Martemodena Auctions - Questionable Business Practices

[katerchen]

Roffle.

 

Start time: 08/19/2019 15:30:32

Close time: 02/21/2020 15:20:00

Duration: 186d 49m 28s

[lockfeler]

Their customer service is really bad, they send me a wrong pen, so I ask for a refund. After I returned the pen, the refund never came.

(Already more then 3 months)

Moreover, they arrange some auctions in which there are lots of pens they don't have access to. I still waiting for some orders from them and it has been more than 7 months.

So I want to remind every Fp collector, this is a really bad store and they will use every excuse to refuse to refund, absolutely a fraud.

[Discombobulate]

I won a pen in one of their auctions - got it for little more than the opening bid, but postage to Australia was 40 euros - so roughly 4 x the cost of the pen itself.

 

All of this was clearly stated in the listing, so Im not complaining too much. High postage prices is the Australian Tax that often affects hobbies like this

 

Of interest the pen came from The Netherlands, rather than Italy - so perhaps comments about securing stock are correct - they are more a broker for sellers.

 

I did wonder how they had access to so many MB Agatha Christie pens

[Bill P]

I honestly find it hard to believe they have survived...and are still conducting any business.

 

They have ripped off so many buyers...

 

They were removed from Ebay, and then Paypal.

 

There are so many disastrous stories that we know about...

 

I guess they survive by continuing to rip people off...

 

It is so risky to do business with them.....for me the risk far outweighed(s) and potential benefit.

[sansenri]

I've never bought anything from them, I once asked questions about a pen on sale (several years ago when they were starting to take over the Delta stock) and received a rude and dismissive answer. Did not buy then nor ever checked their offers again. Besides disliking the aesthetic changes they made to the Delta line of pens, a lot of other bad stories regarding how they do business kept me well away.

[inkstainedruth]

This is a fascinating thread for two reasons:

1. I had seen some of their eBay. listings in the past (about the time this thread was started, as it happens) and always thought the pens seemed overpriced.

2. I posted an experience about a seller recently that I'd had some problems with (the seller eventually canceled my order because of getting tired of me going "So, where's the pen I [pre]ordered... and my post got removed for "naming and shaming" by the moderators....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[como]

I never liked the Martemodena versions of the Delta pens. Shady business practices and bad customer service don’t deserve anyone’s business.

[lockfeler]

I honestly find it hard to believe they have survived...and are still conducting any business.

 

They have ripped off so many buyers...

 

They were removed from Ebay, and then Paypal.

 

There are so many disastrous stories that we know about...

 

I guess they survive by continuing to rip people off...

 

It is so risky to do business with them.....for me the risk far outweighed(s) and potential benefit.

Is there any chance to sue them, I have more than 4500 Euro orders and still no feedback from them

[rogeryang]

I have a similar bad experience with MARTEMODENA. I won an auction of MONTBLANC fountain pen HEMINGWAY Writers limited edition 1992, it was on early April of this year (2020). Full sum of money (around 2500 Euro) wired, then all kinds of excuses, blaming the Covid-19 and etc.. to this day, I'm still not getting my pen.

 

I did have several previous purchase experiences with them, few hundred Euro each time, which were OK, but not this one.

 

The MARTEMODENA is a scam, I'm in the US, really want to sue them but don't know how, and since I wired the money instead of eBay or Credit card, cannot even file for refund.

 

any advice?? We need to stop this company from cheating around like this.

[balckredcat69]

I have just found this topic. I would like to add that over the years I bought a lot of things from them, first on ebay, later on their website. Most [if not all] were aquired at auction, at a much lower price than the RRP. 

At first, they were quite prompt and delivered promptly and quickly, they even combined shipping so the shipping costs were substantially reduced.

Later, they refused to combine shipping and sent each item individually packed, which was at times a great waste and which incumbed considerbaly higher costs. They stopped using FedEx, a reliable and fast service and started using postal services, which would deliver slowly.

