Baseball-Cards.com - Joseph Juhasz
 

So, i stumbled across the site baseball-cards.com a little while back and despite some of the ugly design of the site, found some interesting stuff. They have a weekly auction and bid on and won a few things. After receiving the auction invoice, I paid Mr Juhasz. I asked four days later for some information to track shipping (since the invoice points out a spot on the website for tracking info that doesn't exist). No response. Three more emails and no response. It has now been nine days, and no shipping information and no response to emails. The phone number goes to a full mailbox.

Now I wish I had seen this
https://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=245039

And then I also talked to someone on Blowout who ordered supplies and never got his order.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1428457

Oh and then found another complaint of someone that never got their order:

From the BBB:

Complaint Type: Problems with Product/Service
Status: Unanswered
05/20/2020

"I sent this company 135 dollars for sports card supplies. They proceeded to take my payment, and never gave me any shipping information, or information of any kind, except to acknowledge my payment of 135 dollars. I sent 2 emails that were marked as, "undeliverable". Called the phone number and got a message that said, "the mailbox is full". In fact, there was a message that said the email address was invalid. This company alleges to be in business for 25 years, is listed as a trusted dealer in the San Diego area, yet from my experience with them, I feel they are running some type of scam."

So at this point, I think Joseph Juhasz is an outright scammer. Thus, if you ever run across this website, please, please just go somewhere else.

I'm filing a complaint with Paypal now, but felt this information needed to be put out there for fellow collectors.

I used to buy from them years ago and they were always slow shipper. My last order was missing a $5 card and I emailed him and he basically called me a liar. I never ordered again.

Thanks for letting me know that. My order was for less than $100 so it's not really a huge monetary deal for me. But I will not sit around and let this guy take advantage of people--and it's pretty clear that is happening.

Nevermind.

Just an FYI - Haven't thot or heard of this guy in years. He used to run monthly in-person auctions in San Diego, back in the early '90's. He'd rent out a meeting room in a local hotel for a couple of hours and give it a go. No idea if he is still in SD. And his local auctions stopped maybe 20 years ago. Never bought from his auctions so don't have any opinion of him pro or con. But, as Leon always says, caveat emptor.

I used to bid on his auctions all the time however, in February 2019 I won one of his auctions, paid and never received the item. I sent numerous emails and finally in April got this:

"I'm sorry - thought it had been corrected.
Will ship or refund by tomorrow.


Joe"

It never came and he never answered me again. That was the last bid I placed with him.

This was my exact fear, that this was not just a few one off isolated incidents or one off mistakes. This guy needs to be shut down. Like I said, low impact for me, but I would like to see him investigated and shut down. Anyone have any ideas what to do from here?


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First is to find out where he lives to determine legal jurisdiction. If he is still in SD, contact the County of San Diego DA, Summer Stephan. She is a whiz on BS like this. I'm not a lawyer, but I know some are on N54. I'm sure they could give you some advice. Good Luck!

Generally speaking (and I am no where close to a lawyer) you probably need to be the victim to have a chance. Then it is your local authorities that get tax money to protect you. I have been told by authorities that is usually the best place to start. Good luck

,

I don't think he is a scammer, I think he is an old guy that goes at his own pace. I have been bidding on his Sunday auction off and on for the last couple years. When I win it takes him a couple weeks to get the invoice out to me. Once I pay the cards get to me pretty quickly.

He grades his cards fairly, I have won probably $2-3,000 from him and never felt like I bought something that was overgraded.

He is quirky though, he doesn't answer his phone and he usually doesn't respond to emails either. Although when I told him I had problems with my login he fixed it right away so he must be reading his emails at least.

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Thanks for the response, but I'm not really willing to accept the fact that he is old and a slow shipper as a reason why he should allowed to keep doing business. Excluding myself, I've already identified three parties that paid for items and have not received their purchases--all over a year old.

You can do what you want to do. Go for it. You just called him out though for being a scammer and I wanted to set the record straight on that.

Here are some of the items that I got delivered from him last week.

Delete

I've had some dealing with this seller. I have gotten most of the stuff I ordered from him, but I have had a few things missing, but nothing significant.
I don't think it's an honesty problem, I think it's an efficiency problem.
I haven't bought anything from him in awhile. If he came up with something I really wanted I would buy again, but I would try to keep any order small and very easy to fulfill. That way if there was an issue, it should be easy to get straightened out.

My last dealing with him (early 2019) was small, a $15 dollar photo but it never came and I quit after my third or fourth email, the last one after he said he would take care of it.

I purchased 5 signed Padres cards from him about a year ago. I placed the order on his website. I didn’t hear from him or have my credit card charged. I ended up calling the number on the website several times before getting through to him.
But, I did finally get through to him. He charged my card right after that conversation. Then, another couple weeks went by and I didn’t receive any cards. I live an hour north of San Diego, where he is located. I called that number again and he picked up and said he was sorry, and that the cards would go out the next day. The cards made it to me a couple days later.

I think if you call him enough, the transaction will go through and you will get your cards.

I’m not sure why his customer service is lacking, but I did receive the cards.

