My buddy Aneoth brought it up, so I'll run with it and give it a little more life. Who was the most annoying/irrating RPG retailer of the year 2004? Below are the choices, each with a short informative description as to why this award should belong to them.



1.  Cougar-Retard:  Many of those who buy from him have no problem, likewise it seems he pays promptly and many have no problem with that.  However, there are things about the Kitty Cat that just don't put him on many Christmas card lists.  First, he seemingly will bid on ANY auction with the word "lot" in it, making life miserable and more expensive for anyone looking to bulk buy D&D stuff.  Driving the price up on anything RPG does not endear him to bargain hunters. He bids on US only auctions and meows his way to getting M-Bags  to send his items, or else you risk neg feedback.  And disturbingly he's stolen one of MY bits and has been leaving Negs on sellers after 89 days if they don't give him what he wants and thus preventing them from responding in kind.  Cougy has experience on his side, he'll be hard to beat.



2.  Maxine/Maxwell:  Problem with this guy, did he or didn't he? (lie about working for TSR, fight in the gulf war, amass the most gigantic collection of D&D items ever, shill on his own auctions, etc).  Whether or not he lied extensively doesn't put him on the list, however, it's the atom-bomb style crash and burn we here were all witness to last month as Maxwell decided killing and raping family members of rivals was the best way of dealing with personal issues. Whether this is Gulf War syndrome or something more disturbing, it gets Max on the list.



3.  Guido Gypsy:  A lovable goof, you say, who seems to have no problems with either buying or selling D&D stuff.  But this playful scamp makes the list for his gawd-awful, coma inducing, gun to the head idiotic "story" about some moronic fucks clowning around in Guido's wagon or whatever the hell is going on in his lame attempt at "fiction".  It probably sounded cute when he first started it, but surely someone by now must have mentioned that when you spend two lines on your item descriptions and ten paragraphs on a moronic "tale" that has had exactly five episodes in five years, you need to get at the back of the 'tard line at the Ebay market.  Oddly enough, the story alone puts Guido here.



4. Eastern Game Emporium Chest whatever:  Not many remember, but this loon actually made several guest appearances on these boards last year defending his practices of mailing items several weeks late, all the while mispelling and misrepresenting himself to the jaded members of this forume who weren't falling for it.  As the Eastern Treasure Chest, this asshole did a patented "Bait and Switch" by offering nice rare RPG items only to eventually stop shipping at a certain point...only to pop back up under the name "Game Emporium" all the while denying he was the same con man/rip off artist, and started a new reign of terror as he/she/it followed the same pattern of offering rare items and then not following through on shipping after a coupole of months,  while offering the typical "Ebay Excuse Book" examples of sickness, deaths in the family, computer viruss, plague, floods, whatever when someone complained.  The icing on the cake was leaving neg feedback for perfectly legitimate complaints of shipping, say, three months late.   Finally kicked off Ebay with about 100 negs in his last month or so on ebay, you can still look up his id and see the carnage he wreaked.



There they are, choose your Shitty Retailer, grand prize after vote tabulation is a B2 used by yours truly as a toilet paper substitute and signed by Jean Rabe and Ru Emerson.  Cast your vote!!!!



Mike B.

What a tough decision. I mean each seller has certain qualities that makes them very worthy of this honor.



Starting off, the 3 things most annoying about cougar are:

A) He has some seriously shady business practices (i.e buying and reusing old used postage stamps)



B) The Question:

Q: hi, I am 3781 rated, a Titanium Powerseller & could pay with pay pal (or cash US) I ask as I live in UK, may I bid please? Obviously I would pay shipping charges,(GPM for smaller items or surface (M bag) preferred. Thanks for your time either way, no offence taken or intended Please "reply" to this so I know which auction were on about, thanks Failing that I now have a USA based address you can send item(s) to that will be forwarded to me, would that be better/ok? --Dave

C) The fact that he will bid on anything regardless of whether the seller agrees to ship to him first at all. (i.e From US to UK, and via m-bag)



Now moving on to Maxwell. Maxwell without a doubt shilled his own auctions, he continuosly lied to people here and who were buying from him in his auctions, he has probably the most outrageous shipping costs that I have ever seen on Ebay, of course there was the aforementioned meltdown, and he had some rather interesting replies to his well earned negative feedback:

Exorbitant shipping and handling fees which were not listed in description. Buyer iamdragrad ( 0 ) Feb-19-05 11:37

Reply by brucem253: Another aZZhole who wanted it sent a SPECIAL WAY. Shipping totally listed. JERK Feb-19-05 13:35

Follow-up by iamdragrad: 20 $US shipping prices were NOT listed. Replies with insults... I rest my case. Feb-21-05 09:23

Next up is Guido. Guido does seem to be an honest enough reseller, but that "Story" is without a doubt one of the most obnoxious things listed on Ebay or anywhere for that matter today. The fact that he has a stupid a$$ 3 paragaraph story and a 1 line item description definitely does not endear him to me either.



