Open Apology to Community

[Darren870]

So John, Do you still think the game is real...?

 

[cdamm]

Because all your posts are useless. sorry to say that but ask anyone in Wall-Mart that you throw even 1000USD in money to someone you don't know, on ebay or elsewhere, he will think you are crazy. I can send 10.000 USD to some people I've never met in person, I could trust.
It's less dangerous to send 10000 USD to a fello here which is around for 10 years, than throwing 50 USD to a 20 feedbacks ebayer for a little popy toy.

You want to feel pressure ? When it was too stressful and we had a doubt about Tonk because hs was too much shark on negociation, we wanted to use Billy as an escrow :

"
Billy WILL NOT be receiving the game.
"I'm heading on vacation on April 11th.
If you don't want to do the deal, just tell me.
I'll sell it to someone else.
I'm not canceling anything.
27th to the 3rd is fine.
The 3rd is about the latest I'd like to do this.
There is no pressure on you. If you don't want to do this, walk away now.
But I need an answer today.
Again, Billy WILL NOT be doing any part of this deal. "

Tonk, 12 march​

Tonk was even stressing us about DAYS to come, if we were going after beginning of april, he was cancelling the deal but keepint the 5000 non refundable. Do you think Tonk was a little boy doing the game for the sake of community? He was a total shark.

Another one ? :
"Once the $5000 hits my account, it's mine, no turning back."

Tonk, 11 march​

Another one ? :
We said we wanted the game, and we were just waiting for your banking information( actually, it's not exactly what I asked for, as usually we need complete adress and bank adress too to do it) to withdraw the first payment.

You told us we had one week to decide, we decided in 3 hours, and asked for details so I don't appreciate at all this so much pressure."

Waku, 12 march​

I will not give other details of the speechs, but all the 3 days conversation is just this, this, and this. Pressure, like lemon.

1) less dangerous to send $10k to someone here than $50 to someone on ebay? wow. there is all sorts of safety and security on ebay that isn't in a deal like this.
2) the pressure you are talking about doesn't seem that bad. it just seems like a serious conversation you were having when doing a big time deal.
3) "You told us we had one week to decide, we decided in 3 hours, and asked for details so I don't appreciate at all this so much pressure."
Waku, 12 march" if you dont appreciate the pressure, then back out. if any deal i would ever make made me feel pressured and not in control of my own money, then i would back out. hell, i have before.

i truly felt bad at the beginning of this whole thing, but the more i hear the less i care about how this went down. it just seems like you were unbelievably irresponsible and now after the 90 days you had to decide after purchase (which i havent seen refuted anywhere) you want to back out. look i get it- but the way you are acting is just ridiculous.

 

[chamane]

Let's be clear, in no discussion anyone were saying we could go back after 90 days.

IN NO DISCUSSION. It was very easy to say this after the 90 days.

Hey, you had 90 days to back up .

Heu.. we didn't know.

 

[andsuchisdeath]

sorry to say that but ask anyone in Wall-Mart

LOL.

VT, you summed things up nicely in your last post, but it's pretty sad that these things need to be spelled out for people in the first place. At least, there is someone here (and a few others) to undertake this burden.

 

[FTL]

""Once the $5000 hits my account, it's mine, no turning back."
Tonk, 11 march"


WOW.
So that is the reason you are not asking back $5k from Tonk, Chamane.

yeah, Tonk is a shark and did actually a pressure on you to close the deal quick.

So, he thinks he has the right to keep money he got....face and reputation destroyed.

 

[xb74]

Good intentions, but this would probably only create more problems rather then solutions.

The only real solution as I see it is if someone who worked for SNK at the time and has a good memory of what games were created and what their characteristics were would do the authentication of disputed games. I don't know how feasible this is.

While I appreciate the idea of creating some way of independent authentication body or licensing, there's no way to compare the licensing requirements for law or similar professions to what would be required here. As Tak mentioned, this is just a hobby that happens to occasionally involve high dollar items. Who would create such a board? Before you say this website, realize that credentialing people takes time and money and--if not done perfectly--can create the stench of corruption. I don't think any part of this scene is capable of that.

In my short time here I would honestly say that high dollar items are more than just occasionally showing up.

Ok, so say we scale back the scope -

Make the idea of an authentication "body" unique to this website. Don't look into the term of a licensed authenticator/s too deeply. Ideally it would be print/paper experts within the community*

Selection of the body would be mandatory voted elections every year (to combat favouritism/corruption).

As always, a person looking for advice/opinion from these experts can take the advice or leave it. State that clearly in a stickied thread. No recourse to be taken on the authenticators because its all buyer beware, as its always been.

-Hey I realise this idea is a tad grandios.

