2000th post in less than 4 days! Hooray?

Wow...talk about a waste of bandwidth.

and cyberspace of the interwebs.

Hahaha, you know a thread has gone to shit when someone downvotes a post # milestone. Yikes! Its like alien vs predator in here (the movie, not the goddamn pins!).

I'm gonna go play Bad Cats. Meow you guys later!

That could only be more perfect if she were carrying a cheeseburger and a pound of bacon.

I just got word that AMF is suing DP for the lower playfield because it was "too lifelike and would discourage people to go out and bowl at their bowling centers."

These guys just can't catch a break!!

I got a e-mail from Barry saying that Phil needs to issue me the refund..Barry is not going to honor any funds in the paypal account Phil has control over at this point. From what I see Barry is asking customers to either get a refund from Phil or resend the funds Phil had refunded you. Most customers are past the 45 days that can dispute or get a refund from paypal so if they didn't use a credit card its not looking good for them. What happens when the USA Phil paypal account is drained and both sides are pointing fingers? I am willing to bet the account is already empty and Phil refunded as many customers he could and the rest of the funds went to invoices that Barry and the DP team was sending to Phil as Phil already posted e-mails going back from DP asking Phil to pay more invoices.

Gotta be careful staring at that one too long, the wife keeps walking by.

I'm putting that one in the "major value" category!

Phil: "Okay, fuck this, I quit."

Barry: "Whatever."

Phil: "Barry, you fuck, I quit."

Barry: "Yes."

Phil: "For my family, I feel that you have the potential to fucking ruin their financial lives."

Barry: "Okay."

Phil: "Hello? do you fucking understand? you high as a kite dutchman! I want to officialize this, common let's go!"

Barry: "Moederneuker this Purple Kush is good."

Phil: "I'm punching myself! [he's actually doing it] See? I'm fucking nuts, take me seriously here!"

Barry: "I think you should stay."

Phil: "I'm going to sabotage your company. I'm fucking crying over here! Take me seriously! My family!"

Barry: "The Kush, it's good."

Phil: "I'm going on fucking Pinside, and I'm going scorched earth on you! You left me no choice."

Barry: "Did you watch Homeland yesterday? Hakkani is still alive."

Phil: "It's done, all the dirty laundry is out, check it out and see. Burn, burn! ...because you're my friend."

Barry: "And the Pakistani ISI secretly switched Carrie's bipolar medication for LSD."

Phil: "They what?! Okay now that's going too far."

useless bump

Best summary yet

That is the million dollar question. I really hope that doesn't happen.

Epic fail. Complete opposite of what they promised. Internal strife is no excuse - Barry and Jaap need to cover all refunds, out of their own pocket if necessary, and then go after Phil for any money in that paypal account.

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I hope so yet here is the email from Barry sent today.

"Since we have no access to the accounts of Dutch Pinball USA, Inc. we forwarded your refund request to Philip Weinberg.
We hope he will process your request as soon as possible.

We are really sorry for this inconvenience.

Kind regards,
Barry Driessen"

Seeing how they asked for money to be taken out to pay for invoices, I don't think that the DP USA account HAS all the money in it FOR refunds..

In other words, "it's out of our hands, we wish you good luck".

Collapse.. EOL! They took money from that account they NO LONGER have access to. Obviously they did have access to those funds when Phil was writing checks to them.

A number of you have just been written off. This was the reason they never let Phil go - they wanted to blame him for the money they suckered out of him. That's what you get when you trust a foreigner. Now Phil can go over there and try to navigate their legal system and retrieve a small portion of your loss, or you can go and sue Phil. I must really admit that I am not sympathetic to Phil's business failure with his "friends". I am sympathetic to his health situation, but I think his "friends" are trying to take advantage his disease. What a total clusterfuck. THose of you itching to jam your money back in will end up with NOTHING!

Fade to black

_{Post edited by moderator: thread eject by mod}

Might as well jump...

That's really unacceptable.

