the actions of the seller may impact my credibility. I know people listen when I recommend tape or a seller because I'm so picky and careful when it comes to buying tape. You might say I put the anal in analog. :D

The letdown my friends here are experiencing bothers me more than me not getting the tape I wanted. I can always find more tape, but I’m going to be hesitant to recommend sources in the future until I’ve completed transactions with the seller beforehand. I’ve had very few bad experiences on eBay. I’m just bummed that this had to one of them. :(
 
sweetbeats said:
I feel a little guilty...If my order actually comes in maybe cjacek can feel a little guilty with me, since some of the tapes are his...;)
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Cory, if the order does come in, my commitment still stands. Thank you again. Still, I won't feel much like jumping for joy, especially that others, who had ordered the tapes [also my friends], may not receive 'em. I am, however, getting ahead of myself as we still don't know if the seller will fulfill his end of the bargain. No matter what happens, megaboxwarehouse has done a number on us, one which is hard to forgive.

---
 
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I'm not real encouraged by the situation with megaboxwarehouse right now. I’m not getting replies to my emails and the phone number they have listed with eBay is invalid. The first phone number I received on the 12th is no longer in service, so I did a request for seller contact info through eBay, but that number goes to a private phone belonging to a Robert Martin and says nothing about Megabox Warehouse. It was just a voice message.

According to eBay, the ID megaboxwarehouse belongs to Haur T Su. No relation to Robert Martin even though the names have three letters in common… what are the odds? :p

And their website doesn’t look too promising…

http://www.megaboxwarehouse.com/servlet/StoreFront

A search of web archives reveals it has been closed for months with the same message. :rolleyes:

The only good news in all this so far is that we received refunds (although there is still a hold on my funds by paypal because I used funds from my bank account).

So as it stands my money is in limbo so I can't use it for other purchases and I passed up another deal on tape to buy from megabox. Even after a couple good nights sleep I feel my wrath is imminent. I already refused the mutual agreement thing because they didn't contact me beforehand, and we now know they do have the SM 911 based on their correspondence with Sweetbeats. If they have 8 they probably have (or had) 15.

But I guess it remains to be seen if Cory actually gets the tape he’s expecting. Lets hope so.
 
The tapes arrived annnnnd...

I'm out of town...my wife states that there are three boxes (matches the three orders I placed), and they are heavy (that's good...). She's going to open them up for me later and report the contents once she is done grappling with the fracas of 4 young children. ;)

I'll report back later.
 
Beck said:
I'm not real encouraged by the situation with megaboxwarehouse right now. I’m not getting replies to my emails and the phone number they have listed with eBay is invalid. The first phone number I received on the 12th is no longer in service, so I did a request for seller contact info through eBay, but that number goes to a private phone belonging to a Robert Martin and says nothing about Megabox Warehouse. It was just a voice message.

According to eBay, the ID megaboxwarehouse belongs to Haur T Su. No relation to Robert Martin even though the names have three letters in common… what are the odds? :p
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Report them to eBay for invalid contact info. That's grounds for NARUing them, fairly quickly.
 
mshilarious said:
Report them to eBay for invalid contact info. That's grounds for NARUing them, fairly quickly.
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Yep, I did, and I encourage other members that are victims of this eBay fiasco to do the same. ;)

You can use this link and then click on the envelope icon near the bottom where it says “Email us with your question or concern”

http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_...ject]&tier1=result_6_1_10&continue=Continue+>

I’m now officially approaching crazy Scotsman status, but I’m giving them until tomorrow to reply to my last email since many Asian owned businesses are closed on Mondays.
 
Cory,

What's the verdict on the tapes you got from megaboxwarehouse?

:)
 
Tim et al,

Just found out about an hour ago...I'm in the middle of a presentation right now so I need to be brief, but I am pretty confident what I got is what I ordered. Any details that might confirm that?.

So conflicted about this.
 
Some more detail...

Note that I've never purchased NOS tape. My experience with tape as of late is only with the RMGI SM911, so I'm really limited in my ability to know if a reel of tape is new/used and is what its supposed to be, but I'm pretty sure that what the boxes say on them is what's inside, and that it is indeed NOS. For instance:

* All the boxes are in new condition as are the rolls (i.e. they all have what appear to be factory hold-down tape on the recording tape...barcode for the Ampex and batch number for the BASF)
* The tape is all in bags, clear U-shaped bags open on one side for the BASF, and hazy bags sealed all the way around for the Ampex.
* Everything matches up and is identical box to box with respect to the brand as far as labels and packaging and appearance.
* The tape looks like my RMGI SM911 as far as the oxide color and back-coating.

Again, I'm happy for me and for those for whom I am purchased, but very dissapointed for all of you that have been treated unconsciosnably by megaboxwarehouse.

Not fair.

I will also do what I can to ensure that megaboxwarehouse does not escape taking responsibility for what happened here with this.
 
Is anyone else still in communication with megaboxwarehouse? I had emailed them and told them I would take fewer 911 reels so mamm7215 could get his two. I also admonished them for not splitting the reels they had between the three buyers (No offense Cory, but they have a poor sense of fairness and judgment). mamm7215 only wanted two and I said I could get by with two or three. If they really only had 8 we each could have gotten 2, including Daniel.

I've also asked them about status of 1/2" 406... if they've found anymore for the buyers that were shafted on that deal.

They are still not responding to my emails, so I'm wondering if anyone else has heard anything from them.

Cory, could you post a pic of the 911. The hold-down tape should say SM 911 or 00911.

:)
 
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