I guarantee you if you still have that TOTAN, he'll be happy to buy it back from you for what you paid!

When I got into the hobby, there were already guys waiting in vans to snag the deals as they came up.

A buddy and I got a lead and showed up at the address. It was a sketchy part of town in a sketchy town. Boarded up places and this was all a few years before Covid!

I took a video on my phone when we scoped out the block and narrated something like, if anyone finds this phone, this was the last place I was seen alive.

Needless to say, the house could have literally fallen into itself and had all kinds of weird extensions built on to it. It was loaded to the brim with video arcades, gambling machines, etc. only a couple pins and a lot of parts.

I’m convinced it’s a dealer spot, a biker club house or meth lab, the place is a maze inside.

Anyway,we survived and the memory is a good throwback to the adventures in this hobby.

Not now that I've replaced the playfield, cab decals and ramps -

I will say to anyone new reading this thread, pinsiders by and large are great people to deal with. Anyone this deep in the game to make an account here and post has more credibility to me than a random facebook buyer.

That said I've had nothing but good experiences here, except my very first time meeting someone from here when I initially joined. Absolute creeper and I shut this guy down very quickly. Luckily we know most people here are not like this and I moved on. Very glad I have stayed!

Yeah. Every time I sell a game, I sneak a pic of the buyer's license plate while I am outside.

I made a deal to sell my wife's car for 17,800 back when I was about 26 or 27.
Arranged that I deliver it to the area the guy lived as my wife's family was from the same area.

We met at a license issuer to make the deal. He hands me a cashiers cheque for 17,300. I said we made a deal a week ago and I DELIVERED the vehicle 700 km's.
He wanted to negotiate. I told him to fuck off, deals off. The 17 yr old daughter he's buying it for basically starts weeping in the parking lot. I don't give a shit. I was young and dumb, but this hick was negotiating after what I did.

HE THEN pulls out another cashiers cheque for the rest to cover the exact amount we initially agreed upon, that fucker.

I went into the place to cancel the plates.

We went in to register it for new plates.

THe best part (for me) was the province had just started charging tax again on used vehicles (those cunts) and I got to watch the guy cut another cheque to cover the tax - another $800 or $900.

Fuck that guy

I think that your friend was consulting with the wrong lawyers. He was the victim of a Section 1983 federal civil rights violation.

Attorneys who specialize in civil rights litigation take such cases on a contingency fee basis, with no risk to the client. The prevailing party is typically entitled to an award of counsel fees and costs under applicable statutes.

Dear Penthouse: I was meeting someone to sell a pinball machine…

This is a whole other can of worms I don't want to open up so I'll keep it very simple but winning a case against law enforcement agencies is an uphill battle. Best case scenario, they'll end up with a slap on the wrist and probably a paid vacation, and he ends up with a fraction of what hes owed for damages, and thats not even taking into account the massive time sink he'll have invested as well. Hope I'm wrong, but that seems to be the case most of the time.

Yep. My story is much simpler but still biased.

The wife of a former mayor and now state representative road raged me and hit my truck. I got the ticket.

He's 80 now and still running for office. He obviously doesn't want to spend his golden years with her.

Man my stories are much lamer. I just get dickheads who talk your ear off on facebook then come and look at it. and then say 'will you take $400 less' after an already set price xd

Details please.

It's difficult to predict the outcome of any particular case and even more problematic to apply a perceived outcome based on factually-different cases.

What is known is that any civil rights lawsuit would seek money damages for the victim. Such a suit would not seek a disciplinary outcome. Consequently, whether the subject police officer(s) receive a "slap on the wrist discipline" or a "paid vacation" is of no moment. While the police department or other agency might, on its own, initiate such discipline, that response is not an item sought by a civil rights lawsuit litigant.

