In the beginning before Haggis had distributers the Fathom’s were supposedly built and held in storage awaiting a fully loaded shipping container’s.(Paid in full)

Some of the buyers before distribution did not want to pay for the $1700-$2000 charge to have it air shipped.

I believe one container may have shipped by sea. But this was always an option for pre-distro buyers to wait for the free shipping. (Obviously, a bad choice looking back)

Distribution started and some games started showing up at distro’s before the shipping creates ever made it out and before other’s in line received there games. (By air or sea)

The games in the storage? Well I believe we know what happened to them.

Easy to change the game numbers and born on dates and send them.

I do NOT blame distributors. But there is a lot of back story to this whole shit show!

Haggis’s emails are loaded with falsehoods, lies, and deception.
And a bunch of other industry manipulation’s .

All of this ‘innovation’ strikes a huge chord with what happened with Ocean Gate. In fact that story, in itself, is relative to Haggis albeit lives being lost. Cocky and self-righteousness doesn’t make any situation better.

Owning ones bad decisions has become almost passe hasn't it ? I liked how he said (paraphrasing) "since I own my own business, I'm not going to stick it to another business for my informed risky decisions". I understand its not for everyone, and depending on ones finances could put a major crimp in the bank account not allowing to fall on ones sword. But yeah, he gets it. I respect that.

One takeaway from this fiasco, I am going to ZMeny for all our future pinball purchases. The guy has pretty much done the right thing and stood by his customers, and he gets my dollars and support going forward for that.

If the claims are accurate about Damian promising pinball machines to employees (and not providing) and underpaid, or non-paid staff, then the way that he has filled out the Report on Company Activities and Property is pretty disappointing

Screenshot_20240805_185621_Adobe Acrobat (resized).jpg

[Deleted]

Who were the big cheerleaders?

That’s a very important detail to share! Very smart

Haggis Account

Tommy-dog I personally do not believe this is a viable long term solution to the issue, but I would urge you to please post any of your information in the thread that directly addresses the playfield issues and possible repairs

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/haggis-fathom-fixing-a-raised-warping-playfield-

Pre-Haggis, the factory on the outside (at least) definitely does not look like this right now.
Saw it today

Another way for people to support ZMeny for being a good pinball guy would be to subscribe to his Paterion for the pinball show.

Someone sure had fun with someone else's money.

my meme got more accurate lol

IMG_4849 (resized).jpeg

What in the actual fuck?

Jesus.

wait...is this saying Damien is in charge of his own liquidation?

This is getting crazier and crazier. Nice detective work yancy ! ... Edit: Nevermind, you bastard

No, it's a different firm, but if he's a liquidator, it means he knows all the tricks of the trade, so to speak.

Let's just all settle down for a moment. Check the spelling of "Damian" vs. "Damien". Not the same person

Also it's a doctored photo. Yancy is trying to be funny

Screenshot_20240806_025110_Excel (resized).jpg

What a difference a couple of days make.

Satire

Clearly a coverup; Damian had it removed just like his LinkedIn page. Also nice try misspelling his own name to foil searches.

So what you’re implying is Damie(a)n sets up bogus companies in obscure industries such as pinball for the sole purpose of then running them into the ground and thus providing guaranteed work for his liquidation company?

Man is a genius.

OK I'm picking up sarcasm now, but I think its important that we clearly confirm or squash this Damien/Hartsco liquidators thing. So it is fake, right? Like theres no way this is real. Some quick google searches turn up pretty much nothing for me.

Fake. Yancy was trying to be funny I guess?

Yancy was mocking everyone here and continues to blame the victims for the fraud that was committed.

I thought is was funny and creative

Can we refer to Damian as “Shit Stain” it is so much easier on the eyes..

Is Gillian’s head in the sand?

Not so warm and snuggly anymore like the Aussie members here wanted us to think...

Screenshot 2024-03-03 at 6.43.33?PM (resized).png

No, he's enjoying his machines so he's good with the situation. "GO HAGGIS!"

Damian is a dropbear?? Yea, that explains a lot.

It is Mr. Shit Stain to you. Thank you very much.

That Koala pic is throwing off some serious Basement Jaxx "Where's Your Head At" vibes.

