Not to flog a dead horse but I want to tell you a cautionary tale that illustrates well the advice given so far.
A long time ago in a forum far, far away the forum owner, a dedicated and very knowledgeable hoplophile, made an agreement with a well known custom rifle maker to produce a limited quantity of rifles the forum owner had specced out. These were to be made for sale to a small group of forumites, who would be getting special pricing on them. The rifle maker wanted a 50% deposit upfront to start each customer's order. Based on the options I had chosen my deposit came to about 2.5 large. Of course I swallowed hard before signing on the dotted line, but I nevertheless considered it a worthwhile expense given both the forum owner's design ethos and the reputation of the maker. I wanted that rifle so much I could taste it.
As the anticipation of the customers built we began asking the rifle maker for photos of the works in progress. At first his responses were understandable -- the actions were still at the machine shop being hand fitted, and he'd post pix once he got them in. Over the course of several months the demands for evidence of progress changed in tone from excited anticipation to frustration and then to a growing concern about the legitimacy of the deal. After repeated demands for proof of progress were either finessed or ignored outright we began issuing ultimata: allow a trusted forumite to visit the shop, see the works in progress and photo them, and post the photos, or legal recourse would be sought. These too were ignored, and by this point the rifle maker was becoming increasingly difficult to contact, and had all but stopped posting updates to the forum.
Finally, the forum owner issued an absolute ultimatum to the maker: produce irrefutable evidence of works in progress by x-and-such a date, offer refunds of deposits to anyone requesting one, or we would initiate a criminal investigation. While I now find it hard to imagine why it took me to this point to realize the deal was a crock from the git-go, it was only at this juncture that I demanded my deposit back. I sent the maker a notaried, registered letter demanding that a full refund of my deposit be wired to my bank account by x-and-such date and time. The maker responded to me personally and asked me to remain invested in the project, since if he had to start refunding deposits he wouldn't have enough cash to keep the project going. I responded that since he had abjectly failed to offer any proof whatsoever that he had even begun work on the rifles it would've been insanity to continue trusting him with my money, and that my demands for a full refund remained in effect.
Things got very complicated at this point, with two of the group claiming to still have faith in the project, excoriating those of us who were demanding refunds, and almost certainly engaging in some sub rosa collusion with the maker to perpetuate the fraud. Much acrimony followed as accusations of various sorts were leveled at various parties. I and a few others contacted the police in the rifle maker's jurisdiction, and the local PD began an investigation. I and another forumite contacted the FBI, explained the entire situation in gruesome detail, and forwarded dossiers of all our contacts with the maker, including copies of our deposit checks, the maker's acknowledgement of receipt of the deposits, and our entire forum and email correspondence with the maker.
To make a long and tedious story slightly shorter but nonetheless still tedious, the PD forwarded their case to the state AG from whom we never got any information, and the word we got from the feds was that unless the total dollar value of the claims was north of 3/4 mil they weren't interested.
Oddly, it was only at this point that any of us began googling the rifle maker. What we found was an avalanche, a veritable tsunami, of grief about how the guy had defrauded others in similar fashion. At the end of the day it turned out that the rifle maker had taken about $500,000 in deposits from about 75 customers, for whom he never produced one single rifle nor any refunds of deposits. This guy had strung some people along for as much as eight years, and in some cases was holding deposits of $20,000 for individual rifles. It's been about 4yrs since my involvement in that episode ended, and to the best of my knowledge he declared bankruptcy and was never actually prosecuted. As far as I'm aware, no one ever recovered funds from him.
There are several takeaway lessons from this sad jeremiad:
1) Always, always, always perform rigorous DUE DILIGENCE on any craftsperson with whom you intend to do business BEFORE ANY FUNDS ARE TRANSFERRED OR ANY AGREEMENTS TENDERED. As part of your due diligence, determine by whatever means possible if the craftsperson will be doing all the work themself, or if they'll be farming it out to a third party. If the latter, perform the same due diligence on the third party.
2) Do not let your passion and desire for the thing being made to blind you to obvious signs that you are being led down the primrose path. Attempt to see the totality of the situation as a disinterested third party would, free of any sense of personal investment in the outcome.
3) As a condition of any deposit have a signed written agreement regarding what is to be delivered at what cost by what date. Although I doubt many craftspeople would agree to it it's worth requesting a completion bond, or at the very least a schedule of fines for late delivery. (This really only applies in situations where the dollar amount is significant.)
4) Keep scrupulous records of all contact with the craftsperson, including evidence of monies transferred, all emails, texts, smoke signals, or any other form of communication.
5) Know in advance that if you get rogered by the craftsperson you will most likely be on your own as far as criminal complaints are concerned. Most LE agencies (from local PDs to federal alphabet agencies) don't want to know you exist unless the total dollar amount in question is above a very high threshold.
6) Consider making any payments (deposits, total amounts, etc) by credit card: if things go south you can enlist your credit card issuer to help you recover lost funds. They will most likely have far more clout than you, unless you happen to be the US AG.
