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grefven wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

grefven wrote:
I dont think Maelstrom was destroing itself. They put their chin out there to start a new miniature range. This was most likely why they were getting into debt. Rather than taking a bank loan they tried to fund it themselves. But they were never given the time to bounce back before Wayland went for the throat.

They couldn't fulfill customer orders nor could they pay suppliers. MG hived off the best bits and left the rest to rot.

They destroyed themselves. Wayland just took old yella out the back to try and stop the rabid backlash.

They just started up a brand new miniature range, hiring some of the top sculptors and painters in the business. They most likely thought that they could fund it themselves, rather than taking a bank loan or doing a Kickstarter (like everyone else). They should get some credits for trying to bring something new to us, the customers. Yes, everything went to hell, and Maelstrom did some terrible decisions. But I highly doubt that this was their intention all along.

And where did that capital come from?, they couldnt go to the banks as they have no secruity, how much would it cost to start a miniature line?, how long to draw a profit from that? it is NOT a short term fix, nor is it a cheap start up. There is a good chance that they were using customers money (lets face it there should not have been any profit within MG being taken) to fund meirce,

Everything since July or even sooner you do not know, nor do we what their intention was, but I will stand by this next comment, their best intentions were not for the customers/

grefven wrote:
They just started up a brand new miniature range, hiring some of the top sculptors and painters in the business. They most likely thought that they could fund it themselves, rather than taking a bank loan or doing a Kickstarter (like everyone else).

They used MG as a cash cow to fund the start up costs of a new business leaving MG as the debt vehicle, the fact that even at the end they were still trying to get money when they knew full well they had no chance of supplying the goods because their suppliers had cut them off speaks volumes about the ethics of MG, MM, EOTS etc. and the people running them

They should get some credits for trying .....

Yes at the last count they had over £500K of credits - enough is enough don't you think?


I am sorry for those people out of pocket - but the constant sniping and blaming of Wayland and other MG creditors is just ridiculous.

MG created a ponzi scheme to fund their new enterprises and spun the debt off into MG leaving the customers at the bottom of the pyramid to catch a cold.

This didn't happen by accident, you don't suddenly wake up one morning and go - "ooh look I've just discovered I'm £500K in debt - lets have a firesale to make the money back".

Regardless of the orginal intention, this was a long time coming and shows evidence of detailed financial planning to create a toxic asset vehicle that would allow the spin off businesses to start out debt-free.

No wonder they didn't get a bank loan - this way the start-up costs have been interest-free - much cheaper than a business loan.

grefven wrote:

They just started up a brand new miniature range, hiring some of the top sculptors and painters in the business. They most likely thought that they could fund it themselves, rather than taking a bank loan or doing a Kickstarter (like everyone else). They should get some credits for trying to bring something new to us, the customers. Yes, everything went to hell, and Maelstrom did some terrible decisions. But I highly doubt that this was their intention all along.

Careful, with all that bending backwards to try and defend Maelstrom you might hurt yourself!

Maelstrom has been lying to its customers for the past 6+ months, stating that all the delivery issues was due to a warehouse change while setting of offshoot companies to move assets and leaving the debt with Maelstrom.

During this period they have committed what IMO is fraud by advertising products taking money for orders and PRE-ORDERS that they could never fulfil thanks to their massive debts to their suppliers! If their suppliers were in such trouble as to consider selling a debt to a direct competitor, there is no way that that supplier is continuing to just "give you" stuff!

Wayland has just bought of their debt 1 month ago, I doubt that they did it solely for the motives they claim but it takes a special kind to try and pin this situation on anyone other than Maelstrom and Rob Lane...

 Kroothawk wrote:
So in the end, Simple Miniatures' decision to give Maelstrom a 100,000 £ credit brought the UK tabletop gaming industry into trouble. Any background, why Simple Miniatures did such a thing? Sounds like a bad idea and indeed proved to be one. Esp. when giving the money to a company whose business model is based on undercutting its global competitors in profit marges.

