You can ask all my friends. I am completely insane. When I'm let out on weekends I do nothing but post crank messages to Frank.

Bottom line is I'm just really annoyed at all the messages from BGG that I have to open only to see this guys stuff listed. I would like him to conduct business elsewhere.

On the other hand I'm sure that my attitude seems overboard since to be honest he is perfectly entitled to list the games here at any price. Obviously the marketplace was intended for just that purpose. He is welcome to list as many games at whatever prices he wants.

However, by the same token we are all free to make as many low low offers as we please.

It's not so much his price that bothers me its my time. It almost seems like spam to me.

As for his comments

1) I did make one of those low offers. He did send me a list of about 10 games he would take in exchange for Roads and Boats. They were worth about 300-400 dollars. I did in fact respond to this and politely declined.

2) I did send him an email in regards to Roads and Boats showing up every day. He explained to me that it was a glitch and I promptly appologized.

3) As for todays e-mail

What I said as close as I can recall was:

Are your games a deal in Germany NO

Are they a deal in the US NO

Why are you wasting our time posting these games

Please refrain from posting any more games.

Sure I was annoyed and I let him know it in no uncertain terms. I do indeed feel a little sheepish and somewhat regret it, but boy it felt good at the time.

As for number 4) yes, here we are. I see I'm not the only one who is annoyed with this guy and if someone could answer my question I'd like to be rid of this guy. I'm sure he wants to be rid of me as well. Which is just fine. No skin off my nose.

As for any vendetta's no chance of that. I didn't even realize it was the same guy who I was getting all the Roads and Boats messages from when I sent him todays message. I don't have time to keep track of that kind of thing. But I do have time to let off some steam once in a while. My BAD. I'll get myself checked back into the institution in the morning.

P.S.

I'm sure I'll get some nasty messages back and I'm sure I'll regret this post as well but at the moment what I'm saying seems reasonable.

P.S.S For the most part we have a great community here Frank and hopefully myself included.

I ordered 1860 from JKLM-games 3 months ago, and received it without problems, so I think it's a good advice to order it from them and save €60+. BTW: why would anybody who had to struggle for months to get his copy of 1860, then sell it to you immediately after it arrived (this game was released end of 2004), and you would happily pay truckload of money for it, so you can now try to sell it for, only 220% of the price? This story just doesn't make sense to me.


Yes, 10% or 7% that's OK. Revolution is €50 at the Phalanx site, you are selling it for €69.99. That's 40%. For a game that's easily available. Don't claim to be only adding 10% if you know very well that it's 40%.


That's a weird response. As I pointed out in my earlier post, I have no problem with selling OOP games for whatever prices. I also don't have a problem with sellers adding a few % (like 10) to a game. But for 1860 it's +140% and for Revolution it's +40%. Maybe all the other prices you list are fair, I didn't check them, so sorry for that, but this has nothing to do with you being a German. I just don't think you are doing other people a service by trying to sell them overpriced games.

Bas,

Please keep in mind that 50 Euros pays for the game not the shipping. Shipping a single copy to the US adds another 20 Euros or so. You do get to subtract the BTW/VAT but all in all it would be over 60 Euros. Shipping to Germany will be cheaper but you will not get the BTW/VAT discount as Germany is in the same tax zone as The Netherlands. So while 10% may be low 40% is high. The actual profit margin will probably be somewhere in between.

Doei!

Yes, but the prices this guy is listing are also excluding shipping. At the phalanx website Revolution including shipping to overseas is listed as €65. Revolution ordered from this guy will be €70 + €18-24 according to his description at the bgg-marktplace.

So it's either comparing prices without shipping: €50 vs €70
or with shipping to USA: €65 vs €90

In both cases it's more than 10% difference.


(edit: I'm not concerned about the profit margin for the seller, I'm more concerned about the fact that the buyer is paying way too much, I think BGG should be a place where you can trust other people, so I don't like it if somebody is trying to let other people pay much much more than they actually should pay for a game - maybe the seller is not making profit at all, I don't care, I care about the buyer)

I think this only goes for football fans and other people that read papers like Bild. And even then, Bild is much worse than anything that the Dutch Media pumps out.

