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Customers from that particular incarnation of the Mandlebondsley show seems to have got what they paid for.

After apparently most people jumped the ship. We haven't seen anybody who received their Fulgrim, did we?

Scratch it - possible mistake.

It is a shame that we get to stroke Daniel's ego with every post.

This is just a person lacking in creativity to do anything different and too lazy to make the money by actual effort.

He has poor communication skills and still gets upset with every little bit of resistance he faces where we do not hand our money over to him (rather amusing actually).

But he still feels so clever when he pulls a fast one and sucks in another "customer". I am afraid that as long as he gets a sale here or there he will be more than happy to operate forever for the rush of the game.

All it will take is the wrong person not getting their money's worth and it could get ugly for him.

So guys, keep up the good work and be a resource for finding this guy. We can then wait for a disgruntled customer to have his lawyer speak to him.

There were people who complained about RF, though I realize it is easy to miss.

This guy is beyond redemption boys, pure and simple. At least in my book, you don't get to willfully scam and steal and abuse your customers for upwards of a decade under more than 20 aliases and then get a gold star for barely ripping anyone off for 3 months tops all the while hiding your identity and pretending to be someone else.

Let's also not forget issuing death-threats, outright pure scam trying to sell the warhound titan (and still trying to do so), trying to get someone fired, harrasing others at all hours of the night, using fake cancer and baby deaths as excuses etc etc etc etc.

Come on.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
There were people who complained about RF, though I realize it is easy to miss.

This guy is beyond redemption boys, pure and simple. At least in my book, you don't get to willfully scam and steal and abuse your customers for upwards of a decade under more than 20 aliases and then get a gold star for barely ripping anyone off for 3 months tops all the while hiding your identity and pretending to be someone else.

Let's also not forget issuing death-threats, outright pure scam trying to sell the warhound titan (and still trying to do so), trying to get someone fired, harrasing others at all hours of the night, using fake cancer and baby deaths as excuses etc etc etc etc.

Come on.

Agreed, there is no redemption for him at this point. Now had he come out at Resin Forge the first time said My name is Daniel and this is my business info, maybe.

It's funny that this thread sparked back up as I'll be meeting up with Munkey-Joe this weekend and a few other people who know or monitor DM. Should make for some interesting conversations!

As for Fulgrim, my guess is that anyone who ordered had their money refunded. I ordered one but when it broke they were a scam I had a refund issued, figured if they ever got the stock I'd buy it then rather than risk is not showing up.

I really wonder with all these incidences of money being refunded for something that could not be provided: when would a person decide to take the money and run?

Is there a certain threshold or is it as long as his association has not been identified?

It is these contradicting actions that I think has prevented serious legal action: it is about the only thing that is not predictable.

I disagree, it is actually quite predictable generally. He gives 'good service' up until some critical point where he either has enough cash or loses control of whatever tenuous supply chain he has, then he tries to control/badger/spin the situation in the hopes of getting away with it without having to set up another business or alias, then he disappears. The fact that he is not getting away with much the past year or 2 is nothing to do with him being on the up and up, but rather the speed and accuracy with which he has been discovered and outed.

Let's not attribute positive connotations to what is simply a lack of negative opportunity compared to the past.

I agree with MajorTom11.

It isn't 100% clear whether Mandelbaum always sets out to scam people, or whether he simply has such bad business skills that whatever company he starts up slides down the pan after a few months.

The result is the same for customers, though. Orders stop being fulfilled, and complainants are met with an increasingly dubious set of excuses.

However the Resin Forge operation was discovered in about four months, when it was just entering the collapse phase, and it was abandoned before things could go much farther. Black Crusade Studios was discovered and abandoned in about a month and barely got started.

Kilkrazy I think we could agree that it could be bad business sense that crashes the companies if he ran them under his own name each time - then we could say "hey maybe the guy is just that bad at cash flow and such" (and there are many who are).

Thing is each time he sets one up, even back to his original accounts, he's always used an alias; sometimes multiple ones. That initial deception I think clearly shows that he's not here to make an honest income. I seem to recall that it was a year or two before his real name was even known (I think).

Add that to his general aggressive tone toward customers and the public whenever he is caught or challenged and the lie after lie about things and it all really adds up to deceptive if not criminal intent.

For me, the debate can be put aside right now, let us not forget the 100% proven things this guy has done that are in no way related to failure to follow through, but are related to malicious intent from step 1.