You keep banging on about that, page after page after page. One might think you have a vested interest somewhere? As has been explained to you more than once, the occasional sales were significant, but simply offering UKRRP with cheap shipping is enough to undercut many "global competitors".

I ain't defending Maelstrom at all. I've stated at several occasions that they blew it themselves, with their lack of communication with their customers, with their lies regarding their warehouse move, etc. I am definately not saying that MG is without blame for this situation. It obviously wouldn't have happened without some bad business decisions.

I see it that their firesales in the last couple of days in the end of october was an attempt to actually amend for their difficulties. They wanted to sell their stock in order to fulfill some of their obligations to their customers and in order to raise the money to satisfy Wayland. Obviously, I also agree that it is close to fraudulent to take money for pre-orders they most likely knew wouldn't be able to send out.

However, I am stating that MG isn't the lone part in this. I am stating that in my opinion, the attempt to "force a resolution" by Wayland most likely caused an equal amount of grief to the community, to the customers and to the others MG were owning money to.

grefven wrote:
I ain't defending Maelstrom at all. I've stated at several occasions that they blew it themselves, with their lack of communication with their customers, with their lies regarding their warehouse move, etc. I am definately not saying that MG is without blame for this situation. It obviously wouldn't have happened without some bad business decisions.

I see it that their firesales in the last couple of days in the end of october was an attempt to actually amend for their difficulties. They wanted to sell their stock in order to fulfill some of their obligations to their customers and in order to raise the money to satisfy Wayland. Obviously, I also agree that it is close to fraudulent to take money for pre-orders they most likely knew wouldn't be able to send out.

However, I am stating that MG isn't the lone part in this. I am stating that in my opinion, the attempt to "force a resolution" by Wayland most likely caused an equal amount of grief to the community, to the customers and to the others MG were owning money to.

No, you are wrong.

If that fire sale happened without any context I could even contemplate your view point, but when it is taken in the context of the prior 6+ months of lies, when is taken in the context of the shell companies created months ago, created for the sole purpose of leaving Maelstrom saddled with the massive debts, all that says that this move of leaving Maelstrom and its customers and suppliers to drown had been planned months ago and that Wayland only forced Rob Lane to go along with its plan earlier than what was intended.

Simple Miniatures shares none of the blame for this, Wayland shares none of the blame for this, this one is solely on Rob Lane's back!

PhantomViper wrote:
Simple Miniatures shares none of the blame for this

I can't agree with that. To let a customer run up a critical level of debt is extremely poor business.

 Baragash wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
Simple Miniatures shares none of the blame for this

I can't agree with that. To let a customer run up a critical level of debt is extremely poor business.

If a supplier cuts off one of its clients, chances are that that client will NEVER pay the supplier back, since he stops having actual merchandise to sell. This will make it that suppliers will extend a larger credit line than it would be advisable so that the client will have a chance to get back on their feet.

Since we don't know what Maelstrom orders with Simple Miniatures looked like in their glory days of the Australian GW market, we don't even know if the 100k was a obscene amount or not...

Just seen this posted on the Wyrd forum, looks like the debt happened quickly after MG had paid a bunch of other invoices so wasn't noticed, and by the sound of it was also completely unexpected. I suppose if a big customer like MG promises to pay you back sharpish you'd believe them if there weren't any previous problems.

All sounds to me like Simple just got entirely fed up with all the BS from Rob Lane and has chosen Wayland to sort it out in the hope that because they are in the same industry they won't want to hack off all their potential customers. It's a good point ...... other debt type companies would have just have destroyed MG and everything he owns and sold it for firewood. I suppose we'll have to wait and see how Wayland play it.........

Good to know Simple are mainly unaffected, if a bit hacked off by the sound of it, 10 years work to build up a nice little pot and MG drains it all

http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread.php?36615-Retro-Fate-Deck-out-of-stock

grefven wrote:


I see it that their firesales in the last couple of days in the end of october was an attempt to actually amend for their difficulties. They wanted to sell their stock in order to fulfill some of their obligations to their customers and in order to raise the money to satisfy Wayland. Obviously, I also agree that it is close to fraudulent to take money for pre-orders they most likely knew wouldn't be able to send out.

