Complaint Review: Martin Battilana Photography

Any time you sell something on ebay and arrives broke or the buyer was misled he or she is entitled to their money back. Obviously is was not packed properly or it would not have broke. So telling your customer to file a insurance claim is simply a way to attempt to not use the funds you received when you sold the camera. And of course your customer is upset about getting a bad deal but if you would have just simply refunded the money with no questions asked like any other good buisness person then there would be no need for this report. Ebay has these policies for situations like this and sellers like you. Customers first.

To Alex,

Addressing your last post and all the other emails and posts you have sent me over the last several weeks. You have been nothing but rude and inconsiderate to me in our dealings since the very first correspondence. I did not wish to file a claim with the USPS because it was your poor packing that was responsible for the damage caused to the camera. Had the camera been packed properly it would have arrived in good condition. That is had it been in good condition before you shipped it. Had you listed this properly and honestly I never would have bid on it.

The camera and accessories were listed as in "excellent" condition. What I received, shipping damage not withstanding, was a camera with a stripped out focus gear on the front standard, a lens with a shutter that did not work on the slow speeds, a viewing hood with cracks that had been repaired with some kind of gooey glue, a lens board with gouges that had been repaired with some kind of black acrylic paint and a case that was rotten on the bottom that had been repaired with duct tape.

You have called me on a public forum and in emails numerous times a liar, a cheat a scammer, con artist and a rip off. You have threatened me with some sort of "punishment".

I don't have your lens or other equipment. When you first emailed me calling me a thief and a con artist I thought you were just trying to get out of refunding my money. The only thing I can think of now, after eBay refunded my money, is  that you are doing this to try to get extra money out of the Post Office. I'm not really sure what is going on in your head. You sound to me like you're off your meds.

That last email I sent you in response to this mess of an online public outburst on your part was not extortion. I'm not trying to get anything from you and I haven't asked you for anything. I'm not really sure what your motives are, but those were statements of intent, not extortion or blackmail. If I wanted to play your stupid game, tit-for-tat, I would have filed a similar ripoff report about all of your online entities. After all, I am the customer here. I never tried to sell you anything, never misrepresented anything, never overcharged you $25 for shipping. And I don't have anything that belongs to you.

You need to stop this childish game of whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. What you are doing here is legally called liable. Ask your lawyer what the word means. Those were not threats or extortion or blackmail that I stated in that email. They are the legal reality of slandering someone's name and business on a site that never removes posts.

This is the last time I will reply to this.

Martin, Blue Ridge Cameras, Floyd, VA

Doesnt it seem odd that nowhere in Martin Battilanas rebuttal, does he try to deny stealing/not returning my lens, lens board, or lens shade? Instead of claiming innocence, he simply tries to turn the attention and blame on me by stating that I packaged the camera poorly, which is untrue.

I packaged the camera in a wooden travel case that is designed specifically for view cameras. The foam in Martins pictures was placed on the bottom of the case, on each side of the camera, to prevent it from moving. To further prevent any movement, I put enough paper towels around the camera to hold it in place. The 240mm lens, lens shade, and accordion bellows were padded and placed in a small box to ensure they would not move freely. This small box along with all of the other items were padded and placed on the left side of the case with packing material from top to bottom, preventing any of these items from moving during shipment. To test to make sure nothing would move during shipping, I took the closed travel
case and rotated/turned upside down and listened for movement, which did not occur.

 Martin did not repack the camera and other accessories in the same manner as I did. When I unpackaged the camera, when it was returned to me, there was no padding around it whatsoever and it was damaged far beyond what Martin originally showed me. All of the other items were scattered throughout the box, without being wrapped individually as I had
done originally. They were instead free to bounce around the box on both sides of the camera, instead of being packed snuggly next to one another on one side, as I had originally shipped them.

To further demonstrate Martins deceptive business practices; I have copy/pasted an email from him, in which he tries to blackmail me. He claims that he will file a false insurance claims report with USPS, unless I remove my rippoffreport.

