For those who have dealt with a company Trading Card Collectibles in Texas

[blowoutcards]

Article From The Jacksonville, TX Newspaper

Jacksonville Trading Card Dealer Arrested

By CINDY MALLETTE
Staff Writer

JACKSONVILLE — Police say a Jacksonville man bilked hundreds of people out of possibly thousands of dollars through unfulfilled transactions on his sports memorabilia Web site.

Jacksonville police arrested Eual Brent Hallford, 40, on Monday on three charges of credit card abuse and two charges of debit card abuse. He was arraigned and posted a $25,000 bond.

Hallford owned an Internet business called Trading Card Collectibles. The company’s Web site, www.tradingcardcollectibles.com, has been disabled, but a note posted to the site on Nov. 1 stated that the company was “financially unable to stay in business.” The note expressed hope the site would re-open and gave an e-mail address for customers wishing to contact Hallford.

Hundreds have already contacted the Tyler Better Business Bureau, said Ann Harris, the BBB’s director of standards and practices.

“We’re getting calls on that company every day,” she said.

In the past year, the BBB received 750 inquiries into the company and 89 complaints against it. The issues were usually the same, Ms. Harris said.

Hallford allegedly required customers to pay for their merchandise before he ordered it from a wholesaler. Sometimes the memorabilia arrived, and sometimes it didn’t. But, instead of refunding customers when their orders didn’t come in, he gave them credit to use on his Web site, Ms. Harris said.

“The customers either didn’t want to use the credit, or they couldn’t get the items they tried to purchase using the credit,” she Harris said.

She added that this wasn’t the first time she heard complaints against a business Hallford ran. He used to manage Sports Cards Wholesale, also in Jacksonville. Ms. Harris said she dealt with the same complaints of unfulfilled orders, despite complted transactions.

“Mr. Hallford was apparently under the impression he could make any kind of policy he wanted and not be held accountable,” she said.

Sports Cards Wholesale closed at the same time Hallford opened Trading Card Collectibles, Ms. Harris said. The BBB tried to work with Hallford to resolve complaints when they started coming in again, but when he ignored the problems, she said she had no choice but to turn him in to the police.

“We’d rather that not happen, but when it came back that the complaints weren’t being answered, then we had a problem,” she said.

Sgt. Daniel Franklin said police investigators contacted at least 400 victims from throughout the United States.

“We’re still getting e-mails from more victims every day,” he said.

Franklin said he planned to contact the FBI within the next few days to discuss the possibility of bringing up Internet fraud charges. He said he doesn’t know how much money Hallford took, but said it could be in the thousands of dollars.

Franklin added that he expects Hallford will face additional charges as the investigation continues.

Ms. Harris encouraged consumers to be careful when making online purchases.
“Make sure you know the company. Find out who they are, where they’re at and what their privacy policy is,” she said.

Consumers can do a few things to have a safer online shopping experience, she said: First, do business with a company you trust. Then, make sure the online transaction takes place on a secure server. Usually the bottom of the page will show a lock symbol and the address bar will have “https” before the Web site’s address, she said. Finally, check the company out on the BBB Web site, www.tyler.bbb.org or www.us.bbb.org.

“If the customers had just looked at our site first, they would have known about the other complaints,” Ms. Harris said.

[swerve]

For what I have heard in the past it is about time something happened to this ass clown.

[Crash1207]

Yup, all this happened to me. Thankfully AMEX took care of me and got my money refunded.

[pduce]

Wow, I harrassed the BBB there for a while to get them closed. I am glad I could help shut them down.

[hockeynut]

The same thing happened in 05 and 06.Robert E Lennon of Madison,Al scammed 40 people out of $350,000 plus in wax cases that he never produced.The only problem is the town of Madison did not want to do anything because they did not have the time nor the money and the Sgt said,There were not many people affected in that state.People from across the USA and Canada were affected.Just glad someone decided to do something about this jerk in the post.I say lock him up and throw away the key.

[Innocent bystander]

Found another article posted today on the Jacksonville Paper website:

JPD expects more serious charges in fraud case

Jacksonville Progress

By Kelly Young

news@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Detectives with the Jacksonville Police Department have begun a new investigation into the online dealings of Eual Brent Hallford, the Jacksonville man accused of defrauding numerous customers across the country with his sports memorabilia Web site, www.tradingcardcollectibles.com.

Last week Hallford was arrested and charged with three counts of credit card abuse and two counts of debit card abuse — both state jail felonies — but JPD is now looking further into the suspect’s business dealings to determine whether Internet fraud charges should also be filed.

“Right now we are investigating Hallford for charges more serious than state jail felony, and I anticipate that those charges will be filed. He was using the Internet to make his sales, so we are now looking at whether Internet fraud charges should be made in the case,” said Detective Daniel Franklin of JPD. “Because he was going outside the state of Texas with his sales, he could also be brought up on federal charges for going inter-state. The U.S. Postal Service is also involved in the investigation because some of the merchandise that was shipped was done by mail.”

Franklin said that while the official investigation into Hallford’s activities didn’t begin until Sept. 10 of this year, the department had been receiving information regarding him for more than a decade.