I'm sorry but you're trying to have it both ways - you seem to be claiming that selling goods you don't have to customers and using their money to pay off debts/satisfy previous orders was somehow "making amendments" - and then you admit that this practice is actually close to fraudulent (I'd suggest more than close...)

However, I am stating that MG isn't the lone part in this. I am stating that in my opinion, the attempt to "force a resolution" by Wayland most likely caused an equal amount of grief to the community, to the customers and to the others MG were owning money to.

The grief arose solely because whether through fault or design (with evidence tending to the latter) MG put itself in the financial hurt locker whilst simultaneously transferring assets out of MG into EOTS. (The latter moves suggest MG being loaded with £500K+ of debt was hardly "an accident")

You seem to be blaming the creditors for wanting their money back whilst at the same time feeling hard done by because customers didn't get what they were owed?

MG did this, just them, nobody else.

Without Rob Lane's actions, business practices and behaviour there would have been no debt to call in to start with.

Blaming WL or anyone else for the final result is like blaming the iceberg for sinking Titanic.

MG ran a ponzi scheme - end of.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Baragash wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
Simple Miniatures shares none of the blame for this

I can't agree with that. To let a customer run up a critical level of debt is extremely poor business.

If a supplier cuts off one of its clients, chances are that that client will NEVER pay the supplier back, since he stops having actual merchandise to sell. This will make it that suppliers will extend a larger credit line than it would be advisable so that the client will have a chance to get back on their feet.

Since we don't know what Maelstrom orders with Simple Miniatures looked like in their glory days of the Australian GW market, we don't even know if the 100k was a obscene amount or not...

Also as far as I can tell simple are not a ltd company and as suchthe owner would be libal for any debt they were in.

As such there is an incentive to continue to supply maelstrom sothat theyhave a chance to pay there debt.

Well, here is the transcript of Simple Miniatures statement:

Statement Regarding Maelstrom Games Ltd
On the 1st October we made the difficult decision to assign the debt owed to Simple Miniature Games to Wayland Games Ltd for a nominal fee.

This debt at the point sold stood at just under £100,000 and has been outstanding at that level and higher for over 12 months. This debt built up during a short space of time during the busiest period in our 10 year history just after significant amounts had been paid for other invoices. Promises were made to clear a large portion of the debt within a short space of time but that payment never materialised. A repayment plan was then agreed which should have seen the debt reduced significantly beyond the point that it actually has been. Unfortunately many of these payments were consistently declined and at the last the payments were continually declined.

It was around this point in conjunction with our reading into the accounts of Maelstrom Games that we contacted debt recovery and debt purchase specialists in order to take further action and begin the recovery of assets to cover some the debt.

Demands for the reimbursement of the failed payments and for payment of stock supplied on the 12th September for Maelstrom Games customer orders were completely ignored. As such on October 1st 2012 the debt was sold to the company which offered the best solution, not immediately for us, but for what I considered the best long term solution for our industry in the UK. We chose Wayland Games as they have a vested interest in the hobby and industry and will offer better protection to potential customers, suppliers and manufacturers, other companies would not.

We have continued to trade as normal during the entire period of this debt and continue to order from our suppliers and pay them on time. Maelstrom Games are only one customer out of several dozen and our whole customer base is far, far greater than any one company.

You should understand that Simple Miniature Games have supported Maelstrom through the last year even though we knew they were struggling but with our support they would continue to trade. However there are only so many broken promises that you can listen to and it became perfectly clear that assets of Maelstrom Games were being moved to other companies that had been funded by monies which should have been paid to suppliers including ourselves. There was no way Maelstrom Games could pay the debt and it would appear that steps were being taken to avoid the debts and protect other assets.

This debt has not adversely affected Simple Miniature Games as a company as we can afford to continue to trade with this debt outstanding due to the reliability of our customer base and strong product lines. It has however affected myself and my wife personally as the reserves we have built over 10 years of hard work have had to cover the debt. It was always our intention to use around half of this profit to expand our warehouse and bring in another two or three new ranges including manufacturing our own. However this will now have to wait whilst we consolidate and build up the reserves for our future once again.

