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Not Mine eBay SELLER WARNING - wickatacki (1 Viewer)

ski_ex5

ski_ex5

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Most eBay sellers I've dealt with are honest. A few are not. I wanted to let everyone here know of details regarding eBay seller wickatacki, in the hopes that you will not make the mistake of buying from this seller as ChaosRock Paulo and I have.

I've avoided voicing opinions and applying labels, and have limited my post to facts, and you judge the situation for yourself.


BOTTOM LINE
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Paulo and I have damaged and broken chips because wickatacki packed them loose inside a USPS Small Flat Rate Box with no packing material whatsoever. In addition, Paulo was shorted two chips. In response to my first message about the problem, wickatacki stated, "I've never had an issue," while in fact he was simultaneously dealing with Paulo's missing and broken chips. In a later message, wickatacki said, "One other person has contacted me and I immediately remedied the problem of one broken chip." Paulo's TWO broken chips and TWO MISSING chips are still not resolved.

Along with the false claims, wickatacki repeatedly refused to reimburse purchase price + shipping. wickatacki wants the chips shipped back first (at my expense). Doing that would of course leave me at risk of losing both the money and the chips if wickatacki were to make additional false claims and tell eBay either s/he never received the returned chips, or that I was the one who damaged the chips. I won't take that risk, and won't pay for the shipping, and I therefore still have the damaged chips.

Following below are additional details if you're interested.


THE PURCHASES
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
  • I purchased 100x Casino Miami $5 chips for the sum of $150 from wickatacki.
  • Paulo purchased 100x WTH&C $5 chips and 100x WTH&C $100 chips from wickatacki.
  • I paid immediately, and included a friendly message because wickatacki lives in my home state of Florida.
  • wickatacki did not leave buyer feedback (and still has not, as of the time of this post).

SHIPPING
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
  • wickatacki sent my 100x chips completely loose inside a USPS Small Flat Rate Box.
  • There was zero packing material inside the SFRB, or anything else to prevent the chips from being shaken around and damages during shipping.
  • Paulo's chips were shipped in the same manner, but with all 198x chips (not 200x as purchased) crammed inside a single SFRB.

THE CHIPS
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
  • The edges of literally every one of the Casino Miami $5s have fresh clean damage in the form of nicks and dents. This is in addition to the expected mild "old" damage and wear from casino use (easily distinguished from the new damage by wear, dirt, and grime).
  • Paulo only received 98x WTH&C $100 chips, i.e. not the 100x that he'd purchased.
  • Two of Paulo's 100x WTH&C $5 chips were broken.
  • The other WTH&C chips were in worse condition than expected.

COMMUNICATIONS
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
  • Immediately upon receiving the damaged Casino Miami chips, I sent a message to wickatacki describing the damage.
  • I posted in Tommy's PCF eBay topic "Some Paulson World chips" (which links to wickatacki's auctions) to caution others to insist on proper packing if they buy from wickatacki.
  • In that same topic, BGINGA Dave wisely noted that wickatacki had only four feedbacks as a SELLER. (I wish I'd noted that fact before purchasing.)
  • Paulo also replied to that topic to relay similar problems.
  • Then, in his/her reply to my first message, wickatacki stated, "I've never had an issue."
  • Upon receiving that false statement, I replied that I expected either 1) wickatacki refund $75 for me to keep the damaged chips, or 2) wickatacki refund $160 (full purchase price + shipping) *before* I ship the chips back. Even if I hadn't known of Paulo's problems, common sense tells anyone that you can't ship soft clay chips loose in a box without damaging them, let alone someone with multiple racks of clay chips up for auction. After wickatacki's "loose chips in a box" packing and after the false statement "I've never had an issue," there was NO way I would risk sending the chips back without first getting $160 back, with or without eBay involvement. All it would take would be another false claim from wickatacki to eBay saying that he didn't get the chips, or that *I* had damaged them, and then I'd be without my money AND without the chips.
  • wickatacki replied and stated, "One other person has contacted me and I immediately remedied the problem of one broken chip." Another false claim, kind of a three-for-one, since Paulo had TWO broken chips, TWO MISSING chips, AND the problem had not been remedied.
  • wickatacki's reply also included this quote: "As I stated, I have contacted eBay and need you to hit the button to process the return. You simply aren't worth the aggravation. Proceed with the return THROUGH eBay and we will be out of each others lives forever."
  • Another wickatacki quote from the same message: "$150 is a pimple on an ass and you aren't worth the energy."

