ARod 500 HR Game Base Problem

[joelsabi]

besides getting a lawyer, which i dont have, what can i do to get the company to honor my purchase. do i have grounds to ask who possesses the item that i bought?

[Vintagedeputy]

grandpahoo - what kind of law do you practice?

[Vintagedeputy]

joelsabi - have you exchanged payment with them yet? have they cashed your check?

Often times, you can file a civil paper yourself for a small fee that lets you notify them that they are in possession of property that you own and you want it back. A simple copy of the sale info and proof that they cashed your check should make any judge happy.

[joelsabi]

i paid with credit card. so you mean the payment had to clear. i know that they put the money back into the account. please clarify how this work. thanks in advance

[Vintagedeputy]

If they sent you a bill or invoice and you sent payment and they accepted that payment, in my mind that is a completed sale and transaction. They cant have sellers remorse after accepting your payment and just send you the money back.

Its like the old mantra used by every disgruntled ebay seller. Your bid is a binding contract. If you bid 10 million dollars, you better believe that they'd be looking for that big check.

If they accepted your payment after invoicing you, its your item.

[joelsabi]

ok i have an email verification where the order status is approved.

is this enough? where can i get this form you are talking about? any help is appreciated.

[David]

I think that under ordinary circumstances a company refunding the money finishes the situation legally. There may be situations where a judge may feel refunding of the paid money is not sufficient. Examples may be if the company backed out of the contract to sell for a higher price, and/or if the item is unique and needed and can't be replaced with mere money. If it was a stocking or cataloging error, a judge isn't going to force the company to come up with the physical item-- though they would have to refund the money. If the company did something bad and intentionally broke the contract or the buyer was otherwise harmed, there may be extra compensation. If the company still has the item, the buyer likely can chose between $$ and the item.

[David]

I should add that a judge may understand that a unique piece of memorabilia may have special significance, and it may mean more than mere money paid to the buyer. The judge likely understands it's not the same as buying $5,000 worth of milk, and if the money is refunded the person can go and get $5,000 worth of milk somewhere else.

[joelsabi]

getting a refund doesnt seem fair if the item was paid with a credit card and the card purchase was approved. i have an invoice with an order number too.

what form can i fill out to claim it? any advise or opinion is appreciated

I think that under ordinary circumstances a company refunding the money finishes the situation legally. There may be situations where a judge may feel refunding of the paid money is not sufficient. Examples may be if the company backed out of the contract to sell for a higher price, and/or if the item is unique and needed and can't be replaced with mere money. If it was a stocking or cataloging error, a judge isn't going to force the company to come up with the physical item-- though they would have to refund the money. If the company did something bad and intentionally broke the contract or the buyer was otherwise harmed, there may be extra compensation. If the company still has the item, the buyer likely can chose between $$ and the item.

[BCowan40]

Salvacion aka joelsabi. My name is Brooks Cowan and I am an account executive for Steiner Sports with a particular focus on our team partnerships. I have been reading the back and forth posts and wanted to comment immediately on them to prevent any further misinformation or hard feelings. I am actually sitting here as we speak looking at your order and also have spoke to the account executive who called you several times and left messages with your mother which you have not returned. Alex Rodriguez hit his 500th career homerun on August 4th. You placed your web order for a base from that game at 10:04 AM on August 11th, 2007. By this time the 6 bases from that game which we received from the Yankees had already been sold out. We sold out all of the bases on August 6th which I can confirm as I personally sold the last one we received from the Yankees. This item should have been removed from our website because it was no longer available. We had presold all of the bases from that game for significantly more then the $599 price which was shown on steinersports.com. $599 is a regular retail price which we charge for game used Yankees bases. When a significant or historical achievement occurs we reserve the right to adjust prices to reflect such provided these items have not already been allocated. By no means is Steiner Sports or any of it's representatives trying to take something from you and by no means did we sell something to you and then rescind such sale. We do not charge customers until an item is ready to ship out of our warehouse so there was never any money taken from you or put back in your account. What you received through e-mail is the same acknowledgement that I am currently looking at. As other forum memembers can attest when you place an order through one of our reps or our website you are sent an automatic e-mail confirmation with a sales order number, you also receive one when the item ships with a UPS tracking number. There was not any foul play just an example of a computer system having a glitch and generating an order confirmation for an item that was not available. We realized this error first thing Monday morning and have been working to contact you and discuss this. I can assure you that if you would return the phone call of the person who has been trying to contact you for several days that you would have all of this explained to you and that he and Steiner Sports would do all that's possible to make this situation better for you. We value our customers and their business and were not looking to have a problem over this issue, it's simply a computer error. If for some reason you're not comfortable with speaking to the representative who has been trying to reach you I can be reached toll free at 888-265-1091 and would be more then happy to do whatever I can for you on this matter.

Thank you and other forum members for the time spent reading this, I just personally felt it was something that needed to be addressed immediately before it went any further. I sincerely appologize for any inconvenience you have been caused by this issue and look forward to working with you on a resolution.

Brooks Cowan