Latest info is here.

Unfortunately, I need to put out a warning to avoid giving this conversion website funds of any kind. I have had the following experience with them over the last several months, to give context to this warning:

-Hundreds of emails trying to recover items missing from a transaction from one of their contributors to a member of Dakka Dakka
-11 phone calls in a single day to my cell phone
-2 packages shipped, accounting for a small percentage of what was past due

There have additionally been these discrepancies in my dealings with them:

-The two people whose names were given, who emailed me from the main Miniature Wargame Conversions email address, do not correspond to any of the contributors listed on the website.
-Both of these people said they were travelling in another state, where the items in question were being held
-One of them picked up the items, and then gave it to the other
-A portion of the items were lost as this person transported them to the post office to ship

Obviously, this would give me pause in sending or hoping to receive anything from Miniature Wargame Conversions, as these two people, who cannot be accounted for and apparently work behind the scenes, were unable to successfully ship items that they apparently picked up. There are also obvious discrepancies in their storylines, and it is nearly impossible to know who you are speaking to when emailing them.

Therefore, I'd warn anyone against commissioning them for anything, sending funds, or otherwise financially interacting with them. I see no reason why someone could not participate in posting on their website or the like, however be wary of anything beyond that.

If someone has interacted with their website and has experience in dealing with it, it would be appropriate to post here... however, please keep in mind that the normal rules of this site apply, and avoid speculation or insults that would violate Rule #1. Thanks...

I hope this is not out of line. It certainly isn't intended to be.

To clarify: Is that the web site run by Matthew (Matt) Bonder, AKA RedStarOne?

-The two people whose names were given, who emailed me from the main Miniature Wargame Conversions email address, do not correspond to any of the contributors listed on the website.

Will you be sharing those names and email addresses?

Thanks.

Eric

Ah, good ol' RedStarOne.... I remember him....

Eric,

Yes, that is correct. However, I did not mention him because my concern, and communications, are with the website itself... as it was presented to me, multiple people can check the main Miniature Wargame Conversions email address. The two people I apparently dealt with both emailed from that same, main contact address for the website.

If we could keep this thread dealing strictly with the website itself, I would appreciate it. The hundreds of emails I exchanged and 11 voicemails I received were primarily from "Damien", but also some contact was made by "Jeff" initially. Neither is listed on the webpage, or corresponds to any of their contributors. Both said they just work behind the scenes.

Hence, my warning about sending any funds to this site, as it seems to be impossible to verify who these two people are, or who is communicating from the main email address at any time.

nectarprime wrote:Ah, good ol' RedStarOne.... I remember him....

I thought he was getting out of this business after the last lot of problems.

I'm not very clear on how this business is set up. Why are so many people involved? Why are the two people handling things not those listed on the website? Why are people physically travelling around the country moving packages between each other and losing stuff along the way? It seems really weird to me.

That is just the information I was given, directly from the main Miniature Wargame Conversions email address, as I corresponded with them... I agree, it sounds completely unbelievable... which makes me extremely wary of the website.

I did verify that the contributors listed on the website are legitimate (I contacted each to be sure). However, the communication from the main email address does not seem to be from ANY of them. Thus, the website itself is extremely suspect in my opinion... people can draw their own conclusions from there.

I contacted the main Miniature Wargame Email address to inform them that I posted this warning. The reply I received was from Matt, who informed me that "Jeff" and "Damien" have quit because of my looking into all this... make of that what you will, but all the original points stand- you can't possibly know who you're dealing with when contacting this website, and thus should be extremely wary of doing business with them.

If you DO find out who you're dealing with, it's likely to be Matt, and Matt alone... who for reasons already discussed on this website is not to be trusted with funds, either. I would not have made this post about him, as we've been over that ground many times before... however, it seems at this point whatever other personas "may" have been checking the main Miniature Wargame Conversions email address, it is now Matt alone. This is the first time I have received a response from that email address signed by him.

If anyone contacts them and is given a name Other than Matt, I would be even more wary... again, as these "people" seem to be impossible to track down and this is the second time I've been informed of their "quitting" and never hearing from them again (it happened with "Jeff" previously, whereupon I continued corresponding with "Damien" at the same email address).

So... you've been warned!

Very weird and fishy. Thanks for the warning RiTides.

RiTides,
Who is your email provider? Some of them allow you to check the IP that your received email came from. You could use that to see if Matthew, Jeff and Damien are all responding from the same IP. If so... Well, I don't think I need to say it.

Eric

That's a good question, MM. It's gmail, so I don't know if that's a possibility.

The phone calls I received were from a private number, so that's no help, either.

RiTides wrote:If you DO find out who you're dealing with, it's likely to be Matt, and Matt alone... who for reasons already discussed on this website is not to be trusted with funds, either.

Not for nothing, but his history can't be discussed enough. He's a liar and a thief who deserves much worse than all of his excuses, which I believe were all BS to begin with. He's moved from openly accepting commissions and stealing people's items/money, to hiding behind a "front" and continuing to steal people's items/money. Utterly disgusting.

Known thief runs a scam involving non existant people who 'lose' stuff, then 'quit the company'.

WHY? WHY?!! is there anyone legitamizing this website and sponsoring him? It frankly makes anyone advertising or contributing to his site look bad just by association. Is this guy that good at lieing to people before he screws them?

What website exactly is this? I found a blog named "Miniature Wargame Conversions", but they don't seem to offer any services? Just seems like a blog.

Okay, so I just got pointed to this thread, and would quite like to point out a few things and set the record a little straighter.

First off, yes, I am a poster on MWC. I am fairly new there, but Matt has been nothing but supportive of me and my own blog, as have the other contributors. I would note however that RiTides has not contacted me to make sure if I am legitimate or not, but you will just have to take my word for it that I am not Matt, I live in the UK, have my own printing firm and like pizza with chillis drowned in vinegar. Yes I am disgusting.

Secondly, as nectarprime pointed out, nowhere on the site does it offer commissions, painting, converting or otherwise. The blog is solely used to discuss the happenings in the modelling world, to showcase some of our own work and insight, and to offer prizes through our monthly competition. To this day, every single winner has either received their prizes or gotten a cash equivalent. So to start a campaign telling everyone to not give us money, is in fact pointless, because we do not take it, everything we offers is from our own pockets.

Now, I understand that some posters on here may have had experiences with Matt in the past, but please understand that this site has nothing to do with the services that he offered, nor do any of us take commissions at this time. I have never met Matt or any other of the guys on there in person, but I have nothing but good things to say about them. To tar us, and indeed the site, with the same brush is unfair and to do so in such a public fashion is doubly so. I would ask that perhaps you do more research into the websites you defame on here, as it may turn out that you end up looking just a little bit silly.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
And just to give some credence to the fact that yes, our winnners do receive their prizes -http://eyeoferror.blogspot.com/2011/08/asdrubael-vect-wins-first-place-in-july.html" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://eyeoferror.blogspot.com/2011/08/asdrubael-vect-wins-first-place-in-july.html

AridMonk wrote:Okay, so I just got pointed to this thread, and would quite like to point out a few things and set the record a little straighter.

First off, yes, I am a poster on MWC. I am fairly new there, but Matt has been nothing but supportive of me and my own blog, as have the other contributors. I would note however that RiTides has not contacted me to make sure if I am legitimate or not, but you will just have to take my word for it that I am not Matt, I live in the UK, have my own printing firm and like pizza with chillis drowned in vinegar. Yes I am disgusting.

Secondly, as nectarprime pointed out, nowhere on the site does it offer commissions, painting, converting or otherwise. The blog is solely used to discuss the happenings in the modelling world, to showcase some of our own work and insight, and to offer prizes through our monthly competition. To this day, every single winner has either received their prizes or gotten a cash equivalent. So to start a campaign telling everyone to not give us money, is in fact pointless, because we do not take it, everything we offers is from our own pockets.

Now, I understand that some posters on here may have had experiences with Matt in the past, but please understand that this site has nothing to do with the services that he offered, nor do any of us take commissions at this time. I have never met Matt or any other of the guys on there in person, but I have nothing but good things to say about them. To tar us, and indeed the site, with the same brush is unfair and to do so in such a public fashion is doubly so. I would ask that perhaps you do more research into the websites you defame on here, as it may turn out that you end up looking just a little bit silly.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
And just to give some credence to the fact that yes, our winnners do receive their prizes -http://eyeoferror.blogspot.com/2011/08/asdrubael-vect-wins-first-place-in-july.html" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://eyeoferror.blogspot.com/2011/08/asdrubael-vect-wins-first-place-in-july.html

So, you're saying RiTides is lying/mistaken, or...?

Also, as far as Matthew is concerned... you only have good to say because you've never had him indebted to you for anything. A large number of people to whom he's been indebted are still in that predicament... after years.

Eric

I'm saying that he is mistaken in defaming MWC in this thread, we do not do commissions nor do we accept money for anything we do. We are trying hard to promote the good side of the hobby and threads like this do no end of damage, despite the seemingly good intentions of warning others away from a dodgy commissions site, which we are not.

As to your other point, you are right, he has never done anything bad to me. You have never done anything negative towards me either, so I hold no grudges against you. I will hold no negativity towards anybody unless they have wronged me in someway or been found guilty of a serious crime in court. I would assume (and hope) it is the same for most people.

AridMonk, I don't think RiTides is trying to start a bandwagon or anything, but you really need to research Matt's past (RedStarOne).

RiTides--- can we get some more clarification? Is RedStarOne still taking commissions on the side or something? I'm honestly curious why he has items belonging to others if this site doesn't sell any products or provide any services (at least that is how it appears to me when viewing said site).

AridMonk, fair or foul, by associating yourself and the webpage with a controversial figure who has been associated with scandals in the past, you have doomed yourself to "threads like this".

Might not be fair, but there it is.
As for RiTides, he's gotta be one of the nicest guys on Dakka. I am pretty confident he'll be in here to clarrify shortly, and that he wouldn't have posted without a damn good reason in the first place. Dude is very community minded.

I have researched his past, but like I said he has done nothing to wrong me so why should I hold a grudge against him?

TBH, this is besides the point, RiTides has said that he wants to keep it about the site, but his information about the site being a commission one is wrong, and so telling people to stay away for that reason is also wrong.

AridMonk wrote:I have researched his past, but like I said he has done nothing to wrong me so why should I hold a grudge against him?

TBH, this is besides the point, RiTides has said that he wants to keep it about the site, but his information about the site being a commission one is wrong, and so telling people to stay away for that reason is also wrong.

So he's ripped off tons of people, lied over and over, and you think it's ok to work with him? I wouldn't entrust that guy with a dollar. Sorry but associating yourself with folks with such a reputation as he has will do no good.

Like I say, he has been nothing but kind to me or the many others that I have spoken to. Many many people have sung his praises, and on here is the only negativity I have seen towards him. Micheal Jackson was seen in a negative light by thousands, yet just as many saw him as their hero. Perspectives are just that, perspectives, so please do not judge me on mine.

Anyway, like I have said twice now, RiTides has said already that this thread was to be about the site, not Matt, so if we could get back to that that would be good.

Da Boss wrote:AridMonk, fair or foul, by associating yourself and the webpage with a controversial figure who has been associated with scandals in the past, you have doomed yourself to "threads like this".

Choose your friends wisely holds very very true...


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AridMonk wrote: Micheal Jackson was seen in a negative light by thousands, yet just as many saw him as their hero

You might not want to choose a child molester as someone to compare yourself to.

I'm just saying...

I'm not comparing myself to anyone, I'm comparing the situation, I could use multiple examples of Obama, George Bush, Tony Blair, or a multitude of other high profile figures that are loved by some and loathed by others.

@Da Boss: I'm not calling RiTides character into question, I'm calling his judgement on posting this thread, like I say RiTides has made no foul against me, but I do not want to damage the blogs reputation via misinformation on RiTides part.

Could you post some links to people that have "sung his praises" on other forums/blogs/etc.?

I think to continue this discussion, and to help RiTides out, we might need a bit more info.

CT GAMER wrote:Could you post some links to people that have "sung his praises" on other forums/blogs/etc.?

I think I'd like to see that, too.

I've always been neutral about it(only one transaction with RSO and it went well, but only the money was handled by him from my knowledge), but I can link to a very telling thread outside of Dakka.

Please do^^

I already have, in my first post on this thread.

I really do not want to post much more in this thread, as I can already see it devolving into a hate thread. But I will leave saying once again that we do not take money, donations, sprinkled change or ice cream in return for services. We run these competitions out of our own pocket, and the models we post are either our own or ones from the community that we want to highlight for being awesome. My only reason for posting in the thread in the first place was to tell RiTides that his information about us is wrong, and to amend it as such.

Right now, I have a Necron Command Barge i need to figure out how to magnetise and BF3 to play, so with that I will leave you guys to it.

AridMonk wrote:I already have, in my first post on this thread. .

i see no specific praise of matt Bonder/Red star one in that link.

Surely if "many" people sing his praises it would be easy to post sone links that demonstrate this...

Capitansolstice wrote:Please do^^

If you really want to see it, I'll PM you. We take our separation from Dakka a bit seriously(well, as seriously as anything really gets there), and the types of things we say there would get us IP Permabanned if we said its like here. Note, it DOES refer back to a thread here, but we're still anti-reverse invasion.

It takes a certain kind to understand what we say and do there and that thread alone is perhaps potentially one of the most offensive.

Just as an example of his stellar attitude:

redstarONE wrote:
No deliveries? Your fething stupid.

Go down the list., Every god damn person has goten at least partial payments and refunds.

You stupid feths banning me then telling me its ok to make another name because you guys just dont want my drama is a fething joke.

As for Alpha, I talk to him at least 3 times a week.

As for banning me, how the feth can i FINISH the dealings when you stupid donkey-caves dont give a feth about you own members.

And when Im back on dakka, ill be sure to make my sig have a big feth you to you Lorek you sorry gakky feth.

PS I like the out of business conversionist when I still get 10-20 fething emails daily about people wanting work. You a fething loser Lorek. Go back to fething your mother.

I CHOOSE to not take them.

Maybe go after real scammers like the trader or all the other people that go on dakka feth over people then VANISH.

I havent even changed my name you stupid bitch.

Did Alpharius ever get his stuff?

I thought I got a hold of every contributor listed on the contributors page. Which one are you, and do you have a link to your blog? I contacted the one who was listed as being in the UK and got a reply. (Edit- it looks like you joined as a contributor in October, whereas I contacted all of the current contributors in August)

My issue, is that seemingly the fact that other people post content on the website is disguising the fact that correspondence from the main email address is either from Matt, or two unknown persons "Jeff" or "Damien", who have now apparently quit the site, and it is Matt alone. If you will simply identify which contributor you are, it will make it easier. From those I spoke with, none of them use the main Miniature Wargame Conversions email address- it is only Matt and the two names listed above.

As for not selling things, I'm at work and don't have the link that I originally contacted the website concerning- but it was a post where Matt was offering to sell his Knight Titans. You can see a post on another person's blog, and a comment from Miniature Wargame Conversions on the same page, here the shows someone buying one as recently as July 2011:

http://f1rst-blood.blogspot.com/2011/07/miniature-wargame-conversions-knight.html

My point in posting here was to alert people that when contacting Miniature Wargame Conversions, you will NOT be communicating with any of the contributors listed on the site- you will only be communicating with Matt, or two unknown persons: "Jeff" and "Damien". Now, it seems you will only be communicating with Matt.

Later on I will try to post the link directly to the Miniature Wargame Conversions blog post offering the knight titans for sale, but the link above clearly shows someone giving credit to Matt at Miniature Wargame Conversions for the sale of these. Hence, saying that no one is selling or advertising items for sale via the Miniature Wargame Conversions website is just not true.

However, even if nothing were for sale, my concern would be that people know that it is impossible to tell who you are communicating with at the main email address (unless it is Matt alone) and not to think that it is one of the contributors listed on the site. Once again, I'd like to ask which contributor are you, and a link to your own blog, as I contacted all of them as far as I'm aware? (Edit- same as above, you joined after I spoke to all of the current contributors... as a contributor to the site for only a month, this predates you, and you might want to look into it...)

AridMonk, if you have had good experiences with RSO then I can understand how this could be interpreted as a 'hate' thread. Honestly I do.

However, you must, must, must make yourself aware of his track record. The apprehension and yes aggression you are seeing in here is born of multiple incidents that are quite simply too numerous, too suspicious and too damned weak in explanation to dismiss anymore.

RSO has stolen from a great many people. If pressed, he will do one of two things -

1. Say he is mailing them. His 'mailings' never seem to involve tracking numbers, and the amount of packages he claims have been lost is simply staggering. This behavior can happen multiple times over months and even years to his victims.

2. 1 usually segways into this next and in his mind ultimate excuse, his wife and child sick and/or dying. Now, before you assume I am an animal with no sympathy (which is exactly why this excuse gets trotted out so often, it is virtually unassailable, or was anyways), I will bring up one point, I won't even be questioning the truthfulness of this excuse, just to avoid the hornet's nest debate it creates. The point is, these events he claims are the reason for jipping so many customers are now several years old. Since that time, he has continued working on new customer projects, associated himself with the new site, and continues to do business. If he can do that, he should have made good with the people who paid him 2-3+ years ago. There is no excuse for that. And because of those facts, the man has stolen from people.

My point of view is written as Tom, and not a Mod here I want to make this clear. What Ritides is doing here is merely trying to prevent our fellow Dakkaites from losing out on hundreds if not thousands of dollars in minis and payment by dealing with this guy. Not to mention the time of planning, collecting and negotiating/chasing RSO.

You may not agree with how we see it based on your stated experience, and we certainly don't expect you to hate the man if he dealt with you properly. All I ask is that you take this thread for what it honestly is, a concerned warning based on tangible facts of users here who have dealt with him. Knowing someone who had over $1000 worth of minis plus 100's more in advance payment for work held hostage/lost (stolen) for over a year, I would never want anyone to have to go through that kind frustration. So Ritides stepped up, and honestly speaking, despite the sentiments all that has been said is steer clear. A quick Google of his name reveal Dakka is far from the only place where these sad and disgusting dealings have happened.

I appreciate your reading this, and as I said, I hope our motivations and reasoning are understandable if not agreeable from your perspective.

nectarprime wrote:Did Alpharius ever get his stuff?

Not to my knowledge, but you'd have to ask him for confirmation.

IIRC, he's out ~$1000 in merchandise and funds.

AridMonk
Posts: 6
Joined: 2011/11/09 11:14:59


If i was a mod, i would check your IP already.

For the benefit of the doubt say you are not related to RSO...

i would say your way of dismissing the victims due to your positive transaction is rather insulting.
are you really willing to dismiss all the victims from multiple sites and their claims just because yours was ok?

nectarprime wrote:Did Alpharius ever get his stuff?

No, what was it now, almost 2-3 years from the very beginning?

He'll never get it back, neither will the victims, not till RSO is in jail.
Even that i still dotn think anyone will get it back.

AridMonk wrote:Now, I understand that some posters on here may have had experiences with Matt in the past, but please understand that this site has nothing to do with the services that he offered, nor do any of us take commissions at this time. I have never met Matt or any other of the guys on there in person, but I have nothing but good things to say about them. To tar us, and indeed the site, with the same brush is unfair and to do so in such a public fashion is doubly so. I would ask that perhaps you do more research into the websites you defame on here, as it may turn out that you end up looking just a little bit silly.

I think you really need to look into this his background to see what these 'experiences' are before being dismissive because he hasn't cheated you personally. You should take the time to read this regarding your association with him.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/290901.page

MajorTom11 wrote:1 usually segways into this next and in his mind ultimate excuse, his wife and child sick and/or dying. Now, before you assume I am an animal with no sympathy (which is exactly why this excuse gets trotted out so often, it is virtually unassailable, or was anyways), I will bring up one point, I won't even be questioning the truthfulness of this excuse, just to avoid the hornet's nest debate it creates.

He was lying about his wife dying, I linked you guys where he has been and what he has being doing during the same time frame.

@Ritide there is something i never understood.
How does keeping the mass hushed about RSO's scams help recover back Alpharius's items?

Oh I believe you Luna lol, my point was merely to say that story is entirely irrelevant at this point as an excuse, true or not. He started doing business again, which means he should have taken care of his obligations.

MajorTom11 wrote:Oh I believe you Luna lol, my point was merely to say that story is entirely irrelevant at this point as an excuse, true or not. He started doing business again, which means he should have taken care of his obligations.

The funny part is he was trying to start business on a site I visit on daily base, needless to say hes gone now, where is the site he is at right now?

He always repeats the same pattern, he goes to a new site where no one knows him.
Then he starts doing "generous" things, like free give aways.
Then he gets enough attention and trust
then he offers free service
now he gets more trust on his "skills"
then he accepts tons of commissions simultaneously in a small time frame.
****s them all, and runs off.
No wonder he does it, people dont speak up enough all assuming they are the "only victim"
it sure is easy for him huh, put out one $50 prize, scam thousands in return.
Rinse and repeat.

Now he does raffles? I wonder how much he pocket since we cant keep track of the amount of tickets in ratio with the prize.

I would like to keep this thread on track, guys, or else I'm sure it will have to be closed.

As I linked to above, Matt has sold his Knight Titans and a few of his other conversion services via the blog Miniature Wargame Conversions. The blog I linked to shows someone bought one in July 2011.

I originally contacted Miniature Wargame Conversions based on a blog post where Matt was offering his Knight Titans for sale. I believe that blog post has been taken down, because I can't find it anymore. I confronted him about it via email, so that makes sense.

