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#1
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
I own a pristine copy of a volume titled "The Picatrix", published by
Ourobouros Press in 2001 in a limited edition of 1000 copies (mine is #331). I'm doing an appraisal of the current value of this book, so I searched Bookfinder to see what was listed there. There are several copies listed, ranging in price from a low of $204 to a high of over $500 (the latter from a Seattle brick and mortar store for a copy with a scuff on the cover!) One of the outliers, pricing a copy at $430, was an outfit called "seattle_bookseller". I wrote and asked why the price was so high, and got an amazingly vituperative and abusive response, stating that this "WAS HOW THE RARE BOOK BUSINESS WORKED" and that I "NEED A COURSE IN REMEDIAL ECONOMICS" and so on. I was a little surprised at this, but a little research turned up the even more surprising information that this seller is one "Luis M. Arsupial", the same person who was doing business (kinda) as "texas_bookseller" up until about six months ago, and who previously created a huge stink in this group over some questionable transactions! This kind of pricing seems like nothing more than gouging to me. I could buy two copies of this book for what this yoyo is asking for it. I can only assume that he's doing business on a basis of relying on his customers being ignorant and not doing their research. Based on the listings on Bookfinder, I'd estimate the value of this book at $225 to $250, certainly nowhere close to $430. Is this a usual practice? Do a lot of booksellers price their wares in the hopes that their buyers will be too stupid to know that they're being asked to pay twice what a book is worth? (Apparently this "Luis M. Arsupial"--"marsupial"...?--was once known as "Jason Christopher Hughes", a name which turns up a wide variety of odd and amazing postings on USENET...) |
#2
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
"Stone Mirror (the Great and Terrible)" wrote in message oups.com... I own a pristine copy of a volume titled "The Picatrix", published by Ourobouros Press in 2001 in a limited edition of 1000 copies (mine is #331). I'm doing an appraisal of the current value of this book, so I searched Bookfinder to see what was listed there. There are several copies listed, ranging in price from a low of $204 to a high of over $500 (the latter from a Seattle brick and mortar store for a copy with a scuff on the cover!) One of the outliers, pricing a copy at $430, was an outfit called "seattle_bookseller". I wrote and asked why the price was so high, and got an amazingly vituperative and abusive response, stating that this "WAS HOW THE RARE BOOK BUSINESS WORKED" and that I "NEED A COURSE IN REMEDIAL ECONOMICS" and so on. I was a little surprised at this, but a little research turned up the even more surprising information that this seller is one "Luis M. Arsupial", the same person who was doing business (kinda) as "texas_bookseller" up until about six months ago, and who previously created a huge stink in this group over some questionable transactions! This kind of pricing seems like nothing more than gouging to me. I could buy two copies of this book for what this yoyo is asking for it. I can only assume that he's doing business on a basis of relying on his customers being ignorant and not doing their research. Based on the listings on Bookfinder, I'd estimate the value of this book at $225 to $250, certainly nowhere close to $430. Is this a usual practice? Do a lot of booksellers price their wares in the hopes that their buyers will be too stupid to know that they're being asked to pay twice what a book is worth? (Apparently this "Luis M. Arsupial"--"marsupial"...?--was once known as "Jason Christopher Hughes", a name which turns up a wide variety of odd and amazing postings on USENET...) I remember some sort of hoo-haa over "Luis M. Arsupial" but forget the details, so my comments are general. First: Good for you for doing your homework! The first rule of internet book buying is "buyer beware". Second: While the seller's response to you was over the top and unprofessional, it's hard to know by how much without knowing how your inquiry was phrased. Did you say: "I collect this author and I'd be happy to know if you've got something special I haven't seen before that would make your book worth more than most of the others I've seen"? Or did you say: "You are a price gouger and a thief who preys on the ignorant and unwary. Why are you charging so much?"? Again, I'm ignoring whatever reputation the seller has already acquired. Just talking in general. One possibility is that the seller doesn't even own the book. That happened to me not too long ago. I sold one to another seller who asked me to drop ship the book. When I looked at his web site, he had copied my description lock, stock, and barrel and upped my price by a third. If I had to guess, I'd guess that that's what's really happening with your seattle_bookseller. He finds books worth a few hundred dollars, prices his copy a bit below the top, and plans on buying one of the lower priced books if he has to fulfill the order. What could be better? Somebody else buys and stocks the book, and it doesn't cost him a cent until he gets the order. Again, just speculation, but that's my first guess. All that said, basically used books are worth exactly what some one will pay for them. The internet has been a great leveler as far as pricing, because most people, even with a simple Google search, can do exactly what you did and get the range of prices available. In the "old days", books moved much differently. Sellers had shops, and priced for their geographic areas and their specialty. A book that was priced at $12 in one shop could bring $50 or $200 when moved to a dealer who had the right clients for it. Sales from dealer to dealer were a much bigger part of the trade. It was understood that part of the value a dealer added to a book was his knowledge of the collecting area and years of cultivating the kind of customers who would want that kind of book. So...your seller may indeed be a sleaze-bag. I would certainly never buy from him based on the