Bad Survive! Deserves A Permanent Post In The Hall Of Shame

navman said:
Recommendation to Survive! sell the blanks to a reputable maker. Provide a list of those who have pending orders to that maker. Fade into the ether.

Pretty sure that was what happed to Hide Away Knives, after the former owner...screwed the pooch.
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Pàdruig said:
Here are some of the comments that snuck in before he limited them.

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Called it.....
 
I watched the YouTube video. ITS ALL A COP OUT! Everyone did everything wrong but the guy making the video. The steel manufacturer was out to ruin him. The moving company was out to get them. The damn brick wall in the new facility was out to get them. Ellie was out to get him. Apparently the dog was out to get him.

I’m full of swear words for the situation I won’t share here. How could someone possibly squander all that money and inventory and goodwill, and then the truth comes out that he doesn’t want to just sit and do the damn work, and suddenly it’s “closing down the business” time? “Selling the inventory and IP” isn’t the actual answer, getting the work done and knives out the door is the answer.

I am glad to hear all of our complaints to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office are being addressed. I’m only out $278 but I know some here are out thousands. Hopefully there is some restitution possible.
 
I listened to Jon's entire video while running with the dog last night. Wow. There is a lot to unpack in Jon’s rambling post. In no particular order, here are the things that stood out to me:

Notably absent from Jon’s video is any talk of Guy and Ellie consistently lying about lead times and obfuscating their inability to fill orders. This was one of the cornerstones of the con, and Jon never mentions it.

Jon also doesn’t say anything about the Magnacut issue. “Defective steel” was the most recent issue Guy used as an excuse, and the majority of his recent social media content was about this. The fact that this is never mentioned in Jon’s video leads me to feel more strongly that “defective steel” was never really a problem.

Jon is not too smart. He saw an investment in S!K as a get rich quick opportunity. He gave guy $30K (or was it $35K) without a firm agreement in place. He was also happy to ignore Guy’s history of deception and sleazy business practices in the hopes of buying his way into the “Knife Industry.” Similar to Guy, he was looking for easy money.

He talks a lot about how many knives were in backlog when he bought into S!K, how many he shipped during his time there and how many orders were outstanding when he left. His numbers don’t add up, especially considering that he claims that they were only getting $1k in sales a week. (i think that sales number is right. someone correct me if I am wrong). I think Jon is exaggerating the impact he had at S!K.

Jon really trashes Guy’s work ethic, management skill, and just about everything else about him. He conveniently leaves out that Guy and Ellie LIED to the knife community for years.

He claims Guy is a savant, and has some BS story about super natural perceptive powers and a gift for knife design and manufacturing. This part was nuts, and made me cringe.

The forum was pretty spot on regarding what was going on inside S!K. The business was mismanaged, Guy was incompetent, Ellie was incompetent, the business was a house of cards held together with lies.

The final straw that caused Jon to “break up” with Guy was that he ignored him at a restaurant. The level of Jon's butthurt over Guy not being nice is so misplaced given everything else that was going on.

Jon was more than happy to get into bed with two know con artists (Guy and Ellie), but doesn’t like the blowback he is getting for promoting the con.

His comments about the other YT influencers that helped him promote S!K are laughable.

Finally, Jon is really not that smart and had no qualifications to own / run a business.

This is just my disorganized thoughts. If I misspoke or am in error regarding what Jon said, my apologies.
 
My first post since signing up, but just wanted to thank everyone that tried warning people like me from buying and getting conned by Survive! (Unfortunately, I didn’t find out about this thread before it was too late)

Good lesson learned though, thank you.
 
shinyedges said:
Holy hell, I wonder how many people will get shafted with no money returned or knife.
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I’d have to watch HST’s “I tried” video again 🤮 but I believe he mentioned that there are thousands of pre orders waiting to be completed and shipped.
 
Boru13 said:
I’d have to watch HST’s “I tried” video again 🤮 but I believe he mentioned that there are thousands of pre orders waiting to be completed and shipped.
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3500 was the number he was throwing around as outstanding toward the end of the video. He also estimated that was over 1 million dollars of prepaid orders.
 
Boru13 said:
I’d have to watch HST’s “I tried” video again 🤮 but I believe he mentioned that there are thousands of pre orders waiting to be completed and shipped.
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I believe he says 3500 and 4000 at different point in the video. From the way he describes S!Ks record keeping, I really wonder if they even know the real number. Jon talks about being told different things about the status of the business at different times. I think it is safe to say that there are AT LEAST 3500, and very probably a lot more...
 
