Re: Anyone know Mattydog? bad deal and some venting
As for this blanket statement about how runs should be handled and what mods should do, etc.
It's not up to the mods to police the Junkyard. It's up to you and everyone else to be an educated consumer.
That means riding these little ****s when the excuses start to get out of hand. It means checking out a sellers repuation before ordering in the first place; exercising due dilligence when you haven't seen an order in months, etc.
I've never understood buyers who think nothing of sellers who go radio silent for months and then seem perplexed half a year down the road when they see a mine field of burned customers. A certain amount of apathy has to be at work for this to happen. I'm not saying anyone deserves to be taken advantage of, but a defensive posture goes a long way once those red flags start flying!
All the mods can do is ban someone once they've been shown to be a problem.
When you start trying to
legislate how a run should go, you're stepping on my toes and any number of other responsibe propmakers.
You clearly have no idea what it takes to put a high-end run together. I'm not talking about 10.00 paper props and 100.00 saber greeblies. I'm talking about 300.00 to 1000.00 pieces that take months in a machine shop to complete. The math gets steep when you're talking 20 or 30 pieces.
These are private runs of commissioned art.
The only way these runs can happen is for a builder to take reserves up front to avoid being stuck with thousands of dollars in inventory on the back end of a run.
Interested hands in the air have a way of turning to the sound of crickets when it's time to for the buyer to perform.
Buyers and sellers enter into an agreement to make these special, high-end runs happen. Having completed hundreds of such runs in the last 10 years on the RPF I take issue with the suggestion that anyone should mandate or restrict how a prop run is handled, here. It's a slippery slope.
Don't kick the good guys in the ass because someone else got burned.
I suggest being an educated consumer and doing a little homeowork before working with someone. Check thier credentials and work out the terms of the deal up front.
Simple as that.
As for this threads author. I do hope it all works out. It's unfortunate when this sort of thing happens, but it needs to be made public to warn others. :thumbsup
My comments were directed at DH, not you.
Another way to stop this crap from happening is to stop sending guys money if they don't have the product in hand, quality checked and ready to ship.
Part of doing business is raising the necessary capital yourself to produce a product people want, then selling it. If that means borrowing from friends, family, taking out a loan, whatever, it's the cost of producing a product.
If you don't have the money to produce a run, then you shouldn't be offering anything for sale. This kind of stuff happens way to often on the RPF and it seems after 10 years, the mods would put a stop to it.
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