This was my experience. I made several purchases through the website a few years back. Sometimes I had to call and remind Joe about my orders to get them filled. My emails went mostly unanswered. I was always happy with the items that I eventually received. A bit emotionally draining but a good end result. I would also be a little cautious because I don’t think that the inventory listed on the site is always still available.

Speaking in general terms, if I am willing to part with my money and the person on the other end has difficulty in very simple communication and/or has to be constantly reminded to fulfill their end of the transaction, both them and their material are not worth my time. Case closed. There are lots of other people competing for what's in my wallet.

I’ve never bid but have purchased quite a few cards from him many years ago. Thinking 1998 through 2003.. then again on 2007 never issues then

I tried his online auction about 4-5 times this winter. My experience was as poor as most of those in this thread. Gave up after trying to get a response/answer/anything. Never received a single card. Eventually paypall refunded me, but not worth the hassle. Too bad, as I would have loved to have some of the oddball examples.

Would not recommend. Lost a little over $40 from him in cards not delivered.

I met Joe through a mutual friend in the Navy in San Diego Circa 1993. He is an interesting guy, and sort of reclusive. I bought a lot of cards from him in person. Even tagged along to a show in Mission Valley and we all went out to dinner after the show. At that time he had stacks of Clemente Rookies. He told me he had picked them up in the early days of the internet. He may have been the first internet card business and got a lot of offers that way.

I bought cards and sold cards to Joe off and on for several years, last time about 1999. I never had a problem either way and do not see him as a scammer.

So, just an update on my matter---he eventually got back to me on my first order with him, only after me filing complaints with the San Diego Consumer Protection Group, Paypal among other avenues. It took him a month to respond after my order and he apologized saying it was somehow missed by him. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt and played around with a few more auctions-- the next orders were shipped to me and received although it took a very long time. For the most part, I was pretty happy with what I received. However, on both of my next successive auction purchases, there were multiple items missing--- I would say about 25% of the items I purchased. Also, I discovered that many items were trimmed. It's hard to tell on his website with the photos. I complained and was able to send them back for a refund. He said he didn't know they were trimmed (although it was blatantly obvious). Right now, I am attempting to collect over $1000 in refunds for those missing orders I mentioned. Joe said he was sending payment nine days ago, yet I've received nothing. So, another Paypal dispute it is. I honestly think that maybe it is just an operational thing, and he is older, I get the feeling that he just takes his sweet time and doesn't really respect the need for getting things shipped out on time. However, the guy was supposed to refund me over $1000 over a week and a half ago, so who knows. Ultimately if you decide to participate in his auctions--here's what to expect---the fact that it could take forever to get your cards, and you might never get them at all, if he somehow forgets. You might not actually get your order due to it not existing, probably due to the fact that he just resells stuff on the auction site, not knowing it's missing from inventory. And based on my experience, he definitely has trimmed stuff--now I don't know if this is intentional or not (i hope not really I do), but I have a hard time believing that he didn't know the cards he sent to me were trimmed in the first place. Caveat Emptor.

I've been reading this thread and wondering why anyone would even consider dealing with this guy - are the prices incredibly low or something?

What he just said. With so many better AH's peddling sports material of one sort or another, why give your $$ to him?

Good friend of mine “purchased” a card off him last night. Very good price. Seemed too good. Today the email arrived about how it was out of stock and sorry for the inconvenience. Could happen to any seller, but based on the posts above it is more than enough to end up on my do not use list.

It's like a time warp. I remember doing mail order deals as a kid with all of these same hallmarks in the 70-80s. Only then, long distance calls were expensive so sending letters back and forth was the usual way.

Anyway, I'm reminded of Grandpa Simpson when I see some people adapt to new technology, like websites: "Why, the fax machine is nothing more than a waffle iron with a telephone attached...."

Yes, this. The service is a time warp (bad) but the prices in some cases are also a time warp (good). Plus he has some items that don’t show up very often on eBay or at auction.

Just add a risk premium, say 50%, into your calculus for the extra hassle and the chance that you will never get the item. In some cases the economics may still make sense.

I'm waiting on over $1,100 worth of cards purchased over a week ago. He has his voicemail disabled and hasn't responded to four of my emails. Guess I'll open a PayPal claim next week? Anyone have any better way of contacting him?

Lots of Luck. I didn't learn my lesson and, after a year and reading some comments on here, bid again on a couple items. The first auction went o.k. with no problem. The second one I never heard from him. I also sent a couple emails with no response. I sent letters to the San Diego police department explaining the situation enclosing copies of emails I had sent. I ask them only to do a welfare check. The response I got back was "not enough information enclosed I needed to enclose license number of car" and other information. I gathered this was their way of telling me to get lost. I also sent a similar letter to the Chamber just in case he was a member. No response. I have chalked it up to a life lesson learned a second time.

I just took a look at his site. Aside from the antiquated interface others have mentioned, he doesn’t seem to update it. I was looking at the signed 1961 Topps page, and there were a number of players who have been dead for years and that was not reflected in the listing. Also, his prices seemed a bit strong. Not Dean’s strong, but for someone who bragged on the front page about his auctions being better than eBay, I’m sure I could find better prices there, and not have to put up with the runaround from him.