Mary Virkhaus Hazell FALSE ADVERTISING/SCAM CHELSEA , Michigan

Purchased equipment (knitting machine, ribber and all manuals and accessories) from Mary Virkhaus on 8/25/11. She had advertised these items for sale on a Yahoo Group. Her advert read as follows:

 Posted by: "HazelII" [EMAIL REDACTED]   virkhaus Wed Aug 24, 2011 7:06 am (PDT) FOR SALE:
Studio F-370 knitting machine-like new, barely used and hard to find This machine comes complete with ribber, punch cards, lace
carriage and usual accessories. The machine is like new and comes from a pet-free home. I am selling because I am moving and must reduce inventory.


My name is Mary Virkhaus and the machine is in our home in Kalamazoo, MI.
I am asking $650.00 plus shipping from zip code 49091.


If you have questions, you may reach me at 734-433-1744.


Thank you for reading.

 
On 8/25/11 I spoke with her on the telephone then per her instructions sent her payment of $750 ($650 + 100) by priority mail, my check #1021 with the agreement that I would pay any additional shipping costs.

 
On 9/8/11 I received an invoice showing the shipping costs to be $165.86. I remitted check #1024 for $65.86 on that day.

 
On 9/10/11 the equipment arrived. It was slightly damaged and I discovered missing items. I contacted Mary Virkaus via email to advise her.


On 9/13/11 I emailed Mary Virkhaus again. I received a voice mail message from her to send a list and she would send the missing items. I emailed her a detailed list of the items that were missing later that day. She replied via email that she would send the missing items as soon as she was able to locate them.

Since then I have received several vague promises and phishing emails from her account. 

On 9/21/11 I received an email saying she hoped to have something by mid-next week 
 
On 9/25/11 I requested a shipping status. Her response was rude (I am being impatient) and non-committal. As this is the 1 month mark, I also contacted the owner of the Yahoo Group for advice. The owner (who is also a seller) advised there is no reason it should take an additional week to ship items that were advertised as a part of a sale. Also the list owner confirmed
that all machines are supposed to come complete with all the manuals and accessories. Per instructions from the owner, I sent Mark Virkhaus an email asking her to confirm she would be sending all of the missing items on 9/26/11 or to provide an accounting of them. 

On 9/26/11 the owner of the Yahoo Group has called Mary Virkaus several times. There is no answer to the phone.

Mary Virkhauss emailed response did not promise a shipment nor detail what would be shipped. I forwarded the email to the list owner who had banned her from the group.

Around 18:00 I also called Mary Virkhaus and only got her voice mail. I again asked for the missing items and let her know I will be pursuing legal remedies if we can not resolve this immediately. 

 To date, I still have not received the missing items and do not trust that Mary Virkhaus will send them. The ribber and lace carriage can not be used without some of the items I did not receive. This equipment is out of production so parts are scarce and relatively expensive. I am unable to locate one of the punch card sets that was to come with the machine for sale
anywhere. This is a substantial, material loss I have no way to quantify monetarily. All of the other items will cost well over $100 with shipping to replace. I have been scouring the internet trying to find all the missing parts so I can use the equipment.

Note: She first advertised this same scam in January only for $1,000. So she had 8 months to actually put all the items together if she actually had them. I also found another complaint about her when she sold on Artfire.

Beware of this lady, she is bad news.