If anyone is interested, I'll post the full text of every eBay message exchanged between wickatacki and me in a separate reply later. This post is already too long.

If this post saves just one person from a similar experience with wickatacki, I will consider it to have been a worthwhile effort.
 
Thanks for the update Ski. I am adding a note to the other thread about this guy.
 
Sorry to hear about your negative eBay experience. The good news is that as a rule of thumb, eBay nowdays almost always sides with the Buyer if you file a case.

- If you received an item that is not to your liking, you will almost always get your money back including original shipping if you file an "item not described" case. The only risk is as you said, you lose $ on the return shipping. Most reputable shippers will send you a prepaid return label regardless of their return policy, because they want to mitigate the chances of them getting a negative feedback. However, it is not reasonable to expect money back before you send the items back, because then the seller has no recourse if you don’t send them afterwards.

- The risk of eBay transactions is actually on the Seller. Sellers do expect that over time they will get scammed a bit since eBay always sides with the Buyer. If you claim you didn’t receive an item, eBay will side with you and refund full amount including shipping, regardless of what the tracking says. Tracking shows no proof of actual delivery address. Along that line, if you happen to ship back an empty box, the seller may still be screwed because eBay will automatically withhold money in Seller's paypal account and refund you the full amount once the tracking shows the package had been delivered.

- If you raise a case with eBay, they will review your messages to each other. Never threaten the Seller with a negative feedback in messages. eBay treats this as feedback extortion and you have higher chance of losing any case you file.

I’m absolutely not suggesting that you scam the seller back as revenge. I’m just pointing out that eBay goes to great lengths to make buyers happy. Your seller sounds like a very obtuse individual. After everything is resolved, I suggest you do in fact leave the appropriate negative feedback. And don’t worry, Sellers cannot leave buyers negative feedback in return.
 
Definitely involve eBay's problem resolution department. If you file a claim (as a buyer), it's almost guaranteed that you will receive satisfaction. There are covert ways to recoup the return shipping costs.
 
BGinGA said:
Definitely involve eBay's problem resolution department. If you file a claim (as a buyer), it's almost guaranteed that you will receive satisfaction. There are covert ways to recoup the return shipping costs.
Click to expand...

What covert ways?
 
Kudos for sharing this. I though about buying those chips and will stay away now.

As suggested earlier, working with eBay, especially if all three of you participate may help recoup your costs. I have have not personally dealt with issues like this yet, but from others I have heard that eBay tends to side with the buyer. The emails should help prove it as well.
 
Last edited:
First of all, many thanks to ALL of you for the feedback. I really appreciate it.

I was hoping wickatacki would cease the false statements and refund $160 back to my PayPal account to cover my purchase price and return shipping, but that didn't happen, so I've left the appropriate negative feedback (at this point, eBay assistance - successful or not - doesn't change my experience with this seller).

Other than throwing 100x Paulson clay chips loose in a box, the second most unbelievable part of this whole story is that, after being caught in a lie - "I've never had an issue" - wickatacki tells a three-for-one - "One other person has contacted me and I immediately remedied the problem of one broken chip." All this while Paulo's TWO broken chips and TWO MISSING chips are still not resolved.

I sure hope Paulo ends up getting a fair shake out of this. Perhaps wickatacki will consider Newton's Third Law and adjust his behavior accordingly. We'll see.


surferb said:
Ski, sorry about that. He still shows 100% feedback. I'd drop the negative feedback and get eBay involved in a refund.

I have a set of Casino Miami chips that I'm willing to break if you're still interested.
Click to expand...