However, the reason I want this thread to focus on Miniature Wargame Conversions rather than simply Matt, is that it is well known that dealing with Matt is a risk. However, having this blog and having some Genuine contributors to it seems to have insulated him, and given people more confidence in dealing with him / the website.

My experience was that in emailing the website, I was given the names of 2 people who are not listed on the Contributors page, and who have now "quit" the website. Therefore, it is obviously extremely dangerous to send any funds to Miniature Wargame Conversions in any capacity, as there is a revolving door of personas who cannot be accounted for. Most of the contributors I did contact had little to do with the site. There is at least one that is very active (Lantz), and the other less active ones are genuine- however, that doesn't account for all of these unknown identities that are:

Communicating from the main Miniature Wargame Conversions email address for months, then suddenly quitting and never being heard from again.

My concern is that legitimacy is being given to Matt based on this website, when it is in fact being used illegitimately itself. I want people to know about this and be wary. Why people would contribute to the website, or participate in donating to the raffles, is beyond me... but my main concern is that people not send any funds to it, or if they do, be fully aware that they will be sending funds to only one person- Matt. He is the creator of the website, and as of now he is the only person using the Miniature Wargame Conversions email address. He also has in the past made a blog post advertising his Knight Titans for sale on the site, and done at least one other conversion that he was paid for that is advertised on the site.

The fact that there was a genuine raffle done by the site seems obvious... but this fact should not lend credibility to the site in any other measure. I posted my own experience to back this up, and if we could keep the thread focused on the website itself, I'd appreciate it.

Also, in looking at the website AridMonk joined as a contributor on October 4th- I wouldn't have contacted him because I contacted all of the current contributors in August. Those contributors, their blogs, etc etc are all genuine. What does not seem to be genuine are the names given via email from the Miniature Wargame Conversions email address... so the legitimate conversion work of the contributors to the site should not be confused with making the site itself (or at least, its' email address!) at all trustworthy.

If "Jeff" or "Damien" could come forward to identify or defend themselves, it might be different... but as I told Matt, I'm pretty sure I'll never hear from "them" again...

riTides, you can check my ip cant you? Just check that and you'll see I'm genuine. i will PM you my blog now.

RiTides, you may want to google the post you're looking for and see if its still in their cache. If that doesn't work, try the more labor intenstive waybackmachine @ http://www.archive.org/web/web.php to see if they've cached the post that was taken down. I recommend taking a screen pic of it (as things can be requested off both by the "owner"). It may be difficult to find but something on the internet is as hard to truely remove as pee in a pool.


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AridMonk wrote: Many many people have sung his praises, and on here is the only negativity I have seen towards him.

Hasn't he been banned from bartertown, rogue trader, and warseer after the last round of thievery also? My memory isn't perfect but I'm pretty sure that he burned bridges all across the hobby internet and not just this *not so* little corner.

AridMonk, if you see my edit above I did a quick check and found that you joined the website well after I contacted all of the contributors. You might want to check into Matt's past dealings if you weren't already aware of it... but as I said, I'd like to keep this thread about the website itself (or at the very least, his use of the website to advertise/sell his conversions).

Does it not concern you as a contributor to the website that I was emailed repeatedly, and received almost a dozen voicemails, from a person who is not listed on the website... yet apparently has access to its' email account? Check for yourself... Also, I'd be interested to know how you became a part of the website, and if Matt recruited you? Doesn't it concern you that by contributing there you are in a sense adding legitimacy to the website, when its' email address is being used in this fashion? Not to mention advertising Matt's conversions for sale, again with added legitimacy as it is connected to the website...

warboss- Thanks, I will try that.

After reading all though this all I have to say is thanks Ritides for providing information and taking some flak on a sticky situation that can affect many. As large as this hobby is, it has tight informative circles.

Dear all,

Stop being pests. What's the point?

f1rst-blood.blogspot.com and,
reds-corps.blogspot.com

Are both mine. I have contributed to MWC in the past and will do in the future. I've bought stuff from the team captain, Matt, and never had a problem dealing with him.

I know for a fact that he does not offer commissions or anything similar anymore, there are no facilities to pay/donate/purchase or even email and I also know for a fact that his family issues were the real deal.

You are all being very disrespectful and for the most part, you are all only working off hearsay. I know it's awesome being behind the shroud of the internet and getting your chest feathers all puffy but you need to grow up and find something better to do with your time. Hassling him out is not doing anything other than making you all look like bigots.

Regards,
Me

Redscorps, as I said, I'd like to keep this thread about the website, not Matt alone. Your blog is the one I linked to, where he was selling Knight Titans in July. How can you say he's not selling them anymore?

How can you say there are no facilities to even Email, when I've been emailing with the Miniature Wargame Conversions email address for 3 months now?

How can you know about Matt's situation if you are in Australia as your flag indicates? (It's not always right on Dakka)

I see you've contributed to the website a few times, but I just don't get where you're coming from and would appreciate some answers... and I'll put the same question to you as to AridMonk, does it not bother you that there are people emailing from the Miniature Wargame Conversions address by the names of "Jeff" and "Damien", who are listed nowhere on the site, and who have now apparently quit? None of this bothers you in any way, as an occasional contributor...?

redscorps wrote:

You are all being very disrespectful and for the most part, you are all only working off hearsay. I know it's awesome being behind the shroud of the internet and getting your chest feathers all puffy but you need to grow up and find something better to do with your time. Hassling him out is not doing anything other than making you all look like bigots.

Regards,
Me

http://op40k.blogspot.com/2011/03/dakka-friendmoderator-ripped-off.html

That's Alpharius' post and he's a mod here. There are numerous FIRST HAND reports you can read on websites (dakka and bartertown to name two) that detail the problems associated with your friend, plenty of which are not anonymous nor are they hearsay. I'm glad that he hasn't decided to rip YOU personally off but that doesn't excuse prior bad behavior since he hasn't made amends for previous events.

redscorps wrote:You are all being very disrespectful and for the most part, you are all only working off hearsay.

Tell Alpharius his missing $1000 is hearsay.

Another question for redscorps- I see you, also, are a new poster to the Miniature Wargame Conversions website (it looks like your first contribution is in September?).

Did it occur to you that, as I said, I contacted all of the contributors in August... and I know that at least one quit based on my informing them of the items I was trying to help recover?

Both of you who have posted here are very new to the site, so perhaps it is a lack of knowledge that is contributing to your stance... otherwise, I really can't understand where you're coming from. Have you looked at what I laid out in the OP from my own experience dealing with the Miniature Wargame Conversions email address (read: NOT Matt, but supposedly "Jeff" and "Damien") as well as what others have posted about people's prior dealings with Matt? Do you consider even what I'm posting from my own experience as "hearsay"?

Opting to not pay any attention to evidence is fine, you are entitled to your opinion, and also not to like us for picking on your 'friend'.

What is not cool is to go off on a 500 word swear fest. You should also look up the word 'bigot', you seem to be confused as to it's meaning. I don't think anyone has a problem with Matt's race, sex or political views.

Since your post was complete vitriol and little fact, I am editing it out. For those wondering what he said, he challenged Ritides to a fist fight for asking him to look at the facts and asked us all to kindly make sweet love to ourselves. Or something to that effect. I am sure you can all understand why it needed editing.

redscorps wrote:
No need to quote this particularly nasty post.

Oh, yes. The internet tough guy routine. Works every time.

I like how you become hostile when people call out a well-known liar.

Fun times!

I'd like to ask people to please NOT flame back here, so that the thread doesn't need to be locked...

Redscorps, that's a really head-in-the-sand attitude. I am very willing to share the voicemail recording I have with you, if that would help you believe what I'm saying?

The email address I got from the same blog post offering the knight titans for sale, which has apparently been taken down. It's MiniatureWargameCo@gmail.com ... which I think is fine to share as it's the website email address, not a personal one.

But I guess you think that's just not true... or something?

redscorps wrote:
No need to quote this post.

AridMonk wrote:I really do not want to post much more in this thread, as I can already see it devolving into a hate thread.

redscorps wrote:Well unlike you lot I've got better stuff to do than get dragged into this mess so this will be my final post on the subject.

How come you guys don't want to hang around to discuss this, or hell, even look into the matter?

The aggression and language with which redscorps comes out out with is worthy of some of RSO's outbursts. There's no need to talk up having fist fights and swearing and calling people names because they play with figures.

Guys, let's cool it down. The facts of RSO's behaviors are linked elsewhere and in here now, let's just stick to the original intent of this post, to protect people from potentially unsafe business deals by giving them information. That's it that's all.

It is a touchy subject and difficult to discuss without getting worked up, but it can be done. Please remember that everyone is entitled to their opinion here, and one would hope that everyone would be willing to listen and look at evidence, and like it or not for some of us, that evidence may include people who have had positive experiences with RSO who would be disinclined to believe the history. The only thing none of us have a right to do is get rude with each other, stay respectful.

Cheers, MT11

I don't think anyone would say that all his transactions are fraudulent. He clearly has taken commissions and delivered them and people are happy with that.

People don't dispute that some happy customers exist and there is evidence of this. But it's the evidence of the large amounts of money that several people are out of pocket by which some are trying hard to ignore.

Redscorps post seems to be hyper aggressive, either he *is* RSO or very friendly with him... either way anyone innocent associated with this site will have their same sullied by association. They might well find themselves being pursued by people looking for RSO in six months time.

I don’t see the need for such a vicious post from redscorps given that this thread is a mere warning thread from a trusted member of dakka. The negative claims against RSO has been well established in other threads and wasn’t the purpose the purpose of this thread anyway (as the focus was the site itself). If he was really serious on defending the site, they would put more effort into defending the claims in an eloquent manner. Vicious posting just makes your position look even worse.

It would be cool if someone from the site, who was actually around during the August period could make a post. The only people from the site who have tried to make a defence in this thread weren’t around during the period of time RiTides, therefore are of no relevance. Even still, there hasn’t been much of a defence besides “he’s a nice guy” which is irrelevant to the core issues RiTides has outlined anyway.

From my personal experience, it’s best to avoid commission based sites full stop. I’ve been burned in the past (with a different person) and it is too easy to get scammed. It is because of this that I only purchase wargamming products from trusted companies as well as avoiding ebay.

My thought would be that some of the people Redstarone recruits in an effort at looking legit will have personalities similar to his own, and may share other moral flaws, which is how they don't see any problem dealing with him. How do you jump so quickly to defend someone with his reputation? And in the case of Mr. Redscorpse, he certainly shows himself capable of mimicing redstarones way of dealing with people.)

I'm very happy people like RiTides continue to warn potential victims to avoid this guy.

It's good to see the community here at dakka keeping each other warned and informed.

It's also incredibly telling to read the comments from redstarone's 'defenders'. One was ambivalent and didn't even care if others had been ripped off because he hadn't been, the other devolved into a frothy-mouthed diatribe faster than you could type 'sockpuppet account'.

Thanks for warning the rest of us, RiTides. You and Alpharius have been straight up and decent Dakkanauts in all the time I've been here and I put great stock in your posts.

Hopefully this thread will prevent that duplicitous individual parting anyone else from their hard earned money.

Just to get back to the OP here- I think it's pretty clear if you look on the site (which I've refrained from linking to previously but will at this point: http://miniaturewargameconversions.blogspot.com/ ) that both AridMonk and redscorps are legitimate contributors, actually from the UK and Aus in this case.

What I was trying to make known with this thread is that the website email address ( MiniatureWargameCo@gmail.com ) is being used with several apparent aliases ("Damien" and "Jeff"), which is disconcerting all the more because the contributors to the website ARE real, and are thus lending credibility to these aliases.

So my main point in posting was to point out that communicating or sending funds to the site is dangerous... the secondary point being that yes, items have been advertised for sale there (the post has since been deleted) and people are now associating Matt's conversions with Miniature Wargame Conversions, assuming it's trustworthy... when my dealings with the website outlined in the OP show that, in my opinion, it's clearly not. Again, if either of the contributors who have posted here would like to hear the 15 minutes of voicemail recordings I have, that I received from "Damien" after emailing the above address, I would be more than happy to share it with you...

I really think we can discuss this civilly... if there are facts to the contrary I would love to hear them. However, you have to consider the facts that are being presented, as well! And those show that the site is being used in ways you may not have been aware of, and that I would think, should concern you as contributors...

Thank you RiTides for posting this. My very first 'on-line' trade I got ripped off and it blows hard. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I haven't been around Dakka for long but it's nice to see people who care enough to 'give a heads up' about someone notorious.

As my father used to say "give a man enough rope and he will eventually hang himself."


o0o 102 posts, I poped my Fourm Cherry =o]

I'm another of the MWC writers (Rogue Trader), and since way before August or whenever you tried to contact everyone. My email is listed on my blog which is linked from MWC. Not too hard to find, but no big deal, I'm not taking it personal that you didn't contact me.

My perspective. Y'all are just a bunch of names on my screen (to be honest, Matt included) and without actual evidence I'm not believing any of you. What I have been involved in is the work MWC has done with regard to competitions and support for Heroes of Armaggeddon. You can't deny it, the Baneblade with the Reaver missle launcher is gently caressing awesome. So yeah a bunch of names say X, other names say Y. The internet is full of trolls (and cats) and I have no reliable way of determining which is which so I ignore it and just go with what I've personally seen. What I've seen is MWC do good stuff, provide good info, and be a fun place to hang and talk to the other writers. Secondly, I'm absolutely siding with Matt as I've had much more detail from him on all this than has been mentioned around these parts. I will continue to post (well, when I find time, hobby been taking a bit of a back seat recently) and have no issues with the site or how it is run.

It's a good site, a good community so please separate it from whatever other issues you have.

Citizensmith wrote:
It's a good site, a good community so please separate it from whatever other issues you have.

Well, as long as you do the sa... oh, I see...

Citizensmith wrote:
Secondly, I'm absolutely siding with Matt as I've had much more detail from him on all this than has been mentioned around these parts.

Then you're absolutely siding with the individual being cited as the issue. Does make you a bit partisan eh?

I commented on your blog, Marcus, in an attempt to contact you- not sure why my comment's not there anymore?

Regardless, you can't separate the site from the issues mentioned in the OP, as they are with the site.

1. I contacted the site from a post showing Knight Titans kits for sale (which has since been removed)
2. I was replied to by "Damien" and "Jeff" from the site's email address. I likewise received voicemails from "Damien". 2 packages were shipped based on my correspondence, to Alpharius (a mod on here) reprising a small amount of what he was owed. He can confirm this if needed.

I'll make you the same offer. Why not have me email you the voicemail recording? Then you can decide for yourself.

Now that your email is listed on your blogger page, I may do so anyway, and you can choose whether or not to listen to it. That will give you some hard evidence to support what I'm saying.

I'm just really surprised that you don't care about any of this, but then I guess I shouldn't be...

Citizensmith wrote:
My perspective. Y'all are just a bunch of names on my screen (to be honest, Matt included) and without actual evidence I'm not believing any of you.

The evidence against Matt was presented in the threads linked, if you'd bother to actually go read it(and to be fair, the people involved were very patient and willing to cooperate at every step, it was those not involved that generated the most hate and those irrelevant posts were removed). Somehow, though, I doubt you will, because your mind has already been made up.

I gave him every benefit of the doubt since my transaction with he and TrooperPX went fine. It was when it took 3+ months and no resolution on several transactions AND he got very confrontational with several people that he lost that.

Citizensmith, I've just emailed you the voicemail recordings, along with an outline showing all the discrepancies. Have a listen and see what you think. It's the "actual evidence" you say you need to believe us.

Matt told me he'd be emailing you guys to post here, but you really need to look at the facts... it's true, I wasn't able to speak with you previously (I posted on your blog and you never got back to me). I just don't understand how it doesn't concern you that the email address from MWC is being used with aliases not listed on the website. The recording is hard proof of this. Listen to it and then post back here if you still don't believe me... and I'll be very interested to hear why/how that could be.

Citizensmith wrote: Secondly, I'm absolutely siding with Matt as I've had much more detail from him on all this than has been mentioned around these parts. It's a good site, a good community so please separate it from whatever other issues you have.

He's done a lot of harm to many people. It's been documented by several people who worked hard to get back what he stole. He's a liar and a cheat. Hard to separate anything he's assoiciated with from what he's done in the past.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RiTides wrote:Matt told me he'd be emailing you guys to post here

ah, so remote control sock puppets? makes sense why he got so many defenders so quickly

Well, AridMonk, redscorps, and citizensmith all correspond to Real contributors on the site, so that part is true.

What I don't understand is why none of them are concerned that the site's email address was used extremely fraudulently (let alone any prior evidence of fraud) and don't seem to be interested in listening to the voicemail recordings proving this, despite saying they only won't believe because they haven't seen evidence...

I have the evidence- if you really care at all, listen to it, and then make up your mind! If you don't care, again, I just don't know what to say...

RiTides wrote:I commented on your blog, Marcus, in an attempt to contact you- not sure why my comment's not there anymore?

You did? Damn, don't get many comments on my blog. Well aside from a wonderful one were some anonymous user tried to troll me on my own blog because I said I quite enjoyed the Ultramarines movie. Guessing that wasn't you as I'm saving that one.

Like I said, while there has been a metric assload of info posted here, I have also seen as much counter info. I don't know anyone on this site so I have no way of assessing the validity or identity of the individuals involved. You can post as much as you want, but until I get to talk about this over some beers with someone its far easier to assume people are trolls. Don't worry about the voice mail thing, never heard Matt talk so now way of knowing who I'm listening to. I was on 11th company a while back though if you want to compare just to check its not me.

So no, I don't particularly care. Too much a skeptic to believe forum posts. Based on personal experience, MWC FTW.

Platuan4th wrote:Somehow, though, I doubt you will, because your mind has already been made up.

That and the “he’s a nice guy“ defence doesn’t work, especially without substance. Not being negatively affected in terms of service by a particular group doesn’t invalidate the claims of the people who have been. If they were really interested in the value of their brand, they’d be trying to move heaven and earth to resolve the issues and engage RiTides directly (nip the issue in the bud and whatnot). Pretending the issue does not exist isn’t a clean way to handle things

RiTides wrote:Matt told me he'd be emailing you guys to post here.

This disturbs me a little. Getting other people to post for him is poor form IMO, especially considering the people who were tasked to do so aren’t informed, aware or care about the issue.

candy.man wrote:

RiTides wrote:Matt told me he'd be emailing you guys to post here.

This disturbs me a little. Getting other people to post for him is poor form IMO, especially considering the people who were tasked to do so aren’t informed, aware or care about the issue.

RSO has always had layers of lies and excuses. This is just another layer. Remote control sockpuppets: It's like sending out flying monkeys to throw poo.

Makes my ignore list bigger, is there a limit?

Got to stand by Ritides on his ability to give proper information to this site. I think a few others will do the same.

Adam LongWalker wrote:Got to stand by Ritides on his ability to give proper information to this site. I think a few others will do the same.

Luna wrote:I have been keeping track of this guy since i also use swap shop.

I gave some info to the mods dunno why they didnt act on it.

Have been tracking redstarone's actions for the past year:
http://www.miniwargaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=58568&p=535942#p535942

I told you guys over and over again he is scamming you guys, but all the swap mods ever do is delete / lock my warnings.

This guy doesnt have a dead son or dead wife , hes been happily doing his thing on other forums / sites while taking dakka member's trades / $$$ for a ride.
You know , all the time he is on his time out away from Dakka dakka back then ? No he wasnt dealing with his RL stuff , he is dealing with ANOTHER GROUP he is scamming simultaneously.

Yep i have a problem and im going to voice it now. dont EVER lock , delete , or edit any potential swap shop problems. THIS is what happens when you do.

Thanks

PS, quoting a member because he is absolutely correct:

I can't believe this bs is still continuing.
I also can't believe he has the audacity to post under the same name


He has the audacity because any warning and discussion / informing others about his scams have been hushed. I dont care if thats not the intention , but thats the result "hushed"
thats why he have the audacity and gets to slip away so easily.

Anyone that have scammed , without able to provide proof, should be black listed in the open.
There should be a blacklist stickied in swap shop , with the person's name and address , and email /paypal address ( though this wont help as much but oh well )

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/06/01 23:53:11

"This disturbs me a little. Getting other people to post for him is poor form IMO"

Didn't occur to you that being banned makes it somewhat difficult to post personally.

And sock puppets? Really, you sad little people. I was working to keep things nice but whatever folks.

well citizensmith you do know him IRL so...
what more can we say to you?

If they really, really don't want to see the evidence, does it really hurt you RiTides? You're getting the warning out there for gamers to avoid the site due to fraud. I think that makes it worth while. You can't change minds that are already made up.

Citizensmith wrote:"This disturbs me a little. Getting other people to post for him is poor form IMO"

Didn't occur to you that being banned makes it somewhat difficult to post personally.

You're absolutely right! Good thing RSO's so great at responding to other forms of communication - email, phone, mail, fax, telegraph, carrier pigeons, arrows with scrolls wrapped around the shaft, scraps of paper tied to bricks thrown through his windows.

Haha, oh wait.

-Loki- wrote:If they really, really don't want to see the evidence, does it really hurt you RiTides? You're getting the warning out there for gamers to avoid the site due to fraud. I think that makes it worth while. You can't change minds that are already made up.

What we really really really need is to start compiling all the reports. Not just the RSO transaction from Dakka. ALL that we know.
There are enough testimonies from other trade sites that have been hit.

