Buyer beware - MW Classic dealer in London

mpirie said:
I seem to be getting a lot of spam email purporting to be from Peter Walnes looking for equipment!

Mike
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He used to be legit, I'd bought and sold with him many times over the years, but seems to have lost the post after covid. Now has a fraud conviction to his name, yet it doesn't seem to have prevented him from trading.

www.cornwalllive.com

'Utterly dishonest' serial conman spared jail because he's old

Walnes has been warned that should he commit any offence again, age will not protect him from prison
www.cornwalllive.com www.cornwalllive.com

Loads of threads on other forums about him too. Avoid like the plague would be my advice.
 
Dave_P said:
He used to be legit, I'd bought and sold with him many times over the years, but seems to have lost the post after covid. Now has a fraud conviction to his name, yet it doesn't seem to have prevented him from trading.
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I was recommending Mr Walnes on Forums until maybe 7 or 8 years ago. He was selling LF equipment at lowish prices with no problems, then I had some PM's & emails telling me horror stories so stopped.

He was involved with a company, Fieldgrass & Gale, who filed for insolvency, there was some kind of scandal involving him.

Ian
 
Something that occurred to me today is eBay will only pay you for selling on their website after the buyer confirms delivery or the tracking shows it. I wonder if MW Classic will take down their eBay store or actually bother to ship out orders from now on.
 
Nas said:
Something that occurred to me today is eBay will only pay you for selling on their website after the buyer confirms delivery or the tracking shows it. I wonder if MW Classic will take down their eBay store or actually bother to ship out orders from now on.
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I need o check this out, eBay now usually has tracking on UK sales, however this only confirms delivery. And they will only accept claims through their Global Shipping Program for sales abroad.

My understanding is this was because of the high number of fraudulent claims of items not arriving, particularly from certain countries, in South East Asia.

The other one to watch out for is the Buyers appearing to be from the US when in fact they are in Taiwan or South Korea, then asking for lower values on the Customs form. That happened to me a couple of years ago. Now the Global Shipping Program handles the customs and they access the eBay sales data. A downside to the GSP is it can be much slower, as they seem to be buying air freight once they have a sufficient volume of items to send to a country. Amazon does the same on items from abroad.

Ian
 
Wll, I'll add to this tale of woe. Before Covid I ordered a Canon RF 135mm lens which never arrived. The first telephone call was answered with a promise to ship that day, following which the phone wasn't even answered. There were no replies to any emails so in the end I gave up. When I sold my Leica IIIA I kept my 90mm Elmar and use that instead of the Canon which may or may not have even existed, despite the photograph on the web site. A previous encounter should have made me suspicious; I ordered a 6x9 Graflex roll film back from them and a 6x7 back arrived. I called them up and spoke to W who blamed M (something like "he's always doing this"). There was no 6x9 back available so I accepted the 6x7 since I thought it would be a handy addition to my medium format gear. However, reading the above, maybe it was good that I didn't return the back to them because they probably wouldn't have refunded me. What a way to run a business!

As for Nicolas Cameras...
Over 20 years ago the company I worked for moved their offices to Camden, a stone's throw from Mornington Crescent tube station. I thought this would be a great opportunity to get acquainted with Nicolas Cameras, just a short walk from the office. The first time I went there I had it in mind to buy a Contax/Yashica Tamron adapter for a lens my dad gave me. The proprietor wanted £40 (bear in mind this was 2003 or so). Despite the fact that Nicolas Cameras claimed to encourage part exchange he wouldn't entertain anything for the Praktica adapter from the lens. So I just left. And let me say that the word 'offhand' doesn't begin to describe his attitude. By the way, the shop was a s*** hole, packed with a fantastic array of filthy cameras and lenses.
 
Sorry, I used the name Nicolas rather than Nicholas because that is how my brother in law spells his name, not that he is the Nicolas of Nicholas Cameras, although he lives in short commuting distance of Camden. I see the camera shop is now located in Primrose Hill rather than at the bottom of Camden High Street where I remember it being.
 
Rather shocking reading through people’s experiences. I have actively looked at what they have. I shall remove them from my bookmark list.

On MrCad, I have had my experiences also. As I’m a bike ride away from the store I always go and see for myself as past experiences has fought me well with them.

