Haha! Two can play at that game!!

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Final score ... Danni 1, RD 2.

4 mansions toured. A nice evening of Addams for the whole family.

And that's what pinball should be all about.

rd.

Are you still here?

i got dragged into this, so figure probably should say something...

recently Corey and i did a trade/money deal. He had a Mousin Around, and I had a Johnny mnemonic he was interested in. I drove the JM up to Cory's place, we traded. It worked well, i think we were both happy enough with the deal.

that said, Corey can sell the JM for whatever he likes. It's up to him what price he wants for it. This has no effect on me. If he asks $1million and gets it, I certainly harbor no ill will. Some guys can get the long dollar for their stuff.

Me personally, i price games to sell. I was asking $2000 for the JM, which in my opinion, seemed a bit high. Frankly it was more $1700 or $1800 realistically. But i price stuff to sell. If i have a game for sale longer than a couple days, my feeling is its priced too high. But that's me, and how i roll.

Now Cory is what i would call a newbie. he's been around for a while, but his skill set on repair is pretty limited. I know this because now and then he calls me to do repairs. (Note i didn't touch the BK2000, nor did i ever see it.) Frankly he should call me more. Because a lot the trouble he got into here could have been avoided if he did. Cory is one of these guys that takes the approach, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." That is, he's not very proactive about repairs. This is fine for your own games. Heck this is fine if you're selling games for reasonable prices too. (And a BK2000 at $3000 or $2500 is not reasonable, at least in my eye.) But when you're going for the long dollar, things should be right. Or at least you should tell the potential buyer of all issues.

Now let's take the Mousing Around i got from Cory as an example. Cory was very proud of the game. He took all the top side parts off, cleaned them and replaced the rubbers and posts, flamed the ramps. It was a decent job. Not stellar (Cory we need to talk about what you're using for playfield cleaning, Novus2 is your friend, because a nasty haze was left behind in some spots), but a pretty decent effort.

that said, he left a lot of work to do. Now realize i knew *exactly* what i was getting into. From the moment i walked up to the game, I knew the JM i was giving him was pretty much all done and there (though it did develop a "ball in hand" switch error a couple days later), and the Mousing from far from meeting my expectations.

Remember with these system11 games, they are 25+ years old. These are games designed to last 5 years. So repairs will be needed. I know that. I knew exactly what i was getting into. But i don't sweet the small details on stuff. I'm capable of repairs and i know that all sorts of things will need to be done to make a 25+ year old game "right" (or right in my eye, which brings up another point, which we'll get to.)

Things i found on the mousing... GI connectors melted. So bad that there was no backbox GI lights. He installed some LEDs in the playfield, so that was probably the only thing saving the connectors. My experience with Cory is this repair is pretty much out of his league. Every game i've worked on for Cory has had some GI issue. It's just not his thing to fix.

Score display - the right display glass (the glass itself) was internally shorted. If a upper left "|" segment was on the display, the "\" segment also lit. This is a bummer because the only solution is a new glass, which aren't cheap.

The moving target assembly was hosed. One of the targets was broken in half. I took it apart to replace the target, and the whole carriage fell apart. Someone had tried to epoxy it before. Bad move. These parts are available so i just bought new ones. No big deal, as it gets hammered from the ball, so it's understandable.

Flippers obviously needed to be rebuilt. That's always the case on any game you buy. Batteries were not leaking but they were old as hell. (I always go the CR2032 button battery route anyway.) Playfield had some wear which i touched up (came out really well, game now looks great.) The side rails are dented. (thought i had these in stock, but it turns out WPC side rails are about 6" shorter than sys11 side rails!)

There were some other issues which frankly i can't remember. but the game took me a full week of messing to bring it up to my standards. Now again, this is *my* standards. And for me to think that Cory knows what i want or like is just crazy. The game, in his eye, was working fine for him. That's cool. Everything was basically functioning. Sure there were the issues above, but to a casual player (which is what i would call Cory), it's all good.

