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View Full Version : ARod 500 HR Game Base Problem



joelsabi
08-21-2007, 12:50 AM
I do not know if I am writing in the right place but I need some opinions on a situation i encountered now when buying a game used base. I bought a base from the 8/4/05 game through a pre-order program thru their website. I was very excited and passed up on other item from this historic date just because this item was so rare. i have a confirmation email that the transaction was a success. but yesterday i got a phone message saying that the item is not available. this seems odd and was wondering whether they just decided to pull the item and just tell me its not available. do you think i have any recourse or can ask someone higher up the ladder in their company to make this right. i need some opinions before i return the call of the company's representative.

joelsabi
08-21-2007, 01:04 AM
sorry I meant 8/4/07. I appreciate any advice.

kellsox
08-21-2007, 06:30 AM
After historic/milestone games, a player sometimes requests items from the game. The team usually obliges regardless of any agreements with other companies.
kelly

TFig27
08-21-2007, 09:19 AM
the player did not keep all the bases. they found out they could sell it for more than what you paid when you preordered.

joelsabi
08-21-2007, 10:07 AM
if i have a email verification that say the sale was complete, doesnt that mean anything? i think that this is an unfair practice for a website to say a item is unavailable after a purchase is made. if this was any other date, this would not have happen. anyone experience a similar situation or have an idea what recourse i have.

joelsabi
08-21-2007, 10:36 AM
here is the item i bought and now they say is not available

I purchased on 8/11/2007

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:3XApvJoxVZsJ:www.steinersports.com/ssm/control/product/~pcategory%3D/~category%3D/~pid%3D200711950158000001%3Bjsessionid%3D75F668366 EB6468BC3BABE32349A1818.ssm3+200711950158000001&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Vintagedeputy
08-21-2007, 11:47 AM
I have been in similar situations and have found that only one thing truly works.....

Have your attorney send them a letter telling them that they had better come up with that item quickly.........

I had an issue with Jiffy Lube one time whereby they damaged my car, admitted the damage and offered a full repair. They the corporate bean counters argued with me that they would only pay 50%. A letter from my lawyer resulted in full payment and a rental of a huge pick up truck until my car (an Escort, haha) was fixed.

A second time, my mortgage company wouldnt pay my property taxes with MY money that was in escrow. A letter from my lawyer seemed to show them the light.

Best of luck!

Jim

grandpahoo
08-21-2007, 11:50 AM
I have been in similar situations and have found that only one thing truly works.....

Have your attorney send them a letter telling them that they had better come up with that item quickly.........

I had an issue with Jiffy Lube one time whereby they damaged my car, admitted the damage and offered a full repair. They the corporate bean counters argued with me that they would only pay 50%. A letter from my lawyer resulted in full payment and a rental of a huge pick up truck until my car (an Escort, haha) was fixed.

A second time, my mortgage company wouldnt pay my property taxes with MY money that was in escrow. A letter from my lawyer seemed to show them the light.

Best of luck!

Jim

The best thing about being a lawyer is that you get paid for being a jackass. That's what we call a "win-win."

Vintagedeputy
08-21-2007, 12:02 PM
My guy was great. Just a simple letter right off the bat to let them know that I'm not playing. Works like a charm!

grandpahoo
08-21-2007, 12:05 PM
My guy was great. Just a simple letter right off the bat to let them know that I'm not playing. Works like a charm!

Writing nastygrams is a lot of fun. Sometimes I'll save them for the end of the day to give me something to look forward to.

joelsabi
08-21-2007, 01:06 PM
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
08-21-2007, 01:09 PM
grandpahoo - what kind of law do you practice?

Vintagedeputy
08-21-2007, 01:11 PM
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
08-21-2007, 01:15 PM
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
08-21-2007, 01:19 PM
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
08-21-2007, 01:25 PM
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
08-21-2007, 01:39 PM
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
08-21-2007, 01:43 PM
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
08-21-2007, 01:47 PM
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
08-21-2007, 01:53 PM
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

David
08-21-2007, 01:56 PM
I don't know the terms of their sales and contract, but do agree that if you pre-ordered it and they cashed the money, the item is yours. Again not knowing the specific sales terms, a judge wouldn't approve of them re-selling it for a higher price to someone else, as they accepted your sale and cashed the money. You can't back out of a contract because the grass is greener somewhere else. The judge might say they have to provide the base. As already noted, accepting the money and putting it in the bank is an acceptance of the sale and terms.

If the company couldn't provide the item due to benign reasons-- lost it, misplaced it, can't provide it, couldn't get it as anticipated, website listing error, the ordinary judicial remedy would be refund of money paid.

David
08-21-2007, 02:19 PM
Reading Stiener's post, it would appear that the item had been sold out (non-unexpectedly) and it was still listed on the site by error. A judge would say this circumstance would result in a refund of money. As apparently, Steiner doesn't cash the proverbial check until the item is shipped, no money had officially exhanged hands anyway. Obviously it would have been better if the listing had been removed from the site, or the customer was notified earlier that the item was no longer for sale-- but many dealers and catalogs forget to remove items for their sales lists and notify the potential buyer when they ask to buy it.

