Blogs Rule - I Was Contacted By TDW Closeouts!

And now, dear readers, is a new tale:

On Thursday, March 2nd, 2006, my telephone rang. I answered, and a voice on the other end asked to whom they were speaking. I told the caller my name. The man introduced himself as Raphael Shabtai (I hope I have spelled his name correctly). He indicated he was the owner of TDW Closeouts. He asked if I had received a letter from his attorney. I had not. I took it that this was a gambit to intimidate me, and make me fear him. First off, attorneys send certified letters and you have to sign for them. Secondly, my address has not changed since I did business with The Discount Warehouse, so there was no problem sending me a letter, certified or otherwise.

Since I have nothing to fear for voicing my opinion under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, I will keep on doing so.

Next, the things Mr. Shabtai said, in my opinion, indicated to me that this blog has indeed caused a slow-down in his business.

He wanted to know what it would take to remove this blog from the Internet. I told him that I wanted a refund. He wanted me to take down my blog in exchange for a refund. Like most people, I could use the money more than having this blog up. In good faith, I removed the posts from this blog, and left the blog shell in place, in case I had to put the posts back in, and to keep my place on all the search engines.

He asked that I inventory the items I had in my possession. Now, I have been able to sell only a small part of the inventory on eBay, and have otherwise given away or sold (at a small fraction of the average purchase price) some pieces to relatives. So I didn't know really how much was left. So an inventory was a good idea for me, anyway. The items were all taking up room in my household closets, and counting them out allowed me to store them all elsewhere, and bag and box the items. It turns out that I still have 245 of the 300 items, and 122 items are towels and washcloths. I emailed an Excel spreadsheet to Mr. Shabtai through Martine, my former sales person, so he could make an offer for a refund. I then called Martine on the phone. She said that Raphael wanted me to find out what it cost to ship the merchandise back to him by UPS. I checked with both UPS and FedEx. FedEx was less to send back the merchandise, so I sent another email to Martine with the amount that it would cost to send the items back to Florida. Because I only have a car that would accommodate about two boxes at a time, and there would be something like 15 large boxes, I felt renting a truck was not a luxury to take all the packages to FedEx at one time. That, along with the fact that some of the items were now in large trash bags, would require me to purchase some boxes to ship the items in, brought me to a total or $760.00 for shipping. Now this is where it gets strange.

Martine calls me back and says to ship all the merchandise back to TDW Closeouts so I can get my refund. I haven't discussed one word with Raphael on how much of a refund I will get, nor that he will even pick up the bill on the shipping. He actually expects me to pay the shipping up front, and ship my property to him without him actually paying for it! When I bought the merchandise from The Discount Warehouse, I had to pay for everything up front, including the shipping. And I had to pay for it by wiring the money, which also cost me.

At this point I have decided to require $2,400.00 as a refund. It all cost me around $2,381.00 to buy the merchandise, but I have stored it, counted it, and wasted many days of my life to deal with it. And remember, I didn't buy it to break even on it, I bought it to make a profit. If he wants it shipped after he buys it, he can either get a FedEx account and I will ship it on his number, or he can remit an extra $760.00 to cover shipping. I really don't think he will do either. It was just a game to play with me, to see if I can reinstate this blog after I removed the wording for him to show good faith. Please see the last email from Martine, along with my reply:

Hi Martine -

Please inform Raphael that there is no way I am spending $760.00 out of my own pocket to ship back the merchandise with the hope that Raphael will reimburse me. Furthermore, there has been no agreement between Raphael and myself (either oral or written) as to the amount he will refund for the merchandise and original shipping. When I purchased the merchandise from TDW, I had to wire the funds, in full, with shipping included before TDW would ship me the merchandise. That was just good business sense. I also have good business sense. TDW will have to remit the amount of $3,160.00 to me before I can send the merchandise back, or remit $2,400.00, and allow me to dispose of the merchandise, as I see fit. I will also need a signed, written agreement covering all aspects of the refund. I have no reason to trust TDW on this. As soon as I get time (probably tomorrow), I am going to reinstate my blog, as I removed the wording from the blog in good faith, and it has been off since March 3, 2006. I have taken two days out of my life, and inventoried the items, and gotten a shipping quote as per Raphael's request. At this point, I have nothing to lose by exercising my right to free speech as guaranteed to me by the Constitution of the United States under the First Amendment. I will be reinstating my blog ASAP, until such time as the funds are wired to my bank account, and I am made whole again. I will include the conversations I have had with TDW in the reinstatement of the blog, and a copy of this email. As a public service, I will also include instructions for my readers to start their own blogs if they have a complaint with any company, and how to get them listed on the search engines as soon as possible. I feel it is my civic duty. Please relay this message to Raphael. If he wishes to contact me, I can be contacted at (XXX) XXX-XXXX. Thank you.

Gary

At 01:49 PM 3/27/2006, you wrote:
Good afternoon Gary,This is to let you know that we are still waiting to receive themerchandise to shipped back to us before we can issue the refund weagreed on during our recent conversation. As soon as we receive themerchandise we will issue the funds but you have not make any effort tosend them, please we are trying to help you with the merchandise youhave purchased from us, that is something we usually don't do but wewant to keep you as a satisfied customer so we are making an exceptionso please let's work together so that we can resolve this matter asap. I look forward to hear from you soon.Best regards,MartineT.D.W. Inc. Sales DepartmentTel: 954-746-8701 Ext: 1009Fax: 954-746-2804Toll Free: 1-800-946-8736E-Mail: martine@tdwcloseouts.comWeb: http://www.tdwcloseouts.com/