Non-Paying Furbuy user Vance

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

This is just a general beware, and while I don't fully condemn the user simply because I'd rather leave the possibility open that maybe, just maybe, their intentions were in the right place and some sort of "hacking" did happen, the situation is just incredibly suspect to me.

The user's Furbuy name is Vance, and is Vance-Solano on FA. Though the journal is gone now, I had posted one on my FA to initially advertise an auction I put up, seen here. NSFW

Also, I get that this is a high bid, and that not everyone is going to think that my work is worth that amount, but let's please not make that the focus here.

Anyway, he and the other bidder have a bid war for a little while, and Vance states in the ad journal that he can't bid above $500 or so unless he can do it in payments. I told him that was fine, and I updated the auction to include details for an available payment plan. The bid war continued until the other bidder came out on top with $650. It stayed there for a day or so, and then Vance bid again to cap it off at $675, and there were no bids thereafter.

Once the auction ended, I sent Vance both FA note and e-mail notices with payment info, and then he responds with this, claiming his account was hacked and that "due to a deer" (what?) he did not have any money to give me.

So basically, whether this was a case of his account being "hacked" or if he just changed his mind and decided he didn't want the commissions anymore and flaked out, I'm left high and dry with financial obligations looming overhead that this auction was meant to totally take care of. So, if Vance bids on anyone else's auctions, I would warn others to be cautious.

I have asked him that, if money is the only issue here due to some sort of emergency, would he be willing to pay at a later date, so long as it's fairly soon, and I'm awaiting his reply. I have contacted the other bidder to offer them the commissions, but that's obviously no guarantee, and isn't their obligation since they didn't win the auction. I'll update this post if anything gets resolved.

Again, I'm not trying to completely condemn this person or attack them maliciously. They seem like an okay person that either really did get somehow confused about how bidding works on Furbuy and had a financial emergency in the meantime, or just realized they didn't want to spend that much money on art and panicked and backed out. Either way, it's left me in a really bad situation and I'd hate for anyone else to be stuck like this due to this person, whether they intentionally back our or not.

UPDATE: He sent me another reply, this time fessing up that no one hacked into his account, but still leaving things shady, for me. I responded with this.

He at least seems to be making an effort to rectify this, but it's increasingly annoying to know he wasn't honest with me in the first place by claiming "I was hacked!" I guess at least he fessed up, but man...I don't have the patience.

UPDATE 2: He responded after finding out a left negative feedback on his Furbuy account, and seems to be trying to make me out to be the bad guy for being upset that he's screwing me over. Basically, how dare I leave negative feedback. I responded to him confronting him with the information Jurann gave me proving that his account was never hacked and that no proxy bidding even took place on his part until his very last winning bid, so there's another lie debunked. He just can't seem to be honest with me and would rather toss out excuses and then try and turn this around on me. I think it's safe to say I'm not going to get anywhere with him.

Comments

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Can you pretty please tag your FurBuy link as NSFW?

Thank you.

[kurenaipaladin.livejournal.com]

your privacy settings are on for messaging... ><

"This message cannot be sent to [info]oceandezignz because the recipient has enabled the privacy options for their messages."

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

That can't be right.

I just tried sending Xai a PM to test it:

"Your message has been sent successfully."

[mr-cullen.livejournal.com]

Possible fake bidder? I don't know really. It's hard to tell at times with some people. and the whole " I GOT HACKED" excuse get's thrown around alot lately for people trying to cover their tracks.

[taasla.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I remember seeing your auction and being so impressed with the figure you were bringing in. I am sorry this is going on with you.

I think he means that he might have gotten into a car accident with a deer? That's the only thing I can think of when he says that. Perhaps a deductible.

Edit: Maybe it's because I have yet to sleep, but it doesn't read like he's pulling the "I got hacked!" card. I think he messed up on his bidding and is going to claim to Furbuy themselves that he got hacked so he can wiggle out of the auction.

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

It reads to me like he's saying that he did bid up to $600 or something, and then his account was "hacked" and the bid kept going up or something. Plus he says "I don't remember making a bid that high," so he's basically saying someone must have gotten into his account.

I don't really buy it, but who knows.

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Well, this might spark the attention of the FurBuy owner, who's a member of the comm. So hopefully there's a chance he could spread light to the situation.

