Well now that all the players are at this card game...I will "open" with the facts, once again. First though...for John to call me a liar is insulting. If there is one thing I pride myself on it is that I was raised to tell the truth and I live by it, whether it benefits me or not.
To quickly rehash the story...the gun was for sale at Game Fair for $2400.00. In one of our calls I CLEARLY asked if the gun had ANY issues, and started my check list on if there were any cracks. ALL the answers to my questions were "NO" in that there were NO issues with the gun at all. Lets make this clear here...I was told there were NO cracks, NO issues with the gun. The deal was struck where I would pay the $2400.00 and John would pay for the shipping.
Gun arrived at my dealer...best pack job I have seen bar none. The box was in perfect shape, no evidence at all of any damage during transit. Open opening the packed gun up, I immediately saw the large crack behind the right lockplate. The left lockplate has 2 smaller cracks in line with the grain and are hard to see (to those who don't know Smiths I guess) but they were clearly there. One of the bottom fingers was cracked as well. I STOPPED my examination of the gun right there. I paid for a gun that was told to me to NOT have any cracks. I called John RIGHT THEN...and told him of the cracks. He informed me that the gun was crack free when he shipped it and that it must have cracked in shipping. "What ever", is the thought that came to my mind but regardless he did say send it back and he would refund my money.
STOP the story right there...the gun was cracked...it was not described as cracked...as these pictures will show...it was cracked all along.
Therefore, on just this point alone, the gun's condition was not fully disclosed and as such I feel that I was mislead and the gun was misrepresented. Therefore...I feel I am owed ALL costs involved, which is the original $30.00 shipping fee he deducted from my refund(John says he mailed that, I have not recieved it yet), the $25.00 FFL transfer fee, and the $41.84 it cost me to FedEx the gun back to him. Grand total of $96.84.
Start story again:
Upon looking the gun over more closely I discovered that the bottom rib was loose just ahead of the forend lug. I could lift up the rib from both tubes with my finger nail. This picture shows the rib. (can't really tell but you can see there is a gap where the rib should be soldered in place).
Lastly...for the major issues...I placed the barrels back on the reciever and shook the gun. It rattled...I put pressure on the rib to see if that was it...NOPE...the barrels rattle against the breech face. The right barrel has a noticable gap between the barrel and the breech face. I "assume" this is the problem area as I did not see any other area that looked like an issue.
Those additional problems just pile on top of the first issue of the crack. NONE of these issues were disclosed to me when I agreed to buy the gun. Common sense will dictate here that these "issues" did not occur in transit to me. I find it odd for someone to say that all of this occured in transit, but yet these very issues (except the off face issue) are KNOWN problem areas on Smiths. I was not aware that stocks cracked behind the lockplate, or fingers get broke, or ribs pop loose from being mailed? Crap...better never ship a gun again...and here I thought these issues were inherent problems (sometimes) with Smiths...all along we should have been blaming which ever carrier shipped the gun, mystery solved!
Give me a break. Now...getting back to the story line, I called John the very next day to tell about the rib issue and being off face. I left a message, and later called and spoke with a guy named Hunter (an employee). I was told the message would get to John on this.
A few days later I recieved my refund check in the amount of $2370.00, I paid $2400 for the gun. I then contacted Game Fair and let them know about the refund being short AND told them that I expected the other shipping fees and FFL Transfer fee as well when he sent the correct amount back.
I gave John the chance to do this right...I went a step further and kept his name off the board. He has now replied saying I am very misleading or an outright lier. The facts are now presented before you.
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/qclHjMQ.jpg)