BCowan40
08-21-2007, 02:42 PM
David, I agree with your post completely. This was absolutely an error on our end, nobody here is disputing that in anyway. The bases from Alex Rodriguez's 500th homerun game were sold out on August 6th and the order that is generating all this talk was placed on August 11th. The base should never have been still shown on our website because it was sold out 5 days earlier. This is an error which we have been trying to admit and resolve for 8 days now. An account executive from our web division has been leaving messages at the phone number provided by Joelsabi since our business day began on Monday August 14th which was the first business day after the website order was placed. I don't want to debate the issue to death, I just felt the need to post on this topic as I feel an honest humar/computer error was being blown out of poportion and talk of lawyers, lawsuits, etc is completely unneccessary. As I explained earlier there was never any money taken from the customer, we do not charge any customer until the item is packed and ready to ship out the door of our corporate office. This entire matter could and will be resolved as soon as Joelsabi returns any of the numerous phone messages that have been left for him as we are more then willing to discuss and work towards a resolution which is sufficient to the customer. He mentioned passing on other items in lieu of this base in an earlier post and I would bet the house that any respresentative he speaks to here would bend over backwards to get him that other item at a discounted price to make good for this. At the end of the day this was an honest mistake and we would love the opportunity to make it right. I can't put it any simpler then that.

Again Joelsabi if there is anything at all I can do to assist you in this situation please feel free to contact me toll free at 888-265-1091 or e-mail me at bcowan@steinersports.com. If you would like to speak to someone at a different number you can call the representative who has left you messages or call 800-759-7267.

grandpahoo
08-21-2007, 03:01 PM
grandpahoo - what kind of law do you practice?

I only do defense work. I dabble in several areas, but I'm primarily an employment attorney, so I spend most of my time defending management against claims / lawsuits brought by current and former employees. So, if anyone here is sued for, say, sexual harassment, and would like to pay your attorney through sports memorabilia, I'm your guy.

grandpahoo
08-21-2007, 03:32 PM
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

This post simplifies things. In order to have a contract, you need an offer and acceptance. The guy who tried to buy the base made an offer to purchase it. Steiner no longer had a base to sell, and therefore didn't accept the offer. No acceptance = no contract. (Obviously, this is an oversimplification, as I'm sure you could get a bunch of lawyers to argue for weeks on end about what constitutes acceptance in this type of fact pattern.)

Even if the facts were a bit different, the outcome might be the same. Assuming Steiner didn't realize the bases had sold out and proceeded to charge the amount to offerer's credit card, offerer is likely only entitled to a refund. Steiner wouldn't have a base to give him, so the company couldn't be forced to carry out the terms of the contract. Also, as a general matter, if you sue in contract, your damages are limited to the amount of your loss. In other words, if the base was $500, you'd probably be better off just taking the refund and saving yourself the headache of a lawsuit.

Two more hypotheticals:

If Steiner DID have the base and offerer submitted an order, the company could choose not to accept the payment / offer. Again, no acceptance = no contract.

If Steiner DID have the base, offerer submitted an order, Steiner accepted payment, and Steiner subsequently put the money back on offerer's credit card and refused to send him the base, things would be fuzzier, as offerer could try to enjoin the company from selling the base, sue them for specific performance, blahblahblah.

joelsabi
08-21-2007, 03:52 PM
I am glad Brooks wrote here. I will email you privately

Vintagedeputy
08-21-2007, 04:11 PM
grandpahoo - I would love to speak to you about a situation. Got a way I can talk to you?

grandpahoo
08-21-2007, 05:05 PM
grandpahoo - I would love to speak to you about a situation. Got a way I can talk to you?

Sent you a PM.

David
08-21-2007, 06:18 PM
One thing to note is that I've heard from people, including on this board, that Steiner is professionally run, well organized and provides good customer service/shipping overall-- so it's fair to believe this case didn't involve nefarious motives on their part, but a mis-web listing and sold out item as they described.

joelsabi
09-22-2007, 09:20 PM
Just want to say that I was told that there were no more balls or bases from the game left. But in my search "alex rodriguez" "gamne used" today on google, I saw a ball auctioned off at Steiner from this game. Unfortunantly the late date was yesterday. Granted in their attempt to remedy the situation I was offered Arod's 500 Chair with a steep price which I could not afford. My suggetion was a game used ball from the game. Would have been nice if the Steiner Rep had offered this item to me or informed me of the auction.


David, I agree with your post completely. This was absolutely an error on our end, nobody here is disputing that in anyway. The bases from Alex Rodriguez's 500th homerun game were sold out on August 6th and the order that is generating all this talk was placed on August 11th. The base should never have been still shown on our website because it was sold out 5 days earlier. This is an error which we have been trying to admit and resolve for 8 days now. An account executive from our web division has been leaving messages at the phone number provided by Joelsabi since our business day began on Monday August 14th which was the first business day after the website order was placed. I don't want to debate the issue to death, I just felt the need to post on this topic as I feel an honest humar/computer error was being blown out of poportion and talk of lawyers, lawsuits, etc is completely unneccessary. As I explained earlier there was never any money taken from the customer, we do not charge any customer until the item is packed and ready to ship out the door of our corporate office. This entire matter could and will be resolved as soon as Joelsabi returns any of the numerous phone messages that have been left for him as we are more then willing to discuss and work towards a resolution which is sufficient to the customer. He mentioned passing on other items in lieu of this base in an earlier post and I would bet the house that any respresentative he speaks to here would bend over backwards to get him that other item at a discounted price to make good for this. At the end of the day this was an honest mistake and we would love the opportunity to make it right. I can't put it any simpler then that.

Again Joelsabi if there is anything at all I can do to assist you in this situation please feel free to contact me toll free at 888-265-1091 or e-mail me at bcowan@steinersports.com. If you would like to speak to someone at a different number you can call the representative who has left you messages or call 800-759-7267.

joelsabi
09-22-2007, 10:37 PM
Here is the link to Auction Item:

http://auction.steinersports.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=86600076&prmenbr=55076099&aunbr=86946786

I was truely surprised when i discovered it. I am really bummed out.