Mitch Ellerman Ripped Off at Galveston Tournament

My $0.02.

It sounds like Mitch was pretty busy and did not put a whole lot of effort into getting this resolved. The furniture has not been seen in 2 months, and yet Mitch won the furniture WAY more then 2 months ago. How long can someone honestly expect for your furniture to remain in someone elses posssession? If you are leaving it with them as they are storing it you are putting them out of their way, I have my OWN furniture in my garage currently taking up space and it is a pain in the neck taking up huge amounts of space, I would not be happy storing someone elses furniture at all.

If I won the furniture I would have contacted the people, found out where my furniture is and told them "when are you available for me to pick the stuff up, I am renting a Uhaul and will be there ASAP". It would have been non-negotiable, I am coming to get my stuff. Easy. Instead if you dink around for this long asking for shipping, trying to swing deals, not contacting people at all because you are pretty busy moving and playing Saturday pool tournaments? Well you are likely to be screwing up the whole furniture thing.

If this went to a small claims court at this point Mitch would get his furniture at the expense of HIM picking it up, and if it was stored by anyone THAT person would win a counter-suit for the storage costs at the same rate of a storage unit the size suitable for storing that amount of furniture.

This whole thing is a gong show and Mitch definately did not go through the steps that would make me sypathetic to his side of fence. If a guy has your stuff a month after a raffle you won then you contact them and you go get your stuff. That is what you do, period.
 
Celtic said:
My $0.02.

It sounds like Mitch was pretty busy and did not put a whole lot of effort into getting this resolved. The furniture has not been seen in 2 months, and yet Mitch won the furniture WAY more then 2 months ago. How long can someone honestly expect for your furniture to remain in someone elses posssession? If you are leaving it with them as they are storing it you are putting them out of their way, I have my OWN furniture in my garage currently taking up space and it is a pain in the neck taking up huge amounts of space, I would not be happy storing someone elses furniture at all.

If I won the furniture I would have contacted the people, found out where my furniture is and told them "when are you available for me to pick the stuff up, I am renting a Uhaul and will be there ASAP". It would have been non-negotiable, I am coming to get my stuff. Easy. Instead if you dink around for this long asking for shipping, trying to swing deals, not contacting people at all because you are pretty busy moving and playing Saturday pool tournaments? Well you are likely to be screwing up the whole furniture thing.

If this went to a small claims court at this point Mitch would get his furniture at the expense of HIM picking it up, and if it was stored by anyone THAT person would win a counter-suit for the storage costs at the same rate of a storage unit the size suitable for storing that amount of furniture.

This whole thing is a gong show and Mitch definately did not go through the steps that would make me sypathetic to his side of fence. If a guy has your stuff a month after a raffle you won then you contact them and you go get your stuff. That is what you do, period.
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He won it 3 months ago, I posted this thread nearly a month and half ago. Mitch was having trouble getting in touch with who he needed to so he could take care of it. When he spoke to me about it I have tried to help him and got Mr. Rones number on here and passed it along to Mitch.

I think they could have contacted Mitch and said you have a week to get it or something to that affect and it would have been on him but if it was sold or whatever then that is wrong IMO. I am not going to say Mitch has been making this his number 1 priority, he is busy as many of us all are especially since he was recently moving which if you have moved you will know that can be very time consuming.
 
I don't think the furniture was being stored - I think it was being used. Now that Mitch, with the help of Lenny, got the ball rolling in having the furniture placed in Mitch's rightful hands it has now somehow been picked up by 'someone'. Just another story from the Galveston promoter who had the furniture.

Storage fees??? Mitch should charge the promoter rental fees for using his furniture.

The details of the raffle weren't clear and if the promoters of Galveston stood up and explained to Mitch what needed to be done, this would not have happened. To put so much blame on Mitch is nothing short of ridiculious.

Mitch did his part, he bought the raffle ticket with his money. I am sure when he bought it, he didn't think if he won that he would have to strap the furniture to the hood of his car and drive home.

The end result is that the furniture has now been stolen from Mitch, the owner of the furniture.
 
watchez said:
GO GALVESTON

Good thing I didn't take JoeyA from the internet pool forums suggestion and buy the furniture off of Mitch.

Lenny - Mitch is getting screwed over. He has gotten screwed over. It is obvious that the Galveston promoters don't care and anyone else associated with this event doesn't care either.