No way. The word awesome wasn't used once let alone three times like the last letter posted! saying awesome so much was annoying.

^^ there you have it. "Phil has your money.. go after him."

Even admitting that they had access to the accounts right up until December 2. I don't see him admit to how much of the deposit money went overseas.. or to BOP2 vendors, or for expenses. Those facts would be inconvenient.

The good news? People who got refunds can keep their money. The bad news? If you didn't get a refund, you can go pound sand.

Who are you?

Just looking for cheap thumbs up now.

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I've taken one for the team so many times, in fact getting ready to apologize for someone's behaviour tomorrow or even better yet at our XMas party Friday.

But that was the responsibility I realized I'd have when I signed up to steer the ship. A 4th generation family ship w business and family politic all rolled together in some crazy sushi roll.

When I read the letter I thought maybe it's a cultural thing but I can't help reading between the lines that they're passing the buck. EDIT ok I'm sugar coating it's right frickin there.

Man, I wish I could give them some advice and I don't mean it sarcastically.

Damage control score: Roger helping +1, c2c podcast +1, last vip letter -2

(Very tired) Rod

What amazes me:

This thread has existed for 4 days and the post count here has passed the JPOP Update Thread which has been around for 6 more months .

Granted, there are a LOT of good reasons, but wow, everytime I think about it - damn.

I made it to the end!

image-935.jpg

For now.

Funny, the dutch defense team went silent when the posts of Barry basically passed the buck and said 'talk to phil'. I guess that whole "its all dutch pinball they can move money anywhere they want" mindset only works when it's convenient for you.

It's messy - but they need to be honoring their promise on refunds.. not making internal issues customer issues. If they means money from themselves or their investors or their piggy banks in Holland.. it should be happening.

Just add it to the list of stupid business moves.

Since Barry won't refund us customers who paid our deposits to the paypal DP USA account. Is Barry even honoring the deposits of the US customers who want to stay in who's funds are tied up in the DP USA account that haven't been refunded? It appears not as he is asking you to get a refund and resubmit it to their netherlands paypal account. This guy will keep taking our money yet won't refund it as he has no control over the DP USA account yet he has control over his paypal account which he refuses to refund customers with.

Yeah, this is what is putting me out of resubmitting my order. I got my unrequested refund, but after doing the math I think I was right at the 45 day mark when Phil hit the panic button. I was a day or two away from Paypal jail for my $4500. I feel for the people who are there right now. As the dust settles on this I'm reasonably comfortable believing that DP will still deliver a high quality game in the end, but how on earth can they not honor funds submitted to their own company? That is just absurd, and a terrible way to treat customers that showed faith in them. Their site promises multiple times that the money is fully refundable until production. Well, that is now a straight lie if DP just washes their hands of the Paypal USA funds. Honor that promise DP! If you don't stick to your word then you don't deserve success. I personally can't put money back into their hands after this behavior and rather pathetic reaction. Figure something out with Phil and the US account. It should not be impossible.

crazy...i wonder if phil will continue to refund dp deposits if barry refuses to give him a ss number for the buisness to take him off....phil could continue to mess with him

Dear Stupid American,

Since we have no access to the accounts of Dutch Pinball USA, Inc. we forwarded your refund request to Philip Weinberg.
We hope he will process your request as soon as possible.

We are really sorry for this inconvenience.

Kind regards,
Barry Driessen

Dutch Pinball B.V.
Dr. Poelsstraat 6
5953 NP Reuver
The Netherlands
+31 (0)6 52 07 23 62
[email protected]
www.dutchpinball.com
Skype: barry.driessen2

I listened to Nate's podcast with Roger, too, and I came away with the exact same impression. Attempted damage control with little substance.

Roger's involvement appears to be strictly as a consultant and focused only on licensing issues. He didn't seem to be aware of specific accusations that Phil had made, and he never once mentioned some of the more critical issues like liquidity, accounting practices, fiduciary obligations, corporate governance, and risk management. He also seemed very quick to dismiss some of the online criticism as jealously by individuals who wish they were building pinball machines and think they can do a better job than DP.