Hi Folks,

@Frank: I just followed the link to the price list Craig posted and must confess that I am quite shocked! Your pricing for such a cheap and small game as "6 Nimmt" is €12.99. C´mon, I mean, you can buy this game over here in Germany for €4,99. Even in the expensive department stores like "Karstadt" or specialized toy chains as "Vedes" you usually won´t have to pay more then €6,99.

Sure, you can put up your games here for the price you want, but please don´t get pissed off, when people notice that some of your prices are outrageous and make this public. All in all, the BGG is a big community where information is strongly exposed and you have to be aware that the real "Aficionados" know the "Fair Value" of a game if it is still in print .

Another thing I noticed when I checked your terms of shipment prices:

You write:



Well correct me if I am wrong, but I did a lot of tranatlantic tradings here at the geek (Greetings to my american, canadian and international trade pals!):

Your starting price for foreign packages is € 18. Is this the price for a small, not insured parcel you charge? The actual shipping cost for a small parcel to the USA is € 12,90. You can check this on the official site of the Deutsche Post: www.post.de

As to your shipping price for parcels within Germany, c´mon, you know the shipping costs for a insured parcel with a weight till 5 KG: It is € 7.

So, for what do you charge then the extra Euro? If it is for the parcel and wrapping? At least you should state this seperately in your conditions for the sake of your customers.

Well, as to your comment directed to our friends from the Netherlands:



Don´t you think that it is a bit misplaced to suspect them to have an antigerman attitude? I am german also and couldn´t trace a sign of xenophobic behaviour in their postings. The guys explained themselves quite clearly on a purely factual level, nevertheless, you responded with a quite emotional accusation which pointed mainly on our special relationships (Netherlands-Germany) as only foundation.

Interesting. The prices he quotes do seem to be a bit of an eye opener. Is there a single game on his list (available from an established online store in Germany), that can't be bought for less in Germany? I checked out a few of the lower priced ones using Thomas Rosanski's brilliant search page ( http://www.rosanski-online.de/suche/) and I couldn't find any from the few dozen I looked at. Sticheln for €14.99! Funkenschlag €174.99! I don't think you can really complain too much when the community draws attention to prices like these. I suppose buyers can always make him an offer as reasonable as his suggested selling price. Obviously I need to raise the prices on the games I'm selling. I'm being too reasonable.

@bas
that´s a weird math you do there man you wrote :
[...]
So it's either comparing prices without shipping: €50 vs €70
or with shipping to USA: €65 vs €90
[...]
what the hell ??? sorry, but this math was pure nonsense and my old math teachers would rotate in their graves, if i would come up with something like that ever
and by the way, shipping from germany to north america costs 32 euros and not 25, but that only completes your odd calculations.
simply go to phalanx webstore, pretend to buy a revolution and chose germany as destination country and you will see, that you have to pay 62,75 euros. if someone wants to buy it from me, i would give it away for 69,99. these are unbelievable 10,34% (minus 3, wich makes it aktually 7,34 %) profit ! that´s outrageous ? oh no wait, i forget to account in the credit card fees
and how could i possibly sell this game to another country including shipping costs ??? i couldn´t even ship it (by bus and personally) in my town without losing money, if excluding the shipping costs and this is not my intention, at least as long, as i haven´t touched a game and finally decided, that i don´t like it and want to get rid of it.
and no, i am not the owner of german postal, so that money will surely not find it´s way into my pockets.
and about 1860...again...i know 3 guys, who were ripped off from jklm and browsing through german boardgame forums, i found out, that there are at least one or two handful more people out there, who never received their games without any response from jklm.
and of course a potential gamer from japan or north america could go to phalanx or any other webstore and buy his games from there directly, but the shipping costs are outrageous and it almost makes no sense, buying all theses games separately. could phalanx throw in a zoo sim or too many cooks or hellas or whatever comes to your mind at the same shipping rate ? nope ! would the jklm boss run into a local gamestore, to grab a more or less exotic game for you, you´re searching for ? nope ! could or would phalanx advise you, how language independent zepter from zavandor really is or could they help you, translating parts of it´s rules ? nope ! is jklm, a company with a lot of promises, but a history of at least some disappointed customers more trustworthy than me ? i guess, that the answer probably could be no again...
so, the question again, why don´t you browse through the sales lists and pick out sellers, who really don´t do anything here, but earning money : newspiel, robbirob, juergen.schick, gamesinaox, giochiusati, hauwech, 12spiel_de, montsegur, bb-allerlei and many others. there are plenty of them and these guys mostly don´t do anything for the community, with the exception of earning money, wich is o.k. also by the way, because it helps running this cool website for free. some of theses guys, i saw stalking around at ebay.de on a very regular base and buying games for as low as 2 or 3 euros and a week later, surprise, this very games pop up here for 10 - 30 euros. so, you should better write them, instead of picking me out, the one and only from this "mega sellers" (people, who have listed 50+ games for sale), who actually is a *member* of this community.

