bojay1997

I don't mean to be critical, but that's not new. Every new in box INTV II I have ever seen has a plastic sealed console inside the box and those twist ties on the power supply and video cord don't look original either. It's pretty clearly a used system in the original box that was well taken care of by the previous owner.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years. The Supreme Court recently upheld arbitration clauses in the AT&T case, but several state courts have overturned or refused to enforce arbitration clauses as a result of opt out processes. Forbes did a recent piece about all the litigation currently swirling around this issue. http://www.forbes.com/sites/wlf/2012/11/14/arbitration-round-up-some-courts-still-wont-respect-voluntary-contracts/

Generally other companies have waited until the public awareness calms down and then quietly started to close accounts. It really all depends on how widespread the opt outs are and whether they think losing a certain percentage of customers will have much impact on the bottom line.

Well, there is legislation that has been introduced several times in the US Congress to overturn these clauses or at least to balance the playing field, but as of today, the current state of the law in the US is that the clauses are valid.

Correct and incorrect, it doesn't do anything automatically. They can, however, close your account if you don't agree to accept the updated terms. I can 100% guarantee that if you select to opt out, you will receive notification very shortly thereafter that they have chosen to close your account. Otherwise, everyone would simply opt out of every terms change and this whole arbitration issue wouldn't be much of an issue.

Considering that isn't even one of the games you agreed to sell me, how is that in any way relevant?

When I commit to sell something to someone at a specific price, I follow through on that commitment. My experience with every person I have ever bought from on this site and every other collector site has been the same way. People keep their commitments when a deal is reached. I don't break my commitments just because I think I can make a few more dollars and either does anyone else here. Apparently you think the normal rules of honest and fair conduct of business don't apply to you. I just think everyone should know the kind of seller they are dealing with and since you aren't disputing anything I said, it should be pretty clear to everyone that you aren't someone they should be dealing with.

I would highly recommend not dealing with this seller. After agreeing to pricing and shipping and even agreeing to send him payment in Paypal gift form, he contacted me back and said he was instead going to take bids on the items he agreed to sell me and that I could essentially bid on those same items because "it was better financially for him". This is really not the kind of dishonesty and lack of integrity that should be permitted here or anywhere in the classic gaming community. I could understand if he simply asked for offers originally or did an interest check, but he previously listed six of these games a few weeks ago and at that time we had agreed on pricing, shipping, etc..and payment would be made as soon as he received them. He failed to honor that deal and I can only imagine he will play the same game with others here if you allow him to do so.

Correct and to the extent that you live in a state that won't allow such a waiver, you are agreeing to only sue in Utah applying Utah law and only as an individual and not as a class action which means unless it's a massive personal lawsuit, for all intents and purposes, you are stuck with arbitration. If you opt out, however, they will close your Paypal account. In theory, if a massive amount of Paypal members opted out, it could put pressure on them, but I don't see it happening considering every cell phone, cable and utility in the US has done the same thing over the past few years and nobody has convinced those companies not to move forward.

So, just to clarify, are you not getting the other Colecovision games you posted about in the other handful of threads? I only ask because Blockade Runner and Squish Em Sam were listed and you had pricing attached to them, so I'm not following why there is only one copy of each now and you're taking offers. Are you still open to people getting together and doing a bulk buy? Thank you.

