BEWARE!! eBay seller je.frigh aka banned member PLANET: MARIO SARRICA

[Bugshank]

I signed up here to post this. I found this place by Googlng "opbitemark" after I got scammed by this guy.

The body of this post will just be my experience with this jerk. SKIP TO BOTTOM for pertinent/current details of his operation to be added to the OP if someone thinks it will help any.

I recently just had my run-in with this scumbag.

I'm not really into collecting or creating movie props, it's just not my thing. But I am a gun guy my whole life and a complete Alien universe nerd and since I was six years old the Pulse Rifle from Aliens has had my heart. And while not being into the prop scene at all, being a pulse rifle fan I was well aware of the resin replicas and such. I even remember the Icons item back when I was in high school in the late 90's. I knew about all the airsoft, the HCG stunt rifles and such, and have never, ever wanted that. Being a gunsmith and armorer, I work with metal sliding actions all the time and the hand-made from the ground up, heavily-metal pulse rifle he described (and showed off in his pictures) really gave me some warm fuzzies inside.

I said what the hell, and paid him $2900 for it. Sort of a once in a lifetime purchase I figured, just for fun and to admire something which I thought was beautiful. To actually HOLD a pulse rifle. In the world of real guns, craftsmanship and quality can command the same type of price so for what I thought I was getting, the price wasn't a shock.

I think maybe because I'm so used to sites like gunbroker that I didn't do the due diligence I normally would. I don't really use ebay or any other user-to-user buy/sell sites so I wasn't well versed in the types of scams out there. There aren't many scammers at all on gunbroker, in fact they're virtually non-existent and everyone is more or less on their best behavior just by virtue of the fact that firearms are involved, and scams, crookery, cheats and schemes are guaranteed to get one a visit from the ATF, FBI and/or State Police.

Over forty days passed before I got a tracking link sent by automailer from Bonanza. I was thrilled. I couldn't wait. On Christmas Eve, the FedEx man showed up about 3pm lugging a huge box through my snowy yard. I ran outside like a freakin' kid, bubbly with excitement. Immediately I could tell something was wrong. The box was huge but the weight was way too light. Then my eyeballs actually focused and the box said Hollywood Collectibles Group on the side.

My heart didn't just sink. It left a 20 foot deep crater between my feet. "There's no way..." I thought. Dude couldn't be that lazy as a cheat. I brought it inside. It was double-boxed. Even the inside box said HCG and 'Made In China'. The heartbreak and rage was building. I pulled the item itself out. The shape was definitely right, but that was about all. Virtually every component of the gun was a badly painted cheap resin cast where it was advertised by him as "REEL STEEL!!", and on top of that it was broken in three places; a section of shotgun cage was snapped out and missing, the shotgun trigger was missing (inspection showed it had been there at one point but was now snapped out/missing) and the charging handle for the gun was snapped and rattling around inside the box. I couldn't find the other two pieces.

The whole thing was a disgrace. If I knew that I would be getting such a shoddy piece of falsely-advertised crap I would have just bought an airsoft version for 1/6 the cost and done some work to it on my own to make it look more authentic.

I immediately messaged him asking him, more or less, what the F is going on with this? I kept it professional, pissed sure, but professional, didn't actually swear or anything. What followed was about two hours of back and forth messaging. I took pictures of the shipping labels, the HCG logos, and the damage and sent it to him, he would reply that I wasn't sending any pictures, raging in all caps at me for besmirching the honor and integrity of his fine, hand-made masterpiece, when I asked about all the HCG stuff on the boxes he again raged in caps that "I'm a prop maker, not a box maker!!" and it was just a big cosmic coincidence and mystery and I should apologize to him for insulting him. He really went over the top with the self-victimhood thing.

After accusing me of being a liar and trying to defraud him, he then switched gears and offered to 'repair the damage' free of charge (cuz he's just such a nice guy like that), would throw in a free $50 sling for the gun, and "UPGRADE" me to the metal parts he had initially advertised as being part of the gun, but I had to pay him all shipping costs. (Earlier in the conversation, I had offered to ship it back him on my own dime if he refunded me my money immediately, so now me paying all shipping costs was 'keeping my word' to him). At this point I couldn't believe the dude, it was almost comical how oblivious he was to what a scumbag he is.

He sent me half a dozen more rage-rants into the night of Christmas Eve, accusing me of wanting him to sell me a real gun, and that I didn't understand it was a prop, if I wanted metal parts that was fine PAY HIM $12,000, that I was confused and couldn't admit it. I'm like, "Guy, I'm a gunsmith, I know about real firearms, the legal definitions of them and the laws which regulate them." Ehh, it was no use. I had already opened a dispute with a PayPal after multiple requests that he refund my money, but after him outright telling me "You're not getting a refund, ship the gun back to me and I'll fix it and upgrade you" I decided to escalate my claim.

