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Thats about 30 minutes from my house......may I help you?..........
Interesting part is heath comes up as a cop in little rock and mike pini is a K9 cop somewhere else!
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Balls_tothe_Walls (Heath Helton) is a scammer
- Thread starter thtieu
- Start date
Interesting part is heath comes up as a cop in little rock and mike pini is a K9 cop somewhere else!
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If there's a shred of truth to either of those, I'm sure his captain would be interested in his extra-curricular activities.
Just read pages 1-5, and the last few pages. Wow, this guy (Heath Helton aka Mike Pini) is obviously well practiced running this chargeback scam. Surprised the credit card company and PayPal have not booted him or filed charges themselves.
Just for reference for me as a newbie to online knife sales, if a member of BF is also a buyer/seller on Reddit is that in itself a red flag for high likelihood of scamming? I ask because I thought reddit was kind of a porn/anything goes/ adolescent behavior site. Do legit businesses or collectors do sales and trades there or is that not very likely on Reddit? Just reading several of the favorable posts from his Reddit friends sounded really fake like they were fake accounts he created to vouch for himself. ????
I wonder if someone on Facebook can link this thread to the Corinth PD ( or other community Org) Facebook page or something. You know to let the proud community know the exemplary behavior of one of their prominent citizens such as Heath Helton aka Mike Pini of Corinth, TX.
Just for reference for me as a newbie to online knife sales, if a member of BF is also a buyer/seller on Reddit is that in itself a red flag for high likelihood of scamming? I ask because I thought reddit was kind of a porn/anything goes/ adolescent behavior site. Do legit businesses or collectors do sales and trades there or is that not very likely on Reddit? Just reading several of the favorable posts from his Reddit friends sounded really fake like they were fake accounts he created to vouch for himself. ????
I wonder if someone on Facebook can link this thread to the Corinth PD ( or other community Org) Facebook page or something. You know to let the proud community know the exemplary behavior of one of their prominent citizens such as Heath Helton aka Mike Pini of Corinth, TX.
Reddit is a website for different communities. Some of these communities are for buying and selling knives. In this regard they are not quite as specialized as Bladeforums and the rules are also much more lax. People buy and sell and share their collections of very expensive knives there but it's usually the newer stuff. I also know that at least bladehq has an account there , not sure about other businesses.
I would say it's for the younger crowd, as well as people that are more casual in their interest in knives as opposed to knife nuts. I have bought exactly one knife there, because it did not and does not come up for sale often here. I don't think that selling across multiple sites is necessarily a red flag for a scam, but people in general should be more careful to research before they purchase anything online.
Thanks for that info about Reddit. If Heath Helton aka Mike Pini of Corinth, TX is such a long term scammer and is a LEO how in the world does he justify to himself ripping people off? That is really low class criminal to take public money for a LE job and then run a theft scam online, likely much of that on PD clock time. Blatant thief if all that is true.
I think for my own purchases I will stick with retailers or established members on reputable sites like BF. Reddit may have legit forums but just not worth the risk or worry to me and so have no plans to get into custom knives.
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- Feb 28, 2018
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- 18
I know Mike Pini from the knife community, and I wanted to say something before his name gets dragged thru the mud. His reddit / instagram accounts are:
https://www.reddit.com/user/floydian214
https://www.instagram.com/floydian214/
I've dealt with him in the past as far back as 8/15/17 (I checked my email to see the paypal transaction). This is months before Heath scammed people.
I know floydian214 is the real Mike Pini, it seems like Heath used his real name to do transactions. You can even see in one of Heath's instagram posts he calls floydian214 one of his good friends(https://www.instagram.com/p/Byq32dwH1u2nShBsmdmrdeW10jqpUBTlvBkhSM0/). Apparently the friendship is not good enough to keep his friends name untarnish.
When I told Mike that Heath was using his name he said:
Mike also said he has been and will be living in Connecticut for the foreseeable future (not Texas) and he said he does not have a Bladeforum account.
I've sure others have dealt with the real Mike on reddit or maybe instagram as well, I am certain that those accounts I posted above are owned by the real Mike.
https://www.reddit.com/user/floydian214
https://www.instagram.com/floydian214/
I've dealt with him in the past as far back as 8/15/17 (I checked my email to see the paypal transaction). This is months before Heath scammed people.