Then we compile it into the first post of the thread... like ....presenting a court case right?
Like they said, its they either believe in US, or RSO. So far they have dealt with RSO without issue,
then they look at what us provided *takes a look not that much either.

As of now, we are pretty much like GW suing CH

LunaHound wrote:well citizensmith you do know him IRL so...
what more can we say to you?

No I don't, I never said I did. I don't know anyone here IRL. Chances are you're some slightly overweight 17 year old guy who really likes dark eldar based on the average gamer population, but IRL I've no way of knowing. That was the point I made as to why I don't hold the opinion of anyone on the intarwebs very highly.

And as has been said. Yes, Matt succesfully sold some Knight kits, but MWC itself does not sell stuff or do raffles. Please keep these things distinct.

And another RSO supporter resorts to personal insults.

Yaaaaaay, consistency.

Guys, we must be fair here. RSO indeed cannot post in his own defense, it is unfair to call his friends 'sock-puppets' as they are his only venue to respond here.

It is critical that this conversation remain fair and level. This is NOT a witch hunt. Problems expressed for or against MWC or RSO must be fact based and open to debate. Anyone, including those 'on Dakka's side' who presents their take as absolute is lighting a fuse on flaming that is detrimental to the intent of the thread.

If you have evidence, present it, let that do the talking. Running around going 'Anyone who says anything against RSO is a troll' or 'Anyone who says anything for RSO is a sock puppet' contributes nothing and will only prevent people looking at the facts, which is what we should all be doing. Apply a little logic and objective assessment people, that's all that is needed here, not soap-boxing or name calling.

Stay Polite.

infinite_array wrote:And another RSO supporter resorts to personal insults.

Yaaaaaay, consistency.

Got to agree. Seeing the only 'defense' as insults and internet toughguy impersonations, is pretty telling.

Citizensmith wrote:Didn't occur to you that being banned makes it somewhat difficult to post personally.

If that is the case, he should type up an official statement (acknowledging the claims) and get one of you guys to post it. Better still, he should just privately email Ritides and be done with the issue.

There are plenty of avenues here that could be taken, but aren’t.

I'll repeat myself again.

STAY.
POLITE.

Warnings will be forthcoming to anyone who can't manage it.

infinite_array wrote:And another RSO supporter resorts to personal insults.

Yaaaaaay, consistency.

You know, I re-read my post and I'm not sure I see where I was insulting?

Well Tom whose going to start the compilation?

LunaHound wrote:Well Tom whose going to start the compilation?

I know... complete silence, as we can all feel Tom's eyes on us with his 'attitude correcting hammer' in hand.

To get back on topic, I do support the idea of a stickied thread that collects evidence - both for and against - RSO and his activities. We may not be able to stop people from dealing with him, but at least they could be more informed as to what they're getting themselves into. It could be updated periodically with new information - aliases, newer scams/problems. If we can't get the guy before he causes more problems (allegedly), at least we can try and stay only a half-step behind him.

Calling Luna a slightly overweight 17 year old isn't an insult? Specifically when you don't know the person?

Meh, I don't know. And personally, I don't care.

If there's multiple signs that the guy is scamming people, whether it's all of the time or no, saying "he's a nice guy and everybody lies" is hardly a sound defense.

I've been reading this thread since it popped up, and as a new player of Warhammer and especially new to the online community, here is my take on this situation.

First, thank you RiTides for posting a warning about this. As a new person in this community, and all the modeling/warhammer online communities, I may not have been made aware of this before eventually falling into a trap by this person. I am sure he has done legitimate work, but the essential part of every con is the grain of truth used to make it work. What this warning tells me is valuable not only with the site/person in question, but also educates me to be more aware where ever I do go to do any business online.

Yes, it should be common practice to be aware of what you are doing. Lets face it though, in this age of being able to get everything online, we as an online culture are much less distrusting as we once were. This kind of warning serves us all well in saying that we need to make sure to do our best research on everyone we intend to do any online business with.

The second thing this warning does for me, much in the same way it helps the first. Know who you are talking to and/or calling your friend. I waited a day to post here, because I spent a good 3-4 hours back tracking the dakka forums researching RiTides. Many people in this post said he is a trusted member, and I tend to believe people until they give me a reason otherwise. That doesn't mean I should be complacent in that belief. I have found that he has done so much here and I should believe as well as UNDERSTAND that he is a trusted member of this site. Many would want to say that my researching someone that I say I believe to be trustworthy means I don't believe. Its simply not true, research helps you to understand. Understanding is knowing, and knowing is half the battle.

It might seem that the above is aimed at the members who have come posting in defense of MWC, but its more a message to anyone that would read this. Know who you are dealing with, even if you have had good dealing, know how others have been dealt with. Once you know the full story then make your decisions on weather you know it is a good idea to contribute/do business/be friends with whoever is in question.

So once again, thank you RiTides for bringing this out to make people aware.

Citizensmith wrote:"This disturbs me a little. Getting other people to post for him is poor form IMO"

Didn't occur to you that being banned makes it somewhat difficult to post personally.

And sock puppets? Really, you sad little people. I was working to keep things nice but whatever folks.

Plenty of people have tried to read him by email and by phone and can't get anything but the run around. RSO is not known for good/any communication. You can see that if you read the thread in the Market section here. Try typing Redstarone into google and you'll get threads from numerous other sites where people don't hear from him for months and struggle to get responses, get their orders shipped, get money back. Some never do. And that's the problem. Maybe you don't care.

As well as Dakka he's been kicked from Warseer, Bartertown and Rogue Market, you can see his suspended account on some of these sites. Why do you suppose that is? Is it really just Dakka drama for the lulz?

I can't quite get my head around why his mates have no interest in looking into this matter if they want to maintain an honest, clean website. All three do the same thing. Dismiss the trail if disaster left by Redstarone as internet trolling and bigotry, then go on the attack with insults and making fun of people who spend their lives gaming/making models. Which is bizarre for people that run a site making conversions, but oh well. One thing I do notice is how often redstarone goes on a foul mouthed attack over people having sad lives with their models, and talk of 'fat nerds'. And make threats about sorting it out with a fist fight.

Which is exactly what his defenders do here.

They are either hopelessly blinkered by him or are in on it. It's nice that through MWC that redstarone has made a costly conversion and donated it for some event. But how is it that he has the time and money to do that, and not sort out the string of people that have pretty much lost all hope of recovering the money and models that have disappeared with him?


Redstarone also said he was 'getting out of the business'. However, he is still doing some work for people because he's been active on BoLS as late as the end of August apparently handling a reaver titan commission for someone called nellis14
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=170&page=40
Although I don't see anything to indicate if it's been delivered yet, certainly nellis14 has not posted his happily received commission.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

LunaHound wrote:Well Tom whose going to start the compilation?

There's at least three threads on Bartertown where RSO has broken contact, some look like they were getting resolved but what the final outcome was isn't clear. I did find a charming thread on another forum which I if I was to copy and paste here would largely be lost to the dakka censor.
http://otzone.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=whine&action=display&thread=6696&page=5

As much legitimate evidence as has been collected on this person's shady activities including outright scams and theft (taking items and money for a commission and not coming through is theft, regardless of what his defenders will claim), it's surprising that no one has contacted his local police department. I assume since money and or items have been sent that someone has his address, and finding the local precinct should be easy from that.

Isn't about time the Swap Shop Mods just put a link in their signatures about this guy? Even an article?

Perhaps recommend the community to not use services associated with him.

http://www.galaxygobbo.com (which seems to be upgrading?) and Bits and Kits.

There are probably more. While it might seem in poor taste to boycott these businesses, I feel it's the only way to stamp out this leach.

Just to reiterate what Tom said, if we could avoid jumping all over the people who have posted in Miniature Wargame Conversions' defense, that would definitely help this thread: 1) Stay open 2) Not be an unfair trial by public opinion, or witch hunt.

Once again, this thread is about the Site and how it is being used... my whole case is that there is Not a distinction between the site and Matt. People are now referring to him as "Matt from Miniature Wargame Conversions". In my opinion, he emailed me, using 2 aliases, from the Miniature Wargame Conversions email address for months. He posted his conversions for sale there, under the name "Miniature Wargame Conversions" and listing the website's contact email address.

Therefore, the website is complicit in what he is doing... and the fact that there are other, genuine contributions to the website makes that fact all the more dangerous.

Let's stay on track, here, and not insult those who are defending the site any more than they should insult people here.

Medium of Death wrote:Isn't about time the Swap Shop Mods just put a link in their signatures about this guy? Even an article?

Perhaps recommend the community to not use services associated with him.

http://www.galaxygobbo.com (which seems to be upgrading?) and Bits and Kits.

There are probably more. While it might seem in poor taste to boycott these businesses, I feel it's the only way to stamp out this leach.

Gifts of Mork appears questionable to me as well, since it was started by a "fan" of RSO's Pay-it-Forward campaign.
http://giftsofmork.blogspot.com/

Medium of Death wrote:Isn't about time the Swap Shop Mods just put a link in their signatures about this guy? Even an article?

Perhaps recommend the community to not use services associated with him.

http://www.galaxygobbo.com (which seems to be upgrading?) and Bits and Kits.

There are probably more. While it might seem in poor taste to boycott these businesses, I feel it's the only way to stamp out this leach.

How are Bits and Kits involved? Are they a site he uses and links? Or does he have some sort of real connection to them?

I have had nothing but good dealings and positive resolutions from them.

Can you provide some evidence for the link?


EDIT:

It seems Miniature Wargame Conversions are not linked from the BnK site, while Dakka, Warseer and other reputable wargame sites are.

I think he's saying, 'Here, use these sites whose owners aren't commonly considered the Wargaming Equal of the guy trying to sell tourists London Bridge or that Nigerian dude who'll send you £2 million if you just send him £5000 and your bank account.'

I know Bits and Kits has only one flaw so far - the good bits sell out too damned fast.

I'm saying that reputable companies do themselves an injustice by associating themselves with this nefarious individual.

Bits and Kits are on that site, and have offered prize support for that site in the past.

http://miniaturewargameconversions.blogspot.com/

-Loki- wrote:

infinite_array wrote:And another RSO supporter resorts to personal insults.

Yaaaaaay, consistency.

Got to agree. Seeing the only 'defense' as insults and internet toughguy impersonations, is pretty telling.

To be fair, calling someone a "sock-puppet" just because they are defending someone is pretty insulting in and of itself. YOU might as well call them sheep or sheeple. Seriously.
So, when they get pissy right back, it should not come as a surprise to anyone.

For those of you who defend Matthew... Well, my condolences. When the other shoe falls, I hope you manage to dodge it. The people who put their trust in him are the ones who have gotten ripped off over the years. The ones with the least horrible results are those who would not have lost anything if Matthew flaked on them. Keep that in mind.

As for the MWC site... I don't know any of you contributors. There are two people in the online gaming community whose endeavors I avoid like the plague. One of them is Matthew Bonder. The other is, well, I'll just say it's a friend of Matthew's. I feel financially safer for avoiding them, as both of them tend to see their "business" go to sh** not long after people start giving them a lot of money.


Eric

Medium of Death wrote:I'm saying that reputable companies do themselves an injustice by associating themselves with this nefarious individual.

Bits and Kits are on that site, and have offered prize support for that site in the past.

http://miniaturewargameconversions.blogspot.com/

So, he links to them, but they don't link to him?

A few questions must surely be asked:

When did they offer prize support?
Is that still ongoing?
What was the nature of the deal?
Do they know about these allegations?

BnK must have been sought profit from this, either in the original deal or through increased exposure.

I'm not ready to boycott them based on the current information.

Thanks RiTides

Its usually not a bad idea to boycott any business or person who openly associate with somebody like Matt. If we as consumers, can drive them away from the bad seeds in the hobby, we can make the hobby better for everyone. People like Matt continue to survive and do what they are doing for so long, because there are those out there who they have not hurt yet, and are willing to associate with them. If the community makes it painful to anyone to associate with known scammers, those scammers with more quickly wither away and be erased from the community. A company like Bits and Kits could be completely on the up and up, and offer great services, but if they link to or support somebody like Matt in any way, they should be made to pay the consequences, until they spearate themselves from him. The same goes for any other entity that is associated with him.

Even Rogue-Market has banned RSO. That really tells you something about this guy!

Didn't he claim to be one of the owners of Rogue Market?

Howard A Treesong wrote:Didn't he claim to be one of the owners of Rogue Market?

I've never heard that.
He was staff at one time, even for a long time after these accusations started flying. Justin defended him until he finally could defend him no more. Eventually, as the story goes, the other staff revolted & Justin had no other choice (hearsay). Allegedly, Justin tried to bring him back on under a different ID, but they caught on to that, too (hearsay).
Since then, to the best of my knowledge, their associations have been personal, with the only "business" association being Galaxy Gobbo's support for Matthew's site.

Disclaimer: Any time anything weird or seemingly 'wrong' happens with Justin or Matthew, I get a LOT of PM's here and on Bartertown because their respective histories on that site is well known, as is my position as an Admin there. Some of these PM's come from people I KNOW have the inside scoop and some come from people I trust implicitly. I do nothing to investigate these stories, however, because I have better things to do with my time. : ) Everything reported above, however, has been reported to me at one time or another. I have fabricated none on my own, nor have I investigated any.

I would be surprised to hear from anyone with an inside scoop that Matthew ever claimed to be an owner of Rogue Market, though. Even his fantasies seem to have some shred of basis in reality.
Eric

I was probably mistaken, confusing Admin with owner. I knew he was more than a regular member of Rogue Market.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MagickalMemories wrote:I've never heard that.
He was staff at one time, even for a long time after these accusations started flying. Justin defended him until he finally could defend him no more. Eventually, as the story goes, the other staff revolted & Justin had no other choice (hearsay). Allegedly, Justin tried to bring him back on under a different ID, but they caught on to that, too (hearsay).
Since then, to the best of my knowledge, their associations have been personal, with the only "business" association being Galaxy Gobbo's support for Matthew's site.

Eeehh he doesn't look so clean either looking at a few threads.
http://www.bartertown.com/trading/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=86791

Ooh, that's you! I won't post the blackmail thread but that was a mind boggler too.

Isn't it fascinating what the underbelly of this hobby turns up? Well now I know why Galaxy Gobbo would be advertised on MWC, that and he's contributing to the site and pushing stuff to sell.

So while it seems that any pages viewable where redstarone is selling stuff are gone, his friend with a chequered past is pushing sales through MWC from the Galaxy Gobbo site. With the claim that you'll get "exclusive deals on here that you wouldn't even find on our own site".

There ain't a barge pole long enough.



Back to WMO - At Heresy Online one user "Azkaellon" alleges that "Most recently he has been shown to 'GIVE AWAY' several high dollar models which he owed to past commissioners including at least one thunderhawk and one titan."
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/archive/index.php?t-130.html

There ain't a barge pole long enough.

Which is why long range missles were invented.

Thank you Rtides for the warning. I'm glad for the warning about RSO and his associations with MWC and Galaxy Gobbo.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

This is important question.

When did Justin fire him off staff of Rogue Trader?
when was MWC created? ( if not created by Matt, when did Matt join )

( i need specific date )

TESLA wrote:
Redstar has been banned. He is not on the site and he is removed. Jason (Inquisitor Lewis) has been number two running the site.

From the RM chat room.

@Lunahound: RSO lef around on RM aproximately June 2010? Summer 2010. Around there to my knowledge.

Galaxy Gobbo has not pushed any deals on MWC. Redstarone is not on Rogue-market.com and has been long removed and is not on our site in any way. Redstarone is not involved with GG either.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because my personal name has brought up time to time again and that this thread has potential to be hyperlinked in the future.. going to reiterate a few points that i've said over maybe 10x+ times on Dakka and all other place. This is only serves as a placeholder statement for myself and for future cases.

I admit and take responsibility to my past except the 'scamming' part. Scammers hit and run and hide in the shadows. I've never had. Even then many times over that IF the factual claim against me is that I'm a scammer as painted - I've provided the chance in the past where I've stated again and again... that I'm here. I'd refund or resolve any issue.

In the past when I was young(er) - I got angry, was immature, and troll'd Bartertown.

I feel financially safer for avoiding them, as both of them tend to see their "business" go to sh** not long after people start giving them a lot of money.

I am openly involved with both GG and RM. Both websites still exists to this day and they are not dead. Some projects within these site however HAVE failed. Yes. But some have succeeded. RM is climbing to 5k members.

I've not dealt business with wargaming for quite a while now- and with good reason. I have ADHD, and not until the past year or so have been diagnosed and treated. I am also an entrepreneur at heart -- so you have seen me create different startups some being successful, and some not. That's how it is. I've had many 'ideas' that came to me and I've experimented and acquired knowledge on what works and what doesn't.

Online wargaming sales is a low margin, high volume business. Takes effort and responsibility to execute & upkeep constantly. Something admittedly that isn't my forte at all (many of you would highly agree). That kind of labor is something I'm just really not good at. I'm a thinker, and a developer. When I ran my past businesses I started at the young age of 15 where I began selling a high volume amount of wargaming items and have continued since. (I'm 21 now). Many of my past decisions may have been poor, and in retrospect I could have done MANY things better which would have made not even have my name brought up here in the first place.

But that's life isn't it. Live and learn.

As an entrepreneur I've cut my losses and moved onto different non-wargaming industry something that is high-margin low volume (Automotive & Real Estate) that has been more within my interests and it has been to this date very successful.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Galaxy Gobbo was not a crash either. It hit a roadbump which it responsibly both cease future orders AND resolved all issues. The GG thread might not be updated - but all the people who've had issues have been either refunded, provided their items or fixed (you can confirm).

It did hit a roadbump because:
1. The massive amount of orders.
2. GW use to ship new releases a week or so early. They started to put a stamp on it around the same time GG was pushing its Grey knights deals.

Example: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/406981.page

This caused the order errors you may see on our past GG posts on people asking about product. GG got the GK shipment delayed.

3. GG received its supply from a indirect non-gw local source which ceased due to its inability to fully fulfill its requests and has since

The reason why GG is stalled at the moment is because the fallout on a monetary investment needed to help GG transition from its Groupon standpoint to a FLGS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I think that as a consumer you have the power to put the dollars where you want and how you want. If you don't want to ever do business with me - that is fine. I just ask you keep O/T.

-Justin

RogueMarket wrote:Galaxy Gobbo has not pushed any deals on MWC. Redstarone is not on Rogue-market.com and has been long removed and is not on our site in any way. Redstarone is not involved with GG either.

But this is you from GG offering the possibility of exclusive deals through MWC right?

http://miniaturewargameconversions.blogspot.com/2011/04/gobbo-has-landed.html

Justin, as the owner of Rogue Market, Matt was your staff which was fired. Would you agree with the accusations presented against him ( despite his friends not believing it? )

That post was posted and reblogged on over 10+ locations on many blogs and websites en masse.
The only true exclusive deal we have offered was on DakkaDakka itself. Maybe Lost Hemisphere.

It was part of the generic ad-copy with the verbage for building hype to each localized reader/website.

It was part of the mass promotions in which we amassed over 700 subscribers within a few weeks.

Though not all GG postings have been made by me personally either however GG is not solely ran by me nor owned.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

LunaHound wrote:Justin, as the owner of Rogue Market, Matt was your staff which was fired. Would you agree with the accusations presented against him ( despite his friends not believing it? )

Matt had a personal disagreement issue with JasonLewis and Doctrin (another admin) in which flaming, personal attacks and name calling.
Matt was banned by another admin and eventually had his account deleted.
I was not online at that time of disagreement - and when I got online I didn't know why and reinstated his account and attempted to resolve the personal issue.
JL, Doctrin and company got upset. I attempted to communicate along to try to have a mutual settlement of personall issues.

RSO gave up and left after had trained all the staff who disagreed with him and his account was cancelled.

I banned Doctrin around the same time of this event. He actually scammed me and large part of the RM community.
He was an admin who ran a large 'trade swap' enterprise and road off of the success of RM. He owed me a couple hundred dollars and owed other individuals items.
Because he was an admin he had friends within staff he took some staff and made his own site.

That site is now dead - and he owes the people whom he worked with on that site money.
Doctrin disappeared.

RSO did not scam on RM. I can't speak for any accusations against on Matt because what he does is his personal business.
I have not in the past have any fallout dealing with Matt.

The current people running RM:
Me, JL, Calypsius, and Zindras.

For the record.

I was asked by Justin a few weeks ago to come back to RM as an admin, to which I agreed. RM was the first site that I ever visited, and will always hold a special place to me.

That all being said, I have since withdrawn from RM staff. There is no reason for this other than I need to stay focused on my growing business. I just don't have time to admin a site anymore.

FWIW, Justin, had I know you'd end up getting slammed, I'd have left you out of it.
My intent was to show a timeline of RSO's... junk... Wasn't trying to implicate you.

(Sorry for the slight OT here, but I think it's important enough to say, and it's applicable because of the tangent we've run on. Hopefully, this will end any "Justin Wu" tangent in this thread)

I don't speak for Bartertown here, only myself:
Justin and I don't get along. I never intend to. In the past, he has made some horrendous mistakes. I think he'd agree that some were downright stupid. On a few occasions, he did have some trade indiscretions. To the best of my knowledge, he made good on every one of them with, at worst, a methodology of someone who was not as concerned about the trade as he should have been.

While scamming accusations have been made in the past, they were always made while he still owed something to someone. AFAIK, he ALWAYS made good on his trades.