I would call the local police in Mr. Rone's area and report a theft and the thief.
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If you win something in a raffle, it's your responsibility to move the stuff.
If it doesn't get moved by the winner, and the venue contacts the people who ran the tournament and says, "We need the space, please come move this furniture.", just what do you expect to happen. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the furniture will get moved. The winner caused this situation by not making arrangements to move the furniture in a timely manner. To suggest that moving expenses are usually included
in such raffles is dubious at best.

The knocking done here is done by people that just want to pick on any reason to knock the Galveston event. A couple of posters above have been knocking this event since day one.
 
watchez said:
Mitch did his part, he bought the raffle ticket with his money. I am sure when he bought it, he didn't think if he won that he would have to strap the furniture to the hood of his car and drive home.
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Maybe it is just me but I figure this stuff out. They raffle off a Gold Crown pool table at the BCA each and every year and when the super hot random lady walks up asking if I want to buy a raffle ticket to win a pool table the FIRST thing that I say is "Well we are here in Vegas, I am a Canadian and I live in Calgary, do you guys deliver the table? Can I pick it up from a dealer there? Do I have to transport it myself?" and they will let me know and I can then make an informed decision to buy a ticket or not. It just strikes me as a obvious query.

Maybe I am just logical and use common sense like that and that puts me in a minority, I hate to think that is true, but who knows? If I had went down to Galveston and talked to the raffle people and they asked me to buy a ticket for a huge honking furniture set I would have immediately responded "well, I live in Calgary, can I pick up the set at a store there?" and they respond "no, this is the exact set you win, you need to deal with transport from here". Easy, I then respond "heh, no thanks then, that would cost me a fortune to transport it back up there".

How was this not the obvious course of events? I truly don't get how people get themselves into messes like this. To a certain point in this world a person has to look after their own interests and use their head in matters such as this. This type of thing even being possible is why I get those stupid "Hello, a family member of yours put your name into a draw and you have just won a cruise all expenses paid to the Carribean! Please hit 1 on your phone to recieve your free trip!" phone calls. ONCE I answered the call and hit the button, but I am a synical person by nature and knew it sounded fishy and low and behold the "free" trip did not include airfare, it required me to pay an "administration fee", ect... "Can we please just get your credit card number and the free trip is yours!". Heh, no thanks, I will pay dearly for this "free trip", I could already sense that. At the point that someone is STILL handing over their credit card number my sympathy is pretty non-existent.

Now, if you all don't mind I need to do some banking stuff. Turns out a politician in Timbuktu who was worth millions was murdered by political rivals and I am helping get his families money out of that country by giving them my banking info, they are giving me half of the $18,000,000 eat that suckers, I am gonna be rich!
 
watchez said:
I don't think the furniture was being stored - I think it was being used. Now that Mitch, with the help of Lenny, got the ball rolling in having the furniture placed in Mitch's rightful hands it has now somehow been picked up by 'someone'. Just another story from the Galveston promoter who had the furniture.

Storage fees??? Mitch should charge the promoter rental fees for using his furniture.

The details of the raffle weren't clear and if the promoters of Galveston stood up and explained to Mitch what needed to be done, this would not have happened. To put so much blame on Mitch is nothing short of ridiculious.

Mitch did his part, he bought the raffle ticket with his money. I am sure when he bought it, he didn't think if he won that he would have to strap the furniture to the hood of his car and drive home.

The end result is that the furniture has now been stolen from Mitch, the owner of the furniture.
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Watchez THINKS the furniture was being used. LOL. Why is that Watchez, just because you want any reason to knock this event? And now the furniture has been 'stolen' from Mitch. What's ridiculous is to expect shipping to be included in a raffle. Especially one for furniture. Absolutely, completely, insanely ridiculous. If Efren had entered and won the raflle, would you expect shipping to the Phillipines to be included? Anyone with average reasoning ability would ask before they shelled over the $10 to enter the raffle, if shipping was included.
 
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punter said:
Watchez THINKS the furniture was being used. LOL. Why is that Watchez, just because you want any reason to knock this event? And now the furniture has been 'stolen' from Mitch. What's ridiculous is to expect shipping to be included in a raffle. Absolutely, completely, insanely ridiculous. If Efren had entered and won the raflle, would you expect shipping to the Phillipines to be included? Anyone with average reasoning ability would ask before they shelled over the $10 to enter the raffle, if shipping was included.
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Because IF you had read this entire thread instead of just my posts (I realize I own you but really you should have read more) plus talked to anyone else about it, the furniture was stated to be in someone's home.

