ABC News is reporting on a Florida woman who is having some trouble with a local Electronics Boutique store.
Michelle Doganis was the victim of a robbery on January 9, 2004. She came home to find her sliding glass door broken in through, and hundreds of dollars worth of video game consoles, memory cards, and games stolen from her apartment.
Within 2 days her neighbor, Nicholas Rivera, had admitted to the crime to neighbors, and was arrested 5 days later. Rivera gave a written confession to police, wherein he admitted stealing her consoles, memory cards, and games and selling them to the EBGames in the Gulfview Square Mall.
"He said that he went in there and took it. He was hard up for money for his rent," Wayne Welsh, another neighbor, said. "He took them to EB Games in Gulfview Square Mall and sold them. He said that's where they don't do a check and he can sell them without worrying about the police finding out he stole them."
When Michelle went to the EBGames to retrieve her stolen merchandise, the store made her pay for the merchandise all over again; at a cost of $87.84 more than they had paid the theif who sold it to them. Also, her PlayStation 2 console, one game, and one memory card had already been sold as used merchandise.
Needless to say, Michelle is a bit miffed.
"Oh, I thought it was unbelievable, unbelievable. I've called corporate headquarters, called the general managers. No one's called me back yet, no one's given me any answers why," she stated.
It should be noted that this particualr EBGames violated Florida state law, which requires merchants who deal in secondhand goods to retain those goods for 15 claendar days before selling them as used; as a precaution against this exact scenerio: the recieving and re-selling of stolen goods.
However, the EBGames at the Gulfview Square Mall had already re-sold Michelle's PS2, game, and memory card--before the 15 calendar days required by Florida state law had passed.
Welsh beleives that this particular EBGames might be a haven for this type of thing. "They don't check and he knew they didn't check and he knew that was a safe place to unload the goods," Welsh said.
As if being forced to re-purhcase her own goods isn't bad enough, when asked if the company would replace the stolen merchandise which had been illegally re-sold and now cannot be recovered, Electronics Boutique simply said "No."
Store employees would not comment to ABC News, and Electronics Boutique's corporate office issued a statement: "This is an unfortunate situation and this rarely happens. We are not in the business of dealing in stolen good... we always cooperate with police, but in this case there was a communication breakdown. We were just trying to verify that everything Michelle Doganis said was true."
I suppose a written confession isn't verification? And the receipts from the store back up the written confession, as well.
Even though the EBGames now knows the goods they received, and in a few cases re-sold illegally, were stolen, they refuse to refund Michelle's money. EB stated that if Michelle wants her money back, she should go through the legal system and gain restitution from the thief. You know, the thief that didn't have enough money to pay his rent, so he stole the merchandise in the first place. I'm sure he'll be able to reimburse her, since he seems to be so good with money.
Great way to keep that good public image up, Electronics Boutique.
