[raulus]

As some of you have probably noticed, this was my first post on the forum. And I suppose that I made a bit of an entrance. While I have often come to the forum as a resource to get intel on various obscure regional issues and understand viewpoints of my fellow collectors, I have not previously posted myself. So as an obvious and self-confessed n00b, if I have broken any unwritten rules of the forum, I sincerely apologize to the group.

But that preamble aside, some updates, and final resolution to these adventures:

Yesterday afternoon, the good folks at Goldin emailed over the shipping label, and I packed everything up and dropped it off at UPS. UPS delivered the items to Goldin this morning, and within a few hours, I received a notification that I had received a refund from Goldin. Checking my credit card account, it appears that the refund is pending, which is great news all around. From start to finish, about 42 hours total between my original contact with Goldin to report a problem, and the ultimate resolution. And in all honesty, that's pretty blinding fast. Mischief managed! And bravo to Goldin for making it happen.

In related news, some of you have criticized me for my eagerness to post on this subject. And your criticisms are not without merit. I will confess that my primary concerns were whether Goldin was really taking me seriously. When I first called Goldin to discuss the matter, the representative on the phone responded to me in a somewhat nonchalant and even somewhat suspicious fashion, and proceeded to inform me that his colleagues would be handling the matter, and that they would open an investigation. There was no indication about what that would look like, no indication about who would be calling me, when it would happen, no confirmation code to identify that an actual refund request had been filed. Nothing to suggest that anything was really happening.

As a result, I didn't sense any real desire, focus, determination, or willingness to take care of the situation. It could just be that the representative in question was a low-level employee with not much more to say, and it could just be that's part of their training when someone calls to report that their auction items are fake. But I certainly had some very real concerns about ending up getting ignored. Was I too quick to jump to these paranoid conclusions? Possibly, and in hindsight, given how quickly the issue has been resolved, certainly you may conclude that I was indeed excessively paranoid. Although we will never know what would have transpired in an alternate universe where I decided not to post on the forum. And for those of you who report that you would have waited to post on the forum, I guess we will expect that you do precisely that when you find yourself in a similar situation.

Finally, I have revised the wording of the original post to adjust the title. Some of you have suggested that such a change is appropriate. I can also report that Ken Goldin himself emailed me directly to request just such a change yesterday afternoon. At the time, I responded to Mr. Goldin that I would be happy to revise the title at the appropriate time, once the issue had been completely resolved. Certainly I expected that this was merely a matter of timing, and even very brief timing at that, and should be a small inconvenience to the Goldin Auctions organization, particularly since they would no doubt be resolving the issue promptly. And if I may be so bold to suggest it, if you don't want the collector world to know that you sell clear and obvious fakes through your auction house, then the obvious strategy is to not sell clear and obvious fakes through your auction house.

This morning, Mr. Goldin responded by email to accuse me of treating him harshly, to report that the majority of the forum agrees with him (based on his words, "in spite of being typically non forgiving and hard boiled"), and proceeded to tell me that he had looked me up online and knows all about where I work, to remind me that his organization is a multibillion dollar company, and requesting that I make the change right now. I must confess that I continue to be somewhat confused that Mr. Goldin felt the need to send this message to me, particularly because we were just hours away from final resolution, all of which was within his control. Certainly his reference to having looked me up online and knowing all about where I work was a bit unsettling, and did not improve my opinion of Mr. Goldin or his organization.

In what appears to be a rather gigantic coincidence, right about the time that Mr. Goldin made his initial request to me personally, some posters here also voiced exactly the same opinion on this forum, in some cases using very similar language to the email that I received from Mr. Goldin.

While it's certainly entirely possible that some of you are very sensitive to the reputation of Goldin Auctions, and have such a strong affinity with the brand and organization that you jealously guard and protect its reputation, I do wonder that such requests should be made at virtually the same time and in virtually the same fashion. I'm not saying that those posters universally consist of friends, family and employees of Goldin Auctions, but I was certainly intrigued by the similarities in timing, wording, and nature of these requests.

Final thoughts: I'm absolutely happy and even very pleased that Goldin took care of me, and give Goldin great credit for doing so in such a quick fashion. I could have done without some of the direct pressure and what seemed to me like veiled threats in response to what should have been a relatively reasonable approach (at least from my perspective). I realize that part of the fun in this forum is us beating each other up, and that comes with the territory, so thank you for the friendly induction yesterday. Based on some of the treatment I have received from Mr. Goldin personally, I will admit to not being particularly sure about how I will approach future auctions from this organization, but I'm confident that many of you will continue to be loyal customers, because in spite of occasional mistakes like this, they seem to get a lot of things right.