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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;oldwormwood, post: 2532764, member: 34162&quot;]I am hoping that I can get some advice on how my school should best handle a situation with an online coin dealer.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am an elementary school teacher who started a coin-collecting club for my students last fall.&nbsp; We were able to purchase the supplies through a grant I received from a local charitable organization, and the money from this grant paid for the coins, flips, and storage boxes for the students.&nbsp; We had twenty students participate in last year&#039;s club, and each student in the club ended up taking home about 100 world coins, flips, a storage box, and I think, an appreciation of numismatics.&nbsp; They really were thrilled with the experience and with the interesting coins that they got to keep.</p><p><br /></p><p>This past April, I was happy to hear that I received another grant to continue the coin-collecting club.&nbsp; I decided to purchase this year’s coins through another coin dealer because the last lot of coins (25 pounds for $300) that we purchased had many modern duplicate coins and little geographic diversity (one of the goals of the club is to teach students about other countries through coinage).&nbsp; So, I looked on eBay and found a world coin dealer who specializes in country and region specific coins. The dealer is ranked on eBay as a “Top Seller”, and has over 99.9% feedback based on over 13,000 reviews.&nbsp; So, I thought I would contact him to ask if he could provide us with the coins for this year’s club.</p><p><br /></p><p>I contacted him via eBay (I know that is not something that eBay likes), and he contacted me at my school email account through his Gmail address. I explained that our elementary school would like to purchase these coins for our coin-collecting club, and described the issue that I had with the previous lot of coins that we purchased. This dealer said that he could provide our school with the coins we would need for our budgeted amount – it would be fewer coins per student, but he would assure that the coins would be geographically diverse.&nbsp; He even offered to Skype with my students to discuss his experiences as a collectors and dealer.&nbsp; So, all was well – or at least I thought.</p><p><br /></p><p>He sent me a quote via email, and our school mailed him a $350 check in May to his business address in Lacey, Washington.&nbsp; He cashed the check on June 7th, and emailed me that he would ship the coins by Priority Mail within a week.&nbsp; We did not receive the coins, so I contacted the dealer via email the following week to ask about the shipment’s status. The dealer apologized and said the coins would be ready by the end of that week.&nbsp; Two weeks passed, and the coins were still not shipped (it is now mid-July).&nbsp; I thought I would give him some time in case he was backlogged, and contacted him again via email in August (about a week before at the start of our school year) to inquire about the order.&nbsp; He said that he is still working on the order, that the coins are just about ready to be shipped, and he asked again for my school’s address.&nbsp; I once again gave him our school’s address, and hoped for the best.&nbsp; Admittedly, my faith in the dealer had faded somewhat by that time.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, here we are one month into our school year, and our school has still have not received the coins that we purchased from this dealer.&nbsp; After speaking with my principal about the matter, I contacted the dealer via email on September 15th, and in that email stated that by September 20th our school needs either UPS/FEDEX/USPS confirmation that the coins have shipped, or a full refund of the $350.&nbsp; I have had no response from the dealer.&nbsp; I tried to contact him again through his eBay account, but had no response that way either.&nbsp; I do have his phone number, and will try calling him from school on Monday – maybe that is the way I should have tried contacting him in the first place. Maybe &quot;the check is in the mail&quot;, but I am beginning to wonder how this will all go.</p><p><br /></p><p>I see that the dealer is still very active on eBay.&nbsp; Maybe his business is such that he is just too busy to accommodate us.&nbsp; If that is the case, I am happy that business is going so well.&nbsp; But needless to say, I am disappointed that this coin dealer is so unresponsive, especially since he knows that these coins are for elementary school students.</p><p><br /></p><p>As I said, I will call him on Monday, and hope for the best.&nbsp; But what are your thoughts if there continues to be no response from him?&nbsp; Am I maybe missing something here?&nbsp; How long should our school wait to receive the refund?&nbsp; Should we send him a certified letter demanding the refund?&nbsp; Should I see if there is a BBB in Lacey, Washington and file a complaint? What would you do in this situation?</p><p><br /></p><p>Jonathan[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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