Mike Obenauf To Stop Making Knives?

Sheesh. If the man took deposits knowing he wasn't going to make the knives, that would be fraud. We don't know that, and it doesn't look likely.

What he did was take deposits from Peter the customer to pay Paul the creditor and never caught up. Now he has to stop making knives to get a fulltime job earning money to catch up.

Any step in the direction of paying back what he owes is a refutation of the charge of fraud. Let him who can't really know what's going on, keep the accusations to himself.
 
"I have recieved prepayment on knives that I do not have supplies to finish! The situation was getting ready to get very ugly for me, so I thought I would go ahead and bite the bullet. I have had a few personal issues over the past year, bills piled up, and I got desperate, and took funds on knives." Quoted from Mike Obenauf's post

If you take something that is not yours, either by theft or deception, plan and simple its stealing.
Read his post. He took funds for knives he knew he could not finish.
How is this not fraud???

Mike has made a very public admission of guilt- not an apology- as evidenced by his remark " the situation was getting ready to get very ugly for me."
IMHO the ones that the situation got "ugly for" were Mike's customers that have not received knives that they paid for.

"To keep this in perspective, it is not stealing when you can't pay your deposits back, it is part of the risk of crediting someone for something for which you have nothing to show".- Quoted from post #17- Architect
What? I guess the Enron scandal was business as usual and Ponzi schemes are O.K. by your definition.

IF Mike makes good on the monies he has fraudulently taken ( read his post- he could not finish the knives) this is called restitution.
There's a big difference between being "honorable" and making restitution.

This is not something new for Mike. Almost two years ago I waited over four and a half months for Mike to make good on prepaid knives that were of poor quality. To this day one of the knives has not been repaired or replaced.

Paul
 
bgspecialk said:
"I have recieved prepayment on knives that I do not have supplies to finish! The situation was getting ready to get very ugly for me, so I thought I would go ahead and bite the bullet. I have had a few personal issues over the past year, bills piled up, and I got desperate, and took funds on knives." Quoted from Mike Obenauf's post

If you take something that is not yours, either by theft or deception, plan and simple its stealing.
Read his post. He took funds for knives he knew he could not finish.
How is this not fraud???


This is not something new for Mike. Almost two years ago I waited over four and a half months for Mike to make good on prepaid knives that were of poor quality. To this day one of the knives has not been repaired or replaced.

Paul
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First of all, Paul, if you read the original quote again, his problem wasn't that he didn't intend to make the knives. It was that he didn't have the supplies to to do that. That's when he took payments on those and other knives, hoping to buy the supplies that would get him over the hump.

Sticking you with defective knives wasn't cool, since we know he can do better work than that. But 4 and a half months isn't a real long wait.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Sheesh. If the man took deposits knowing he wasn't going to make the knives, that would be fraud. We don't know that, and it doesn't look likely.

What he did was take deposits from Peter the customer to pay Paul the creditor and never caught up. Now he has to stop making knives to get a fulltime job earning money to catch up.

Any step in the direction of paying back what he owes is a refutation of the charge of fraud. Let him who can't really know what's going on, keep the accusations to himself.
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No. It minimizes the risk that he get into deeper trouble but he doesn't change the fact that he took the money when he knew full well that he couldn't either deliver or pay it back - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to keep track of cash flows when they are that simple. The fact of the matter is that he took the deposits and spent the money. Maybe he spent the money on raw materials, but that means that before that he spent his raw material money on something else. In short, it doesn't matter if he spent the money on raw materials or at a local strip club. He happily took the money from Paul to pay for the knife of Peter, and who knows or care what he did with Peter's money in the meantime...

So OK, he is a little less to blame for admitting his mistakes rather than running away, but until and unless he pays back the money (and that should be with interest, btw - knife collectors are not a bank), it's still fraud.
 
Why not ask Mike what supplies he needs to finish the knives, send him any extra supplies us makers have that he needs. he was honorable in telling us we should be honorable in helping him...
 
Interesting replies so far. For you folks who are defending him in some way, let me ask you this.

Let's say you walk up to Mike's table at the Blade Show and hand him almost $400 for that Model 2 you've been wanting. You watch as he walks over and gives your money to the show promoter to pay for his table fees. You listen patiently while he explains that because he has had some trouble in his personal life, he had to use your money to pay his show expenses. He tells you that he doesn't have any more knives to give you, however, at some indeterminate period in the future (6 months? A year? More?) you'll get your money back...

