mrjamiam Posted March 22, 2016 Posted March 22, 2016 All's well that ends well. Lesson learned - Tony Babylon always delivers. Don't sweat the drama. Wait, I thought we had a sarcasm font since the site update. If anyone here in the future deals with that guy other than face-to-face with the gear present, they are asking for what they get. But seriously, I'm glad the bass was finally obtained. He'll get back the money he refunded, right?
mc2 Posted March 22, 2016 Author Posted March 22, 2016 52 minutes ago, mrjamiam said: All's well that ends well. Lesson learned - Tony Babylon always delivers. Don't sweat the drama. Wait, I thought we had a sarcasm font since the site update. If anyone here in the future deals with that guy other than face-to-face with the gear present, they are asking for what they get. But seriously, I'm glad the bass was finally obtained. He'll get back the money he refunded, right? That was the crazy part....I hard to RE-DEPOSIT IT BACK I TO HIS ACCOUNT to get the deal done. He was totally incommunicado...no texts, no calls. I was going thru the third party and taking his word it would get done. Talk about acting in good faith.....which is also why I had the three biker friends on standby. Glad it didn't come to that. Oh...and it was packed like sh*t....balled up supermarket newspaper and rough shopping bags in the case to sort of help the bass from shifting but not very well done. But it got here OK.
cmatthes Posted March 23, 2016 Posted March 23, 2016 I had a deal with that dickbag on a black Standard bass in 1999. Again, I was East Coast, he was in LA. Lots of back and forth, and he insisted on a USPS Money Order as payment. No Paypal back then, and that's just how things were done. I had purchased a B-12s from another LA seller earlier, so didn't think this would turn into any kind of ordeal. It did. Apparently, he was simultaneously reaching out to another Hamer collector, trying to get more money. I at least tracked my payment, and knew that it had arrived, and then he disappeared for a few weeks. I was in touch with a relative in the LA area who would have gladly turned the German Mafia on his ass, but he surfaced and came up with one BS excuse after another about how he had been in the hospital, etc. I informed him that he'd be back in the hospital if I didn't get all of my money back or the bass within a week. He later called back to confess that the bass deal had gotten fouled and he no longer had the bass, but had a Chapparal bass that he would sell me for $225 plus send me back the balance. The Chapparal bass (he said it didn't have a case, but arrived in the original issue...weird) and a USPS Money Order for the balance actually showed up here 8 days later. I was pissed, and still am not sure he ever had the Standard bass in his possession after reading Jon's tale of woe, but I got a bass I would have paid triple for any day back then and got my money back in the end. I actually came out ahead by $15.00, so am guessing Math isn't his strong suit. But seriously, FCUK that guy.
mc2 Posted March 23, 2016 Author Posted March 23, 2016 If it was THAT black Standard Bass w/o inlays that I had. I DO know Tony had it for a couple of weeks from the owner and then it went back to him. The owner told me Tony tried to tell him something was wrong with it to chew the price down but the owner wouldn't go for it. He said Tony had it buffed out and tried to charge him for that and somethng else like setting it up. I got it directly from the owner maybe a year via CL, after Tony had tried. Tony heard I was buying it and tried to talk me out of it. Was a great bass when it arrived. Nothng at all wrong with it. Total BS. Now at casa de chromium as of last fall.
cspot Posted March 23, 2016 Posted March 23, 2016 Glad it worked out for you! Like my wife says and I agree: the more people like this I meet, the more I love my dogs!
cmatthes Posted March 23, 2016 Posted March 23, 2016 Jon - my deal with that bass was EONS ago. It turned up with another seller in the early/mid 2000s, then I guess you got it.
tbonesullivan Posted March 23, 2016 Posted March 23, 2016 One can only hope that eventually enough people/pawn shops realize that guy is bad news, and stop dealing with him. I would seriously think with his ability to sniff out good deals he'd be able to actually have enough liquidity to become a real guitar dealer. I don't understand people sometimes. There's a great brass instrument (and now woodwinds too) shop in NJ called Dillon Music. Steve Dillon built it from the ground up, starting in college cruising yardsales and finding good deals on old/used brass instruments. Now it's one of the two or three premier shops in the Country, if not the WORLD. And they are known for being utterly transparent on condition, and everything. Just makes me wonder how Tony Babylon could be doing now if he wasn't such a chode.
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