Consumer Fraud I'm having trouble with an Auction service

[Caretakerformom]

Hello all

I have no money or assets. I'm telling the truth. I'm having trouble with an Auction service. They have lied to me. Not paid money owed. They are holding $4,000 of my collectibles and are not selling them. They will not return my emails. And I was never given a contract when the items were given to the Auction service.

My plan was to email this to the Auction service...

"Hello XXX

I've tried to settle this dispute with you, however you or your XXX Auction service will not return my emails. I feel it is my obligation to warn other people and organization's about you, to help other potential consumers from being wronged by you.

I have no money (or assets) to help me, in sending you a registered letter and I have decided that the following will be my course of action.

I have saved all my supporting information related to my dealings with you and I will add, that you have contributed to put great distress and suffering to myself and family, including my elderly mother and also you have contributed to the risk of having our house foreclosed, hardship in paying essential bills that could result in liens on our house, power shut off (Heat), and many other troubles, in your failure to meet your promises to myself, and thereby by doing so, have disregarded and have shown no concern for our elderly mother, who has numerous serious health concerns.

I have the complete confidence that I'm not harming you, in any actions of, libel or extortion, in anything that I say, write or any actions that I have planned, in the future, for you.

Keep in mind that...

1. There are several ways a person must go about proving that libel has taken place. For example, in the United States, the person first must prove that the statement was false.

2. Defamation actions are extremely expensive to bring, the expense involved and collecting any judgments. I have no money or assets.

3. You would be exposed, regardless of if we went to court or not.

4. Defamation lawsuits are extremely expensive to litigate (upwards of $50,000).

Unfortunately this all starts when we never received a contract or receipt from you for our items, when you came to our house and received our items. Because you have not met your verbal promises to myself, I have decided to firstly, contact the following organizations to file complaint's against you...

Meridian Police
liveauctioneers Contact - Live Auctioneers
Consumerfraudreporting How to Report a Scam
BBB
State of California - Department of Justice - Kamala D. Harris Attorney General
Michigan Attorney General
New York State Attorney General

Of course their are many other related websites to contact and post or report my disputes, that I have with you.

The next step in trying to warn your current and potential future customer's (buyers/sellers) would be to...

1. Email and or post my detailed Horrific experience's with you to various XXX Websites.

2. Create a website stating and documenting information about my detailed Horrific experience's with you.

3. Register the website on search engines, in such a way, that searching for you, XXX Auctions, "XXX Collectors" and other "related" search terms, will greatly increase my website, showing up, in search results for, you and XXX Auctions, "XXX Collectors" and other "related" search terms.

4. Research other ways to expose you.

I feel that it my obligation to expose you AND EXPOSE YOU I WILL!!!"

I do want to settle this issue with him, if possible, before I do this. He has an Auction in July and I'm hoping that he sells our items and settles this issue.

There are a lot of different legal issues involved here, but my main concern is extortion. I have not demanded anything from him. Is this extortion? If not, do I have the right to demand our items back and or demand that he sells them in his July Auction?

I'm concerned about if what I'm doing, threatening to expose him, could be considered extortion and what is the best way to word an email/letter to him.

Thank you for your help!

More information about this issue if needed...

Sometime around April of 2011 an Auction service came to our house and we gave them some items to sell at their Auction house. The first problem is that we were never given a contract. I instinctively wrote down the items on a piece of paper. The paper was signed by someone who was working for the Auction service, I believe to be, the wife of the owner of the Auction service.

The owner of the Auction service was also present at our home and they both received our items. My mother was present (who has memory problems) and can't remember anything about that day. My sister was also there and she would remember some of the events that happened that day. The paper was not dated and no copy was given to the Auction service, but I'm still in possession of this paper listing our items, that were given to the Auction service.

Some items were sold (only $100 worth) and we still have been waiting for payment. This has gone on about a year. One large item was sold and we did receive a check for that, which we cashed. I called the owner about the first items sold and asked about why no check was sent and he said that he would look into it. This was about 2 months ago that I had called him and he has still not called me about why a check was not sent out.