[chronidu.livejournal.com]

Fuckballs man... I was so happy to see it go where it went, only to have the guy change his mind when it's over. Regardless the other guy seemed pretty passionate about bidding it up, if worst comes to worse, hopefully this guy will still be interested and you could work something out with him.

But I don't blame you for finding the whole "my account was hacked and then continued to bid exactly as I had through out the auction" bit shady.

Here's to hoping things can get figured out for you, that was a looong auction to turn out like this.

[lobotomysoup.livejournal.com]

Was he claiming someone hacked him on a proxy and bid? What was all that proxy talk?

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

I really have no idea. I just set it up as a normal auction. It had a reserve of $300 but that's it. I don't know if he means that he was trying to secure his spot as the winner by putting in a large max bid that he didn't think would ever be reached, or if he thinks that his bid was going up automatically without his control somehow...

Seriously, no idea.

[lobotomysoup.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wonder if he had one of those bidding bots. You used to hear about them all the time on ebay. It would bid every time someone else did, like five bucks or whatever, until the auction closed leaving you the winner.

[casteddreams.livejournal.com]

Yeah, proxy bidding (otherwise known as automatic bidding) means he puts in a maximum amount he's willing to bid, but to everyone else is appears just a small amount higher than the previous bidders amount. Each time a different bidder makes a bid, it'll keep going up UNTIL his amount is reached. If that maximum bid is outbid, then he can either quit bidding or make another bid. Ebay also uses it, here is an explaination: http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/automatic-bidding.html

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

This being furry, 'due to a deer' could also be talking about someome's character.

[mr-cullen.livejournal.com]

Haha I'll admit i thought that myself at first. Maybe it was the deer that hacked him. WHO KNOWS?

[isilbastet.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience :c have you considered contacting the next high-bidder up and offering it for their highest bid? It would help you get out of the financial situation and reward the commission to someone who was actually interested (assuming that his hacking story is true, which is...doubtful)

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did contact the runner-up, but they informed me they already used their money on other commissions since they were outbid pretty early in the time the auction ran.

[kadaria.livejournal.com]

>Vance states in the ad journal that he can't bid above $500 or so unless he can do it in payments. I told him that was fine, and I updated the auction to include details for an available payment plan<

Honestly, this threw up a red flag for me. If you can't bid above a certain amount...then why would you keep bidding?

Also, when we have to do payment plans at my vet clinic here is how it goes.
-An initial deposit must be made (like you did), we do 75% of the high end of the estimate so we can just refund what we do not use.
-A contract form is filled out by the client that includes their name, address, phone number, DL (which we also photocopy with a second form of ID such as a bank card) and two references. We can't do it without all this information.
-Payment needs to occur in at least that week.
-Our credit manager handles everything from there and will put the client through to collections if needed.
-A payment contract like this is only filled out IF and only IF they cannot run any other credit cards and are declined for both citihealth and carecredit (which are medical credit cards applied for through our office).

Now I know that medical billing is obviously different from an art auction but what I'm trying to explain is the seriousness of offering a payment plan and handling it yourself.

I would drop this bidder like a bad habit and notify furbuy that you were "stood up".
Maybe if you are really lucky, the second highest bidder would still be willing to buy the auction for a discounted price/last bid/whatever. But I wouldn't count on it honestly. For all that guy knows, Vance was just driving up your price.
This may have to be a live and learn experience.

[jurann.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have just checked several e-mail accounts and user accounts on various sites for both myself and for official FurBuy communications, and I have not seen ANYTHING regarding this incident from any parties in any of those accounts. It's a bit sad that THIS is the first notice or information I've seen on the issue. I will just note that ALL BIDS are binding contracts - just because someone outbid your bid does NOT "get you off the hook" in auctions - if the person who outbid you falls-through then you become the new high-bidder and are still obligated to meet your bid. If you cannot, then you are also considered a deadbeat bidder and the seller can leave negative feedback on you for it. It's up to the seller though according to our policies at this time as to how they want to handle that process, eventually we may make this an automated part of our system.

[kurenaipaladin.livejournal.com]

Where is that written in actual law?

[msmanuscript.livejournal.com]

Okay, hold on a moment.

