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

I love Youtube for finding different instructional videos and some music, but I find most of the folks who claim to do ‘reviews’ (of just about anything) are not objective. Money and social media status that can be had changes people. Quick searches for the amounts of money that some influencers make based on numbers of followers is simply nuts.

I understand people willing to shill for crappy companies and swindle folks for more money, but I will not support them or anyone knowingly helping or associating with them.

Apologizing because you got caught never seemed sincere to me. Just my .02
 
Danke42 said:
I'm just on there for the unboxing videos
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You can accomplish that by watching the Olympics.

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Andy the Aussie said:
yes...... it did didn't it. Jacob "Girl Voice" went in hard handjobbing for HST and Perish! once his Tube Buddy Jon gave him the scoop he was the new part owner.... he then went "full retard" (to quote the movie) here and on The Tube slugging it out with anyone who dared question the new narrative that needed pushing. I can't be bothered going back and unpacking it but it was Girl Voice that started calling Jon a new owner before Jon was (which is probably just a mind dump from their intimate conversations vs what the public "investor" version was supposed to be). You question the version he wailed and flayed. What I find amusing was posting on his Tube "Perish!" vid that his buddy HST was out (after HST himself had said so deep in the comments of a knife review) and Girl Voice asked where I heard that (happily directed him to it - neither that comment of mine or his question went through "the filter" to be publicly seen). Clearly Strawberry Vape Jon bailed without briefing his quick reaction force..... :D

This is a really REALLY good example of how the how "Influencer" handjob system works for THEM and really does very little for the consumer at large.
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so much accurate here....and 😂 the nicknames ya gave those two......

ya got me chuckling......
 
EngrSorenson said:
I'm fairly convinced at this point that Guy wasn't running an actual scam. If Guy had made money instead of losing everything, I would have said this was definitely a scam. There's a lot of things Guy is probably guilty of- misleading consumers, misappropriation of money, not paying debts, lying, defaming good businesses... but if the point of a scam is to end up with money, he was sure shit at it.
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Lol, you've missed what makes a scam: were there victims scammed. It is irrelevant whether the scammer made out or not. The world is filled with failed criminals, but they are criminals none the less.


EngrSorenson said:
on that we can agree- I think Guy's guilty of a lot of things, bad business practices for sure, but one of the terms we throw around here a lot is "Ponzi Scheme", which relies on tricking new investors to join to pay off old investors. We kind of interpret investors to be people who've made transactional agreements to purchase knives from S!K, but I don't think that's actually an investment as much as it is a sale. Otherwise, yes, it looks identical to a ponzi scheme in the fact that Guy is robbing peter to pay paul. Unfortunately I don't think that necessarily meets the criteria for a scam. One such business that was under scrutiny for running a Ponzi Scheme was Lularoe, and if you watch the documentary on that, they were found to be within the limits of the law because there was a product that was actually being sold.

We'll find out though, because 1 million dollars (Dr. Evil) is going to be enough money to really raise the eyebrows of the PA AG.
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For years I referred to it as a quasi ponzi scheme. It certainly doesn't fit the traditional definition of a ponzi scheme because there is a product being sold and often delivered (or not often as it were). That said, once guy took that second round of preorders to pay for making the first, it became a con. And he did it over and over for years. We keep forgetting that before survive, guy was just a common thief. It would make sense for that to continue. Survive was just above a less elaborate street level grift job. The goal was never to get rich. It was simply to "survive" or live on, without doing too much work. So yes, it is slightly different than a ponzi scheme but similar in that there was a large group of people that could never be made whole because guy and elie stole that money to live on and charade about, to attract new victims. Stealing money to live on is a crime and doing so in an elaborate fashion is most certainly a scam.

And on the subject of Jon, this:

Burke said:
lol how could he possibly have know as early as…late 2023 that Survive was somewhere between a complete failure run by the least competent businesspeople anywhere and intentional fraud? If only someone, somewhere, maybe on Facebook, Bladeforums, Instagram, YouTube, the BBB, or one of literally dozens of other online and offline communities had blown the whistle…..
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lol, if only...