Would you tell him that he's a stand-up guy for owning up to his problems and saying that he'd make restitution at a later date, or would you be looking around for the nearest cop?

He's had my money for over 6 months. I was supposed to recieve the knife within a few weeks. I didn't pre-pay for a knife to be built some time in the future. I'm not a creditor who lent him money in exchange for principle and interest in return. And, although he's made a couple of posts at the CK&G forum explaining his situation, he has yet to contact me personally to tell me how he's going to make good.

I'm a pretty forgiving guy. I hope he gets back on his feet and makes restitution to those those of us whom he owes money. However, I do wonder if the response to this ordeal would have been the same if his name was Allen Blade or Brad Duncan, or if Kit Carson hadn't been his father-in-law and mentor.
 
severedthumbs said:
this is all true but lets not lose sight of this threads main topic. another thief gone.
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He is NO thief!!! Even by legal definition the guy's no thief. A thief is a person who takes the property of another with a purpose to deprive that person permanently.

Good luck Mike and hang in there.
 
I think the big difference is he's admitted the issue and pledged to work through it. You have to admit that's a big step forward from some other makers who have had similar issues.
 
Since it was mentioned that Kit Carson is his mentor and Father-in-Law, (I knew this already), I wonder if Kit has given him some advice on this issue, or perhaps even offered to help him out a bit?

From what I know and have seen, Mike makes a very good knife. he has one hell of a mentor, and I would be very suprised to find out that Kit did NOT advise him on the business end of things. I find it hard to believe that he intentionally ripped anyone off, and I would believe that Kit has told him he needs to make it right to salvage his reputation.

Kelly and others, just because he is Kits relative does NOT give him a free pass, but he does deserve the benefit of the doubt until he doesn't make good on his promises. We have given others the same here, so Mike shouldn't be treated any different.

It might not be a bad idea for him to post here as well, and I do believe he should be in personal contact with the folks he owes.

EDIT: I just read Mikes thread over at CK&G. Seems like he's being sincere at rectifying things. I know if I had some knifemaking supplies on hand, I'd sure try and help him out.
 
Dealing with a custom maker of anything is always a crapshoot....and that is the way that it is.

Mike O. is solid in the Garsson camp! I have done business with the man, and his product was as expected(GTG) and he went over and beyond.

If anything, his association with Kit is going to help him make good before he goes the way of the scumbags some have brought up in this thread.

The man truly deserves a chance to right himself before everyone goes for the tar and feathers.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Kit is Mikes ex-father in law and Kit has stated publicly that Mike has not contacted him regarding this matter and that he was very disappointed. things that make you go hmmmm
 
It is sad when a maker of Mike's caliber stops making for ANY reason, but particularly troubling when they can no longer make a decent living selling knives that are in fairly high demand at $400-500 a pop. Thats the kind of thing I don't get and I hope Mike can get his act together.

This is the reason you NEVER pay for a custom knife in advance. Not ever.
 
and once a smith starts asking for payment up front its a red flag.

imho legit smiths wont do that anyway.
 
Sometimes its a vicious downward spiral and before you know it your spiraling out of control and crash and burn. Happens to allot of business's that eventually fail and are no longer around. Some businesses are good at what they do but bad at managing money. I am sure it was very hard for Mike to post that thread at CK&G and it will be even harder for him to repay and make good on knife orders down the road. What he did was wrong and I don't endorse it at all. But he has acknowledged his shortfalls and I believe it was from the heart! We are all human and we do make mistakes. Give the man some time to make it right and dig himself out. There have been others in the past that have taken the more popular traveled road and just plain disappeared. But I believe Mike will make it right in time and I wish him the best of luck since he is my friend in Good and Bad times!
 
and once a smith starts asking for payment up front its a red flag.

imho legit smiths wont do that anyway.
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I agree with this, but with one exception: if you are asking for exotic materials, you should have to pay for those materials up front in most cases.

Each maker has their own policies, and I myself will not do business with a maker who wants money up front, unless it is for the exotics.
 
antonanton said:
yeahh hh... for those who eat Ramen ... you gotta check your blood pressure :) :) LOL.
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well, I'm the blood pressure victim from eating ramen as a daily staple.

I've been through so many terrible patches where I never thought I'd see the light, so I'm rooting for Mike.
 
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