So if the Mousing was like the BK2000 (which is probably a good assumption), i could see a buyer thinking the game was fine, or not. Depends on the buyer. That said, if the BK2000 was $1500 or $2000, these things aren't issues really. There's enough room in the price to take care of any problems. (I always tell people when they buy a game to figure that they will spend $200 to get it "right".) But when you're selling a $2500 or $3000 BK2000, the thing should be damn near functionally perfect. The long dollar dictates this.

This is one reason i generally don't price things "long dollar", and i sure don't ship games either. It just avoids this hassle. Because you never know how people will receive/view your game. You just don't know their expectations. I want to sleep at night, posts like this one are a nightmare for everyone.

On the expectation level, unless you're buying a Chris Hutch game, there is always something that can be done to "up the level" of a new game purchase. I think most people do this too, buy a game, and then there's something that bothers them (and it didn't bother the seller), so they make that upgrade/repair to reflect their expectations. This is just human behavior. But when you price a game "long dollar", it backs you into a corner as a seller. And frankly it's not a corner i want to be, hence i generally price things fair to midrange. I don't need to be greedy (because after all, isn't that why someone prices "long dollar"?) Long dollar sellers potentially can create a lot of problems for themselves, and problems i don't want. Money isn't the end-all. Sure we all need it (they ain't giving away food/housing/gas), but to chase the long dollar, in my eye, is dumb. But to some folks, if they leave any money on the table, it's a complete failure in their eye. I guess it has to do with what's important to you in life, and your financial position. But frankly there aren't any "poor" people in pinball... No one spends their last $500 on a pinball game! So why people price the "long dollar" i have a hard time understanding.

So short story... i think there's plenty of blame to go around here. Yes Cory certainly did some things wrong. But the buyer did too. The buyer could have done some research on Cory. The buyer could have hired someone to check out the game in personal. And frankly, the buyer accepted the (crazy high, in my eye) price for the BK2000, setting himself up for disappointment on a 25+ year old game. (Who expects a popular and old title like BK2000 to be "perfect", regardless of the price?) When you're paying long dollar money, don't assume the seller is going to reveal every little detail. As a buyer, caveat emptor, it's at least partially your responsibility to ask questions and get pictures.

Now Cory should have just hired someone to do the repairs and go over the game for him. (It would have costed him that rebated $250, but then most of these hassles would have been avoided. He's still out the $250, so being pro-active on repair when doing "long dollar" selling should be his rule.) He would have also had the luxury of saying, "my repair guy named XXX checked out the game and did the repairs", which helps deflect blame and avoid issues, and puts another set of eyes on the machine. (Note to self, don't do any repairs for Cory, because this could get ugly! ha!)

Also never ever ship games if you're "long dollar" pricing. The potential for failure is just too high. Always best to have people come see and play it. If they accept the game, the burden is on their shoulders. They got to test drive the machine, so any faults they missed is their mistake. Also expectations can be set and met or not met. It's just easier this way. But of course local "long dollar" sales are tougher, especially in Michigan...

Short story advice:
Price games nice. Don't get all greedy and do long dollar stuff, unless your game is a "Hutchinson."
Don't ship games. bad for buyer and seller. This way expectations can be determined and set face-to-face.
As a buyer, make sure due diligence is done. And don't let the emotions of buying "the game title you screwed your first girl upon" or "the game title i threw up upon after my first beer" cloud your judgement.
Be a nice guy. But that rule is good all day, every day.

Great post Clay. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

rd.

Cory has told me in the past that he has to price and sell his games over market and buy titles on the cheap just to flip in order to be able to afford buying the games he really wants. Essentially, he can't afford to be in the hobby if he isn't putting the wood to someone else either on a buy or sell...

I only ask because Pin D has sent me emails with crazy low offers. Just wanted to connect the dots.

I understand some people aren't very skilled at repairs. That being said, anyone who spends a significant amount of time on these forums would be able to know the common issues with these games. Things such as a burnt GI connector happens so frequently it is mentioned in the majority of for sale threads. U
pon opening the backbox the burnt connector is an obvious problem even to someone not familiar to electronics. I just feel that not mentioning this hack is purposely hiding an obvious flaw in the game for personal gain. When I sell a game I take detailed pictures of everything and point out every single flaw that I know of and have the expectations that new issues will arise one the person receives the game and am more than happy to help provide any guidance for repairing the issues. That's how a successful community should function. It just is upsetting to see purposeful misrepresentation, especially when knowledge of the buyer being inexperienced exists. It's just taking advantage of people and is unforgivable.

