Franco Mondi - seller reputation question

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Posted By: Jason Smith

Hi,
Have any of you dealt with Franco Mondi of Paris, France? I'm looking for anyone who has had positive or negative experiences with him.

http://www.ww-sportscards.com/index.html

I'm a little reticent about dealing with someone overseas, but he seems to have some good stuff.

Thanks for any help!
Jason

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Posted By: jay behrens

Chances are this is our buddy Toni. He always has overseas addresses and a stock of baseball cards that is too good to be true for someone overseas. I seriously doubt there is a legitimate dealer in baseball cards anywhere overseas. England might have one, but they would be more geared towards cards in general and not just baseball, especially gum/candy issues.

Jay

I like to sit outside, drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home I would be arrested, so I go to baseball games and fit right in.

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Posted By: Craig Lipman

STAY AWAY!!!World Wide Sports Cards is really old fashioned crook.
The images of at least some of his prewar cards are from Superiors' 2003 auction from the National convention in Atlantic City.
I own at least two of the cards he claims to have.

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Posted By: Bill Cornell

I'm a little reticent about dealing with someone overseas, but he seems to have some good stuff.

"Reticent" isn't the word for it - "petrified" would be more appropriate. To paraphrase David Rudd: "if you send this guy one dime, you're nuts". Note that at the bottom of his latest website, the pages state: "It is a violation of state law to reproduce, in any form, images etc." Did I miss the memo where we annexed France? And why can't Yahoo ever shut this loser down rather than letting him host his fraud on their platform?

My only hope here is that not go off on another "Toni Maldini is the devil" thread.

Bill

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Posted By: Jason Smith

Thanks you guys! I just had this feeling...
I mean, even the name seems fake, Franco (France) Mondi (World) just had this fake ring to it like a villain from James Bond.
Jason

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Posted By: Jason Smith

This just reminded me, there should be some sort of "most wanted" or "don't deal with" list faq on this board. I guess it's not fair to have it when people can't always defend themselves, but it would be helpful. I know you can do searches, but I didn't find Franco in the search, so I had to ask.
Jason

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

the whois.net record for that website:

Admin Name........... William Ashmore
Admin Address........ 2741 Sweethome Road
Admin Address........
Admin Address........ Grenada
Admin Address........ 38901
Admin Address........ MS
Admin Address........ UNITED STATES
Admin Email.......... ww_sportscards@yahoo.com
Admin Phone.......... +1.6622265744
Admin Fax............

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Posted By: hankron

1) Find me a baseball card store in Paris. />

2) Count the number of Parisian storefront signs in English only.


You would be as succesful marketing baseball cards in Paris as you would be marketing fingernail clippers to goldfish.

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Posted By: Brian H

I wonder if this guy has permission to use those ?

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Posted By: Dave

Tom didn't mention that the creation date of that web site was Aug 10, 2004. Been in business a long time: 14 days. From Whois.net

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Posted By: bcornell

Should point out that the personal info in that whois.net record is almost certainly false - the "owner" of the now-defunct tonis-cards.com site was some woman in OK.

The store address in Paris belongs to a 5-star hotel:



You were expecting a strip mall?

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Posted By: J Levine

I also think it is hilarious that on the very bottom he mentions that it is against the law to use images from his site...the ones he stole in the first place!!

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Posted By: Jason Smith

Well, I wrote the man back and let him know the deal's a no go and that he could check out this page if he wants to defend himself. Hope that was ok...

By the way, what happened with me was on ebay. He allegedly had a bunch of t206 cards on ebay buy it now for $2000, a bit under market value, of course. You had to get approved to bid on it so I emailed to get the approval. Then no one ever wrote me back to let me know I was approved and then the auction ended early because "a mistake was made in its listing". Then I get the email that he would like to sell me the item anyway. Red flag after red flag, but when you want something bad enough you let a couple of things slide. But the France part had me reeling - almost laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing was. Anyway, I just wanted to let anyone else know just in case there were more people out there. Probably the one who's going to get scammed by this sort of thing doesn't even know about boards like this.

Another strange thing is that he just changed his ebay name.
Jason

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=26362&item=5118232534&rd=1
User ID Effective Date End Date
sssutton Aug-24-04 Present
miranda2joy Sep-19-99 Aug-24-04

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Posted By: BillL

Since I live about 20 minutes from Owings Mills, MD, if anybody wants me to pick up their stuff for them....

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Posted By: warshawlaw2

I deal with overseas sellers only if I already know them or if the item is really cheap (like ten bucks). The most I've ever spent on an unknown overseas item was about $50 with an Australian seller and I sweated the transaction from the time my IMO went into the mail to the time I got the card. Not worth the trouble...

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Posted By: hankron

I've dealt with international buyers with susccess and will continue to buy internationally. First, I buy something I can't get here (an Austrian poster, rather than a Tony Gwynn rookie card). I check their feedback, see what else they are selling and how they describe the items (You can tell a lot about the seller by the description). They always accept PayPal, and usually it's something affordable ... I've found these international sellers to be as reliable if not more so than Americans-- in part because I'm pickier who I buy from.


For me, the essential problem when buying online is that you can't really know what you won until you receive it in person. I'm not just talking about fakes, but stuff like clarity of image and condition. But this is the situation whether you are buying from someone in Paris or Portland.

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Posted By: hankron

If I had to buy US only, my Jean Shrimpton collection would be cut in half. And, as Bill would paraphrase, that would not be a good thing.


This photo came from New Zealand of all places

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Posted By: hankron

"David, where'd you get this Italian language poster?"
"That silly little thing? I had it imported from Rome."

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Posted By: hankron

"David, I hear you bought some Ted Williams game used bats."
"That's right. I ordered them from a store in Paris. They should arrive sometime next week."