Fraud, lies and knives...

keninshiro

keninshiro

Joined
Apr 19, 1999
Messages
2,259
Gooday' everyone,

It's been quite awhile since i posted anything in the general forums(i hang out at Community more) but something had prompt me to post this. There has been many fraud cases being reported in GBU and i'm sadden by the fact that many trolls take advantage of knife collectors like us. We work like a dog everday, get our pay at the end of the month and put our hard earn money into something that we all have passion for; knives and 'these' people come in here and scam us. What the ****? I wish we have lie detectors so advance that we need to press our thumb on the screen to varify if the transaction is worthy or not Or an individual are only allow to do business when their membership duration had reach a "mature" amount of post say a 100 or something like that to discourage this scam-sters!!! We all pay for what we want, why can't you frauds do the same? Must you all lie and scam to gain benefit of others? Do you all believe in 'Karma'? It goes something like this: "Do onto others and others will do onto you!!!" Believe me, Everthing goes in a full circle...one way or another, you will pay.

Eric Wong.
 
Hey, im with you on this one. I work like a dog everyday making knives, and when orders mysterously fall through it hurts the checking account, as well as my ego. Fortunatly ive only actually been burned and lost money once, and it was by someone who has had a habit of it ( this happened before I started hanging out here ) but ive had numerous orders that got written up in the book, put in the work schedule and never happened. Anyway, yeah I know where youre coming from, and I wish these people didnt exist, but remember; without evil in the world, we have no way to judge good. -- Charles
 
Do I believe in Karma in general??? No.

But, on the internet there's an affect that I've heard described as "instant karma," and this I do believe in.

On Ebay, it's the "Feedback" system. Before I bid in an auction, I look at the seller's feedback. If he's got bad feedback, I don't bid.

Here at bf.c, our instant karma engine is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly forum. Before you do a deal with someone, run a search in this forum.
 
From a maker's point of view, I totally agree with Charles. It is really nasty to have an order you have been working on, spending your time in and discussing with teh customer about to fall through when you are ready to deliver it and it has happened with me at BF more than once.
You don't actually loose the knife but it really hurts as you were counting on that money.
Even though this is a worthwhile topic, I am not sure if it is in the right forum. Moderators?
 
I know if I was a maker and some customer did that to me, I would be posting a name in the GB&U. That's just not right...

Sadly, the GB&U does seem to have quite a few Ugly posts of late, but "the truth will out", and let the chips fall where they may...

And yes, I am a firm believer in "what comes around goes around"..gets me through some of the more wearisome days.
 
There is always two (or more!) sides to every "bad" and "ugly" that happens. I too am in the middle of a custom order that is suffering from a distinct lack of communication and some serious presumed procrastination from the makers end. I will not name any names as long as everything works out, but I am not a patient man. I understand that there are many variables in life and business. I seriously doubt that there are too many malicious people doing business here, but those few bad apples do certainly spoil the fun. I think if someone purposely screws up a deal from either end, then they have it coming to them in a public forum. The key here is intent. I know that I personally would do everthing to uphold my name and reputation, and most everybody else here would also.
Just my ramblin' .02

Mongo
 
Question for Mr. Marlowe. I am curious as to the details of the Jeff McClain custom order that went haywire. If you wouldnt mind, please let us know exactly what happened with that one. Did you make knives for him, deliver them and then he didnt pay? Or, did you have an agreement to make knives, make the knives and then he decided he did not want the knives? Were/are you stuck with the knives or are you still waiting for payment on knives delivered?
 
I'm not a "troll" and I'm not besmirching ANY maker, especially since there are two sides to everything and in GB&U you usually only get one side...BUT it seems to me, in my reading of the threads in GB&U that there are more complaints about sellers than there are buyers. This may be because the sellers have enough class that they don't want to harm a buyers reputation, but then they shouldn't be condemning a whole class of people. Complaints about individuals that burn you accomplishes something positive, complaints about groups don't.
 
Both, still waiting on payment for one knife delivered, and Im stuck with another knife that he never paid for .
 