I'm wondering if this isn't the BR that another local bought...and is have ALL kinds of issues with it.

Edit:
Ok when I bought game a couple weeks ago, game would reset a couple times during gameplay and start backup with no issues, tried to see if I could pinpoint what was hit when game reset, I think the 3 yellow stadups in the middle?? I bought some standup decals, and here's where the problems start, at game startup, test screen says grnd-short row 5 and I have a blown fuse at 111 (pics) I have looked at all switches and wires??also in test mode, when I check each switch separately the 3standups in middle each say a short in different rows?? Along with the rightside ball drain and return? (No mention of colums on display, just rows).

Can anyone help with whats tied to the blown fuse? This is over my head? Thanks.

If you are this concerned about personal privacy, you should probably not be posting on a publicly viewable internet forum. Most of us have our location listed, and many (including me) use our real initials and/or name in our username. It would be simple to figure out who most pinsiders are from their voluntarily listed information and posts. Robin asks that we do not post specific personal information about others. That's great. But most of us have given enough information willingly that it's just a matter of putting it together. Before I contacted Cory about the pin that I bought from him, a little Google activity told me exactly who he was, including his profession and place of work. Granted, that was before the negative stuff came up, and that might have changed my mind.
If anyone really wants to know who I am in real life, I'll tell them. And they can come by and play some pinball.

I actively contributed 2 days and 17 hours ago to this thread by posting this:

And a couple of pages later this:

I never said Robin didn't have our support. There is no war between Robin and the mods, we're all a pretty happy family here. We may have differing opinions, but we do discuss things behind the scenes and leave all big decisions to Robin, because it is his house and his rules. I was trying to react to the people going on and on about how moderators are doing nothing around here. We have done our jobs to the extent that we can at this time, to the best of our ability, and was offering a way for people to give their opinions directly to Robin and the mods if they had further concerns since this is an ongoing issue.

There are only about 6 moderators active, this is a voluntary role done in our free time, and we don't have 24 hour a day coverage to sit and babysit threads. From the time I checked this thread yesterday before bed until just now while at work I got a free minute to catch up, there were 47 new posts. And do you want to guess how many people reported that there was private information on this thread that needed to be edited, or reported anything at all on this thread? Exactly zero. None, nada. Unless one of the other mods has already seen/edited it, not one single person reported any violations that we should look into or do anything about. Right now there are 343 people online and the first page has a refresh rate of 5 hours, so there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that we are ever going to catch everything said by every person. Heck, Robin just added a new mod with a whole different time zone, and that still doesn't give us full coverage by any means.

I don't know how truly consistent moderation can be a reality when there are so many threads, so many members, so many different opinions, and the mods themselves have different opinions. If something blatantly breaks the rules, we're on it and know how to handle it. But when it is opinion based or word-against-word or a grey area, we can't consistently moderate that. And if nobody reports issues, we probably miss 90% of them. We get bashed if we moderate, we get bashed if we don't. Firebaall, you yourself said "I pulled any financial support from pinside due to it's censorship, moderation" but then trash us for not doing more moderation. So which is it?

We've got multiple moderator feedback threads going with individual forum members and public forum threads asking us to either ban bad sellers, leave all related threads open, close all related threads, start seller feedback lists, stay out of it due to legal ramifications to the forum, bashing the mods for doing nothing, and bashing the mods for doing any moderating. Some people continually thumbs down ANY type of moderation that is done at all, some regularly beg for us to do more and send in requests for ideas of ways we can be even more involved. Meanwhile, us 6ish moderators also all have a life, job, actual pinball to play, etc. There's no making anyone happy, and there's certainly no black/white answers for anything.

