Sydney
I have been ripped off $9000 and I'm pretty pissed off. It's been awhile now, mid last year the news broke that Bumper Action the then distributor for Jersey Jack Pinball had gone into administration leaving 79 buyers of the Wizard of Oz pinball machine out of pocket to the tune of around $450,000. What wasn't highly publicized at the time is that Jack Guarnieri had been paid deposit money of approx $150,000 by Bumper as an advance payment on the order. Not long after the devastating news sunk in, a collective of affected buyers was formed called the WOZ fund (WF). Names of all buyers, their email addresses, how much they had paid and even machine numbers were sourced through a very honorable and equally devastated ex Bumper employee. Every single person who had committed a single dollar was contacted and asked if they would like to join a class action to see if we could legally take on Bumper. The response was fantastic and people who had lost money on their dream reached into their pockets again and a substantial amount was raised, the 3 organizers of the fund who had lost much less than many others have been amazing in coordinating and communicating with WF members.
After employing two legal representatives it soon became clear that chasing the money lost to Bumper was going to cost a lot more than we had raised and even then there would be no guarantee of a win. So with that avenue exhausted the focus then shifted to the money that had been paid to Jack by Bumper. Jack did late last year ship two machines that became the topic of much controversy as to you would end up with them, I'm not entirely sure where they went. However, this left Jack still holding $130,000 of WF members money. Due to the complexity of returning the money (which is extremely convenient for him as he has none), he agreed to build and ship 22 machines at the Bumper purchase price of appox $5500 each. It was decided with a voting system within the group that the 22 machines would be sold to the open market upon delivery with WF members to have first pick. The proceeds would then be distributed WF members in accordance with their loss. This agreement was made in November 2013, it is now June 2014 and we have not received a single machine. Yet he continues to build and ship new money machines for new money buyers.
As I have mentioned in another post, this should be Jacks absolute number one priority! Forget your new money machines. Get this done! This is the biggest scandal in pinball history and he treats us with such utter contempt it sickens me. Through this whole debacle he has not once made communication with anyone to apologies for what we have been through. He has access to names and emails. Although it's not all his fault a decent person would do this.
He is the beneficiary of our money in some form, whether it's been spent on his whirlwind marketing trips or on play field carousels in his factory he is still the direct beneficiary of it. He has gone to ground now and will not answer any questions. It is clear he is treading water financially and I would warn anyone against putting money in the hand of this scoundrel.
Madison, WI
New Westminster, BC
. What if the judge hates pinball and they are like Judge Judy and say's what moron would buy a pinball machine without anything in writing? Would you buy a home are car that way? "It's late I need to eat" "stop bothering the courts we hate to do our job". Ok she does say that, but by saying stop bothering me it's lunch time, she pretty much is.
