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No Longer Available Whitewater £4250

jake52 said:
Is this a witch hunt or a sales thread? I never set out to upset anyone with this sale. As Chris said he's bought a machine off me before without any complaints. This machine plays well, it's a vintage machine with facets I could have more carefully detailed but also some of the faults listed here are not fair or true. You maybe right, I maybe naive as I lost money on this, and in this past have been sold some turds on here, but am not going to start throwing mud and naming names, which maybe I should have done. Apart from the skill posts which we discussed privately I stand by this machine, it plays very well. I'm sorry I'm not at Chris B's standards but neither was I on the price. If you don't want it and are not happy about it, eBay it as everyone has written it off on here and it really isn't that bad.
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It plays well because it's a players condition game. You didn't list it as that. The photos only showed damage on very close inspection which 99% of us missed.

If you stand by it then you shouldn't have any problem standing by sorting out @taz turbo who in no way is going to be able to recoup this.

Do the right thing.
 
If @jake52 would be a fair guy, he would just accept a return on this machine as is clearly not as described.

But as I see he refuses that by “standing by” the machine. Does he think that standing by would help the seller in any way? Is that helpful at all? No, it isn’t! Not at all!

To suggest to sell it on ebay instead of taking it back and apologising describes quite a lot about one’s character.

Sad…

Do the right thing @jake52, just do the right thing. That’s the only way you can stand by it. Show the community that you really can stand by your description. Be human.
 
jake52 said:
Is this a witch hunt or a sales thread? I never set out to upset anyone with this sale. As Chris said he's bought a machine off me before without any complaints. This machine plays well, it's a vintage machine with facets I could have more carefully detailed but also some of the faults listed here are not fair or true. You maybe right, I maybe naive as I lost money on this, and in this past have been sold some turds on here, but am not going to start throwing mud and naming names, which maybe I should have done. Apart from the skill posts which we discussed privately I stand by this machine, it plays very well. I'm sorry I'm not at Chris B's standards but neither was I on the price. If you don't want it and are not happy about it, eBay it as everyone has written it off on here and it really isn't that bad.
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Disgusting attitude that has no place on this forum. A chance to right your wrong but gone on the defensive instead.
‘In the past I’ve been sold some turds’ - sounds like you’re admitting this ones a turd!?!
I’m sickened at how great and helpful this forum is but still has people like you who could potentially ruin it.
 
I'm in total shock with the reaction to this. Never felt so ganged up on in all my life. I wouldn't join in a thread unless I knew the whole story, but seemingly everyone here does and everyone is a judge and executioner, it's horrible.
 
Okay it's awful you're feeling that way right now and I get that things like this can make you feel really sh1t, but playing the victim while still refusing outright to take any responsibility for what happened isn't really going to fly.

As for knowing the whole story, if there's a part missing that exonerates you nows a good time to bring it up.
 
jake52 said:
I'm in total shock with the reaction to this. Never felt so ganged up on in all my life. I wouldn't join in a thread unless I knew the whole story, but seemingly everyone here does and everyone is a judge and executioner, it's horrible.
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Ummmm, your for sale thread and photos and price paid was the whole story right? What we missing?
 
jake52 said:
I'm in total shock with the reaction to this. Never felt so ganged up on in all my life. I wouldn't join in a thread unless I knew the whole story, but seemingly everyone here does and everyone is a judge and executioner, it's horrible.
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It’s your response to this that has got people’s back up. You couldn’t care one bit that by posting an honest and detailed description the seller will now lose lots of money. By NOT doing this you ripped someone off. Take it back, relist with a more accurate description and everything’s fair - do you not agree?
 