1. The titan he stole images of and claimed to have but never did was never going to be delivered, so there was no service or internal failure responsible, selling that item was from step one fraud and theft. No way to spin that one.

2. Recasting as we know he has done in the past, failure to pay suppliers are all things on his end that are wrong from the outset, not failures to follow through, things he knew were illegal from the get-go.

3. Death threats, not your typical professional customer service.

4. The worst lies, baby dying, cancer etc are all completely unnecessary and gross abuses of trust that are not necessary to dealing with business failure. Since he made them up with the intention of getting away with delivering or paying his debts explicitly (as they are 100% fiction), that is a scam in and of itself.

5. Harassment using customer info

All those things have nothing to do with failed good intentions, they are explicitly criminal and brought to the table out of his preference, not necessity.

If all he ever did was re-sell FW bits and have the occasional spot of trouble, this thread wouldn't exist! lol

And he made you change your avatar to something more ... durable

 ExiledMiniatures wrote:
It's funny that this thread sparked back up as I'll be meeting up with Munkey-Joe this weekend and a few other people who know or monitor DM. Should make for some interesting conversations!

I wondered why I received a call at 3:30 Am from Daniel the morning I was driving 18 hours to my grandfathers funeral asking about some conference call and lawyers stuff. I dont really remember the entirety of the message right off hand but I saved it in my voice message list till I can save it permanent. Not that I MIND calls or even 3AM calls But it was poor timing and I had a long drive I was preparing for. Im only saving it permanent as it was discussing lawyers and such and I want to save it incase something happens as right now Im so busy Im sure I will forget something.....

As for the Meeting, I was in the Dallas area burying my Grandfather (as I said) and had a couple of hours where I could spare some time to meet my Dallas area friends. I met up with AJ, as well as several other friends and we had a Great time discussing miniatures and Nerdom over a FANTASTIC dinner prepared by a friend. Daniel Mandelbaum was not discussed as Really we had more important things to discuss such as how everyone has been in the past year since I missed GenCon and failed to meet up with them, as well as receiving condolences from my friends about my Family. And I FINALLY got to see some of a friends collection of miniatures he likes to brag about..... And cannot call him a liar about how much stuff he has..... so as you can see the 6-7 hours I spent visiting friends instead of sleep was actually very action packed and had no time to discuss internet happening ESP something like this.

While I was happy to meet AJ in person and see my other friends it saddens me now that By visiting some of my close friends and meeting a new friend for the first time I get calls about having a conference call with lawyers present. Im not going to play "whos a better friend" or some nonsense with anyone, as its not what I do. Im sorry I did not have time to meet Daniel in person but when I return to Dallas in a couple of Months I may make arrangements to meet face to face with him if he is willing as I will have more time and not be bogged down with business. I also would like to hang out with AJ and my other friends again as I really thing hes a good guy. I will meet up with anyone face to face if they are wanting and if Im at a convention or in another town feel free to hit me up and make a plan to meet!! im not a shy person and love to meet people and talk shop!!

and AJ, next time beers on me!!

 munkey joe wrote:
Im not going to play "whos a better friend" or some nonsense with anyone

Condolences on the passing, but this got my attention. Apologies if i'm interpreting wrong here, but do you mean to say DM is acting the overly attached girlfriend, complaining that your meeting people and acting buddy buddy after everything (In the tone of the call or whatever I mean)? I know 3am calls from him isn't anything new, but was just curious if this was a deliberate use of the phrase or not?

 munkey joe wrote:
I wondered why I received a call at 3:30

Waking people at 3-5 AM is a common well known practice among torturers and Daniel Mandelbaum.

 doc1234 wrote:
Condolences on the passing, but this got my attention. Apologies if i'm interpreting wrong here, but do you mean to say DM is acting the overly attached girlfriend, complaining that your meeting people and acting buddy buddy after everything (In the tone of the call or whatever I mean)? I know 3am calls from him isn't anything new, but was just curious if this was a deliberate use of the phrase or not?