Vorlon25 wrote:

grefven wrote:


I see it that their firesales in the last couple of days in the end of october was an attempt to actually amend for their difficulties. They wanted to sell their stock in order to fulfill some of their obligations to their customers and in order to raise the money to satisfy Wayland. Obviously, I also agree that it is close to fraudulent to take money for pre-orders they most likely knew wouldn't be able to send out.

I'm sorry but you're trying to have it both ways - you seem to be claiming that selling goods you don't have to customers and using their money to pay off debts/satisfy previous orders was somehow "making amendments" - and then you admit that this practice is actually close to fraudulent (I'd suggest more than close...)

No, then I wasn't clear enough. I am saying that selling your existing stock in order to get cash in to fulfill orders is something good. It's where they still accepted pre-orders or money for items not in stock that is close to fraudulent. One of these things is good (selling remaning stock), one is quite distasteful (taking money for pre-orders and items not in stock).

Previous to the debt purchase, Maelstrom Games Ltd. was servicing the debt owed to Simple Miniature Games at the rate of �500 per working day, claimed by the creditor when convenient for him by charging a credit card owned by Maelstrom Games Ltd., which had been occurring since mid-June and continued to late September

Anyone else spot anything slightly weird about the second half of Maelstrom's statement here?

Firstly:

- The debt to SMG was being paid "when convenient for him by charging a credit card own by Maelstrom Games Ltd." -

That seems like an awfully informal setup which, in all honesty, seemed to shield MG from the full extent of the cost of their debt. The owner at SMG could use an MG credit card to charge stuff, when convenient for him. That's decidedly not the same as a systematic debt repayment plan, hammered out and agreed at the bank. It sounds to me a lot like MG was using its superior size and the fact that it owed SMG so much debt that SMG was effectively paralysed (as someone else astutely said, if you owe me £10 then you're in trouble, if you owe me £100,000 then I'm in trouble) to enable MG to effectively force extremely lenient and informal repayment terms onto SMG, who was struggling massively as a result but couldn't do anything. I could be wrong there, but it's what it sounds like to me.

Secondly:

- "which had been occurring since mid-June and continued to late September" -

So this was a fairly new development then, and so really can't be that related to MG running itself into crippling debts that it fundamentally could not manage.

In all honesty, it sounds to me like MG was effectively using size - both its organisation mass and the size of its debt - to cow SMG into accepting an awfully poor repayment setup. It took a larger and more confident company to come in and call MG on its appalling behaviour.

I should say upfront that I'm not a huge fan of WG generally. Their service is slow and their customer service reps a bit underpowered when it comes to interacting with their own online system (on the plus side, they have always been honest, and have never lied to me, unlike MG). However They did absolutely the right thing here. MG was clearly entering into the start of a very long and unpleasant death spiral (their failure to fulfill orders to customers and their masses of debt started long before October 1st - I should know, I had to get a full refund for an order back in August!) and seemed quite content to damage customers and suppliers alike as they desperately tried to stall their demise. This led to countless fabrications such as the great warehouse myth of 2012 and repeated email claims to baffled and upset customers that their order hadn't reached them because of someone else's fault (for me personally, 5 weeks of 'we get our orders from that supplier on a specific day each week, your order will arrive on that day and be shipped next day delivery after that' defied belief tbh).

The truth appears to be that no matter what anyone in the gaming community did - suppliers or customers - a lot of people were going to get hit by MG's appalling business decisions and behavior. WG did the right thing in shortening their demise as quickly as possible.

After all, here you had a company that had a huge debt, who was attempting to dig themselves out of a hole by....committing themselves further and further (especially those advance ticket orders they were taking and investing hundreds of thousands of pounds into new lines of miniatures)...eventually there was going to be a collapse. Imagine it like a balloon. MG wanted to keep on blowing the balloon, bigger and bigger. It was always going to burst, but had they had their way, they would have lasted a bit longer and it would have been a much bigger and more spectacular burst. WG put a needle in before that could happen. Yes, there was a loud bang, but I honestly believe it would have been a lot louder done the line had they not done so.

