yes

Times like this you see how supportive this place can be. As others have said, don't let this grind you down. You have already shown yourself to be a fab dad by looking out for your girl. Hardly a joke of a dad.

Regarding the situation, there seem to be a few people on here giving you advice. And that's great. But could I please urge you to take proper legal advice. I have spent twenty minutes tgis morning chatting to a mate who is an experienced litigation solicitor, and the distinct impression that I got was that this situation is not as simple as others have suggested, because of the circumstances. So please take the time to take some proper legal advice from a solicitor. Feel free to pm me.

You are far from a joke Balboa, you did everything correctly to verify this was legit. I doubt any one of us would've foreseen this happening either if it were our purchase, it's simply unlucky on your part. Scant consolation I know.

Things will get easier, just try and remember your daughter can happily live a completely full life without Banksy, but not without you. The loss of an investment is nowhere near as devastating as the loss of a Father.

Hopefully the advice you are getting on and off the boards will help you recover what is lost, and try not let this experience overwhelm you with negative thoughts. Stay strong and remember:

Boom! minibear, respect yourself balboa, sounds like you just got unlucky, in 100's of transactions a few will just "hit the wall"  So sorry it had to be you.  Similar has happened in the past to me, you simply must find a way to go on [wipes sweat from eyes, spits blood from mouth and staggers back onto feet] You have loads of people around you that care about you.  These really are just things, as nice as they are, but it did take a long time for me to realise it.  Your relationship with your family is worth so much more than a picture.

I just want to thank everyone for their wishes and advice, it's nice to know there are some good people left in this world.

I'll be back to let everyone know how things worked out, once it's all over.

Hopefully the gallery learned that taking credit card phone orders from parties they had not previously dealt with is amateur hour. This whole mess could have been avoided by having prudent business practices in place.

I tried to buy something from this gallery before. I emailed them three times or so with no response. Then I called about the item and was told they raised the price due to interest. Well fuck that. 

To set the record straight I haven't disappeared and I have been in communication with balboa ever since it came to my attention. Also, I am not the only one who has ever bought a print without the intention of keeping it. I was offered the work by j0k3r. Prior to payment, pest control confirmed IT wasn't a fake nor stolen. I have also offered to buy the print back at cost in the condition it was sold while I chase up j0k3r in the hope in did Infact purchase off another seller. This is a sensitive matter and as such I'll only be in private communication from now on with balboa.

A good friend of mine's father used to run an antique shop.
He was stung pretty badly - so badly he gave it all up and closed the business - selling bit of it off to old friends.
The folks who stung him were never caught - it was large sum and still it's a touchy subject.

hope this one works out - it's bad for everyone involved including.. the forum/eb imo.
B/J/MA - i hope everyone in the story is tracked down and the people/person responsible held to account.

..

...  give balboa back his money and then ask him for the print to be held by a (agreed) solicitor,  I think that would be fair until the matter is sorted ... 

Back in the early days of ebay - i was "scammed" by a seller who's account had been hacked.
off the money went into the void / never to return , impacted my business for a year.
Took paypal to the uk financial ombudsman - had them hauled over the coals - found in
my favour - never got a bean out of them. They have since , as they all do, changed their ways/processes.

if i had stopped right there - i would have a smaller collection by now - but i'd probably also be either an alky or a junkie so hey - collecting at times is good for the soul.

every cloud , as we used to say up in ecosse - contains rain , the question is .. who is going to get p1ssed on

Wee bit more to this story than meets the eye!!!

We thought it was time to give the forum members an update on this very unfortunate episode. We have kept our silence up to this point even though a lot has been said, and I will briefly summarize the chain of events and why certain things happened when they did.

We look at this forum several times everyday, even though we hardly ever post. It is very often, informative and quite often entertaining, but the overriding plus for any member on here is how quickly the members rally around those with a problem, quite often giving sage advise on how to get out of a particular difficulty.

The ''outing'' of members on here is rare, but sometimes inevitable as it is the only way to get things resolved. We would never dream of giving people's private information normally, but this is not a normal situation, and I am going to give the forum all the information we have to hopefully stop this happening to any other member.

We sold a signed Toxic Mary on the 7th of October. Payment was to be taken over the phone by credit card and delivered to an address in Sloane Square in London. Prior to accepting payment, we contacted the credit card company and expressed a concern because of the amount involved. We were told that both the issuing bank and the receiving bank would check the transaction and providing we gave the required information on our PDQ machine and it was accepted, it would be fine.

We therefore processed the sale. To do this, you have to enter the normal card details but also information on the address that the card is registered too. Which i would add, is more of a background check that a 4 digit pin number.

We duly sent the package off to the given address by DHL, where it was signed for and delivered.

On November 1st we had notification from the bank, that they were debiting our account because of a possible fraudulent transaction. We wrote straight back and sent the debit receipt from the CC transaction. On the 1st of December, we had a letter from the bank saying that they had re-credited our account. On the 11th February we were then told that after further consideration, our account was again going to be debited and it was indeed a fraudulent transaction. We then contacted Action Fraud, Pest Control and posted on the forum.

While there is a big gap from the sale date to notifying everyone about the theft, until we knew we had definitely lost our money, we could not report it to anyone. There has been the odd comment about Pest Control on the thread, but they were in the same boat as everyone else, and would have been totally oblivious of a problem.

On notifying PC, we had an email almost immediately informing us that someone had registered ownership of our stolen print and that they had asked them to contact us. This again happened right away and we had a phone call from a very distraught gentleman known on here as Balboa.

He had purchased the print from a fellow forum member and was, as you can imagine very, very upset. He was more than happy to provide all the information as to whom he purchased it from, and we would like to go on record to say what a understanding and thoroughly nice guy he has been, in what were very difficult circumstances.

Surprise, surprise, the contact details we have from the person who ''bought'' it off us and the person who sold it to Balboa were exactly the same. Same mobile number, same email address.

These are as follows email - bmars2218@gmail.com
mobile number 07405148826

Supposedly named Ben, but I doubt it. Now if Forum member Ashbeck sold it to Balboa, but Ashbecks details are the same as the person who ''bought'' it off us, who the hell is Jok3r?

It is a question that the police are now possibly considering.

Do not have anything to do with Jok3r or ashbeck as they are without a doubt the same person. Both PM'd us but would not give any details apart from 'we are innocent m'lud'. All details have been passed to the authorities.

On a happier note, we have been able to come to an arrangement with Balboa who now is the legal owner of a fine print and Pest control have been informed.

Our apologies for such a long post, but if it helps 1 member avoid a similar situation, it will have been worth it.