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View Poll Results: Who/What do you really believe was at fault?
Me. I'm just falsely declaring missing or opened items to extort money. 0 0%
United States Customs 0 0%
The 700+ feedback seller who showed and stated exactly what they were selling 0 0%
Shopping Mall Japan staff in Tokyo who underestimated the value of the CD 10 100.00%
Some other possibility I'm not taking into consideration (if so then please post it) 0 0%
Voters: 10. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 2008.02.19, 05:46 AM   #1
Glathannus
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Default My fallout with Shopping Mall Japan

I wasn't sure about where to start this thread. Maybe it should go Tutorials or Main Forum because it pertains to how I acquired so much of my Shiina Ringo collection, but I'll leave that to the judgment call of staff.

Anyway, as some of you have already known, I've used Shopping Mall Japan a LOT. For those of who are unfamiliar with the company, their role is to act as a go-between, for Japanese auctions that only ship out to a Japanese address. You find an auction you want, then you have Shopping Mall Japan place a bid in their name on your behalf, then if they win the item, they receive it in their Tokyo warehouse. Eventually the item is on its way to their Michigan warehouse in "batch shipping" (EMS goes on a curve where it's less per item - the more items you ship at once), and that's around the time they bill you for the item, after they know how much the two-way shipping has cost them.

After you've amassed items in Michigan, you put in a shipping request, and they send you everything they have (and you've paid for) so far.

Or at least all of this is the concept, but I'm afraid that isn't quite the implementation.

Throughout the 18 months that I've done business with Shopping Mall Japan, I've discovered a few problems:

Just because Shopping Mall Japan says they've shipped a particular item to you, doesn't mean they stored it in the same section of their warehouse as the rest of your items, and actually remembered to include it.

I've experienced this practically a dozen times now, and most of those occasions it was either the most recent item to reach their Michigan warehouse prior to my shipping request, or it was a poster. Once or twice it was a Taiwanese or Hong Kong seller at Yahoo! Japan Auctions, who shipped straight to Michigan in a disorganized fashion, and SMJ had no way of knowing who the item belonged to until I inquired about why I hadn't received the item after a couple of shipping requests spanning 4 months.

One time they didn't ship out a set of Tokyo Jihen buttons. So I asked them where it was, and their response was basically "We no longer have anything like it in our warehouse". They offered to refund me on the commission fee they had charged me ($8), but I was still down on the 3500yen for the auction, plus the two-way shipping it had taken for the item to reach Michigan before it disappeared.

I had no way of proving I didn't receive the buttons, and Shopping Mall Japan had no way of proving they didn't actually ship the buttons to me. Not the kind of mess you ever want to be in. This was the first incident of a series where I eventually figured out that not only can you never prove your case, but Shopping Mall Japan will always offer nothing more than a refund on commissions because of that. And nevermind the reality that a full set of these buttons shows up on Yahoo! Japan Auctions 2-3 times per year, and could sell for more each time than they did the last time, since they were officially sold at only the Dynamite tour.

That was Strike #1.
It wasn't just that they lost the buttons, but that they wouldn't offer me anywhere near a full refund, and they disregarded the amount of my time it took to find an auction for these buttons in the first place.

More recently, I won an auction for an unopened sample copy of the original 8cm version of Koufukuron. As the photos and description indicate, the CD was sample and unopened, an extremely rare combination for something ten years old, and especially significant since this was Shiina Ringo's debut single. Why else would there be bidding competition raising the price to 3x what it costs for a brand new nonsample copy of the exact same thing? While most sample copies are arguably worthless, this particular copy clearly had collector value. I mean, retail store employees were playing with the small handful of other copies of this before the general public had any means other than the radio or television for discovering Shiina Ringo. Except for a few industry insiders with their promo copies, no one except retail store employees had actually heard Suberidai yet. This was also during an era when B-Sides were more elusive and mysterious, because filesharing wasn't anywhere near as organized as it is today.

So if all had gone according to plan, this would've been one of my Top 5 proud-to-own Shiina Ringo items. But unfortunately, something went very wrong.

Here is what the seller indicated they were auctioning off:

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And here is the seller's feedback score of over 700 positive, with one negative feedback from long ago.

Here is what I actually received (via Shopping Mall Japan):

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Views: 3
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Name:  IMG_3776.JPG
Views: 3
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Anyone else see what's wrong here?
There's actually several things wrong here.

So the important question is, who's to blame?

Let's weigh out the scenarios:

a.) The seller opened up the item after they took the photographs.
Unlikely, due to their awesome feedback, and their indicated understanding of what they were selling. Even if they had opened it (despite their photos and description and feedback), you would at least expect them to be smart enough to re-apply the plastic envelope rightside up, correct?

b.) United States Customs tampered with it.
Unlikely, due to Shopping Mall Japan's tendency to always apply their labels rightside up. If Customs had messed with the CD, then the Shopping Mall Japan label would be upside down compared to the cover art.

c.) An employee of Shopping Mall Japan messed with it.
This is a more than strong possibility in my mind. The plastic envelope was flipped before the Shopping Mall Japan label was applied (something they use to keep track of items internally - since they have so many customers and auctions to deal with). That's a fact. Shopping Mall Japan did a particularly careless job of applying the label. Unless Customs removed and re-applied the Shopping Mall Japan label (something they would not need to do in order to examine the CD), then that's a fact. If the Shopping Mall Japan staff perceived the CD as an unopened sample/collectible copy, they presumably would've handled it with more care - that's a borderline fact.