I called the owner of the Auction service about 2 months ago about why he was not listing our items for Auction? This Auction service has about 3 to 4 Auctions a year. He had told me that he would list our items in his May Auction. As it turned out he did not list our items in his May Auction.

I have sent him around 3 emails, starting about 3 months ago, with no reply from him, (although, he did answer my email when I asked him if he had sent me a strange "spam type" email, he replied from his email account, that someone got control of his email account and to disregard the email that was sent from his email account) telling him to contact me and eventually, in one of my emails, told him that his broken promises, in effect, has caused my mother and myself to be put on the verge of home foreclosure and we had to apply for emergency assistance for our heating bill.
I also sent an email to his partner who was at our house that day, when picking up our items and no reply from her and it's been about 1 month, since I had sent it.

The Auction service is located in California and I believe that the owner of the Auction service lives in New York. We live in Michigan. It's surprising that we did not get a contract at the time of when the items were exchanged. He still is in possession of around $4,000 worth of collectibles. It is a specialized Auction service and is in the top 2 of Auction houses that sell these types of collectibles.

The Auction service has an Auction in July and I wrote them an email saying that I hoped this was all an oversight on their part and I was hoping to settle this matter or that I would be considering litigation and other legal options. This was a week ago with no reply from them.
So what would be the best course of action. The Auction service uses another company to hold their on line Auctions, but I have not contacted them yet. Don't we at least have a verbal contract?

Another option is to tell this Auction service that I will email/post every related website that I can find and tell them about how this Auction service has mistreated me. This is not a bluff, I want to warn people to avoid this person if he does not "make good" on his promises. I can even create a website about my experience with the Auction service and list my website in search engines so it would come up in "searches" for the owners name and name of the Auction service. These actions would hurt his business and hurt his reputation.

I had thought of libel. but everything that I had said is true. And why would he create such problems for himself and attorney expenses for such a small amount of money, $4,000, of which he would still make about a 33% commission on. He has probably treated other people as he has me and I have to think that he has money problems to act like this or he simply thinks that if he ignores me that I will go away, which I will not. I'm concerned about if what I'm doing, threatening to expose him, could be considered extortion and what is the best way to word an email/letter to him.

Thank you for your help!

 

[army judge]

Without a receipt indicating you gave them any goods, this will be a very difficult case for you to recover in civil court.
A conversion may have taken place based on a criminal act of taking your property.
However, you have no proof you gave them anything.
If these are scammers, they may have outfoxed you.
The local police agency might be a good placeto start.
Forget small claims, as your alleged scammer doesn't reside in your state.
Without proof that you gave anyone your goods, you have a very difficult burden to overcome.
In the end, it'll be your word against theirs.
These bums are clever.
I don't think they'll admit to anything.

 

[Caretakerformom]

Thank you for your reply!

Your reasoning adds more weight to my thinking that any court action would be very difficult, at best. That is why I came up with my idea of sending him an email/letter, without demanding anything from his Auction service.

"Lawyers get paid to make effective and convincing presentations of difficult arguments." And please, no "He who represents himself has a fool for a client." comments I don't see many other options, but I should start with my Police Department. Sound advice and I'll do that soon.

I'm hoping that the Auction service realizes that it's not worth the grief that I can do to them, resulting from my actions of exposing them and they offer to settle with me as a "common sense" action on their part. Again, my concern is, if my letter to the Auction service, could be considered extortion.

Update - I went to their website and noticed that they removed their "results" for their last Auction. Maybe nothing, but I decided to call the owner from a cell phone that he would not know, using the "*67" feature to hide my phone number from coming up on his "caller I.D."

He answered and sounded "happy as a lark." I was stunned, didn't say anything to him and hung up. It just infuriated me further. So, apparently he is still in business. I had thought that maybe he was thinking of leaving the country with Auction proceeds (he does $500,000 per Auction and could have a million plus stashed away, in some offshore account).

