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Dealers Covertly Prowling the Forum

DRD

DRD

Registered
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
5,434
Location
Newark
If you do not care who buys a game you are selling, stop reading here. Sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice sunday.

Firstly, let me be clear

  • I am not on about pinball heaven/ chris b/ pinball mania/ steve brum etc - the guys we all know. These guys do not try to hide who they are and they all contribute much to this site and the hobby. All all have given me very much appreciated advice/ sourced parts/ sourced games/ repaired stuff over many years
  • I know that some people do not care who they sell their games to, as long as the price is right
But equally I know there are many who do not want anything to do with the overpriced sellers that buy games, and put them up on websites at massively inflated prices - effectively taking games out of the enthusiasts' circulation. They would rather accept the second best price, or second placed buyer at the full asking price in order to deal with a fellow enthusiast.

Recently I was chatting to a couple of enthusiasts on here. One had sold a game on the forum and found themselves unexpectedly dealing with one of these mega money sellers. Only at the end, at collection, after an awkward convoluted process of inspection, various phone calls and payment did the ultimate buyer become apparent - via the payment details.

So if you are selling a game and care about this sort of thing and do not recognise the buyer, consider asking a few questions or be aware that your game might soon be out of circulation and online at a massive price.
 
That's pretty ****y behaviour for an enthusiasts forum like this. If it can be proved then people should be banned in my opinion unless they reveal themselves, snigger, beforehand.
 
This is nothing really new though. I get approached on the pinballowners database on a regular basis. I probably should just delete my details from it.

I'm not sure exactly who the buyers you are referring to are. Tobin? Best of the Bunch? Home Leisure Direct? Where would you draw the line?

I'd far rather sell to people I know on here or newbies but can't see a realistic way of not having an open sales section.

For those of us who can remember back a few years I still think the low point was the person who took the free playfield (and gave a sob story to the original owner) before turning around and flogging it the next day on ebay. :tut:
 
johnwhitfield said:
This is nothing really new though. I get approached on the pinballowners database on a regular basis. I probably should just delete my details from it.

I'm not sure exactly who the buyers you are referring to are. Tobin? Best of the Bunch? Home Leisure Direct? Where would you draw the line?

I'd far rather sell to people I know on here or newbies but can't see a realistic way of not having an open sales section.

For those of us who can remember back a few years I still think the low point was the person who took the free playfield (and gave a sob story to the original owner) before turning around and flogging it the next day on ebay. :tut:
Click to expand...

People contacting you on pinball owners aren't necessarily dealers. Its how I found an EarthShaker recently...
 
I think the line to be drawn is between dealers who buy machines to restore and sell on at a higher price and those who buy machines already restored and then list them for sale at a hugely inflated price.
 
There's some good people on pinballowners. I've met a couple of people on here through there. I'd suspect though it's one of the first points of reference for dealers. Nothing wrong with it in itself but I imagine they pretty much trawl through all the lists going
 
I have bought games from Tobin and Best of the Bunch. I have had no problems with these guys. I am sorry but Î can't list all the guys I have not had problems with

I can't afford to buy games from HLD so have never dealt with this outfit, so can't pass comment. Prices like ...

3.3k for a hs2
4k for an eight ball deluxe with original cab art, though a helpful link is given informing you where to buy diy stencils
4k for a nba fastbreak
4.5k for a t2
 
But was the hedgehog attempting to hide his identity ?

Most hedgehogs I have met have been pretty open, unless provoked, then they do tend to close up, hide their faces
 
Its certainly not hard to realise who the dealers are. Especially if you've been into pinball for a while. Whilst i don't care for massively inflated anything, you have to accept that people will do this. Our capitalist society demands it.

That said, i hate selling a pin to anyone only to see it sell for a lot more a short time later. That means always selling at market value. If the market is full of overpriced crap, that market value appears to be higher than it really is and some folk will fall for it actually cementing those prices with their purchases. Its a vicious circle that nearly all desirable items fall prey to. Its not the dealers fault, its your unquenchable desire to own pinball machines.
 