"Article 3b: As a bidder - you know that placing a bid is a binding contract between you and the seller, and the bid cannot be retracted unless due to mistake by the seller, of typographical error, or other error, due to human error on the seller's part. Once you place a bid, and if you win, you will be obligated to buy the product at the said price you indicated as your bid. Placing a bid on this auction site, winning, then not paying for the product is illegal in most states, resulting in possible prosecution."

3b tells me that if I bid on an auction, and win, then I am obligated to buy the product. Right here: "Once you place a bid, and if you win, you will be obligated to buy the product"

No where does that line say that those that have LOST the bid have an obligation to buy the product. And as for the first one falling through, it says that it is on error of the seller, not the bid winner.

I'm confused. If it's in the terms and policies of FB, where? What article? I see information on Seller error, and it being against the law if the winner of the auction falling through, but NOTHING about the runner up. Please point out to me where it is, because I can't find it.

And if it is there, how long does it hold for? Say I bid on a custom fursuit head base. Payments are to be made in installments, or at the end, however the seller asks for it. Two months go by, and the winner of the bid falls through. Am I, as the second highest bidder and still loser of the bid, held to this "contract" two months after the fact that I lost?

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

Well, the guy said he was going to report his account as being hacked to you, so I just never got around to contacting you. Other users said you'd probably see this, and you have, so...yeah.

Thank you for clearing up that there was no hacking going on, and that his excuses over some sort of "proxy bid mixup" are bunk.

I don't think I'd go so far as to hold the runner-up to an obligation to pay, and since that's the decision of the seller in the long run, I'm not going to try and force someone that didn't win the bid to claim the commissions.

Basically, the winning bidder flaked out, I've already offered the commissions to the runner-up, he declined, so I'll just have to figure out something else to take care of the funds I was screwed out of. It sucks, but I know I can't force any money out of the winner unless I take some sort of legal action, and that's too long and expensive a course of action for me to stress out over. I left negative feedback on Vance, and hopefully he won't ever do this to anyone else.

[jurann.livejournal.com]

I'm going to further add here that after a thorough review of the user's account, login activity, and bidding activity that everything appears to be legit, there's nothing suspicious or unusual going on. Their bidding record also indicates that they did come and manually enter each bid rather than using the proxy bidding system. Their final bid did actually set a higher proxy price that would have engaged the proxy bidding system HAD THEY BEEN OUTBID, but they didn't get outbid after that last bid had been placed so the proxy never kicked in for them.

As a note to this user and other users, FurBuy provides a "Direct Bid" radio button as an alternative to the default "Proxy Bid" option when placing a bid, and if you prefer to manually handle all of your bidding and not let the proxy system place bids for you, we strongly recommend selecting the "Direct Bid" option instead. This will allow you to always make manual bids and never have the proxy system place bids in your stead.

[pleasedas-punch.livejournal.com]

I went and read through Jurann's comments and the notes from Vance and my mind was pretty boggled. Ignore messy handwriting.

(http://img101.imageshack.us/i/vancefail.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

Regarding the headlight bucket thing, prices around my area and online seem to range from $20 $60 dollars. Ebay is a good example of their average cost: http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=headlight+bucket&_sacat=See-All-Categories Unless he's pimpin' his deerdozer. Even then, I've only seen a high one for a rare car at 1k, not $300.

Dammit. Carnivaldog and I were in dire need of this due to a lot of unexpected things cropping up, and we'd been sitting around biting out nails waiting for the auction to end. Ugh. Thanks Vance, you were a cool bro until you pulled this.

[jurann.livejournal.com]

Heh, nice collage. =) I'd say it sums things up nicely.

As to the deadbeat bidder's excuse of "something came up financially", that's what a savings account and proper money-management are for - so that when you get a bunch of unexpected expenses or accidents happen (heaven forbid, but they DO happen) you have backup money set aside to make sure you're covered. They do still teach Home Economics in high school, don't they? ;)

You fail to meet your obligations with bidding (or selling for that matter) and you deservedly get negative feedback - not out of spite, but to warn others that you may not be a reputable member of the community. That's how the rating system works. If you want to, it's easy to turn your negative rating around by successfully completing a few auctions and proving you're capable of following-through on your obligations, plain and simple.

(I'm more leveling this at the deadbeat bidder than you or anyone else, and just making a general statement not aimed at anyone in this community, per se.)

[taasla.livejournal.com]

...A new headlight cost him $300? I just bought a brand new one for my 2001 for $42 total! It even comes with a new bulb.