There are no open BTR's on Bartertown on him, and his ban there has to do with other indiscretions/issues. Not trades.
I have no reason to disbelieve what he says above.

/OT

Eric

Interesting, to the above post.

So is he a scammer or not?

IdentifyZero wrote:Interesting, to the above post.

So is he a scammer or not?

The above post seems to be addressing Justin / aka RogueTrader

the scammer is Matt aka RedStarOne

LunaHound wrote:

IdentifyZero wrote:Interesting, to the above post.

So is he a scammer or not?

The above post seems to be addressing Justin / aka RogueTrader

the scammer is Matt aka RedStarOne

Ok, I've been getting the two confused. Seems like an entire web of guilt through association at this point almost. xD My apologies, seems they've both had multiple threads up on other sites.

I'd just like to clarify here for those not intricately involved in the wargaming trading history of the internet, that there have, in the past been issues between RogueMarket/Justin Wu, and Bartertown (who MagickalMemories is a prominent figure at). However, to the best of my knowledge (reinforced by the posts of both above), all such issues are long in the past, and resolved.

The current topic of discussion is the website Miniature Wargaming Conversions, and by extension, the way it seems to have been used by a particularly notorious individual (Matt Bonder/redstarone). Keep it on topic people. No need to draw in names of the unrelated.

Thanks, Ketara...

I guess I'm not totally sure what I'd like out of this thread at this point, now that the word is out. Things can get out of control so quickly...

I have looked into a few more things, namely sharing the voicemail recording with porkuslime, who has spoken to Matt on the phone before, to see if he can give any indication of whether it seems to be Matt or not (while claiming to be "Damien").

Likewise, I've asked Alpharius to check to see if he has the packaging for the first box he received after I communicated with Miniature Wargame Conversions, as that was sent by "Damien"... and to see if the return address matches Matt's.

One thing I know for sure- I'd Really like this thread to stick to facts, not conjecture. Considering the sites that donate to MWC's raffles is a very valid thing to do- perhaps contacting those sites, if anyone was concerned, about these issues might make them reconsider participating in these events, and again lending more credibility to Matt's use of the site as a means to raffle things... since it's not a huge jump to go to selling from there (as he already did).

In that regard, I spoke at length via email to the owner of the From The Warp blogger group of which MWC is a part. The owner (Ron) was extremely polite throughout, however in the end decided that this was beyond the scope of what he could remove a member of the blog-ring for. There are many other excellent blogs in the same ring (Dave Taylor's is a good example) and by being a part of it it is again lending credibility to the site.

The blogger group's main page is here:
http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/

But again, I already spoke with the owner extensively and nothing is happening in that regard. However, perhaps other blogs in the ring could remove their links to MWC, or the like, or at the minimum not sponsor things like raffles at MWC...

So, as I said, I'm not sure what I want to come out going from here, but sticking to the facts and being clear about actions taken (i.e., there are many sites that link to MWC that are not even remotely connected to them, and have no idea about Matt) would give this thread a clear purpose from this point forward.

Just slamming anyone remotely connected to Matt isn't going to accomplish anything useful, though!

And.. to follow up on RiTides note.. he has shared the voicemail he has with me, but thanks to some family issues at the house tonight I was unable to listen to it.. I have been warned that it is not a "kid friendly" listening experience.

Ok guys, this keeps coming up, and I really feel that it needs to be sorted out now.

The word "Raffle", as described in dictionary.com -

noun
1.
a form of lottery in which a number of persons buy one or more chances to win a prize

Please note the bolded word in that quote. Buy. For someone to buy something, we would have to sell something, in this case, tickets for the raffle.

WE DO NOT TAKE IN MONEY, SELL TICKETS, ASK FOR FAVOURS OR ANYTHING ELSE IN RETURN FOR ENTRY INTO THE MONTHLY CONVERSION COMPETITION. IT IS 100% FREE AND 100% NO STRINGS ATTACHED

So, please, enlighten me as to how anyone could possibly get scammed by entering our competition!? If there is no requirement other than to follow the rules laid out, no entry fee, no tickets for sale, then how can the entrant possibly get scammed by entering!?

As for anything else to do with the site, as I said back on page 1, we have no services, hobby related or otherwise, in which we would take money for doing something for you. Nothing. Zero. Zip. So again, it would be impossible for someone to get scammed via the site, as we have nothing for sale!

The Knight Titan service offered by Matt that was linked earlier in this thread is something he no longer offers to anybody, not even me. I enquired about one a few back, just after I started at MWC, as was flatly told that he no longer does it as it caused too much drama within the community.

Lastly, as a result of this thread, Matt is currently re-evaluating his position at MWC. It seems that his past will chase him wherever he goes, and he does not want to see the site get dragged down because of his association with it, as it was something he started to encourage modelling diversity within the community and to reward those who participated with prizes. I will post an update in this thread when he makes his decision. Please note that this was Matt's decision and no-one trying to force him out.

I will update here in due course.

The concern is not that the site was scaming anyone.

The concern is that the site drives people towards purchasing services from an individual with a checkered past.

Unfortunately, I need to put out a warning to avoid giving this conversion website funds of any kind.

Therefore, I'd warn anyone against commissioning them for anything, sending funds, or otherwise financially interacting with them. I see no reason why someone could not participate in posting on their website or the like, however be wary of anything beyond that.

Taken from the very first post in this thread. It does not reference the individual, but the site as a whole.

And the concern that you referenced I have just cleared up in my previous post. We offer no services at all.

AridMonk wrote:

Unfortunately, I need to put out a warning to avoid giving this conversion website funds of any kind.

Therefore, I'd warn anyone against commissioning them for anything, sending funds, or otherwise financially interacting with them. I see no reason why someone could not participate in posting on their website or the like, however be wary of anything beyond that.

Taken from the very first post in this thread. It does not reference the individual, but the site as a whole.

And the concern that you referenced I have just cleared up in my previous post. We offer no services at all.

1) If he received corrospondence from an email address that includes the url of your site, then that is an understandable reason for assuming that it was a service offered by the site. I don't recall an explanation so far as to why emails were send that appeared to be from the website.

2) And again, the concern at this point is NOT that you offer services, but that you basically funcion as an advertisement for contributers. One of whom has a very checkered past. By including him with legitimate converters and businesses you make him look legitimate.

Sorry that does not concern you, but the hobby community looks out for one another.

AridMonk wrote:So, please, enlighten me as to how anyone could possibly get scammed by entering our competition!? If there is no requirement other than to follow the rules laid out, no entry fee, no tickets for sale, then how can the entrant possibly get scammed by entering!?

Not *yet*. But any good scam artist lays a bit of groundwork and generates good relations before looking to fleece people. After all, you generally don't give money to someone you don't know. If he does his usual, and there are postings online as far back as 2005 where he's cut of communication with a customer, you'll be left picking up the pieces as his associate.

Again you have to ask, why is it that if the raffle takes no money, these prizes and donations are coming out of Matt's pocket, why is he incapable of addressing his previous debts?

d-usa wrote:1) If he received corrospondence from an email address that includes the url of your site, then that is an understandable reason for assuming that it was a service offered by the site. I don't recall an explanation so far as to why emails were send that appeared to be from the website.

A decent point, and one that I will try and look into.

d-usa wrote:
2) And again, the concern at this point is NOT that you offer services, but that you basically funcion as an advertisement for contributers. One of whom has a very checkered past. By including him with legitimate converters and businesses you make him look legitimate.

Sorry that does not concern you, but the hobby community looks out for one another.

I'm sorry? Where exactly do we function as an advertisement for contributors? That one blog post, six months ago? For a service that he no longer offers?

Yes the hobby community looks out for one another. It's one of the best features of any of the multitude of forums I visit. However, in this instance, the warning is misleading, as it tells users to stay away from us and to not give us money, but we do not take money in the first place!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Howard A Treesong wrote:
Again you have to ask, why is it that if the raffle takes no money, these prizes and donations are coming out of Matt's pocket, why is he incapable of addressing his previous debts?

That is something that you would have to ask him, as I do not control his wallet. If Matt does leave the site, it would be one of us who would continue the donations.

AridMonk wrote:

d-usa wrote:1) If he received corrospondence from an email address that includes the url of your site, then that is an understandable reason for assuming that it was a service offered by the site. I don't recall an explanation so far as to why emails were send that appeared to be from the website.

A decent point, and one that I will try and look into.

I would really appreciate your looking into that, AridMonk.

As it is, I have hundreds of emails from MiniatureWargameCo@gmail.com, which is an email address I found on the aforementioned blog post on the website offering the knight titans for sale. I received correspondence from this email as recently as just a few days ago when I posted this thread (I've since blocked it, as I hoping to resolve things privately without needing to warn the community... but it was not to be).

I also have a recording of 11 voicemails, which I received after sharing my phone number with that email address, and which references the same people from Miniature Wargame Conversions ("Jeff" and "Damien").

All of this was done in the name of "Miniature Wargame Conversions". NONE of it was done in the name of Matt (in fact, it was repeatedly denied that the communication was from Matt, and asserted over and over that it was from behind-the-scenes people from Miniature Wargame Conversions).

Hence, my warning people about the website, Miniature Wargame Conversions... as that's who I was told I was dealing with this entire time in trying to help recover the missing goods from Alpharius' blown deal with Matt. I was told "they" cared enough to help resolve it... a box was even sent directly by "Damien" supposedly with a small portion of what was owed. However, it seems that "they" don't care enough to fully resolve it... hence my naming the website as complicit in this, given the involvement shown above.

At best, it'd be a well-meaning person (well, 2, in fact "Jeff" and "Damien") who got burned out. At worst, and much more likely, it'd be Matt using the Miniature Wargame Conversions name to give himself room to make aliases / cover his actions... and that should concern you greatly. I look forward to hearing what you find out after looking into this... I hope you do so with an open mind, and really consider why this would be OK for the person who created the website to do.

AridMonk, redscorp et all... It hasn't been said yet I suppose, but has it occurred to you that you guys are the very people we are trying to look out for here?

Look at the work and time you have to spend on this, quite likely through no fault of your own.... For your own sakes, spend half an hour looking into RSO, not in his interests, but your own.

Guys, we must be very careful how we say things here, if MWC is willing to post evidence and genuinely engaged in figuring out what is going on, we should be supporting them not attacking. Likewise MWC, if you could continue to address questions fairly and not dodge the more worrying facts, that would go a long way...

Let's act like we are all hobbyists trying to help each other out and enhance the community here.... This is in fact what we were all trying to do anyways right???

MajorTom11 wrote:AridMonk, redscorp et all... It hasn't been said yet I suppose, but has it occurred to you that you guys are the very people we are trying to look out for here?

Look at the work and time you have to spend on this, quite likely through no fault of your own.... For your own sakes, spend half an hour looking into RSO, not in his interests, but your own.

Guys, we must be very careful how we say things here, if MWC is willing to post evidence and genuinely engaged in figuring out what is going on, we should be supporting them not attacking. Likewise MWC, if you could continue to address questions fairly and not dodge the more worrying facts, that would go a long way...

Let's act like we are all hobbyists trying to help each other out and enhance the community here.... This is in fact what we were all trying to do anyways right???

I agree with Majortom

I concur with Majortom, Legal stuff is best left to lawyers and posting defamatory remarks no matter how baseless or legitimate is leaving yourself open to a world of pain. Remember this is open source, so if someone goes on google and runs a search...Bingo there are your statements clear as day and for the record.

If this Redstar fellow is as you put forward, why doesn't someone take him to court and settle this thing? If convicted I have no problems putting the boot in and sharpening the knives.... Until then it's "Innocent until proven guilty".

Agreed. However, all I have to go on are my communications with Miniature Wargame Conversions via email and the voicemails left for me by people identifying themselves with the site. This implicates the site, and is why I am referring to the site and not to Matt. The communications I received always mentioned Miniature Wargame Conversions, not Matt... therefore, it is appropriate to refer to Miniature Wargame Conversions when talking about it. If it is indeed shown that it was Matt communicating all along, that's even worse- as then he was impersonating the site and making up names to be associated with it...

However, on the subject of Matt himself- I received a PM a while ago from a user who had commissioned him earlier this year to make 2 Thunderhawks, and has had little to no communication since sending half of the fee upfront... they saw this thread and just updated me on the status of that, which is much the same. I'm asking for permission to share it here.

Clearly, in my opinion, Matt is still doing commission work (see the above note, as well as the Knight Titans sold this summer). Also clear, from my own experience, is that the website Miniature Wargame Conversions was connected, whether against the will of the other contributors, or not- he made a blog post on the site offering his items for sale, with the contact information MiniatureWargameCo@gmail.com. I have voicemails from after communicating with that email address identifying the speaker as connected to MWC. So, unfortunately, it cannot be separated out in this case.

I would appreciate AridMonk looking into the questions I raised. At this point, I doubt I would trust MWC even if Matt were supposedly to no longer take part in the site- as the things I experienced seem to have been under the noses of the other contributors / without their knowledge, and who is to say that couldn't happen again? It is Matt who created the site, recruited the other contributors, and administrates the site from what I can tell, so he is the one controlling things. Add to that the fact that he seemingly used the name Miniature Wargame Conversions in his communications, even using an email address of the same name, and how can you separate the two?

RiTides wrote:However, on the subject of Matt himself- I received a PM a while ago from a user who had commissioned him earlier this year to make 2 Thunderhawks, and has had little to no communication since sending half of the fee upfront... they saw this thread and just updated me on the status of that, which is much the same. I'm asking for permission to share it here.

Is this it being offered as a prize here?
http://miniaturewargameconversions.blogspot.com/2011/01/last-night-to-enter-free-give-away.html

I have a feeling something like that may be what gave him the idea to commission Matt, as he said he contacted Matt in February of this year, and that offering is in January. I.e., seeing a scratch-built Thunderhawk being given away as a prize, then asking him to convert one... hence this thread calling into question whether it's OK for Matt to be associated with a site running conversions contests, as it's an easy step to then sell conversion services based off of that.

AridMonk wrote:
I'm sorry? Where exactly do we function as an advertisement for contributors? That one blog post, six months ago? For a service that he no longer offers?

Yes the hobby community looks out for one another. It's one of the best features of any of the multitude of forums I visit. However, in this instance, the warning is misleading, as it tells users to stay away from us and to not give us money, but we do not take money in the first place!

Respectfully, you're missing the point. You're thinking about it from your own p.o.v. and not taking into account how other people think and act.

Have you ever been approached about doing commission work without saying, in any way, that you are interested in doing so? If you're any good (I have not looked at your work) and say "no," I'll be surprised.
I've been in the community -pretty deeply- for a long time. People are ALWAYS looking to others to do paint and/or conversion work for them. If they see something you do that they like, and you appear to be doing this more than casually, they WILL contact you.
If you're converting models and popping out one a month, you're not likely to get a lot of unsolicited contacts. Popping out a converted model every day or two? Creating custom scratch-builds in a week? Your inbox WILL get some hits from people who want to throw their money at you to do what you do, but for them. The same thing goes for painters. If you've got a dakka blog and a decent personality, and you're popping out models at a decent quality in swift time, you'll be contacted.

The same thing goes at your site. Where conversionists congregate, there will be people who will pay you to do it. All you have to do is say "Yes" when they email and take their money.

I'm the Admin in charge of Advertising at Bartertown. I know this from personal experience. Additionally, I used to sell painted minis on Feebay many MANY years ago, and used to get unsolicited messages there at a rate of on or two a month. It happpens.


Eric

Ketara wrote:I'd just like to clarify here for those not intricately involved in the wargaming trading history of the internet, that there have, in the past been issues between RogueMarket/Justin Wu, and Bartertown (who MagickalMemories is a prominent figure at). However, to the best of my knowledge (reinforced by the posts of both above), all such issues are long in the past, and resolved.

The current topic of discussion is the website Miniature Wargaming Conversions, and by extension, the way it seems to have been used by a particularly notorious individual (Matt Bonder/redstarone). Keep it on topic people. No need to draw in names of the unrelated.

I second what Ketora said. While Justin did make some mistakes in the past, he did make up for all of them. I do not believe that Justin has any intentions of doing anybody wrong. He has went a long way from where he was a few years ago.

As for Matt. It's a shame there has been so much negative done by him. He is a super talented guy and could have went very far in the industry IMO it has all been one huge waste of a great talent.

AridMonk wrote:

Lastly, as a result of this thread, Matt is currently re-evaluating his position at MWC. It seems that his past will chase him wherever he goes

Good.

He should go away and stay away.

AridMonk wrote:

Lastly, as a result of this thread, Matt is currently re-evaluating his position at MWC. It seems that his past will chase him wherever he goes

Something worth saying for you to remember AridMonk, his issues are not in the past. He currently owes a lot of people money and miniatures into the thousands, I would very much advise you to remember that. This isn't about the past at all, it's about what he is continuing to do, and you can't expect this to 'stop following him' so long as he hasn't made it up to the people he robbed.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
More importantly, you also cannot expect association with someone who has done such horrible things in the community not to reflect badly on your group either...

The biggest shame of it all is that he is obviously quite talented... What a waste...

Majortom, you cannot espouse a reasonable stance because of legal concerns and then post what you have above. It is frankly none of our business, as it is clearly defamation. You cannot convict someone on hearsay and a kangaroo court of people who all cry out. The Legal system of the UK and US has grown around sound tried and tested principles, case law, and the sound principle of "presumed innocence" . We need a proper legal stand on this, if Matt Bonder is convicted of an offence then by definition it is in the public domain and we can freely call him dishonest. Otherwise your intentions no matter how honourable (which I thoroughly believe they are) can be interpreted as vigilantism, victimization or as slanderous. We shouldn't encourage "nerd rage" or similiar behaviour that undermines the rule of law, the bedrock of social cohesion. How can we know that lots of people have items owed? What Evidence? How was this gathered and presented? The integrity of evidence is crucial, all i have seen thus far is claim and counter claim, and it is not even my responsibility to decide if he is guilty, that it is for Courts and Jurors to decide. We have to be reasonable and balanced and avoid the emotive response. Hearsay is not admissible in the UK, i would guess this is the same in the US.

I echo your sentiments about how sad this situation is regardless of the outcome.

mwnciboo wrote:Majortom, you cannot espouse a reasonable stance because of legal concerns and then post what you have above. It is frankly none of our business, as it is clearly defamation. You cannot convict someone on hearsay and a kangaroo court of people who all cry out. The Legal system of the UK and US has grown around sound tried and tested principles, case law, and the sound principle of "presumed innocence" . We need a proper legal stand on this, if Matt Bonder is convicted of an offence then by definition it is in the public domain and we can freely call him dishonest. Otherwise your intentions no matter how honourable (which I thoroughly believe they are) can be interpreted as vigilantism, victimization or as slanderous. We shouldn't encourage "nerd rage" or similiar behaviour that undermines the rule of law, the bedrock of social cohesion. How can we know that lots of people have items owed? What Evidence? How was this gathered and presented? The integrity of evidence is crucial, all i have seen thus far is claim and counter claim, and it is not even my responsibility to decide if he is guilty, that it is for Courts and Jurors to decide. We have to be reasonable and balanced and avoid the emotive response. Hearsay is not admissible in the UK, i would guess this is the same in the US.

I echo your sentiments about how sad this situation is regardless of the outcome.

The problem is, according to many police departments contacted, small cases of postal fraud are not worth pursuing in court.

Leaving the court of public opinion the only one he can be pursued in.

As to 'what evidence'... Voicemails, emails, public declarations from his own mouth... Admissions that he still owes stuff? If you want to see who and how many, simply back check yourself, it's all out there.

I also fail to see what inspired the tone of your response... A member of MWC posted something implying that these issues were all in the past... I corrected the statement. This is not slander, it is simply fact. You will note that at no point has anyone, anyone implied that Matt Bonder has settled all his broken deals. Nobody? Why? Because they know fine well that there are several people right here who have ample, ample proof otherwise.

I do not believe it is 'Nerd Rage' to simply acknowledge the issues... No one has threatened or even asked for punitive action that I can recall in this thread. It is quite simply a warning to the community about what MAY happen if they pursue business dealings with this man, directly or indirectly. This is the equivalent of leaving a 'got food poisoning' Internet restaurant review, so please don't blow it out of proportion. We have nothing to gain here unless you acknowledge the allegations are true. If you cant be bothered to look at the evidence amply available.... Well we must be mighty bored to make a 3 year conspiracy against some random innocent hobbyist with several other unrelated sites and people on top of it lol...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ideally yes though... Courts would have been great IMHO... As has been mentioned though, and to my genuine shock - the legal system in the US, at least in the effected states we know of, does not seem particularly interested in the size of money involved in individual instances... They also weren't impressed it was over 'toys'

In any case I have said all I have to on the subject, and take it seriously that my tone is being misinterpreted or exaggerated (or I failed to convey my message properly) so I will leave my contribution to this thread at that for now, I have absolutely no desire to contribute in any way steer things off course.