Scale it down even further if you like - dig up these print experts within the community and get them involved in boot or no boot threads on a regular basis. Create a "template" of sorts in a stickied thread that shows exactly what needs to be photographed at high res on the cart in question. Maybe even put good models of cameras to use or features the camera should have (to avoid all those awful blurry pics). Post it up. Experts give their unbiased opinion. Job done.



* I have browsed threads where a few people have listed their credentials as 20 years in printing AND still in that industry. These types of people are around here. Just saw a veteran member post he has access to digital tools that would greatly help with this authentication.

 

[cdamm]

Let's be clear, in no discussion anyone were saying we could go back after 90 days.

IN NO DISCUSSION. It was very easy to say this after the 90 days.

Hey, you had 90 days to back up .

Heu.. we didn't know.

from davidg's original refund post:

Once again, every buyer was made aware of the risk beforehand. They knew what they were getting into and took the responsibility when they made the payment. Everyone knew there were no refunds and to err on the side of caution, I did do my due diligence and held unto the funds sent for a 90 day period (just in case a buyer wanted to return their game right away). A lot of time passed by and everyone reported that they were satisfied with their purchase. TonK/Mike was acting in the best interest of both parties (Me and the Buyers). He clearly provided all of the necessary information and the buyers still proceeded with their purchase. TonK is not responsible for any of this debacle.

Anyway, after the 90 day period elapsed, I moved the funds towards acquiring a large amount of SNK snaplock stock.

until i brought it up just now, it had not been refuted. thats been up for a while now.

 

[chamane]

You felt bad but finally you think we deserve it ? right. If you don't understand the collecting thing, I don't understand why you are posting here.
It's like the people saying " i prefere playing on mvs" on a neo geo home cart us collection topic.
It's a loss of time to talk about it.

you have a high desirable item pop up, you want to buy it, the deal is hard, and that's it. I never claimed i wanted to be refund because tonk was horror during the negociation. I want a refund because it's a fake game.
After, if you're playing with me about 90days refund possibility which never existed except when the time was already passing, let be it.

 

[malignantpoodle]

You felt bad but finally you think we deserve it ? right. If you don't understand the collecting thing, I don't understand why you are posting here.
It's like the people saying " i prefere playing on mvs" on a neo geo home cart us collection topic.
It's a loss of time to talk about it.

you have a high desirable item pop up, you want to buy it, the deal is hard, and that's it. I never claimed i wanted to be refund because tonk was horror during the negociation. I want a refund because it's a fake game.
After, if you're playing with me about 90days refund possibility which never existed except when the time was already passing, let be it.

Hey man, if it's any consolation I bought a Pochi & Nyaa on here and it was real.
Hope this helps.

 

[cdamm]

You felt bad but finally you think we deserve it ? right. If you don't understand the collecting thing, I don't understand why you are posting here.
It's like the people saying " i prefere playing on mvs" on a neo geo home cart us collection topic.
It's a loss of time to talk about it.

you have a high desirable item pop up, you want to buy it, the deal is hard, and that's it. I never claimed i wanted to be refund because tonk was horror during the negociation. I want a refund because it's a fake game.
After, if you're playing with me about 90days refund possibility which never existed except when the time was already passing, let be it.

i do understand the collecting thing and i have a nice collection myself. i get it. however you knew the risks getting in and you caved to 'pressure' rather than taking control of the deal yourself. you bought with your heart and not with your brain.

I had an unbelievably desirable item pop up not too long ago. It was incredibly rare. I didn't buy it because the seller and i couldn't come to a consensus. do i regret not buying it? not at all. why? because i didn't feel great about the deal.

you seem to be pointing fingers at everyone but yourself, man. at the core of the deal was you giving up a substancial sum of money on an 'investment' that didn't pan out.

 

[Tacitus]

You felt bad but finally you think we deserve it ? right. If you don't understand the collecting thing, I don't understand why you are posting here.

That's close to $10g's in arcade cabinets, retail. That's just the cabs I had a few weeks ago. I understand collecting just fine. I have more.. including more PCB's, Games, Systems, etc. I even added another candy cab.

"Sane" people who aren't "serious" about collecting don't keep upwards of 10 cabs in their basement at any given time.

you have a high desirable item pop up, you want to buy it, the deal is hard, and that's it.

I learned a lesson over the years. There is ALWAYS another game. There is ALWAYS another mountain to climb. I love arcade games and the Neo geo. I LOVE IT. I loved it so much I found myself making stupid decisions to "complete" my collection.

One day, I realized, there isn't a "complete" collection, that I was making stupid decisions that were governed by greed. I stopped doing that. Do I still collect? HELL YES. Members who met me will tell you that I have a great collection, I'm very passionate about this hobby and that I have my head screwed on right when it comes to this whole obsession

I'll tell you this: I enjoy this hobby more now then when all I wanted to own was EVERYTHING.

I feel bad, yes, but I think this result shouldn't have been completely suprising. Do you deserve it? Ethically, NO, no one deserves to be taken advantage of.

"Deserve" it was a poor choice of words. I should've said "You made a series of poor or risky decisions, you shouldn't be surprised with the outcome."

I never claimed i wanted to be refund because tonk was horror during the negociation. I want a refund because it's a fake game.
After, if you're playing with me about 90days refund possibility which never existed except when the time was already passing, let be it.

When did I say that?

 

[evil wasabi]

from davidg's original refund post:

Once again, every buyer was made aware of the risk beforehand. They knew what they were getting into and took the responsibility when they made the payment. Everyone knew there were no refunds and to err on the side of caution, I did do my due diligence and held unto the funds sent for a 90 day period (just in case a buyer wanted to return their game right away). A lot of time passed by and everyone reported that they were satisfied with their purchase. TonK/Mike was acting in the best interest of both parties (Me and the Buyers). He clearly provided all of the necessary information and the buyers still proceeded with their purchase. TonK is not responsible for any of this debacle.
♥
Anyway, after the 90 day period elapsed, I moved the funds towards acquiring a large amount of SNK snaplock stock.

until i brought it up just now, it had not been refuted. thats been up for a while now.

The issue here is that his contract with the buyers will be considered void because of the misrepresentation. It throws out all his contractual defenses. Same for Tonk.

So ya'll can take their dicks out of your asses, and commence fuckin yourselves now.

 

[bryan]

You just need be thinking about a lawyer. Picking a lawyer is a very hard decision to make so you should be looking now. David would want the case dismissed.

Now he can and will pay for a good lawyer, with your money.

 

[Tinieblas]

hehe talking about lawyers, wouldn't Wasabi be able to help? or Bobak

 

[cdamm]

hehe talking about lawyers, wouldn't Wasabi be able to help? or Bobak

its international. unless they are licensed, then they could endanger their careers. Bobak has already taken that stance and i do not blame him one bit.

 

[brentsg]

It's hard to pick a lawyer even on this forum.

So seriously, from the experts.. How would this play out in court? We can all speculate and go on about the feel of some paper and the font of this or that. How is a court going to decide whether this cart is real or not? I'm sure there's the discussion of the employment, but aside from that surely there has to be consideration of the object itself. Maybe Shawn and Dion could both testify on behalf of the French? That would be kind of awesome. Then the Russian(s) could be called to testify on behalf of the North Americans. The Italians would probably need to get involved too.

 

[OrochiEddie]

Because all your posts are useless. sorry to say that but ask anyone in Wall-Mart that you throw even 1000USD in money to someone you don't know, on ebay or elsewhere, he will think you are crazy. I can send 10.000 USD to some people I've never met in person, I could trust.
It's less dangerous to send 10000 USD to a fello here which is around for 10 years, than throwing 50 USD to a 20 feedbacks ebayer for a little popy toy.

You want to feel pressure ? When it was too stressful and we had a doubt about Tonk because hs was too much shark on negociation, we wanted to use Billy as an escrow :

"
Billy WILL NOT be receiving the game.
"I'm heading on vacation on April 11th.
If you don't want to do the deal, just tell me.
I'll sell it to someone else.
I'm not canceling anything.
27th to the 3rd is fine.
The 3rd is about the latest I'd like to do this.
There is no pressure on you. If you don't want to do this, walk away now.
But I need an answer today.
Again, Billy WILL NOT be doing any part of this deal. "

Tonk, 12 march​

Tonk was even stressing us about DAYS to come, if we were going after beginning of april, he was cancelling the deal but keepint the 5000 non refundable. Do you think Tonk was a little boy doing the game for the sake of community? He was a total shark.

Another one ? :
"Once the $5000 hits my account, it's mine, no turning back."

Tonk, 11 march​

Another one ? :
We said we wanted the game, and we were just waiting for your banking information( actually, it's not exactly what I asked for, as usually we need complete adress and bank adress too to do it) to withdraw the first payment.

You told us we had one week to decide, we decided in 3 hours, and asked for details so I don't appreciate at all this so much pressure."

Waku, 12 march​

I will not give other details of the speechs, but all the 3 days conversation is just this, this, and this. Pressure, like lemon.

Yea, I'm not seeing any pressure. Nor am I seeing a deal I would want to partake in at all. It seemed like "no refunds" was the statement at first. Right there I would have thought "no way".

