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No, however according to Yakface's research it looked much like a crib from various real security company websites.

The details are earlier in the thread.

 derek wrote:

 reds8n wrote:


IIRC the C & D was in the form of an email.

Isn't that a legal no-no in the US? I somewhat recall one of the resident lawyers bringing that up in the Romeo vs TastyTaste C&D.

Legal documents ought to go directly to the recipient by hand, which normally requires a courier. With an email the intended recipient may not receive the document and sensitive information risk disclosure. I dont know if that has any bearing on its validity, as I am not a lawyer I wont attempt a conclusion. However an email C&D is not a proper C&D, it's just flaming with lawyerspeak. Perhaps Yakface could have just ignored as trolling, however he saw mileage to do otherwise.

In any event anything that looks legalistic ought to be taken seriously unless you have legal advice to the contrary, getting legal advice from random people on the internet is generally an unwise move.

Please remember folks, however much you feel anger towards Resin Forge and their owners for this apparent shenanigans regarding the C&D, we want to keep this thread polite and factual.

I can't emphasise that enough.

So some more tidbits (not that it really matters), all from contacts and sources (helps to have a big German support base )

Also laut Handelsregister erlangen / nordbayern gibt es keine firma britcon ltd. Der name duerkop ergibt auch kein ergebnis

According to the Bavarian trade register (where all companies are listed, legal obligation) there is neither a company Britco nor somebody called Duerkop.

Also somebody called the neighbours of the supposed lawyer's address. They said somebody with the name of the "lawyer" had lived there in the past, but not anymore. Talk about digging out fake identities stolen from unsuspecting people.

Please correct me if I am mistaken, but I thought all such legal documents where supposed to be handed over in person by a carrier of some sort. And not on email?

Also I do understand that Yakface dose not wish to hinge his future on what some individual may or may not do.

So I have to ask:

We see the use of C&D letters so often in our hobby that we all 'basically' know what they are, how they work, etc. Do other industries see the use of the C&D letter as prevalently? I mean, obviously with GW using it we see it a lot here, but it's not limited to GW in the wargaming realm.

Is that the norm outside of our nichle little corner of the hobby world?

Sounds like the Brit con men made a con

Oh, lordy yes. I work in the mortgage industry - we feel lonely if we don't get at least one C&D a day.

 cincydooley wrote:
So I have to ask:

We see the use of C&D letters so often in our hobby that we all 'basically' know what they are, how they work, etc. Do other industries see the use of the C&D letter as prevalently? I mean, obviously with GW using it we see it a lot here, but it's not limited to GW in the wargaming realm.

Is that the norm outside of our nichle little corner of the hobby world?

Why not spread the love? Start up a plant/e-service/strip-a-gram/pharmaceuticals megacorp/farm/cafe/sewage inspector subcontractor etc etc and advertise as 'space marines'. Soon any and every industry can know the joys of C&D.

Bottom line for me is I stearing clear of this company. I have never dealt with them nor do I know of anyone who has BUT when enough people yell fire one should seek a better place to stand.

 cincydooley wrote:
So I have to ask:

We see the use of C&D letters so often in our hobby that we all 'basically' know what they are, how they work, etc. Do other industries see the use of the C&D letter as prevalently? I mean, obviously with GW using it we see it a lot here, but it's not limited to GW in the wargaming realm.

Is that the norm outside of our nichle little corner of the hobby world?

A friend of mine gets C&D letters almost daily from his torrenting of his pr0n collection

Questions:

1. Is fabricating a legal company a crime?

2. Is sending a C&D letter to a US citizen from a fictitious company a crime?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Questions:

1. Is fabricating a legal company a crime?

2. Is sending a C&D letter to a US citizen from a fictitious company a crime?

1) Not sure

2) Yes, IIRC.

Probably not in this case since it hasn't been used to obtain money by false pretences or something like that.

It doesn't matter anyway. Yakface has no desire to involve himself in a civil action against Resin Forge.

The objective of confirming Daniel Mandelbaum as the proprietor has been achieved.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Probably not in this case since it hasn't been used to obtain money by false pretences or something like that.

It doesn't matter anyway. Yakface has no desire to involve himself in a civil action against Resin Forge.

The objective of confirming Daniel Mandelbaum as the proprietor has been achieved.

And with the legitimacy of Britcons now dead, we can assume that the names of the other 2 "owners" are fictitious.

Which isn't surprising, as Daniel called from his own house, claiming to be Jason, and leaving Daniels phone number as a call back.

