One day Dennis Resnik called me. I had a tape library listed on eBay, and he had seen it and wondered if we could work out a deal. We haggled a little and agreed on a price $4200. He sold items on eBay too, and had a store called Magstor in Westlake Village.
I was to ship the tape library, a Dell PowerVault 136T via truck, but not to his company in California. Instead it was to go to a Michael Resnik in Colorado. I recall receiving a check via UPS Overnight service, and packed the unit up for shipment. We put the check in the bank and put the library in the back of the truck. We didn’t think a lot more about this sale, it was just another sale on a busy day in April 2008 until the check bounced.
This wasn’t first check that had bounced, but it was the first one for $4200, which was and still is a lot for a small business. At first you want to believe that there has been some mistake, so you call. Dennis Resnik told me the first of many lies, assuring me that the problem was temporary and I would have payment soon. A week went by and Karen us told that we could send the check to the bank again, like suckers we did, and of course it bounced again.
Around about now, you start realize that you aren’t ever going to get paid, though you hope that you are wrong. Perhaps you can get back what you sold, and sell it to someone else. No, that wasn’t an option Dennis Resnik said, the tape library had been sold and the money that he had received from it had gone to pay someone else.
Could I be the someone else if I waited long enough? I called everyday and it wasn’t long before you know you have a problem, Dennis Resnik was never available, always out of the office, and his mobile phone voice mail box was always full. It dawns on you slowly that it isn’t just you, there are many other merchants out there who have sold to Dennis Resnik at Magstor who have not been paid.
After realizing that you have been ripped off, and learning from your mistakes – no more company checks accepted, cashier’s checks only or the check has to clear first, you start to think long-term. What can I do about my circumstances? My thought was to try to put up on the Internet all I know so that perhaps others will not suffer the same fate as me. Part of my standard practice now is to Google businesses and people to see if anyone has posted anything worrisome about a business deal. So here is hoping anyone thinking about selling to Dennis Resnik and Magstor finds this post, and learns from my mistake.
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