I have to disagree with you on several points. Capitalism in the United States has a number of limits and regulatory restrictions which make it operate in a somewhat more balanced manner. For example, there are rigorous fraud protections under state and Federal law (including postal and advertising fraud regulations), business licensing requirements in many jurisdictions, taxation, etc....It's pretty far from "anything goes". I don't rely on Ebay for anything, but I regularly find bargains there and on other websites. The point is, there is no benefit to having someone sitting on Ebay scooping up the same items all of us would buy directly and then relisting those same items at inflated prices. Is there anything illegal or fraudulent or even immoral about it? Of course not, but that's not the point. The point is, this flipper and many more like her take items that could be had for bargain prices away from collectors and deprive the original seller of the benefit of the actual fair market value of the item and also cost collectors more money. While I would agree with you on the "Ebay tax", that doesn't apply here. This flipper has not gone out and found things that you either didn't have the time or ability to find in your local area. All of us have access to Ebay. She is essentially someone who has swooped into your local swap meet five minutes before you got there, bought up a bargain and then stood there waiting for you to come along and charge you three times what she paid. In fact, continuing the analogy, she hasn't even bothered to remove the item from the original seller's booth, as she couldn't even be bothered to take her own picture of the item she flipped and didn't even wait until she had it in hand to resell it. Again, is it illegal, fraudulent or immoral? No, but it doesn't mean we should be applauding or supporting her practices. Finally, I think you seriously underestimate how many flippers are out there. While it's less prominent in the Atari 2600 market, it is a very significant issue in NES collecting and I'm seeing it more and more in classic computer software collecting. It's resulting in significant price spikes as supply is being artificially constricted by flippers grabbing multiple copies of the same item over a period of time inflating the pricing on the item as they become the only seller with the item or as you stated, a "monopoly"..

Have you had any update from the Venezuelan sellers? I have a large order that I placed with Eightiesvault the first week in September and I still haven't received it. It's now going on 10 weeks and he hasn't responded to me.

I'm not sure why, if you're so sure that what she is doing is ok, and that what you paid is fair, you are resorting to insults about my job (I've never worked fast food and haven't had a minimum wage job since I was a teenager, but I have a great deal of respect for people who have and do) and accusations of socialism or communism. I have worked very hard in my life just like most of the collectors here. I worked and paid my way through college and two graduate schools and I started several small businesses along the way. As a result, I am able to own a smarphone and install the free Ebay application. One would assume if you can spend hundreds of dollars on Atari games that you probably have enough disposable income to do the same. I am all for capitalism, but there is a difference between everything goes and a fair and reasonable marketplace. Just because someone is also a collector or may have a financial need doesn't justify every form of price gouging or exploitation of fellow collectors. If you disagree, that's fine and nobody is placing her in the bad seller thread or anything of that nature. As I have said repeatedly, this is a thread about auctions some people consider funny, stupid, crazy or lame. I think the Polaris auction referenced is several of those things. You're free to disagree, but this is obviously very personal for you because I would assume you are embarassed at overpaying for the item. I'm sorry that you feel embarassed, but all of us are entitled to our opinions and on the issue of flippers, it is clear that we just have a fundamental disagreement which can't be resolved by further arguments by either of us.

Really? You aren't the same Atari181 who won the Polaris cartridge and box on Ebay from the seller for $125? The same one she paid $40 to obtain two days before? It's weird that the buyer uses your same name. But, I guess in your mind spending five seconds to buy something on Ebay and simply posting the same item using the same photo even before the buyer/seller has it in hand with a BIN and reselling it for an $85 markup is cool. I guess I have spent the last 20 years collecting and helping other collectors build their collections in vain since it's really all about making no effort and making maximum profit in the hobby, right?

I have no problem with reasonable profit. I do have a problem with someone buying something cheap one day on Ebay and two days later (before she even has the item in hand) posting it for sale using a photo stolen from the original seller. I get that you were the one who stupidly paid the mark-up, but there are ways to set an automated search for games by title that would have saved you significant money in this particular situation as you could have just purchased directly from the original seller. She did nothing but rip you off. The fact that you have no problem with it is not really my concern, but I'm certainly not going to celebrate the fact that she made a profit for doing nothing at all and as a result, you paid far more than you could have for the item.

Of course, but as I pointed out above, that's not the point of this thread. This is literally a thread dedicated to poking fun at outrageous prices, crazy sellers and all sorts of other Ebay madness. People are free to do whatever they want in buying and selling games or any other goods on Ebay or elsewhere. That doesn't mean that everyone else just has to sit by quietly and not comment about it in a thread that is specifically devoted to exactly that kind of commentary. Personally, I don't run my collection or collecting activities for a profit. Whenever I have extra items I end up with, I either give them away or sell them at or below my cost. I realize not everyone has the financial ability to do the same thing. At the same time, I'm not going to celebrate or avoid engaging in criticism of people who flip on Ebay and who contribute nothing to other collectors. If you're ok with flippers, by all means feel free to buy and sell with them. I personally think they raise prices for everyone and hurt our hobby and since the point of this thread is to be able to discuss that very conduct, perhaps you should go elsewhere on the forum if discussion along those lines offends you.

