Blue Cavern

I bought a Toto Loto Sockel online and it arrived today.
I am utterly disgusted with it as I spent quite an amount of money on it. The seller is known for being a questionable one but I had done business with him before and always was very satisfied.

I thought I post pictures on here just as a reminder that we can never be too careful about sockels or other rarer smurfs
The smurf was advertised as mint condition, but clearly is not..the ball is dirty and so is the smurf. The smurf arrived loose from the sockel and ball and clearly both were glued individually to the sockel as the little string (not sure what it is called) that fastens the ball to the smurf is missing.
you can also clearly see where the ball and the smurf were glued to the sockel...

I have contacted the seller but haven't heard from him so far

Right now, I am mostly mad at myself as I should have known better but had been lucky so far...here are the pictures...and please when buying sockels...be careful..very careful I know this has been said before, but I guess it never hurts to remind each other of it

Hi Maureen
Wow that is really sad !! I do feel your pain as I have just had this happen with the yellow umbrella smurf . I am getting really sick of sellers selling there crap fakes !!! As with the smurf you won I would have also fell for it I am also like why would they lie

Hi Maureen, sorry to hear about your socle I saw that very auction and would love a toto lotto..but when I saw it looked, less than in good condition I didn't opt for buying it..hope you manage to get the money back from that 'ahem' seller

I would actually be happy with a refund of half the money to keep this one as sort of a reference

I guess, I was so excited to finally see this one as Baden Wurttemberg is the German state I grew up in, so I just clicked the BIN button and didn't think more of it

I usually learn my lessons the hard way...but learn them I do and I am learning more and more to ask questions before I commit to a deal

I'm sorry to hear about this Maureen but it's good that you showed us the pictures to show us to what extents these b*st**ds go sometimes

I also hope you have some luck with getting a refund of sorts.

That really sucks Moey. I feel your pain as I have been very disappointed in the past when I was anticipating something really special.

I hope you get a response from the seller and he refunds you your money or something as this is just a very dodgy sale in my opinion.

Dyar

I hope you can tell him what you think of him Mosey !

Well, I was pretty hot when I contacted him yesterday but I kept it polite....very very very polite but to the point

OH NO Maureen that is so bad !!!! I can see from the background who the seller is and i know you can't trust him !! I bought from him in the past and my smurf was repainted

Hi Maureen, I am very sorry to hear about this and see the mess of the smurf concerned. That really is NOT mint, I would class as fair to poor condition.

I'll keep my fingers crossed you get some kind of a refund from the seller.

Thanks for your comments...so far I haven't heard from him and I don't think I will....I will put this down as a learning experience also, albeit an expensive one..

This wasn't the only smurf I got in that package and the others seem to be genuine..but I probably will ask for other opinions once I have taken pictures...and may even let Stace look at them when I see her in October

Like I said I bought from him in the past, but when Beers and I chatted last night he knew instantly who I meant (well, it was his second guess) and he remembered another ID the seller works under and Dyar told me today of a third ID he sells under (this seller not Dyar), both IDs I wouldn't touch with a hot iron, so I really should have known better than to buy something rare from him. I did buy two more smurfs from him on Sunday (before this package arrived) but they were normal smurfs with the Sri Lanka marking so I think I should be safe in this case

Well...I learned my lesson and I hope it helps as a reminder to others

Hi Maureen,

If you paid with paypal (which I assume you might have seeing I think that seller is not from the US) then I would lodge a claim with paypal for the item not being as decribed. I had a seller sell me something listed clearly as MINT condition and it wasn't. I sent pics of the item to Paypal along with some pics of what a mint one should look like and they refunded my money. Always worth a try if you get no joy from the seller. Hope you get some success with a refund.

If you paid with paypal (which I assume you might have seeing I think that seller is not from the US) then I would lodge a claim with paypal for the item not being as decribed. I had a seller sell me something listed clearly as MINT condition and it wasn't. I sent pics of the item to Paypal along with some pics of what a mint one should look like and they refunded my money. Always worth a try if you get no joy from the seller. Hope you get some success with a refund.

It can never hurt to go thru paypal and ebay both to complain especially since the seller doesn't have the decency to respond to you And if you used a credit card thru paypal, write the credit card company and they will place a temporary hold on the charge until they investigate it as well. I don't think you should learn an expensive lesson when you should be able to get a refund one way or the other. You clearly purchased something based on it being mint and it clearly was not.

.... I had three complaints at PayPal as a buyer and at every complaint I was getting the full money back...

Still haven't heard anything..so I have started the proceedings tonight...I tried ebay but it transfered me to Paypal...

Ebay charge you a $25 here in Australia (not sure what it is in the US) so I bypass them now and go through paypal. Maybe they don't do it now and just transfer to paypal though It was a few years back I did mine.

Good news....

I sent the seller a bit of a harsh e-mail in response to an e-mail from him and also included pictures....and immediately he agreed to the partial refund (I told him he is lucky to get anything at all for this sockel) and admitted it was his mistake....

He already refunded the money

Glad to hear this, Maureen!!!!!

Good to hear a positive outcome......good on the seller for at least doing the right thing vis a refund.

Dyar

Don't mess with the Mosey !

Well done ! A great outcome for a great smurfer