@craig
i don´t keep track about such things, but i have no altzheimer yet and since i never received any complains, because we are usually a nice community and since it´s the fourth time now within 10 weeks, that i had the questionable "honor" being contacted by you in way, that leaves me with a lot of questionmarks swirling around my head, i had no problems remembering you. it´s hard to beleive, that you can´t remember this or do you really write this kind of mails 20 or 30 times the day to other members also (wich would make it even more worse, if you would ask me...) ?

@norman
in fact, i sold 155 items by now at boardgamegeek, wich convinces me even more, that i haven´t made to many terrible mistakes.

@michael
yes, it should be, because that´s what all his was about, or wasn´t it ?

@Koldfoot
that one was good a nice little conspiracy theory is always welcomed as an explanation i only wish, that this could be true, because then i wouldn´t receive these annoying mails from him anymore, wich come on an almost monthly base...

@christian
thanks for jumping in and that´s quite interesting, because we never came to an agreement for trades. and guess what, that happened, because you asked for too much and your trade prices were insane. 150 euros for "your last" keytown probably meets the actual market price, but wasn´t that pure greed, wanting almost 5 times the price, you´ve originally paid for ? and weren´t you the guy, who offered me a trade, where i should give away new boxes of sword of rome *and* ys (wich costed me more than 90 euros) for one (used) box of dune ? how dare YOU of all people talk about my greed ? you should probably better fight your own little private greed demons ! and as a german you should know this nice sentence : "you shouldn´t throw stones, if your sitting in a house of glass" (hopefully the meaning came trough the translation...)
about 6 nimmt : you probably made a point there, but i am still the cheapest seller (please write to mr. montsegur, if you have to complain something ). i guess , that i am simply not ready yet, to give this game away (it´s still unopneed) and if i am forced, to buy a new one for myself, wich i am surely will not do at big department stores, because i prefere supporting the local, small gamestores, wich are way more expensive by the way, i have to earn something from that. it´s as simple as that.
about shipping rates : first, i will never ship packages without insurance to foreign countries ever again, because too many were lost. hell, even inside germany i stopped shipping anything without insurance, because i saw a lot of bad things happen to packages without. and the prices for packages with insurance are 7 euro inside germany, 17 euros inside (most of) europe and 32 euros for north america. and yes, i charge 8, 18 and 33 euros for 5kg packages and the extra euro is for parcel, wrapping, handling (and i do these things *very* careful and *very* good !) etc., because that costs something too of course and the packages have to be transported in some way to postal office. what´s wrong with that ?
about what i had to say to bas : first, there was no "them" or "their", in suspecting an antigerman attitude, it was only bas, i was takling to and about. and since i felt, that his arguments weren´t very convincing and even terribly wrong in parts, that left me out on the search for other possible reasons and i do know, how people from netherlands sometimes feel, if it comes to "the german question". and i am still not that sure, if it wasn´t his subconscious, that kicked in and i still wonder, if he would have stepped into this discusion ever, if mr. viau had pointed his finger at gamesinabox or other international sellers. in fact, there were plenty of discusions related to this topic within the years, but bas never stepped in even once. why now and why "against" the only "mega seller", that is a real member here, without even questioning, what "mr. stalker i am sorry, but will send you another mail in month or so anyway viau" had to say

