Large Scale Central

California Lawyers: how does a Canadian resident file small clai

General Discussion
#41

Norman,

how you go about it is your business … and this is how I see this

Accucraft delivered a product to a dealer. How and for how much that dealer sells that product is the dealer’s prerogative. Unless you have paper work that shows how much that dealer’s offer to you was for that specific item and what he charged you differs from that written quote … you have not even a wish, let alone a case.

As you indicated you changed your mind, that is your prerogative but don’t expect that your original deal now applies to the new deal. It doesn’t! Dealer A was going to deliver the item you ordered to you at the price agreed.

You want a different deal from Dealer A? You got a different deal!

Is the product defective? It goes back to the mfg!

You don’t like the deal, you have to figure it out with Dealer A with whom you had the deal. If you do horse trading you better look in the horse’s mouth and while you’re checking at the dealer’s tongue.

OTOH since both the dealers appear to be in the USA, you best order and pay by credit card next time around, dispute the charges if they are “incorrect” and let the CC people adjudicate the problem. If you tell them the same as you told us … you will most likely be out of luck.
Which brings me back to what I said in the last post, if you feel hard done by you can publish the dealers’ names and the court of public opinion will adjust its buying habits (maybe).

#42

Hi guys:

First of all there is the concept of " doing business between gentlemen ".

How desparate was dealer B to charge me a 350.00 “sales commission” when dealer B did not in fact sell me the loco?
There will be other future Accucraft locos that I will buy. There will never be any future Accucraft locos that I will buy from dealer B.
What type of business model is that?

Dealer B released the loco to dealer A for dealer A to sell me the loco.
Dealer A was extremely upset at dealer B for charging me 350.00 directly and consequently dealer A told me that “we will worry about the dealer commission later” as in he would not charge me the full dealer commission as dealer B had taken advantage of the situation.

Ralph, I did not willing pay 350.00 extra for the loco. Dealer A did not keep his “word” to me.
Ralph, if you ever have any dealings with dealer A and are similarly mistreated, then you too should not complain about it afterward.

Jake, yes you are correct. Not worth the legal bother which is why dealer A knew that he could get away with this.

Hans-Joerg, yes I definitely got a different deal and dealer A lost a client.

John Le Forestier, foul language is not appreciated. If you have given up, then give up and don’t comment. I do not need to read swearing.

The close knit Ottawa business community of which I am involved in does not tolerate this type of behaviour. Your word is your bond. Break your word or deceive someone or take advantage of a business associate and you are an outcast. Incidentially, over the years I have found business women to be the most trustworthy. Sorry to generalise but there it is.

John Le Forestier and Hans-Joerg, publically revealing the identities of dealer A and dealer B would not be the act of one doing business as a gentleman. Dealer A and dealer B can do business at their level. I will continue to do business at my level.

John Bouck, yes you are correct. As one example, Jim at G Scale Junction is a fine person to deal with.

The bottom line is maybe the Aristo Craft business model of direct sales has its merits. This abuse would never have occurred under an Accucraft direct sales business model.

Norman

#43
Norman Bourgault said:
I had the option of demanding the credit back from dealer A and then mailing the credit amount to dealer B.

Dealer B charged me the dealer commission just to release his pre-order on a loco without actually selling me the locomotive. I am sure this is not legal, but whatever.


Norman,
I don’t mean to be harsh. Your mistake was in not getting your money back from dealer A and buying the locomotive from dealer B. YOUR mistake.

Did dealer B charge you the $350 commission or did he charge dealer A , who then passed the charges along?
As I said earlier, dealer B did nothing wrong. He pre-ordered the locomotive, most likely paid at least a deposit. He did not pre-order this locomotive, just so he could pass it on to dealer A.
He expected to sell it at retail, and dealer A agreed.