Ketara wrote:

mwnciboo wrote:Majortom, you cannot espouse a reasonable stance because of legal concerns and then post what you have above. It is frankly none of our business, as it is clearly defamation. You cannot convict someone on hearsay and a kangaroo court of people who all cry out. The Legal system of the UK and US has grown around sound tried and tested principles, case law, and the sound principle of "presumed innocence" . We need a proper legal stand on this, if Matt Bonder is convicted of an offence then by definition it is in the public domain and we can freely call him dishonest. Otherwise your intentions no matter how honourable (which I thoroughly believe they are) can be interpreted as vigilantism, victimization or as slanderous. We shouldn't encourage "nerd rage" or similiar behaviour that undermines the rule of law, the bedrock of social cohesion. How can we know that lots of people have items owed? What Evidence? How was this gathered and presented? The integrity of evidence is crucial, all i have seen thus far is claim and counter claim, and it is not even my responsibility to decide if he is guilty, that it is for Courts and Jurors to decide. We have to be reasonable and balanced and avoid the emotive response. Hearsay is not admissible in the UK, i would guess this is the same in the US.

I echo your sentiments about how sad this situation is regardless of the outcome.

The problem is, according to many police departments contacted, small cases of postal fraud are not worth pursuing in court.

Leaving the court of public opinion the only one he can be pursued in.

Isn't this against the US Constitution?

On the subject of evidence, I have read up on this REDSTARONE character, and all I have read is what other people have written (chiefly stories and hearsay or unsubstantiated claims), that is not evidence. It is never right just because alot of people say "X" is bad, it doesn't make it so. Think Nazi persecution of the Jews "Because Jews are evil and everyone agrees", the court of public opinion is not the court of law, otherwise everyone accused of Child Abuse would be hung from a lamp-post before ever meeting a fair trial. I understand, these are extreme examples, however food poisoning at a restaurant is an equally damaging claim and if you cannot back it up you would have to retract it. The 2nd President of the United States (A man I much admire) would never stand for such a persecution outside of the law, as a work around to the law. The Law is clear, emotionless and does not grind axes or hold grudges.

The Law is right, the enforcement of it is not.

Anyway I'm going to leave this subject well alone, as I agree with most of what Major Tom posted, hopefully this Matt Bonder will receive what he is due, "You reap what you sow".

mwnciboo wrote:Isn't this against the US Constitution? Anyway I'm going to leave this subject well alone, as I agree with most of what Major Tom posted, hopefully this Matt Bonder will receive what he is due, "You reap what you sow".

When it comes to the US Constitution, to steal a quote, 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn'.

I am British after all, the Constitution is of little concern to me.

I am British too, and I would pursue someone through the County Courts. Remember that he is from TEXAS and therefore US law (& the US Constitution) is very important & Relevant.

mwnciboo wrote:I am British too, and I would pursue someone through the County Courts. Remember that he is from TEXAS and therefore US law (& the US Constitution) is very important & Relevant.

You could attempt to pursue him, but considering the seeming uncaring attitude of both the British and American police in any dealings under five thousand pounds, you would get nowhere. Trust me, I've seen it tried on several occasions with several scammers. For matters of a few hundred, or even a thousand pounds, the police and judiciary will not act.

And when you mentioned the US constitution, I presumed you meant the court of public opinion was against the Constitution. If in actuality, you were referring to the police not caring, than I misunderstood your comment.

Ketara wrote:

mwnciboo wrote:I am British too, and I would pursue someone through the County Courts. Remember that he is from TEXAS and therefore US law (& the US Constitution) is very important & Relevant.

You could attempt to pursue him, but considering the seeming uncaring attitude of both the British and American police in any dealings under five thousand pounds, you would get nowhere. Trust me, I've seen it tried on several occasions with several scammers. For matters of a few hundred, or even a thousand pounds, the police and judiciary will not act.

And when you mentioned the US constitution, I presumed you meant the court of public opinion was against the Constitution. If in actuality, you were referring to the police not caring, than I misunderstood your comment.

To my knowledge, in every single scam incident nobody has ever physically went to the police station to file a complaint. Everything has always been done via email or phone. The case may have justification, but how do you actually prosecute. In a trial witnesses come forward and testify. Their is no assurance that a case could ever be built because of lack of witnesses.

I would expect a whole other response if you actually physically showed up at the PD to press charges.

People are arrested in this country every day for small shoplifting offenses. They all go before a judge or magistrate, and the store makes sure that all evidence is presented. Most of the time this is just a police officers testimony, but they are available to provide witnesses as necessary.

This is not a defense of the US legal system. It is only pointing out a few factors that havent been looked at.

Personally if I was scammed out of 1,000+ dollars I would be using my airline miles to fly into the town of the scammer.

I'd appreciate it if we could drop all talk of legal action, one way or another, from this thread. It has been investigated thoroughly (that is, the option of taking Matt to court) and a cursory google search of "interstate small claims court" will reveal how hard it truly would be to take it to court when it is for this amount of money across state lines. I was shocked to find this out, too... but that's how it is. Local police are a better option, but that has also been pursued as far as I know.

Regardless, the topic of this thread is Miniature Wargame Conversions involvement (or lack there of) in all of this. I.e., use of the website's name to contact people who are following up on commissions that Matt owes, use of the website to advertise his conversions for sale, and anything in that vein.

In that regard, porkuslime was able to listen to the recordings (I asked him to, as he's the only person I know of who has spoken to Matt on the phone before) that I received from "Damien", who identified himself as from MWC. Unfortunately, his conversations with Matt were a long time ago, so he cannot be certain of who is speaking... but hopefully he'll post his thoughts on it here.

In the end, the point is somewhat moot- whether it really WAS a mysterious person who has since vanished into thin air, or Matt himself- either case paints Miniature Wargame Conversions in an extremely bad light... and again, my original reason for posting is to get the word out about that and let people know that communicating with the website, particularly to send funds of any kind or to follow up on a commission, can be dangerous.

If we could focus in on the site, and not on the legal debate / possibilities, I think it'd be more helpful, and I'd appreciate it!

Can you tell us the nature of these phone calls? To judge the attitude of the people apparently running the site.

Sure, although if porkuslime does decide to post here an update in the next day or so with his thoughts on the recording, I may let him give his take on it first... as mwnciboo rightly points out, at this point it's a bit of "my word against theirs" and it would be very nice to have another person weigh in who has listened to them.

I also agree that this shouldn't be "trial by public opinion"... but I heartily disagree that there's no evidence. In the interest of not creating even MORE drama, as if we haven't had enough here, I decided not to post the recordings... and I don't think a transcript of them or emails would really help matters, either. But hopefully a third party sharing their thoughts on it will add validity.

I will say that the voicemails are extremely aggressive... the emails were, as well, and because of the tone of the emails I decided not to pick up the phone to talk to the person from MWC, and thus ended up with the recordings. It occurred to me after that I could get them off my phone, for just this very instance- in case people didn't believe what I was saying. But the language used alone would give me pause... certainly, no Business I've ever dealt with would communicate with someone that way.

I use the word Business because it was presented that way- as a person speaking on behalf of the website and the crew there, rather than simply for themselves. Also, there was obviously money involved. This is also why I agree with MajorTom's assessment that this is more a case of "I got food poisoning at that restaurant, don't go there"- and why I would like to keep it that way, focused on the website Miniature Wargame Conversions and any involvement that was attributed to it, or that was done in its' name, with or without the knowledge of the other contributors to the site.

Certainly, none of the contributors have been able to answer me as to who "Damien" or "Jeff" could be... they simply dodge the question, but I still can't understand why it doesn't concern them... hopefully, AridMonk will reply back after he follows up about these things.

Just reading in and following this thread this morning made for an interesting substitute for the paper over breakfast. As I belong more to the YouTube community and have always been at an arms length with the forums, these people and these happenings are news to me. Dodgy commission painters aren't new, but what appears to be happening with MWC is indeed a travesty of dazzling proportions.
I feel genuinely heartbroken at Alpha's predicament, and I extend my sympathies to those who have been affected by this scandalous situation.

To RiTides;
Thankyou sir, for your accurate, reliable and consistent reporting of accounts. As well as your conscientious effort in maintaining this threads integrity to the OP AND your methodical investigation.
Your situation is rather troubling and it is terrifying to myself to see such atrocious conduct on the part of MWC.

Even assuming that these individuals who come to the aid of RSO are indeed legitimate or at least as legitimate as they claim, none appears to be addressing the OP's issue and rather distressing scenario that RiTides has faced. Whether this is childish political dancing around the issue at hand or simply incredibly bad managerial sense - there is no answer. It is also troublesome that these individuals seem to have no issue that there supposedly and proclaimed, not for profit raffle and blog etc are essentially being hijacked by a KNOWN shady dealer.

I look forward to seeing this matter as it progresses.
Thankyou to RiTides, MajorTom, Luna and those who have tried to keep this topic on track and maintain a respectable level of decorum that, in my mind, far exceeds what should be afforded to the individuals who have conducted themselves in such a distasteful and base manner.

~Ghost

After listening to the voicemails.. I cannot say yea or nay.

There was nothing in there that absolutely ruled out Damien being Matt.. (like a strong accent, or tonal register).

They were very hostile, and accused RiTides of double dealing as well as being two-faced ... saying one thing, and doing another (as such).

However speaking as to the speech patterns, they DID resemble the way I recall Matt talking when I spoke to him 2+ years back. Lots of repetition and re-iteration of points.. also there was a lot of "Be an Adult/Man" directives.. which is also something I recall .

However, at the end of the day, I cannot assert that Matt and Damien are the same.. nor can I assert that they are definitely different.

Wish I had better certainty, one way or the other.

Thanks, porkuslime, for posting your thoughts on it.

Also, I got permission from the user awaiting the 2 Thunderhawk scratchbuilds to quote their PM, so here it is:

Shikimori wrote:Hello!

forgive me for the late reply, i was away for the holidays and haven't checked the forums since.

I'll try to cover what happened as best as i can.

I contacted Matt on Feb. this year, i got eluded into the idea that he could scratch build 2 Thunderhawks (For myself and a friend). I did all the talks with him through my personal email.

At first he would reply instantly (same day or the next). We went over the specifics and after several emails, we both confirmed on the price tag and the completion date (he said it would take 4 weeks). However, as the weeks went by, his replies were slow till the point were i am ignored now.

He asked for half of the cost to begin work, and to receive the other half after showing the complete products. I kept asking for WIP pics, but he never provided any, always stating that he would eventually show me something.

Within weeks, i began to panic because he never showed nor spoke of the commission. I do not recall when it was (i would guess about 3 months), he vanished..... no word, no email, nothing.

I then discovered he had a blog, and that a bunch of people share the blog. I sent an email asking if Matt could reply back to me, i was told that he left the country for work and that his return to the country was not known.

Then comes September and Matt finally replies back. He sent me 2 pictures of a single Thunderhawk in different angles, without saying anything. I did not know what to make out of it and asked for a refund.

I've asked him many times to refund the money sent but he replied back " i dont have the cash, either wait for me to sell the thunderhawks or till i get paid"

His last email (september 27th) i told him "im afraid to send you money, since ive been waiting since feb." , he replies back with "I didnt ask you to send money did i?"

Now from that statement alone, im under the assumption "i will work on this at my own pace, if i want to, and when i do get it done, i may send it over" something along those words...

I do have a record of the emails.... its the only thing i got to back my story up....

Sorry for the long post, i hope that it made sense (forgive my grammar and punctuation)

If you need further details, please dont hesitate to ask. I appreciate your efforts to warn the community, i would hate for someone else to be fooled again by Matt.

Have a great day

So... yet another sign that YES, Matt is still taking commissions, and not following through on them.

He has posted a picture of a scratchbuilt Thunderhawk on Miniature Wargame Conversions early this year (about the same time he was commissioned for this job). While it seems that posting did not directly lead to this commission, as this user found the website afterwards, it's easy to see how it could be the other way around, and why his advertising his conversions on Miniature Wargame Conversions could be very dangerous for people not familiar with his history...

Has there ever been a list compiled of what exactly he still owes ad to whom?

nectarprime- there was, but for his previous cycle of scams. It seems he's on a new one...

Another PM:

Shikimori wrote:Good day,

Hope your doing fine, just wanted to share some of what happened after we talked.

Ever since you posted my PM, I've been in contact with Matt. Although, he's doing it at an awful pace (replies heavily one day, then ignores for so many).
He is indeed very upset about this, but it is because of the PM you posted , he began talking back. So i have to thank you for it (although it seems he's hiding again).

Unfortunately he is not talking about the commission at all.

All he is doing, is side-stepping and kind of venting heat to me because of what has happened.

When i turn the focus of our emails to the commission, he goes back and tells me to "calm down" and that is about the only thing he mentioned about it:

"Yes after I sell the hawks that in the end cost me more then what you would have even paid for. Im the one that ot screwed my friend. You will have the refund and ill be out several hundred dollars and over 100 hours of labor. Go figure."

I then ask when this will happen, as he will have to finish the hawks in order to do what he says...... He hasnt answered back.


This is what he tells me, and in this age of technology, i find it hard to believe.... But maybe i am too naive...

"I have to work to pay bills, im literally at work right now
risking being fired
i can reply once MAYBE twice a day
not even 15 minutes, not evey hour, not even more then 3-4 times a day on the BEST possible day
clearly you can with a blackberry
i have a phone from 2002
it has no texts, no net, no nothing
no i have to get back to work before im fired"

He also wanted me to pass this message to you:

"if you talk to ritdies again tell him to shut the hell up and stop harassing me as thats what hes going. And yes I will quote people in that very thread saying what hes doing is against the law and that I can sue him.

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILY. Dakkas motto is guily always. Dakka can piss on itself."

Have a great day and i apologize if you do not want to hear more from me.

Regards,
Suhail

I hate to keep dragging this out- however, I thought this PM should be posted as it speaks for itself.

Yes, Matthew IS still taking commissions. And yes, he's still not following through on them.

I don't know what the fellow contributors to MWC have to say about it, as they haven't returned to this thread... but clearly, he is not out of the commission business, and as he is so intertwined with the website (indeed, it's impossible to know when you are or aren't speaking with him, as he posts on the website as "Miniature Wargame Conversions" in all of the comments, and through the afore-mentioned emails) it sheds an extremely bad light on the site itself, even if commissions such as the ongoing delinquent one described in the above PM were not worked out through the site.

Such a standup guy. And you're having problems with him? Well, I never.

Seriously, very glad of this thread.

RiTides wrote:nectarprime- there was, but for his previous cycle of scams. It seems he's on a new one...

Another PM:

Shikimori wrote:Good day,

Hope your doing fine, just wanted to share some of what happened after we talked.

Ever since you posted my PM, I've been in contact with Matt. Although, he's doing it at an awful pace (replies heavily one day, then ignores for so many).
He is indeed very upset about this, but it is because of the PM you posted , he began talking back. So i have to thank you for it (although it seems he's hiding again).

Unfortunately he is not talking about the commission at all.

All he is doing, is side-stepping and kind of venting heat to me because of what has happened.

When i turn the focus of our emails to the commission, he goes back and tells me to "calm down" and that is about the only thing he mentioned about it:

"Yes after I sell the hawks that in the end cost me more then what you would have even paid for. Im the one that ot screwed my friend. You will have the refund and ill be out several hundred dollars and over 100 hours of labor. Go figure."

I then ask when this will happen, as he will have to finish the hawks in order to do what he says...... He hasnt answered back.


This is what he tells me, and in this age of technology, i find it hard to believe.... But maybe i am too naive...

"I have to work to pay bills, im literally at work right now
risking being fired
i can reply once MAYBE twice a day
not even 15 minutes, not evey hour, not even more then 3-4 times a day on the BEST possible day
clearly you can with a blackberry
i have a phone from 2002
it has no texts, no net, no nothing
no i have to get back to work before im fired"

He also wanted me to pass this message to you:

"if you talk to ritdies again tell him to shut the hell up and stop harassing me as thats what hes going. And yes I will quote people in that very thread saying what hes doing is against the law and that I can sue him.

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILY. Dakkas motto is guily always. Dakka can piss on itself."

Have a great day and i apologize if you do not want to hear more from me.

Regards,
Suhail

I hate to keep dragging this out- however, I thought this PM should be posted as it speaks for itself.

Yes, Matthew IS still taking commissions. And yes, he's still not following through on them.

I don't know what the fellow contributors to MWC have to say about it, as they haven't returned to this thread... but clearly, he is not out of the commission business, and as he is so intertwined with the website (indeed, it's impossible to know when you are or aren't speaking with him, as he posts on the website as "Miniature Wargame Conversions" in all of the comments, and through the afore-mentioned emails) it sheds an extremely bad light on the site itself, even if commissions such as the ongoing delinquent one described in the above PM were not worked out through the site.

Thank you so much for keeping on this. Most scammers ( i'm not saying Matt is, but if it walks like a duck and talkes like a duck...) try to keep a very low profile so they can wait until the heat dies down then start back up again. ( again Matt, im not saying you are, and trust me I know all about RL getting in the way of your hobby..)

It's obvious that with such small amounts being scammed (I know a grand isn't small, but in fraud it's small patato's) the police and courts are less then interested it's up to the gamming community to help police outselves. Thats what this thread is doing, helping to warn people who don't have the abilities/time/experience to make the awsome models that they picture in their mind but that GW or other companys havent made.

I really hope that those who have been wronged get some kind of compensation but with the attitude of Matt and his 'crowd' I don't think that's happening.

Just a warning to all the 'shadey' people out there Karma is a PITA and a B****(female dog) and what goes around comes around. If it's to good to be true, it usually is. Crappy as that may be. Again a big thank you to all the people who posted, and for the 'heads up'.

I am curious to know exactly what Ritide is doing that would allow him to be sued. I was not aware that attempting to recover lost money and or merchandise by contacting the offending party and negotiating a settlement was a crime.

I am also very shocked that the people who have defended Matt and the offending website have posted in such aggressive and threatening tones. This is actually very similar to the posts I have read in the past by Matt himself. It seems that he surrounds himself with people that have a similar violent attitude as he does. And the complete lack of willingness to attempt to discover the truth of the matter by some of them is astounding. Its like the ostrich head in the sand situation...as long as they dont know the truth then what they believe is obviously true.

MWC website seems like a legitimate site offering giveaway prize packs. I do believe that this is possibly just what Matt wanted though. A convenient cover for his conversion hoax. He has people donate free stuff that he gives away and in return he gets credibility as being a stand up guy who has a group of people who support him because he gives free stuff away.

I doubt there is a Damien or anyone else. I believe it is just Matt trying to do what he has done in the past so many times now.

RiTides wrote:

Yes, Matthew IS still taking commissions. And yes, he's still not following through on them.

I don't know what the fellow contributors to MWC have to say about it, as they haven't returned to this thread... but clearly, he is not out of the commission business, and as he is so intertwined with the website (indeed, it's impossible to know when you are or aren't speaking with him, as he posts on the website as "Miniature Wargame Conversions" in all of the comments, and through the afore-mentioned emails) it sheds an extremely bad light on the site itself, even if commissions such as the ongoing delinquent one described in the above PM were not worked out through the site.

And I am certain that Matt and the others that are defending him are here everyday or so checking this thread out. It is obvious from the email that Matt is very well aware of what is being said here. I hope that it upsets him greatly as he cries over the lost funds from his commission not being followed through after a year.

I'd like for Matt to be crying, but I don't think he really has any morals whatsoever. To be able to shamelessly lie to people, and not follow through on all these deals is unthinkable to most people, and it's a major part of how he gets away with it so much. Normal people simply don't expect a person to be this much of a jerk. Or make up the stories he does to fend people off.

Nothing RItides has done is sueable over. In fact, going in front of a judge to explain the situation would be the last thing matt wants.)

People are arrested in this country every day for small shoplifting offenses. They all go before a judge or magistrate, and the store makes sure that all evidence is presented. Most of the time this is just a police officers testimony, but they are available to provide witnesses as necessary.

That's different, you're talking about stealing from a business, and the cops care a lot more about big businesses than they do you. So yeah, you could probably go to jail for stealing candy from Wal-Mart, but if someone stole several hundreds or even over a thousand dollars worth of crap from you, you'd probably get laughed at for trying to get the cops to track down and do anything about the guy who stole your "toys".

Just how it is I guess. We all pay taxes, my money is just as good as everyone else's and helped pay for that fleet of new Chargers the cops get to drive around town just the same, but in the end you just aren't "worth" that much. Cops don't give a damn about you or your problems, you're just ticket revenue to them.

I don't doubt that some of these people have tried to do something, but what are you supposed to do when you're literally told that your problem isn't serious enough for them to care? And that right there is why these people continue to get away with it, because people aren't as important as corporations...unless the theft is just so big they literally can't ignore it, like if your car was stolen (but even then, good luck getting anything done about it, you'll certainly never see your car or the thief ever again, that's a fething fact).

This is horrific stuff to say the least.

Thanks Riptides for keeping the community informed.

Seems comical that the guy thinks he can sue. If he could he already would have.

My sympathies to all of those that have been ripped off.

I for one won’t have anything to do with Miniatures Wargame Conversions.

Shameful behaviour to say the least.

Sidstyler wrote:
That's different, you're talking about stealing from a business, and the cops care a lot more about big businesses than they do you. So yeah, you could probably go to jail for stealing candy from Wal-Mart, but if someone stole several hundreds or even over a thousand dollars worth of crap from you, you'd probably get laughed at for trying to get the cops to track down and do anything about the guy who stole your "toys".

Just how it is I guess. We all pay taxes, my money is just as good as everyone else's and helped pay for that fleet of new Chargers the cops get to drive around town just the same, but in the end you just aren't "worth" that much. Cops don't give a damn about you or your problems, you're just ticket revenue to them.