So here's what we know.

The seller knew the full significance of the item, and they knew what it was supposed to look like, and they advertised what it was supposed to look like, and stated what it was supposed to be like.

Shopping Mall Japan employees more than likely didn't know what was special (if anything) about the CD. To them it was no different than a retail copy, and it may or may not have been opened before. If a Shopping Mall Japan employee had opened the plastic envelope to copy or rip the CD, they wouldn't have known the right way to re-apply the plastic envelope, unless they had thought really hard about it. If they were particularly thoughtful or considerate, they also wouldn't have applied the Shopping Mall Japan label so close to the factory sticker. Is this not a legitimate stereotyping?

Now, I don't know for a fact that Shopping Mall Japan was responsible, just like I don't know for a fact that the Bush Administration lied about WMDs in Iraq, or know for a fact that OJ Simpson murdered his ex-wife. But I'll tell you what - I believe in the scenario enough, to stop bidding on auctions through Shopping Mall Japan altogether.

I gave them a chance to come clean. I presented all the facts, and they clung to the defense of "Well, our company could be guilty, or it could be the seller, so here's a refund for commission fees, on good faith". NO friggin WAY! Most of the value of this CD has been ruined, more than likely because of Shopping Mall Japan, and once again, all they offer me is $8 again?! What about the rest of the money I paid, or the amount of time and money it would take to win another unopened sample copy of this, if another one even exists and goes up for auction? This is the only sample and opened copy of this CD that I had seen on Yahoo! Japan Auctions throughout my 18 months of lengthy searching, and after Shopping Mall Japan royally screws this up, I get a quasi-refund for quasi-proof. Thanks again, you unaccountable misers! You've just lost yourselves a really great customer.
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Old 2008.02.19, 06:01 AM   #2
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OMG
it's upsidedown into the plastic
whoever opened it, it's too dumb that put it wrong inside XDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
and I don't know who blame for it too... maybe it was the delivery service
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Old 2008.02.19, 06:48 AM   #3
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Part of what makes me angry about this, is that not only do I know it's been opened, but the glue on the resealable part has been so disturbed, that I couldn't just flip the plastic envelope back into its proper arrangement, then pretend this CD is "as good as unopened". Combine that with the bad placement of the SMJ label, and you've got a triple screw-up.

This was a wonderful way to spend $50. (after all the fees kicked in)

Anyway, this isn't a "please feel sorry for me" thread or a "this CD was the roxxor" thread. It's primarily a warning to anyone who'd ever consider using SMJ, because like I said, they lost a set of Phase 1 buttons too.
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Old 2008.02.19, 07:05 AM   #4
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Most buyers are going to be in Japan, bidding directly. If the item is already tampered with and a Japanese person wins, they're going to blame no one but the seller. The seller doesn't know that a deputy service (like Shopping Mall Japan) is going to win, with a customer on the other end who might blame the deputy service instead of the seller. So yeah.
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Old 2008.02.19, 09:26 AM   #5
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Did you plan to keep it sealed forever by the way?
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Old 2008.02.19, 09:28 AM   #6
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That sux Glath. I remember you IMing me, super-jazzed, about this =(

I know its just the idea that you payed for what you expected to be a still unopened item, but its still a cool piece in the collection.
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Old 2008.02.19, 10:07 AM   #7
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That really sucks for you.
Do you have other alternatives for buying through Yahoo Auctions Japan?

I also think this was SMJ's fault, entirely.
It also kind of disgusts me to think that they tamper with the items. I mean, it could be just one employee's fault, but since the point of many rare items is their unopened state, this is not forgivable, for the employee but especially for the company to deny and refuse a reasonable refund.

The only time I did something with SMJ is send them a deposit for bidding, and they never aknoledged it. Somehow I don't feel like going through the hassle for 10$ of 2 years ago.
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Old 2008.02.19, 11:10 AM   #8
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try rinkya instead
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Old 2008.03.14, 06:09 PM   #9
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Currently there's an auction going for a factory-sealed sample copy of Muzai Moratorium. It started at around 2000yen and now the bids are beyond 10000yen. A sealed sample copy of Honnou went for nearly 4000yen a week ago.

I thought I'd really struck gold when I won that Koufukuron CD, but the more I see these other auctions, the more hopeless I feel.

Whether or not it was Shopping Mall Japan that screwed me, now is a really good time to get out of the market anyway, or at least for Shiina Ringo items.

It was mostly good while it lasted.
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