Magnepan MGCC1 & shysters


Back in April, I sent some guy $600 USD for a virtually new Magnepan MGCC1 in oak/white. Since then, I've gotten nothing (except a lot of broken promises). I have urgently requested a refund many times since September 8th since I was getting laid-off and the fellow didn't know if he'd be able to deliver the speaker. Well, many different promised dates to send out that refund have come and gone and I still have nothing.

This person is located in Canada and payment was sent via USPS International Priority Mail (I have a dated receipt). Any ideas to put an end to the hollow promises and get my money back??? This fellow claims to develop the Magnepan website and be an attorney in Canada. Do I pressure Magnepan? Do I file a complaint with the Legal Society of Upper Canada? Do I file a mail fraud complaint with the USPS? All of the above?? Something else???
irish_george
I submitted a response here but it was rejected by Audiogon as I had mentioned the man's name and his address. Here is that message again with that info left off. For anyone interested in that information, please contact me.

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Oh oh....I knew where this was going the minute I saw it.

I have dealt with this man.
I saw a similar post by somebody else who dealt with him and they too were getting the runaround...audio magic cables. This was earlier this year. Search for AudioMagic cables in the forum here and his posting should come up.

He claims to do website design for this cable company and CJ and even uses a CJ email address. And yes, he too told me he is a lawyer. I have seriously considered emailing CJ about this man but I guess it is not my style to be accusatory.

I bought a Counterpoint NPS 400 amp from him....and I sent him 3 $500 installments. I always thought it was strange that he wanted me to send the checks under his wife's name. Finally he shipped the amp to his buddy here in StPaul MN. Well, the amp was severely damaged due to his poor packaging. He claimed he paid Purolator to repack the amp but that was obviously never done. This was Feb 2001!!!! He went round and round with me that he had it insured but never got paid for this claim.."they would not pay since it crossed the US border". So after all this time, I have been super super patient. My wife has complained so much of this as it is in a crate sitting in our living room and no news from Guy except more of the same. So I feel for you here as I have pretty much written this off as one of those (hopefully) once in a lifetime unfortunate events. Oh well, I am out $1500 but it could have been much much worse. And perhaps with $1000 or so to repair the amp with Michael Elliot, I could end up with something nice, but still I was taken.

And I have talked on the phone with his StPaul buddy who I met and is a nice guy but I hate to bring him in the middle. But he needs to know what his friend is doing to all of us down here.

So everyone do yourself a huge favor....be very careful with this man. I feel the Audiogon staff needs to take action to disallow this user to do any further business here until he can prove to everyone that he is not taking us all to the cleaners.

By the way, I bought the amp through an ad he had placed on the Counterpoint website so I can not go through the audiogon "dispute" process. Looks like I am screwed here but I hope to prevent anyone else from going through the same.

John
I have received a response from this fellow claiming that he sent a refund...I have NOT received it, nor did I receive a reply to 6 or 7 emails I sent to him between the most recently promised refund date and my posting here. I will keep a status update here.

Oh, BTW, in his email, he thought I wasn't being fair because I failed to mention that I bought MG10.1's from him. When he was unable to deliver them after four months, we talked and he offered to upgrade me to MG12's. (His terminology was "upgrade", for me, full-range like the 12's ARE preferable to the 10.1's.) I did get them in a reasonable amount of time from the agreement to switch. However, no compensation was offered for the 12's having a lower price than the 10.1's. I've given him the benefit of the doubt many times over due to having received something from him before. (I paid for both the 10.1's and the MGCC1 within about a week of one another...obviously, I would not send someone more money who kept me waiting for 4-9 months.) I know of at least one other fellow who bought 10.1's and an MGCC1 from him...the other fellow just recently got his 10.1's and is still waiting for his MGCC1 and doesn't get his email answered or his phone messages returned either.

Again, any ideas/suggestions are appreciated.
Just a quick update:
12/24/01 I responded to his email to again let him know that I have not received anything.
To date (12/28/01), I have not received a reply, merchandise or a refund. (Any yes, he could be away for the holidays.)
Still no response from the fellow (after my email of 12/24/01 saying I still had not received my refund). Looks like the suggestions regarding treating this as a criminal offense would be the next logical course of action.