I was one of the lucky ones. I bought a very nice lightly used Stern game from him early on and we talked at length about it on the phone. All the cool mods available and how fun it was to play, and on and on... He was a really enthusiastic guy that was easy to talk to and always spoke of his family and daughter and their love of this game room full of highly modded new games. He talked a lot of talk about how big his company is (was) and how he was buying out Stern distributorships up and down the coast to get more volume. He painted a picture of a hard working family man building a great business. Even at the time I was suspicious of his business practices. I figured he was gaming the system by pulling games out of the box, playing a few games, putting a few cheap mods in and then selling them at a price below what Stern would allow an NIB to be sold for.

When the game arrived, I asked the delivery guy (who I will leave un-named) about Jonathan because I hoped he would have a story about an awesome game room and really big business front. As the OP mentioned, I was informed that in all of the many deliveries that he had done for ASOA the game had been picked up in a parking lot somewhere. This was the first confirmation that something was strange. Apparently on each and every one of the many deliveries there was some sort of excuse given for why it was more convenient to meet in a Walmart or gas station parking lot. I can understand someone not wanting people coming to their house, but what about the storefront or at least a warehouse needed for such a large business?

In the following months I got some Pinside mail and even a phone call once in a while offering new Stern titles at ridiculous low costs with no sales tax. I wasn't in the market or I probably would have bitten. He told me the next three Stern titles before they were announced and he was correct in hind sight. When Star Wars came out that was a title I had to have, but thankfully a friend of mine in the top IFPA 1000 used his once a year friends and family rate to get me a game and I skipped ASOA. Then I started hearing stories about ASOA, and not good ones. People started contacting me to see if I had ever been ripped off by him. Fortunately I had not, but I can understand how people could have been drawn in.

So that leaves a lot of questions referring to the "He was legit, then just flipped the switch" quote above. Maybe he was legit at one point, but more than a little shady too. From what I understand there was a time not too long ago where Stern busted dealers for selling below a set price limit? Maybe Stern dumped his ass? Maybe as someone mentioned he fell into an expensive habit? Who knows what turned him from a shady to full on rip off? All that I know is that even if he was at one time legit, where is the storefront or warehouse? Where were the employees other than him? I feel bad for anyone who lost money to this guy.