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ced1106 wrote:
If you're talking about p, I got the impression from PMs he sent myself, MissMelons, and ReaperBryan, that he was pursuing his own legal action (not necessarily a lawsuit) against Lars. I think he *did* say something about ADW on the Reaper forums, but it was deleted or something.

Nah, I knew you were in contact with him and kind of suspected he had his reasons for remaining silent so I didn't push the issue. I was talking about another person, the guy that emailed Aard Rinn yesterday and said he'd been scammed in the past. I'm quoting from Goblini's post earlier on this page, the guy that said this:

The guy has many alias' he goes by Henry, Lars, Steven and several more that I can't remember off the top of my head. She is always Dina Walker. They claim to own a bunch of companies and properties, which of course they don't. Evergreen is also fake! If they ever threaten you with a lawyer, also fake! They have been thru Montreal once before and have also hit Toronto and Vancouver (where I am from). Richard who wrote the blog on broll.net uncovered tons of gak on them. When I met them they were boyfriend n girlfriend but they have claimed to be married, brother n sister, and also cousins. We were supposed to open a bakery and restaurant together but when we got the loan for renovations, they emptied the bank acct and left me holding the bill and a 10 year lease worth $100,000 with the city! I hired a PI to track them but they went underground for a year, until they popped up in Montreal again. They are in Canada Illegally and Henry does not have ID. My PI thinks there might be a warrant for his arrest in the US, and that is why he is hiding out here. He is very smart, and arrogant. He has scammed very large companies out of hundred of thousands of dollars of equipment and supplies! They were never really in the tv business, it was just one of their scams.

I just found it so strange that this guy choose to come foward at exactly the same time as Scott/Lars/Henry went off the deep end in the comments section.


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Here's another quote from Aard Rinn from the comments btw. Everyone seems to be getting in contact with him now...

Speaking of sculptors...

Hi Aard Rinn,

I did see the ADW melt down today and I also know
you were contacted by the victim from the past whom i have been speaking with.

I found out they are scammers not long after i quit on 22nd June. Then I started warning other artists i knew in the team including Andrea Sfiligoi and woodland scenics. And learned the entire team was not paid except for Andrea Sfiligoi.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I obviously never handed in my work not only because I wasn't paid but they never asked.
a month after i quit, they sent me a fake cease and desist email saying that I destroyed their life by contacting other employees and i stole $600 worth of materials ( which they gave to me after i spent $400 from my saving to purchase materials for their project)
But the letter did not contain that i should hand in the sculpts.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Some info cropped to protect the innocent. This was a e-mail I got from the sculptor they continually blamed for "theft" and said was spreading lies. I won't give his name without permission, since I don't want to open him to more harrassment, but this is basically proof that A) there was a team, and B) they got taken for one, with the exception of Andrea who was presumably a big enough name they didn't want to cross her.

I can confirm that this sculptor was not involved at all in any of the chatter on the Reaper forums; nor have I, as Lars and Dina insinuated, had contact with him prior to my message to him today.

Tydil wrote:
Hey Everyone,

I'm not in this KS luckily and I gotta say reading all of this really makes me feel for you and the others who are in this. I just had a question as to what Reaper has to do with any of this? They have a forum and ADW made a thread there that is now closed? I just want to make sure a trusted company like Reaper isn't behind any of this junk. They have their own KS going on and honestly I have no connection with the company but it strikes me as a good, honest, American company that I don't want messed up in a scandal.

We seem to be a target of theirs, for some reason, as they have made several claims that we are "stupid", "greedy" and that we have harassed them. We don't really know who they are except what people on our forum and here have uncovered.

As it happens, ADW did not make the thread there, our forumites made the thread, and we closed it when the thread and persons involved with the KS project and thread became abusive and violated our rather strict behavioral guidelines WRT politeness and civility (On the internet! I know, absurd, but we do it anyway!

We have the threads locked now on the advice of our attorney.

Someone pointed out that it has been exactly 2 weeks from the close of the Sea Monster KS, which is the point that the creator would have gotten money. That could have some bearing on this.

It is a shame that the information on the sculptor was not readily available earlier. Pictures of the good sculpts from IAM were used to promote the SeaMonsters KS.

Had it been clear that those miniatures (or the one sculpting them) was not something that could be expected; I presume less people would have backed the SeaMonsters having only empty promises and a few 2d pictures to go on.

So the drama ended with some crazy climax.


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There might be season two?

What do you mean by a season 2?

Wasn't the first time around enough?

Dina's face book is back up, last post on september.20th for a "everlane.com".