I have never had a problem with paypal, always had good transactions and thus the dispute process was new and alien to me. I just followed the steps, requesting a full refund (and explaining why in detail) from "Jeanene Ford" (paypal email opbitemark@gmail.com). I had no idea how it worked. Once I escalated, I got an auto response from Paypal that he would have 10 days to offer his two cents. Okay, fine. Fair enough. I had the evidence and facts on my side, he had all caps rage and bluster.

I checked my claim every day for ten days. He didn't say a peep. Not one word. It remained at 'waiting for seller response' status the whole time. On the 11th (maybe 12th?) day (January 3rd I believe) I got an email from paypal saying that since he didn't respond, the case was now closed in my favor and I was refunded my $2900.

Less than two hours later I get a stream of messages from him telling me he had contacted the police and was going to press charges against me for mail fraud. I can see how that would shake some folks a bit but I knew he was full of crap. His final message was "you will not get away with this".

I ignored his petty threats and bullying. Strangely no one from my 10 cop local police department or the chief who I have known for over 20 years kicked in my door to rescue his beloved pulse rifle. No more word from him until today (January 8th), about noon--

"you have five days to return my rifle or i will take you to court"

Okay, Mr. Professional Scumbag.

Oh, he's also now charging $3500 on Bonanza for his next 'REAL STEEL!!' pulse rifle ripoff.

DETAILS: not sure how they will piece together in his grand scheme but maybe the fine folks here can make some connections:

Bonanza booth was: moviepropsrus
Paypal Payment was made to: Jeanene Ford
Paypal email was: opbitemark@gmail.com
Location: Wrentham, Massachusetts
HCG Prop shipped from: 'Model Kitz' in St. Louis, MO
Shipper name: 'Chris H'

Sorry for the long rant, but I just had to go off about this colossal prick. Much love to your community, hope everyone had a happy, healthy set of holidays.

 

[thepoynt]

How some people sleep at night is beyond me. Sorry you had to go through that, but thanks for keeping the rest of us updated!

Also, shoutout to Paypal for being so awesome. I also recently had someone scam me (albeit for just a $40 item), and after not hearing back from the guy they resolved in my favor. Whenever possible, I use Paypal for transactions specifically for this reason.

 

[RayR]

Thanks for that important information.

 

[Moviefreak]

Looks like he is selling the markpoon Roger Rabbit gun with dum dum bullets on Bonanza for $200 more than it sells for here in the junkyard. He either bought one and recast it to sell multiples or (more likely) he will just wait for an order to come in and then he will buy one here and instruct it to be shipped to an alternate address. If I were Mark, I would monitor any sales to see if someone is having a few orders shipped to different locations as that might just identify his latest RPF ID (sock puppet), and then report the name/s to a mod for banning. No doubt he is still lurking here and buying stuff and stealing paper prop files to sell. This may be a chance to catch him on here before he scams another seller or buyer.

 

[LUNA REPLICAS]

Oh Mario, you're like a bad fart that continues to linger. Let's nail this *******. Post his address here and let's all send him dog **** in the mail.

 

[Moviefreak]

He is using his Facebook account Lance Mancy to post on the Hollywood Collectibles Group page to make the statement that they need to stop carrying the solid resin stunt Pulse Rifle and start carrying the Metal Hero gun again. I guess the sting of the last transaction from above still bothers him, lol. He needs to be able to sell the metal rifle for the jacked up price and have HCG ship direct to the customer. But when all they have are the resin ones, he now knows customers won’t be happy with the bait and switch happening.

 

[TrooperKast]

He is still selling online now, and offering things at very expensive prices, the pulse rifle is $5k+ AUD and a Halo Smg is $1400 AUD. As I have never dealt with him I cannot throw stones, though I do think he’s overpricing items but that’s his right as a seller even if it unethical.

 

[Jay74747]

Where is he getting the pulse rifles from that have good reviews? He's not ripping off everyone it seems like he's selling good ones to people who are on his ass before the deal and curious about every little detail then it seems like he sends those cheap mass produced ones to people he thinks don't know better. Does anyone know where he would be getting the good ones from because I know he's not making them? I remember years ago asking him if it would be possible for him to create a korben dallas blaster thinking that he had skills and just by the way he answered I knew he was just a reseller scumbag.

 

[Nth]

Where is he getting the pulse rifles from that have good reviews? He's not ripping off everyone it seems like he's selling good ones to people who are on his ass before the deal and curious about every little detail then it seems like he sends those cheap mass produced ones to people he thinks don't know better. Does anyone know where he would be getting the good ones from because I know he's not making them? I remember years ago asking him if it would be possible for him to create a korben dallas blaster thinking that he had skills and just by the way he answered I knew he was just a reseller scumbag.