During 2019 several items were either lost or simply not shipped, but they didn't provide any clear answer; sometimes, items arrived very late and not in the way they had been orderd - e.g. I bought several crocodile belts that were delivered with great delay and the sizes were not always correct, about half were too small and the colours were different.

A few pens never came, the last being a Montblanc 149, with 2 belts, bought in June 2020, that are listed as shipped, but they never came to the post, despite having tracking numbers. My consecutive messages had no response. I counted them as loses, compensated maybe by the whole bunch bought over the time, but I doubt any busuness can be done with them anymore.

[Aysedasi]

I was reminded of this thread today when I was going through my pen cases.  Many of my pens have been 'laid up' since before my wife and I moved house back in January.  I've had a few pens out but thought it was time for a change.  I selected a nice all-red Sheaffer Imperial, my very sweet (modern) Aurora Duocart and two of my three MarteModena Delta Dolcevita Federico's.  I have a black and orange broad, a blue and orange OB and a red and orange OBB.  I've only inked up the red and orange so far but it writes just as well as it did when I last used it, which must have been at least 2-3 years ago.  I bought the three pens from MarteModena probably 6-7 years ago and as I recall, they cost me about £60 each.  For that money, they are really good pens.  I was looking at eBay and found this -

 

Delta Fountain Pen Dolce Vita Federico Sky MarteModena Blue Nib Steel Extra-Fine | eBay

 

It seems to be much the same as my pens, but a different barrel, blue instead of orange - but that price!    There is an orange and black on eBay as well, for the more reasonable price of £99.  Mention has been made of people not liking the MarteModena versions, but I have no experience of Delta pens anyway.  I can see no MarteMOdena markings on my pens.  They are marked 'DELTA ITALY' and are numbered, the red is '0504'and the blue '0239'.  How would a person ignorant of MarteModena know it was one of their pens when looking at Dolcevita Federico's on eBay?

[Uncial]

The main issue was selling pens on eBay he didn't actually have. People paid, waited a few weeks and were told the pen wasn't in stock. Then began the long, and sometimes difficult process of getting their money back. When they were in stock, they were generally fine, but the Indigenous Peoples series had engraved nibs and the Martmodena ones usually had to have the nib sent off to be engraved and the engraving was ....well....shallow, to say the very least. It almost wasn't there. Not sure of anyone ever had any faulty pens from him, but personally I wouldn't touch them.

[Aysedasi]

I think I must have bought when everything was OK as all three of my pens arrived quickly (by Fedex, I believe), all boxed (with some quite fancy Delta boxes with no MarteModena logos) and I was very pleased with them at the price I paid.  Shipping was very cheap too, as I recall.  It was only a year or two later when I bid on auctions and winning bids were not honored that I started to smell a rat.  I was about to buy another pen when the shipping went up enormously and I cried off.  

[Uncial]

Is that a Barong in your avatar?

[inkstainedruth]

13 hours ago, Uncial said:

The main issue was selling pens on eBay he didn't actually have. People paid, waited a few weeks and were told the pen wasn't in stock. Then began the long, and sometimes difficult process of getting their money back. When they were in stock, they were generally fine, but the Indigenous Peoples series had engraved nibs and the Martmodena ones usually had to have the nib sent off to be engraved and the engraving was ....well....shallow, to say the very least. It almost wasn't there. Not sure of anyone ever had any faulty pens from him, but personally I wouldn't touch them.

Yikes!

I had that happen with a seller recently (not them) but it wasn't an expensive pen -- just annoying since the seller had agreed to my offer (AND was in the US -- or claimed to be, at any rate; in reality, not so much) AND I got the cancellation notice from PayPal *before* hearing that from the seller....

If it had been an expensive pen I would have been COMPLETELY PO'd....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Aysedasi]

On 7/21/2022 at 8:07 PM, Uncial said:

Is that a Barong in your avatar?

 

Yes, it rather looks like it - although I confess I didn't know.....     It was an image I found and used for the CD cover of my last album.  I just liked the image.