@akke
you´re absolutely right about bild, because that´s a terrible and even dangerous newspaper
but it´s as i wrote to christian, i am still not too convinced, that there wasn´t at least a little bit german bashing included. i don´t mean, that he tried to kick my ass on purpose, but his subconscious probably has won a secret little victory at the time of his first some postings and since i felt, that his arguments were weak and since my background is not typical german and way to much unfluenced by the international members of my family from all over the globe, i was a little bit shocked, to be honest.
however, i still admire your football and most times i wish, that our german guys could play like this and even bas won´t make me change my mind about that

Let me help you:

COMPARING PRICES WITHOUT SHIPPING:
Revolution: directly from Phalanx: €50
Revolution: as advertised by Frank: €70

COMPARING PRICES WITH SHIPPING to USA:
Revolution: directly from Phalanx: €65
Revolution: as advertised by Frank: €70 + €18-45 = €88-115 (here I assumed a shipping of approx. €20, which is why I said €90 as a total price)

But right now you are already correcting this figure by pointing out that it is actually €32 shipping, so ordering from you would be €102 with shipping compared to €65 directly from Phalanx.

Maybe you can tell me what's so nonsense about my math?

He never wasted any of my time. Please don't say "our". Even if I did get those for sale posts, it takes, oh, eight seconds to open read and delete one. At 10 a day every day, that comes to less than 10 minutes a week. I'm sure you've spent more time in this thread than that.

And as for asking him to refrain from posting anymore games - you have absolutely no right. That's an incredibly out of line request. "I think Pathmark charges too much for bread. Why, its 30% less at Stop & Shop - I think I'll insist Pathmark stop advertising!"

Why would you possibly think you have the right to stand up for BGG as a whole ("our time") and why would you have the right to tell someone he can't sell what he wants in a free internet marketplace?

When you are a parent, you will learn that the only lessons your children absorb are the ones they teach themelves. It is far from callous. It takes a lot of bravery, love and courage to allow your little one to make a poor choice, knowing it will benefit them in the future.

Think of it as booster shots to wisdom. They hurt like hell now, but are far better than the possible alternatives in the future.

You can tell them not to run down the stairs. They still will. Not out of willfulness, but out of childish forgetfulness. They will not forget the time they face plant at the bottom of the stairs. The lessons learned through practice now are the hardest on parents to teach, but the most valuable for the children to learn.

@bas
that´s easy man. imgagine, that we have a lonely little gamer out there and let´s call him mr. smith. and now imgaine, that our mr. smith wants to buy 5 new games. and let´s pretend, that revolution is one of them and that all of these games cost 60 each.

if your math is right, mr. smith goes to the website of the 5 manufactorers, buying each of these 5 games.
revolution : 60 + shipping
game 2 : 60 + shipping
game 3 : 60 + shipping
game 4 : 60 + shipping
game 5 : 60 + shipping
in most cases, the shipping rates will probably be between 20 and 30, wich leaves our mr. smith paying about 300 for the games and 100 to 150 for shipping, wich makes that 400 to 450. will mr. smith be a happy customer ? probably yes, but he would be much poorer customer too, after these transactions are finished.
but wait, now the problems start, because mr. smith isn´t so sure, that he is able to understand german rules or parts of game 2 and he probably had read, that game 3 comes from a publisher, that doesn´t care so much, if paying costumers received their goods and he faces a problem with a missing part of game 4 and he has huge problems, understanding the rules of game 5 at all and bad luck, game 2 is not available online from the publisher.
will the manufactorers respond in any way or better, can they respond at all, because there is a chance, that they don´t speak english ? probably yes, probably no, who knows, but one thing is for sure, not even one of the manufactorers would visit a store, to buy game 2 for mr. smith and none of them would tell him, that he´s wants a crappy game, that is not that good, as he thinks of it, in terms of fun.