Having had a couple of similar experiences I really feel sorry for Taz, tho that’s of little consolation.
It looks like there will be no easy or quick resolution, but unless you don’t like the game at all and want to get rid of it, may I suggest that barring fitting a new playfield you may consider getting a Cliffy for the lost mine entrance and the for the vuk exit on mini playfield, touching up the playfield and fitting a playfield protector so that at least the playfield is flat.
I can send you a protector for both the main playfield and mini playfield free if you pay postage cost.
I realise this may not be what you ideally want or wanted, just trying to help with a suggestion, tho ideally, the easiest solution would be to get your money back.
 
jake52 said:
Is this a witch hunt or a sales thread? I never set out to upset anyone with this sale. As Chris said he's bought a machine off me before without any complaints. This machine plays well, it's a vintage machine with facets I could have more carefully detailed but also some of the faults listed here are not fair or true. You maybe right, I maybe naive as I lost money on this, and in this past have been sold some turds on here, but am not going to start throwing mud and naming names, which maybe I should have done. Apart from the skill posts which we discussed privately I stand by this machine, it plays very well. I'm sorry I'm not at Chris B's standards but neither was I on the price. If you don't want it and are not happy about it, eBay it as everyone has written it off on here and it really isn't that bad.
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@jake52 the machine was totally misdescribed, I have tried to sort this out with you privately, you turned down my request, you suggested I moved it on, hence I put the advert here. I couldn’t under any circumstances gloss over glaring issues with something I’m selling, so, added what I thought potential purchasers should know BEFORE a machine lands on their doorstep. Regarding our discussion about skill posts discussed privately I think I should clarify….

I said…

I set up Whitewater last night, I’m little disappointed TBH, there was no mention in the description that it’s had skill posts fitted, not really much in the pictures to show it either, just one little dot of the top of the centre post, I certainly hadn’t picked up on it.

You replied…

Sorry about that, I know a number of white waters had this mod and my previous one did as well. Both came with no mention of them so didn't think to mention it. They are totally manual controlled unlike some of the Stern games so shouldn't affect your gameplay but if it's for aesthetic reasons then I can understand.

So just to clarify, our communication about skill posts was after it arrived with myself. And as to your comment above ‘some of the faults listed here are not fair or true’ please explain exactly what isn’t fair or true? I’ve given you, and still giving you the opportunity to make this right, I’m not one for falling out or holding grudges, life’s just to short, but I don’t think your doing yourself any great favours here, it’s no witch hunt as you put it, but I can see your reputation is going to take a hit.

Chris.
 
Beowulfz07 said:
Having had a couple of similar experiences I really feel sorry for Taz, tho that’s of little consolation.
It looks like there will be no easy or quick resolution, but unless you don’t like the game at all and want to get rid of it, may I suggest that barring fitting a new playfield you may consider getting a Cliffy for the lost mine entrance and the for the vuk exit on mini playfield, touching up the playfield and fitting a playfield protector so that at least the playfield is flat.
I can send you a protector for both the main playfield and mini playfield free if you pay postage cost.
I realise this may not be what you ideally want or wanted, just trying to help with a suggestion, tho ideally, the easiest solution would be to get your money back.
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That is a very kind offer, for which I thank you for immensely. However what I really want is it to go back to the seller, but he’s just not seeming so receptive to that just yet!

Big thank you though 👍
 
Ok so here are the people I think owned this
Bought from auction by steve frith sold to moose man then on to guy in Wrexham can’t remember his user name cr something I think then to jake then to taz turbo I bet if you do an advance search on it you will find out
 
Gonzo said:
How much is a new PF for one of these please?
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Screenshot_20211010-233932_Chrome.jpg
Someone said they arent good quality... I havent a clue myself
 
Gonzo said:
How much is a new PF for one of these please?
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mircoplayfields.com

White Water Mirco playfield set - Mircoplayfields

Brand new Mirco playfield. The playfield comes completely dimpled and drilled, ready to install, protected with a special robot applied ceramic clearcoat - same as we use on JJP/Dutchpinball/Heighway games.
mircoplayfields.com mircoplayfields.com

Seem to be just over a 1000 euros, but only one site selling, no idea of quality
 
Gonzo said:
How much is a new PF for one of these please?
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Funny you should ask, it was something I looked into for reference, mirco site €1040, I believe you can take the euro sales tax off but the vat and duty to add on entry to UK, so about £1000-1100 ish?
 