And the event as a whole did just fine knocking itself. It just wasn't a surprise to me.
 
Celtic said:
Maybe it is just me but I figure this stuff out. They raffle off a Gold Crown pool table at the BCA each and every year and when the super hot random lady walks up asking if I want to buy a raffle ticket to win a pool table the FIRST thing that I say is "Well we are here in Vegas, I am a Canadian and I live in Calgary, do you guys deliver the table? Can I pick it up from a dealer there? Do I have to transport it myself?" and they will let me know and I can then make an informed decision to buy a ticket or not. It just strikes me as a obvious query.

Maybe I am just logical and use common sense like that and that puts me in a minority, I hate to think that is true, but who knows? If I had went down to Galveston and talked to the raffle people and they asked me to buy a ticket for a huge honking furniture set I would have immediately responded "well, I live in Calgary, can I pick up the set at a store there?" and they respond "no, this is the exact set you win, you need to deal with transport from here". Easy, I then respond "heh, no thanks then, that would cost me a fortune to transport it back up there".

How was this not the obvious course of events? I truly don't get how people get themselves into messes like this. To a certain point in this world a person has to look after their own interests and use their head in matters such as this. This type of thing even being possible is why I get those stupid "Hello, a family member of yours put your name into a draw and you have just won a cruise all expenses paid to the Carribean! Please hit 1 on your phone to recieve your free trip!" phone calls. ONCE I answered the call and hit the button, but I am a synical person by nature and knew it sounded fishy and low and behold the "free" trip did not include airfare, it required me to pay an "administration fee", ect... "Can we please just get your credit card number and the free trip is yours!". Heh, no thanks, I will pay dearly for this "free trip", I could already sense that. At the point that someone is STILL handing over their credit card number my sympathy is pretty non-existent.

Now, if you all don't mind I need to do some banking stuff. Turns out a politician in Timbuktu who was worth millions was murdered by political rivals and I am helping get his families money out of that country by giving them my banking info, they are giving me half of the $18,000,000 eat that suckers, I am gonna be rich!
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At least now you have seen the light - your comparision of the Galveston promoters and this raffle to the Nigerian email scam artists seems spot on.
 
watchez said:
Because IF you had read this entire thread instead of just my posts (I realize I own you but really you should have read more) plus talked to anyone else about it, the furniture was stated to be in someone's home.

And the event as a whole did just fine knocking itself. It just wasn't a surprise to me.
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How hard is it to understand that one can store furniture in a home. I know you are clueless, but are you really this dumb?

If you win a raffle, pick up your winnings. If you don't, then you got no reason to whine. It's not even your furniture Watchez, but you choose to whine and slander someone because you have an agenda.
 
I am posting info as I get it and when I hear back from Mitch I will keep people informed. I do believe most people do not ask questions when they buy a raffle ticket, its either give me 1 ticket, 5 tickets or an arm length. Most places running raffles make announcements on the details like if you have to be present or not to win and I know this is usually for cues so it is not a big deal to ship or take it with you if your there.

Most people flew in so for them to take the furniture with them would be impossible even if they did not so they would have to make arrangements to have it shipped which is not cheap. Regardless of it all, they should have contacted Mitch and said you have X amount of time to get the furniture or you forfeit it or gave him a fair cash offer.

I am not one who knocked Galveston and actually had high hopes for it to be honest but it did not work out and as usual in the pool world was another false advertised event anyway when it comes to money added. I enjoyed watching the event online but it was obvious from this and other things they have a bunch to learn about doing an event.
 
watchez said:
At least now you have seen the light - your comparision of the Galveston promoters and this raffle to the Nigerian email scam artists seems spot on.
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What Nigerian email scam? WTF are you talking about? I am currently just waiting on a reply to the email I sent to Ms. Obadoba with my bank info and that everything is a go to transfer the money... I will be drinking Dom and doing some hot call girl by the end of the night.
 
Fast Lenny said:
I am posting info as I get it and when I hear back from Mitch I will keep people informed. I do believe most people do not ask questions when they buy a raffle ticket, its either give me 1 ticket, 5 tickets or an arm length. Most places running raffles make announcements on the details like if you have to be present or not to win and I know this is usually for cues so it is not a big deal to ship or take it with you if your there.

