yes and no............
first off, using one hand so bear with me on punctuation.
long story short (not a chance....LOL).......ray had friend bill akers of 'backwoods' knives build him a very nice knife a few years back. ray said his dog needed vet treatment and was short on cash. i was a fairly new bf member and after ray posted he needed to sell the custom bill made for him to afford treatment for his much beloved dog and bill and a few others vouched for ray being honorable, yada, yada, i paid the full price of what ray was asking and sent my best regards that his dog recover and that ray also could get back on his feet soon (financially). as many here are, i'm also a huge dog lover.
i also made it clear that i would only hold this knife until ray coud afford to buy it back for the same amount of money i paid ray for the knife. ray explained how much he loved this knife and really didn't want to part with it, so my intent from the get go was to hold it for ray, no matter how long it took. ray stated in posts that he really appreciated my gesture and would definitely want to reacquire this knife before purchasing any others and would save his pennies in order to do so. the entire 'backwoods' sub-forum was privvy to this as ray's thread asking for financial help became rather a big deal......to say the least.
i send the money the very next day, knife arrives shortly thereafter. ray suddenly quits posting in his dog thread. i and a few others, being concerned about his dog, post questions in the thread to ray asking about his dogs progress. no response, no response and finally a short response that he'd forgotten about his own thread so he missed all of our posts. dogs fine now. the entire time he didn't answer our concerns about his dog, he was posting to other knife makers about having them build him a knife (or several) in the near future. come to find out, he had in fact, done so...at least once.
prior to knowing about his posts to other makers about future builds, i had started to email and post my concerns to ray about him not responding to any of the more loyal bill akers fans and me about his dogs progress or his plans to reacquire the knife i bought from him. nada...nothing, and to this day, not a word. i surely didn't want the knife as i said from the beginning that he had bill build this knife specifically for him and i had no desire nor intent to ever keep this knife, especially when ray initially convinced us that he would buy this knife back as soon as he could afford it. i purchased this knife with this understanding and even then i felt a bit guilty about even taking possesion of the knife given the few positive, atta boy comments on his behalf from some established bf members! i almost just sent him the $ as a loan so his dog could receive immedaite treatment, but not knowing ray whatsoever, i decided against that option..........thankfully. i'm not rich nor was i back then, but i felt if someone was in a bind enough to ask for $ help on a forum, that's gotta be legit. makes me not so eager these days to extend myself to anyone outside of family and that doesn't truthfully set very well with me.
I've waited a looooooong time for ray to respond (2 years now)......nothing. but he has likely sold and purchased many different knives since then....pretty obvious just from this thread alone. i asked bill and other members of bill's sub-forum what they thought that i should do 'cuz i promised ray that i would hold it for him until he could afford to buy it back. another member did some sleuthing and it became evident that ray was making deals all around me, just not with me. every single person that posted about this situation said that ray broke the deal so do whatever benefitted me the most. i immediately put the knife up for sale and sold it for exactly the same price i had bought it for. beautiful knife, but not mine, never was. if ray didn't like or want the knife, he could have just sold it. but instead, he lied from beginning to end on this deal and took advantage of several of us............financially as well as on a very personal level.
to this day, i have never heard from ray nor has he ever owned up to what he did. he lost the respect of all that followed this scam on the 'backwoods' forum and i have no idea if he has even revisited that sub-forum since his scam was clearly and without question.....exposed.
soooooooooo.....as to ray being a stand-up guy.......not so much. this is but my own feelings regarding ray, however, feel free to ask any long time bf member who frequents the 'backwoods' sub-forum and has done so for 2 years or so and ask them how ray is such a stand-up guy. or do a search (as my linking skills suck).
i surely have nothing to hide, but had i not revealed what i do know to be true about ray's character and then later some other bf member(s) gets scammed by ray, i don't want nor need that on my conscience.
if your word is good 100% of the time, issues like this will never be of a concern. and if one goes through life believing and hoping that time cures all........unless dealt with at some point..........that's just not true, nor should it be.
let's just be as careful as we can be.................perhaps my experience and sharing it with you might help to fend off that which offends most honest members.......i truly hope so.
i knew the second that i read the OP's first post, first quote that i was going to divulge what i knew of ray. when ray said, "if you ever want to sell it again.....let me know!!" Try this bill.......offer to sell the knife back to ray and see what happens.
I took a couple of the kids out for a pic today:
