If anybody who got scammed is dumb enough to sign that contract, then it's their fault for getting scammed twice. The contract won't be legally binding. It's interstate, both parties won't be present at signing, it won't be notarized, and he'll make sure there were no witnesses to him signing it. Believe me, he'll squirm his way out of that contract, too.

At this point the only way to hold him accountable is through law enforcement. He had his chances to come clean and send out the games or give people back their money. But he chose a different path. Now he needs to be put away for a long time.

Just fyi that both parties being present at signing, being in the same state, and being notarized are not requirements of a contract to be legally binding. But I do agree anybody signing any contract with this crook is a fool.

Apparently the contract was "in an unreadable format" so I doubt anyone's signing it anyways

Hey, I took your money and scammed you with these games. Forget all that, just sign here and all is well.

Yeah, OK.

I know these days the internet has opened up all kinds of new legally binding situations(hell, some states even allow legally binding verbal contracts), but I'd never consider doing something that legally binding with that much at stake over the internet/with digital signatures. Hell, a bill of sale is a type of contract and doesn't really require those things to be considered legal, but I still prefer to do that kind of thing in person, and by hand.

Exactly

Generally, contract or not, once you start accepting payments for an item, you are stuck accepting payments and it is no longer a theft. This is why you will see folks pay off medical bills $5 at a time or other such nonsense. This guy is no dummy. He is reading the posts and trying to protect himself, and he is doing it well enough to see he is well educated in the art of the scam. Who would go though all of the trouble to ship an empty shell of a game without an end game in mind? He knows if he ships anything and calls it a game on a manifest, it really makes the water murky. "Gee Mr. Judge, I tried and tried to ship Mr. Jones his game, but he kept refusing it.!".....it then becomes a subjective disagreement about condition, and not a theft. Same with signing a contract or accepting payments.... Anyone falling for any of this is just leaving themselves wide open.

One or two people might sadly fall for it, but hopefully the majority of the rest of those that got scammed file a complaint with IC3 and contact their local secret service office so this guy still goes to jail. As long as pictures were taken of the shipped items that were refused, they(along with the original pictures of the items that were supposed to be sold and shipped) can all be entered into evidence as showing that they are not the identical items agreed upon with the original sale. The judges and attorneys may not know much of anything about arcade games, but I'm sure they're they can look at two pictures and tell that the items in them do not match in any way, shape, or form.

In a strange turn of events some people are starting to get their machines and there is 0 sign any of them were in fires. It's like he took money for machines he thought he would have and then made up the fire story when he couldn't actually get them because why else would he not have just sent those ones out from the start rather than months later?

Color me shocked

Bizzaro... Hope it works out for everyone... Eventually

Quoting myself, but apparently I was wrong. The people who get their machines say they were covered in soot. Still doesn't explain why he didn't just ship them from the get go.

Soot is better than nothing IMHO.
I'd hope the soot could be cleaned off for many of the games

Glad I don't have any horses in this race

I am new to pinside (just getting into pinball again) but have been a member and arcade guy for a long while now. KLOV can be a strange group for sure compared to here. Both communities seem to have their fair share of "get off my lawn" geezers but KLOV folks take it to another level. I tend to build multi machines due to space. Regardless of how accurate you try to make the gameplay i.e. period correct leaf joysticks, buttons, CRT, etc you are a red-headed, bastard stepchild unless you're an absolute purist. I get not liking some of the Frankenstein "all in one MAME" monstrosities that I have seen over the years, but sometimes they are just trolls to be trolls. Being an arcade fan isn't enough for them.

For that reason, I just lurked because most of the threads turn into circle-jerks. Pinside seems more about the play and enjoyment of pinball vs the circle jerk; but then again, I am a n00b and have only been in a couple of threads thus far.

Welcome.

It is certainly a different world; but, both sites/communities have a wealth of information. I had the inverse experience as I started with vids and was a KLOV member before the pins and once I started with them - put the vids into storage. Now that my game room is up and running, I’ve got space for a handful of dedicated games and it’s been fun getting them up and running.