Finally, the_eastern_treasure_chest/the_game_emporium. I think I could some this up by just listing some words that accurately describe him, because if not this could end up a book. Lets see: liar, thief, cheat, moron, obnoxious, rude, sleazy, and scum bag. Also, thier listings were very irritating as well, because it didnt matter how common or mundane an item was(i.e a very beat up B2), it was always "SUPER-RARE, OOP, UNBELIEVEBLY HARD TO FIND, MINT CONDITION" . I think that about sums it up for these folks.



I don't think that you can can wrong with any one of these sellers, and I am almost tempted to just roll a (1d4) and be done with it.



But, if pressured I would have to vote for #4) the_eastern_treasure_chest/the_game_emporium as first, because of the fact of the total number of people that ended up being screwed over by them. Maxwell would be second, because if he sold on a larger scale, he may have been the next TETC/TGE. I would put Cougar 3rd, with his multitude of shady business practices and I would put Guido 4th due to his only flaw of being rather obnoxious in his listings. So there it is, my ballot is in.

Well, just as a point of reference, here are the feedback histories of the_eastern_treasure_chest and the_game_empoium:



feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?View ... e_emporium

feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?View ... hest%21%21

I guess I have been lucky enough in my dealings with sellers on Ebay that I have never had a horrible experience.  I remember seeing several auctions from The Eastern Treasure Chest when I first started collecting again but never purchased anything from them.  Before I found The Acaeum forums I probably would have bid on something of Maxwell's just because he always seemed to have something up for grabs that I didnt have.  I am eternally grateful that his problems surfaced before I made that mistake.



I have never bought from Cougar and never will.  Has nothing to do with the fact that he seems to be a bad businessman, I just dont need anything that badly that I will purchase it from someone overseas.  I dont think the shipping hassle is worth it.



I have purchased many an item from Guido and he has always been very reliable.  I wish that he would make better descriptions of his items and the story is a bit ridiculous but I can live with it.  One thing he does unfailingly is leave positive feedback as soon as he receives the payment.  No one else I have dealt with has done that.



I will add one seller to my post that even though I have had fine dealings with, I wish they would change some things about their auctions.  Heiroglyphsbooks.  I have won several auctions from this seller and have always had good dealings with them but every other item is either "very rare" or "mint".  And most of their items are neither rare nor mint.

eBay listings



So in conclusion, Maxwell is the most irritating/annoying seller only if because he chose to screw people on this board and then come here and bad-mouth or threaten anyone who tried to push back.  One day he will see the error of his ways and realize that eating hash brownies and washing them down with bong water does not constitute a nutritious breakfast.  

I guess I've been lucky also, haven't had any major problems on EBAY. I do hate the sellers that just finished reading the latest How to make a million on ebay book and charge extremely high shipping charges.



I know it's "our" choice to bid, but I just can't stand the.....shipping for this mini (or module) will be $7 media mail, I will combine auctions at only $3 more for each additional item.

I own one of those ebay books, and even then I tried to avoid gouging the customer with shipping.  In fact, of the things I have sold I would say that for every item I ended up overcharging on shipping (due to listing a flat rate), I undercharged someone else.  In my case it panned out, and my overcharges weren't significant.  Something like a dollar at most.

Ekim Toor wrote:I just noticed that Guido-the-Gypsy is the newest registered user. I wonder if he saw this. :lol

Thanks for the laughs Mike

If it really is Guido, well then welcome to the forum.  I can only hope that his business has grown from all of the positive praise that has been given by the members regarding his selling habits.

Of course it is probably that sneaky cougar.  Instead of a Wolf-in-Sheeps clothing, it is a Cougar-in-Gypsy's clothing.  He wants to spy on us and post to the forum but make us think he is really Guido.  I know how we can tell if it is cougar or not.  I think we need a story.  Guido, if it really is you, tell us a story.  If the grammar and spelling are really shabby, then we will know it is really cougar.  :D

Badmike wrote:Any mention of "M-Bags" will be the tip off.....

Or a complete inability to tell the difference between "your" and "you're."

Guido-the-Gypsy wrote:I wanted to win!!  Come on guys!! The annoying story and all . . . very much let down.  Can I at least move up to second?

Of course I saw it.  Kinda funny actually.  Badmike - thanks for the write up. I agree with your assessment.  I write this with the help of my 8 year old daughter.  Okay, . . . she only proofs it for me, but it makes her laugh.

I hope anyone who is truely angry with me is willing to let by-gones be by-gones.  Hey guys, thanks for the greeting!!

I'm not so much bothered by your stories. But I do agree that you could use a tad bit more description of the products. BTW, I'm the guy that won your Tarantis last week. Hope to be getting it any day now. Can't wait!