Gonzo said:
How much is a new PF for one of these please?
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Probably about £1200 by the time it’s got here there is absolutely no point throwing tons of money at this particular game without the original topper it will never command a great price Wh20 is a very expensive game to restore the playfield ramps boulders and plastic set is going to set you back over 2k before you even start on anything else the white one I did for a customer fully restored was over 10k by the time it was finished
 
FinalFight said:
View attachment 149764
Someone said they arent good quality... I havent a clue myself
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Cheers chaps.

Just caught up with this and think I'm up to speed.
I've been similarly caught out when I was a bit green and overpaid for a machine that was not as described.

I understand that the buyers ideal solution is to get a refund but that doesn't look likely.

I totally understand what @CHRIS B PINBALLS has said regarding the complexity and resale value without a topper.

That being said I'd like to help mitigate the loss even just a little. I have a brand new unused set of black Stern legs, some Bally legs and a few spare parts including Comet bulbs etc. They're not doing anything but collecting dust so I'd like to donate them to a playfield fund or whatever. Not charity but community.
 
Knowing the history on this one. This is and always has been a poor players cab at best. It has been tarted up with some new ramps and some bling but the underlying issue, the playfield and those skill posts, has not been resolved. Pinflation or not a working players condition WH20 that hasn’t had a full restore is a 3.5k max game in my book. The game is a huge money pit to put right, changing the playfield comes at a massive cost when you add in all of the parts underneath that will also need replacing.

As for the previous sales advert. The wear to the inserts and missing whirlpool pcb is clearly visible in the original sales post pictures. As with any machine, It’s the buyers responsibility to do their homework and ask for extra pictures and more details. If you can’t go see it in person you have to do your due diligence. The lack of transparency around the skills posts was underhand and in my eyes is the only wrong doing here and should of been resolved with a partial refund.

I’d say the current owner has a few options…

Chalk it up and just enjoy it as it is. 6 months time you will probably lose £750 but at least you had some fun.

Sell it now at a loss £3500-£3750.. someone will enjoy restoring the money pit I’m sure.

Stick it on eBay with an honest advert and let the wider market decide.
 
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Tyke said:
Knowing the history on this one. This is and always has been a poor players cab at best. It has been tarted up with some new ramps and some bling but the underlying issue, the playfield and those skill posts, has not been resolved. Pinflation or not a working players condition WH20 that hasn’t had a full restore is a 3.5k max game in my book. The game is a huge money pit to put right, changing the playfield comes at a massive cost when you add in all of the parts underneath that will also need replacing.

As for the previous sales advert. The wear to the inserts and missing whirlpool pcb is clearly visible in the original sales post pictures. As with any machine, It’s the buyers responsibility to do their homework and ask for extra pictures and more details. If you can’t go see it in person you have to do your due diligence. The lack of transparency around the skills posts was underhand and in my eyes is the only wrong doing here and should of been resolved with a partial refund.

I’d say the current owner has a few options…

Chalk it up and just enjoy it as it is. 6 months time you will probably loose £750 but at least you had some fun.

Sell it now at a loss £3500-£3750.. someone will enjoy restoring the money pit I’m sure.

Stick it on eBay with an honest advert and let the wider market decide.
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Bit Harsh I think to excuse this behaviour and say the buyer should chalk up a 750 to 1k loss when the original sale post was obviously very misleading.

'Cabinet is pretty good, but usual age scuff mainly on the back so unseen' – no pics of cab itself, no mention of the extra holes, skills posts, buttons or damage around the legs.

ww2.jpg

ww1.jpg



'No playfield planking, but insignificant scuffs, nothing alarming, the usual for its age.'

ww4.jpg
ww3.jpg
ww5.jpg





Also original Sales post made no mention made of the repro topper, the incorrect flipper mechs, traces of alkaline damage on cpu board and knocker missing. Guy was deceived plain and simple
 
Mozie said:
Bit Harsh I think to excuse this behaviour and say the buyer should chalk up a 750 to 1k loss when the original sale post was obviously very misleading.