He could just be creating sock accounts to give himself good reviews. He seems to be well versed in creating multiple accounts.

 

[Bradh233]

Hello,

I am doing a story about this user, He has scammed my friend. @Moviefreak Would you be able to reach out to me via PM's

I would love an opportunity to expose and make public what this person is doing as he is scamming people out of thousands each month.

 

[rifampicinrevel]

Scammed, I recently had contact with him up until a few weeks ago. The estimated timeline of my order was like in early July, placed in May.... he went radio silent on me. Anyone have good detailed information, I would love to open a court case with his local authorities for scamming my money and not replying, anything would be helpful.. If you need information let me know!

I was scammed on Etsty under the name listed on the first page, the movie email at yahoo is still valid, though his payments went to I guess his daughters name at her high school or middle school's e-mail address, so much fun.

 

[rifampicinrevel]

So, I did some internet detective work the other day when I was super pissed on the information here. I also had some time to reflect on things, as well as reach out to the author of the prop replica to which I thought I was getting, in terms of quality and what not. Had a good chat with them and their understanding of the mess and let me know they were aware of people either completely re-selling their kits or just doing re-casts like you guys mention here.

Upon finding out who this person probably is, with a highly percent of accuracy, it wasn't too hard to locate the dude as of 2022's home address and what not. Now, I was going to post that but it would be doxxing and what not, as I joined the forum to vent my frustrations I doubt that doxxing too far is beyond the rules.

For the time being, I'm still holding out that something, if anything gets shipped and waiting for those results. I will give the person two more weeks, to be 90+2weeks past a deadline, just to rule out the whole "supply chain" issue before I continue.

My next steps are to reference this forum to PayPal for a refund, if that's not then I will proceed with taking this dude to small claims court to recoup any costs I can, at the least get my mans wages garnished or default judgement from him not even showing up is the hope.

With the amount i information available here and what not, I was able to piece together his digital trail good enough that I feel handing it over to a lawyer wouldn't be too expensive on my end to get movement.

Again, I'm more upset that this seller turned out to be not the original content creator for the things I ordered first, I will be really really upset if it turns out home dude stole my funds and I never get delivered anything.

From everything I could tell while his shops were open, and from reviews that werne't so kind on actual products delivered, it appears he does deliver something at some point... but as everyone has mentioned any sort of question on quality or anything he rips loose online and just goes into a "**** everybody i'm just a dude trying to make an honest living and yall making it hard" kind of rant.

Thanks for reading, I know this thread is old as dirt but it still seems to be an issue today. Who knows, maybe we can all go-fund a lawyer to see if we can prove a case of fraud across state lines, country lines and tax evasion enough to get something serious going down so my mans isn't out there trying to rip people off.

I should say that when I say "rip people off" I mean one of two things, first is non-delivery of anything ordered and second would be not being completely transparent that he's reselling items or kits, or even just purchasing kits and finishing them as opposed to claiming to be the original auther of the items he's supposedly selling.

For now, in August of 2023, I will wait until I hear back or a package arrives in my mailbox.

 

[rifampicinrevel]

So, he's at it again, I ended up catching somebody he was trying to scam on Ebay because he shipped me some item he was trying to scam them out of, it had identifiable information I was able to locate a mobile number and magically get ahold of the people. They told a similar story that he was nice in the beginning, then got more angry as time went on, then went on about how he has depression and blah ******* blah.

Look, I'm going to take this to my local District Attorney, and probably his. I've contacted the county court where he lives, verified the information I have online is the exact same person that lives in that county and city. They are so small, they just recommended contacting the local PD with information and I'm not afraid to do that either, Just want to start out with DA to DA before I have to pay out of pocket for some actual representation.

I'm not in his home state, and I'm trying to get the conversations this person on E-bay is having with him along with his ebay name he's using.

If anyone else would like to come forward with either fraud or theft from him, let me know and I would love to add any evidence you have to this building case.

In my case it's theft because I haven't even received anything in over 10 months. Anyone else who ordered some **** based on a photo or promise it was of higher quality or greater value or hand crafted and got some **** from a toy company let me know too.

I'm so tired of this dude and want it to stop. If I can't get him to refund my money, then I'll go to small claims, and if we have to bring in the IRS for Tax evasion, FBI for wire fraud for opening up paypal accounts in the UK to get money sent to him as well as opening up numerous other paypal accounts and ebay and etsy shops and facebook.. then well so be-it. This dude is sick and needs to be stopped.