I don't doubt that some of these people have tried to do something, but what are you supposed to do when you're literally told that your problem isn't serious enough for them to care? And that right there is why these people continue to get away with it, because people aren't as important as corporations...unless the theft is just so big they literally can't ignore it, like if your car was stolen (but even then, good luck getting anything done about it, you'll certainly never see your car or the thief ever again, that's a fething fact).

In my experience, this couldn't be farther from fact.
On numerous occasions, I've spoken with police regarding Bad Trader Reports on Bartertown. If you call them and are polite, one will gladly take a report over the phone and an officer/deputy will drive over to the accused's house and speak with him about it.

Typically, a day or 2 after doing so, the individual who went "incommunicado" shows up, ready and willing to make good on the deal (typically, they "forgot" about it or "already sent" it and "presumed it arrived" since they "didn't use a DC#").

Eric

The thread is always open for his supporters to return. But they seem somewhat rude and aggressive like Matt himself. It's fortunate that there are others who can guarantee they are different people because one could draw other conclusions.

It is unfortunate that there are people like this tied to the hobby.

Aerethan wrote:It is unfortunate that there are people like this.

Fixed that for ya.

Howard A Treesong wrote:The thread is always open for his supporters to return. But they seem somewhat rude and aggressive like Matt himself. It's fortunate that there are others who can guarantee they are different people because one could draw other conclusions.

birds of a feather and all that...

I could care less if he or any of his partners in crime find this thread troubling tbh. If you choose to hang out with scum then you have no room to complain...

AridMonk wrote:Like I say, he has been nothing but kind to me or the many others that I have spoken to. Many many people have sung his praises, and on here is the only negativity I have seen towards him. Micheal Jackson was seen in a negative light by thousands, yet just as many saw him as their hero. Perspectives are just that, perspectives, so please do not judge me on mine.

Anyway, like I have said twice now, RiTides has said already that this thread was to be about the site, not Matt, so if we could get back to that that would be good.

How come you will hold negativity towards people who have been found of serious crimes by a court? By your logic, they have done nothing to you, just as RSO has done nothing to you. Is it fair to exempt RSO from the being looked upon in a negative light, when you are allowed to hold negative views against people you know nothing of?

The worst thing about this is, when several people closely attached to this and other situations finally leave the hobby, these kind of people are still around and can do their work on new gamers.

A guy, now known as Toyan used to run events in Bradford, once put a festival on where the total guarantee to bands was over £12,000 and he made £800, he told the bands he's just going to the bank to withdraw funds and setup money transfers and he left, just gone. The two girls helping him knew nothing of the finances and were left to deal with it.

Over the coming months and possibly two years he scarcely ran events (of varying success) and whenever his history was called in to question he'd disappear from X website, he once advertised and sold tickets to a show in a tiny venue for a huge band, selling over 1500 tickets to a 200 capacity venue. The show never happened.

He moved to Leeds and changed his name to Toyan and now runs Ghostfest, one of the UK's biggest independent festivals and regular club nights in the North East.

Scammers rarely get their come uppence.

I went on eBay and looked up redstarone222 from a bing search. link

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=redstarone222&ftab=AllFeedback&seeallfeedback=See%20All%20Feedback&myworld=true

Make your own conclusions.

Fortunately, no longer a registered user... however, I believe he must have made another ebay account as when I pointed out that the knight titans were being offered for sale on Miniature Wargame Conversions, he responded that most had sold through ebay. My guess would be that it's not OK by the rules of the site to come back with a different username, but I'm not sure...

Also, I will be travelling for the next 2 weeks and so won't be able to update here (most likely) if I get any more PMs... perhaps Shikimori will see this and post directly if needed (I'll also PM him).

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:I went on eBay and looked up redstarone222 from a bing search. link

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=redstarone222&ftab=AllFeedback&seeallfeedback=See%20All%20Feedback&myworld=true

Make your own conclusions.

Haha wow, I just finished reading through all of this, and still had the miniature wargaming conversions site up on one of my tabs, just so happens I click on the new project stuff and Im come across this which is the profile pic for that ebay account you linked us to.

http://miniaturewargameconversions.blogspot.com/2011/02/possessed-nurgle-dreadnought-finished.html

Has money changed hands via mail? If so you may want to contact your local postmaster, as I believe it would be mail fraud.

Actually, as I have been told, just the fact that the deal includes sending something via mail makes it mail fraud, since the (promise of the) US Postal Service was included in the bargaining. Even if the promised package was never sent, it would still qualify.

Eric

Scammer Matt hasn't replied since September..... I'm sick and tired of chasing this person.

I doubt I'll ever see the commission nor a refund.

If i do get to speak to this thief again i will share it with everyone, but please do warn your community and friends about this.

Maybe we should contact others to spread this?

Shikimori, just to clarify- I thought he had started replying to you (about your going public, not about the status of the commission) after seeing this thread? Based on the earlier PMs I'd put up here.

Also interesting, clearly Matthew is reading this thread. He edited the post on Miniature Wargame Conversions that Moartiki linked to to add this:

Miniature Wargame Conversions wrote:**NOTE 11/27/11 - This is specifically to the guy who linked to this as of today. When a post says finished, its a finished model from my past collection, specifically my work ive done and was proud of. This and ALL the nurgle stuff here was sold loooong ago via ebay, another link you reference. It also received good feedback for a super fast delivery. In fact, alot of the nurgle stuff here says how it was sold on ebay just as I state above. This thread post simply was one to show my personal work - Red**

Given that he edited the post the same day it was linked to, I'd say he's subscribed to this thread

Note that the poster that put up the thread is "Miniature Wargame Conversions", although he is now distinguishing himself by adding the name "Red" in his edit. But clearly, this shows that the person posting under the name "Miniature Wargame Conversions" on the site is redstarone / Matthew Bonder. It should come as no surprise that he'd use the same name "Miniature Wargame Conversions" as an email address, basically shielding himself. The fact that he made up other names (Jeff and Damien) to go behind it I guess gave him another layer of insulation... I'm just surprised he thought that would hold up when it's easy to check the names of the other contributors and find out that no such people exist.

Thus the purpose of this thread... that "Miniature Wargame Conversions" = "Matthew Bonder" = "RedStarOne". I agree Shikimori that getting that knowledge out there is important.... however, I'm not sure who else there is to contact, except to point people towards this thread.

Perhaps Bartertown will want to add a note to the Matthew Bonder case files noting that he is now using this name/site to cover his actions, as well... but beyond that I don't know if there is anything else that can be done to warn people to steer clear.

I also find it interesting that in Matthew's note he comments that people left good feedback for him on ebay for that sale, but doesn't address that apparently ebay suspended use of his account after all the negatives he received for not shipping 6 items. Once again, the evidence points to his using some positive commissions/sales to give him enough credibility to try to rip others off... and if it fails on one site, he moves to the next:

Bartertown, RogueMarket, Dakka, Ebay, and now his own Miniature Wargame Conversions.

The bad thing is, at least for other people on this blog, is that I wouldn't hire the services of anyone there now, because of one guy's reputation. Just being associated with the guy would turn me off. There are enough people willing to do good work who have nothing to do with the guy that I can also afford to make that choice. Why take a risk that they're going to share his mindset that yelling at the guy you own a grand too will make the problem go away?

Which sucks, because many of them are very talented. But then, so is Matt. He just prefers to shaft people, or so it seems, than earn the cash. Which is a shame, because he really could rake it in and has probably cost himself more in the long run.

Jon Garrett wrote:The bad thing is, at least for other people on this blog, is that I wouldn't hire the services of anyone there now, because of one guy's reputation. Just being associated with the guy would turn me off.

That and the attitude they've taken on here which was to briefly appear to make an aggressive defence of him and then cease participation when evidence stacked up.

Matt did reply up until that last PM i sent, but now he is hiding again.

This has been the excuse he uses for him ignoring and/or replying after long periods of time:

"ive explained i will not get fired over risking sending emails from a work place especially one in a different state or in worse, a different country. I will not get stranded for being fired for opening emals when thats against the policy everywhere ive been."

Matt asked me why i contacted Dakka, i replied, to which he said:

"You warned no one. Is that not clear to you. You told the same people that have made false claims against me for going on 4 years. If I wasa theif, scammer or whatever why am I not in jaiul. they all have my personal info."

lol, so some of you have his personal info.? lol please do share

Shikimori wrote:This has been the excuse he uses for him ignoring and/or replying after long periods of time:

"ive explained i will not get fired over risking sending emails from a work place especially one in a different state or in worse, a different country. I will not get stranded for being fired for opening emals when thats against the policy everywhere ive been."

So checking personal emails is out, but reading Dakka and updating his Blog aren't?

That's an interesting workplace computer use policy.

Well, you can add crimes against literacy and grammar to his list of offences

Shikimori, personal info (such as addresses) cannot be posted on Dakka, however I do believe a number of users have this- it may even be in the Bad Trader Report on Matthew Bonder / Redstarone on Bartertown.

To answer his question- the reason he's not in jail is that no one has taken the rather large amount of trouble that it would incur to get him to trial / etc, and even then, I would think the damages would be financial. He also apparently does not have a lot in the way of finances (hence small scams over relatively small amounts of money for the effort required to get it for toy soldiers being appealing).

I can also attest that he can Definitely check emails at any time of day. He replied to me instantly during the periods I was interacting with him when he was upset. This is a very common excuse of his and is simply an outright lie. If anything, he's on the web near-constantly. He'll defend that lie to the death, but that's what it is.

In your case, I'm not sure what recourse you have... you could consider contacting his local authorities- people have tried this before, I believe, but it is definitely worth another shot. Being that you are in another country, maybe that will count for something with them.

And over this guy, we lose talented Dakkaites like Redscorps.... Truly disappointing....

MajorTom11 wrote:And over this guy, we lose talented Dakkaites like Redscorps.... Truly disappointing....

What happened to Redscorps?

He's from the same city as me.

I believe, as he posted in this thread, he's decided not to post on Dakka anymore as a result of this. (He is an occasional contributor to Miniature Wargame Conversions, and took offense)

Unfortunate, as he's very skilled...

RiTides wrote:I believe, as he posted in this thread, he's decided not to post on Dakka anymore as a result of this. (He is an occasional contributor to Miniature Wargame Conversions, and took offense)

Unfortunate, as he's very skilled...

Good riddance. No matter how talented you are, if your going to side with a scammer or take offense, especially with all the evidence, their not worth having around.

carmachu wrote:

RiTides wrote:I believe, as he posted in this thread, he's decided not to post on Dakka anymore as a result of this. (He is an occasional contributor to Miniature Wargame Conversions, and took offense)

Unfortunate, as he's very skilled...

Good riddance. No matter how talented you are, if your going to side with a scammer or take offense, especially with all the evidence, their not worth having around.

Yup his choice however there are plenty of talented people here on Dakka that simply amazes me on their skills. So I highly doubt that he will be missed.

I don't think we need people who facilitate a scammer by defending him and helping him set a respectable front from which to operate.

Unfortunate? Maybe, maybe not. We dont really know who he is and while he deserves the benefit of the doubt we have to remember for our own piece of mind that when the thief and the honest man are asked if they are a crook, they both say the same thing.

We have no safe choice but to dismiss Aridmonks comments as possibly being a front for fraud.

If you are there lurking Aridmonk, you are not unwelcome on Dakka, but would be better off joining other topics. Later if we learn to trust you then you can tell us how to safely deal with MWC.

While I can see where you're coming from (and initially had the same reaction), I don't think "good riddance" is the way to respond... I'd much prefer any of them return to the discussion and see the error of their ways, than vanish altogether!

I was hoping this thread would result in that- we'll see if AridMonk returns. I left a comment on his blog (which he recently advertised in a post on MWC) and his work really is good! I'm not sure why he and the others can't see what's obvious to so many about Matthew and endeavors involving him and money, though... particularly the fact that he used the site they are contributing to for such purposes.

Guilt by association is also obviously something that cannot be swept under the rug... but from what I can tell none of the contributors have anything to do with Matt- it seems those he is able to get to contribute have more of a "head in the sand" attitude with regard to his dealings... otherwise, they wouldn't have agreed to contribute in the first place! But I would have thought that when confronted with evidence and an overwhelming number of people who have had problems with him, they'd listen to reason and change their minds...

True, but we can't compel them to respond. If they've decided they don't wish to concern themselves with Matt's previous (and outstanding) dealings while supporting his site there's not much that can be done.

RiTides wrote:While I can see where you're coming from (and initially had the same reaction), I don't think "good riddance" is the way to respond... I'd much prefer any of them return to the discussion and see the error of their ways, than vanish altogether!

I was hoping this thread would result in that- we'll see if AridMonk returns. I left a comment on his blog (which he recently advertised in a post on MWC) and his work really is good! I'm not sure why he and the others can't see what's obvious to so many about Matthew and endeavors involving him and money, though... particularly the fact that he used the site they are contributing to for such purposes.


Guilt by association is also obviously something that cannot be swept under the rug... but from what I can tell none of the contributors have anything to do with Matt- it seems those he is able to get to contribute have more of a "head in the sand" attitude with regard to his dealings... otherwise, they wouldn't have agreed to contribute in the first place! But I would have thought that when confronted with evidence and an overwhelming number of people who have had problems with him, they'd listen to reason and change their minds...

After close toa decade on bartertown, I have ZERO tolerence for folks that either throw up their hands and say "not my problem" or takes offense becuase it might be a bother to his group over there, that someone is a theif and a liar and ripped folks off. None. Dont let the door hit you in the ass. I've seen far too many scammers get away with crap because of people like him cant be bothered, or its offensive or whatever else his motives are.

Yes, Miniature Wargame Conversions is guilty by assosiation. They are giving him both cover and legitimacy by keeping him around, instead of either making sure he follows through OR kicking his ass to the curb. If they dont like that or thinks its offensive, too bad. Thats the reality of the situation.

It is a fair point, and obviously in a sense I agree- hence my posting this thread about the site. However, I do think there's a chance some of the contributors will see reason and no longer support the site and give Matthew the front that it was in danger of being... hopefully, the word is out more now and will continue to get out if MWC is able to struggle on, as it seems to be.

The real danger is people who don't read forums / etc, and just happen upon the site through the From The Warp blogger group / ring as there are many blogs there that link to one another. It's why I communicated so long with the person who runs it, but unfortunately they decided that MWC hadn't violated their standards. I can't necessarily blame them... it's also hard for us to act when, say, a user PMs one of the swapshop moderators that another user is a scammer. Who to believe? I had hoped they would be able to err on the side of caution and remove them from the FTW blogger group, but that wasn't the case.

Regardless, many people are now aware via this thread, and hopefully can point others to it if they are considering commissioning Matthew Bonder or any unknown person communicating as "Miniature Wargame Conversions", and be warned of the danger in dealing with him.

Shikimori wrote:
This has been the excuse he uses for him ignoring and/or replying after long periods of time:

"ive explained i will not get fired over risking sending emails from a work place especially one in a different state or in worse, a different country. I will not get stranded for being fired for opening emals when thats against the policy everywhere ive been."

Huh, he must've run out of family members to fake deaths for.

Good afternoon I saw this post while doing random googling involving an incident and felt I should post as well.

Back in the months of July/August I saw an article on the miniature wargames conversion website involving a new production of a fan made knight paladin kit. More or less I'm referring to this type of model here , http://bloodofkittens.com/40kblogs/2011/07/05/miniature-wargame-conversions-knight-paladin/ , though I can no longer find the original article on the MWC site. There was also a link to an ebay offering from the user jackfrostjack007007 selling the models in question. Naturally after a bit of research to make sure it was not a scam I went through the motions of getting three of them.

Needless to say they never arrived, and after a few initial responses from the seller he stopped replying altogether. Unfortunately due to negligence on my part I missed out on the reporting periods for both paypal and ebay and was stuck trying to track down the seller to see what had occured. So I went to the website that had hosted the article and used the primary contact email to try and see if they had any information on the individual. I received an email shortly afterward saying that the person making the kits was not actually part of the site, but that they would pass along my phone number to him and he would call me. There was also an indicator that there was more than one person that was checking emails.

That very night I did in fact receive a phone call from someone who was supposed to be the man I had sent money to for the kits. His name is apaprently Mike and i was informed that he had suffered an unfortunate problem with paypal locking his account over a identity theft issu and then ebay also doing the same. The conversation was pleaseant enough and after getting an email acount to use for more direct contact I left the matter to lie for a couple of weeks.

Since that evening i have not been contacted again, nor have any of my emails been responded to. I of course attempted to use the miniature wargame conversions email to see if they had further news on the individuals condition, but even they have refused to reply.

After seeing this thread here I figured I'd post my own personal experiences. But unless the person being complained about lives in Texas I doubt they're the same individual and as I've said the replies and conversations with the MWC folks and the caster in question ahve been pleaseant and civil.

EDIT: Oh hey, just got a reply from the email I sent right before I wrote all of this.. Guess it pays to do things like this at 8am.

It would appear that I should have waited a few more minutes before I made my post earlier. I also forgot to mention that I only send emails once every three or so weeks, so it's not like I've been sending daily requests for information.

Also worth noting that I don't really lay much blame on the website or the majority of its contributors since some of this I can also blame on my own procrastination. Even if I never see my toys I don't think I'd hold much of a grudge against anyone except the bloke that ends up with my money.

Though I'm still annoyed it's taking so long and this most certainly will make me less lenient when dealing with late shipments on Ebay.

If this new ebay seller "Mike" is actually RSO you will never see anything but heartache out of the situation.

George_Labour wrote: But unless the person being complained about lives in Texas I doubt they're the same individual and as I've said the replies and conversations with the MWC folks and the caster in question ahve been pleaseant and civil.

Matthew Bonder, the creator of the knight titan kits and the one who was selling them, as well as being the person who is the basis of this thread and the creator of Miniature Wargame Conversions, lives in Texas.

Did you email MiniatureWargameCo@gmail.com? If so, that is the email address that I also found on the website, and that I was responded to by "Jeff" and "Damien", neither of which are listed as contributors to the website. Now, both have apparently quit and Matthew is taking credit for the responses from the email address.

If you are corresponding with that email address with someone named Mike via that same email address, that will be quite damning evidence. None of the genuine contributors that I contacted who use the site said that they can check that email address. It has already been shown that the two names I was given from it were people who cannot be verified in any way, and who have no apparent connection to the site, and in all likelihood are Matthew Bonder using an alias.

It is good that you are not holding a grudge- however, I'm very glad that google led you to this thread, as it may help keep others from this same trouble. The fact that you bought knight titans based on seeing the post on the blog (which has since been deleted after I accused Matthew about it, as you've noticed as well) makes the need for this thread obvious. The site lends legitimacy to these offerings, and the site email address lends legitimacy to communications that would otherwise be viewed as very suspicious.

As it is, I think it extremely likely that Matthew is communicating with you using an alias and the site email address (or other email address at this point) as a cover, just as he was with me. There may be a way that you and I can compare the IP addresses of these emails, to add further evidence and figure out if that really is what's going on. I will PM you my email address to see if you would be interested in checking that out.

No word from Matt yet.
I've sent both rude and polite emails, none got his attention it seems.
It's difficult to put this behind me...

Believe me, I feel your pain.

Eventually you'll either get your goods (unlikely) or you'll realize that you'll never see them, accept that the fact that you've been the victim of a thief's actions, chalk it up to an expensive lesson learned, and write them off.

Or something like that.

Alpharius wrote:Believe me, I feel your pain.

Eventually you'll either get your goods (unlikely) or you'll realize that you'll never see them, accept that the fact that you've been the victim of a thief's actions, chalk it up to an expensive lesson learned, and write them off.

Or something like that.

And there in lies the rub..... you can worry your self sick about it, get grey hairs and ulcers...or you can just chalk it up to a learning experience and be satsified in shutting the thief down everytime he pops his head up, kinda like Tony Heath eh?


I do hope in the end that there is enough evidence againsted him that someone can get him into court one day and sue him back into the 19th centery.

Alpharius wrote:Believe me, I feel your pain.

Eventually you'll either get your goods (unlikely) or you'll realize that you'll never see them, accept that the fact that you've been the victim of a thief's actions, chalk it up to an expensive lesson learned, and write them off.

Or something like that.

I know what it feels like to be the victim of a fraud, you feel guilty and it is indeed an expensive lesson which leaves you much less likely to trust people in the future.
I was very lucky as I read the transaction report where Alpharius explained what happened to him days before I was going to order models from RSO and decided not to, at that time the report was recent.
I really wish this man ends up convicted for his crimes as it seems he frauded people for a pretty good total.

Hello folks, Dragon here. I'm sure more than a few of you remember my own spat with [censored] Bonder.

Eventually, I called him out in VERY unkind terms on both Astronomicon and Heresy Online in front of a few people he was trying to actually enjoy discussion/sharing with.

Because he valued their opinion there (only at Astronomicaon, Heresy We do not permit blanket insults toward other forums here. -Mannahnin) I was able to gall him into sending me the original model I had paid for (I had been waiting for months for a suppisedly redone/converted version of it),

Anyways, I knew then that MWC would become a front and basically called it for what it was.

redstarone
redstarone222
redtheconversionist
miniaturewargameconversions
Matt Bonder
Damien
Ralf the Psychic fething Monkey

These are all fronts for him to make at least 1-3,000 a year in cash without doing anything, all the while actually sending the occassional model here and there while making friends and talking up a good game.

Trying to convince his supporters to take a stand for accountability is pointless. The Manson supplicants took YEARS to get over it when it was in their face. MOST of the people dealing online in our hobby never even have to look the bereaved parties in the face so they care about 300X less.