Maby I'm abit paranoid, but a site promising in house design and manufacture of clothing with no middle man, sounds alot like the promises made during this last kickstarter about miniatures.....

I can't help but wounder if that's their newest scam.... Seems these are the types to hop from one scam to the next.

I hope everyone who got caught up in this drama can recoup some of their money.

Wow. Seriously?

The cycle begins again. I guess we'll have to keep an eye on things and see how they unfold.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Wow. Seriously?

The cycle begins again. I guess we'll have to keep an eye on things and see how they unfold.

Yah. Sadly I got a feeling money they got from these kick starters will be be used for their next scam. Judgeing from the history people here have drugged up, they are career white collar crooks.

 Lockark wrote:
Dina's face book is back up, last post on september.20th for a "everlane.com".

Maby I'm abit paranoid, but a site promising in house design and manufacture of clothing with no middle man, sounds alot like the promises made during this last kickstarter about miniatures.....

I can't help but wounder if that's their newest scam.... Seems these are the types to hop from one scam to the next.

I hope everyone who got caught up in this drama can recoup some of their money.

I don't know if Dina has anything to do with everlane.com. She might be just a customer who likes their product.
http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/03/22/online-darling-everlane-arrives-in-canada-thanks-to-crowdfunding/

Hi, everyone. Long-time lurker of both dakka and Reaper forums. Truly appreciate the efforts of everyone in this matter as well as the constructive discussion on other projects. Has saved me a few times for sure. Anyway, I have been following this closely and I just came across some info on the ADW Games website that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet. It is known that ADW tried to get Andrea Sfiligoi in the fold, but that didn't work out. However, on their webpage under the "Game Design" heading, they talk about a podcast they hosted in June talking with several other industry folks. Might be worth checking with these people for any info on the alleged scammers which could assist authorities (CC companies, KS or the law, whoever). Sorry if I missed this already being posted (not a great forum person, why I tend to mostly lurk, lol). Here's a link to the page:

http://www.adwgames.com/design.html

I didn't listen to any of the podcasts.

Since Evergreen Entertainment LLC was the corporation that charged your credit card, there is always the BBB.

I see 0 complaints have been lodged in the last 3 years.

http://www.bbb.org/l...od-ca-100095256

Let's change that, shall we?

 Lockark wrote:
Dina's face book is back up, last post on september.20th for a "everlane.com".

Link, please. Thanks!

Nergal on the Ice Age Miniatures comments wrote:Nergal about 3 hours ago
I got a feply from "Scott". He ignored my request for a refund, and told me that "Lars" has left the team, but "Steve" and "Chris" would continue to work on the sculpts. Yeah, whatever.

Aard Rinn on the Ice Age Miniatures comments wrote:
Aard Rinn about 4 hours ago
BTW, guys, if you want your pound of flesh and have a few minutes, report these guys to the RCMP.
Just the facts, pls, but go for it:
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/scams-fraudes/index-eng.htm
There is a confirmed LKA that puts these guys in Montreal, and they've run scams in canada before; let's see if we can get the mounties on them!

EDIT: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/55475-ice-age-miniatures-kickstarter/?p=959586

Good luck, Aard!

Awesome that Reaper reopened that thread. I have always liked them as a company. This just reinforces those feelings.

Kajamo wrote:
Someone pointed out that it has been exactly 2 weeks from the close of the Sea Monster KS, which is the point that the creator would have gotten money. That could have some bearing on this.

Yeah, that does make a lot of sense, most probably this was the reason for the outburst. I didn't think about that, it wasn't clear to me that it was exactly two weeks that was the waiting period.

So if one wants to stay positive and hopeful, I guess it's possible that Kickstarter listened to the scam reports that some of us sent in even before Sea Beasts was funded, and when the two weeks was up they didn't release the money, but instead started asking questions. ADW realised it was a done deal, and instead decided to get nasty. Sadly, I think it's a lot more likely that KS ignored those reports and just released the money, allowing the project creator to have his little revenge on the ungrateful backers.

Zywus wrote:
It is a shame that the information on the sculptor was not readily available earlier. Pictures of the good sculpts from IAM were used to promote the SeaMonsters KS.

Had it been clear that those miniatures (or the one sculpting them) was not something that could be expected; I presume less people would have backed the SeaMonsters having only empty promises and a few 2d pictures to go on.

