DocSeuss
Well-Known Member
Yup, when he sent me rockets, they were from Rico King. When I returned them, the labels I got went to Deandre Lucas.
Dude sent me a Maxi-Force (my holy grail rocket) that got lost in the mail because he taped it and an Impulse together, advertised as like-new, but the Post Office managed to locate it and deliver it to me; he'd put the wrong label on it. When they finally delivered the kit, I changed my "didn't get the kit" request to "did but it's mangled, would like a partial refund."
What I got was incredibly damaged. No packing peanuts, nothing.
When people started returning things, he called them scammers, accused me of trying to 'take advantage' of him for wanting a partial refund. To me, if you sell me something and advertise it as 'new,' but then you send me something that's mostly damaged, packaged so poorly the packaging or face card is ruined, and not at all like the photos you post, I'm going to want my money back.
Dude insulted me, other purchasers, ebay support, and everyone else in our exchanges. I tried to be nice. I really did. I can understand someone not really getting how to package stuff, and only two other sellers have messed rockets up for me in the past; both were willing to make things right and I was happy to work things out with them.
This guy, though? He's clearly reselling stuff that's returned and trying to use the original photos: He clearly sold the BOMARC a month or so ago, someone returned it, and then he tried selling it again. The picture he used for his second BOMARC sale was identical to the first--which indicates he's probably trying to hide the damage from the first person he sent it to who asked for a refund.
I think when he mocked me for saying 'you'll have to sell this maxi-force as 'for parts,' his plan was to resell it using the old image as well. Even the positive reviews this guy got dinged him for improper packaging.
I think he has the rockets and motors, no question (he sent me a bunch of pictures I can post if mods are cool with that), but he inherited them and doesn't know what any of it actually is, and is trying to offload it and make as much money as possible. He packages these so carelessly--I didn't realize I'd purchased a few rockets from the same guy--that an Estes Trajector I got from him was crammed into a box diagonally, partially crushed, with zero packing peanuts at all. That's the most packaging I've ever seen from him.
He started banning anyone who had left negative reviews (which is fine by me, I don't want to buy 'new' kits that are mostly destroyed!) and claimed negative reviews were only the result of people getting banned as customers. He claimed he'd banned me, but I dunno about that. I left negative reviews after he refused to grant a partial refund and insulted me directly.
Also, he left positive reviews for some sellers, and they were all copy-pasted text. I assume it was an attempt to get positive reviews from people.
I think anyone in this hobby knows these rockets deserve more respect than that and wouldn't package them like this. I've had people who are serious ebay sellers trying to run a business who package more carefully than this. This is someone who seems like he's trying to make as much money as possible by skimping on shipping.
Ebay told me that based on his behavior, he was on a tight leash and they were likely to ban him. I assume that's what happened, which is why he's back as arirockets. I imagine he'll be banned for ban evasion eventually.
The sad thing is--he's got an amazing collection and could literally make a LOT of money from it! All he has to do is actually ship things well and treat people right! Someone buys a kit from you, put it in a box with packing peanuts and send it! Crushed newspaper, whatever. Go get some cheap boxes from Menard's or Home Depot or something! It's not hard. Instead, he's cheaping out on packaging, getting negative reviews and bans for it, trying to scam people with old photos of damaged kits from before they were damaged on a prior shipment, and repeating the process. It's so short sighted. It makes me sad.
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