Name: Kai Martin Tirhage
Location: Västra Frölunda, Sweden
Email: KTirhage@hotmail.com, flashbackalanballanflashback@hotmail.com
Introducing Qwak
Qwak is a fast-paced platformer developed by an indie game developer called Jamie Woodhouse. The first version of the game appeared over 20 years ago on the BBC Micro, and over the years it has appeared on a number of different platforms.
About 10 years ago I purchased 2 copies for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance – one for me and one “just in case”. They weren’t expensive yet I knew the run would be limited so why not?
A few weeks back I came across the games while cleaning out some storage. I checked eBay to see what they were going for and was delighted when I found two copies listed for a lot more than I paid for mine, so I decided to list one of them.
When I originally bought the games they came with a paper manual – literally two pieces of A5 paper stapled together. The manuals weren’t with the games when I found them though so I listed just the cartridge.
One of the other listings on eBay included the manual but was listed at almost twice the price. I reasoned that most people wouldn’t care about such a flimsy piece of paper and looked forward to a sale.
Enter Kai Tirhage
A few days later I received an email from a guy called Kai Tirhage who was based in Sweden. Kai wanted to buy the game with the manual but he claimed the seller wouldn’t ship to Sweden, so he asked me if I would be willing to buy the game and sell it to him. I replied and said as long as he paid me first (so that I didn’t end up stuck with two copies!), sure, I would help him out.
Over the next couple of weeks, Kai kept promising to send the money by a certain date. Several times that date came and went with no sign of payment. After repeated instances I decided that Kai was just a time-waster and forgot about him.
Some time later, Kai sent me another message claiming that there had been a delay because he’d been dealing with his sick mother. Aha, sure. Not wanting to get into another round of time-wasting, I told Kai that if he wanted my help then he had to send the money there and then – or alternatively to get lost. He sent the money via PayPal.
Over the course of these couple of weeks though, I had since found the manuals for my games. So rather than buy this other guy’s copy, it made more sense to just send mine. I told Kai up-front so that he didn’t think I was ripping him off when he saw that the other guy’s eBay listing wasn’t marked as sold.
I slipped the game and the manual into a padded Jiffy bag along with a piece of cardboard to help ensure that the paper manual wasn’t creased during transit. I shipped it to the above address with tracking.
Kai Tries To Steal From Me
A few days later I received an email from PayPal. Kai had opened a dispute claiming that he’d received the package but that it contained nothing but a piece of cardboard – no game and no manual. You can see what he did here: Kai had decided that he wanted both the game and his money and he was willing to lie to PayPal in order to achieve this goal.
Today i collect a letter from you. But its empty just cardboard inside. Explain this!? Because i feel fooled by you 🙁 /Kai
Even more spectacularly, Kai wasn’t suggesting that the Jiffy bag had been tampered with during its journey – his claim was that I had posted him nothing more than a piece of cardboard.
As you can no doubt imagine, I was pretty pissed off with Kai. I wasn’t going to bargain with this liar so I immediately escalated the case to PayPal and provided evidence of postage, the tracking number and the weight of the package as it was when I sent it: which was of course heavier than if it had just been a piece of cardboard inside the Jiffy bag.
Update #1 (27/5/17)
In order to ensure that Kai was aware that his actions had consequences, I sent him a link to this post.
I thought things could go one of two ways: he could either realise his mistake, cancel the claim, apologise for a moment of madness and learn from this experience; or he could respond to being caught out with a mixture of fear, aggression and threats.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given his behaviour up to this point, Kai chose the latter.
Hi!
If you dont remove this i will report you for personalities.
What are you? If you want trouble i will give more than you can manage./Kai Tirhage
Note that his only concern here was in having this post removed in order to protect his name. He didn’t challenge my assertion that he received the game and he didn’t reiterate his claim that all he received was a piece of card. This was of course because he did receive the game.
Update #2 (29/5/17)
I learned that someone who linked to this post in order to warn even more sellers of Kai’s antics had been contacted by an “Anette Tirhage” who appeared to be a relative of Kai’s. She warned the guy against any further reposts and threatened him with legal action.
Just so you know this is a police case.
And if you not have all fact mute.
Defamation will be made on you.
I was going to elaborate on how hilarious this was but I thought that would just be stating the obvious. So instead here are a couple of simple facts:
- Defamation is not a criminal matter – it is a civil one. The police would not be involved in any way, shape or form. The fact that Anette claimed that this was a police matter suggested that bullshitting ran in the family.
- As already stated above, in order for a case of defamation to be brought the claims made would have to be false. The claims I had made here though were demonstrably true. The only thing I could be found guilty of was “warning people about a thief”, and thankfully that was neither a criminal offence nor a civil one.
Update #3 (08/06/17)
It took over TWO WEEKS, but PayPal finally closed the dispute in my favour. Kai had supplied what he claimed was a police report, but it was just a typed up email. PayPal rightfully concluded that police are not in the business of issuing such reports via that medium and they twice requested that he provide a scanned-in copy of a proper report on police-headed paper. Unsurprisingly, Kai was unable to do so.
Dear Seller,
We’ve completed our review and decided this claim in your favour. Any amount which was temporarily held for this claim has been returned to your PayPal account.
This case was decided in your favour because your buyer was unable to provide the information we had requested.