Yeah, I've been thinking that too. From the information that's been uncovered here, it seems there were people who knew this was a scam; at least the sculptor and perhaps also the game designer Andrea Sfiligio by the sound of it. Had anyone of them with inside knowledge spoken up, things might have gone differently with the Sea Beasts KS (I actually tried to get in contact with Andrea two weeks ago, but he never got back to me). Of course, we now know that the project creator was not below threatening lawsuit or harassment, so you can't really blame people for remaining silent. It is what it is I guess, it's just kind of annoying that they managed to get Sea Beasts funded!

BigDaddio wrote:
Hi, everyone. Long-time lurker of both dakka and Reaper forums. Truly appreciate the efforts of everyone in this matter as well as the constructive discussion on other projects. Has saved me a few times for sure. Anyway, I have been following this closely and I just came across some info on the ADW Games website that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet. It is known that ADW tried to get Andrea Sfiligoi in the fold, but that didn't work out. However, on their webpage under the "Game Design" heading, they talk about a podcast they hosted in June talking with several other industry folks. Might be worth checking with these people for any info on the alleged scammers which could assist authorities (CC companies, KS or the law, whoever). Sorry if I missed this already being posted (not a great forum person, why I tend to mostly lurk, lol). Here's a link to the page:

http://www.adwgames.com/design.html

I didn't listen to any of the podcasts.

Good point. I wonder if Shane Hensley and Wolfgang Baur even know that they are featured on the ADW site. Does anyone know how to contact them? I honestly haven't listened to the podcasts either, has anyone?

Oh, and welcome to Dakkadakka BigDaddio!

Well, Shane Hensley, of Pinnacle Entertainment, publisher of Savage Worlds is running a KS right now. Presumably you can contact through it or the Pinnacle site: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/545820095/the-last-parsec-savage-worlds

Good luck!

Alright, I've reached out to Shane Hensley and Wolfgang Baur; if nothing else I thought it might be a good idea to let them know about the situation.

I don't think we should let Kickstarter off the hook on this one. I just appended to my open ticket with them asking what actions they are going to take and reminding them that multiple people reported this project quite a while ago. I think they at least owe us some explanation of what they are doing. Are these people banned and the project is dead? Did KS give them the money for the Sea Monster despite all the tickets that were put in warning them?

 Trodax wrote:
Alright, I've reached out to Shane Hensley and Wolfgang Baur; if nothing else I thought it might be a good idea to let them know about the situation.

Can't wait. Good job Trodax


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 Thes Hunter wrote:
Since Evergreen Entertainment LLC was the corporation that charged your credit card, there is always the BBB.

I see 0 complaints have been lodged in the last 3 years.

http://www.bbb.org/l...od-ca-100095256

Let's change that, shall we?

Oh yeah,

the link did not work.

Here is another link:
http://www.bbb.org/losangelessiliconvalley/business-reviews/motion-picture-film-editing/evergreen-entertainment-group-in-west-hollywood-ca-100095256/complaints

Kajamo wrote:
I don't think we should let Kickstarter off the hook on this one. I just appended to my open ticket with them asking what actions they are going to take and reminding them that multiple people reported this project quite a while ago. I think they at least owe us some explanation of what they are doing. Are these people banned and the project is dead? Did KS give them the money for the Sea Monster despite all the tickets that were put in warning them?

This puts KS in a bit of a new position since the project was reported before it funded and definitely before the funds would have been transferred out of Kiskctarter's custody. Legally-speaking, I don't know if that attaches any liability to Kickstarter.

But I would also file complaints with Amazon. Amazon has a lot more skin in the game, so to speak, and lots of clout with Kickstarter. As of now, the projects have not been fulfilled, but it is also fairly early. There is, however, the statement from the project creator saying that failing to fulfill within 75 days constituted fraud.

I don't know much about this area of law, and I'm not sure where it would fall, such as within the Uniform Commercial Code, Title 15, or what. In addition to contacting Amazon.com, Kickstarter.com, and the Better Business Bureau, I also recommend contacting the US Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

I suggest that backers cast a wide net on this if they are looking for either restitution (which probably won't happen), or justice. Fraudsters like these are elusive, but a lot of work has already gone into exposing the underbelly of what went on here. While I personally feel that crowdfunding is very much a wild west of small speculative transactions, Kickstarter is taking a substantive percentage of the funds raised in projects like these, which raises some interesting questions about the extent of the company's responsibility to the users of the platform. There has to be some precedent with auction sites, such as Ebay, though my experience lies exclusively with patent litigation in that regard.

Kickstarter is facilitating a transaction via an online software platform, much like an auction website, but rather than collecting flat fees for use of the platform, Kickstarter takes a percentage of the funds raised, which seems more in line with transactional service fees such as with credit cards or paypal. But as I mentioned, I don't know much about how such commerce is regulated in the United States.

