imahammer wrote:I guess that is the only way to get their attention
I would like their attention now, Not 3 months from now after you get the paperwork together, and enough people willing to bandwagon onto this. Here's a handy guide so you can get to work on that right away....
1. you will need to find a lawyer who is willing to start a class action lawsuit against an E-commerce company, over a matter of I would guess no more than $200K worth of cigars. If there is only $200K available, then no self respecting lawyer is going to tie themselves up in a costly 6 to 24 month long class action lawsuit.
2. you probably haven't actually lost any money here. I was steamed at the thought of my credit card being charged long before my stogies shipped, and was going to make a huge point about it in a different thread, but after looking at my account, they have not yet charged me, so you don't actually have anything tangible lost here, just the hopes that your cigars you bid on will get there.
3. Lets Assume you find a lawyer who is willing to take on this class action lawsuit. You will need to provide a retainer before they'll get started, and continue to pay them through the end of the class action lawsuit, at which point (if you signed a contract with them) your fees will be reimbursed out of the pool of money gained from the lawsuit, as will be the lawyers actual fees. This of course hinges completely on the Judge who is in charge of the case not looking at it, shaking his head and saying "Frivolous lawsuit over nothing" and throws it out of court. You're still on the hook for that lawyer, including the fees he would have collected at the end of the lawsuit.
4. Lets take it one step further. You found a lawyer, you're retaining him for a few $K a month, the Judge didn't throw out the case, and now comes the time for the lawyer to contact everyone who may have been affected by this issue. They will be given 3 to 6 months to submit their information, then any money gained by the class action will be divided up accordingly. Lawyer will probably take about 30% off the top, maybe more. reimbursing the retainers paid will probably be another 10-20%% off the top. so that leaves $100K to split up between all involved parties. Whether it's an even split, or based on the amount of money you would have lost if they actually ran your credit card, you get a cut. Of course, by signing the back of this check that is probably worth nowhere near as much as you dropped on cigars that didn't ship, you will give up all rights to come after Cbid, and they no longer have to ship you anything.
In business terms, this is often refered to as "Ignoring the Dollar to Save a Nickle."
Of course, if they get threatened with a Class Action Lawsuit, they could quit buying inventory, deplete all available stocks, then fold the company, and leave the scraps behind for any outstanding creditors, or bank loans. Then, it's a simple matter to get a new business license, create a new LLC named something like, I dunno "Cigarsbids" and re-open doors as a new business with no affiliation to the defunct company being sued for almost no money. When Chrysler was bought out by Fiat, the very first thing they did was send a letter to everyone who paid Chrysler for the "Extended full coverage lifetime warranty" and let them know that any agreement or warranty they had with Chrysler Corp of America was with Chrysler Corp of America, Not Fiat Chrysler, and as such, they would not be honoring any warranty work of any sorts on cars manufactured by that other car company.