unprofessional response he made to you. But if he's got the book and he wants to list it at $400+ when most copies are in the $200-range, so what? Maybe his policy is to never revise a listing, and he's just waiting for the market to catch up with him! You don't have to buy the book, and he doesn't have to justify his price to you, unless he's got a really good story that truly makes the book worth what he's charging. Not that I think it's necessarily right for a dealer to charge any price at all. I've seen some things that would simply embarrass me to be involved with. There was an auction on eBay two weeks ago where a seller paired two common $25 books, hyped the illustrator and sold the pair for over $200. And a copycat did the same thing with the same titles and netted over $100. Again, nobody made any of the customers bid on the auctions, and the books were started at a very reasonable price, but seeing the final values, I just cringed. I would hate to be either of those sellers when their customers found out they could have gotten the same books for a quarter or half the price on amazon. And that, my friend, is why serious collectors often support specific sellers over a period of years, even if it means they pay a small premium in the pricing over what the same titles in the same condition would bring in other venues. They do it because they know they can trust the seller to accurately describe the books, to stand behind their products, and to price fairly, even if not at the cheapest price. Alice -- Book collecting terms illustrated. Occasional books for sale. http://www.mywingsbooks.com/ |
#3
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
On Feb 10, 8:40 am, "my-wings" wrote:
"Stone Mirror (the Great and Terrible)" wrote in ooglegroups.com... And that, my friend, is why serious collectors often support specific sellers over a period of years, even if it means they pay a small premium in the pricing over what the same titles in the same condition would bring in other venues. They do it because they know they can trust the seller to accurately describe the books, to stand behind their products, and to price fairly, even if not at the cheapest price. Thanks for your comments! Especially when buying rare stuff, having an honest dealer is critical. The feedback for "seattle_bookseller" on Amazon, at http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/seller...=AM0TBPF72AOXR seems to support the notion that this business is best avoided. Negative feedback is 8% in just the last month, and there have been complaints about the condition of books being seriously misrepresented (this was the issue that caused the fracas with this person last time), non-delivery, delivery of less than was purchased (e.g. one volume out of ten, ten out of twelve, etc.) |
#4
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
On Feb 10, 9:43 am, "Stone Mirror (the Great and Terrible)"
wrote: On Feb 10, 8:40 am, "my-wings" wrote: "Stone Mirror (the Great and Terrible)" wrote in ooglegroups.com... And that, my friend, is why serious collectors often support specific sellers over a period of years, even if it means they pay a small premium in the pricing over what the same titles in the same condition would bring in other venues. They do it because they know they can trust the seller to accurately describe the books, to stand behind their products, and to price fairly, even if not at the cheapest price. Thanks for your comments! Especially when buying rare stuff, having an honest dealer is critical. The feedback for "seattle_bookseller" on Amazon, at http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/seller...980-6174318?ie... seems to support the notion that this business is best avoided. Negative feedback is 8% in just the last month, and there have been complaints about the condition of books being seriously misrepresented (this was the issue that caused the fracas with this person last time), non-delivery, delivery of less than was purchased (e.g. one volume out of ten, ten out of twelve, etc.) The thinly veiled attempt to slander and harm my business that started this thread is the work of one David Shlesinger, a stalker and nutjob from Santa Cruz, CA and a fired employee of Palmsource, Inc. Seattle_Bookseller never contacted him in any form - not by email, phone, post etc. He is lying. He consistently mistakes other people for his nemesis, this "Jason Christopher Hughes" aka "Marsupial". I would like to see him reproduce any kind of email from my business, with headers from yahoo - which is the yahoo account I pay for, . This communication does not exist. It appears that the comments he references came from anonymous posts on some blog. My amazon.com feedback is 94% + for 365 days. This is the equal of or better than most of the large retailers on amazon.com. My ebay feedback for the same customer base and same policies is 99.6% positive. I do not live in or operate out of Texas. You are being misled by a deranged and vicious con artist with a most definite ax to grind that has nothing at all to do with books. And it has nothing to do with myself, or Seattle_Bookseller. This thread is a slime job, and it is part of an on going harassment/stalking attempt on the part of Mr. Schlesinger. My copies of 'Picatrix' are indeed truly brand new as I got them directly from the publisher. They have not so much as been opened! Schlesinger never, ever bought anything from me. He has no right to come and slander my business. Would you like to see how incredibly childish, vile and mentally unbalanced the 59 year old David Schelsinger is? Here is one of his stalking websites, in all its puerile glory: http://www.shugendo.org/marsupial/index.htm Schlesinger maintains several of these sites, for the many people he is criminally harassing. |
#5
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
On Mar 2, 10:45 am, "seattle_bookseller"
wrote: this thread is the work of one David Shlesinger, a stalker and nutjob from Santa Cruz, CA and a fired employee of Palmsource, Inc. Palmsource, eh? I knew palmjob had to come from somewhere! |
#6
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
YOUR OWN AMAZON STORE HAS A LIFETIME 67% POSITIVE FEEDBACK RATING, "Stonemirror"!