Actually I have noticed that there have been very few complaints in the GB&U forum over the last little while. Most of the bad posts that I see that involve someone getting screwed are in deals where a trade is involved. There also seems to be a few problems with makers meeting promised delivery dates and having poor communication about why these dates are missed.

As far as most of the threads being aimed at the seller, that only makes sense. More often than not the seller wants payment before the knife is shipped. If the seller has the money before the knife is shipped then he obviously has no complaint against the buyer. The buyer on the other hand, once the knife has been paid for expects that it will arrive in due haste. If that does not happen, we tend to see a complaint in the GB&U forum.

Considering the number of deals that must go down involving members of this forum, I think the amount of complaints seen are miniscule in number. None would be best, but that is never going to happen. Makers are more often than not going to be overly optomistic about their delivery dates. This is something I have come to expect and as long as the date is not missed by to long a time, it doesn't bother me.

There are always going to be scumbags on this earth. The knife community is bound to have some of these people. I am a firm believer that when these people are found out, they should be outted. Report them so that others will have the chance to find out about their dishonesty before they get scammed.

Edited because I screwed up again.:rolleyes:
 
What kinds of knives do you make Mr Marlowe? Do you have a web presence for pictures?

I, and others might just want to make it better by buying something.

I aint rich, just a working class cat, but I am severely smitten with pretty knife toys!

and the same for Kenshiro and kwm, and all other makers too!
 
Just curious -- for the makers -- if you get "stuck" with a custom knife, can't you pretty easily turn around and sell it to someone else pretty quickly? Seems like there would be very little harm done...?

Mike
 
No, actually selling the knives is the hard part of this business. When you start dealing with customs, not just handmade stock models, it can become more difficult. Regardless, its not just about being "stuck" with the knife its the principle of building a knife for someone, and then them backing out of the deal at the last minute.
 
The system that works the best for me is:
1- Call the buyer when I'm ready to start the knife and iron out the finer points of the deal.
2- Call the buyer when the knife is finished and ready to ship.

3-Ship the knife when I get paid (same day). For a few that I'm sure of I will ship the knife as soon as it's finished and let the payment come later. (Read this as ONLY someone with a five star rep).

4-I've been poked enough over the past 50 years to set up my own ground rules. I know it sends some sales elsewhere but I have to make three sales to break even on a bad deal. In the long run it saves me money and everyone hard feelings.
:)
 
Hmmm...sounds like custom makers should always collect payment up front.

For this buyer, I have had problems with two kinds of fraud. The first was a maker who claims to make his own blades, but I later discovered that the blades on his knives were finished blades from Jantz Supply.

The second problem was with a famous and usually highly regarded maker who made misleading statements to me regarding the delivery date of my custom order. I was repeatedly told my knife was "scheduled to be shipped" on a certain date, but it eventually became clear that "scheduled" in no way meant the knife would actually be shipped.

When I found a thread in GBU by an individual who had a similar problem with that maker, I added my own story to the thread. The distinguished maker read my post and promptly canceled my order - but never did explain what he meant by "scheduled to be shipped".
 
Charles,

See! I'm a good guy. Even though I'm in unpleasant financial difficulties, I'm still gonna scrape together something to get mine paid for.

I gotta liquidate some other toys I think, but I'll be able to make it.

Just you get hurried up and finish it already, mmmmkay????. ;)

-Jon
 
Hmmm. Perhaps there is a way to help custom makers that are "stuck" with products. If you have good images of the knife, we could list it on our custom knife page with instructions on how to buy it from the maker directly. A web site like ours gets thousands of page views every hour. If any maker has a good image of a one-off custom that isn't moving, I'd be happy to put it up on the site no charge. Just understand that I'd have to put some language in the listing keeping us out of the transaction completely because we can't take any product responsibility at all for a transaction for which we make no money. It seems like a reasonable service to provide to custom makers as long as it isn't abused. Let me know if you'd like to give it a whirl.
 
Or, better yet, they could list it for sale here in the KnifeMakers section... since this area is ready made.
 
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