Vance Update

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

I'm really ticked off now. Not only does this person back out of an auction that went to nearly $700, money I had a great many good uses for, and an action that landed me in financial hot water, but he ignored the last note I sent him and has continued on to start bidding on other auctions.



I have sent him another note today, notifying him that I caught his activity on furbuy and that he still has a contractual obligation to pay me for the auction he won. In the first post I made about him, he had claimed that he only meant to bid up to $600, and I have told him that I am willing to accept that. But it is absolutely unacceptable for him to leave me hanging, to ignore me and the money he owes me, and to then bid on other auctions. I'm not sure if he's bid on other things besides what I've shown here, but it wouldn't surprise me.


I am perfectly willing to have this matter resolved, and not have any hard feelings, if this person would just fulfill his obligation to pay me and be done with it. I'm not a petty person, but I can't just let it slide when someone is directly screwing me over. If anyone notices him bidding on other auctions, please make note of it here in the comments.

UDATE: Jurann got back to me after I noted him and informed me that Vance's furbuy account has been suspended until Vance can explain his behavior and make some sign of good faith in some form to show that he intends to take care of this. I'll update again when I know more. Thus far, I am not showing that he has read my FA notes from yesterday yet, so I'm waiting for his response.

UPDATE 2: I got a reply from Vance, basically saying he was going to "expose" me, claiming I released him from his obligations and that I'm harassing him, which I never did. This was my last note to him, the one which he never responded to. Clearly, I was not releasing him from obligation, and was instead trying to work with him. He has now blocked me from his FA page, so that I can not send him any further messages.

UPDATE 3: So, since Vance knew he couldn't back up his claims that I released him from his obligation to pay me, he apparently tried, again, to lie his way out of it, and failed miserably. So he can either pay up, or his Furbuy account will remain suspended. It's probably a lost cause by now, but I will update if anything else happens. Definitely avoid this person as a commissioner/bidder, and if you do decide to risk it, demand full payment up front and save all your notes.

Comments

[skulldog.livejournal.com]

I noticed he has been bidding on more than a few auctions actually..

http://www.furbuy.com/cgi/bidhist.cgi?id=1017914

I happened to click this earlier in the week and went..hey wasn't that the guy who didn't pay on AB? And sure enough.

Maybe Furbuy admins can help step in on this one and at least get him banned for abuse of some sort?

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

I contacted Jurann about it to see if anything can be done. Ugh. x_x

Thank you for including the link! Just makes it that much worse that he's bidding on several things.

[skulldog.livejournal.com]

Good luck, I serious hope you get something out of him, even if you two end up agreeing on something lower. It's a huge slap in the face that he can avoid you, while tossing money he claims to not have else where. :/

[underthebed.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...


That really blows. My one caution would be if he's forced to pay for the suit he bid on, watch out that he doesn't try to pull some BS about the suit being damaged, not made as advertised, etc. etc. If he's flaking on an auction obligation, I wouldn't put it past him to try and whine/contest with Paypal/get his money back even if he DOES go through with it.

I'm sorry hun, I hate when people pull this shit. Bid only if you have the cash to do so.

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

The auction he won from me was for several pieces of art, not a suit. But yeah, same risks still apply. I'm trying to be a congenial toward the person in notes as I can, he's just making things a lot more difficult than they need to be.

[onfourwejump.livejournal.com]

OH FUCKBEANS.

I clicked on skulldog's link to to Furbuy and was like "Hm, I think I'll check my auctions."

He bid on one of mine. ( http://www.furbuy.com/auctions/1017962.html NSFW)

GRRR I hope he plans on paying me. While my auction is nowhere near the cost of yours, I still don't want to get the runaround.

I hope Jurann can do something for you. Have you thought about taking him to court to get the money? I think that qualifies for small claims court but I don't know; I'm bad with law stuff.

Good luck to you though!

[skulldog.livejournal.com]

Wow, so in total he's bid close to $200 on things..

If you're worried, drop him an email and say you're worried about his -1 rating, and ask if he's really serious. In harm in bringing it up to the guy.

