Sometimes you meet good people on the BST, and sometimes you end up with bad luck.
Recently, I bought a Masamune and a Hideyoshi from Louie Angel Seda. Upon arrival, they were unscrewed to fit into the box, which was fine by me. I assembled them and found that they were vibey as hell. Like, check out the attached video of the Masamune pulsing like a vibrator.
So Louie denies that the yoyos are damaged and recommends me a video by Brandon Vu showing how to tune yoyos. So, when I unscrewed them, I notice my next problem. Both of the bearings weren’t the same as the ones they were supposed to come with. The Masamune had a KonKave bearing instead of a DS bearing, and the Hideyoshi had a CT bearing instead of a Terrapin Delta bearing. I also noticed that one of the Hideyoshi halves had damaged threads, so the axle couldn’t screw inside well.
I tried tuning both yoyos for 3 hours and took out basically every other yoyo and all the spare parts that I have to try to fix them, but nothing worked.
I’m a newbie to tuning but I’ve had yoyos for years and bought from lots of people online, including getting a Fulvia BTM-R and Sovereign recently from FullThrottleFRS and lots more other yoyos from people with great reputations, like Dave Geigle from iYoyo. I’ve never had an issue with a stripped yoyo before. After talking to Louie, he’s basically denying everything and saying that they were messed up because of me.
He claims that the yoyos have been unplayed since the day he bought them, which is quite amazing since people usually play the yoyos they buy, especially if they’re worth that much. Also, he admitted to the bearings being wrong but he claimed that it was because he mixed them up while sending out lots of yoyos. Right now, he’s refusing to do anything about the problem and I’m speaking to Julio from Sengoku about a fix.
I should have suspected something was amiss because the yoyos were 130USD each, which was cheaper than anything else on the YYE BST. I guess I got what I paid for.
Louie’s a pretty well known member of the community and has done a lot of transactions. As you probably could’ve noticed from his BST pic, he is a Sengoku collector. He has(or had) every Colorway released for every sengoku yoyo, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he has truly never thrown the one he sent you.
I bought a masamini and Kenshin from him recently for $90 for both and they were perfectly fine and everyone else that’s bought the recent sengokus he put up for sale haven’t had any issues.
As for the bearings, that’s pretty nitpicky. You shouldn’t expect to get the same bearing that it comes with when you buy it new. And anyway,I’m pretty sure the bearings you ended up with are more expensive than the ones they should’ve came with so I don’t understand what the problem is there, it’s not like he sent them with some cheap 8-ball.
Are you sure the threads are damaged on the yoshi? it’s natural that it’s a little tight, mines like that too and I heard from few others that it’s like that for them.
As for the price, Hideyoshis and Masamunes actually typically go for that price nowadays, $130 for a mint Masamune is pretty standard. I got mine with a little vibe for $100.
I can’t really say anything about the vibe, maybe the rings were dislodged a little during shipment, I agree he should give you a little compensation for that but I doubt it was like that when he had it so he wasn’t trying to scam you or anything.
I get that you are his friend and that you’d defend him; I’d do the same in your position. Nonetheless, there are quite a few things that you may have missed out:
About the bearings, I’m not being nitpicky. The first thing I noticed was the vibe, and then I checked the bearings and remembered my Nobunaga and other Masamune came with DS bearings. If something is advertised as mint and having never been played with, it’s logical for me to assume it comes with its original bearings. There was no mention on his BST post that he’d be sending different bearings.
As for the cost of the bearings, the replacement for the DS was a Konkave bearing, and the replacement for the Terrapin Delta was a CT bearing. Both replacements are of lower value and the CT bearing sounded scratchy. I’m also not sure if the Konkave bearing is legitimate because there are so many knockoffs.
Of course, I see your point in that bearings are the smaller issue compared to the vibe. When Julio first assembled the yoyos, he put those bearings in and made sure the yoyos were smooth. We all know how much a change of bearing can affect a yoyo’s smoothness. Maybe they were truly smooth when Louie first received them, but now, there is no way for me to tell.
The threads were partially stripped. I have no idea if it’s because the axle got smashed during shipping or what, but the box did arrive partially damaged.
The vibe really is terrible, but Louie has refused to take responsibility even when I offered him the option of claiming insurance so I could get the Hideyoshi repaired.
All in all, I understand your point of view and I’d like to believe that he’s a nice guy, but right now his actions are not showing the good side of him.
Having done over a 100 trades on both here and the facebook bst I can say that it is not universally known to sell a mint yoyo with its origional bearing.
Personally I hate the term mint because everyone uses it falsely, the way everyone commonly determines condition is they squint at a yoyo, dont see any damage and sell it as mint. Some people dont care what bearing is in it.
Mint in box however is different, if you recieved a yoyo in that condition that had a different bearing then I would be upset as well. That condition implies that it has never been taken out of the box for anything.
Have you sent him pictures of the threads in question? And do you have pictures we could see?
It might help if you arent rude to him on facebook on another persons post, people tend not to like that.
