Jim Godfrey- Won auction, won't pay or communicate

This is a matter of principle, not money, as the amount is small. Jim Godfrey won one of my auctions for a corn snake for $160. He has repeatedly ignored my PMs, even when I was nice and agreed to hold the snake for him while he got his funds together. This is surprising coming from a man who does breeding trials with Don Soderberg.

The transaction starts out nicely.

On September 9th, one day after the auction he PMs me to ask about making payment arrangements. I respond shortly thereafter and give him the shipping quote and my paypal addy. By accident I left out one digit in my addy. He tries to make the payment on September 11th but is unable to because of the incorrect addy. He PMs me again to inform me that the payment was not accepted. Meanwhile I was away for the weekend and unable to check the internet. I hadn't informed him of this, but I was unaware of any problems at this point.

One day later, on September 12th I get this in my PM box:

"Since I could not send an email to the address you provided for PayPal payment and because I have not gotten a response from you in two days I have cancelled the payment. If you contact me we can discuss the matter further, but I do not feel comfortable under these circumstances for now.

Jim"

This was incorrect, I had communicated with him the day before. I was surprised that he took the liberty of canceling the transaction but I responded politely and apologetically. September 12th with this:

"I Jim, I'm sorry you feel that way. I normally don't use the internet on Sundays which was why you didn't get a response yesterday. I'm only just now seeing that you've been trying to send a payment and that you've been looking for my assistance. I do apologize for that.

I simply missed out a number in my paypal addy. It is ...... I had missed out one of the '1's.

I hope you decide to resume the transaction, and I hope you don't feel like I've treated you wrong. I appreciate your business and I hope we can resume it.

Best,

Martin

Btw, feel free to give me a call if you feel more comfortable speaking directly with me. Or you can text. I'm not as frequently online as I am on my phone, so texting me will get you an immediate response. 917 .......

Thanks"

He calls me the following day and leaves a message saying he jumped the gun, he gets paranoid about transactions online etc, but does not clarify whether he wants to resume the transaction.

I write him three PMs to inquire whether we're still on to do business on the 14th, the 16th and the 17th, but only get a response on the 17th:

"Martin,
My funds are in PayPal limbo. I was told they were to be credited to my bank account in 3 to 5 business days. That was on Tuesday. Unfortunately I do not have the extra funds to send until I get the original transaction back. If you cannot wait for this to take place I understand. Let me know.

Jim"

I write back on the 17th that I can indeed wait if he is 100% sure he'll take it. No response even though i can see he's logged on to CS.com and has probably read my PM. So I write this on the 19th:

"Jim,

My patience is wearing. You initially backed out of the transaction because I hadn't communicated with you in two days. I apologized profusely and made every effort to make you feel comfortable. Now, after going out of my way to accomodate you while you sort out your paypal limbo situation you don't have the courtesy to reply to my last PM sent two days ago, even though you logged on to CS this morning.

So what's the deal? Are you going to leave me hanging or what? I asked you to let me know if you are 100% going to purchase this guy. If yes, I can wait until your paypal situation is sorted. If not, please have the decency to tell me now.

Martin"

Still no response. He has logged on to the website, but refuses to pay me the curtesy of responding. This is disrespectful and I have done nothing to deserve this silent treatment.

The take-away message here: be careful when selling to this guy. He's unpredictable, untrustworthy and seems to be buying more than he has the funds for.

Originally Posted by martin-bernstein

The take-away message here: be careful when selling to this guy. He's unpredictable, untrustworthy and seems to be buying more than he has the funds for.

Wow Martin, you seem a little impatient and judgemental. If you don't want to give the buyer a reasonable amount of time to come up with the money, without badgering them to death, then relist the animal.

Originally Posted by Magic Merlin

Wow Martin, you seem a little impatient and judgemental. If you don't want to give the buyer a reasonable amount of time to come up with the money, without badgering them to death, then relist the animal.

I will absolutely be patient, and I have. But when I write to ask "do you want me to hold on to the snake for you" and don't get a response even though the guy has been on the website and has surely seen my PM, I get impatient. A simple yes or no will do. Just communicate with me, that's all I ask.

I paid Sean Niland for a snake twice by accident once, by hitting the dreaded BACK button when PayPal-ing. It took a few days to get the money back even though Sean took the proper refund action immediately upon notification from me...

This is a bad guy thread, started because someone did not return a PM? wow

It's really a bit too soon for this kind of posting

I want no trouble with no one, but I will give my side of the story. After initially responding to the fact that I won the auction I was not able to get a response from Martin for two days. In the meantime I had PayPal'd the funds for the snake. I became concerned when I tried to send an email to the email address he provided for Paypal and it came back undeliverable. This prompted me to cancel the PayPal transaction. When Martin finally replied he admitted to have left out a character in the email address he provided me with. I am still waiting for my funds to be returned by PayPal. Now Martin is chastising me for not checking my PMs every day (something he obviously does not do himself). Just because my computer logged on to this site does not mean I was the one who was using it. Other people in my family use the computer, and this just happens to be my home page. I provided him with my email address, but he never sent me an email. I prefer not to use the PMs because they do not catch my attention like a regular email does. I told him that I would purchase the snake when I received my funds back from PayPal (something that would not be necessary if Martin had provided my with the correct address to begin with). Now I come home after being away for a couple of days and see this mess has materialized. I may also remind you that this is a place to state facts not speculations, Martin. You have no knowledge of me or my financial condition. I feel that you are way out of line by posting your opinions of this. Keep in mind that your error initiated this chain of events. Also keep in mind that you are treading very close to slander with the remarks you made. I will gladly supply references from some of the most well known and trusted names in the business to anyone who has doubts as to my credibility.

Jim, You have done nothing wrong. Not only did you pay when you were supposed to, but now you're made to wait on a refund due to his mistake. Personally, after this, I'd never buy from someone who is obviously impatient even after he admitted his mistake, only to go on to send a multitude of emails. I would feel harassed.
This is his own fault and has no place here in the BOI.

Jim, there was no slander here, but I wouldn't blame you at all for cancelling the transaction at this point. Taking shots at someone's financial situation is completely uncalled for.

Hi Jim,

I apologize for what you have taken as slander. You are right, I was out of line for speculating about your financial situation and should have kept this thread as factual as possible. If I could edit it out I would. I'll admit I'm a bit of a hot head.

That being said, I find it frustrating that you haven't replied to the PMs I've sent you in the past few days, but as soon as I send you a PM notifying you of this thread you respond to the thread within an hour. I felt that you were avoiding me and that is what upset me. I wanted to know whether you wanted the snake as soon as possible so that I could offer it to the runner up if you didn't. I never felt like you clarified that question and have since your cancelation more than a week ago gotten more and more frustrated at the lack of clear communication.

Now that you've responded and I've cooled off a bit I see that I let the situation escalate in my head.

Anyway, I've said my peace. I still feel that you could have made more of an effort to clarify whether you wanted the snake or not. But again, your lack of communication did not merit the irrelevant and immature comments I've made about you in this thread. I apologize.