http://www.abcactionnews.com/stories/20 ... hame.shtml
NEW PORT RICHEY - The Electronics Boutique, better known as EB Games, is a well-known dealer of second-hand video games and equipment.
Recently, the EB Games store at the Gulfview Square Mall mistakenly purchased some stolen merchandise. The way it handled the situation has landed that store in the ABC Action News Hall of Shame.
The workers at the EB Games store told ABC Action News they're not allowed to talk about the store's policy relative to stolen goods, but longtime customer Michelle Doganis had plenty to say.
"I think it stinks, absolutely stinks. I would never do anything like this," she exclaimed.
On January 9, Michelle came home to find her sliding glass door jimmied open, and several hundred dollars worth of video games and equipment gone. Within two days, 19-year-old Nicholas Rivera admitted to neighbors that he had stolen the goods and sold them to EB Games at the mall.
"He said that he went in there and took it. He was hard up for money for his rent," Wayne Welsh 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."
Five days later, Nicolas Rivera was arrested for the burglary and gave a written confession that he "sold the stolen items at the Electronics Boutique in the mall."
But when Michelle went back to EB Games to pick up her lost property, she got another shock. EB Games insisted on selling her back her own property for roughly twice as much as they had paid the thief.
"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 continued.
Receipts provided by EB Games confirm the story. In all, EB Games charged Michelle $87.84 more than they paid the thief. That doesn't include her Playstation 2, game, and memory cards, which the store had already sold and Michelle cannot get back.
Despite the basic unfairness of all this, there may be a bigger issue here. Under state law, all merchants who deal in secondhand goods are required to hold those goods for 15 calendar days before selling them. The law is designed specifically to prevent the sale of stolen goods, and prevent situations like this.
Neighbor Wayne Welsh said that's exactly why the confessed burglar took the merchandise to EB Games.
"They don't check and he knew they didn't check and he knew that was a safe place to unload the goods," Welsh continued.
A spokesperson for EB Games told Action News anchor Ren Scott, "this is an unfortunate situation and this rarely happens. We are not in the business of dealing in stolen goods…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'm not allowed to say anything about any of that."
Investigators now say EB games did indeed violate state law when it sold some of Michelle's possessions without waiting the mandatory 15 calendar days.
So now that the billion-dollar company has verified exactly what happened, Ren asked if they would give Michelle Doganis all her money back and replace the Playstation 2 -- which, it appears, they sold illegally.
Their response? They will sell it back to her for what they paid the thief. As for the Playstation, she's simply out of luck.
EB Games still insists it will not refund Michelle's money. If she wants her money back, the company said, she can go through the legal system and get restitution from the thief.
EB Games may be a billion-dollar company, but when you mistreat a loyal customer over $87, you end up in the Call for Action Hall of Shame.
