Auctioneer Jim Smiley
Ripoff Misleading Auction or the old Switcharoo

Please read in full, it's a bit long but it's here to protect you all.

Please be careful if you choose to deal with this bid board auction at Zern's Market. A bid was placed on an item at this auction. On the description ticket it read Twin Cabbage Patch Dolls. So I find out that we won the auction. We go to pick up the item, they make you pay first, and then bring out the item. So in the box is a SINGLE Cabbage Patch DOLL. Not TWINS, not DOLLS, but a single DOLL.

At the time bid was placed there were two boxes side by side in the auction, both Cabbage Patch. My memory is pretty darn good when I place a bid on an item, so I am pretty sure that there were 2 dolls in the box I bid on. Maybe someone switched the auction tickets on the items?

So I question the woman behind the counter and she says that Cabbage Patch NEVER made Twin Dolls packaged in a single box and she knows because she remembers waiting in line for them in the 70's. I remember Cabbage Patch being hot in the 80's not the 70's. She is either lying or simply misinformed. Check out the current auction on Ebay, sure look like twin dolls in one box to me. If you can't see this item on Ebay, simply do a search for Cabbage Patch and you will see that they do exist as twins packaged in one box. She also says that the seller can write whatever they want on the description ticket and nobody is responsible for its accuracy - the seller or the auctioneer. Does this mean that I could sell an item described as "Pack of $100 Bills" and then include only one $100 bill? By her reasoning, yes I could. So, someone expecting at least 2 $100 bills would be very disappointed had they bid thinking that there were indeed at least 2 $100 bills.

I tried to explain to her that the ticket reads very clearly - TWIN and DOLLS - couldn't be any simpler. She still insisted that such an item was never made and just because description read TWIN and DOLLS I cannot expect to get 2 dolls. Now we are not talking about a lot of money here - it was about $15. I think that a reasonable thing to do would have been to say, "Maybe something went wrong, tickets were switched, or item was grossly misrepresented. Or maybe you should have looked a bit closer and seen that there was only one doll." And I should have been offered my money back.

I think that would have been reasonable to everyone involved and it would have put them in a good light. Well, what resulted was that I did get my money back, and have been banned from bidding at their auctions. Not such a bad thing, but for everyone out there, please be careful of misrepresented items if you choose to do business with this company. Mr. Jim Smiley and staff, "Please be a little nicer to people and do not allow items to be misrepresented."

Company: Auctioneer Jim Smiley
Country: USA
State: Pennsylvania
City: Gilbertsville
Address: 1100 East Philadelphia Avenue

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