I may have misheard the message (I have only listened to it once and it was a few days ago) but I took that he thought the meeting was a gathering to discuss him. it was not, as it was a gathering set up by me to meet people I only see once a year at gencon and failed to meet with this year due to me not going. It seemed to me he was thinking we were gathering to maybe discuss him and his actions or some sort and he did request to have a conference call with the friends I met with (only 2-3 of them even know who he is or anything about him) with his lawyer. I did not call him nor arrange a conference call because he was not the reason I was meeting them and my meeting had nothing to do with him. It is coincidence that I was meeting AJ this trip and oddly the thread was revived about the same time. So really AJ is the only one who knows whats going on here AND that I was meeting with ANYONE in Dallas and I assume Daniel read I was meeting AJ from here and assumed I was going there to discuss him and his company. Couldn't be further from the truth as I had planned to go to Dallas to bury my grandfather MONTHS before he passed and when I met AJ I told him at some point in the future I would make a trip to DFW and when I did I wanted to meet him in person and chit chat. So this meeting was arranged long before I even knew about this thread and honestly Daniel was not discussed at any length if even at all.

This just gets better and better. I want to meet everyone now too!

It's just funny that he thinks having two of his "contract painters/casters" meeting up to discuss him gets him in a cold sweat enough to invoke lawyers (real or imagined). What could they POSSIBLY learn from each other by comparing notes... [/speculation]

I am curious how he can afford a lawyer on retainer when he was supposedly getting evicted?

He can't. It would have been his not-wife pretending to be his lawyer.

 kronk wrote:
He can't. It would have been his not-wife pretending to be his lawyer.

Nah, it'd have been the parrot.

Must be German lawyer consultants that they have to make their conference calls in the middle of the night.

He threatened with lawyers because you were meeting with another person who knows him?

What bloody law was he going to invoke to prevent two people speaking? What a psycho.

Btw Daniel, how is your continued FB covert ops going? Sell any not as advertised titans lately? Any luck with the casting?

I haven't been on here the last few days and just caught up on this thread and it made me laugh.
Tommy is correct. We did meet up finally! Had a great time, and enjoyed the company of some good friends! One of whom did make an amazing buffalo steak dinner for us!

Tommy, beers are definitely on you next time as long as the visit is under better conditions!

And yes Daniel, Tommy and I had been discussing meeting for some time now. It had nothing to do with you, except that we met online because of your actions.

I'm sure Daniel has conflicted emotions about us. If we aren't paying attention to him, he's not able to feed off that attention(which is pretty obvious he desires, even if under an alias). But if we pay attention to him, then it's harder for him to try and scam people.

Such a dilemma. Poor Daniel and his crazy person problems.

 Aerethan wrote:
I'm sure Daniel has conflicted emotions about us. If we aren't paying attention to him, he's not able to feed off that attention(which is pretty obvious he desires, even if under an alias). But if we pay attention to him, then it's harder for him to try and scam people.

Such a dilemma. Poor Daniel and his crazy person problems.

#Conartistproblems

Seems like Daniel has been quite for a couple months. Isn't that some sort of record?

Or perhaps all this attention here has allowed him to scam someone somewhere else with impunity.

Wheels within wheels. How deep does the rabbit hole go?

 Monster Rain wrote:
Or perhaps all this attention here has allowed him to scam someone somewhere else with impunity.

Wheels within wheels. How deep does the rabbit hole go?

This is a very real possibilty. With all his scams though, it's only a matter of time before we catch on. BCS was caught in like 3 weeks from the time it showed up on facebook. We're like velociraptors, we're learning...!

The thing is what worked in the early days for him is now working against him.

The niche market that is wargaming and the smaller amounts (relative to other crimes - esp over international boundaries) mean that he's been able to fly under the police radar.

However he's been good enough at it that now more people are aware and looking for the problem. Even if he's quiet for several months now people are much more aware of the potential threat which means any new venture comes under heavier scrutiny.

And because the market is niche and small and because the online world is smaller still its harder to advertise and build a company without more of those who are aware and looking for the threat becoming aware.

Dealing through pms on facebook is likely one of the few ways he can currently trade because it all happens in private without the need for a company face; however he'll find it hard to shift expensive orders and to get more than one or two customers if he's not advertising - especially since he can't go through forums or trading sites like ebay.

It is also a very real possibility that he is a pathetic dude that lives with his parents.

Edited for policy on personal info in this thread -

That also appears to be a home phone, as it is listed for the other inhabitants as well, perhaps try talking to sandra or michael?

Kiwidru wrote:
It is also a very real possibility that he is a pathetic dude that lives with his parents.

That also appears to be a home phone, as it is listed for the other inhabitants as well, perhaps try talking to sandra or michael?

If I remember correctly, Michael has protected Daniel in the past, and either covered his actions, or attempted to delay swift paypal based judgement. Michael may not be a crook, but he's defending one and knows about his son's actions.