I went a couple months back to look at a rz67 focusing screen. Let’s just say it seemed like an arts and craft rebuild project.
 
Maybe old news on MW Classic now but I have had exactly the same experience and had to claim via Credit Card for my money back.

I would not touch them with a barge pole !

John
 
To my embarrassment, i clicked on "Buy it now" for a Linhof ball head only to realise the seller was MW Classic.

As the transaction had gone through and i'd already paid for the item, i decided to wait and see (knowing i had paypal protection).

The item arrived a few days later and was exactly as described, though charging £12.50 for "courier delivery" when a tatty box and Royal Mail £4.50 delivery was used was a bit cheeky.

Lesson learned to check out the seller first before hitting the buy it now button!

Mike
 
Nas said:
Something that occurred to me today is eBay will only pay you for selling on their website after the buyer confirms delivery or the tracking shows it. I wonder if MW Classic will take down their eBay store or actually bother to ship out orders from now on.
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Absolutely this ... while for legitimate eBay sellers the new rules are a bit of a pain in the butt ... waiting for your money is never nice ... for the 'keep your money' scammers this is serious set back.

When not a photographer I'm a guitarist and bass player, and there are probably just as many scamming sellers in that enthusiast market as there are in the camera one. Honesty seems to be more and more in short supply with equipment deliberately photographed in a manner to hide flaws, vague or misleading descriptions ... or even using images of other folks gear and passing it off as yours.

I've been lucky in not getting stung too much - the most I've lost being about twenty quid on a lens that was described as clean on a film SLR camera that was described as just missing its battery door. I took a punt ... and the lens wound up having more fungus than the loose mushroom bins in Tesco, and a camera where the whole battery bay was more corroded than an iron bucket in a compost heap.

But it's probably more necessary than ever that we are careful ... as camera and lens prices are rising ... so the pond life emerges from the shadows to feed. The adage that 'any old tut can turn a buck if we describe it as rare' is growing on the 'FleaBay' ... let's watch ourselves!
 
Marley's Ghost said:
Absolutely this ... while for legitimate eBay sellers the new rules are a bit of a pain in the butt ... waiting for your money is never nice ... for the 'keep your money' scammers this is serious set back.

When not a photographer I'm a guitarist and bass player, and there are probably just as many scamming sellers in that enthusiast market as there are in the camera one. Honesty seems to be more and more in short supply with equipment deliberately photographed in a manner to hide flaws, vague or misleading descriptions ... or even using images of other folks gear and passing it off as yours.

I've been lucky in not getting stung too much - the most I've lost being about twenty quid on a lens that was described as clean on a film SLR camera that was described as just missing its battery door. I took a punt ... and the lens wound up having more fungus than the loose mushroom bins in Tesco, and a camera where the whole battery bay was more corroded than an iron bucket in a compost heap.

But it's probably more necessary than ever that we are careful ... as camera and lens prices are rising ... so the pond life emerges from the shadows to feed. The adage that 'any old tut can turn a buck if we describe it as rare' is growing on the 'FleaBay' ... let's watch ourselves!
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As a fellow bass player who likes vintage basses I fully agree with you.
 
Soulstar89 said:
As a fellow bass player who likes vintage basses I fully agree with you.
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Well you never know ... I might be able to help you at some point ... I'm the owner of Oil City Pickups ... and the reason I have a fully equipped workshop that I can make the likes of my current 10x8 camera project in ... is that I rewind and restore vintage pickups - bass and guitar (and make new ones) :)
 
Marley's Ghost said:
Well you never know ... I might be able to help you at some point ... I'm the owner of Oil City Pickups ... and the reason I have a fully equipped workshop that I can make the likes of my current 10x8 camera project in ... is that I rewind and restore vintage pickups - bass and guitar (and make new ones) :)
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What a small world. My I’m based in E14 a lot of the time. I will definitely reach out to you.
 
Soulstar89 said:
What a small world. My I’m based in E14 a lot of the time. I will definitely reach out to you.
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From Hofner Beatle basses to vintage 51 Precisions ... I've rewound em all
These are my two basses Doghouse variety ... the black one I rebuilt from a 80 year old total wreck minus 'headstock' ... I ended up putting a new neck on it and totally re finishing it.
 
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