The lawsuit, in this case, would be designed to make the victim whole, meaning compelling the public entity to pay for the guy's lost income (i.e. the lost contract), the damage to his vehicle, the loss of use of his vehicle, his missing knife and other compensatory damages, as well as his attorney fees and costs. In some cases, treble damages and/or punitive damages (rarely awarded) may increase the monetary recovery to the victim.

In my experience, the attorney who accepts the case will indeed dedicate a tremendous amount of time and effort, as well as the attorney's own money to fund the costs of the litigation (e.g. filing fees, deposition costs, experts). The victim himself usually has rather limited involvement once a lawyer agrees to pursue the matter. The law is imperfect and does not always facilitate a just result. Yes, victims might face roadblocks in securing the right legal representation. Nevertheless, USA civil litigation laws are generally good overall and serve as a model to most of the world's legal templates. Now, back to envelopes of cash, shortchanging sellers, counterfeit cash detectors, and other sundry pinball stories that provide the real entertainment here. :>

My new rule is going to be 100s only. I had a stack of money from a deal a few days ago that consisted of lots of 10s and 20s. The damn 20s were so crisp and new that they all stuck together. I still don't know if its counted correctly.

With everything being said here i must say that I have never had an issue buying or selling a game.

I found my 1st machine on a Craigslist ad. It turned out to be a listing from a reputable Pinsider who lives only 15 minutes from me. I have learned a lot from him and have bought and sold a lot of machines with him. Since then I have driven all over the place to buy machines and deliver a few. Some pickups being 14 hours round trip. I have had buyers come with 2 friends without incident. The friends played some games while the buyer and I would go over things and make the transaction. Sure there are ahole scammers out there and we need to be careful, but fore the most part the pinball community is great.

…’lawyer speak’ for “doesn’t matter”.

Beautiful!

Not really a "legalese" a/k/a "lawyer speak," --- but, glad that you find it more beautiful than the colloquialism equivalent. Clarity is the key to good writing, in my view.

Frankly, most lawyers I know are below-average writers. Law schools tend to diminish writing ability, clouding otherwise simple concepts with ambiguous legal terms.

Tru dat!

What's the USD to bottlecap conversion rate these days?

I had a guy do the "I only brought X$" once. I opened the door for him to leave, and he went to his car and magically found the rest

Oldest trick in the book, but not as scummy as the envelope trick OP experienced.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to buy some steaks off the back of the truck before they go bad...

OK sue the cops then. lol good luck. Defendants what do you have to say? "Well Jim, uhhh I mean...Your Honor *wink* We had "reasonable suspicion" to believe he was moving drugs and performed a completely legal civil asset forfeiture. Money in an envelope? Nope. It wasn't in there. The vehicle damage? Much of it was there already, and my highly trained team did everything by the book, some things did have to be dismantled during our investigation as is standard practice." *judge rules in cops favor and probably discusses their next golf outing after the trial*

He struggled to get any lawyers in the area to even call him back, let alone take his case. Once he did find a lawyer on the other side of the state to help get his stuff back, he stated exactly this *wink* as the likely reason none of the local lawyers were interested.

My buddy is a smart, clean cut, no police record, no bullshit kinda guy. I can only imagine how this whole scenario would have played out if he was a minority or a “hippy”.

He doesn’t want financial compensation, he wants those cops’ lives ruined. Putting any further mental energy into the situation for anything less than that is a waste of time and emotional bandwidth as far as he’s concerned.

This all took place this past year. I suggested contacting the news, but honestly, the whole escapade really shook him up and he just needed to move on with his life. Unfortunately that just allows those shitbirds to keep doing what they are doing.

Long story short, and back to the subject at hand, it’s not just the “obvious” swindlers you need to be worried about when traveling / dealing with large amounts of cash.

You are certainly correct that a biased judge would interfere with a just result. However, this case ought to be filed in federal court, which means that the judge will likely be less "local" insofar as federal judges, unlike state court judges, are appointed by the President of the United States.

Also, the judge does not render the verdict. Rather, a jury does. Federal court juries are not so local. Those federal case jury pools cover large geographic districts, making local jury bias less significant.