I know floydian214 is the real Mike Pini, it seems like Heath used his real name to do transactions. You can even see in one of Heath's instagram posts he calls floydian214 one of his good friends(https://www.instagram.com/p/Byq32dwH1u2nShBsmdmrdeW10jqpUBTlvBkhSM0/). Apparently the friendship is not good enough to keep his friends name untarnish.
When I told Mike that Heath was using his name he said:
Mike also said he has been and will be living in Connecticut for the foreseeable future (not Texas) and he said he does not have a Bladeforum account.
I've sure others have dealt with the real Mike on reddit or maybe instagram as well, I am certain that those accounts I posted above are owned by the real Mike.
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We banned him from knife_swap immediately after all of the chargebacks. He was red flagged for a couple days initially while his acolytes (tovarish and knife raffle people) defended him but I went through with the ban a day later because f that. Afterwards Tovarish came here to defend him immensely and almost got himself banned in the process. He used to reside in knife_Raffle where those "special folks" continued to let him do business but has since been MIA for a year up until 13 days ago he made a post in politics. iirc tovarish' words said something to the tune of "I know him very well, he's going through a legal battle, and will make everything right!". That was a year ago and I am willing to bet not a single person was 'made right'.
That's about all we could do over there as the mods to other subs are more focused on their own set of rules. W also can't dox info there to warn people of suspicious shipping info.
As for Floydian or "mike pini" he is extremely active in knife_raffle as well as knife_swap.
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- Mar 27, 2012
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Wow. I just spent three hours reading the entire thread in one sitting.
I'm no detective, but if this were a novel, I'd think that the phrases "identity theft" and "no longer married" are the most obvious clues to what MAY have happened.
Suppose that:
Sound reasonable? I'm just spitballing here.
What a crappy situation for the sellers. I feel for you. It's good to know who to avoid, and it's good to be reminded that buying & selling via G&S is absolutely necessary.
I'm no detective, but if this were a novel, I'd think that the phrases "identity theft" and "no longer married" are the most obvious clues to what MAY have happened.
Suppose that:
- Some dude that loves knives decides that he can make enough profit to live while buying/selling/trading.
- He quickly discovers that he will need capital to support the necessary volume.
- He opens a new credit card in someone else's name ONLY (maybe somebody that he shares a bed with).
- He ties this new credit card to his Paypal account.
- He furiously increases his trading/buying/selling and begins to accumulate a CC balance.
- He carefully intercepts mail to keep this a secret.
- Some months later (maybe 12-ish months later) the person that is responsible for the CC finds out.
- The CC holder files a claim for fraudulent CC activity and MAYBE files criminal charges against the knife dealer.
- CC holder suggests (or demands) that knife-boy move to Texas to live with his family. Alone.
- CC company winds up charging all funds back from Paypal (not sure if this is possible).
- Paypal freezes knife-boys' funds.
- Paypal opens investigation and ultimately returns funds to sellers that were paid via G&S.
- Paypal decides that sellers paid via F&F are on their own due to what ultimately became "insufficient funds".
- Paypal returns no funds to knife-boys Paypal account that were obtained via CC. But:
- Paypal returns funds that were provided via alternative payment methods to knife-boy (like maybe a bank account), This could perhaps account for the amount discrepancies.
- But...on ongoing investigation of identity theft or fraud involving bedfellows causes said bank account to be frozen pending an investigation, criminal or civil proceedings, etc.
- Heath continues to sell and raffle knives to reimburse someone. His lawyers.
Sound reasonable? I'm just spitballing here.
What a crappy situation for the sellers. I feel for you. It's good to know who to avoid, and it's good to be reminded that buying & selling via G&S is absolutely necessary.
Spats McGee
Gold Member
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I know I'm late to the party, and I'll admit that I didn't read all 47 pages. With that said, I'm very close to 100% certain that the Heath Helton in Eudora, KS and the one in Little Rock, AR, are two entirely different people. The whole reason I was drawn to read this thread was because I spotted the name. I've known the Heath Helton who is with the LRPD for about 10 years, and he's a stand-up guy. I haven't reached out to him to see if he's scamming anyone on BF, but I'd bet real money that he's not.