I hope that you can back a statement like that up. This thread is about one person, and now you suddely start to add a few more people to the list with a very wide and loose accusation.

Nowhere in my statement does it imply anyone else here in this forum, so read it again with a grain of salt. I deal in other areas besides modeling, and have had associates run into those situations quite a number of times. My last sentence in there is to imply that some people in this thread got their money back "less postage".
As long as I've been on these forums, I've had nothing but first rate trades with several individuals, and even have gone so far as to give stuff away for free. Heck, alot of guys do it here, and for that, we should be grateful. The day those trades turn sour, I'll be the first to post it.

Guys, calm down. Let's not let our feelings about one person spill over to others. What the poster wrote about this happening to others here could be missread. It's a case of the internet it's easy to read things wrong.

I think the only reason why this thread hasn't already been closed or deleted is because there is nothing to hide here... For me, the fact this is visible to everyone, makes me think this place is managed by honest people...

Jean-Luc

ACK!! This is where we just need to allow technology to work. I am glad that at least one member realised that Arnold had clarified what he meant and deleted their response.

Can everyone also remember that we can EDIT our posts please. That way when we don't get our point across we can easily fix that and move on.

No harm no foul.

As for the situation with Bryan I hope everyone involved seeks and gets the restitution they deserve. I will have more to say about this later when I have more time.

Thanks,
Jim

I am a bit of a novice when it comes down to issues on your side of the world BUT is there any way we can as a group put a complaint to the Canadian Police about this fraud? After all it seems to me that the amount could be very high that people have lost when taken collectively. I know my money can be traced as it was a Bank Cheque in Canadian Dollars issued by my bank here. He would have had to bank it to get his money. This leaves a record which I can check and verify. I already know that the cheque has been 'honored'.

cheers
Cliff

THis is really sad news. Bryan turns out some of the most fantastic Shermans around.

Fair enough Arnold, I read your post to imply that there might be more people on our site pulling the same scam. If you mean that multiple people were on the receiving end of this, please accept my appologies.

Cheers
Henk

You can contact the FBI for internet fraud.
http://www.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

that's true.... his shermans/firefly models are really incredible. i hope he will be able to clear things up soon..

I'm still sadden by all this, and shocked over the amounts......
I don't think too many are going to buy the "slow Canadian Postal system crap" any more. I know I'm not. Nor will I be sending any of the O'Meara estate up north.

I wonder who actually got the stuff they ordered, or traded.
I wonder who got the Sherman Firefly I paid for?

Well at least I got a pen..... :-) :-) and if there was a way for me to file criminal charges, I'd use the pen he made to sign them. :-) :-)

I had a Resicast Kangaroo I wanted to trade and listed a lot of plastic items I was interested in trading for. I received a lot of offers but he was the only person that basically had ALL the plastic kits I was interested in. (He baited me good!) So I engaged in a deal with him. He was to send me a Famo, resin figures and a copy of the Band of Brothers DVD set. Needless to say his parcel never arrived.

After several weeks of emails, he 'generously' offered me a kit and some cash worth maybe half the original value. I was just happy I didn't lose out completely on the deal so I eagerly accepted it.

After the fact, I had done a little bit of leg work and found a couple of previous threads and got in touch with people that had also not received packages from him, but did receive some compensation or full refund. Basically, there was a pattern of lost packages all from the same guy. There are at least 3 other people I have been in contact with over the past months that have not chimed in on this thread but have had the same experience. I wanted to post a buyer beware thread at that time but was hesitant because I knew he was a respected modeler known by many. I regret I did not do that now.

He does not seem to actively list things for trade or sale but I believe he responds to people looking for particular items. Is there any way we can tag this post at the top of this particular forum so Bryan doesn't pull this scam to unsuspecting traders 6 months from now?

You're so lucky :-)

Man I can't wait till monday to see what happends.

If Bryan sends me back my money I'll surely mention it here. I hope it will give some trust back to the people here!

Martin

All this praise, all of this admiration all of this good gone bad sounds like a classic case of depression and alcoholism if you ask me. Who else would let something so good turn so bad?

Gray! Its time to wake up, smell the orders and appreciate what you've worked so hard to achieve!

John Boilard

I am on the hook too, so to speak but I think we may need to temper our commentary a bit. Attempting to ascertain what prompted Byran's actions with no information what so ever can't help matters any.

Just a thought.

Shaun

I agree. Despite being hurt from his betrayal of our friendship and angered by the fact that so many others have been duped as I have, I don't wish to speculate as to why - I can't vouch for the type of person he is anymore as this goes completely against the character I thought he had. I hope he is allright and that everyone affected gets their issues resolved in a good way.

This is a tough situation. I always feel for people who get cheated. I know the staff at armorama is working to help. Do you think we could start a thread to help maybe with a form like this.