[onfourwejump.livejournal.com]

Well he sent me a murrypurry note on FA so I'll send him a message there. Right now, I NEED that money as soon as possible.

[soren-grey.livejournal.com]

Post his butthurt reply? :3

[onfourwejump.livejournal.com]

If it's worth posting to the community, sure, I'll post it.

[soren-grey.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if the dude intends to pay these new auctions than he already had the $150 the OP wanted up front
(whoop, n/m, misread!)

[onfourwejump.livejournal.com]

An update on my situation...

He got into a bidding war with someone on my auction and it's up to $54 now.

I sent him a note on FA and got a response back saying that he was indeed serious, that he had about $50 in hand and would have the rest when he got paid this week. Despite saying I did not want to discuss the situation, he still insisted on explaining his innocence, saying this time that he accidentally bid too high and e-mailed CarnivalDog several times to reset the auction, but that CarnivalDog never got the e-mails. So yeah, that's his story.

From the way he wrote, I think he's bidding on all these auctions so people will leave good feedback and show that he's a good bidder. At least, that's what it sounded like to me.

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's no way he could send me a bunch of e-mails and I didn't receive them. My Furbuy e-mail, which he would have a direct link to when he received notice of winning (since Furbuy sends automated notices) is the same e-mail I check almost daily. Plus, if he wasn't getting a response via e-mail, he knew what my FA account was, it was even linked to in the auction, so there would be no excuse for him to not send me a note "just in case" his e-mails didn't reach me, since he's claiming he sent several e-mails.

The guy is just full of lies, and I truly regret the fact that he made that one last bid that topped over the other bidder. If he hadn't pulled that BS, I could have still pulled in $650 from a bidder whose FA account is full of commissioned art, so I was assured that the guy would have paid up and there wouldn't be any problems. All because of one last stupid bid by Vance, I was screwed out of it all. I honestly would not trust this guy to pay up. If he does, great, but be prepared to be put through the ringer.

[stormslegacy.livejournal.com]

It's too bad that furbuy doesn't have a "second chance" system, where the second highest bidder can get it for the cost of his last bid if the first bidder disappears for whatever reason.

[onfourwejump.livejournal.com]

According to Jurann, in the TOS it says that if a buyer backs out for some reason, you can hold the next bidder responsible for the auction. Their bid is a signed contract that they can uphold. I believe he said it on the last post about this, because he was mad that the other person didn't pick up the slack with Vance fucked up.

[stormslegacy.livejournal.com]

That seems shady. What if once you lose the auction you spend the money elsewhere? It makes sense to OFFER it to them, but to require it isn't kosher.

[onfourwejump.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he said that YOU said you didn't get them.

"Its a long story with that seller. Short version, I hit the wrong thing and put in a bid way too high for me to afford. I tried to tell her multiple times to restart the auction but she claims I never emailed her at all, and tries to blame me for having financial issues in real life. I have messages from her in which she states she'll let it go, then a day later posts somethinmg slanderous somewhere."

That was what he wrote (despite me telling him I didn't want to discuss the issue, I just wanted to know he could pay).

I've decided to close the auction and relist it if the other bidder doesn't want it. I've e-mailed them and will hopefully hear back from them soon. But until then, the auction is getting closed.

ARGH this is beyond frustrating. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be for you though. I know you said in the last post that you needed the money for bills. That's kind of the spot I'm in now, too.

[lichdog.livejournal.com]

Jurann checks this community frequently. I'm almost positive he'll have something to say on this matter.

So far though it's been you he's deadbeated on. If he's done the same to skulldog and aubreywretched, then I think it's time to worry about his habits.

Did you at least offer the spot to the second highest bidder? :O

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

Yes I did, but they had already spent their money on other commissions, since they had been outbid several days before the auction finally ended. While technically according to Furbuy rules I could pursue him also, I don't hold a runner-up bidder responsible for the winner flaking out. But yes, I did already offer.

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

Does Furbuy have any sort of bidder block system in place? Those of you who feel weary about getting bids from him might be able to use that until the dust settles.