<Amusing but unnecessary, thank you.>

The wayback machine has a german language page for Britcons back in 2012:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120728131155/http://britcons.com/


The rotating image on the main page was taken in part from here it seems: http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/barbed-wire-cropped.png&imgrefurl=http://www.feasta.org/2013/04/09/transforming-greedy-money-interreligious-solidarity-for-just-relations-review/&h=324&w=700&sz=450&tbnid=jYQec8Bgy9mZTM&tbnh=153&tbnw=330&zoom=1&usg=__w7pqIuEffcxZtnRIOBg3KOsCMLE=&sa=X&ei=nP-MUbOeHc_yiQKah4DADw&ved=0CDIQ8g0


And part of it seems to be a common image for passport renewal / immigration consultant firms:

http://illuminatecanada.com/immigrate-to-canada-passport/ (for example)


So the old site looks like a cheaply put together wordpress site that used either stockphotos or things he found on other peoples sites.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Questions:

1. Is fabricating a legal company a crime?

2. Is sending a C&D letter to a US citizen from a fictitious company a crime?

theoretically yes to both questions

1 Fabricating a Company is classed as an Identity crime (Identity theft) and is against the law in most of the world
2 Since it is classed as Identity Theft (even if you made up the company yourself ) the sending of a C&D would be a crime also as you are attempting to get something through duplicitous means

also due to claiming to be a company from Germany now makes it an International crime (we have Interpol for this in the EU i'm not sure which branch of the Federal Law enforcement agencies covers this for you guys in the US)

Its covered under The Identity Theft Deterrence Act (2003)[ITADA] amended U.S. Code Title 18, § 1028 apparently

Redacted on behalf of the innocent.

Any german users care to look into that. Either way, I'd ignore a C&D from any "company" whose web site disappears 24 hours later.

It is easy to forget some of this...

Daniel Mandelbaum and his (alleged aliases):

Matthew Bonder
RedStarOne
Lord.Serpius
Kellz1234
Susan Beasley

and his (alleged) involvement with a number of now defunct sites/businesses while using those aliases:

Conversion Corner
Miniature Wargame Conversions
Three Stage Studios
Lord.Serpius ebay account
Great.Hobby.Bits ebay account
Double.Your.Bits ebay account

We now know that Daniel Mandelbaum is a part of "Resin Forge".

And, as a fact, I can state that while he was doing business as "Matt Bonder" using the Conversion Corner webiste, he took money and models from me to do conversion work and that, to this date, he still owes me hundreds of dollars for money paid for conversion work never performed and/or delivered.

So, at least we now can speak of the facts involved here.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Probably not in this case since it hasn't been used to obtain money by false pretences or something like that.

It doesn't matter anyway. Yakface has no desire to involve himself in a civil action against Resin Forge.

The objective of confirming Daniel Mandelbaum as the proprietor has been achieved.

Point, Fraud isn't just limited to money.

Points which determine fraud in the US (from Wikipedia)

1 a representation of an existing fact;
2 its materiality;
3 its falsity;
4 the speaker's knowledge of its falsity;
5 the speaker's intent that it shall be acted upon by the plaintiff;
6 the plaintiff's ignorance of its falsity;
7 the plaintiff's reliance on the truth of the representation;
8 the plaintiff's right to rely upon it; and
9 consequent damages suffered by the plaintiff.

It very clearly meets all but 9, and 9 can be argued as a loss of intellectual property (as, my understanding of it, IIRC, yakface owns the rights to republish our rubbish indefinitely internationally).

And, yes, my own experience is that real C&D's arrive as real paper. Dark Reign got one from Games Workshop a while back.

Sorry to be the one to cast doubt, but if everyone here is fully accepting that this C&D is ficticious and sent with the intent of fraud, how can anyone accept the information in it as 100% accurate?

Cheers

Andrew

PS Just playing devils advocate here, look before you leap.

What really frustrates me is these types of people are allowed to prey on our community because people deem it not worth the effort to hold them to account. So why not fake a company or send "illegal" threats or any number of other crimes because hey none is going to bother with him. It gets annoying after a time.

 Alpharius wrote:

and his (alleged) involvement with a number of now defunct sites/businesses while using those aliases:

Three Stage Studios

I can state as a fact that Daniel Mandelbaum was running Three Stage Studios and that Three Stage Studios shared the same address as Resin Forge.

 AndrewC wrote:
Sorry to be the one to cast doubt, but if everyone here is fully accepting that this C&D is ficticious and sent with the intent of fraud, how can anyone accept the information in it as 100% accurate?

Cheers

Andrew

PS Just playing devils advocate here, look before you leap.

If that's in reference to his identity, he's made a comment on Facebook a couple of hours ago acknowledging that he is involved.

Edit ----- Reason: See MarkyMark's post on page seven



There is a M. Deurkop out there, who apparently knows nothing about this. Edited out the domain name info.

 AndrewC wrote:
Sorry to be the one to cast doubt, but if everyone here is fully accepting that this C&D is ficticious and sent with the intent of fraud, how can anyone accept the information in it as 100% accurate?

Cheers

Andrew

PS Just playing devils advocate here, look before you leap.

Posted a few pages back, google cease and desist letter, second result look for defamtion and theres a template letter there,then look at the first post a lot of it is word for word, even the grammer is spot on the same

Man this stinks. In addition to some of the other stuff noted so far - I ran a quick (not complete) deception model on this. Its comes up to be most likely – 93% DECEPTION. I do not have the time to run a full model while I’m at work. Additionally I only have some facts at hand, some facts (evidence presumed to be facts), but require more to finish it. I would honestly doubt this is a real organization/company. As to the OP (Yak) pulling the old thread and informing Dakka of this – right call man. You have to look out for yourself and by extension Dakka. I applaud you and your efforts and wish you the best in this. I will send you a message later tonight.

