So what is going on with Wizards of the Coast? Well, the short story is this: End of July they told us we couldn't sell Magic the Gathering anymore. Why? Because we failed to register our name with them. What is our name? You are reading this blog, so you know the name. Dogstargames. Right? Half Right. On Ebay, even though we call ourselves Dogstar Games... we are in fact Saladin4. Why? Well... the truth is that we started the Ebay account way before we even considered Dogstargames. So... when we started selling on Ebay, we just used my old account.
What does this matter you ask? Excactly the right question. They shut us down for it because they said it was an attempt to circumvent their rules, which are namely to not sell to anyone you shouldn't sell to, mostly to other stores.
Well, this is what happened. Magic 2010 came out, and unfortunately, it was very short compared to what was needed. As a result, stores across America are caught short. So, two stores in particular, tried to buy from me. One bought 12 cases, the other 20. Now, these were on Ebay, and when you do that, others can see these purchases.
Wizards of the Coast, under the direct of head internet cop, STEVE, saw this and decided that A) I was hiding Dogstar Games because in reality I was called Saladin4, in order to B) break their rules and sell to stores. His proof was that on Ebay you could see that a store bought 12 cases and another store bought 20 cases.
Well... here is the problem. ANYONE can ORDER from me on Ebay. Nothing I can do to stop that. If you are a store, or out of the country (another no no for Wizards of the Coast) you can still order. Now... does that mean I fill the order? Nope. That doesn't. And in fact, I cancelled both the 12 case order and the 20 case order BEFORE 'Steve' even 'cut us off.'.
So what happened? Well I called Steve 5 times to talk, he didn't answer, and even had a secretary (a nice lady named Pat) lie to me and tell me he wasn't there. Then he sent me a letter saying that I had broken their rules because I mistakenly forgot to mention Saladin4, with the intent to sell to other stores and out of the country. He pointed out as proof the 12 case order and the 20 case order. Then as further proof, he pointed out that we sell on Amazon as well, and Amazon sells internationally.
Now... my reaction was to call and write to him extensively. Further, I emailed my entire mailing list and told my customers exactly what he was doing. Shutting down their favorite store. I'll tell you something nice. I got 500 emails from customers telling me how GRATEFUL they were for me and for my store. It was amazing. I was so overwhelmed with the positive energy. It was great.
I also started an instore list for people to sign.
But lo! and behold the next day Steve called me and talked. This was, I thought, a GOOD talk. He told me he had no desire to put us out of business, but that his goal was the expansion of the Magic the Gathering community. My response was that is EXACTLY what I'm doing, and he seemed VERY receptive to this. Further, after talking to my friendly distributors, one of them, Randy from Mad Al up in Alaska offered faith that Wizards was going to do the right thing and fix the situation.
So Steve asked me to compile a list of 'evidence' in my 'trial' that would exonerat me. This seemed odd, as I had already exonerated myself completely. How you say? Well first of all I gave him proof of me cancelling the two orders he sited in his letter, the 12 and 20 cases, and further showed him proof that one of those customers had left me with negative feedback as a result.
This shows that clearely competitors will lie and cheat and steal in order to hurt other competitors. We have proof of this as another store ordered, and threatened in emails all sorts of negative stuff, and in fact followed through with those threats. All just to hurt a competitor.
Now here is the funny part. I forwarded all this to Steve. Showing him the cancelled orders, the negative feedback, the refunds to all these customers. The proof that stores and foreigners can ORDER from me, but I refund them. Proof that Amazon does NOT sell internationally for Magic the Gathering.
He was just plain WRONG about all this and I proved it. I explained to him that this just hurts our business. That it just hurts HIS customers, all of whom are already upset about Magic 2010 being short, and now worse they are upset for Wizard cutting of Dogstar Games.
So have we heard anything? 2 weeks later, NOTHING. I waited paitently at first, but then nothing. Now I diligently write every day, and let him know we are hurting, we need Magic to sell to HIS customers, so we can BOTH succeed.
Again, Randy at Mad All offers faith that Steve knows what he's doing and will fix this soon. But I'm beginning to lose faith in Steve. Why in the world would you keep your customers waiting this long? Is it Ego? Some vendetta? He didn't seem that way on the phone.
But think of it this way. His job is to catch people. What if no one is breaking the rules? He loses a job, right? So he has to invent problems where there are none. Or think of it this way. He obviously hastily cut us off on false evidence. Within 24 hours he had 100% proof he was wrong on the two main accusations: 1. that we Amazon sold internationally and 2. that we sold 12 and 20 cases.
I would have thought he would appologize, and fix the problem forthwith. It is amazing to me that he didn't. But he's being paid to look into it, so never mind that I'm a small one man business with my three kids running it, make me spend a whole weekend compiling evidence in my defense. So I do that, and he says... nothing.
I don't know what to do. This is our whole business. Without it we are sunk. And yet he doesn't seem to care one way or another. He didn't seem that way on the phone. To be honest on the phone I was greatly encouraged. But then nothing, and I'm wondering, what is he doing? Is he afraid to admit he was wrong? Or is he on some vendetta trying to hurt us? I've already noted how competitors can attempt to hurt me, and make it look like we did something wrong. He hasn't asked for any more information. You would think after being so TERRIBLY wrong about 12 & 20 cases followed by Amazon he would probably ask before judging, right?
In his initial letter he called me a liar. Not directly. But he said it. Who would kill a small yet up until now successful business? I hope he contacts us soon and puts us back in bussiness. Others have Faith, but my customers are getting angry, and it's harder and harder to watch this Steve man do absolutely nothing but seek to destroy us.
Well, that's the details. I'll keep you up to date. I've already had over 500 emails in support, and countless local customers. There doesn't seem to be anything more to do but wait.
Jason
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