I certainly wouldn’t buy anything in the future from dealer A. But if you did not ask for a full refund, after being informed of the $350 price hike, YOU accepted the deal.
And, if you accepted the deal, you shouldn’t be blaming Accucraft or the dealers. Once you accept the deal, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Now, if you did ask for a full refund once you were informed of the price hike and were refused, then you have reasonable cause to complain.
But, if you accepted delivery of the locomotive, paid the full asking price, and are trying to recover the $350 after the fact… two wrongs don’t make a right :wink:
Ralph

#44

Quote: “How desparate was dealer B to charge me a 350.00 “sales commission” when dealer B did not in fact sell me the loco?
There will be other future Accucraft locos that I will buy. There will never be any future Accucraft locos that I will buy from dealer B.
What type of business model is that?”

Norman,
no doubt dealer ‘B’ had reserved the locomotive in his initial orders. He is not going to give up this reservation without due compensation, his dealer commission. I feel that this is fair and just as if sold to another individual then the commission was rightfully his.

            Dealer 'A' due your long relationship (a little overexaggerated considering the outcome) was wrong in firstly not setting out the business terms and secondly charging commission for a locomotive that he really had no right to sell (not prereserved) as the model was presold by Accucraft and obviously a premium demand roadname. 

            Now we get to Accucraft's involvement.  You state you preordered and prepaid for an item as depicted in Accucraft prerelease documentatuion.  After seeing actual production photographs you decided to change roadnames.  Did the prerelease photographs depict the actual release item or were significant changes made to the production item?  Accucraft reserve the right to alter production models from prerelease model depictions so are not at fault.  Morally though,  if you had good releations with dealer 'A' then he should have dealy more fairly with you.  On the other hand, dealer 'A' now has a prereseved loco order with Accucraft which he may be legally required to purchase and has charged you the dealer commission to cover his commitment with Accucraft.

          Either way,  dealer 'A' is acting as a businessman and entitled to his commission as is dealer 'B'.  You are out of pocket but it is you that changed the terms of the sale.  The deal should have been sorted prior to contact with dealer 'b' as regards commission to be charged by dealer 'A'.  You believed that dealer 'A' would act 'fairly',  but in the end dealer 'A' is a businessman firstly, friend second and has business commitments to be met.

         Morally, in your mind both dealers have actled incorrectly,  but I believe that both have acted legally and you would have a snowball's chance of succeeding in court and your outlay would far exceed your initial $350.00 'overcharge'.  I hate to say it but you really need to put it behind you and remember next time you think firstly about placing an order and secondly should you choose to alter that order then exact details need to be written on paper.
#45

Ahh yes to other comments. You bare most of this for you did not make sure everything was as you thought they were supposed to be. Been there done that too. Each dealer is entitled to make a profit for whatever part they played.

Time to move along and just learn from life as you know, we all have had something happen that we could have done differently.

TOF in Hawaii

#46

One thing I know right now is Bing is in China currently. A pretty good reason you prob have now heard from him. Though you have spoke to Cliff about it and that should take care of the problems but as others said too you had changed your mind on an order that was preprdered and are non refundable. The dealers are still required to take the ordered product. Accucraft really has no say in the dealer selling price. Some sell low some are retail. You happened to ask a dealer to get something thats not available and he did, at a premium as expected due to demand.

Look at what car dealers get for limited edition cars, should everyone start to sue ford when dealers were getting 20 grand over sticker on the Ford GT. Or the Chrysler Challenger sellign for over 10,000 over sticker? There are no laws against it. Its up to the buyed to determine that they will pay that price.

BTW what did you order? Are you happy with it? You got what you wanted and paid what you had to to get what you decided you wanted in the end.

#47

Hi Ralph and Tim:

Man, “War & Peace” was a shorter rant than this!

Dealer B directly charged me the commission of 350.00 .

Yes, TRUSTING dealer A was MY mistake.

Yes, the common advice is that I should never again buy anything from dealer A.

I accept that advice! Believe me!

I was not fully informed of the 350.00 price hike, by dealer A, as in dealer A told me that “we would worry about the dealer commission later”.
Dealer A had a buyer for the loco which I had pre-ordered. So in fact dealer A has “earned” TWO dealer commissions on the sale of ONE loco which I had pre-ordered as in firstly from myself and then secondly from the next or final end buyer of the pre-ordered loco.