I should add that WG have provided communication when asked to do so. Given that they are only owned 20% of the entire debt run up by MG, they were probably quite surprised to be named by MG as the sole destroyer of their company in their statement. My advice to WG: Don't be surprised: the former owner of MG (and now owner of about another gazillion offshoot companies) was always going to find another fall guy rather than accept responsibility. The fact that he singled you out for solitary blame in such a stark and unpleasant fashion is just another example of what we have come to expect from that man. If you are pursuing legal action (including possibly libel for those public accusations?) then good luck to you! I don't think you are a white knight in shining armour, but a company that did what you had to do and did it as it should have been done.

Well that makes it clearer - looks like Simple kept supplying them in the hope that they would continue to pay but once Rob Lane started stripping assets from MG and moving them to EOTS and Mierce AND stopped paying they had to act.

All sounds to me like MG were being stripped down to go to a pre-pack administration which would cancel the debts he owed and then he could just continue with EOTS / Mierce like nothing ever happened ....but Simple got there first by using Wayland.

redknight27 wrote:
[...]

Good post!

grefven wrote:
No, then I wasn't clear enough. I am saying that selling your existing stock in order to get cash in to fulfill orders is something good. It's where they still accepted pre-orders or money for items not in stock that is close to fraudulent. One of these things is good (selling remaning stock), one is quite distasteful (taking money for pre-orders and items not in stock).

I would not disagree with your distinction.

However it is quite clear from the posts of people who never got their goods, from the suppliers and creditors who never got paid and from the fact the MG were advertising and taking money for goods they not only did not have and had no expectation of having that they fall firmly into the latter category.

They were not holding a fire-sale to pay off their creditors, they were selling goods they didn't have to fund MM, EOTS and the like.

The fact that some orders went out towards the end I suspect had more to do with trying to keep the income stream going for as long as possible (salting the mine) rather than any genuine desire to make "amends".

If MG had simply stopped sending anything to anybody the truth would have come out sooner, but everytime somebody popped up on Dakka saying "well I got my order (or a bit of) it's just the warehouse move" - another buyer might well have placed an order or held off raising a PayPal dispute - to their ultimate loss.

It is the breathtaking cynicism and contempt for their customers that puts MM, EOTS etc in the "never buy from again" category.

I do not expect my suppliers to be my bestest ever chums - I do expect them to be honest - Rob Lane isn't.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Baragash wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
Simple Miniatures shares none of the blame for this

I can't agree with that. To let a customer run up a critical level of debt is extremely poor business.

If a supplier cuts off one of its clients, chances are that that client will NEVER pay the supplier back, since he stops having actual merchandise to sell. This will make it that suppliers will extend a larger credit line than it would be advisable so that the client will have a chance to get back on their feet.

Since we don't know what Maelstrom orders with Simple Miniatures looked like in their glory days of the Australian GW market, we don't even know if the 100k was a obscene amount or not...

This is why you cut them off early instead of letting them keep taking from the pot and filling it with promises. Break down the stock orders into smaller amounts so you can get a flowing working capital cycle going again.

Since we're playing the game of assumptions... if we make the assumption that the debt owed to Simple was a threat to Simple's ability to continue trading, what do you think the impact of Simple collapsing would have had on UK wargaming, particularly the Indie stores?

Not much apart from a month or two of limited supply whilst Gamecraft ramp up their WM/H/PP distribution. I am sure that Gamecraft and other suppliers would quickly take up the slack created should one supplier vanish, as will retailers take MG customers.

I am no expert in finances or law but Wayland buying the debt and giving one month for MG to settle the debt would not possible if MG were indeed complying with the repayment plan they agreed with Simple. You bank can't sell your mortgage to a company and then have the new company demanding you pay your mortgage in a month right? That would only be possible if you aren't complying with the agreed contract right?