TD:DR version- We're not going to catch everything, or make everyone happy. The mods are doing the best they can, but PLEASE report any issues you see in a thread so we are alerted to it, or start a moderator feedback thread if you'd like to discuss anything with Robin/mods so we can have a discussion.

^^^
Yes lock the thread. Good luck posting on here Chogs. If you're not banned, you will wish you were.

IBTL

I understand that 73% of statistics are made up on the fly....but I am curious. How many machines you sell in 6 mos Choggard? Just trying to get a sense. Just with the links from this thread I count four complaints that were posted here. That would come out to you selling at least 400 games in that 6 month time-frame. At that rate, you should have a much better sense of what you're selling, how to identify parts, how to completely and correctly make repairs, etc. I'm wonder if this complaint rate is closer to 10% - 20% or more.

I'm totally mystified by one aspect of this thread... why anyone would object to profits.

If someone can buy something for $10, and sell it for $10,000, good for them!

Sometimes. But lying and taking advantage of people is not cool - regardless of profit.

Thank you Clay for clarifying how it went down. All I saw was this guy Choggard, who happens to have an amazingly bad rep, get your JM for $2k and then post it just two weeks later for $3k. I just thought that was extremely scummy to do to a person like yourself.

So, if you guys are both happy then my apologies to both of you for getting the scenario wrong. I have edited my earlier post to exclude the museum scenario. I still prefer to not do any business with Choggard, but I just saw the way the man operates and found it insulting to the entire pinball community.

hopefully both future sellers and buyers will know better than to deal with Cory (CHoggard) in the future.

No reason to EVER sell him a game for a good price or buy one from him either.

Thanks to the OP for sharing your story to hopefully help others.

That is extrememly flawed logic. So if someone complains about the US Federal government, your recommendation to them is leave and move to Canada?

May I recommend that when a thread is locked that the moderator doing so gives a reason why and cites the pinside rules? That would cut back on a lot of confusion I think. I am having a hard time finding how to submit a recommendation to the moderator thread. Could someone help me out?

in before the lock!

I didn't say anything about lying or taking advantage.

People are bitching because Choggard bought the JM for 2k and flipped it for 3k, and I find any objection to him making a profit on the machine to be pretty shocking, especially given that virtually every machine out there changes hands for more than its original selling price. Should I be looking to pay less than $2,800 for a MM? $2,500 for a CV? How about less than $1,500 for a CC?

You should have stopped here. Obviously, you're still upset about the gun thread being closed.

Maybe Pinside isn't for you. Robin's site....Robin's rules.

Before this is locked let's all REALLY think about what clay said as I think it's the most important thing to take away, on my phone so quote function does not work, copied and pasted:

"So if the Mousing was like the BK2000 (which is probably a good assumption), i could see a buyer thinking the game was fine, or not. Depends on the buyer. That said, if the BK2000 was $1500 or $2000, these things aren't issues really. There's enough room in the price to take care of any problems. (I always tell people when they buy a game to figure that they will spend $200 to get it "right".) But when you're selling a $2500 or $3000 BK2000, the thing should be damn near functionally perfect. The long dollar dictates this."

The thread isn't an indictment of capitalism in pinball. Its about an amateur pinball flipper berating sellers and using questionable methods to obtain machines (with problems) and then turning around and touting himself as an expert to sell them as premium "no-worries" machines to uneducated buyers. What I see makes many here upset is his insistence that he is adding some significant value to the machines when he is only slightly more knowledgeable than the new buyers and offers nothing more than a wipe-down service to machines he likely can't properly evaluate to begin with.

As a hobbyist, I'm pissed at zero-value-added flippers too. I hate that they buy at market value (2k for a JM) and think they feel justified selling it a week later for stupidly inflated 3k, having added nothing. It's totally screwed this hobby up, IMO.

I don't mind anyone finding a deal on a $1200 JM and gettting $2100 out of it, or even buying a $2K JM, replacing a ton of parts, totally making it a gem, and selling it for $2900.

You're missing the point. It upset me because he did his flipping routine to CLAY. Making profit from pinballs, cars/etc is fine if you are honest and put honorable effort into it, but to see him do it through Clay so fast just seemed wrong. Anyways, this is definitely not something I enjoy doing, getting involved in any drama. I am out of this thread and moving on.

