While I admire the OP’s sense of Christian charity in now wanting to give ASAO time to fix things up, the genie is now out of the bottle and can’t be put back in. The number of complaints on this thread alone confirms that.

My view is you have to be just as ruthless with these conmen as they are with you. And to make sure they can never pull these sort of swifties with anybody else ever again.

As one of many people who helped sort out the Bumper Action fiasco in Australia some years ago, here’s some of that back story. And some tips.

Bumper Action was a reputable Melbourne seller of pinball and arcade games. It was the original JJP distributor in Australia and took deposits on 76 WOZ pinballs in 2012.

Sometime afterwards, the ageing owner decided to sell. But he managed to pick three people who had no experience in the industry and, in the case of one, a conman who had already run two franchises into the ground leaving many investors and suppliers high and dry.

All was fine for a period until one day we were told Bumper Action was being restructured – and the more than $500k in WOZ deposits (and even some for The Hobbit) would be safe.

As it turned out, this was the prelude to a phoenixing operation, and it was quickly revealed the owners of the new Bumper Action would not honour our deposits.

The first call in the pinball community was to get lawyers involved, but that would have meant throwing good money after bad. So we took a two pronged approach; go after the original owner’s estate as there were certain debt guarantees written into the purchase contract with the new directors, and then smash their reputations.

Most people got their money back through a Victorian small claims tribunal. I don’t know what the federal or state arrangements are in the USA but I’m sure there’s an equivalent and the OP and others are on the job.

Once that process was put in place, we went after the reputations of the three directors. One, an elderly Canadian businessman who moved to Australia in the 1980s, was helpful to me and I saw him as a victim too. He lost a lot of money in the tribunal and from the eventual final collapse of Bumper Action.

The second, an Australian, was in my view nothing but a moron who had somehow inveigled his way onto the boards of four companies. As someone who spends his days trying to preserve the reputation of companies and the individuals who work for them, I also know how to destroy them.

I rang the Chairmen and CEOs of all four companies and told them the Bumper Action story, and said my next call would be to the media. Within weeks, this clown lost all four directorships.

Finally, the really bad guy, an American who had already ruined an Ed Hardy franchise in Australia and another company, and didn’t seem to care about anybody but himself. It was discovered he had applied for permanent residency in Australia, so I went to work with the Department of Immigration and the Minister’s office. Not only was that application rejected, but he was kicked out of Australia.

I’m sorry to say to my American friends, but he’s now living in LA. Although thankfully, he seems to have nothing to do with pinball.

And a few months later, 22 of the special “Rescue Editions” of WOZ arrived in Australia. I have number 22. Thanks especially to Jack and JJP, and Wayne at Mr Pinball.

Different country, different people and different circumstances, so I’m not sure what will work for you with ASAO.

But give this fellow an inch and he’ll take a mile. And he’ll do it again, and again, and again…

Some would argue he did us Aussies a public service in that regard!