Quite frankly, unti it happens to them they don't give a gak.

My only suggestion is to ticker tape the sites from Astronomicon, to Warseer, to Bell of Lost Souls, to Heresy Online, to Bolter and Chainsword... and beyond.

Spread awareness.

I will go so far as to say I think this joker is the #1 scammer in our craft as by now we can verifiably account for THOUSANDS of dollars of product that was never sent. If you really feel hard about this you might want to consider taking it beyond discussion on boards and target the companies and organizations he is affiliated with on MWC.

Gather your facts, witnesses, etc and present it as you can to the businesses or whomever MWC is connected to. If they pull ads, associations, or whatever ii is going to level MWC and HIS bottom-lines by at least a little.

I suggest starting with Galaxy Gobbo, Dragonforge Design, and bits and kits. These are the businesses.

For the charities I guess you have Livestrong Wargaming Project, and Heroes of Armageddon.

What you choose from this point is on you folks. I think what you've already accomploshed is commendable.

The Dragon wrote:Because he valued their opinion there (only at Astronomicaon, Heresy is filled with pricks who excuse anything and everything) I was able to gall him into sending me the original model I had paid for (I had been waiting for months for a suppisedly redone/converted version of it),

This is basically what I ended up doing, too. Only the threat of posting about the situation online resulted in any progress. It's pretty obvious if you think about it... bad press will lead to less people biting on commissioning him. So if you're really determined to give him bad press, he reacts.

Unfortunately, it's a Lot of work and headache... but I felt it was worth it, given the amount he owed Alpharius and the fact that he was pretending he'd already sent it. Exposing that gave Alph some closure, I think, and also warned people who might not be aware of Matthew Bonder's previous actions that he was still around and using the same old tricks.

But definitely, public exposure seems to be the only thing that will work with him. That, or if he ever makes the mistake of taking a commission from someone who lives in Texas, since they can then easily recoup their funds via small claims court. This whole experience has made me realize that that's the only definitive route to take, and if I ever have a commission done in the future, it will be in-state by someone I know. There are also a few very reputable commission sites, if you can afford them and can wait to get in the queue. (GMM comes to mind). But doing it local and getting a receipt / paper trail seems to me to be the only way to ensure you have an avenue to try to get your money back if things go sour, without going through more legal expense than what is owed, as you can resort to small claims court in-state.

For those who are currently waiting on Matthew to send you items, please update here when you can... but the "damage" has been done here, so to speak, so if you are a regular poster on Astronomicon or Heresy Online it may be better to do so there. Keep in mind 2 things, though: once you do "go public" so to speak, your bargaining chip with Matthew is mostly lost. Also, if you post on a forum where you are not known, your post will likely be locked quickly as "trolling" or "none of their business"... unfortunately, we found this out when Alpharius tried to get the word out. I can't blame the other forums, as forum trolls Do behave in that way (and how can they tell the difference? without a little homework, at least...) but that's just the reality of the situation.

Sad but true.

btw... the psychic monkey moniker isn't actually an alias, lol. Just me exhibiting the craziness of the situation.

I'd feel bad if there IS an ID of that doing trading/commissioning and it got burned, lol.

Keep the faith gents, keep the faith.

Through Him, the Emperor, all is possible.

The Dragon wrote:Gather your facts, witnesses, etc and present it as you can to the businesses or whomever MWC is connected to. If they pull ads, associations, or whatever ii is going to level MWC and HIS bottom-lines by at least a little.

I suggest starting with Galaxy Gobbo, Dragonforge Design, and bits and kits. These are the businesses.

For the charities I guess you have Livestrong Wargaming Project, and Heroes of Armageddon.

While I agree that we should keep ourselves (the wargaming community) abreast of people with whom we should deal cautiously, I'd like to counsel caution in dealing IN THIS MANNER with people who advertise on his site.
I'm not saying don't give them your money. GOD, NO! Most or all of those are legitimate businesses/charities. I'm saying that, if you contact these guys, don't treat THEM badly or devolve your communications into threats of any kind.

Eric


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'd also like to go on record (again) to state that *I* have outstanding business with Matthew Bonder.
Whenever one of these flare-ups arises, I inevitably end up with between 1 and 50 hate filled emails from him. Amongst his claims are that I'm a liar, thief, etc.

So, let me put this on the record:

Matthew and I made a deal for a conversion (by him) in exchange for a bunch of Adeptus Mechanicus type bits I had. He was supposed to provide his model to me within a couple months. Something like 6 months later, after no small amount of cajoling on my part and attitude on HIS, the model arrived.
To say it was not up to Matthew's usual standard would be an understatement. The man's gifted. I've seen his work. This, though, was slapdash and looked hurriedly assembled. It also did not match the agreed upon appearance of what i wanted.

Considering the issues with Matthew at the time (and even since), regarding his lack of proper communication and (some would say) dishonest trade practices, I contacted him and told him that I would not be sending a return package to him until he provided me with some very specific (and easily obtained) information (that would not compromise him in any way). This was in an effort to protect myself. What I asked for was NOT unreasonable, nor out of the scope of any typical trade.

Well, in the years since that's happened, I've received plenty of ranting, accusatory emails -and even once, a threat to come from TX to MO to retrieve his property PERSONALLY (LOL), but have never received what I asked for.
I can not and will not ship this box until receiving said information.

So, there we are. It's all out on the table (again). This is not the first time I've posted this publicly. Hopefully, however, it'll be the last.

Eric
(Mods - I hope this is not taken as off-topic, all things considered. If you choose to delete it, PLEASE PM me a copy. I don't have one of my own and would prefer to copy/paste in the future. LOL --Thanks)

The Dragon wrote:
For the charities I guess you have Heroes of Armageddon.

.

how was he involved in this ?

^^I think he built a super heavy tank for the Steel Legion army. Not 100% sure though.

Most of the sites that are shown on Miniature Wargame Conversions, particularly charities he supposedly donates to (I can't verify one way or the other) do not have any connection to Matthew Bonder.

Still, it doesn't hurt to make them aware, if anyone has contact with them.

I spent a Lot of time and effort communicating with the head of the "From The Warp" blog ring, making them aware of the situation... unfortunately without results, as he determined not to remove Miniature Wargame Conversions from the blog ring.

I haven't directed him to this thread since, but I doubt even the new people who are awaiting commissions from Matthew would change his mind. It's "outside the scope" of what the ring can monitor was the reason, I believe... this is somewhat reasonable, but I would think in a case such as this with an overwhelming number of horror stories to support the side that Matthew should Not be trusted to run a conversions website, particularly one linked to by other sites as a member of a trustworthy ring, would be an exception and the site could be removed from the ring...

Perhaps in the future if Matthew tries another round of obvious scamming. But from the responses to this thread, it seems that he does more "under the radar" scams as he goes, and (hopefully) isn't likely to try something broader and more obvious. Putting his Knight Titans up on ebay was pretty bold, but the ones that sold through ebay I believe were mostly sent (due to ebay protections). It's the people who are tempted into commissioning him outside of the protections of ebay or the like, or that are convinced not to file a Paypal claim within 45 days, that end up not receiving their items...

Like any good scam, there has to be a grain of truth (some people receiving items from a skilled converter) for the scam to work (getting commissioned for large projects, and never delivering months and years later).

Why don't all of the people that have been ripped off by this guy contact each other, put together all the evidence they have against him and turn it over to the postal service.
It seems like he could get nailed for a felony or two with the amount of money he's ripped off.
If I'd been ripped off by this guy, I'd chip in with other victims to hire a good PI to get the goods on this clown.

Relapse wrote:Why don't all of the people that have been ripped off by this guy contact each other, put together all the evidence they have against him and turn it over to the postal service.
It seems like he could get nailed for a felony or two with the amount of money he's ripped off.
If I'd been ripped off by this guy, I'd chip in with other victims to hire a good PI to get the goods on this clown.

Well, this guy appears to be some kind of pro at scamming. People can never seem to pinpoint him, but I have a feeling one day he's going to get clotheslined by the karma gods.

That's where the PI comes in. Get a good one and you would have all the evidence thats needed within a week.
It sounds like enough people have been hosed that kicking 50-100 bucks into a kitty could amount to a sizable enough sum to hire the kind of help you'd need that would have the resources to get enough on this guy to put him behind bars.

It's definitely a thought... enough information is known about him (I believe one Dakka member actually stopped by his house a few years ago...) that it'd be easy to give an investigator something to go off of.

However, the chance of that resulting in any recovered models/funds for the various people who have been scammed by him is slim...

We did take up a collection in the DCM section last year to help out Alpharius, as he's an integral part of this community and was, to my knowledge, the most egregiously scammed. If future funds were pooled by those scammed by Matthew Bonder, I don't know if it would be better to hire an investigator to try to "take him out" so to speak, rather than to refund some of the people he'd stolen from...

At this point, it looks like there are only a few "current" scams that he has going on... but a few is enough

I would just chip in Steve that unless RSO is actually held to account for his actions, we are leaving the door open for him to simply create more and more victims.

I am all for 'taking care of our own', it was me I believe who chipped in first on Alpharius' fund... but my personal view would be that the greater service to the community at large would be to make sure there are no more Alpharius' (lol you know what I mean Alphy!).

At this point IMHO a proactive solution as opposed to a reactionary one is the only real way out...

All just IMHO, I am not saying the PI is the only viable answer either... I just think it is the quickest way from A to B.

Being someone who RSO ripped off years ago I would be all for the PI idea.

Having not been scammed by this person, but having grown fond of this community and those who HAVE been scammed, I'd be willing to chip in towards a PI or whatever means is decided upon to get this dealt with. Recovered models/funds may not happen, but some amount of jail time is needed IMO.

This guy having a PI turned loose on him would definitely give any other scammers pause for thought.
Just make sure your reason and evidence is good enough to go this route. A good PI will let you lnow if you have a potential case before he starts looking for evidence.

I will look into the possible cost / routes to take / outcomes and see if there is a reasonable way forward regarding a PI. I had not considered this possibility previously and am not sure if it would be too expensive to attempt. But I will research it more... if others have experience in this area, it'd be helpful to know, too.

Obviously, any person hired to investigate Matthew Bonder's actions would need to be local to him in Texas, which limits the possibilities...

I work at a Worker's Comp insurance company and prices will vary depending on what you want to have done or who you hire, obviously, but surveillance with a report will run you about $45-50 an hour. I'm not sure what other stuff would cost as surveillance is about all we do (our fantasy is to catch someone with a back claim doing 500lb deadlifts in their garage).

Last post on Miniature Wargame Conversions (from Dec 21)... it seems the negative publicity has discouraged most of the current contributors from posting much.

Miniature Wargame Conversions wrote:
Want To Be a Guest Writer On MWC?

How's everyone doing? Good? Fantastic! Me too, as we here at MWC, in our sloth of writing lately, have got a great idea that benefits everyone! It encourages us to continue on with our laziness and gives our readers a chance to speak their mind to a very large following of their fellow readers. So without rambling too much, if you or anyone you know would like to be a guest writer for MWC on any topic that is modeling related, please post a comment here. We are looking for a few good guest writers to bring in some fresh ideas and view points on all the games out there.

So if you play one of the lesser known games, feel free to leave a comment here! Even if 40k or WHFB is your game of choice, that works too!

Spread the word! Let us all share what we have learned to those just starting out in the hobby!

I guess they're looking for fresh folks who haven't heard about all the baggage Matthew is carrying around with him, and dragging his website into...

Perhaps some canny dakkanauts could write for MWC about the perils of internet trades in our hobby and about the ways in which certain scumbag predators try to steal from us.

Looks like someone has bitten...

Yeah, I noticed... one of them (the most recent poster) is from Philly, who I just sent a warning to (and mentioned that he can check with mikhaila, since his store is just outside Philly, if he needs confirmation). I cannot find an email address for the other new contributor (who is in the UK), though.

Wow, I just got a rather heated email back saying that, in no uncertain terms, they didn't care about Matthew Bonder's other dealings...

I find it shocking and hard to believe that people can act/feel that way... he also mentioned that he won a raffle and received what he was supposed to, and the charities on the site... but in the same breath denounces the relevance of Matthew being involved in scams (and as this thread shows, there are Current ones, and he's used the name of the website to aid him in them).

It's people like this who are enabling Matthew to do his scams. Being "Matt from MWC" legitimizes him... and it is rather discouraging to see that attitude.

It'd be one thing for people to look at the evidence and then dismiss it. But the fact that contributors to the website have consistently responded heatedly without considering the evidence... I don't know, it makes me think that this is the kind of people Matthew attracts to himself, or something. Otherwise, it just doesn't make any sense...

Something that scammers do, from what I've seen, is respond extremely aggressively when pressed. But the fact that other people are doing this for him... that's what really baffles me about all this.

I feel like if I was part of a blog group, and found out the runner/founder was: 1) Using the name of the blog to aid in defrauding people 2) Still had delinquent commissions and had many, many previously... I would instantly question my involvement/association with it, even if it was great otherwise. What am I missing here?

Well, Ritides, one of two things probably occurred here.
Either you fell for Matthew's ruse, and it was him that posted as the guy from Philly - I really wouldn't put it past him, or the guy you tried to help is just not smart enough to get it.
In that case, I say let him go. If he wants to act that way, then let Matthew hose him over. When he comes crying to you for help, give him back what he gave you and tell him to go handle it on his own.

Eric

I'm quite sure it was a genuine contributor based on their personal blog (I always check at this point) which is why it is so perplexing...

The thing is, people like that aren't in any danger from Matthew. They're more valuable to him as people "on his side". But they're helping him be a greater danger to others who aren't aware of his methods (the standard, deliver on some commissions, and be delinquent on just enough of them stretched out over long enough periods to keep from getting taken to court or the like...)

RiTides wrote:I will look into the possible cost / routes to take / outcomes and see if there is a reasonable way forward regarding a PI. I had not considered this possibility previously and am not sure if it would be too expensive to attempt. But I will research it more... if others have experience in this area, it'd be helpful to know, too.

Obviously, any person hired to investigate Matthew Bonder's actions would need to be local to him in Texas, which limits the possibilities...

I'm not terribly far from his address (my friend lives down the road from him) and would be glad to help if I could somehow, even if it just involved calling a few PIs. PM me if interested.

IT semms matt or RedStarOne is the man of many faces. I am certain that the brand new user who joined right after this and only posted here may well be him. If you can link the IP of that user to the emails and furthermore to the site then it would appear hes trying hard but uninteligently to make us think its not possible. Also is it possible that the blog is faked for lack of a better word? Its not that hard to change the dates of entries into a blog to make it appear older than it is.

RiTides wrote:Wow, I just got a rather heated email back saying that, in no uncertain terms, they didn't care about Matthew Bonder's other dealings...

We've already seen on this thread that Matt's supporters dismiss evidence and are commonly aggressive... they are a collection of some of the most unpleasant hobbyists I've come across. A good example was an earlier post, now deleted, on this thread which I had the fortune to read in which someone threatened physical violence. Maybe I'm naive, but in all my years I've found the modelling and gaming community to be a friendly, helpful one - which is why those supporters of his that do speak out, stand out.

Matt either attracts aggressive, delinquent characters such as himself, or he is in fact running several personae.

I mean it is nice that a person that comes out to contribute to his site is also a winner of his competition. Nice and cosy eh?

---

I also assume that 'Rictus' is the same Rictus that I've seen post here in the past. I certainly recognise some of the models (the sentinel power lifter for a start)

OK after doing some research i have found some things one of which gives absolute clarity to the is matt using fake people on his site issue.

So he has changed his website completely even with a new url using the same certifications for his old website thus making the website seem older than it is but its only been this way for a monthish.

on his contact information to reach Matt from mini wargames it has the following information listed which I believe may cause some people in the thread to peak up in interrest as per the first few posts in the thread.

Facebook: Damian on Facebook

Facebook: Tales from the Warzone Facebook Fan Page

Twitter: Damian on Twitter

Skype: lord_shaper

I am not sure exactly what prompted him to not think this through but here he basicaly openly admits to bieng damien the recently terminated employee.

Could you take a screenshot of the page you're referring to? The reason I say this is that other pages we have pointed out that had incriminating information, but didn't save, he changed very quickly. So if you could take a screenshot of it (and also post the direct url for while it is currently showing that information) that'd be really helpful!

Would definitely confirm what we were discussing on the first page of his pretending to be non-existent persons connected to Miniature Wargame Conversions... which none of the "real" contributors seem to believe, and it'd be great to have some more evidence of that (besides my word and some voicemails that are probably not appropriate to post publicly, along with emails).

@ Treesong, it was 'Lucky No. 5", who has a personal blog and other contact info, who I emailed and got the heated response back from. I didn't find alternate contact info for Rictus, and so hadn't contacted him (I didn't realize he was on Dakka). Not sure if it'd be worth it, though, given the track record thus far! And I think Matt is prepping folks he invites to contribute for myself or others to contact them about him, somehow...

http://www.talesfromthewarzone.com/contact/

There is the direct url about half way down you will see said information with which I am discussing.

Here is the actual image which i have saved to thumbdrive so i now have permament records of it.

I can't remember, but did 'Damian' ever post here? If he did then he's defiently sockpuppeting, just one more thing to hang him on when this all comes out.... and hopefully it will all come out and he gets what he diserves.

TheNewMexicanGeneral wrote:on his contact information to reach Matt from mini wargames it has the following information listed which I believe may cause some people in the thread to peak up in interrest as per the first few posts in the thread.

I guess what I'm not seeing is, that page is on Tales from the Warzone. I've never seen a contact page or link for Matt on Miniature Wargame Conversions... on there he just posts as "Miniature Wargame Conversions". Hence, making it easy for him to pretend to be false contributors when emailing me, despite the fact that he has several legitimate contributors posting.

But I'm just not seeing how the contact page on Tales from the Warzone connects to Miniature Wargame Conversions and Matthew Bonder. Did a link from Miniature Wargame Conversions lead you over there? Or is it possible you just have the two sites confused?

@ FrabricatorGeneralMike- As far as I know, the names "Jeff" and "Damien" have only ever come up in Matt's voicemails and emails to me. They're not listed on his site, and haven't posted here. I doubt he's indiscreet enough to have a profile page for "Damien" up anywhere linked to his account... but it would have bee helpful if that had been the case. He's usually smarter about not leaving a trail behind...

Man you guys are something else....I don't join your quest and now you're trash talking me on Dakka?

Apparently I'm an alter-ego for Matt or a delinquent character?

If anyone was gong to be giving me a bad reputation online it's you fools and not Matt.

Seriously, leave me out of this BS. There's a reason I haven't joined Dakka In the past and this is a clear example of why.

It's not about your reputation at all.

It is about people with a good reputation (you) giving credibility to a known fraud by affiliating with him.

But then of course, you don't care about that.

That is the consequence of putting your name to an enterprise fronted by a known scammer who has scammed multiple people in a very brazen fashion over the years.
Deal with it, or do something about it. Don't come whinging here, it doesn't make your case any stronger. Reading this thread gives multiple examples of RSO's fraudulent behaviour and thievery.

LuckyNo.5 wrote:Man you guys are something else....I don't join your quest and now you're trash talking me on Dakka?

Apparently I'm an alter-ego for Matt or a delinquent character?

If anyone was gong to be giving me a bad reputation online it's you fools and not Matt.

Seriously, leave me out of this BS. There's a reason I haven't joined Dakka In the past and this is a clear example of why.

Well unfortunately for you, with the amount of scams Matt has and has attempted to pull off, anyone who defends him should rightly be treated as if in league with Matt, if not Matt himself IMO. Matt has his reputation, and anyone and everyone who doesn't have a problem with it is probably going to have a problem with everyone else. That's just the reality. As someone Matt has tried to scam in the past, anyone I see defending him I'll put on my 'Do Not Trust' list.

I've stayed out of this thread until now because, quite frankly, I am so very tired of Matt Bonder and the drama that is in anything connected to him.

Amazingly enough though, through the hard work of RiTides and the generousity of many of my friends here on Dakka Dakka, I did manage to recoup a lot of what he 'misappropriated'.

He does, however, still owe me quite a bit:

1) 1 set of Space Hulk Terminators
2) 5 Rhinos
3) 2 Vindicators
4) 1 Baneblade

He's owed me these things going all the way back to 2009/2010, and to date, I still do not know why he hasn't shipped them to me.

Well, OK, I DO know, but I've never received an 'official' explanation from Matt - and I don't expect I ever will get one, or the still missing items, either...

Good luck to anyone else that he's wronged, but the best advice really is to stay away from him, and anything he may be involved in.

LuckyNo.5 wrote:Man you guys are something else....I don't join your quest and now you're trash talking me on Dakka?

Apparently I'm an alter-ego for Matt or a delinquent character?

If anyone was gong to be giving me a bad reputation online it's you fools and not Matt.

Seriously, leave me out of this BS. There's a reason I haven't joined Dakka In the past and this is a clear example of why.

Because people don't like seeing a known scammer continuing his fine work? When there are people he currently owes money and models to while he carried on business as usual? Dakka isn't the bad guy here, it's trying to warn people away from a person who has been scamming for many years. And it appears that he is continuing this behaviour even recently. You say "leave me out of this BS" as though you can support his website and give it legitimacy but shun any accountability for the actions that it and its owner carries out.

Why is it that people who support Matt refuse to acknowledge the many people he has stolen from, or dismiss it as not being their business? By supporting him and his site you are involved. What's your view on his scamming? Are the many people he has stolen from all in some conspiracy against him? Or do you just not care?