100% agreed. The worst part about Mr. Hoggard is the lying and purposeful taking advantage of new pinheads.

No one is bitching about turning a profit. We are fumed about lying, scamming, and undercutting of fellow collectors. It's not the profit, it's how he is going about making it.

Amen! Some people don't have a large bankroll to afford the higher priced games. That's fine. One way to make some money is to buy lower priced games that need some work and put the "sweat equity" into them and sell them for a profit.

Wiping down the playfield with Novus and throwing in a few LED's isn't adding any value. This hobby has a lot of terms that get misused such as "shopped", "mint", etc.

In the end it's still "buyer beware".

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Chodehard uses different accounts to send cheap offers for the same sale ad. He's emailed me as Cory, Choggard, Chugs, Z, Hugsc, Pin D/Don. Those are the ones i know of.

I've tried to blacklist him, but I sell games at a few different locations in MI so he doesn't realize it's the same person telling him to piss off with his bullshit.

This is kind of a sad brag but the excuse "I don't have the funds to be in this hobby" is BS. I have a shut box car, rental house, and 3 kids. I would NEVER do the things Chogs has done to a collector (let alone another human being). I would guess but I'm probably in the lower 10% of wages in this community. I am happy with what I have and it's just unfortunate that I entered a very lucrative career late for my age. I spent all of my 20s job hopping and chasing a stand up comedy dream. Wouldn't change a thing but again, not being able to purchase a pin outright due to income doesn't give the right to screw people and mark up garbage to "make ends meet".

Sorry for the running sentences.

The moderators and I have realized (a while back) that this may be confusing and we have now made it a rule to add a closing note when closing a thread. You shouldn't have seen a thread being closed without explanation from us in the past few months. If you did, the mod simply forgot to do so. Open a moderator feedback topic and ask for a "closing statement". (note that we're obviously not going to revist months old threads to do this).

The moderator feedback forum can be found here. Or click it in the sub-forums list on the left hand side of the front page. To open a topic there simply select this sub-forum:

moderator-feedback-topic.png

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Agree with Rotor Dave. This is yet another in a series of absurd posts by Firebaall. He rarely adds anything of substance to the site, but loves to stir up shit, like he did when he implied that the death of McCune's son was karma.

If Pinside had a "wall of shame" as he suggests, he'd be listed near the top.

The mods have been itching to lock this thread since page 1.

Its great to see Robin overrule them for once and kept this thread open for a while.

Choggard was wrong for what he did , but some of you guys seriouslly need to get a grip. Some posts are downright disturbing,you would think he had just been charged with murder by the way some members have reacted..

It would not suprise me in the slightest if some of you guys go as far as contacting his workplace! That shit is hilarious! Sorry.

And you know this how??

No itching here. (Except for the poison ivy I got into while working in the backyard. Ouchy.)

If we were itching to close it, we would have just closed it. Then there would have been a "why did you close that thread" thread, and we'd have to deal with that too. (Then there would be a "OMG the mods are closing all the threads and sensoring everything and mods are as evil as Choggard!" thread, and so on.) It's way easier to keep everything in one place and let everyone get it all out, and I don't know of any mods that are 'close' happy honestly. It's done as a pre-emptive measure to avoid multiple shitstorms or in obvious violation of the rules, but the ratio of closed threads to total threads here is tiny. Yes, there were other threads that were closed, because they were people who had no stock in the matter or who had no actual transactions with him simply calling out Choggard and making it more of a personal attack or rally. The OP of this thread has first hand dealing with him.

Nextpin, I can't speak to choppy's ethic violations. But frankly he does make me shake the head. So the repair was $350. Big deal just pay it and be done. To only throw down 250 and go through all this for $100 ?? That makes no sense to me. That means the difference between a good transaction and a bad one is $100. How could all this mud slinging and trashing your rep be worth $100 ??

