Paulo Balzano

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Balzano's lack of communication is pretty astounding given (1) the huge delays in that Kickstarter project, (2) the (merited) reactions of the participants to those delays (just look at the "comments" section of the Kickstarter page), and (3) Balzano's past history in the knife community (which I won't get in to).

Regarding the Mars knife project in particular, there have been accusations (both on the Kickstarter page and on Instagram) that the material for the knives hasn't even been purchased yet, and that the photos on the Kickstarter page are for the most part photoshopped (only one actual knife having been made, presumably the prototype). Balzano is also accused of having done absolutely nothing to refute these claims, either by sharing photos of the progress or sufficiently explaining the reasons for his delays.

All in all, it looks very fishy to me.
 
Reading his updates and his would-be customers comments on Kickstarter and its as if he's writing a textbook on how to run a scam...

Mulder put it best "I want to believe..."
 
Any time we see kick starter or whatever new funding campaigns come up the community should turn its back. There is no recourse for these things. You get no refund. Don't buy things that don't exist from people with a poor reputation through a quasi ponzie scheme. It is that simple.
 
craytab said:
Don't buy things that don't exist from people with a poor reputation through a quasi ponzie scheme. It is that simple.
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We hold these truths to be self evident. It's like "don't pee into the wind".

But damned if folks don't line up to do it every time.
 
Been following P.B. on Instagram for a while. Looks like he's in the middle of moving into a new shop.
 
knife to a gunfight said:
Been following P.B. on Instagram for a while. Looks like he's in the middle of moving into a new shop.
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Seems a lot of these "got your money, now you can wait" makers are always "moving in to a new shop". I'd say that's probably the #3 top excuse on why knives aren't being shipped to buyers. Also up there, probably at #2 is the death of a family member. (We could the subcategory "Grandma", because it's her a lot.) Topping the list at #1 is "Health problems". Life happens, I guess, and of the thousands of great makers out there, a certain percentage can be assumed to have these common problems at any given time, but when the saga is past the year mark or so, and happens repeatedly, it becomes obvious that one is getting the proverbial shaft.
That's not good, but we as a community could make it better, and this is what I propose: When one of these guys pulls this kind of thing, we could form a pool of the classic excuses and a few not so common ones. Almost an excuse bingo, except for it to be fair, it would have to be a blind number drawing, with the trustee of the game making a random chart. "Grandma died, too anguished to make knives", for example, could be blindly picked at random to be "excuse 142". The bet could be a standard, set rate, of $5, or $10, or it could be specifically adjusted to reflect the loss. As to the winner: If it was a 50-50.. the winning number gets 50%, the poor schlub who lost the knife/money gets 50%. In the case of multiple people getting shafted, this could be adjusted as well. Just a thought. Almost like "anti-shafted" insurance, but a game. Naturally, this would be one per actual shaftee, to discourage people using this for free windfalls. Or, rather than money, the prize could be a knife. Maybe not the one that was promised from the now-unreachable maker, but something nice, with the winner of the excuse pool getting cash.
 
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