On HLD's defence - I've bought a few things from (not pinball related) and the service has been top notch. Yes they do charge high prices but they also offer a one year warranty which many people will value. I think if people are being deceitful then they should be banned from a forum like this but if they are honest and come clean and I suspect they are providing a service that people want - nothing wrong with that.


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When I sold my TZ, it was advertised on here, and I was PM'd via someone I hadn't heard or seen from before on the forum. A little bit of digging my end soon revealed they were associated with HLD, but they made no effort at all to make it clear who they were.

Infact this person went to some effort to give the impression he was a private home buyer. He said his mate would come in a van to pick it up (yeah right). They would pay cash, but require a vat style invoice when collecting (totally normal for home sales :cuckoo:) Long and short was that although I knew who they were, they didn't know that I knew.. It didn't particularly bother me, I was getting what I thought was a fair price, and if they shopped it up to resell for megabucks, that's none of my business

What irked me though was that after 'his mate' had picked it up (with a 5 second inspection, despite my best efforts to make sure he had a good look at it), he phoned me back a few days later. 'Err, we've had a professional repair guy give it a once over and they think it needs a new power driver board. Will I go halves?'

After I spat out my tea I politely explained that we had agreed it was sold as seen, they had the chance to look it over, and I had never had an issue with it. Further it was my opinion that he could deduct the price of a driver board from the profits they'd make when they resold it. At this point he made a bit of a flustered attempt to say 'huh, its not for resale. Its for my games room', but I think he knew the game was up

Few days later I see it on their website for around 6k. I knew it was mine because they hadn't even changed the flipper rubbers. The photos suggested that they literally just resold it as they took it. Amazing.
 
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I've no idea about these lurkers, but I don't hold anything against companies selling at prices way more than you can buy on here - I say that, but I mean within reason, so not Pinball Paradise ripoffs that were in very poor condition and just flipped for a massive profit, but the likes of HLD, Manny and his exceptionally high quality work, and even Pinball Heaven whose used prices are off the scale compared to what you can buy from here. They all cater for a market, people who want to buy something simply, and from a company rather than an individual (so with some level of assurance). The overheads must be large for companies, and they need to make a living from it too. Horses for courses in my opinion.
 
No problems with it so long as everyone is honest and up front about who they are and what they do.

Relying on the goodwill of people on this forum to get a knock down price so they can then flip it for a fat profit is a little unfair in my view. But ultimately if they're transparent and people want to sell to them then that's their business.
 
Sold my NGG for £2300 (what I bought it for), showed up on their site shortly after with an added £1700 on the price, lovely stuff! :mad:

To add I had no idea it would end up there, wouldn't have sold it otherwise!
 
Yeah, that'd nark me off too if i'm honest. Another nice game that will probably never be in the hands of an enthusiast; if you're buying from the likes of HLD then you're probably a minted Footballer or Celebrity.
 
Ok I'll play devils advocate here......

So what!?! It's a big bad world, if you got what you wanted for a game, life is too short to worry about what happens to 'your' toy afterwards. What if you sell it to another 'good' guy then they sell it to the big bad dealer, you still gonna fret?? Where do you draw the line?

And what if that the machine from a dealer goes to a family who then really enjoy it?? A family who were happy to pay whatever and would never in million years be trawling a pinball forum. Is that so bad??

Just saying :)

Anyway, I think I just heard another hedgehog in my garden... but it could be a big bad dealer :-D I better check :-D



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I ain't looking for a row, especially not with a fellow whirlwind owner, but the "so what" is the deception. When you advertise a game you may well get a few options, trades, a variety of bids etc. For the sake of a few quid here or there you may well choose to deal with people who you trust/ envisage trading with again ...