The answer to that is no, if I see something on Ebay that's going cheap that I don't need and nobody I know needs, I don't buy it. There are plenty of other collectors on Ebay who can buy it and want it for their own collection and my intervention is not needed or welcome in boosting the price. It's pretty amazing that people on here regularly complain about how bad NintendoAge and VGA have become and yet this is exactly the same flipping mentality that feeds those outrageous prices.

I'm sorry, but what you just posted is clearly contradicted by your own auctions. You appear to be what could clearly be described as a "flipper". You are essentially raising prices for everyone by grabbing items on Ebay solely with the intention to resell them immediately on Ebay at a profit. In fact, as the auction posted here shows, you are apparently so lazy that you can't even be bothered to take your own picture of an item you are immediately flipping. Sitting on Ebay and buying rare items only to flip them within a few days or weeks is not a service this or any other collecting community needs. People can find them on their own by just visiting Ebay and all you are doing is making yourself an unecessary middle man and adding to the cost to collectors. If you were actually going out and finding lost treasure in warehouses or swap meets or by dealing with other collectors, it would be reasonable to expect a profit for those services. Similarly, if you had extra items that you have accumulated in the process of building your collection, it would be reasonable to resell those and obtain a profit. As far as I can tell, you do none of those things. As such, you are hurting the community and people are justified in calling you out about it.

You do understand that the whole point of this thread is to poke fun at or call out flippers, resellers and just generally bad Ebay auctions, correct? While I agree generally with your position, this isn't the place to make that arugment. I have never dealt with her, but she clearly fits well within the category of sellers that do questionable things (i.e. reusing photos from auctions she has just won).

Blaze and Tommo are not only the distributors, but the licensees that contracted with a manufacturer in China to produce the units. SNK Playmore has nothing to do with manufacturing this and have never even acknowledged the product on any of their official websites.

As much as I love the original Elite, I won't support a Kickstarter that doesn't have some type of physical rewards tier with more than the absolute minimum. I'm also nervous about what some people have been posting about the financial state of Frontier right now and how they don't have enough other products in the pipeline to continue to exist as a company even if the Kickstarter is successful. I guess we'll see how things turn out, but all of this makes me uncomfortable with encouraging others to pledge.

I don't know, several websites that got a recent hands on indicated they thought the handheld felt cheaply made. Some thought it felt ok. My concern is that this is a Blaze product manufactured in China and given their track record with their other branded products including some Sega units, the build quality was literally terrible with people having dead units in a week or two after purchase. SNK literally has no part in this other than licensing the name, case and joystick appearance and roms to Blaze. I suspect the reason you aren't seeing a lot of future releases being promoted is that they can't even scrape together enough money to buy an option on releasing those future titles. I seriously doubt even if the product sells well that you will see "new" games developed for it. It's likely any future releases will be more back catalogue titles. It will be interesting to see how this all turns out, but I feel pretty confident these will be liquidated at some point in the next year which is when I will probably grab one.

As far as I can tell, other than Gamestop, no other brick and mortar retailer is going to carry the unit. If you look at their recent press release, every retailer listed but Gamestop was on-line orders only. I suspect that what is going to happen is that they will just drop ship orders received by those retailers like BestBuy.com and Amazon.com directly. I think it's very clear Tommo/Blaze has little confidence in this product and has put very little financial backing into marketing it. Personally, I was slightly excited at first, but after reading more about it, I have no interest at all. I would rather have paid $200 or $250 for an exact re-release of the original hardware that could play AES games as well as new release multi-carts with licensed games. As others have pointed out, this is just a cheap emulator that has no connection to the original hardware at all.

Actually, everything gets shipped by sea and they bundle packages into large cargo containers, so part of the issue is that they have to wait until they have enough mail and other cargo to justify shipping the entire container. The political relations between the US and VZ aren't great, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't impact shipping time.