Quoted from Phil-DP-USA:

What would you do, if you went into a legitimate business with your friends, investing about $100'000, and a year's worth of (pretty darned good) free labor. You then found out they were doing something illegal. You try to talk them out of it, but they keep doing it. You scream, stop, but they keep doing it. You say fine, I quit, keep the profits, keep the money, just please take my name off the business so I don't get in trouble if you get caught. They don't.

Quoted from Phil-DP-USA:

Today he finally writes back, "Please stop posting on Pinside. You are harming the business (which includes yourself).

Quoted from edmorex:

I could care less about the accusations. That is not why I want my money back. I want my money back because it apparently is being held by a partner of DP that wants nothing to do with the company. He has made it clear he wants to liquidate the account. There isn't going to be enough money to go around once you subtract out all the transaction fees from moving this money around.

If he is going to empty the bag I want the money, and not the empty bag.

Quoted from YKpinballer:

He had every right to refund the money he was responsible for if he couldn't guarantee its security. People who he sent refunds should be thankful.

Quoted from YKpinballer:

He also knew that starting the refund process would force them to address the issues. They kept him in charge of DP US, he told them what he was going to do, he carried it through. Had they managed their business, the refunds wouldn't have happened.

Quoted from YKpinballer:

In Phil's mind he was protecting himself, his family and the customers. He did it at great personal cost

Quoted from Aurich:

Well, to be blunt, oh f**king well. Because if they'd just taken care of business right they wouldn't be doing damage control.

Quoted from Aurich:

Dude Phil couldn't have even touched the money if they'd handled business.

Quoted from Sjsilver:

I think my argument still stands, unless you believe a) Phil is out and out lying about everything AND b) fabricating the evidence.

1) We know Phil quit very publicly Nov. 1.
2) We know, thanks to the screenshot of the email, that Barry on Dec. 4 suggested he STILL maintain the funds and operations of DP-USA though the production of the games (while they continue to funnel pre-order money to the DP-USA account until Feb 1. 2015) Despite very publicly quitting Nov. 1. (That is the only evidence we have of Barry working towards a "solution".)
3) We know that, at least until yesterday, Phil was STILL in charge of DP-USA and all the DP-USA money.
4) We know that Phil very much wanted to get out.

Even if you think the rest of it is lies or exaggeration, unless you believe he fabricated the dec. 4 email, we KNOW that Barry's idea of resolving a situation with a partner who quit over a month earlier was to tell him "no, stay on until it's done, because we outvote you".

If you believe he fabricated the dec. 4 email, then I'm not sure any evidence would sway you.

I might, however, be able to sell you a very special "Go Team DP" custom rug from http://www.customlogorugstore.com but you'd have to pay upfront.

Quoted from brundaged:

Is anyone else nonplussed that DP's most-recent email laid all the blame for this on Phil?

I was hoping for more leadership along the lines of "We screwed up. We're sorry. We're going to make it right."

Instead they said "Phil screwed us. We're going to make it right, if he cooperates."

Quoted from bigehrl:

can someone please tell me, on what page of this novel is the DP response on?

Quoted from Rarehero:

If they took ownership of the situation, I'd have a refund already. They basically just said "Sorry but Phil has to give you a refund"...which means my money is in limbo whether I get a refund OR stay involved.

Quoted from tamoore:

Phil acted like kind of a jack-wagon here, but it really has to land at the feet of the other two partners who didn't act when Phil requested they act. That's the first and underlying issue.

Quoted from Sjsilver:

You can make that completely valid argument about Phil's actions, but you are completely discounting the actions by DP-BV and Barry in particular that people are having the most trouble with.

Regardless of how it came to light or who is at fault for this public fight, it is obvious that DP had/has a completely amateur-hour accounting set up that has lead to a complete inability to respond to customer inquiries about their money. Again, I have a friend who paid with a check and asked for a refund way before any of this began, and they have never been able to give her a straight answer.

Regardless of who's fault it is, DP is having a lot of customers asking them to make good on their promise that they can get a refund at any time. Dp is understandably in a difficult situation where they do not currently have access to a good chunk of their funds (and haven't had access to those funds for about a month.) Rather than take responsibility for the situation, they passed the buck. They could have said, "We are doing everything we can right now to re-secure the funds and will refund those who request as soon as possible" (even if that meant refunding from their other account until access to the DP-USA account was restored). Instead they said "Don't blame us, blame the other guy. Ask him for your money". they took something that is THEIR problem and made it the CUSTOMER/CREDITORS problem. That's the kind of shit you pull when you are filing for Bankruptcy, not when you are trying to get those same customers to trust you with their money all over again.

Regardless of how ethical you think the release of information is, there was enough actual evidence presented in this thread to reveal that DP-BV used EXTREMELY poor judgement in handling Phil's quitting. He quit very publicly Nov. 1, and as late as a month after the fact, on Dec. 4, they were still insisting that this disgruntled ex-partner stay in control of all of the US funds.

There is no need for conspiracy theories. You don't need to put forth wild speculation. Look at the facts we know, in addition to their only existing track record with the 4 year long BOP 2.0 project, and it is not unreasonable to have zero faith in this company's competency with the business side of things.

NO ONE is saying they did not accomplish something incredible with their prototypes, but the Dutch Defender Squad is holding their design skill and intense motivation up as evidence that they will be competent at running the business and taking the game through production. What a lot of us are saying is that we have solid evidence that, regardless of their obvious design and marketing competence, they clearly don't know what they are doing with the business side of things, and at the very least made a huge blunder with how they address the refund situation. You can legitimately think Phil is full of shit and his actions horrible and still come to this conclusion.

You have valid reasons for looking at everything and still having faith in them. They definitely made a proof of concept that people want, and perhaps that will outweigh everything else in the end. But people have equally valid reasons, created entirely by DP themselves with no need for additional speculation, to conclude that they have blown all of their credibility as a company.

Quoted from RobT:

I think if he was dead set on causing as much damage as possible, there are worse things that he could have done than give people their money back.

Quoted from DCfoodfreak:

Major point being missed. They have a game that is easy to sell. Even the worst case at this point just means slower production.

Quoted from DCfoodfreak:

So folks really thought the money was just sitting there vs paying bills and ordering parts etc.

Quoted from DCfoodfreak:

We all just need Phils shit cleaned up and to move forward.

Quoted from lowepg:

Only in pinball will people significantly risk their money for a $1 "plaque" ! I love it!!!!

Instead of "achiever" it should be called the "PT Barnum"