That Mfer knew. He said it. As displayed above, the evidence was everywhere. There is a certain segment of the population that would rather gaslight away the simple facts right in front of them with wild conspiracy theories because it fits a narrative that stands to directly benefit them. It was a gamble and it did not pay off. And there was more than ample warning. Sorry, no benefit of the doubt.
 
craytab said:
Lol, you've missed what makes a scam: were there victims scammed. It is irrelevant whether the scammer made out or not. The world is filled with failed criminals, but they are criminals none the less.
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Based on what I’ve read about what a scam is, someone would need to demonstrate that Guy made these sales to benefit at the expense of his marks; ie, get himself a new yacht or pay himself more than what would be reasonable. It’s possible he lived a lavish lifestyle beyond ordinary means, but I’m in no position to comment on that. Instead taking in funds in the form of preorders to shore up his business might be legal… of course if he had delivered on them. Instead, we might settle on commodities fraud, which in effect what Guy actually did:

Commodities fraud​

The illegal act of obtaining (or the attempt of obtaining) a certain amount of currency in accordance with a contract that promises the later exchange of equated assets, which ultimately never arrive, is a type of fraud, known as commodities fraud.<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defraud#cite_note-:0-12">[12]</a>
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But hey, I’m just sitting in an armchair, reading what’s available on the subject, purely out of interest. I expect that someday in the next couple years we’ll know exactly where he ran afoul of the law, and in what capacity. I expect Guy will be prosecuted, and I’m sure there’s plenty to go with, but as far as running a scam? I’m not sure it’ll come up.
 
EngrSorenson said:
Based on what I’ve read about what a scam is, someone would need to demonstrate that Guy made these sales to benefit at the expense of his marks; ie, get himself a new yacht or pay himself more than what would be reasonable. It’s possible he lived a lavish lifestyle beyond ordinary means, but I’m in no position to comment on that. Instead taking in funds in the form of preorders to shore up his business might be legal… of course if he had delivered on them. Instead, we might settle on commodities fraud, which in effect what Guy actually did:


But hey, I’m just sitting in an armchair, reading what’s available on the subject, purely out of interest. I expect that someday in the next couple years we’ll know exactly where he ran afoul of the law, and in what capacity. I expect Guy will be prosecuted, and I’m sure there’s plenty to go with, but as far as running a scam? I’m not sure it’ll come up.
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Reading that sure seems like taking a full price pre order with no intent to deliver the knife fits that description. The order is a contract and the knife is the asset.

Full disclosure my doctoral degree is not in law.
 
EngrSorenson said:
Instead taking in funds in the form of preorders to shore up his business might be legal… of course if he had delivered on them.
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Ah, there you go. That there, my man, is the scam.

And he did it basically from the start, for nearly a decade, to the tune of over a million dollars worth of customers getting scamed. Pretty simple really.
 
beeinak said:
Reading that sure seems like taking a full price pre order with no intent to deliver the knife fits that description. The order is a contract and the knife is the asset.

Full disclosure my doctoral degree is not in law.
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The thing that surprises me is that there isn’t some kind of law that protects people from, essentially, becoming the bankroll assuming all the risk of a company failing.
 
craytab said:
Ah, there you go. That there, my man, is the scam.
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I’m making a distinction which I don’t think you’re ready to make for some reason:

Colloquially, the terms “fraud” and “scam” are used interchangeably to refer to any kind of financial wrongdoing. Legally speaking, fraud usually refers to a broader and more serious crime, with scams representing one type of fraud.
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We’re off track here, but we don’t have any evidence Guy committed a scam. In your own words, Guys actions don’t fit with a Ponzi Scheme, which is the closest type of “scam” that could apply. We have evidence he probably committed fraud.

You and I know that Guy probably broke the law, but I don’t see any known “scam” that fits his exact situation. Commodity Fraud, however… that looks like it fits.
 
EngrSorenson said:
The thing that surprises me is that there isn’t some kind of law that protects people from, essentially, becoming the bankroll assuming all the risk of a company failing.
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It only takes one POS to ruin it for others.

Prior to my experience with Survive, I never gave a second thought about paying for a blade in advance not knowing exact date of delivery. Since then I am leery, however there are makers here I would not give hesitate to pay in advance- even for an unknown estimated delivery. That is because these other makers are honorable.

So many makers close their books at a point in order to fulfill orders. So many great makers manage to be decent people.
 
EngrSorenson said:
We’re off track here, but we don’t have any evidence Guy committed a scam. In your own words, Guys actions don’t fit with a Ponzi Scheme, which is the closest type of “scam” that could apply. We have evidence he probably committed fraud.
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We?

I've been pretty clear that I think survive ran a scam for ten years, ripping people off for over a mill. I think there is plenty of evidence of that. In fact, I've been posting clearly on what I think about this situation for 8 years here on bladeforums. Get caught up in whatever legal semantics you want. Guy is a scamming con-artist.

You seem to want to build a legal case. We've discussed in the past here on bladeforums the difficulties in doing that with a scam like this, mostly due to the money amounts, unknown numbers and availability of victims, and the fact that there is some delivery of product. Plus the work involved in prosecuting such a case.

But yes, we are getting off track. Have the last volley if you like.
 
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I want a gaggle of griffins.
 
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