Yes. I found those posts quite concerning at the time. However, there were also other people showing up on alt accounts and flaming. That really muddied the waters. I couldn't tell if it was a coordinated troll attack or legitimate concerns after that.

 

Hopefully another company steps in and produces some BW figs. It’s hard waiting for some signs of hope, coming from a guy who suffers from severe depression. Anyway best of luck to you who ordered this. Hopefully you can get your $$ back.

 

thats EXACTLY WHY I was hesitant to say anything. Didn’t want to feed trolls, but things didn’t add up.

 

I made a few posts sharing what was said to me by the guy that was aggressively contacting everyone on social media. I tried to be fair and in the middle. The accusations made sense. They didn’t add up. I also wanted the figures and Dave seemed like a decent dude. So I wasn’t going to go hard on the topic. Some people attacked me for even bringing that stuff up. One guy here said something along the lines of if this doesn’t come together that it would be because of people sharing/talking about those accusations. I got a refund for my Infernus order. I was really disappointed because I was really into this. Preordered within an hour of them going on sale. Was burnt out by the whole thing.The fact that he did refund me made me more confident this was legit.

Then, as he started showing videos of stuff being made and everyone was so confident that things were coming together. I dove back in - hard. Preordered both Infernus and Terrorsaur. He said he’d send me one of those unpainted kits for Infernus on Monday. It didn’t happen. Wednesday he marked terrorsaur shipped. When questioned, he said it was a completed terrorsaur… which sets off lots of red flags, since he hasn’t posted anything about terrorsaur being made.

It’s not looking good…

 

It was because of you that I asked for a refund earlier on and got one. I didn't dive back in as I wasn't feeling convinced by anything I had seen yet, so thank you.
You saved me a buncha money and trouble.
I hope you get your own orders refunded and sorted out.

 

wonder if he sent you out the usual scammer item, plastic beads or beaded necklaces.

 

Knockoff lego mini figure.

 

He doesn’t even do a tracking number when he ships stuff. So probably nothing physically shipped

 

I wonder if he even had someone casting these figures for him. It might just be him doing it all.

 

He had a video of a guy making them. I'm certain that SOMEONE made the parts, and I bet it's a different person because David won't show his face - even behind his internet persona here to defend himself.

 

I mean potentially someone could ask this guy
Log into Facebook | Facebook
If he really did make 100 copies of each part.
His FB.
James Catlin


Would put to bed the concern of a COMPLETE scam vs a FAILED delivery and poor customer service
If he really did 100 per part for this David

 

In better news, Paypal awarded me my refund for Infernus with very little fuss. That's a huge weight off of my mind.

 

How did you go about your claim? What things did you mention?

 

I was quite comprehensive, I raised an item not received claim and included:
-A written summary of the situation to date and all the red flags;
-A screenshot of the order email;
-A few screenshot of him promising them being ready in 6 weeks/2 months from back in March/April;
-Screenshots of his closed website and East store;
- A screenshot of the scam message I received from Rick Loos;
-A screenshot of him refusing me the refund.

I found it wasn't hard to build a strong case against this.

 

I didn’t see a spot for uploading screenshots and such

 

Man, reading back through this thread, the red flags were so red. It's so obvious now that this guy is a con artist, and the same one behind those werewolf and Jurassic Park figs. But I guess that's how scammers work, they prey on people's natural craving to trust the people they're interacting with. As long as a scammer can provide juuuuust enough plausible deniability, our minds will work as hard as possible to give them the benefit of the doubt.

And it definitely didn't help that we had that one guy ranting like a crazy person, either. But just gotta learn from this that the crazy ranting nut isn't always wrong. Also, I think @LukeJH presented himself rationally and deserves some credit for that.

Luckily I didn't go in on this, but I have to admit that that's only because I thought it cost too much money and not because my scam detector was tingling. I too overlooked all the red flags...

And looking back at those posts back in May, I now see how the Terrorsaur update was just a distraction. First he made Inferno, whose design was simple enough that he could cheaply make, like, 10-20 of them. Then he designed Terrorsaur which was a bit more complex, but he probably only ever intended to make that one figure for pictures. And then there's Scorponok which he knew he would never have to cast at all because he'd be long gone before then.


That all being said, @bjj8383 I just gotta ask...

Do you still not blame the guy?

 

*feeding the troll*
"if for some reason I DON'T end up receiving the Infernus I paid for,"
He's barely begun shipping them out and I wasn't in his first batch. So, I don't have mine yet. But, I wouldn't expect to, either, since it's hardly been any time at all. Sooooo... f*** off dude?

 

I kept silent after the mods banned people, but there was good evidence to connect it. Rick proved Dave Lee was Josh by showing me the Facebook banner that had a like from Josh Smith's mom. You could click on the lady's Facebook profile and see she lists Josh as her son. The problem is, once things start blowing up here, he changed the banner on Facebook for no reason before I could post it. Well no, he had a reason, he had to purge the likes on his banner by uploading a new one to get his mother out of it. Once that was changed, even if I posted a picture, people could claim I photoshopped it too.

I share Rick's frustration too. I was in contact with solarstorm over PM when he made the post. He saw the Josh Smith connection with me. Now I see he dove back in after getting the refund. I understand he's a victim now and I'm sorry this happened, but I hope people can see why some are frustrated with the trust that a scammer is getting.

 

Man, I thought this was way too expensive, but I never once thought it was going to turn out like this. Never in a million years would I have guessed that this all ended with a second doomshroomfx fb page being created to help try and assist in bringing charges against/dox Josh Smith.