Shady Lane

Posted by rzigray@wrmills.com (A) on June 16, 2009 at 11:24:34

A copy an paste to further prove a scam, thanks Conrad, owe thats me too.

Having just noticed this thread, I need to interject a couple of things, as a response here and to one other of mr. elf's posts below. These will serve to undermine mr. elf's credibility, not that he isn't doing an excellent job of that himself.

The emails Rudy has posted here are legitimate, and verbatim copies of the ones I received yesterday, so, contrary to what mr. elf is seemingly so desperate to have people believe, they are not 'imagined', and people should believe what Rudy 'is typing' because it is not 'rubbish', it is the truth.

mr. elf then states that 'there was not a single reply by any member', which, again, is false. I sent a lengthy response to the Audiogon dispute resolution forum yesterday, as I believe several others did as well. I was aware of this scam from its inception and commented on Rudy's behalf because of that. I have known Rudy for quite a while, and know him to be an honest person. A little excited at this point, but who in his position would not be? Rudy was scammed and is angry. Angry for getting taken, and angry that, with Audiogon's help, mr. elf is seemingly going to get away with it. At this point, though Rudy would like to get his money back, he is mainly trying to alert other people in the community of what happened so they do not get scammed by mr. elf as well. The fact that Audiogon has not allowed the responses of those who were aware of what happened to verify Rudy's account is unfortunate. They are in essence protecting the scammer.

Here's the summary of what would seem to be the scam:
Rudy sees an unnaturally good deal for a pair of Audience cables on Audiogon and sends mr. elf $861.
No shipment ever arrives. This is the truth, to which anyone at his place of work can attest after listening to him pester the letter carrier day after day.
OK, could have gotten lost in the mail or delayed. Our first clue that something is not as it should be is mr. elf's continued insistence that the package was delivered to Rudy and he can prove it because he has a 'delivery confirmation number' that he keeps flashing all about as if it were not meaningless. As anyone who has ever learned to regret trusting the Postal Service knows, a 'delivery confirmation' designation does not provide any tracking as reasonable people understand tracking. It is not proof that something was delivered to Rudy, or to Rudy's address.
Although we do not all do it, we do all know that it is the responsibility of the seller to see that the purchased item makes it safely into the hands of the purchaser, this includes proper packaging, insurance, and, if you are smart, tracking. If the package does not arrive undamaged, it is not the buyer's fault and the buyer cannot legitimately be asked to share the pain. From a legal standpoint this is probably the bottom line.

But, mr. elf hammers out a deal with Rudy wherein Rudy will accept some of his off brand cables plus $400 in money orders. This time mr. elf sends Rudy the elf cables, and nothing else. Then conveniently claims that he didn't use money orders as had been agreed on, but sent $400 cash in the package instead. But this time he uses FedEx and the package can be tracked to prove he sent something. So, mr. elf claims that Rudy is lying about not receiving the cash. Of course! This should probably be the second red flag to anyone who is paying attention. You are in a heated dispute with someone revolving around claims that they did not receive something you sent earlier, so you send them a package containing not money orders for which you have a receipt, but cash! I don't think so.

Up to this point, one could fairly believe that, perhaps, just perhaps, mr. elf was telling the truth and that he had originally sent Rudy a pair of underpriced Audience cables just as he claimed, and that they mysteriously vanished. It happens. Not often, but it happens, especially if the seller is careless enough to send something without insurance or tracking.

(Though Rudy had noticed, and the alleged moderators at Audiogon might have been able to verify, that, of all the ads which mr. elf had on Audiogon, the only ad which did not have a picture of the goods to be sold, was the ad for the Audience cables). Maybe there was a reason he could not take a picture of cables he did not have. Or could have been just a strange coincidence.

What would make a serious person begin to doubt mr. elf's version of reality was that Rudy checked mr. elf's feedback and found a person who had also purchased an item from mr. elf, which had mysteriously disappeared in transit and, coincidence upon coincidence, this person had also been talked into taking elf cables instead.

All that lightning in one place, how odd that is.

So, Audiogon is not policing the system for scammers to the extent that members might rightfully expect.

Rudy is not going to be made whole here, and he knows it. All he is trying to do is to alert people to what seems to go on occasionally when dealing with mr. elf, who, to be fair, has some satisfied customers as well. Caveat emptor, as always.

No one is in a position to prove anything for either side beyond a shadow of a doubt. My main intent was to point out that a few of the things that mr. elf had posted here regarding whether or not anyone had posted a response to the dispute on Audiogon were factually inaccurate, and to provide some context to the nature of the original dispute, which the moderators at Audiogon have unadvisedly chosen to bury.