Thursday, August 21, 2008

Small Claims Court

I mentioned ages ago that I was taking my old tenant to court because of the extensive damages they did to my house. Since then the running joke has been that I should take them to the Peoples Court.

Well, today I received a letter in the mail from the Peoples Court asking if I wanted to be on the show. Kinda funny, really. At first I was kinda upset because my first reaction was that I did not a TV spectacle about it, I just wanted the money I was owed. Once of the things they promised was that if I won, I would be paid, guaranteed. This was enticing because one of the issues that I was worried about was whether or not this person would even pay me after I won. These people are from the hood, so it's not like they have $5,000 kicking around.

I had a brief talk about it with my family, and we decided to do it, for that reason alone. I will keep you updated.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

The Crazies Out There

It does amaze me that with all the crazy people out there who randomly shoot people, no one bothers to take a plane flight out to one of Amazon's warehouses, or eBay/Paypal, and blow them to pieces.

It also amazes me that with all the suicides that happen each day, not one of those people actually tries to rob a bank or something first. If your going to die, why not try and get away with it? I mean, what the hell, right?

Importing From China

Random experiences Importing from China:

1. The customer service should be easily accessible, and speak English fairly well. The companies I deal with have live chat available, usually through MSN Live Messenger. If they do not, I don't deal with them.

2. Even if you have larger shipments available, you should break them up into smaller shipments, into total amounts you are comfortable with losing. For example, if you place a $4,000 order, and customs gets involved, are you OK with that? If not, make smaller shipments of only $1,000 or $2,000 each. It cost a few dollars more to ship, but if customs decides to inspect, or confiscate the package, you are not out the full order.

3. Never.... EVER.... under ANY circumstances... ship with DHL.

4. Never.... EVER.... under ANY circumstances... ship with DHL.

5. Oh wait... I said that already.... the point is this: If you happen to call customs, and get put on hold, did you know that you will hear an advertisement for DHL? This should tell you something. Every vendor I have asked, has told me the same thing... DHL gets more packages opened than EMS and UPS combined.

6. If customs ever decides to put one of your packages on hold, consider it lost. Accept the fact that you need to repurchase the merchandise, and move on. Maybe you can get the shipment released someday in the future, but do not wait on it. The process of Customs will take weeks and weeks to show any forward progress.

6a. Let us say that you are an aggressive person and want to take control of the situation. Don't waste your time. Personally, I spent an entire business day circumventing the system until I had the name and number of the Officer who personally stopped my package. The end result was that once it was randomly stopped (for no particular reason), it was sent to the lab for inspection. This is three weeks minimum, and nothing can be done, not even by the Officer (unless you are related or something, I figure). I accepted the $2,500 loss, and moved on.

7. If you are paying with Western Union, you can ask if the person you are paying has any fraud reported against them. However, I should mention to take this with a grain of salt. Two of my vendors have 0 this year, and that is great. One of them has 16 complaints against them. At first, I thought I was screwed. As it turns out, they have bent over backwards for me, and given me whatever I needed. Since you are only saying the person's name, located in China, this could be anybody. It's like sending money to John Doe in the USA... you would expect more than one person to have the same name.

8. Before doing business with a company, do an extensive google search about the company. Once, I found a company that swore to my (email) face that they sold genuine brand name products at great prices. After a search, they turned out to be liars and thieves.

9. You can use Alibaba.com and DIY.com to find products, and vendors. For me, i use it to see how long they have been in business, and stuff like that. The company I found in #8 was found here, so again, buyer beware.

10. There is no number 10... or number 4 for that matter.

Monday, August 4, 2008

2 eBay Accounts

Someone asked this about a month ago. I suck at responding, so I will mention it now. I had an eBay account that was shut down. I started it back up a week later. I did nothing new or fancy, not really. I opened a bank account in my wifes name, and listed the address as my 2nd house (rental property). I attached Paypal to the bank account, and ebay to the paypal account. A few weeks later, paypal wanted some proof I was really selling products. I took some pictures of the merchandise, and sent them some invoices. All was real, but I doubt it would have mattered. They reinstated my account, and I have been selling on there for 6 months now, and still with 65+ 100% positive feedback. The real trick was getting enough feedback to open a store. Once I did that, i stopped listing on auction, and only manage a store. It still draws traffic. Not as much, but it keep a low profile.

Now, I would add that you should change your ip address. For those on cable, you should change your router MAC address, which will force your modem to get a new ip address. Lastly, remove all Flash Cookies as well.

If you old Paypal account is still in good standing, you can use them both freely. I log into both back to back, and send myself money as I test my web store.

PayPal only knows the Account Number and Routing number. They may ask for the name of account owner, but they have no clue who it is, or what address the account is tied to behind the scenes.

Basically, they are not as scary and all powerful as people make them out to be.

My Legal Cases

eBay shut down my account then came after several hundred in fees. They sent numerous emails. I ignored them all. At some point, they stopped the emails, but sent a collection agency after me. I followed the advice of this website: http://www.creditinfocenter.com/rebuild/debt_validation.shtml and after that, ebay went back to the emails. I haven't heard from that collection agency again, and it's been a few months. According to that site, they can not bother me about it again. So, I guess I won.

Additionally, my wife was fired from her job on day 8. We took the case to the workers compensation and brought it before a judge. The company, while having every right to fire her, cowered under my complete disregard for their less than stunning lawyer. They settled for $1500.00 in back wages, just to make us go away.

Lastly, I had tenants who left my house with approximately $11,000 worth of damage. I am still waiting on the court to coordinate anything. At the very least, I have become a thorn in the tenant's side.

The moral of the story? Don't be a pussy and let people and companies walk all over you. File a motion, and watch them back off.
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