On numerous occasions, prior investigations into Hallford’s business practices were called off when disgruntled customers would receive the money or merchandise they had been waiting for, and would refuse to press charges.

Franklin said Hallford’s arrest was made possible because of information received by the Better Business Bureau of Tyler.

“We got a call from the Better Business Bureau, and they told us that they had had a few victims come forward with claims against him for bad business. I told them to bring whatever information that had to us, and they brought in just as huge box of claims from people who have contacted the Better Business Bureau regarding him,” he said.

Since that time, Detective Tonya Sonntag has been working to contact complainants and investigate leads. JPD’s investigation has been aided by a constant stream of phone calls from people claiming to be previous victims.

“They would get online, order their merchandise, enter their credit card information, the card would be deducted for the amount of money owed, but they never received any of the merchandise that they bought. We’ve had people from Michigan to California to Washington call in claiming to be victims,” Franklin said. “After speaking with several of them, we’ve found the amount of money taken in each transaction would range from $100 to $5,000. If we would be able to get in contact with every victim, the total amount of money taken would be close to the $200,000 or $300,000 range.”

According to Ann Harris, director of standards and practices for the Tyler BBB, Trading Card Collectibles currently has 109 closed complaints filed against the company, including 37 that were resolved by the business, 19 that remain unresolved and 53 which were not responded to by Hallford. Additional complaints may still be open.

Prior to taking ownership of TCC, Hallford worked as manager of Sports Cards Wholesale, a company plagued by similar complaints. When the company went out of business in the spring of 2006, 13 complaints remained unresolved and 27 hadn’t been responded to by the company.

“Mr. Hallford has called here and asked that the media be alerted to the fact that he has been attempting to resolve some of the complaints made against him; however, the record shows that they have not made a good-faith effort to resolve many of the complaints,” Harris said.

Harris recommends customers planning to purchase merchandise on the Internet should always do some research into the vendor they expect to use. Each local BBB maintains reliability reports for every company in their coverage area which include the number and type of complaints received by any given business.

“Cases like this could absolutely be avoided if consumers would check out a company before making a purchase,” Harris said. “That’s the whole point of having company reliability reports posted on the Internet — so that people can make sure they can trust the company that they are dealing with.”

TCC has had an unsatisfactory record on the BBB Web site since September 2006.

Attempts to contact Hallford were unsuccessful.

http://www.jacksonvilleprogress.com/...329113100.html

[Innocent bystander]

Businessman arrested again

Brent Hallford, the Jacksonville businessman arrested in November for credit card and debit card abuse, was taken into custody by JPD again Wednesday afternoon. He was arrested at his place of business at approximately 3 p.m.

“An investigator with the U. S. Postal Service has been working closely with Detective Tonya Sonntag over the last few weeks regarding Hallford’s business practices. The postal inspector was able to obtain a federal search warrant, for his business on South Jackson Street, to obtain items related to his business,” Franklin said. “Several documents and computers were seized, and are being investigated by the postal service. Hallford was arrested at that time on a JPD warrant for forgery.”

Franklin said the new charge stems from a case in which Hallford is believed to have used a counterfeit cashier’s check during a business transaction.

“As far as the police department is concerned, I do not believe we are investigating him further. The postal inspector’s office has not filed federal charges against him yet, and once they finish investigating the items seized with the search warrant it is a possibility that they will,” he said.

Bond was set at $25,000, and Hallford bonded out.

http://www.jacksonvilleprogress.com/...357050900.html

EDIT: Also, the business located on South Jackson st. is http://www.wholesaletradingcards.com/
Spend your money elsewhere

[jhesse23]

I was just scammed by wholesaletradingcards.com and the amount I was taken for was about $1100. The company (I'm suspecting a company comprised of one man) billed my credit card for the entire amount, not to ship anything...he tried to keep "stringing me along" and keeping me quiet by providing quick and dirty responses to my inquiries on the status of my orders...

In my opinion, this guy is a plain out scam artist...opening one internet company after another and folding as soon as he's "discovered" or enough customers have complained...it's fairly obvious this guy is not only the sales rep, but clearly the owner (although he escapes this "owner" title myseriously - )

[Innocent bystander]

Call Jacksonville Police Department at (903) 586-2546

[pduce]

Originally Posted by jhesse23

I was just scammed by wholesaletradingcards.com and the amount I was taken for was about $1100. The company (I'm suspecting a company comprised of one man) billed my credit card for the entire amount, not to ship anything...he tried to keep "stringing me along" and keeping me quiet by providing quick and dirty responses to my inquiries on the status of my orders...

In my opinion, this guy is a plain out scam artist...opening one internet company after another and folding as soon as he's "discovered" or enough customers have complained...it's fairly obvious this guy is not only the sales rep, but clearly the owner (although he escapes this "owner" title myseriously - )

You need to call your credit card company and do a charge back, you will have to file a compliant with them, but since you put it on your card you should get your money back. Or atleast this idiot did last spring(thumbs pointing back to myself). Good luck(this guy deserves the gas chamber).