That’s the pic he sent I told him the yoyos are mint I never said mint in box the yoyos was never played with only thrown once when I got them to check for vibe the bearings got mixed up when I took apart his throws and a few other throws to ship out to people nobody else has complained about and I told him I take fault for the bearing mix up but I will not take fault for him stripping the threads on the throw he has stated that he try swapping out a bunch of axles to get it smooth to his liking so in the course of doing that he stripped the threads not my problem he even filed a PayPal claim on me and he lost PayPal ruled in my favor citing that they do not cover buyers remorse with the way he explained the problem to PayPal
I ask for condition and vibe of the yoyo just to make sure Personally to me, it’s not a massive deal to have a yoyo that has some vibe as long as it’s stated thusly.
Some vibe is different than a wobble. But people seem to be forgetting the massive difference… Gotten countless yoyos with vibe and it’s never bothered me.
I always ask about the vibe and stuff though. I asked if there was anything wrong with it and he said it was perfectly mint.
I’ve been busy but I’ve given up on any sort of responsible conclusion to this fiasco and chosen to focus on the happier things, like the transactions that turned out well (e.g. my recent one with FullThrottleFRS; that guy’s awesome). Also, I’ve contacted someone named Scott Attaway to fix the Hideyoshi and a Leo Sniper that I got for a cheap price from Yahoo Auctions Japan. He is confident he’ll be able to fix the yoyos.
Louie’s been very defensive and not been open about the case. I know he’s made a post on a BST that I’m not a part of to get people to support his cause, which I find very dubious - if he has nothing to hide, why has he not posted a coherent response to my post on YYE or the more public BST on Facebook? And why did he make a post on a platform that he knew I did not have access to, even when he so confidently claimed he would defend himself by posting his side of the story wherever I posted about him?
Regardless, it’s not useful to spend time brooding over the issue. One good thing is that I managed to tune the Masamune until it has as much vibe as my B-grade Hideyoshi. At least that’s better than nothing.
Hoping for a good end to this with the Hideyoshi fixed and everything being playable. To anyone dealing with Louie, I urge caution. He does have a good reputation but as you’ll see from this thread, I’m not the only one who’s gotten yoyos from him with vibe issues. I’ll probably make a final post about the issue when I’ve gotten the Hideyoshi back from Scott. In the meantime, I’m looking into reopening my Paypal claim when I’m less busy with university.
Hey modman,
Thanks for the input. To be specific, although he did not claim the yoyos were mint in box, he mentioned they were mint and never played with. All he did upon receiving them was to test them for vibe and then keep them in his case. That’s why I expected yoyos on par with the Forge and Nobunaga that I bought new and found it highly questionable that the yoyos arrived unscrewed and with the wrong bearings. I can understand if it’s one yoyo, but both? It just shows he didn’t put much care into making sure the other party got what was promised.
I’m usually not nitpicky; I have received yoyos with vibe and bearings different from the ones they normally come with. I have also received yoyos that have been unscrewed so that they can fit into packaging better. It’s the extreme vibe this time that makes me wonder what went wrong. Perhaps the yoyos would have been better with their original bearings or if they had been sent without being unscrewed. At least he would have a stronger case for the yoyos being in mint condition, then.
On that note, I once got a Roll Model off eBay that was unscrewed. I put it together and it was almost vibe-free. So again, I have no idea what happened.
I hope I wasn’t rude to him. I stated my points on one of the Facebook BSTs but if I came across as rude, I apologize. I’ve done quite a few trades and transactions on the various BSTs and this is the second time I’ve been burnt. It’s quite frustrating.
Hi Colby,
I had the same issue with the Hideyoshi and Masamune he sent me but those cost $260. It’s a pretty bitter pill to swallow. But I’m glad you managed to tune the Nobunaga so it’s better.
I have a mint Nobunaga that I bought from a Team Sengoku member and there’s no fingernail vibe. That’s basically what it should be and not a vibrating mess of a yoyo.
My dear friend,
Firstly, PayPal never said anything about the claim. I made a claim on the advice of someone who knows you and finds you to be shady, and in 30 minutes, they made a decision. The same thing happened when I was scammed by Raigo; a lot of people knew about that incident and he was even banned from YYE for the scam, and yet Paypal didn’t help me out. They have a bad judging system, but don’t go around putting words into my mouth. You don’t know how I explained the case to Paypal; I wrote like 2 sentences, expecting someone to contact me to find out the problem. That didn’t materialize. It sucks. I’m moving on.
So to repeat: nothing about buyer’s remorse; that is simply your overactive imagination.
Secondly, I have been logical and open about what happened. All you have done is rant incoherently both in our personal chats and on public platforms. It would help your credibility if you bothered about things as basic as grammar and punctuation. I know you made a post about me on a BST I’m not a part of, and a lot of people in there are agreeing with you. It’s nice to have your defenders, but I’m glad some of them are speaking reason and saying that I should not be vilified because I have clearly stated my case.
He actually paid for insurance for the yoyos but now refuses to claim it. It’s 50USD, which can cover my repair costs. I just find everything incredibly frustrating and suspicious, but that’s life. Hope your yoyo got fixed in the end.
It was more then 2 sentences the PayPal worker said you described in detail what the problem
Was and what happen and she cities buyers remorse based on what you wrote
Personally to me, it’s not a massive deal to have a yoyo that has some vibe as long as it’s stated thusly.