however, a sad story this is, but wouldn´t it had been a better idea from mr. smith, to ask one of the sellers at market place *before* he buys anything and wouldn´t it had been cheaper for him, if *one* of these sellers ships *all* the games to him at once (wich, as said before, costs 32 euros alltogether with german postal) ? let´s pretend, that a marketplace seller takes 70 for each of the games, that makes about 370 to 380 including shipping. it might be shocking for you, but that´s cheaper, than the your solution above, plus he was helped with his problems, avoided another crappy game and bought another one instead, wich he never heard of before, but it´s a good one.

i guess, that mr. smith could probably be a happier (and richer !) man, if he had chosen a boardgamegeek marketplace sellers in the first place.

was that clear enough now ? were´s the point in buying x games from y manufactorers all over the world, if the shipping rates will eat up your budget ? and the best part is, that these marketplace sellers at least help a little bit, paying the bills of these nice and free website and that they even submits things or nice infos to boardgamegeek on good days, wich most manufactorers usually don´t do.

Please stop misquoting prices, you are trying to confuse and by doing so trying to look good. Revolution is €50 at Phalanx website (50 that is, fifty, not 60), and shipping worldwide is €15 (not between 20 and 30, 15, that's 5 below 20 and 15 below 30, yes, do you understand???), for a total of €65. Is it so difficult for you to correctly quote me?

You, on the other hand are selling this game for €69.99, and you are shipping this game for (according to the latest info provided by you) €32, for a total of (almost) €102.

And I'm not talking about a hypothetical customer who wants to buy 5 games, but just comparing buying 1 game from you versus 1 game from another very logical source (the publisher). In this case it's still €65 versus €102.

How are shipping rates going to eat your budget if the price for game+shipping are lower than ordered from you???

Please don't start with this nonsense about not-being-able-to-understand-German, for Revolution the rules provided are in English, Phalanx website is in English.

It's OK with me if you're making a profit. But since this is a huge price difference of €37, I do think it's fair for people on BGG to be informed that they can save theirselves a truckload of money by ordering it directly from the publisher instead of ordering it from you.

(and please stop this shit as if I should have anything against Germans, that's absolutely nonsense, I have never posted any negative comment suggesting something like that. I don't care about soccer BTW)

The golden rule is NOT equivalent to: Do unto others as they HAVE done unto you.

In any case, I am not necessarly saying the guy is immoral; primarily just pointing out that legality doesn't equate to morality. Although I do think that "taking advantage of the stupid" is at least questionable.

How about you BOTH stop this all, agree to disagree, and get on with life. His prices aren't going to change, he's not going to convince you of his position, let it go.

Also (and this is not supporting anyones argument here, for the record) love the avatar Frank, System Shock 2 is probably my fav game of all time.

And usually quite profitable, which leads to the businessmen = shark analogy. Taking advantage of stupidity is a mainstay of business.

See: Pet Rock

@Frank:

I think you stated some things which simply are not correct, sorry. I will try to summarize a bit:

1. Pricing: Even you had to admit in your last posting that your prices are too expensive (Example "6 Nimmt"). As I said, you can demand the price you want, no problem for me. But, behaving like you did in your last posting is for me clearly a sign of someone who knows that the others have made a good point and are right in their asessment. As you so much like to quote german sayings what do you think of this one: "Nur getroffene Hunde bellen". I won´t translate it, but "Da Man" surely will understand...

Please note also, that I didn´t put up the initial posting, so I would have let you alone, really, you don´t bother me at all. But your accusation on the dutch gamers simply was not tolerable for me.

2. As to taking advantage of the other gamers when buying stuff for low price and selling it extremely high: Didn´t you learn your lesson in January when the belgian guy rejected to sell you a dozen games via BGG when he discovered that you put them for so much more of the acquisition price at the same time? This sales behaviour of yours generated also a long thread here in the forum, around January:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geekforum.php3?action=viewthrea...

I think it speaks for itself.

3. As to the little personal punch that you applied on me:
I am an amateur trader who wants to play boardgames, not a semiprofessional seller who wants to amass games for profit reasons. I have no problem with other people who are selling or buying their stuff, but I have a problem with people getting annoyed when some fellow geeks give an "Heads Up"-warning concerning their pricing for new, easily obtainable games which you can buy new for a lower price.