'Cabinet is pretty good, but usual age scuff mainly on the back so unseen' – no pics of cab itself, no mention of the extra holes, skills posts, buttons or damage around the legs.

View attachment 149765
View attachment 149766


'No playfield planking, but insignificant scuffs, nothing alarming, the usual for its age.'

View attachment 149767View attachment 149768View attachment 149770




Also original Sales post made no mention made of the repro topper, the incorrect flipper mechs, traces of alkaline damage on cpu board and knocker missing. Guy was deceived plain and simple
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Might seem harsh but it’s reality. I’m not taking sides but the playfield damage was there to see it wasn’t hidden. The other stuff is a grey area and only picked up on a much closer inspection, repro topper, I bet most can’t tell the difference. Incorrect flipper mechs most folk wouldn’t know either way. Battery alakaline traces, pcb is working fine and is common to see old damage from leaky batteries. The question is did Jake52 know all this and choose to not disclose it, only he knows that. The skill posts is the big error on his part and the general high praise he graded the machine at.

I do hope it gets resolved in a fair and grown up manner. It’s a great example for all members to just be more careful when buying/selling these expensive toys. As the prices go up the expectations also go up.

Peace.
 
Whist taking a 1k hit may be the reality out there in the wild west of Ebay/Gumtree etc I would have thought a community forum should hold itself to a higher standard (which thankfully for the most part seems to be happening here) and calling this out for what it is. I'm pretty sure that in the period the previous owner had the machine he closely inspected it and was aware of the majority of issues it had and decided not to disclose them in the sale post, no cabinet pictures, no pictures with machine off, no closeups of the playfield around the damaged areas etc In fact in his previous sales post he specifically included a picture of a tiny mark on the side of the cabinet so I'm sure he was well aware of most of the faults here. Irrespective of all that its the flippant attitude of 'tough, if your not happy with it sell it on to somebody else' and an unwillingness to try to come to some arrangement to compensate the buyer for what was clearly a misleading post, that's the icing on the cake here and one that doesn't really fit well with the spirit of the community in my opinion at least, Hopefully @taz turbo you can sort something with the seller. I do agree its a great example of the need to be more cautious when buying//selling a pin even on the forum but its unfortunate that the lesson has cost someone a stack of cash!
 
jake52 said:
I'm in total shock with the reaction to this. Never felt so ganged up on in all my life. I wouldn't join in a thread unless I knew the whole story, but seemingly everyone here does and everyone is a judge and executioner, it's horrible.
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@jake52 I have seen @taz turbo’s photos. I have also read your original description on the forum and I have seen a lot of pinball machines. So, don’t play the victim with me.

I have played fully-restored MM’s that are almost indistinguishable from CGC MM reproductions except for the badge and screen size/resolution. I have played on a fully restored BSD that looked like a NIB Stern. I also own a Fish Tales that was sold without topper as player’s condition for more than it would be worth on here but, which - crucially - is otherwise in VISIBLY better condition than @taz turbo’s WH2O. So, your advert was shockingly misleading - I can conclude that from @taz turbo’s photos without seeing the machine ’in the flesh’.

I’m unsure if your original misleading advert was unintentional, i.e. you’ve not seen many vintage pinball machines, or whether you were deliberately trying to rip off poor @taz turbo with your photos (that used lighting to hide the problems) and description of the machine’s condition. Your later posts, which appear to refuse to apologise or take responsibility, make me think it’s more likely to be the latter 😢 Hence, the anger. If you owned up and said “Sorry, guys, n00b to vintage machines here. Think I got scammed by the previous seller as well - hands up, I think I’ll give @taz turbo a refund and maybe you folks can try to help me track down the guy who sold it to me and maybe we can try fix this as a community,” then I think you’d find you had a much more positive reception.