Holy cow, what an incredibly nice offer. I'm humbled. Do you mean "willing to break" as in "willing to break up a set"? In the interest of full disclosure, I already have a pretty nice Casino Miami set, and only purchased the rack of $5s as an add-on. If you have a nice set, too, I don't want to see you break it up just because I had a bad eBay experience. However, if you were looking to sell/trade, anyway, then let's talk!


sleepypiggly said:
Sorry to hear about your negative eBay experience. The good news is that as a rule of thumb, eBay nowdays almost always sides with the Buyer if you file a case.

1) If you received an item that is not to your liking, you will almost always get your money back including original shipping if you file an "item not described" case. The only risk is as you said, you lose $ on the return shipping. Most reputable shippers will send you a prepaid return label regardless of their return policy, because they want to mitigate the chances of them getting a negative feedback. However, it is not reasonable to expect money back before you send the items back, because then the seller has no recourse if you don’t send them afterwards.

2) The risk of eBay transactions is actually on the Seller. Sellers do expect that over time they will get scammed a bit since eBay always sides with the Buyer. If you claim you didn’t receive an item, eBay will side with you and refund full amount including shipping, regardless of what the tracking says. Tracking shows no proof of actual delivery address. Along that line, if you happen to ship back an empty box, the seller may still be screwed because eBay will automatically withhold money in Seller's paypal account and refund you the full amount once the tracking shows the package had been delivered.

3) If you raise a case with eBay, they will review your messages to each other. Never threaten the Seller with a negative feedback in messages. eBay treats this as feedback extortion and you have higher chance of losing any case you file.

4) I’m absolutely not suggesting that you scam the seller back as revenge. I’m just pointing out that eBay goes to great lengths to make buyers happy. Your seller sounds like a very obtuse individual. After everything is resolved, I suggest you do in fact leave the appropriate negative feedback. And don’t worry, Sellers cannot leave buyers negative feedback in return.
Click to expand...

In order...

1) At this point, for me, it's more about doing the right thing. Once lied to, I wasn't about to "minimize my losses" by paying for return shipping, not to mention the fact that I would expect wickatacki to lie again, and claim that either I didn't send the chips back, or that *I* was the one who damaged them.

2) True enough. I know you're not suggesting this, but I'm not going to resort to making false claims myself by saying that I never got the chips as a means to recover my money.

3) This is always good advice to anyone with a problem with an eBay seller. I didn't threaten negative feedback. However, after being lied to (and therefore losing any and all trust for the seller), I did make my expectations clear (detailed in my original post).

4) I understand that. Honestly, I'd never scam someone in return for their bad behavior, anyway. I don't want that kind of reputation.


NiceShot said:
Kudos for sharing this. I though about buying those chips and will stay away now.
Click to expand...

I'm glad I've saved at least one person from making the same mistake Paulo and I did. Now, I just hope Paulo gets full recompense.
 
610143.jpg
 
sleepypiggly said:
610143.jpg
Click to expand...

ski_ex5 said:
Yes I do. And as a matter of fact, it only took Tommy about a month to teach me how to use it. o_O
Click to expand...

You can actually take it a step further and highlight sections of someone's post and click the + sign in the popup menu to multi-quote those parts. :) Call it micro multi-quote. :D

multi-parts.png
 
Tommy said:
You can actually take it a step further and highlight sections of someone's post and click the + sign in the popup menu to multi-quote those parts. :) Call it micro multi-quote. :D
Click to expand...

Oh great... :eek: another month of hard study and practice ahead of me.
 
Looks like wickatacki is still posting new chips... wonder how many more people are going to get burned by that fool...
 
I'm glad I caught this thread. I was in the process of negotiating with wickatacki off line from eBay about buying 100 $5 World TH&Cs. We haven't closed the deal and now I'm thinking I should just move on (although I really want that rack of chips). I guess if he accepts my offer, I will point out my awareness of these prior bad auctions and see what he has to say about it. This thready may have saved me a big headache.
 
I'd move on. Especially with no buyer protection from eBay.
 