Let me say that again,

dealer A has “earned” TWO dealer commissions on the sale of ONE loco through the ONE financial transaction sale of the loco, which I had pre-ordered, to the end buyer.

As to Accucraft’s involvement, I made my road selection based on artist drawings, not pre-production photos.
Once I viewed the actual model photos, I then wanted to change roadnames.
Dealer A was NOT required to purchase my pre-ordered loco as there was an over demand for both roadnames.

In summary:

  • dealer B should NEVER have demanded only a separate dealer commission of 350.00 but rather dealer B should have only sold his loco as a totally separate sale as in doing so dealer B has linked himself to dealer A in a JOINT sale of the one new roadname loco

  • both dealer A and dealer B jointly sold me this new roadname loco and as such both dealers are involved

  • so Tim your legal arguement is wrong as dealer A and dealer B acted as joint dealers to sell me this one locomotive

  • dealer A has collected the dealer commission on the pre-ordered loco TWICE when in fact dealer A sold the pre-ordered loco only ONCE

  • tell me that is not illegal

  • so in court, which obviously I will not be persuing, I would definitely be refunded ONE dealer commission of 350.00 from dealer A

  • it could be argued that dealer B was just as naive as myself in trusting and becoming involved with dealer A

  • I think I can now accept that, although I still will never order again from dealer B

Norman: “Yes, TRUSTING dealer A was MY mistake.”

  • but does not Accucraft have an obligation to its end customers to monitor the behaviour of its dealers and when it is found that a dealer is acting wrongly to compensate the end customer for the abuse and then to possibly remove that dealer from its list of “authorised dealers” or is this the “Wild West” where no rule of retail law applies ?
  • precisely what does “authorised dealer” mean?
  • does “authorised dealer” mean abuse the end sales customer as much as you want with no monitoring or action by the parent company?
  • of course not, no company permits that
  • which brings me back to the point that I still have not heard any reply from Bing, President of Accucraft, although hopefully he may be investigating this matter

Is it acceptable for Accucraft dealer A to “earn” TWO dealer commissions on the sale of ONE locomotive when there has only been ONE sales transaction?

The bottom line, Ralph and Tim, is that no retail customer wants to go through this financial and psychological abuse. Given my experience, I really would not object to Accucraft moving to the direct sales model as per Aristo Craft in order to prevent further end customer abuses.

This entire experience has really soured me on the excitment of an Accucraft product anticipation to then be followed with financial and psychological abuse. Who needs it?

No excuse and no need for it.

I am really leary of making any further Accucraft product purchases.

Norman

#48

Norman,
Quite the convoluted story. I agree a customer should not have to go through such a mess.
But, in the end, you never said, “give me my money back and keep your locomotive.”
So, whether you admit it or not, you wanted that locomotive bad enough to subject yourself to the horrendous mess :wink:
Ralph

#49

What a colossal bore.

#50

Norman
Through most of this thread you didn’t want to mention names. People on this thread demanded that you do. As soon as you did. they jumped on you and now you are the bad guy! I thank you for telling us of your bad experience.This should help others to be wary and ask questions to avoid any possible problems later on.
Fred

#51
Fred Weigold said:
As soon as you did. they jumped on you and now you are the bad guy!
The only name he mentioned, was Accucraft, which had nothing to do with causing his problems. He's not the "bad" guy. But he made several miss-steps along the way. And in the end, he wanted the locomotive bad enough that he accepted the revised deal.

Had it been me, I would have demanded a refund after being told of the $350 price increase and told the dealer to keep his locomotive.
Instead, he accepted the deal, and has to live with it.
Ralph

#52
John Le Forestier said:
What a colossal bore.
Agreed.
#53
Ralph Berg said:
Fred Weigold said:
As soon as you did. they jumped on you and now you are the bad guy!
The only name he mentioned, was Accucraft, which had nothing to do with causing his problems. He's not the "bad" guy. But he made several miss-steps along the way. And in the end, he wanted the locomotive bad enough that he accepted the revised deal.

Had it been me, I would have demanded a refund after being told of the $350 price increase and told the dealer to keep his locomotive.
Instead, he accepted the deal, and has to live with it.
Ralph


Ralph,

Part of the payment happened in trade-ins.