You are out of your element Donny.

Hey, cool it Walter. Look, pal, there never was any money. The big Lebowski gave me an empty briefcase, so take it up with him, man.

That's all he should be doing. I'm not sure what else anyone would expect? That he's going to suddenly become a partner in the business or something? He's a hired gun, brought in to finish the license stuff.

Isn't Roger a forensic accountant?!?

What's sad is these guys are screwed pretty much no matter what, right? If they refund the money out of their own pockets and try and settle up with Phil, he'll refuse to give them the cash. If they forward your requests to Phil and it takes him a few weeks to process the refunds, you're going to be burning them in effigy at the 12 hour mark. They're boned no matter what they do. Keep in mind you're dealing with three guys in a basement, not Amazon. You need to temper your expectations accordingly.

_{Post edited by swf127: Cleaned up the lingo.}

So the owners of the company don't have access to a chunk of the deposit money and are telling people that the funds are out of their control. Think about that for a minute.

The response to that should be that you don't care about the disputes between partners. As a customer, that is not your problem. You want a refund on your deposit and don't care where it comes from. DP should be refunding the money out of their other accounts and squaring things away with their former partner.

That is one of the most unprofessional responses I've ever seen in business.

I think at this point no one cares about the license stuff, it's all about the money. "Where's the f**kin money Lebowski? Where's the f**kin money sh*thead?"

Three guys in a basement with hundreds of thousands of dollars in deposits.

Aurich, I agree with you. I never thought he was doing anything other than consulting on licensing issues, but several of the posts made on this thread after he was hired suggested a much deeper, more impactful role on the lines of a business partner or angel investor (i.e., a white knight riding in to save the damsel in distress). The podcast interview was solely focused on licensing issues, implicitly dispelling those other notions.

I have been requesting a refund for the past 6 days with no luck.

Dutch Pinball is responsible for our money and needs to simply send out an email that states that all money paid in will be honored and credited towards a machine. That is the bare minimum. If they do not do this, TBL a will never see the light of day. You can be dead sure of that.

Yep, with one down on account of health, another on account of bereavement and a third that really may not have access to the funds. If a majority of the clientele went to Fidelity and demanded their money back they would wait up to a week before a check would even be cut. I would expect this to take weeks if not a month or two to sort out if Phil is the gatekeeper to the domestic accounts.

I think the "Dutch defense team" just got tired of this thread and got on with their lives.

We can continue to discuss details, but as stated by a couple of people already: give these guys some time to sort things out and act. I know there are some here DP can't do good for anymore, but I think most people here are more or less at peace with the situation as it is right now.

Stick a fork in DP. Those of you who got your money back should be thankful you didn't have to go down with the ship. YOu've got these RANK AMATEURS sitting on several hundred grand with only a wish to come through on their promise. So they go out and offer Sharpe a tiny slice of the pie only so they can ride his cred while their ponzi implodes.

Look at their performance on BOP2. Doesn't that tell you anything?

You are correct. However Fidelity wouldn't send an e-mail stating they don't have access to your funds but will send an e-mail to one of their disgruntled ex-partners and hope he'll send it over.

My problem isn't with them telling customers that it'll take a few weeks to move money around, it's with telling customers the situation with their deposits is out of their control. That they'll send a request out and hope for the best.

I'd think now is a good time to initiate a thread eject mods.

I thought they got TBL... That's why they paid, no?

Are you purposefully trying to bring everyone down by your constant negativity? You're worse than my wife! The game will get made and people who stay in will be all the happier because, due to people taking your nonsense to heart and pulling out, the game will be all that rarer... Sorry, shouldn't feed the troll, I know....

DP have a good chance at being the next Bally/Williams, and this will be their first title... I'm glad I'm in, and proud to be part of this epic beginning!