I have a few gb of documents with his, his family, his wife's family all tying it down to making sure that the guy you've mentioned in these forums is the correct guy. It is also confirmed with now that I have a USPS backed package that he paid for online and used one of his alias (Wife's Name) as the return sender, as well as... as well as... he used an amazon box with his ******* name on it below the usps sticker. 100% confirmed at this point as far as im concerned.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Funky]

My next steps are to reference this forum to PayPal for a refund, if that's not then I will proceed with taking this dude to small claims court to recoup any costs I can, at the least get my mans wages garnished or default judgement from him not even showing up is the hope.

First, I feel for you. I hope you are successful in getting ANYTHING!
However, (unless I'm mistaken) small claims will bring you nothing. They cannot garnish anything even if they lose. So what's the point of small claims court? If you win you are allowed to harass them until they pay you. That's it. It won't even go on their credit. Why do you think so many people don't show up. Because they know it's pointless.

 

[rifampicinrevel]

Going to start with small claims, then move into reporting to IRS, his local DA, Police Department, News Station. I mean the amount of information here plus a random Ebay user who he was actively trying to scam with the same tactics and fake names is just hilarious for anyone to pickup.

His town is about 10,000 people so I would assume it's small enough for some social embarrassment for sure.

What I want is for his name to show up in Google for this **** and for somebody to attempt to get him to stop. It's quite possible with the right information in a case that showing him opening paypal accounts in fake names under different countries leads to tax evasion and identity theft, those might still be crimes if I can trust google any.

I did speak with his local County Court Magistrate and their suggestion was to just turn the information over to local PD or Sheriff as it was a small enough town, I know that investigation would go absolutely nowhere.

The one legal council I did talk to said that if I was granted a win on a small claims then he had a certain amount of time to pay it, and after 30 or 90 days of the decision I could then file a lien on his house which in Massachusetts was about 12% or more per year, meaning that even if he wanted to say **** all to the claim, having a lien on the house would mean more problems for him in the future, either interest builds up perpetually or we can go for a larger damage.

The point is now just to get my funds back and he's trying to offer a 50% refund on my money for not doing ****.

 

[Star wars now]

Man, sorry you had to go through all that hope it goes all good.

 

[rjenkinsgb]

From my [limited] understanding of US law, it appears anyone ordering and paying for items from a different state to the seller, without receiving them, has a case for Federal wire fraud - is several people all make complaints, that may get some results??

Reference:

Wire Fraud Law

Learn about the elements of wire fraud, a federal crime based on the use of electronic communications to transmit fraudulent information across states.

www.justia.com

 

[Jay74747]

Going to start with small claims, then move into reporting to IRS, his local DA, Police Department, News Station. I mean the amount of information here plus a random Ebay user who he was actively trying to scam with the same tactics and fake names is just hilarious for anyone to pickup.

His town is about 10,000 people so I would assume it's small enough for some social embarrassment for sure.

What I want is for his name to show up in Google for this **** and for somebody to attempt to get him to stop. It's quite possible with the right information in a case that showing him opening paypal accounts in fake names under different countries leads to tax evasion and identity theft, those might still be crimes if I can trust google any.

I did speak with his local County Court Magistrate and their suggestion was to just turn the information over to local PD or Sheriff as it was a small enough town, I know that investigation would go absolutely nowhere.

The one legal council I did talk to said that if I was granted a win on a small claims then he had a certain amount of time to pay it, and after 30 or 90 days of the decision I could then file a lien on his house which in Massachusetts was about 12% or more per year, meaning that even if he wanted to say **** all to the claim, having a lien on the house would mean more problems for him in the future, either interest builds up perpetually or we can go for a larger damage.

The point is now just to get my funds back and he's trying to offer a 50% refund on my money for not doing ****.

Too many complaints either got him shut down on etsy or he got spooked and shut it down to re-open somewhere else. I noticed he was buying the Blade machined metal edta darts from sd studios (80$ a piece and were still in stock) and then turning around and selling them for 250$ a piece on his etsy shop to all his clueless customers. I actually thought that this might be sd studios at the time. It's not illegal I know but I asked him about them and where he got them and he said he made them himself. I screenshotted those exact one's from ebay and he got mad and then I also had some things to say calling him a scamming reseller scumbag while giving him the finger.

He reported it for harrasment and I was locked out of my account until an etsy employee contacted me so I gave them all the history I could find on this guy and they said they were definitely looking into it. As they were doing that someone came out and said they bought one of the 4000$ pulse rifles from him and were sent the plastic HCG one so I told them... if you don't get rid of this person they're gonna keep doing this because they just did it again. Not long after the shop was gone off etsy as far as I know. I felt what I did was petty but looking at all the 5 star reviews for items that could have been bought elsewhere while he also claims he made them pissed me off. That added onto the history of scamming for thousands and thousands of dollars. If this was the Drug game people would be showing up to his house or catching him out in public.