I am not a lawyer and will not delve into the area. I am an experienced deception detection analysts among other useless life-skills. I applied what evidence I have/can – some links websites are blocked to me right now. I know most of you have already formed opinions based on what others have been looking at – I have as well. I have stuck to facts wherever possible – I have tried to layout my assumptions – not portraying truth. Please remember deception – conmen – live in the grey world trying to blur reality. I have tried to layout some of those anomalies to show some possible areas that may have inspired creativity – if this is in fact not true. I have not been able to prove my theory yet, but will try to.

My wife owned businesses in Germany, two locations – one was in Bavaria (The Free State of – which contains Nürnberg). This is not what her ID numbers looks like to run a business in Germany and to be upfront, I will not provide my wife’s documents, or mine to anyone else.

I have lived in Germany for a total of 9 years. The last time was for 6 years, in which my foreign born spouse decided to run a business during my multiple deployments to the Middle East. This letter is not addressed or formatted properly for a German Business (from my experiences/documents). It does not look anything like the paper work I have on houses, cars, law documents (translated/typed in English for me and or German either). There is a lack of contact information – letter heading issues, proper addresses, personal identification formatting issues.

Deception detection - there are multiple half-@$$ inconsistencies here. Hopefully one of the German brethren can do something more and faster.

Examples/links used to determine the likelihood of deception:

1) A Germany based company would most likely title the address as Nürnberg (with a freaking umlaut symbol “¨“) instead of Nuremberg (an Anglicized version without the umlaut). While I have been there multiple times – I have seen some translations of Nuremberg – but on official/business documents it is has been Nürnberg for me.
2) Below are some links showing probable “plagiarism” in the creative process of this document’s fabrication.
3) The address in an oxford journal shows the probable inspiration for the address on the document provided. See this link: http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/6/539.full.pdf
4) This address in Erlangen appears to be a residential home. It could be a business, but doubtful. There are hotels nearby. Without a street view to reference or someone near there I cannot confirm or deny if it is a home or business – trying to stick to facts. Running businesses out of homes is a common practice in Germany, and businesses are often interrupted by homes and apartment buildings in many streets, but this seems unlikely in this case given the inconsistencies and incongruities to date. https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=Kanalstr.+2+%2B+91052+Erlangen+Germany&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x47a1ff25f3c575b5:0x35187d6933ad0010,Kanalstra%C3%9Fe+2,+D-91058+Erlangen,+Germany&gl=us&ei=lN-MUfSqAoWq4AOQ04GICQ&ved=0CC8Q8gEwAA
5) It looks like someone has been creative with the business name by adding the letter “s” after Britcon - http://companycheck.co.uk/company/02463833
6) I have tried to contact the second business link to confirm whether or not the company exists, but again there are issues. (This business is on Kanalstrasse/Kanalstraße but is Berlin) http://www.list-of-companies.org/Details/11115973/Germany/TEMA_FISCHER_GMBH/ and this one http://www.list-of-companies.org/Details/11167563/Germany/TEMA_TEXTILMASCHINEN_RICHARD_LEBHERZ_GMBH_CO_KG/ is in 91052 Erlangen but not on a Kanalstrasse/Kanalstraße in 91052 Erlangen, outskirts/part of Nürnberg.
7) My European GPS shows this as a residential home as well – but that is not proof in and of itself – it does not show as a business or industrial zone.
8) I cannot find a Bramblestrasse/Bramblestraße anywhere near Nürnberg or Erlangen, I think this may have started the Bramble-bumble http://www.siriusfacilities.com/en/business-parks/location/munich_rupert_mayer_str./description.
9) There seems to be no listing of the business in either area of Germany provided on the letterhead – in English or German to date.

1. Summary of Link referenced in –the address is the key 3) - The Influence of Molecular Structure on Odor ... - Chemical Senses
chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/6/539.full.pdf
by M Czerny - 2011 - Cited by 4 - Related articles
Mar 25, 2011 – Center, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Schuhstrasse 19, D-91052 Erlangen, Germany. Correspondence to be sent to: Michael Czerny, ...

The more I see this thread develop and interesting information on this alleged law/PI/whatever company come up, the more I hear this in my head:

[Galvatron]This is bad comedy![/Galvatron]

I will say that was worded very well and not trollish at all. If you know people that are owed something or have a claim, they have a way to reach our customer service line. Please share it as no sites appear to share it and if the claims against one of our owners is true, then it will obviously be corrected. Our reputation here at RF is perfect and it will stay that way. I will simply say again, there is a number that RF can be reached at above. Please do share it to those friends that feel they are "owed something"

Nothing wrote above was ment in disrespect or trollish. Its just been a long night.

As for the legal firm. We have documents and payments as records. Claims against us over that are easily refuted to any law enforcement agency who can see the evidence for themselves. I cant speak more on that but in general that's not the point of the customer service line. Make use of it, that's why its there.

From the RF facebook page. Perhaps Alpharius should give them a little ringy dingy and get his money back.