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#7
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
Except that he is lying to you and never sent the email he claims.
Why on earth would I discuss selling a book with someone who had been stalking and harassing my friends and family for SIX YEARS? |
#8
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
On Feb 10, 8:40 am, "my-wings" wrote:
"Stone Mirror (the Great and Terrible)" wrote in ooglegroups.com... I own a pristine copy of a volume titled "The Picatrix", published by Ourobouros Press in 2001 in a limited edition of 1000 copies (mine is #331). I'm doing an appraisal of the current value of this book, so I searched Bookfinder to see what was listed there. There are several copies listed, ranging in price from a low of $204 to a high of over $500 (the latter from a Seattle brick and mortar store for a copy with a scuff on the cover!) One of the outliers, pricing a copy at $430, was an outfit called "seattle_bookseller". I wrote and asked why the price was so high, and got an amazingly vituperative and abusive response, stating that this "WAS HOW THE RARE BOOK BUSINESS WORKED" and that I "NEED A COURSE IN REMEDIAL ECONOMICS" and so on. I was a little surprised at this, but a little research turned up the even more surprising information that this seller is one "Luis M. Arsupial", the same person who was doing business (kinda) as "texas_bookseller" up until about six months ago, and who previously created a huge stink in this group over some questionable transactions! This kind of pricing seems like nothing more than gouging to me. I could buy two copies of this book for what this yoyo is asking for it. I can only assume that he's doing business on a basis of relying on his customers being ignorant and not doing their research. Based on the listings on Bookfinder, I'd estimate the value of this book at $225 to $250, certainly nowhere close to $430. Is this a usual practice? Do a lot of booksellers price their wares in the hopes that their buyers will be too stupid to know that they're being asked to pay twice what a book is worth? (Apparently this "Luis M. Arsupial"--"marsupial"...?--was once known as "Jason Christopher Hughes", a name which turns up a wide variety of odd and amazing postings on USENET...) I remember some sort of hoo-haa over "Luis M. Arsupial" but forget the details, so my comments are general. First: Good for you for doing your homework! The first rule of internet book buying is "buyer beware". Second: While the seller's response to you was over the top and unprofessional, it's hard to know by how much without knowing how your inquiry was phrased. Did you say: "I collect this author and I'd be happy to know if you've got something special I haven't seen before that would make your book worth more than most of the others I've seen"? Or did you say: "You are a price gouger and a thief who preys on the ignorant and unwary. Why are you charging so much?"? Again, I'm ignoring whatever reputation the seller has already acquired. Just talking in general. One possibility is that the seller doesn't even own the book. That happened to me not too long ago. I sold one to another seller who asked me to drop ship the book. When I looked at his web site, he had copied my description lock, stock, and barrel and upped my price by a third. If I had to guess, I'd guess that that's what's really happening with your seattle_bookseller. He finds books worth a few hundred dollars, prices his copy a bit below the top, and plans on buying one of the lower priced books if he has to fulfill the order. What could be better? Somebody else buys and stocks the book, and it doesn't cost him a cent until he gets the order. Again, just speculation, but that's my first guess. All that said, basically used books are worth exactly what some one will pay for them. The internet has been a great leveler as far as pricing, because most people, even with a simple Google search, can do exactly what you did and get the range of prices available. In the "old days", books moved much differently. Sellers had shops, and priced for their geographic areas and their specialty. A book that was priced at $12 in one shop could bring $50 or $200 when moved to a dealer who had the right clients for it. Sales from dealer to dealer were a much bigger part of the trade. It was understood that part of the value a dealer added to a book was his knowledge of the collecting area and years of cultivating the kind of customers who would want that kind of book. So...your seller may indeed be a sleaze-bag. I would certainly never buy from him based on the unprofessional response he made to you. But if he's got the book and he wants to list it at $400+ when most copies are in the $200-range, so what? Maybe his policy is to never revise a listing, and he's just waiting for the market to catch up with him! You don't have to buy the book, and he doesn't have to justify his price to you, unless he's got a really good story that truly makes the book worth what he's charging. Not that I think it's necessarily right for a dealer to charge any price at all. I've seen some things that would simply embarrass me to be involved with. There was an auction on eBay two weeks ago where a seller paired two common $25 books, hyped the illustrator and sold the pair for over $200. And a copycat did the same thing with the same titles and netted over $100. Again, nobody made any