I just can't understand why he would do this. He is respected among his peers and this is a small amount of money for him. He must have done this to other people.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Army Judge has nailed it on the head.

1. How do you know "he is respected among his peers" and how do you know that his peers are "respectable" or the same scoundrels? You haven't mentioned what auction service this is. Can't comment on it either and I never believe everything people represent.

2. You have a serious problem of proof without a receipt. It's all a matter of your word against theirs. When you go to court, you have to make your case. Your best bet is in small claims court. If you need help filing, we are glad to help. You'll need to travel to court to appear. If you file, you may not even need to appear if he receives a summons and decides to just settle since the matter is now public. Small claims court will give you more leeway and "credibility" of the parties can go a longer way than civil court.

3. These scammers aren't afraid of you because you'll appear as another blabbermouth without proof and court, as stated above, is a limited option. They have been in business a long time and know who to be afraid of and who is screaming about exposure and will be placed at the bottom of the police's and attorney general's list of fraud - especially without a receipt for a list of items that is the "smoking gun" that they need to prosecute this criminal.

Yes, it's an awful feeling. I sympathize greatly but Army Judge is right on target. You've got to decide whether this battle is worth it. As I mentioned, it may pay to find the location of the owner (you should have at least had this before handing over the money) and filing in small claims court. Best of luck.

 

[Caretakerformom]

Thank you for your reply!

Alright, valid point about his reputation. I found no complaints on the internet. Nothing at BBB. He writes articles about his specialty. I'm trying to be careful, because mostly, I live and take care of my mother and I don't want to be arrested for something that I'm doing, without even realizing that I'm doing something wrong.

I was not even sure if the forum owner would allow me to post his website. Again, just trying to be careful, If that is what your asking for, then here it is. Forum won't let me post links yet. They specialize in selling Steins...

@@@ Auctions Online

First, I'll talk to my Police Department and post the results of my talk with them.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

It will be incredibly difficult to believe that you didn't even make sure to obtain a receipt for the items - that will hurt you tremendously in court, especially if they are supposed to be one of the top 2 auctions in the country of this type. Their website contains all sorts of grammatical mistakes. It's clearly one of the least sophisticated operations around.

It looks like liveauctioneers - that website - has auctions from this company whose name I removed so you can do what you need to do. Why don't you look at the entire inventory and see if you find the items that are yours. That is step one. Make sure you've printed out each page or saved them on your website (take a screen shot or make a PDF.) Then send a letter and confront the owner about each item. At that point he'll have a problem since he'll need to determine who the owner is for each item, assuming it's not you. Now you've got a little more leverage than just being upset. At that point you can start discussing his federal crime about transporting stolen goods over state lines and you've got a canceled check to prove that he was there. I'm not saying any of this is law at all, if you know where I'm going with this. I'm not sure how much these people know but perhaps they will settle. Have a reasonable number in mind BEFORE you call and be reasonable - appeal to common sense and decency and don't swear about what you'll do, etc. just allude to the fact that you have your remedies and will pursue them but you just hope that decent people can settle a matter and put it behind them. Hopefully you can get something from them, even if it isn't what you think you deserve. If you get a check, call yourselves lucky for whatever you receive.

The above is just what I'd do - it's a bluff. I can't tell you to do it. But who knows, perhaps it will work and justice will prevail. Otherwise, you can talk to the police department. They will probably tell you it's a civil matter and to sue him in California, where the company seems to be located.

 

[Caretakerformom]

Very Good. I understand. You have explained everything very well. I did call the Police and the person that I had talked to, said that someone from the Police might call the Auction service, living in a small town, they might perform that service.

I will follow your advice first and post any new developments. Thanks!

 

[Caretakerformom]

Update: I went to the Police Department and they said that I should call the Auction Company and tell them that I'm thinking of small claims court as a solution. The Police also said that it was alright for me to record the phone call. The Auction Company will be having an Auction in July and it would probably be too late to have our items entered into that Auction.

I'll proceed with this course of action in one week from today, unless someone has other opinions.