I really feel for @taz turbo and it is shockingly unacceptable the way you have behaved (so far).

CHRIS B PINBALLS said:
Probably about £1200 by the time it’s got here there is absolutely no point throwing tons of money at this particular game without the original topper it will never command a great price Wh20 is a very expensive game to restore the playfield ramps boulders and plastic set is going to set you back over 2k before you even start on anything else the white one I did for a customer fully restored was over 10k by the time it was finished
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@CHRIS B PINBALLS is correct that this is a money pit to put right. I have no intention of selling my FT and have spent £1k on restoration work and ‘bling’ so far. I’ve looked up how much it would cost for a professional to make my FT look like the restored MMs I’ve seen, which would include a full whitewash, repaint and re-decal of the box, powder coating the legs, and probably a new playfield (and my playfield has *no* bare wood bits), and it would be £6k. And that’s *without* the topper issue (there are instructions on Pinside to make a new topper from spare FT parts and I’ve so far spent £80 on a rubber fish and 100 euros on the plastic dome). When I eventually have the confidence to do so, I’m hoping to dismantle the playfield and re-decal the cab myself, as well - but it will probably still cost several hundred pound in parts.

When I said I was interested, I was planning to go through a similar process with this WH2O - and, yes, I expected to spend up to £10k on the job (eventually) with no intention of selling. For that reason, I wouldn’t - personally - pay more than £2-2.5k given the cost of the playfield and other parts (and I’m not entirely sure we want a third pin right now… so that’s not a commitment to buy). There are lots of people on this forum, I’m sure, who’d love a WH2O as a player’s condition pin and would be happy to pay more than me for it.

Thank you, @Gonzo and others who’ve offered stuff to @taz turbo - it is very kind 🥰
 
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I think the fairest way is to sell the machine for what it goes for and then split the loss between you
Tyke does make a valid point that buyer s should do more dd but at £4500 I would expect a pretty nice Wh20 and if you have bought from the same person before and been happy then why would you ask more questions
I was caught out a year or 2 ago with a pin bought from here I actually bought 2 of the same pin 1 huo and the other from an operator when martin turned up with them I mentioned how nice the huo one looked only to be told that was the one from the operator NOT the huo one and he didn’t think I was going to be happy with the one bought from here it was clearly not huo with over 6000 plays showing on it I mentioned it to the seller only to be told he was told it was huo and the conversation ended there
I know of 2 games listed recently that are ex operator on here with no mention in the description of how many plays I wonder why but they do have plenty of pics this isn’t been totally honest but it’s not lying either so maybe it is down to the buyer to ask the right questions
 
CHRIS B PINBALLS said:
Ok so here are the people I think owned this
Bought from auction by steve frith sold to moose man then on to guy in Wrexham can’t remember his user name cr something I think then to jake then to taz turbo I bet if you do an advance search on it you will find out
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The Wrexham chap with cr... is cr5000462 - looked like he was planning a restore of a WH2O a year or so ago - but moved that particular machine on - could be this one or could be a coincidence. https://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/brand-new-whitewater-full-ramp-set.46689/

I've dealt with both people caught up in this situation - both seem very honest to me through our conversations - so very sad to see a deal like this go smelly...

However for what its worth, (and I'm no expert) the few pins I've bought - I've always travelled to check it out before paying. Normally get to play some great games owned by members at the same time - so what's the downside!? I sold one machine to a fellow member that he never saw it (Martin collected) - was gutted he had to replace the flipper mechs at Pinfest. A drink and an honest apology (I realy should have replaced them...), we are still talking!
 
Okay,

I've had some coms from @jake52 he has apologised for this situation, and is paying a partial refund to me later today, this would take the cost of the machine back to around where it probably should be.

So lessons for all here.

Buyers and potential buyers be more vigilant, don't always trust what you see/read, ask for more pictures and always view if possible.

Sellers don't judge your own machines so much, let the pictures do the talking.

I'm taking the machine off sale, will play it some more.

So I think we can now put a line under this.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Chris.
 
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