Also for the one saying that simple shouldn't let the debt grown so much you need to know what was the monthly turnover of orders from MG in the first place. If they were given credit for 90 days and the normally monthly payments were in that region that could mean maybe one or two months of MG not paying to them only

Actually in that situation lenders can pull the plug at pretty much any point.

I had one of my supplier/subcontractors have their financing pulled by RBS at weeks notice simply because RBS downgraded its construction loans generally. My supplier was a profitable company with a full work book (with me!) and only had a loan on their management buyout. The differance would be that they had assets to cover the loan so RBS called it.

It's annoying but fairly common for lenders to make arbitrary decisions like that.

With MG its not arbitrary, they were digging themselves more and more In a whole inspite of their obvious outward signs of failure. Seems rob lame could have saved everyone else allot of pain with selling to WG but chose hubris instead by trying to move off assets and leave others to stump up for his failure. I have no sympathy for him.

It reminds me of a mate who sold scaffolding material to a chap that did this. Scaffolders not being one to necessarily take the formal route turned up on his door in Christmas day and threaten to repossessed whatever they could lay their hands on. They had their cash before the turkey was cooked!

 Bacms wrote:
You bank can't sell your mortgage to a company and then have the new company demanding you pay your mortgage in a month right? That would only be possible if you aren't complying with the agreed contract right?

OFT guidance says the new owner of a debt has no obligation to accept a payment plan agreed with the previous owner of the debt.

 Baragash wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Baragash wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
Simple Miniatures shares none of the blame for this

I can't agree with that. To let a customer run up a critical level of debt is extremely poor business.

If a supplier cuts off one of its clients, chances are that that client will NEVER pay the supplier back, since he stops having actual merchandise to sell. This will make it that suppliers will extend a larger credit line than it would be advisable so that the client will have a chance to get back on their feet.

Since we don't know what Maelstrom orders with Simple Miniatures looked like in their glory days of the Australian GW market, we don't even know if the 100k was a obscene amount or not...

This is why you cut them off early instead of letting them keep taking from the pot and filling it with promises. Break down the stock orders into smaller amounts so you can get a flowing working capital cycle going again.

Unfortunatly thats not how it works in the real world. What normaly happens is the customer keeps paying then stops, and this is the first you know about it. Its not that you keep extending credit when someone dose not pay but that they build up debt which they are paying then stop. I am sure they did not increase there exposure once they were aware that MG were not paying, but if they are on 90 day terms it can take a while for it to become clear there is a problem.

In theory you try and do that, but that only works if a company tells you they have problems before they stop paying, which they almost never do.

From the Simple Miniatures statement it seems clear that MG weren't meeting their financial obligations so it sort of blows any arguments about that right out of the water, I also haven't seen anything to suggest that any of the income from the massive fire-sale that would have brought in many £1000's has gone to pay off any of the debts. Question is where has it gone???? someone's pocket or one of the other companies? If wayland or Simple Miniatures were offered a substantial sum surely that could have delayed /helped things.

It seems to me from that obvious bit of missing info from MG's statement that he had no intention of even attempting to pay the debt. With the new EOTS/ mierce and what I've read about them it is now all about protecting the new companies and getting whatever cash Rob Lane can out of MG.

I've been told by someone in the industry there is £100K+ (could be double that) of customer orders/money outstanding but that'll become 100% confirmed when the administrators go in and publish their results, there is no way MG could have traded out of that one and he was getting further into trouble each day that passed.

This couldn't have come sooner for the paying consumer and whether or not it's Wayland doing it or not - someone needed to put a stop to MG. I;m just glad it's all happening finally and we'll get some closure one way or the other.

 notprop wrote:
Actually in that situation lenders can pull the plug at pretty much any point.

I had one of my supplier/subcontractors have their financing pulled by RBS at weeks notice simply because RBS downgraded its construction loans generally. My supplier was a profitable company with a full work book (with me!) and only had a loan on their management buyout. The differance would be that they had assets to cover the loan so RBS called it.