Yeah, that didn't age well at all. As if we would win more gold than the US - even I spat my coffee out at the original comment.

So it would appear that by "recapitalize" what Damian really meant was "find some sucker ... I mean financially savvy individual ... to give me $3.5M to refinance $2.5M of debt with $1M for additional operating costs and paying loan interest to hopefully stay afloat. $1M of that will of course go directly into my pocket to pay me and my subsidiaries back for all our superb uncompensated effort on behalf of Haggis". He'd probably even be willing to guarantee that all that recapitalization money would be safely secured in an escrow account of course if any part of the process went awry. And lets not forget the IP he'd be handing over to secure the debt allowing the owner to keep making playfields that will require all customers to replace in a few years after they separate.

Gee, wonder why that didn't work, its seems on the surface like such an amazing limited time offer he had available there.

One correction to the meme, we do not have LLC companies in Australia, we have Proprietary Limited Companies (Pty Ltd).

looking at that factory all i see is a death spiral of too much overhead.

Same as Deeproot

Hey now… at least Robert stole from people less likely to realize they were being scammed.

Haggis, through the power of good intentions, actually delivered some games.

Every collapse of a pinball company is a testament to how lucky we should be for pinball to exist. It’s a ridiculous industry, full of hard work for not that much money, fraught with peril

Don’t need to support a podcast, just hopes he learns from this fiasco like everyone else involved. I’d consider him as a distributor at some point.

Investment advisors gave Robert their clients money they were entrusted with as a Reg D “accredited” investment.

Essentially acknowledging that you have the wherewithal to accept the risk and are of a certain level as an investor.

They didn’t know they were investing in pinball. The promised returns were supported by “insurance and other business”

But hey, who cares about all that now.

Zach guaranteed against bankruptcy right? And he paid the price for that mistake?

It’s really too bad.

Sadly, we can all now see the *1* reason above all others that killed Haggis - the playfield. If he had of just used a traditional wood playfield, he wouldn't have spent so much time and money re-designing mechs for the different playfield (and God only knows how many playfields that got damaged during assembly or shipping that had to be replaced).

I bought the game IN SPITE OF the playfield - not because of it. It would have been more appealing to me to have a traditional playfield. He would have simply needed to re-design the original Fathom playfield for a modern trough and then the original Fathom mechs could have been used.

I don't credit Jersey Jack very often as he does some stupid things - but at least he was able to reverse and re-do the Hobbit art, reverse and re-do the PotC spinner, etc. ie assess what works and what doesn't and what doesn't justify the expense compared to the benefits. Unfortunately Damien never did that with the playfield between Celts and Fathom.

Don't know about Gillian? I presume you were implying moi? Gilligan

Wondering what the recapitalization email was all about. He knew with 100% certainty, that know body with a 10' pole would touch this company once they saw the numbers. What did he get out of it? Was he buying for a bit more time to unload the factory....just wondering because he did it for a reason. It's not like he was buying any good will.

In failed pinball startups that are gonna lose a bunch of people money, there’s ALWAYS a “this was harder than expected and We are regrouping and won’t rest till all your games are made!” email a few months before the final collapse. This is a tradition going back to the first try of Magic Girl.

The “recapitalization” email was simply a clear signpost and admission that it was over, delivered softly enough to buy a little time. But I think most of us realized it was over for sure when that came out.

Just speculation, but could be that he was in deep denial of his circumstances he was in, and his own responsibility for it. I've dealt with people in this situation before and some of them sincerely believe that they can trade out of the peril that they are in. They don't want to let go of the company (along with the status) because of how much they tie in their own identity, and sense of self-worth to it.

I just can’t believe that Mr SHIT STAIN frankmac can just move on, run his other businesses like nothing has happened. I think it’s criminal that the law allows a CEO or what ever you call him to knowingly ask for money on games he knew wouldn’t be built. Then just move on, how does he sleep at night. I’m so glad I opted out after he first went silent and refused to answer calls and emails. Funny how they were available all hours when he wanted my deposit.

I think if I lived in Melbourne I’d have an old car painted up with “Damien is a liar and a cheat” parked in front of his business for all to see. I wonder how many people would trust him seeing that at the front door. As long as the car was registered it’s not illegal!

Mr SHIT STAIN is right…….SCUMBAG to his friends.