Where to begin? Around the end of January my wife thought it would be a nice gesture to purchase some suits for me for the then upcoming valentines day. She came across some of Mr. Mattleson's auctions, which, at the time, looked promising. She placed a bid on his auction, and was shortly contacted by Mr. Mattleson and asked if she would like to deal off of e-bay, and in return, he would provide a discount. She reluctantly did so (a mistake we would both soon regret) and after giving measurements, making payments, the suits finally arrived on Feb 8.
The suits did not come close to fitting (Mr. Mattleson claimed he had alteration skills.) She sent him an e-mail stating the suits did not fit. He replied shortly thereafter and indicated he felt that is the reason why an inspection/return policy is important. His return policy was 5 days (somewhat unreasonable for people with busy lives), however, my wife was not able to meet this deadline due to an illness.
On 2/15/01 (2 days after his deadline) she sent him an e-mail indicating that she had made out the address labels and planned on returning the item. He responded and acknowledged her e-mail. Shortly thereafter, she was admitted to the hospital, and returning the package moved to the back burner on the list of priorities.
On 2/22/01 she mailed the package, and on 2/24/01 she sent Mr. Mattleson an e-mail stating the package should arrive shortly. He replied and stated "I will probably receive it Monday" and "I'll be watching."
As expected, that Monday (2/27/01) he received, and accepted the package. That same day he sent an e-mail stating that he "would not be able to provide a refund" as we were outside of his return policy. He then demanded yet more money to return the package. I, at that point, intervened and asked why he would tell someone to return a package, acknowledge it's transit, then accept, and sign for the package 1 business day later. His response?"I normally check records when parcels are received. I get e-mails from clients around the world indicating they are shipping to me. I acknowledge and watch&then check records when the parcel arrives." This type of response blew me away, to say the least. I then questioned if this was really a way to conduct business. I asked why an upstanding businessman (as he claimed to be) with prominent attorneys, sitting judges, pilots, and bankers as clients, would converse with a customer, tell them to return a package (even after the alleged deadline), tell them "I'll be watching", then physically sign for, and accept a package, then refuse to do anything without more money.
His response?"All carriers regularly leave packages with me. I never give any carrier instructions to refuse a shipment. I check records after receiving parcels and follow up accordingly." I then presented to him the following scenario: Say someone writes off 10,000 on their taxes, gets audited, then tells the auditor "Well, I didn't go through my receipts to make sure I could make those write-offs." I asked what he thought the IRS would say... My guess? After laughing hysterically, they would probably say "Sorry, Dick, it doesn't work that way." Of course his record-keeping procedures are his business, but his poor business skills should not be our responsibility.
I then began to research his background somewhat, and not much to my surprise, I discovered that there are no business licenses issued under his name. I also discovered that the address and phone number he listed as his business belong to another person. I recently started checking other sites to see if he is registered, and discovered that on Yahoo! Auctions, his ID: Dmatt89 claims that he is from "New York, NY" while his e-bay ID claims he is in Hartford Connecticut. Very strange, and to be honest, nothing seems legitimate about this guy. I confronted him about his business name and he indicated that our transaction was done through his own name "DBA Dick Mattleson." (I hope he is being honest with the IRS, and not trying to circumvent taxes, like he does E-bay fees.)
To make an even longer story short, we are left with no merchandise and no money, and are pursuing action to get one or the other back.in the meantime, I would strongly urge people to use extreme caution when dealing with this man. I would HIGHLY recommend not accepting his attractive offers to deal off of e-bay.
It is truly a shame that persons such as this must exist in the online world, realizing consumer's already existing fears of conducting business online. With any luck, maybe this person will be exposed for what he really is, and an end will be put to it all.
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