Andrew Marks said:
I'm glad I caught this thread. I was in the process of negotiating with wickatacki off line from eBay about buying 100 $5 World TH&Cs. We haven't closed the deal and now I'm thinking I should just move on (although I really want that rack of chips). I guess if he accepts my offer, I will point out my awareness of these prior bad auctions and see what he has to say about it. This thready may have saved me a big headache.
Click to expand...
.
Surprised that knowing about these interactions and scammy scummy behavior, and with the broken chips, would anyone in their right mind still buy chips from this guy? I'm sorry, but peace of mind and quality of the transaction is huge IMHO. If you get a broken or missing chip, then you only have yourself to blame. And out of principle, I couldn't give this guy business after the way he has treated two respected forum members.
 
I tend to agree with you Trihonda, although everyone deserves a chance to right their ways. However, simultaneous problems with two buyers and not making either of them whole is likely indicative of future problems. I have always had excellent transactions both buying and selling chips here on PCF (and on Chiptalk), which I think has spoiled me into believing that anyone who is in the quality chip buying/selling/collecting business will be the same. Clearly that is not true especially when the transactions occur on eBay or Craigslist (but I have had nothing but success there, too). The other thing I find that is fascinating is when you do negotiate and finally complete a transaction here or on CT, a lot of the time you end up talking to the other party about their poker experiences, chips they use and like, games they play in, etc and they become on-line friends, even looking out for each other in terms of providing info about additional chips available from third parties. That is what I love about this community. Lots of shared interest and communal respect for one another and this (getting more expensive by the day) hobby.

So who's going to offer to sell me a rack of $5 Red with peach and pink edge spots PCRs or Worlds at a reasonable price? :rolleyes:
 
So I have a story with him also. I was looking for Vineyards chips to supplement some I recently agreed to buy here.

I saw the rack of $1's he had on eBay and contacted him about a possible purchase. We exchanged texts and I found he had more.

I bought the rack of $1's along with the rack of $2's and 50 $5's he said he had. I then saw the thread on shipping and I texted him to make sure they would be well packed and he assured they would.

They arrived safe but this idea of packing was to wrap them in tinfoil in the rack with one revolution of tape on each and a little padding in the box. Still they made it fine.

The big shock was 50 of the $1's and 25 of the $25's were not Paulsons (I specifically asked and was told yes) but BCC.

He said he was "floored" when I told him they were not all real.

He agreed to work it out by any means I chose, saying a prorated price or full refund would be fine.

I knew he had a rack of $3's that were confirmed Paulson so I negotiated a solution for him to send them out which he did.

At some point I located a thread on CT about 720 Vineyards being sold on eBay that were mixed but not disclosed in the auction. Same counts as this guy but he claimed he didn't buy them off eBay.

So all that to say I can't really say if he knew or not when he sold to me but he did work it out.

He currently has some of the BCC chips on eBay and mentions they are commemorative chips but it still a bit misleading imo.
 
Looking at some of his eBay offerings, it seems that several of those were at one time listed by silks. Unsure if this is a new username, or he purchased the items, or what.
 
BGinGA said:
Looking at some of his eBay offerings, it seems that several of those were at one time listed by silks. Unsure if this is a new username, or he purchased the items, or what.
Click to expand...


Yes I thought the same thing but he has a different name. I had bought some chips from Silks a long time ago and his real name is different than this guy. I believe Silks was also from Fl. This seller said he did not get them off eBay.
 
Silks is honest in his dealings, and packs his chips well. He has recently sold some chip items through his wife's eBay account, but quite openly. When a bird cage they sold me recently was damaged in shipping, he immediately refunded 100%, without even asking me to return the included racks.

Silks is up in Tarpon Springs on the FL west coast. He may have a bit of an odd sense of humor and run some odd ads, but he's honest in his actual dealings.

This wickatacki guy, on the FL east coast, is something else altogether, a proven thief, and IMO should be outed here.
 
Sucks because he's got a rack of 0.50 that I wouldn't mind overpaying and making a deal with the devil for, but I can't even think about it after seeing these threads. I don't want to overpay the devil only to get a box of broken chips.
 
its mind numbing that he keeps having to give refunds and discounts, wouldnt it just be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much easier to pack them properly for the extra, what, $1 total?
 
Here is the first shipment. After I receive these I had him send the second batch wrapped in plastic with more padding .
image.jpg


image.jpg
 

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