[jurann.livejournal.com]

Yeah, any seller can blacklist any bidder, though we still have a little more work to do on that system to make it more user-friendly.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised furbuy's policy wasn't to block him until he settled things with you. A disgreement is one thing (ie, commissioner doesn't like what they got), completely backing out on a contract is another! D:

[trianine.livejournal.com]

Even if furbuy is without policy for this case, people here who notice this persons activities, especially those who are worried about bids or receiving payment, can easily personally blacklist this person and make other auctioneers aware of his activity.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, but I think suspending their account is more likely to be effective, and effective /quickly/.
Looks like that's what was done, too, go Jurann!

[cesarin.livejournal.com]

unfortunately its not the first time I've seen fav bombers..
they fav a crapload of stuff thinking they will just get one or two, and they get scared like hell (and of course try to bail at all costs ) when they won more that they can pay..
very annoying.

[frazzled-niya.livejournal.com]

sorry to hear that you are having this trouble :(

I don't understand why people don't have a savings fund to dip into incase of things like being put into hospital or having a car accident...whatever; animal gets sick....blehhhh

I hope you get something resloved out of this mess.

Question though if say you write this off are you able to restart this auction???

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

Yes, I relisted the auction, but it wasn't nearly as successful as the first since the first time it was two bidders going after it. When I relisted it, I was more or less lucky that a third party was interested in it.

[frazzled-niya.livejournal.com]

:( Bummer. Thanks for the beware though :)

[claytronic.livejournal.com]

"I can't afford it right now"
What. So is it like a disorder that makes him bid on things and he can't control it? I don't get it. One does not bid 600-700$ and then say "I can't afford it."

He thinks by "let go" you mean let him off the 600$ because he can't afford it right now, he doesn't realize it means let him off 100$.
I hope things get resolved for you ]: That's a lot of money.

Thanks, hope you have a whatever day!!!

[taasla.livejournal.com]

If these notes truly do exist (of you supposedly letting him go), then he wouldn't mind dropping their ID number, wouldn't he? FA admins can see individual notes, and it's happened numerous times that people have fabricated notes in their favor.

[carnivaldog.livejournal.com]

This times infinity. He's more than welcome to send fabricated crap to FA admins, but he won't have the ID numbers to back it up.

[jurann.livejournal.com]

FA also has a little problem with notes where either party can DELETE the note from the system once it's sent. =/ This makes me a sad bear.

Anyway, the guy's a liar, he's been caught lying at least twice now about what happened with his bidding - first he said that a proxy system dicked him out of $75 (and even when the seller offered to reduce the price by $75 he wouldn't complete his obligation). Which was clearly a lie; bidding records are PUBLIC so it doesn't even take an admin to figure that out! Then yesterday he sent me some sob story note about how he entered an extra zero in his bid my mistake - which doesn't fly because FurBuy does not allow you to place a bid more than ten times the current bid price, for this very reason! (One extra zero = ten times the intended bid price, and a bid must be higher than the current bid, so logic saves the day for such errors...)

[genkigami.livejournal.com]

It seems like bidding on stuff he can't afford is a habit. And when cornered and asked for payment he whips out the big book of excuses and starts reading.

That's... odd. Is he addicted to bidding or something?

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Either that or he gets a kick out of putting people who are trying to nick out a living/emergency funds on FurBuy into a difficult spot.

I for one am glad he's just gone. I wouldn't be comfortable using FurBuy again with a dude like that around.

[jurann.livejournal.com]

Well, he's only bid on ONE auction that's actually closed so far, so who knows what the deal is. I wouldn't say he's been around long enough to identify "habits" per se.

However, some people DO get addicted to auction bidding, it becomes a sort of gambling for some people, and they have a hard time not bidding, even if they don't have the money to pay. I don't think this guy's been around long enough to establish that kind of pattern though, more likely it was a first time user's "eyes bigger than stomach" issue. If it weren't for the fact that he's been caught lying on multiple occasions now, I would have been willing to give him a second chance...

[armaina.livejournal.com]

You know, the more I look at this, the more I get the feeling that his goal is more or less, to sabotage auctions rather than get art or even con free art.