The nature of Matt Bonder is known to you now, how you use this information will reflect upon your reputation online, not what us "fools" say.

LuckyNo.5 wrote:Man you guys are something else....I don't join your quest and now you're trash talking me on Dakka?

Apparently I'm an alter-ego for Matt or a delinquent character?

If anyone was gong to be giving me a bad reputation online it's you fools and not Matt.

Seriously, leave me out of this BS. There's a reason I haven't joined Dakka In the past and this is a clear example of why.

Member of Dakka. +1
In bed with Bonder -5,000

Maybe you should do a bit of research.

LuckyNo.5 I have no issue with you and while i may not understand your wanting to join with a band with such a negative reputation theres always the possibility your doing the blog for the love of the hobby. I can not fault you for finding a way to make blog posts aboiut your favorite hobby. Now as for the whole matt issue hes a known scammer. I was one who was scammed by him on a different site. I personally can not tolerate the man.

Unfortunatly especialy in this situation theres been several users joined and post in this topic only to support matt and never be heard from again which really makes any new user who automaticaly posts here highly suspect of just bieng a alias of matts.

I find it difficult to believe the people who have popped up to defend him aren't him, its classic internetz.

sad thank you for the warnings

I’m going to agree that the other people posting in favour of RSO are probably him (including the mysterious “Damien” and “Jeff” as well). The other posters IMO have a similar sort of antagonistic style of posting. Even still, the people in favour of RSO, who didn’t antagonise when posting, did a pretty weak job defending him (usually choosing to ignore the possibility of fault). What makes matters worse is that RSO has been proven to use different aliases in the past

LuckyNo.5 wrote:Man you guys are something else....I don't join your quest and now you're trash talking me on Dakka?

Apparently I'm an alter-ego for Matt or a delinquent character?

If anyone was gong to be giving me a bad reputation online it's you fools and not Matt.

Seriously, leave me out of this BS. There's a reason I haven't joined Dakka In the past and this is a clear example of why.

Others have said it, but the sad and simple fact here is two fold - as you help his site grow, you help attract potential victims to his services. You add a level of legitimacy he simply can't achieve any more on his own because of his past dealings. And remember, whatever the reason was before, he now has the time and money to run charity gigs and give away models - so why can't he possibly make good on the things he does owe people? Because he'd rather keep that money and cash. You may not care about that, since it's not yourself or your friends who were screwed over,

The second sad fact is that so long as your name is tied to his, some of his issues become yours. Again, if you don't care about his previous dealings enough to not be associated with him, why should people trust you? I'm not saying that you're a scammer yourself, or that you don't care about the people he has scammed - but why should people trust you? You're happy to help a guy who does steal stuff from people, and that will make people wonder about yourself. Mud sticks, sadly, and with the amount the guy is burred under it will get on you too.

Maybe you could explain why you feel working with the guy is OK, and why you think it's appropriate given his previous and current scams, it might help take some of the heat off?

In fairness, I doubt the new guys are Matthew.
I'd wager that the staff looks at the IP address of anyone coming here to defend Matthew (I know I would). If they found so much as a similarity, they'd probably call him out on it.

Of course, that doesn't mean I think much of anyone choosing to associate with Matthew Bonder in light of his past transgressions.


Eric

Jon Garrett wrote:Again, if you don't care about his previous dealings enough to not be associated with him, why should people trust you?

I don't trust ANYONE online. Not that I don't care, I just don't know whats real and whats not, so there is no reason for me to get worked up about it. I have better things to do with my time. Bottom Line, I've "known" Matt for a while now with ll positive encounters. So I will side with him vs. a bunch of strangers that are ready to lynch me for no good reason other than I'm posting some tutorials on a hobby blog run by multiple people aside from Matt.

Jon Garrett wrote:Maybe you could explain why you feel working with the guy is OK, and why you think it's appropriate given his previous and current scams, it might help take some of the heat off?

What heat? From you Dakkanites? Man that's about as much heat as a match would provide in a blizzard. I'm sweating already...

TheNewMexicanGeneral wrote:LuckyNo.5 I have no issue with you and while i may not understand your wanting to join with a band with such a negative reputation theres always the possibility your doing the blog for the love of the hobby. I can not fault you for finding a way to make blog posts aboiut your favorite hobby. Now as for the whole matt issue hes a known scammer. I was one who was scammed by him on a different site. I personally can not tolerate the man.

Unfortunatly especialy in this situation theres been several users joined and post in this topic only to support matt and never be heard from again which really makes any new user who automaticaly posts here highly suspect of just bieng a alias of matts.

Weren't you called a scammer and other slanderous things in this post? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/417601.page#3769360
Pot… Kettle… Black… What?

MagickalMemories wrote:Of course, that doesn't mean I think much of anyone choosing to associate with Matthew Bonder in light of his past transgressions.

I'm crying on the inside.. really I am.







The only thing useful about this thread is the use of Ork emoticons....

Maybe Lucky is Matt's wife.
You know, the one that's had 27 fatal ailments over the last few years.

LuckyNo.5 wrote:

Jon Garrett wrote:Again, if you don't care about his previous dealings enough to not be associated with him, why should people trust you?

I don't trust ANYONE online. Not that I don't care, I just don't know whats real and whats not, so there is no reason for me to get worked up about it. I have better things to do with my time. Bottom Line, I've "known" Matt for a while now with ll positive encounters. So I will side with him vs. a bunch of strangers that are ready to lynch me for no good reason other than I'm posting some tutorials on a hobby blog run by multiple people aside from Matt.

So you know him off line then?

I guess you do think the string of people he owes money to are lying.

@Lucky -
Dakka isn't the only place he's catching heat. Check BoLS, Warseer... Heck, read this thread. It's a laundry list of gaming web sites across the internet.

When you find yourself on the sh** end of the stick with Matthew, don't come crying to us. The best you'll get out of this group is an indignant "Told ya so."



@Coldfire

That might've been a bit too far. I know not many people believe him about his wife and son but, for Karma's sake, you might want to err on the side of caution.
Just saying.

Eric

Thanks for the karma warning, Eric, but I don't believe a thing Matt says--he's the one who needs to keep an eye out for karma

Yeah I had issues with my transaction but you know what we got it rectified and unfortunatly it was one of those cases where a package got lost and that happens. So yeah I had a bad transaction and had some issues I worked to rectify them something your pal matt cant seem to accomplish. Saying pot calling kettle black isnt applicable to my situation. While yes things happened and due to some isssues I was away from dakka for 2 months and wasnt able to contact him which is regrettable I did everything in my power to fix the situation and am still trying to discern the where abouts of his package. Where as matt doesnt give a frak about his dealings.

Ok well Lucky No.5 and Matt as I know for a fact you are following this if not posting to it. IF you feel youve done nothing wrong and feel we are in the bad here and were a site not worth visiting well then frak off. Theres tons of other 40k sites with which to be a part of and all this thread was about was posting a warning about suspicious activities occuring on the part of one Miniature Wargames Conversions. He was not slandering anyone saying oh this is a bad bad man hate hate hate. He was saying hes been notified of behaviours that warranted a unfortunate warning to the Dakka Community. He did what he did with a heavy heart as no one likes to hear about something like that happening. Furthermore if matt would pay back his previous debts then thatd alieviate a lot of issues. But instead he chooses not to and chooses to act through several aliases to portray himself as the good guy whos done nothing wrong.

If you believe hes in the right and truly thinks hes a good guy then best of luck to you maybe you might just have a pleasant relationship with him and truly i hope you do.

EDIT: Mods if I was rude or not following forum policy I did not mean to but If I did feel free to edit my post of those issues and please Pm myself as to my discrepencies with policy.

Also we have to remember that RSO's defenders usually have a very low number of posts, so they all could possibly be him
Just saying- although this is pretty obvious

Howard A Treesong wrote:

LuckyNo.5 wrote:

Jon Garrett wrote:Again, if you don't care about his previous dealings enough to not be associated with him, why should people trust you?

I don't trust ANYONE online. Not that I don't care, I just don't know whats real and whats not, so there is no reason for me to get worked up about it. I have better things to do with my time. Bottom Line, I've "known" Matt for a while now with ll positive encounters. So I will side with him vs. a bunch of strangers that are ready to lynch me for no good reason other than I'm posting some tutorials on a hobby blog run by multiple people aside from Matt.

So you know him off line then?

I guess you do think the string of people he owes money to are lying.

That is a good question.

I'd love to hear Matt's explanation for why he's still holding a lot of my miniatures hostage, especially after he was already paid for the conversion work. Years ago.

There are many reasons why I'd love to meet Matt in person.

One of them is to see just how charming he must be, literally, to have anyone believe him 100% and think that everyone else who has had negative dealings with him is just... making it up?

We should start an Alpharius Charity Recovery Fund.

Once I do my taxes I'll get him a rhino(not that it will cover the 5 rhinos plus other models but baby steps) to help cover the models lost that it's obvious won't be recovered by Matt.

I know this could come across as sarcasm, but it is genuine. It is unfortunate that something like this happened/happens.

I'd like to help out a fellow gamer in recovering what was stolen from him.

Anyone else want to pitch in and get him a model off his list?
Granted this doesn't cover the conversions that were supposed to be done, or the money lost, but every little bit helps.

Aerethan wrote:We should start an Alpharius Charity Recovery Fund.

Once I do my taxes I'll get him a rhino(not that it will cover the 5 rhinos plus other models but baby steps) to help cover the models lost that it's obvious won't be recovered by Matt.

I know this could come across as sarcasm, but it is genuine. It is unfortunate that something like this happened/happens.

I'd like to help out a fellow gamer in recovering what was stolen from him.

Anyone else want to pitch in and get him a model off his list?
Granted this doesn't cover the conversions that were supposed to be done, or the money lost, but every little bit helps.

The DCM and mod crew actually did this already, and managed to finance him an army. Which genuinely helped restore my faith in humanity just a little.

Ketara wrote:

Aerethan wrote:We should start an Alpharius Charity Recovery Fund.

Once I do my taxes I'll get him a rhino(not that it will cover the 5 rhinos plus other models but baby steps) to help cover the models lost that it's obvious won't be recovered by Matt.

I know this could come across as sarcasm, but it is genuine. It is unfortunate that something like this happened/happens.

I'd like to help out a fellow gamer in recovering what was stolen from him.

Anyone else want to pitch in and get him a model off his list?
Granted this doesn't cover the conversions that were supposed to be done, or the money lost, but every little bit helps.

The DCM and mod crew actually did this already, and managed to finance him an army. Which genuinely helped restore my faith in humanity just a little.

Well dammit all! Meh, he is still missing models yeah? I'm sending him a rhino whether he wants it or not!

LuckyNo.5 wrote:

Jon Garrett wrote:Again, if you don't care about his previous dealings enough to not be associated with him, why should people trust you?

I don't trust ANYONE online. Not that I don't care, I just don't know whats real and whats not, so there is no reason for me to get worked up about it. I have better things to do with my time. Bottom Line, I've "known" Matt for a while now with ll positive encounters. So I will side with him vs. a bunch of strangers that are ready to lynch me for no good reason other than I'm posting some tutorials on a hobby blog run by multiple people aside from Matt.

Lucky No. 5, I really appreciate your posting in this thread (I am being genuine here- I know it's hard to tell in text). However, I don't understand this view. I know you're in the vicinity of Mike Clark (mikhaila)'s store, and everyone I know in that area knows him and his store. I mentioned that he could vouch for what I was saying about this and has been aware of it. He's a reputable wargame store owner in your area... if you do care (as you say it's not that you don't care) why not just call up Showcase Comics and ask him? Or shoot him an email? You don't have to believe me... I also mentioned that I'd be up there at the end of the month.

That's where this excuse breaks down for me... of course, you can't trust what a stranger says on the internet. But there's so much evidence of the scamming that Matthew Bonder has done, it's nearly undeniable. Add to that a real person near to you with a good reputation that can fill you in on it, and how can you plead ignorance?

The hobby blog and tutorials give Matthew credibility, as many others have pointed out, so of course your posting there does harm. Posting those things on your personal blog, which looks excellent, would cause me (and I believe everyone) zero issues. Why can't you see that?

Again, I appreciate your posting here. I'm also going to PM Rictus, since he is a Dakka member, to see if he could give his thoughts. However, the other thing I don't understand is your looking up a Transaction Report (which has been resolved, albiet by Paypal) about TheNewMexicanGeneral... that is a bit of trouble to go to for something that you don't care about. I just find that odd... I also find it odd that you've never responded about Mike. If you do care, as you post seems to indicate and you just don't know who to trust, wouldn't it make sense to check with him and verify what we're saying here?

LuckyNo.5 wrote:

Jon Garrett wrote:Again, if you don't care about his previous dealings enough to not be associated with him, why should people trust you?

I don't trust ANYONE online. Not that I don't care, I just don't know whats real and whats not, so there is no reason for me to get worked up about it. I have better things to do with my time. Bottom Line, I've "known" Matt for a while now with ll positive encounters. So I will side with him vs. a bunch of strangers that are ready to lynch me for no good reason other than I'm posting some tutorials on a hobby blog run by multiple people aside from Matt.

No one wants to lynch you, so far as I know. It's simply a matter of no one being quite certain how you can justify this, and being unable to trust you because you're happy to associate with and defend a criminal. If you take a few minutes to look around you'll find it's not a couple of people giving the guy a bad reputation, but well into double digits. Unless you assume that Matt is being targeted by a hate group who hate dying families or something, there are too many of these things to believe anything other than there's something up and it's on Matt's end. Especially given that no one else has had trouble with many of the people claiming problems.

LuckyNo.5 wrote:

Jon Garrett wrote:Maybe you could explain why you feel working with the guy is OK, and why you think it's appropriate given his previous and current scams, it might help take some of the heat off?

What heat? From you Dakkanites? Man that's about as much heat as a match would provide in a blizzard. I'm sweating already...

There are 50,000 people registered on Dakka. Assuming only 10% of them have bothered reading this topic that's 5000 people assuming you cannot be trusted. Even 5% would be 2500 you can no longer hope to deal. I don't know if you sell painting and converting services, but if you do that's a big chunk of change unavailable. If it was me, I'd feel quite unpleasant having that number of folks assuming I was involved in similar shenanigans. But that's me.

I've been reading this thread with a lot of interest over the past few days. RiTides, on the one hand I really commend you for spreading awareness about a guy who's proven himself a scammer. On the other, I don't think there's much to be gained trying debate with his defenders (ignoring for a moment the remarkable similarities in their tone and writing). I think all you really can do is say "This was our experience, here are people you can contact to verify, please be forewarned". It sounds like the majority of Dakka who are paying attention have taken your advice to heart. (Myself included )

The whole "I don't trust anyone on the internet" schtick is reminiscent of another person who defended RSO, though I can't recall the name.

Vetric wrote:On the other, I don't think there's much to be gained trying debate with his defenders

I agree, but was hoping for less of a debate and more of a simple explanation as to why the large amount of evidence / testimonials pointing towards the owner of the website continuing his fraudulent activities currently does not matter to them, as contributors to the site. That was a long sentence, hopefully it makes sense

I don't have any particular desire to continue to spend my time hounding Matthew Bonder... the problem is, he seems to lie in wait and them pop back up and scam people through a different venue. It's obvious how dangerous it is for him to have a reputable-looking conversion website, making it easy for him to solicit or even be sought out for commissions.

I don't really think there's much left to be done, though, other than keep an eye on it... from what I can tell, the prices of PIs will be too high to make it worthwhile, and what would they find out that people researching Matthew post-scams haven't already? From what I've heard, he lives with his parents and has few assets (hence making this kind of scam appealing, as someone with more means would not find the proceeds of it worthwhile). There's not much to be gained from it, that I can tell, and I'm not bitter / just wanting to make his life miserable. I think he deserves justice, but the expense it would take to hire a PI is prohibitive and I don't see how that Would bring him to justice.

The most likely route for a true "in the courts" solution would be for someone who is in Texas and was scammed, who can more easily take him to court. I looked into that option a bit when helping Alpharius recover some of his items, and it really is prohibitive to do so across state lines. So that, or a pro bono lawyer who wanted to take it on as a group suit, or the like. But I don't see any of that as likely... so it seems the only real option is to keep a watchful eye on his online presence, and to make sure that he cannot establish himself as reputable while continuing his scamming "on the side".

In that vein, it's interesting to note that this thread brought out a few current / recent scam victims. Matthew is very intense about not having his clients post their problems online- this obviously helps him continue his practices, and the people who were updating here haven't in a while. If it's like when I was communicating with him, he probably threatens to not deliver at all if they continue to do so. It's a vicious cycle. Hence this thread being needed to get the word out that he's still actively doing these things... and, while I don't think there is a real way to bring him to justice that is feasible "from a distance", I will continue to keep an eye on his website and for new contributors that may not know about his practices.

It may also be worth notifying his local police again, but from what I remember of his Transaction Reports on here, that was tried without much success. It's also easier for a "first party" to do, rather than someone who is simply following his actions (as I personally have not been scammed by him). So I am not opposed to more happening to try to shut Matthew down, but from what I can see the only feasible and effective avenue that those of us not directly involved in a deal with him have is to make sure his online presence does not grow and become more reputable, masking his past actions. At least searching for his website brings up this thread as one of the top results- but not the very top. Maybe if we all type "Miniature Wargame Conversions" in replies (please don't do so, that's a joke).

I appreciate people remaining civil and helping hash this out, and again I do really appreciate the contributors to Miniature Wargame Conversions that have come on here to post. It has been very helpful to see your point of view, and I think at least a few of you have reconsidered your involvement in the site / become less active... which, given all of the evidence against Matthew Bonder, seems like a wise decision to me.

I don't see any reason for this thread to necessarily be closed, however- as, if Matthew stays true to form, likely there will be another issue in the not-too-distant future where another victim finds this thread, or perhaps finds it Before commissioning him and is able to simply update on any new tactics that he is attempting to defraud people with. And, of course, if the website ends up being used to sell things in any fashion again- but I think he's learned his lesson on that one and knows people will be watching, and will instead be using it's name "behind the scenes" to identify himself as "Matt from MWC", and lend himself credibility without exposing what he's really doing for everyone to see.

The likely hood of the local police department getting involved likely depends on whether or not they're big enough to have dedicated cyber crimes task force (most don't), as your average beat cop like myself, or even your average detective, really wouldn't even know where to begin (and likely wouldn't prioritize it very highly as a result).

If your were to notify them it would be helpful to have all the evidence proving a crime took place was organized and documented. It would also have to be an actual victim contacting them for them to take it seriously (alpharious would suffice I think, but more is always better here).

What state does RSO live in again? I can take a peak at the criminal statutes on fraud and cyber crime for it and list out the elements of the crime that the evidence would have to show so you could get all your ducks in a row.

RSO's apparently in Texas.

Isn't what he does mail fraud? Don't you just inform the postal services that you've paid money and not had items received?

His home address must be quite well known after all the people he has taken work from.

Actually on your sugestion I'm reading through the US code on mail fraud now...It's pretty damn dense reading even for criminal code.

Postal police might be a good way to go though, especially if you can get several victims together to report it.

CorvidMP wrote:
Postal police might be a good way to go though, especially if you can get several victims together to report it.

I don't think that it would be hard to do that

CorvidMP wrote:If your were to notify them it would be helpful to have all the evidence proving a crime took place was organized and documented. It would also have to be an actual victim contacting them for them to take it seriously (alpharious would suffice I think, but more is always better here).

CorvidMP wrote:Postal police might be a good way to go though, especially if you can get several victims together to report it.

I definitely think it would be worthwhile to get together a group of evidence... I was wondering about this, but wasn't sure how it could be shown to be legitimate? Wouldn't any statements by people need to be notarized and sent by mail, rather than email, to be worth anything?

RiTides wrote:I definitely think it would be worthwhile to get together a group of evidence... I was wondering about this, but wasn't sure how it could be shown to be legitimate? Wouldn't any statements by people need to be notarized and sent by mail, rather than email, to be worth anything?

Either way im surprised that this thread wasn't created with such evidence.

I mean that is why the RSO defenders are defending the allegations so easily? Even the real innocent unbiased ones have trouble believing us.

The last thing we want is to dive in a real court issue without backup and be dismissed, which would add to RSO's accountability.... *shudders

This thread was created to warn people about the website, Miniature Wargame Conversions... it has evolved due to the fact that Matthew Bonder emailed me saying those I had been communicating with had "quit" the website because of our correspondence.

Hence, we've been discussing Matthew Bonder (in the context of his using the site to give himself an alias and credibility, while still continuing to take commissions) from that point forward...

It would be a large effort to get that evidence together, and in the end, wouldn't be something "we" would be doing. It would take a single person who was scammed by him and wanted to file charges and/or sue... and that's a pretty big task.

My goal in making the thread was just to make people aware- I might be able to help gather evidence, but I think people are really underestimating the amount of effort it would take to really bring Matthew to justice.

As I posted before, I think the easiest route would be someone who was scammed and is in-state with him (Texas) although MagickalMemories has let me know that he didn't think the state lines were such an issue. What I read seemed to indicate that doing any kind of small claim across state lines was really hard... and for any kind of criminal charge, I think it would be another challenge entirely.

It's fine to talk about doing so (and perhaps something will come of it), but again, I think the effort involved would be really high... I don't personally think I could do it, and just want to focus on making as many people aware of him as possible so that they can avoid being scammed.