Most people flew in so for them to take the furniture with them would be impossible even if they did not so they would have to make arrangements to have it shipped which is not cheap. Regardless of it all, they should have contacted Mitch and said you have X amount of time to get the furniture or you forfeit it or gave him a fair cash offer.

I am not one who knocked Galveston and actually had high hopes for it to be honest but it did not work out and as usual in the pool world was another false advertised event anyway when it comes to money added. I enjoyed watching the event online but it was obvious from this and other things they have a bunch to learn about doing an event.
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It is Mitch's responsibility to move the furniture. Yet you want to spin it to be someone else's fault. If he had moved it the day he won it, none of this would have happened.

I can understand the guys, like Efren and the other Phillipinos(and other players) having a gripe about the payoffs. But why is it the loudest protests come from guys that really didn't have anything at stake in the Galveston event?
 
punter said:
It is Mitch's responsibility to move the furniture. Yet you want to spin it to be someone else's fault. If he had moved it the day he won it, none of this would have happened.

I can understand the guys, like Efren and the other Phillipinos(and other players) having a gripe about the payoffs. But why is it the loudest protests come from guys that really didn't have anything at stake in the Galveston event?
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What world are you living in bud?, most people spent good money to go to that tournament and support it as Mitch did. He bought raffle tickets like many do to support the event and win something too. He assumed it would be delivered or maybe he could pick the same set up at an Ashley here in Arizona. Why is he responsible to move the furniture and why do you assume he is?

He assumed he was not and they obviously assumed everyone knew they would have to move it, we all know what assuming does. If I was running that raffle knowing people came from all over the country and some from out of it I would say your responsible to move it in X amount of time and on your own dime, it is not a common sense situation here. How would you have expected him to move it that very day since he flew in like most people?
 
Fast Lenny said:
What world are you living in bud?, most people spent good money to go to that tournament and support it as Mitch did. He bought raffle tickets like many do to support the event and win something too. He assumed it would be delivered or maybe he could pick the same set up at an Ashley here in Arizona. Why is he responsible to move the furniture and why do you assume he is?

He assumed he was not and they obviously assumed everyone knew they would have to move it, we all know what assuming does. If I was running that raffle knowing people came from all over the country and some from out of it I would say your responsible to move it in X amount of time and on your own dime, it is not a common sense situation here. How would you have expected him to move it that very day since he flew in like most people?
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I live in the real world, Bud. Like I said before, do you think if a Phillipino won it, they should pay to have it shipped to the Phillipines. Get real, you're the one lacking common business sense.

Have you heard of U-Haul, or paying a moving service? These things are available.
 
punter said:
I live in the real world, Bud. Like I said before, do you think if a Phillipino won it, they should pay to have it shipped to the Phillipines. Get real, you're the one lacking common business sense.
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Exactly my point, knowing people came from all over the place it would have been smart business sense letting them know it would be their responsibility to move the stuff. I would not expect them to ship it out of the country, it would cost a fortune to do that, but shipping it to another state is not unrealistic or it being picked up at another Ashley Furniture closer to Mitch.
 
punter said:
Have you heard of U-Haul, or paying a moving service? These things are available.
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So he should have canceled his flight, rented a U-Haul and got some of the pool players to load the truck and drove all the way from Texas to his home in Arizona? :rolleyes: Like I said he did not know he was responsible to move it so him footing the bill for the movers is BS.
 
Fast Lenny said:
Exactly my point, knowing people came from all over the place it would have been smart business sense letting them know it would be their responsibility to move the stuff. I would not expect them to ship it out of the country, it would cost a fortune to do that, but shipping it to another state is not unrealistic or it being picked up at another Ashley Furniture closer to Mitch.
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You are right, it is not unrealistic to ship within a reasonable distance(still the buyer's responsibility to find out if shipping is included), but they have no idea how far the winner will need it shipped. As with most things that the consumer deals with, the phrase is Caveat Emptor. I hope Mitch gets satisfaction. I simply detected a rather large piling on by some towards the Galveston event. I have heard that they will not try this again next year. I don't know if that is true or not. I hope they do, as it afforded me the opportunity to see World Class pool very close to home.
 
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Fast Lenny said:
So he should have canceled his flight, rented a U-Haul and got some of the pool players to load the truck and drove all the way from Texas to his home in Arizona? :rolleyes: Like I said he did not know he was responsible to move it so him footing the bill for the movers is BS.
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It's not BS. It is the real world. You need to know the details before purchasing. It is simply not unrealistic for the moving to be the winner's responsibility.
 
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