Last, a talented trial lawyer knows how to expose lies, even well-orchestrated ones.

Evidently, this victim was not focused on seeking reimbursement, based on a post above, anyway. He wasn't really seeking civil justice. Instead, he was seeking criminal justice, which can only be had through a criminal prosecution. I always ask my clients what they wish to achieve: if it's civil justice, I can help. If it's, criminal justice, they need to consult with a prosecutor. If it's biblical justice, they ought to visit their house of worship.

The dude was left on the side of the road after the cops took all his stuff. This should be a pretty easy case to prove.

Sgt. Highway: Shut your face, hippie!
Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Hippie? There haven't been hippies in centuries. Are you freeze-dried or doing hard time?

this seems like a 'should have filmed/live streamed the whole incident' moment, even possibly a 'do something minor to get them to book you and take you to jail'. They would have had to do paperwork, etc. Of course, at that point you will probably find out just how crooked they are...and you may end up worse off.
This is one thing that is easily abused..and being tied to courts/attourneys in the area doesn't help. I'm dealing with something in a scenario like this (not seizure) where the local attourneys and judge/s are not easy to work with because they are all drinking buddies apparently.

Sorry that you had to deal with this. Interesting that bill has multiple aliases these days to try and cover his tracks. I had another friend sell some games to him recently and he used a different name and said he lived in Estes park, not dacono. Nonetheless, games ended up on eBay next day for crazy prices. This guy doesn’t have a good reputation to say the least and your story is just further confirmation to stay away.

i think you might have the wrong person as i only owned one of those and sold it to Kevin - i did have a few strokes and some memory issues - but i am pretty sure it wasn't me - thanks ed

I went to buy a T2 at a rural farmhouse and the seller had guns everywhere in his house. He fed me and my buddy cold beers for a few hours and some nice single malts! Then he pulled out his .50 caliber hand gun and let me shoot it in his yard! It was so fukkin loud my ears were ringing for days. He laughed and said he should of warned me to wear ear protection! It kicked pretty good too, i only fired it once! That bullet looked like it would drop an elephant.

It's threads like this that lead me to think the growing trend will be more trades and less straight-up cash sales over time. Glad everything worked out for you Still curious if the cash was legit, but it seems that way I'd be of the mind that two envelopes would be for the buyer's protection, but that's probably a line of thinking that needs correcting, ha.

A gentleman would let you use his own in-door latrine, fully equipped with running water and modern plumbing

To me, it's always about getting a read on who you're dealing with. My last few sales were with ppl I knew were solid. We did online bank transfers and I didn't even confirm the transfers while they were still in my house. Everything went fine.

Don't deal with ppl that you can't verify. Be smart when dealing with large sums of money. Maybe then you don't have to create the ridiculous situation where "Dirty Harry goes to buy a Dirty Harry pinball machine."

Make sure to never accept any $20 bills if you can’t count by 2, I’ve heard many sellers can’t do this complicated math and takes all day to count.

100’s only or you will be turned away

He was gracious and let me pee on his neighbors plants he didn’t like

Most people are fine but there's always some will try anything lol

I'll take Grant's any day of the week.

“Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, one, twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, two, twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, three…”

Counting that way would be necessary if working with several grand in $20’s, but if it feels too meticulous you’re making a deal with the wrong buyer/seller

Easy too count 20s 1,2,3,4,5 100 1,2,3,4,5 it's fast for me I have had 20s many times ,make u think u have more money lol money is money ether way

You know we're in 2023 when people actually have issues counting out money. We're doomed. Seriously.

Too many people smoothing their brains out with Tiktok

And it used to be common courtesy to have the bills all facing the same direction!

I still don’t count out amounts up to $5k…I figure if you gotta do the Hokey Pokey with me then you probably need it more than I do…

just count 1-50 all $20 bills , = $1000 just like a bill counter counts !

these work well , cordless and compact

pasted_image (resized).png