My wife and I got married on August 14th 2004. Our honeymoon had been planned for several months, and included among other things a cruise with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Even before the honeymoon we had decided to buy ourselves a special gift as a wedding present for each other. We’re not particularly wealthy, so to make an investment this large was only possible because we received money as wedding gifts. Otherwise it would take us a very long time to save this kind of money.

The cruise was originally due to depart, September 5th, 2004. However, due to hurricane Francis, the cruise was postponed a day and the itinerary was changed. We left from Port of Miami on September 6th, 2004 on Explorer of the Seas. This was our first cruise.

On the cruise, on one of the first days, we attended a Park West at Sea auction. The auctioneer was Mr. Roger Nevard. He seemed very trustworthy and talked passionately about the art.

We always liked the works of Salvador Dali, so naturally we looked closely at the pieces on display. However it was a big investment, and I didn't want to spend that kind of money in an auction. Mr. Nevard, as I mentioned, talked passionately about Dali. He explained a lot about the lithographs and stated that this would be a very good investment. The value was sure to go up. To reassure me about the value of the pieces, Mr. Nevard referred to the 'Additional terms and conditions' (stated on the back of the invoice) and told us that if a piece sold by Park West Gallery didn't hold the value stated by Park West, we could get our money back.

We decided to buy a lithograph from the Sacra Biblia collection. The piece Filius Prodigus (The Prodigal Son) was signed in the plate and also signed with red pencil 'by the artist'. I thought it was awesome to have a piece signed by the 'great Dali'. We made contact with Mr. Roger Nevard and made the deal. The ship was at this time in port in Costa Maya, Mexico.

The piece was numbered and annotated 'g.a. II/IX' in the later mentioned appraisal this exact piece was identified by Park West Gallery as 100617.0010.

The price was $9,442.50. A total of $9,492.50 was withdrawn from my account. I can't remember how we paid for the piece, but it was either with our own credit card or using the RCCL onboard 'credit card' (the one that's also ID card and key for the stateroom door).

We returned from our honeymoon on September 14th, and began waiting for the Dali piece. After the estimated 6-8 weeks, we had not received anything, aside from the many "posters" that were given to us for free by Park West. I began calling and writing to Park West Gallery, but had a very difficult time getting any answer from them. After almost 17 weeks we finally received something from Park West. This was in early January 2005.

However it was the wrong piece. This piece was also from the Sacra Biblia collections. It's named: Ipse Erat Elias (Elijah). It was signed both in the plate and also with blue pencil. However it was not annotated by Park West.

The invoice from the parcel handler stated the value as $2,500. This is the value that is stated by the sender due to customs rules. I made contact to Park West about the mistake. I thought that the piece was nice and asked about an offer for this piece, and expected something around $1,500-2,000. I still wanted to receive the piece that I originally collected though.

On January 27th, 2005 I received a letter from Park West with an offer to exchange the wrongly received piece for the one I originally collected. The offer was a supposed 'generous offer' from Park West, as the wrong piece was: 'far higher in value than your original order'.

I was very upset about this, as the information from Park West Gallery didn't make any sense. At this point I was sure that they were trying to defraud me.