This simply isn't true as I've said before I sent plenty of pictures showing the condition of the machine. I think another reason he was dispointed was prior to getting my machine he went to a pinball show and played a restored BK2000 that was in near perfect condition. If you look at his avatar with the picture of his son you'll see what I am talking about. I had a feeling this deal wasn't going to go good from the start and I probably shouldn't sold it to him. I had another guy that came to my house locally that wanted it for $2K in which I should of sold it to him instead.

But what I don't understand is why Mike continues to lie about me not shopping the playfield, saying there's damage under chrome trim I put on it, and damage on sides, etc.. As you can see from the pictures I posted that's simply not true. I tried to make things right by refunding $250 to fix the GI repair and whatever the battery box knock off on the board. By the time you take off around $400 to ship and a $250 refund I gave. I sold the machine for around $1,850 which is a fair price for the condition of that BK2000.

After talking with Todd on here I understand why local pinball people would get upset with me because we are all in the same market competing for the same machines. I get that but to personal attack someone for beating them to a machine just isn't right. Every time I see a good deal online on a machine and don't get it I always congratulate the buyer on a great deal/find if it someone I know on here. Actually I know several people on here that I text quite a bit with to see if they got the deal to congratulate them. Too many times people become too emotional about pinball and get upset that they didn't get the deal on the machine and take it out on others on Pinside. It's very sad to see people posting here on the local craigslist site that I am a scammer when they've never even met me. If anyone of you guys are in the Flint area please contact me and you can come to my house anytime and play some pinball. My door is always open to all pinball enthusiasts around.

Cory

rut-roh....choggy going after Clay....

Chogg,

If you told the guy you would cover the repairs, why not just keep your word and cover the cost of the repairs ?

I've sold 100s of games in my life and I've made money/lost money; but I've found even if I lose money, it's simply less stressful to keep my word.

$100? Really????

Oh hey good morning. We don't care for your thoughts or your view on this matter anymore and are pretty shocked you are still here.

Let me sum up the thread real quick.

Everyone else is at fault.
Choggard is a saint and is doing gods work.
People who buy pins that arn't happy with the shit shop work have "buyers remorse"

He needs that $100 for his next scam.............er "project"

If nothing else he should be considerate enough to include a bottle of K-Y JELLY with every machine he sells to unsuspecting suckers.

I told him my tech charges around $250 for all repairs, and I figured for a simple GI repair and whatever else happen form shipping it would easily takecare of it. Regardless it wouldn't of mattered I believe Mike wouldn't of been happy either way..

I for one would like to personally thank all the Choggers out there for making me see the light and stop rebuilding these games.
I can't pay what a junk flipper will pay for base games because I actually put time and money into them so there is no point in doing it anymore.
My games are overpriced and they can get the same title way cheaper on CL or Ebay.
I no longer feel sorry for the people that buy this crap and I will no longer repair this junk while the flipper counts the money.
I will however shake my head knowingly and listen to their sob stories as I hand them the Pindocs card.

And your a stalking peice of shit who cant keep his big mouth shut! Think of yourself as a tough guy eh?

Why cant you just let it be? You and Dantebean are on some kind of vendetta or something?

Choggard why do you let these two douchebags speak to you like this? They personally attacked your family.

Are you saying that you paid the $400 for the shipping of the game so the price was $2500 including shipping?

Being new to pinball too, I can say that over paying for your first pin doesn't seem that uncommon because you're excited to jump in with both feet. So, with regard to the argument about buying low and selling high, I don't really care. Good for you if you can make a quick buck doing it.

The issue I do have is saying it's working "100%". Maybe that was true, but not disclosing the fact that someone soldered wires directly to a board and that other wires were cut and left exposed seems shady at best.
The argument that pics were sent is invalid if they aren't of a problem area. If you can't see a hack because other wires hide it you may has well have not sent pictures at all.

Anyone who sells a machine with a hack like that and doesn't specifically mention it is being dishonest. Specifically mentioning it doesn't fall under, "I told him it wasn't CQ or completely restored only shopped." At the very least say, "One of the boards has the wires soldered directly to it, but it works 100%." Had that have been stated and he still wanted it, then it's on him. Not doing so borders on fraud.

Welcome to the forum, guy from NY who just joined today!

Hope to see you around.