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Aoi, Tsuruta


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This will undoubtedly be a post that gets yanked by one of the moderators, but I strongly recommend against doing business with Mr. Tsuruta at Aoi.

 

The short version of the story is he purposefully backed out of a deal and then tried to steal 620,000yen from a customer recently. Absolutely true story. If anyone wants the longer version please PM me.

 

He is a dishonorable thief of the highest caliber.

 

Thanks!

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John, 

Difficult one, since he doesn’t have right of reply here. And for sure if I am to allow discussion of this, we need all the details. Can’t make allegations without basis.  

Post the whole story and we can take it from there. 

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Not doubting the posted story or anything, would like to hear the details but il throw my 2 cents in from my personal and recent experience.

 

In the last 6 months I've had 5 transactions and communication was always prompt and respectful even given many of my questions were elementary and excessive/nitpicky.

 

Notable incident #1:

Kogatana ordered stuck in EMS for a couple weeks, was able to pull the shipping back and send via FedEx for free.

 

Notable incident #2:

Tsuka removal tool set ordered was stuck in EMS for almost a month, eventually he sent a second tool set via FedEx for free to make it right.

 

Notable incident #3:

Paid almost $8k for a Katana right before all shipping was closed down. I decided to send to Hughes for some work instead. Without prompt or request he sent an excessive 10% refund of the whole purchase.

 

Other shipments were received in a couple days, been very pleased overall.

 

Thanks,

Mike

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I have bought four swords from him over many years John; Taikei Naotane, Nanadai Ishido Korekazu, Echizen Yasutsugu and Gassan Sadakazu utsushi of Masamune.  All in great shape with NBTHK papers, the transactions were fine and I am very pleased with the swords.  I am curious enough to have sent you a PM and would like to hear the story you have to relate.  Cheers, Bob

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The slightly longer version of this, adding to the above:

 

Tsuruta backed out of the deal of his own volition and then tried to keep that buyer's deposit. Paypal forced him to return the deposit though, otherwise it would have been stolen.

 

This raises the question of whether Tsuruta intended to sell the sword to the buyer at all, or if he was just using this blade as an attempt to steal that buyer's deposit.

 

I'm sure many people have had good transactions with him in the past. I have as well, but that doesn't mean that people don't change, or that they don't make many other bad decisions that never get aired publicly in the same way that the good decisions do.

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Seems odd, was this not a standard AOI auction/listing? I think more details about how the backout occurred (stated reason why, timing, quotes, etc) would be needed to get a better understanding. Same info for the whole deposit situation.

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Mike,

Those details don't really matter. If the buyer elected to abandon the deal, I could see how the seller might feel justified in keeping at least part of the deposit. But the seller deciding to abandon the deal, and still try to keep the deposit, well that is just pure theft...

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Listen for whatever reason ,greed ,the belief in a personal affront or whatever some people who would normally be quite genuine have decided to play the less than genuine card.

I've noticed this myself, but for some reason I'm rarely believed like Cassandra in mythology.

Circumstances will always alter cases and people are getting so desperate they are ignoring the correct protocol when dealing from afar and distance sales.Had he kept the deposit it would have been a major challenge to recover your money if not protected in some way.

I always pay for things with my credit card to ensure I get a level of protection commensurate to the value of the risk.

Of course this doesn't work if you used a trade element in the deal as I've found out the hard way.

Still like Cassandra everyone sided with the other party and I was Billy no mates.

I would imagine as money gets tighter more underhand practices will be experienced.

Fortunately I've only been burned once recently and I'll learn from it.

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I also think that there is a lack of any information that would shed more light on this particular case. In any case, something like this should not happen.
I've done a few deals with Tsuruta over the last year, the last one about a month ago. Always fast and trouble-free communication. Tsuruta has its "specifics", but this case is really unusual ...

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I've been selling things from my collection on this board for years. Never had an unhappy customer. Never mis-represented an item or myself. I've been posting and reading on this board for years and scarcely ever had a bad word to say about anyone.

 

People are free to take from this post what they like, but I have given you actual facts about what happened. You do not need additional details because the facts are already here. I have provided additional details to Brian and if, based on that, he wants to delete this thread, I will not complain. I never have before when any of my posts were deleted or locked. 

 

You can choose to deal with that scumbag if you want, but I recommend you use paypal or some similar service that provides you protection from him.

 

Hope you are all doing great otherwise. 

 

 

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I have the story from John.
To be perfectly honest, the part about him cancelling the deal...I can't criticize too much. The payment plan was not kept exactly as arranged, and even if he was to pay a higher bulk amount or make it up, the fact is that if the seller wanted to cancel because he was worried about the payment schedule...then he had that right. What wasn't mentioned is that the payment plan was LONG. I would not expect any seller to wait more than a year for payment. How does he survive? Yes..he did agree to that plan, so it is not a nice thing to cancel. But the agreement was strict.

Where this whole thing seems to have me really worried, is the part where Aoi then said (paraphrasing) "as per our trading rules, we won't refund the deposit. Submit the claim via PP"
That to me is crazy, and very very concerning. A seller cannot cancel a sale himself and then say he is unable to refund and that the buyer needs to arrange his refund through Paypal.
And that is why this thread is still up.
 

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17 minutes ago, Babu said:

I am also convinced that this forum is not the place to air your grievences even if you think you are helping others to not get caught. It will just backfire on your good intentions. 

 

Honestly, if it backfires on me, I don't really care. I'm not really a merchant so if people end up disliking me because I spoke the truth about what a merchant did to another collector, that's fine.

 

As for another venue where this type of grievance should be aired, I'm open to suggestions. I don't know of any other where the Nihonto community actually cares about one another, than this place. There is no HR department for individual merchants and their businesses (meant with sarcasm) so forums like this are the place where people like Tsuruta need to be called out.

 

This is not directed at any one person, but I feel certain this has happened before with Tsuruta, and it will happen again. People responding to this type of post with blatant skepticism, does not promote an environment where collectors feel confident in reporting more events of similar bad behavior by merchants. 

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Sorry John,I don't know what you are referring about in your quote of my words, clearly that post has been through censorship and all was deemed unsuitable in it's entirety.

 

However I thank anyone, including you , who reports what they clearly consider to be inappropriate behaviour in any trading agreement.

No matter who it is.

 

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Knowing the particulars of the case, I’m on John's side here. Once a seller has agreed to a deal, it should be respected, and trying to keep the deposit is just shady. I guess sellers are great until, for a reason, something goes wrong and then they show the worst part of their nature. I’m sure Aoi is a great site, and has made and will make people happy for years to come, but beware the day something goes wrong.

That said, it could be true of any transaction I guess... :(

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi!

 

As a bystander I just wonder over what Brian wrote. If Brian has the details from John and states that the payment plan wasn’t followed. Is the lenght of the plan relevant? And who decided the lenght. Why didn’t John write, what I find most important and that is the deal breaker. The payment plan wasn’t followed by the buyer. Who is then at fault? The seller or the buyer? If the agreement was set in stone, clearly the buyer IMHO. The I think flexibility from a seller would promote him.

 

Anthony

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