of the customers bid on the auctions, and the books were started at a very reasonable price, but seeing the final values, I just cringed. I would hate to be either of those sellers when their customers found out they could have gotten the same books for a quarter or half the price on amazon. And that, my friend, is why serious collectors often support specific sellers over a period of years, even if it means they pay a small premium in the pricing over what the same titles in the same condition would bring in other venues. They do it because they know they can trust the seller to accurately describe the books, to stand behind their products, and to price fairly, even if not at the cheapest price. Alice -- Book collecting terms illustrated. Occasional books for sale.http://www.mywingsbooks.com/ Just keep coughing up more evidence of your stalking behavior, David Schlesinger of ACCESS Linux. It is piling up in a nice, fat report for the police and for your current employer. http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/8...atform-shown-a... Windowing system? cervezas @ 4/4/2006 3:07:48 PM # With regard to X Windows they're still not saying for now, as of recent conversations I've had with David Schlesinger. David Beers Pikesoft Mobile Computing Software Everywhere blog www.pikesoft.com/blog Informa Open Source in Mobile Conference Nov. 7-8, Amsterdam, the Netherlands PalmSource is a sponsor and will be exhibiting ALP. Mike Kelley, Senior Vice President of Engineering, is speaking. David ("Lefty") Schlesinger, Director of Open Source Technologies, will be participating on a panel. PalmSource clarifies our coverage of Palm OS and ALP By David Gewirtz Over the past few weeks, we've been covering the changes in the Palm OS and its apparent eventual migration into something called ALP. As is always the case when trying to understand something new and relatively poorly documented, we got some of our facts wrong. Fortunately, we've gotten some excellent clarification on ALP from two PalmSource executives who would know: Maureen O'Connell, Senior Director, Corporate Communications and David "Lefty" Schlesinger, Director, Core Tools and Technologies. "It's not particularly our intention that MAX 'inherit much of the traditional look and feel of the Palm OS'..." These two comments provide some excellent clues about what we might expect in the future from PalmSource. Clarications from Maureen O'Connell, Senior Director, Corporate Communications In your recently published article, "The future of the Palm platform: rosy or uncertain," you claimed it had been confirmed that the ACCESS Linux Platform is based "on Wind River's Platform For Consumer Devices, Linux Edition." I would like to take this opportunity to clarify that the ACCESS Linux Platform, recently announced by ACCESS Co., Ltd., and its wholly-owned subsidiary, PalmSource, has been designed to be kernel agnostic and does not rely on unique features of any specific Linux distribution. It is based on a standard version 2.6.12 (and above) kernel. http://www.computingunplugged.com/is...001734001.html |
#9
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
On Mar 3, 10:45 am, "seattle_bookseller"
wrote: It is piling up in a nice, fat report for the police and for your current employer. I've _pleaded_ for you to call the cops. I've double-dog _dared_ you to. So far, you seem to be taking your sweet time about it. Whenever they get here, I'll be more than happy to discuss your attempts at identity theft, fraud and extortion with them and provide them with the supporting evidence. As far as my employer goes, they've been well aware of you since the _last_ time you attempted (with your usual total lack of success) to damage my professional reputation over a year ago. I've got the evidence to tie you to that as well, and as soon as you call my employer, you will find yourself speaking to someone in our Legal department with whom I predict you will have an interesting discussion, but one quite unsatisfying to you. So, have at it, JASON CHRISTOPHER HUGHES aka LUIS M, ARSUPIAL. Knock yourself out. |
#10
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Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?
On Mar 3, 11:02 am, "Stone Mirror (the Great and Terrible)"
wrote: On Mar 3, 10:45 am, "seattle_bookseller" wrote: It is piling up in a nice, fat report for the police and for your current employer. I've _pleaded_ for you to call the cops. I've double-dog _dared_ you to. So far, you seem to be taking your sweet time about it. Whenever they get here, I'll be more than happy to discuss your attempts at identity theft, fraud and extortion with them and provide them with the supporting evidence. As far as my employer goes, they've been well aware of you since the _last_ time you attempted (with your usual total lack of success) to damage my professional reputation over a year ago. I've got the evidence to tie you to that as well, and as soon as you call my employer, you will find yourself speaking to someone in our Legal department with whom I predict you will have an interesting discussion, but one quite unsatisfying to you. So, have at it, JASON CHRISTOPHER HUGHES aka LUIS M, ARSUPIAL. Knock yourself out. These lies are totally irrelevant to Seattle Bookseller, and to books in any way, shape or form. Your true mission here has been exposed, and your lies David Schlesinger. |
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