It sucks this happened, but it really seems to me that you got greedy and did not think the situation through.

 

[cdamm]

Yea, I'm not seeing any pressure. Nor am I seeing a deal I would want to partake in at all. It seemed like "no refunds" was the statement at first. Right there I would have thought "no way".

It sucks this happened, but it really seems to me that you got greedy and did not think the situation through.

 

[aria]

Are people seriously blaming the victim here?

This is getting disgusting. Sure, Chamane is acting a little emotionally, but that's to be expected. He was defrauded $25,000 (plus the cost of flying someone on short notice from France to Pittsburgh...not cheap). How would you react?

Here's a fact: you don't get to rely on a "no refunds" when it involved misrepresentation. For obvious reasons our legal system's that's bullshit.

There were high pressure sales tactics here, no doubt, that took advantage of the audience. Those were a part of what occurred (in good faith or bad), but they're almost moot in my mind. The bottom line is someone was sold goods that weren't what they were told they were.

I want anyone who's blaming chamane to put yourself in his shoes. So he isn't as savvy as some of you --we don't expect people to all be razor sharp in their business tactics. Obviously a lot of people, like the OP of this thread, who were very educated, were fooled by these games that I am 95% certain were fake. They were falsely represented as being authentic and he bought in.

Frankly, if these games are confirmed fake I hope John sues whoever this DavidG character is for his money back. Lest we forget he's spent some money on this bullshit too; do did Billy.

EDIT: I may not agree with wasabi and FTL on everything, but I think this is getting out of hand. People blaming chamane should be embarrassed of themselves and deserve no sympathy if they get scammed themselves --because they should have known better

 

[evil wasabi]

its international. unless they are licensed, then they could endanger their careers. Bobak has already taken that stance and i do not blame him one bit.

It's actually not impossible. I am seeing a federal class action, and yes, the court could obtain juridiction over a Canadian based on his actions in this entire scandal, even without him ever coming into the US. There is recent precedence. A class action would save a lot of money, and allow the buyers to get back more of their money than simply going individually.

 

[evil wasabi]

Are people seriously blaming the victim here?

This is getting disgusting.

Finally I agree with you.

 

[OrochiEddie]

Are people seriously blaming the victim here?

This is getting disgusting. Sure, Chamane is acting a little emotionally, but that's to be expected. He was defrauded $25,000 (plus the cost of flying someone on short notice from France to Pittsburgh...not cheap). How would you react?

Here's a fact: you don't get to rely on a "no refunds" when it involved misrepresentation. For obvious reasons our legal system's that's bullshit.

There were high pressure sales tactics here, no doubt, that took advantage of the audience. Those were a part of what occurred (in good faith or bad), but they're almost moot in my mind. The bottom line is someone was sold goods that weren't what they were told they were.

I want anyone who's blaming chamane to put yourself in his shoes. So he isn't as savvy as some of you --we don't expect people to all be razor sharp in their business tactics. Obviously a lot of people, like the OP of this thread, who were very educated, were fooled by these games that I am 95% certain were fake. They were falsely represented as being authentic and he bought in.

Frankly, if these games are confirmed fake I hope John sues whoever this DavidG character is for his money back. Lest we forget he's spent some money on this bullshit too; do did Billy.

EDIT: I may not agree with wasabi and FTL on everything, but I think this is getting out of hand. People blaming chamane should be embarrassed of themselves and deserve no sympathy if they get scammed themselves --because they should have known better

I don't think anyone is blaming the victim. Yes there may have been a few uncalled for "He got what was coming" posts, but I don't see it as blaming him. I think people are openly expressing that they disagreed with his ultimate decision to buy the game, and that there were some apparent red flags from the get go.

I'll admit I may not have the same perspective as him not being that kind of collector, and with John's report being the only source of authenticity it may have seemed like it was a sure thing. On the other hand we only had John's report to go off of, and then what seemed like pretty pushy sales tactics.

Still with that said I don't think any of us are not wanting him to get his money back.

 

[lithy]

There is a part of me that really wishes Tonk had called me to meet him up at the airport that day.

Then one day, I could be old, and use the phrase "You weren't THERE, man..."

 

[evil wasabi]

Yea, I'm not seeing any pressure. Nor am I seeing a deal I would want to partake in at all. It seemed like "no refunds" was the statement at first. Right there I would have thought "no way".

It sucks this happened, but it really seems to me that you got greedy and did not think the situation through.

Dude, you're being really stupid throughout this entire scandal. Take a step back and get perspective on that human-buttfuckopede that you're on the wrong end of right now.

 

[kernow]

but it really seems to me that you got greedy

It's funny you haven't commented on anyone else being greedy.