The bright side is that, at the end of the day, consumers in our little niche market will be more educated as a result of these efforts, though I absolutely hope that events such as these do not have too much of a chilling effect on the viability of Kickstarter as a funding platform for startup miniatures companies.

Nice post, weeble!

Kajamo wrote:
I don't think we should let Kickstarter off the hook on this one. I just appended to my open ticket with them asking what actions they are going to take and reminding them that multiple people reported this project quite a while ago. I think they at least owe us some explanation of what they are doing. Are these people banned and the project is dead? Did KS give them the money for the Sea Monster despite all the tickets that were put in warning them?

Totally agreed. I can't see how to follow up, though (I already reported the project before it funded). Is there an easy way to contact Kickstarter further about a project after it has funded? I'd like to follow up on the report I put in beforehand, but can't see how to do so.

If you filed a report they send you an email. In the body of that email is your ticket number, clicking on that brings you to your ticket. There is a "comment" section below, where you can append info.


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Well, needless to say I am not getting very far with Kickstarter. After I asked for a status I got a nicely worded response saying they had forwarded it to the Integrity team, and a "While we're unable to comment about actions taken against users or projects" comment.

Still trying, I came back with:
"I have a question. You wrote: "While we're unable to comment about actions taken against users or projects", is that some general policy of Kickstarter? Because I and others are very much a vested part of this project, we spent money and associated our names with this. I understand that you may not be able to say much about actions taken against individuals, but the general status of the project itself should be information that is available to it's backers."

I am not expecting a response, but it seems pretty clear that Kickstarter doesn't view backers as a stakeholder in their processes. Insert your money, thanks for playing.

That is really dissapointing, even if one in hundreds report the project, Kickstarter should look into the case rather than throwing up somewhat 'automated' message. Absolute dissapointment.
Backers provided more than enough evidences for them to do something about it while expressing their grief... No way!

Let's talk to CEO about this and have whoever avoiding this matter get fired!


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Had to create Twitter account just to tweet Yancey Strickler.



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I hope he gets the message.

 Trodax wrote:

Zywus wrote:
It is a shame that the information on the sculptor was not readily available earlier. Pictures of the good sculpts from IAM were used to promote the SeaMonsters KS.

Had it been clear that those miniatures (or the one sculpting them) was not something that could be expected; I presume less people would have backed the SeaMonsters having only empty promises and a few 2d pictures to go on.

Yeah, I've been thinking that too. From the information that's been uncovered here, it seems there were people who knew this was a scam; at least the sculptor and perhaps also the game designer Andrea Sfiligio by the sound of it. Had anyone of them with inside knowledge spoken up, things might have gone differently with the Sea Beasts KS (I actually tried to get in contact with Andrea two weeks ago, but he never got back to me). Of course, we now know that the project creator was not below threatening lawsuit or harassment, so you can't really blame people for remaining silent. It is what it is I guess, it's just kind of annoying that they managed to get Sea Beasts funded!

Yea, I can't really fault the sculptors too much since I can understand not wanting to get embroiled in the whole mess.
Still much might have been won if the sculptor had reported unauthorized use of the pictures of the mammoth, terrorbird etc. to Kickstarter. Had those pictures been removed many people would have thought twice before gambling their funds. It was more or less the hope of getting those sculpts that pushed many over the edge I believe.

I'm not involved in this Kickstarter, but I have some information for those of you who are.

Last week both Kickstarter and Amazon Payments changed their terms of use. Long story short, both of them have removed all responsibility for Kickstarter projects from themselves. They lay all the responsibility on the project creator, from the timeframe, goals, and product distribution. They want to be nothing but the money men.

This leaves backers with no safety net at all as far as scams and frauds. This ADW issue is the perfect example of how Kickstarter and Amazon have washed their hands of the potential problems, even before the second project ended.

The lesson is this: Do your homework! Look into the company and people running it. All the information that has come to light in the past few weeks was out there somewhere.

I do hope that the backers of this project can get their money back from this project. We all need to be much more careful from now on.

Round 3 with Kickstarter. By the way, these are not automated responses, someone is typing them.

"Hi XXXXXXXX,

Our policy is not to comment on actions taken against users or projects, nor to comment on the status of a project overall - that part is in the hands of the creators themselves. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I appreciate you letting us know about this situation."

So, my final (hopefully) response:

"Ok, I understand your position. I don't agree with it, but I understand it.
Apparently backers are not considered stakeholders in these projects.