In the case with our negotiations for Keytown: If I want to trade with you on the same level, considering your ambitious asessment prices on your OOP stuff, I have to asess my stuff at the same level, if I don´t want to get creamed by you (BTW, I don´t think that this sum is too far away from the collectors worth).



How do you come to make such a statement? Did you know what I have paid for it? Well, I think not, so please don´t make such false assumptions.

Anyway, I don´t think that we will ever trade, and thats OK for me.

Shhhh... Chris, don't spoil this thread. This is better than anything on TV.

Yes, Chris. Wow, you really are missing something here. Re-read the thread and you'll learn that Frank is a very, very bad man. And Craig is a crusader protecting us from the evil doers and attempting to enforce his own sense of order and justice within the BGG galaxy. You're usually smarter than this, Chris -- get on the ball!
Now, back to the fun and games....
--mike

Bas,

I haven't been to the pPhalanx webstore lately, but when we order Revolution in February the price was €50 for the game (including BTW/VAT) and shipping for one game was €20~€22 (I forgot the exact amount), shipping for two games costed €28 and shipping for three games was also €28. If they list €15 for shipping on a single game I want some money back! :D

Doei!

€15 is for shipping to overseas
€12 is for shipping in Europe
€7 is for shipping in the Netherlands

(I just looked up my Order Confirmation from January this year and I paid €57.08 for game+shipping)

I totally agree. Good parenting is all about what's practical. As parents, we're letting them experience "little hurts" now to make sure our kids grow up wise and don't get hurt really bad when they grow up. By letting my child experience disappointment, I'm protecting my child from financial ruin later in life.

At least that's the theory. Also, it's pretty funny talking about parenting theory in a thread where people are whining like babies over game prices.

i never heard this one, but here is the one, i know :
"hunde, die bellen, beißen nicht" (something like "barking dogs don´t bite"
maybe you meant this one




exactly, it speaks for itself, but unfortunately you haven´t even read it besides the headlines

reading it, YOU should have learned the lesson, that i actually bought only 8 games from him and that only 1 of these 8 games were in my posession at that time and that i even explained to him, why i wanted this game a second time.




you gotta be kidding, completely new boxes of empire of the sun and ys for a used dune box ??? and yes, that was pure greed from you, nothing less. so, you critizize only, if other people are greedy, but your personal greed is one a higher level of morality ? thanks, but no thanks




do YOU know, what i´ve had to pay for some of my games (1860, 1830 or titan are coming into my mind, because they were mentioned here on the top of the list) ?




i guess...not ?

@bas
sorry, but my impression is, that you simply are not willing to listen and to understand. if you want to order all your games seperately and pay the outrageous international shipping rates for each of these games, fine, do so. and if our mr. smith wants revolution as the one and only game in his life and has no desire, to own them all or at least a huge porion of them (by the way, would that be a true gamer then ? ), you´re absolutely right of course. so what ?
and wy do you continue to chew on revolution all the time ? why not talk about öko or zoo sim or all the other games instead, that i sell very cheap ? and as said before, there are many, many games, where i am one of the cheapest or even the cheapest seller. but you´re simply not interested in positive things, aren´t you ?
p.s. i wasn´t talking about soccer with you !

@lindsay
my funkenschlag is the old version, the one, that was released from 2f first, wich is very rare. and no, i am not ready, to give it away yet

@dread
you´re absolutely right with your last sentence

@Jonathan
and your last sentence sums it up even better

the other thing is, that we have been warned by the moderator, that he will close this thread, if we don´t stop throwing around ugly things. so, i will officially leave this discusion now. sorry for leaving, but i think, that he´s right. thanks anyway to you all and i hope, that the spectators enjoyed the show a little bit

for my part, i will now leave the house and drink some nice beers with my best buddie craig viau, because we accomplished our mission, to fool you all

frank (alias shodan 2nd, the big, evil, fat and unbelievable greedy gaming demon from germany)

p.s. of course i was only kidding with the last part about craig...

I agree!! I'm not a big fan of reality TV; but, this reality Forum is really mesmerizing.