Fred W

Contrary to his believe Norman doesn’t have a beef with Accucraft! As I mentioned in my previous post they delivered ordered goods to one of their dealers. What happens after has absolutely nothing to do with Accucraft, unless there is a problem with the goods delivered.
No one jumped on anybody, several of us tried to explain the factual situation from different perspectives. Norman has a beef with Dealer A and how he handles that is up to him - name him, don’t name him … I really don’t care.

#54

I think we’re about done here…

#55
Bob McCown said:
I think we're about done here...
:cool: Think....? :rolleyes: :cool:
#56

Something comes to mind regarding a big wooping stick, and a deceased equine…

#57

Hi Fred:

Thank you ! At least you get it.

The purpose of a dealer is to assist the end consumer and not to trade inventory as per stocks on the TSX. That is called ebay.
Some folks tell me that I should have had a legal contract drawn up as per a mortgage contract to buy a toy locomotive.
Other folks tell me that a reserve on a locomotive is the same as a stock option on the TSX to be traded either long or short amongst dealers.

Given this behaviour, I think the days of train dealers may quickly be coming to an end.

Bob, thank you for your patience. Please lock this thread before another “Legal Expert” comes up with another version of how this is all my fault.

Norman

#58
Norman Bourgault said:
Bob, thank you for your patience. Please lock this thread before another "Legal Expert" comes up with another version of how this is all my fault.

Norman


Norman,
the very heading of the topic expressly requested a free legal opinion. If you want a 'legal opinion then go to your local legal office, open your wallet and pay for it. If you want to start legal proceedings then open your wallet further and pay the bill. If you just want a rant, well, you received some sympathy to start with, but when the real story was outlined then the sympathy ceased and the boredom increased. You changed the terms of the deal but you still want the same deal. No one mentioned mortgage type contracts with seller ‘A’, it was simply stated to get the terms of the deal in writing for your protection. You should have received a refund from seller ‘A’ (minus what his costs may have been, if any) and then dealt directly with seller ‘B’. Simple as that. You chose a different route and got burned.

       You refused to name the dealers involved to warn others,  so your posting was simply a rant to make you feel better and gain some sympathy.  End of story.

Edit: postings state that the dealers have been named (where???). The manufacturer was obvious from the beginning, but when I checked for dealer ‘A’ and dealer ‘B’ on the list, these two names did not show. Who are these two mysterious men? Rereading the posts, I can see no info as to the identity of these dealers to ‘name and shame’.

As if Accucraft is going to respond to emails requesting the names of each dealer involved. The very suggestion is simply too naive to fathom. Accucraft’s commitment to the consumer is a legal warranty issue. They have no moral obligation to their consumer. Any interaction between the dealer and consumer is a personal matter, unless Accucraft’s business ethic or good name is smeared or slandered. A dealer receiving a commission on a sale (whether to another dealer or to a consumer) is ethical and does not smear Accucraft’s good name. Next time order what you really want, not what you think you want.

#59

Hi Tim:

Well clearly this is all my fault so no one needs to know who the two dealers are !

Tim explain to me of what service is it to the end consumer, who is financially supporting both the train dealers and Accucraft, to trade “locomotive reserves” as stock options to cash in on “commissions” ?

The train dealers financially support no one. It is the end consumer who is financially supporting the entire show. Abuse the end consumer and their is no train mfg and no train dealer. Remember what happened to the American auto industry?

" Accucraft’s commitment to the consumer is a legal warranty issue. They have no moral obligation to their consumer. " Tim, you could not possibly be more wrong.

What I would like Accucraft to offer is two options for the end consumer:

a) buy the locomotive direct from Accucraft without paying the dealer commission

or

b) buy the locomotive from the dealer with the added cost of the dealer commission

Let us see how many dealers would then abuse the end consumer under that retail model. The dealers would have to earn their commissions by providing appropriate service to the end consumer.

I think that Aristo Craft’s direct sales model is the future of model train retailing, given this personal buying experience of mine.

Norman

#60

Oh Bob

 Please give this subject a decent burial SOON.

TOF in Hawaii