It's annoying but fairly common for lenders to make arbitrary decisions like that.

With MG its not arbitrary, they were digging themselves more and more In a whole inspite of their obvious outward signs of failure. Seems rob lame could have saved everyone else allot of pain with selling to WG but chose hubris instead by trying to move off assets and leave others to stump up for his failure. I have no sympathy for him.

It reminds me of a mate who sold scaffolding material to a chap that did this. Scaffolders not being one to necessarily take the formal route turned up on his door in Christmas day and threaten to repossessed whatever they could lay their hands on. They had their cash before the turkey was cooked!

Also, Simply were not a lender, they were a supplier. There was no loan and no repayment agreement. In trade credit you can withdraw a repayment plan at any time. You don't need a month, or a week, or even a day. If you know what you are doing you can cancel the agreement , issue a letter before action and have a CCJ within the day. It's not easy or a safe thing to do unless you really need to, but it can be done.

I don't know the details, but I've met Graham who runs simply. He's a decent bloke, I'd guess he'd give them a chance to pay off the debt, but eventually had enough

Sounds like Rob Lane committed a lot of economic crimes lately. Is there a public investigation? How are the chances that he is allowed to keep on running businesses with that history?

 Kroothawk wrote:
Sounds like Rob Lane committed a lot of economic crimes lately. Is there a public investigation? How are the chances that he is allowed to keep on running businesses with that history?

We don't know if any crime was committed, since we are guessing at what has transpired through out this whole f'd up affair.

Wayland will know some of it, Simply will be aware of some of it, and bar official statements we don't know squat, we only make 'educated ' guesses.

Regardless of what did or did not go on, Rob lanes companies will not get any of my cash.

One particular fiendish element of this whole saga is that Maelstrom has attempted to position as a sort of dispute between them (as victim) and Wayland games (as bully).

I assume the end goal is for people to say 'well, they both share blame and so we can't really fault either company too much' or something like that. Almost like they're trying to position us in the role of a teacher having to adjudicate between two kids in a playground who started fighting. We're supposed to see it as a sort of shared fault, and believe that both sides made mistakes and both suffered from the other simultaneously.

Don't believe any of this hogwash. As I see it:

- Maelstrom games got itself into huge amounts of debt (presumably through bad business decisions, but who knows for sure?)
- Maelstrom games hid that truth from its customers and suppliers.
- Maelstrom games started treating its customers and suppliers worse and worse as their problems got worse and worse, still without saying anything at all.
- Maelstrom games then switched from hiding the truth to peddling falsehoods and fabrications (such as a warehouse move and their stocks not coming through due to problems on their suppliers' end, not theirs).
- Maelstrom games set up a myriad of new companies, to which one can only assume it began moving its stock across in what seems to have been a very underhanded (albeit possibly legal) fashion.
- Maelstrom games then went bust, and still didn't tell anyone (claiming their website was down due to technical problems, ahem).
- Maelstrom games then finally admitted to going bust, but still refused to accept any blame and pointed the finger at whoever it felt could be most easily accused (who will also be a rival for their new offshoot companies - EOTS and Maunsfield etc - so presumably this represents an early and rather disingenuous attempt to mire their competition in the very same egg that they have gotten all over their own faces).

As far as I can see, Maelstrom games is the main creator of its problems, the main perpetrator of its endless fabrications, and the ultimate bringer about of its own destruction. I've yet to see any evidence to the contrary. The only real contribution of Wayland Games to the fiasco seemed to have been to put the flailing beast out of its misery before it hurt anymore people than it was already poised to do...

 Kroothawk wrote:
Sounds like Rob Lane committed a lot of economic crimes lately. Is there a public investigation? How are the chances that he is allowed to keep on running businesses with that history?

Seriously?

Judging by some of posts you seem to have a dry sense of humour, so I hope this is one of those.

There will be no 'public enquiry' as what he has apparently done is so common in British business it's silly.

If there are any irregularities in the way business has been done, it would normally be detected by HMRC, who would pass the details on to the police if necessary.

I strongly suspect this won't happen.