(email address has been blocked out for privacy)

 Martin Anthony *************@yahoo.com Feb 14 (2 days ago)

to me

Alex, 

 I notice you have filed an online complaint on a review website airing your grievances. I own Blue Ridge Cameras and will need to inform you that Blue Ridge Cameras is a separate legal entity and located in a different state from either Martin Battlana Photography orfilmproductionstills.com. If within 48 hours, if this review is not removed from the websitewww.ripoffreport.com, and any other site you may have posted your complaint to, bothfilmproductionstills.com and
Martin Battilana Photography will file civil suits in the State of Georgia against you. As you have done business, neither personally nor on a business level with either of these entities you will lose in a court of law. I personally and on behalf of Blue Ridge Cameras will also file a false claims report with the United States Post Office for the damaged items case you filed
and also file a separate civil complaint in the Circuit Court of Floyd County Virginia. I suggest you reconsider your actions before this gets very costly and time consuming for you. 

As you can see in this email, he blatantly tries to blackmail me by stating that he will file a false claims report for a legitimate claim. It can also be noted from his email, that he is not happy that I mentioned his other businesses and that he claims he is going to file a civil suit against me. Yet, he turned around and did the same exact thing to me, by listing my photography business and other business pages.

Even after Martin Battilana has stolen hundreds of dollars from me and used deceptive business practices against me, he wont even deny he did not return the items or claim that he is innocent. He has since left me negative feedback on ebay, which dropped my 100% rating down to 75%. I contested his feedback as extortion through ebay because he left
the negative feedback the same day that he blackmailed me via email. Ebay has since removed his feedback because they agreed it was in fact extortion.

To rectify this situation, I simply want Martin to return the items, which he failed to return to me in the first place and has since committed theft by not returning them. This deception and thievery has gone on long enough.

I can understand why you may have been trying to get him to do a insurance claim but the fact that something that expensive was poorly packed usps wouldnt even touch it. The box needs to be completely firm and solid enough to survive impacts. This is what happens when sellers want to pocket as much cash as possible and spend less on the proper shipping supplies.
If he took it to usps and ended up getting denied due to improper packing what exactly did you doing then? It sounds to me that you were trying to buy time to avoid a claim but it sounds like ebay got this one right.

I can understand why you may have been trying to get him to do a insurance claim but the fact that something that expensive was poorly packed usps wouldnt even touch it. The box needs to be completely firm and solid enough to survive impacts. This is what happens when sellers want to pocket as much cash as possible and spend less on the proper shipping supplies.
If he took it to usps and ended up getting denied due to improper packing what exactly did you doing then? It sounds to me that you were trying to buy time to avoid a claim but it sounds like ebay got this one right.

   Alex Parrent of Alex Parrent Photography (http://www.alexparrent.com/) sold me a camera on eBay that was poorly packed and not even close to being the condition it was described in. There was also major damage as a result of the poor packaging. (undersized box, paper towels for packing material) When contacted he told me that any shortcomings or damage were my problem.

   When he refused to remedy the situation I contacted eBay customer support. After sending in detailed photos of the damaged and defective parts, eBay found the case in my favor. I repacked the camera in the same undersized box exactly as it was sent to me and in the same manner in which it was originally packed. eBay customer support issued me a full refund the day after Alex re-assumed possession of the camera. I am the customer here and this man wasted a lot of my time just because, in his words, he needed some quick money. I have a good reputation on eBay and work hard to keep it that way.
 
   Martin, Blue Ridge Cameras, Floyd, VA

   (http://www.servicemagic.com/rated.AlexParrentPhotography.29664458.html)
   (http://www.facebook.com/alexparrent)

I only conducted business with Blue Ridge Cameras (blueridgecameras ebay username), which is owned by Martin Battilana, but I did not personally do business with Martin Battilana Photography, battilanaphoto.com or filmproductionstills.com. I only referred to these businesses because they are owned and operated by the same person. The owner has been unresponsive to my claims and will not return my items. I would hope that he operates his photography businesses in a more ethical and civil manner than he has conducted business with me on ebay.