The problem with the TZ tale above, and the one that led me to start this thread, is that folk felt deceived. When transacting with anyone, you generally need trust. When folk try to hide their identity, that trust is gone

I would certainly rather deal with folk who are honest with me than with folk who are dishonest
 
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Yeah, just to be clear - I wasn't particularly bothered about the fact I was selling to a reseller. I did my research, I thought I knew what to expect. I thought they would spend the time and effort to make it shiny shiny and sell it on for fat profit. Fair play.

But like I say, they went out of their way to pretend they were not a reseller. The HLD guy asked me to email him some pics. Did he use his @HomeLeisureDirect email address? Hah, of course not. Did he ever call from, or give me his business phone number? Absolutely not. When I even confronted him about being a part of HLD he tried to deny it

So yeah. As much as I knew what I was doing - they knew as well. They know that 'trader' is a dirty word within our community. And like I say - reshopping and selling on is one thing. Flipping it at more than double the price without even changing the rubbers.. That's something else

Whoever got that TZ is now shafted. If they get bored of it, they wont be able to shift it for anything close to the 6k they paid. It's only then that they'll realise they got screwed. It's not a great introduction to the hobby for whoever stepped in via that door.
 
By buying from a dealer then the perception is they have some comeback and are dealing with reputable people. The perception of buying from a normal enthusiast is they might be walking into a minefield of someone offloading a duff machine. If that's worth the few grand extra then it's their call. Sadly reality and perception are probably miles apart....for people who get involved in a forum like this then they should be able to fairly quickly see the reality of what pins sell for.

How someone is going to get 6k back for a TZ God only knows....you can buy a lot of pin for that. They will be hanging onto it for a while that's for sure. The good thing about this forum from what I can see is the machines tend to do the rounds..it's the ultimate recycling....once they go outside of this environment then they might not return....or certainly on a price level. where the forum would be interested....
 
If you sell here to a enthusiast and later he/she decides to sell it on. Folk that were a bit slow in responding or didn't have the cash at the time. It offers them a second chance.

However once it's sold to a dealer it may never see this forum again and possibly be sold overseas. Personally I want as many pins kept in the uk as possible.
 
Sonny_Jim said:
I had something similar recently when I posted to get a valuation on my TZ. Within a couple of hours I had a PM from a dealer asking me for first dibs.

Most other forums I use have explicit rules that stuff posted for valuation does not mean that that item is for sale, users are not allowed to pester posters about stuff in the valuations section. Is that not the case on this forum?
Click to expand...

No.

Try not to have too many rules and regs on here and it works pretty well.
 
So basically i sold my T2 to a friend of a forum member that turned out to be an employee of HLD. Not that this is a problem at all as i got my asking price. Yes, it's only a 'toy' at the end of the day. Just the way it was handled felt a little deceitful.

Anyway that's done now. However, the machine turns up on HLD website (as expected).
https://www.homeleisuredirect.com/p...erminator-2-pinball-machine-led-upgraded.html
Looks exactly how it was sold to them only the description says it has new cabinet decals!
IMG-20160921-WA0000.jpg
I can clearly see my touchup job just above the J. Definitely hasn't had new cabinet decals!
 
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darren_ross said:
So basically i sold my T2 to a friend of a forum member that turned out to be an employee of HLD. Not that this is a problem at all as i got my asking price. Yes, it's only a 'toy' at the end of the day. Just the way it was handled felt a little deceitful.

Anyway that's done now. However, the machine turns up on HLD website (as expected).
https://www.homeleisuredirect.com/p...erminator-2-pinball-machine-led-upgraded.html
Looks exactly how it was sold to them only the description says it has new cabinet decals!
View attachment 35883
I can clearly see my touchup job just above the J. Definitely hasn't had new cabinet decals!
Click to expand...

That's stupidly steep for a T2, even a nice one like that. T2 is a 2k game, top whack.

Actually more interested they have a Mustang LE in the background haha, I didn't even know there were any in the UK.
 
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