I request to be removed from this project. I will deal with the money issue on
my own. I just want my name removed, and the abusive creators of this project to
no longer have the ability to email me. "

Let's see where that goes. The way I phrased it I doubt they will turn me down, it would be difficult to be the enablers of abuse.

Zywus wrote:
Yea, I can't really fault the sculptors too much since I can understand not wanting to get embroiled in the whole mess.
Still much might have been won if the sculptor had reported unauthorized use of the pictures of the mammoth, terrorbird etc. to Kickstarter. Had those pictures been removed many people would have thought twice before gambling their funds. It was more or less the hope of getting those sculpts that pushed many over the edge I believe.

While this is true, I really have to agree with what Pingo on the Reaper forum said concerning this:

I would like to nip in the bud some speculation I have seen (not on Reaper's forums) about why the artists did not speak up earlier about being stiffed by the project creators.
The project creators have acted abusively in public towards people on this forum and their own backers on Kickstarter over simple queries and comments about their project. I think it's safe to assume this is established behavior from them.
If threats of lawsuits and insinuative comments about knowing exactly where people live are creepy in a public venue, imagine how much worse they would be coming in private correspondence from one's business client.
(I don't even want to think about whether these people were on their good behavior for public consumption.)
If there are several artists whose good names were pulled into this (and this company seems to have a habit of that, if the PBS report about their videography activities is anything to go by) who were subsequently unpaid and maltreated, it is perfectly understandable that they might wish to keep as great a distance between them and these people as possible.
There's also the impression this company tried to give of being rich, connected and powerful. A lone freelance artist is unlikely to be willing to butt heads with such a group, especially if it puts frothing abuse and threats to the artist's reputation and livelihood in its correspondence.
This company seems to have a history of using people. It must be awful to be first abused and then to realize that your work was bait.
The freelance artists were victims as much as everyone else.

She's right; these people were frickin scary. It is clear to me now that the reason for them "accidentally" sending out the surveys a week or so ago was done to get access to as many addresses as they could, in order to gain as much leverage as possible when they went full-blown intimidating the other day.

"Scott" wrote a few abusive emails to me, which I tried to fence of. The interesting thing is, he said that he supposedly understood my point of view and turned friendly after my second mail. In that I tried to stomp down and told him in no uncertain terms what I fought of his behavior - dropping a few hints that I am not a poor kid, but that I am running my own business with employees etc. He already had my adress from the survey. I work in a neighboring town, but I guess he found not only my private place but also my business homepage - I guess he turned friendly not because of my arguments, but because he saw that I am no small student to be bullied. I guess I have been played....

BTW: I got a mail from him this morning (!) saying that "Lars" had left the project but his two freelance sculptors would continue working on it. No idea why he did that, I told him what I thought about him before, he cannot believe that he might get me back into anything.

The idea of scammers having backers' personal information is what Kickstarter should be aware of. It could be extremely dangerous. Also I'd suggest just don't open their email. Who knows what kind of spyware they could be using.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
You have to wonder why they are insisting on calling backers or send personal emails rather than commenting on KS site.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At this point, they could easily use your ID to scam others.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
saw some people on Ks looking for tel number
Aqua+ Productions
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
T 646.396.9737

http://beta.slashdot.org/submission/3621385/free-pre-historic-bullockornis-action-mini-for-ks-supporters

same as:
ADW Publishing
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
646.396.9737
news@adwgames.com

I would like to stress a point that has already been made here on the forum, but needs to be repeated:

While Kickstarter has a ToS, it's doesn't completely indemnify them. There are enough legal cases with big companies such as Sony where this has proven to be true. The bottom line is that Kickstarter has accepted a fee from an entity who could be proven in a court of law to have defrauded several hundred people. Kickstarter's ToS very well may not protect them from this fact as there may be a case because they:

1) Created an environment for fraud to take place. Their inaction of doing anything about it during the KS and after, if shown that they did allow it to go through and allowed the release of funds, could make them culpable... and/or Amazon... depending how far our messages got.
2) Directly profiting from that fraud. This is the big one that their ToS would probably not protect them against... fraud is a criminal charge, after all, not a civil matter which is what ToSes are covered under.

If anyone is up to it they could contact a lawyer and see if there's a potential case.

Another option, maybe a better one before contacting a lawyer, is to "leak" this story to a major media site like Wired... I think there's enough for a story. That'd get Kickstarter's attention, especially if they're painted in a poor light.

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IANAL - I just play one on TV. ;-)

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