Name:
Call Name:
Item Purchased:
Amount:
Date of Purchase:
Do you have a statement or reciept:
Comment:

I think maybe if you get a good count of how many people lost their money. You could collect contact information and turn it over to the authorities. If you guys need some help, don't hesistate to ask me. I'll be glad to help.

-Jay-

Okay.... here is the official response.

For the record I don't believe that anyone (site member or not) should blindly trust that a seller is okay just because he/she does some volunteer work for a website. You should base this on your knowledge of that person and also what is out there on the net.

The fact is that I would never have known anything about these shipping issues if not for several people posting on ML and Hyperscale. When this happened I took immediate action to try to get Bryan to resolve these matters in a quick and complete fashion. His response was to assure me that he was and that these were isolated incidents. Because of the posts on other sites several staff members here alerted me to their own problems with receiving their orders from Bryan and that is when I again pushed Bryan to resolve this quickly. His response on Friday, the 23rd of September, was to resign his position on the site, but he still maintained he would make good on all the outstanding deals. Indeed he was appearing to do so at least with one member as they got a partial cash refund.

Now that so many people have come forward on this site (and others) my only guess is that Bryan is unwilling or unable to rectify all these trades/buys. I am still hoping he will obviously as many of us know Bryan and he has always seemed a good guy and not at all the kind of person who would defraud people.

That said I have taken additional steps to make sure all volunteer staff members do not use their staff email addresses for personal matters.

Also I do have Bryan's mailing address (as I have sent him review material in the past obviously) and I have at least one contact phone number. I would think many of you who are affected by this have some kind of mailing address by means of PayPal or sending him money, etc. However I am open to sharing that information with anyone looking to pursue legal or criminal options. Let's hope it does not come to that.

As a closing remark I would like to add that even I am waiting on items from Bryan as I gave him $160 for 2 banners for the site. So this is personal for me as well.

Thanks,
Jim

As a member of Staff, who also believed the "Slow Canadian Post", and "Lost in the mail" am I morally responsible for others that believed it also?

I afraid the only "morals" I'm responsible for are my own, not the guy sitting next to me on the bus.
Because I choose to live a life of honesty, integrity, and dignity, (with a sense of humor thrown in for good measure) doesn't mean every body else does, as seems to be rather clearly apparent, with Bryan's actions.

Unfortunately, since I did accept one of his homemade pens, (which he was probably just trying to unload since they probably weren't selling) instead of the kit, or refund, I really do not have any legal claim.


The only thing I'm guilty of is believing the exact same thing as everybody else duped by Bryan..... "Slow Canadian Post", and "Lost in the Mail".

Well, I will give Bryan a couple of more days. Then This will happen. I am not sitting still, watching my money disapear.

Erik

I have tried using the telephone number I have for Bryan, without any luck. I am going to wait a few more days and then go with a registered letter to try and resolve this issue (it's only $40, but he's got the models i sent him). If it was just myself that was affected, I'd chalk it up to a bad day and move on, but with so many others involved, it has progressed well past a slip or mistake.

Again...my $0.02 worth

Hmm if just enough people would do that.....

I'll wait for monday. He has promised my to refund my money then......he sounds like he's gonna do it.....but well could just be fake as well....

I can only hope....or do something like Erik has in mind afterwarts...

Martin

Good grief!

I made one trade for some parts with Bryan that went well and certainly considered him a friend. I was also thinking about some other dealings with him, but never got around to it. I guess this is one instance when my procrastination probably saved me some money!

This is really sad. I hope he gets it together and makes it right with folks.

I wasn't going to weigh in here, but I think I should.....

Although I have never had a transaction with Mr Gray, his excuses of Canada Post being slow, or lost in the mail is a bag of bull.

I have both sold and bought stuff through Ebay, and from folks on here and on ML, and with the exception of one crook, all transactions have gone smoothly.

As far as Canada Post being slow....having applied for a FREE small business account through CP, which basically gives me Expidited Mail for the price of regular mail in Canada (which includes a tracking # and $100 of insurance) as well as parcels going to the US it includes also a tracking # and insurance. I have yet to have any customer in Canada or the US wait for more than a week and a half for a parcel from the time I sent them out. I have even had guys as far south as Dallas get them in 3 or 4 days. So Mr. Gray's excuse of Canada Post loosing all of those packages doesn't hold a whole lot of water in my book.

Now that not withstanding, Mr. Gray may not have one of these FREE accounts from CP.....but even if he didn't, all it takes is an extra $1 to add $100 worth of insurance and a tracking number to a parcel. I know myself, for someone that is in the business, that extra $1 was worth every penny because I know that the parcel was going to get there, and if it didn't, then I had a tracking # to find it, and if it was really lost, insurance to protect both me and the purchaser.....so it was a no loose situation.

So sorry ....I can't buy into the excuse that Canada Post lost the parcels.....load of crap in my book.