I'm waiting for all the guy/survive supporters to come here and admit everyone who said this was a ponzi/scam type hustle and stunk of all kinds of bad, were right........

these are all humble and decent type people.......so the wait shouldn't be too long......
 
jbmonkey said:
I'm waiting for all the guy/survive supporters to come here and admit everyone who said this was a ponzi/scam type hustle and stunk of all kinds of bad, were right........

these are all humble and decent type people.......so the wait shouldn't be too long......
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Boru13 said:
I’d have to watch HST’s “I tried” video again 🤮 but I believe he mentioned that there are thousands of pre orders waiting to be completed and shipped.
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Wow. I'm guessing he's open to a lawsuit? I'm glad they were booted years ago and at least the guys on here were warning people to stay away which might possibly have saved some folks a headache.
jbmonkey said:
I'm waiting for all the guy/survive supporters to come here and admit everyone who said this was a ponzi/scam type hustle and stunk of all kinds of bad, were right........

these are all humble and decent type people.......so the wait shouldn't be too long......
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Monkey, you know damn well all those rabid fanboys aren't going to come in here and admit they were wrong. I vividly remember the days before survive got booted how heated it was and how fervent they were. Turns out we were 100% right about the scheme. Reading back through the threads is a hoot.
 
ncrockclimb said:
Jon is not too smart. He saw an investment in S!K as a get rich quick opportunity. He gave guy $30K (or was it $35K) without a firm agreement in place. He was also happy to ignore Guy’s history of deception and sleazy business practices in the hopes of buying his way into the “Knife Industry.” Similar to Guy, he was looking for easy money.
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This x10. I’ve had the opportunity to negotiate nine figure plus investments in my industry on several occasions, and even in that context I’ve never seen a single dollar change hands between the primary parties without a fully executed agreement in place. Even with something like an executed LOI the most you might see is some due diligence work being performed since it’s non binding. To just hand over 30K without any due diligence or executed contract is insane to me, particularly when that probably represents a significant percentage of their overall savings.
 
shinyedges said:
Monkey, you know damn well all those rabid fanboys aren't going to come in here and admit they were wrong. I vividly remember the days before survive got booted how heated it was and how fervent they were. Turns out we were 100% right about the scheme. Reading back through the threads is a hoot.
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true. yep, I know.....
 
Well I certainly didn't get paid off as I stated in 2016 when I was told it would be a few weeks till they shipped my knife that I would go to social media and tell of my conversations with Survive. The thing David and Jon don't know is that we that bought knives we in communications with Guy and he would show us BS proof that he was doing all he could. The pieces of the puzzle all came together to show he was indeed LAZY and didn't / couldn't deliver on the knives he promised in a time frame that was acceptable. I waited 18 months before I asked for a refund and the 5.1 they refunded me without me asking for showed that they knew they would not get the knives out in a time frame that would satisfy 90% of their victims. If Guy is so broke how could he pay anyone off other than a few of his Shills/fanboys with other people's blades to bash the people who had orders in? Guy knew those blades were never going to get sent out that is why the backlog got bigger and longer. Over a million in missing order money is gone somewhere and the other I assume got refunded or switched. Not the people's fault for getting angry with the way he ran his business. I said it before if he would have just made several knives a day this backlog would not exist to the extent where it never could. All the fanboys that bashed me throughout the years I hope your orders never get filled and you don't get a refund as you caused so many to lose their money and you simply didn't care and enabled a corrupt system to function for a decade. I for one am glad I got my refund years ago. Hey Joe F did you get your GSO 12 p.s. I hope not. Did it ever occur to these 2 that we are part of the knife community and speak to people in the know at Bladeshow and by other means and got the other side of the story. That people will defend their good name when Guy just blamed Everyone Else.
 
I am really sorry people got scammed out of money. It sucks. But, the company didn't take "bad loans." All loans are great for the borrower if there is no intention to pay it back. It seems to me that this stopped being a knife business a long time ago. People are talking about how it is hard to believe the business failed, but the business didn't fail. Guy got paid without doing the work. That is a form of success. I get that decent people can't process that concept, but seriously, this dude is a grifter. I don't know if that was always the case, but it certainly seems to be now. People are assuming good faith and bad luck, but I don't think the evidence supports that theory.

Anyway, that's my opinion.
 
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