I think the “defensiveness” around the vid enthusiasts is that their side of the hobby has always been at the frontlines of emulation and replication. Hell, bootleg boards of games have been a thing since the inception of video games (side eye at my Missile Command w/multi game Super Missile Attack). When MAME gained popularity, I’m sure it overwhelmed the community and that is where some of the defensiveness stems from.

Probably similar to the whining here about the “remakes” devaluing the original games or even the “new” games taking spots on the top 100 list. Loss of perceived value.

For as protective as the diehard communities at both locations can be - the “sham” discussed here is an oddity. One would expect the site with rigorous membership guidelines and diehard purists would’ve been more guarded in purchasing/trading than this site/community that seems a bit more relaxed. Over there you see games sell in minutes via online transactions and shipping. Here you may see things quickly “sell” and go to literal or figurative “pending pickup” and payment.

Maybe the difference is that they don’t have a Vid equivalent beating “cash on glass” into their heads. Of course, it is considerably harder to get cash to stick to a video game monitor due to the angle and the marquee bezel isn’t big enough to put all the quarters.

Anyway… welcome here.

Now get off our lawn.

Maybe someone had a "chat"

Hopefully Mr. Louis Ville Slugger was there too.

Haven't seen the thread on KLOV, but hopefully all the real chatter about filing with the Secret Service and Internet Crimes talk really woke him up. I'm sure he'd rather be poor than in jail.

Can't we have both?

Well, he's trying to start a grow house where part of one already burned down. Sounds to me like he's already halfway to poor.

Guessing you got paid in weed?

Some people being paid, some people being compensated fully, some people being compensated partially, some people left out in the cold. Zero consequences for Steven. Wonderful.

Compensated "fully" in quotes. A lot of people have been convinced to take machines they didn't originally agree on and don't want as much just because it is less of a loss than if they kept fighting.

I'm not sure anyone actually got what they originally paid for.

Why so cryptic? Did he make you sign an NDA? Spill the beans.

And If I was one of the scammed, I would give the NDA a timeframe. Pay me back in full by X date or the NDA is null and void.

Has there been any more updates to this saga?

Whoever did that site did a bang-up job. Lots of good, accurate info and took time to share the depth of the scam.

This dude, and his friend Kris, need a serious beat down. One of these days, that will happen. I guarantee it. They'll try and scam the wrong guy and it'll backfire on them, huge. The guy won't be like us, on collector's forums or anything above ground like that. And he won't take being scammed lightly, at all.

I've seen way too many tv shows and documentaries with this kind of thing happening. It's what happens when you live in a world with drug dealers and backroom deals. At some point, someone gets greedy and tries to pull a fast one and they end up doing it to the wrong guy, or group of guys, and they pay dearly.

Absolutely. The guys who all got screwed should pool some funds together and send one of those street level collection agencies.

Sounds like most (not all) of the people out were made whole again.

Really, I don't see that at all.

You are correct. It seems less than half have been made whole from what I can gather.

Few if any got what they actually paid for . I’m not sure anyone was actually made “whole” .

Right, many were told take this or get nothing. That isn't being made whole.

You're partially right. But also mainly wrong. No one truly knows all the people in a particular subset or hobby. You have no idea what we've done in our pasts, who we might be related to, or who we've known our whole lives. You've never even met, or seen in person, over 99% of us.

Let's use your Hell's Angels example. They're not going to target the Hell's Angels directly, obviously. But let's say just for the sake of argument that one of the hundreds of HA clubs out there has a pinball machine or some arcade games(I can assure you that more than one does) or even a few pool tables. What if the guy who gets those devices for the club decides to answer the FB ad that Kris puts up for one of Steven's games, then gets scammed out of the game and/or money. Then what do you think will happen? Exactly.

I'd love to see Steven text somebody like that the way he was texting people from the KLOV group.

Exactly ! I wasn’t involved in the scam but I’m a life long construction worker and I have handed out a couple beat-downs when it was necessary. I’m sure there are many others who have as well

Dont you underestimate us IT guys, we'll take away your facebook!

Another new piece to add. A podcast about this scam. I haven't listened yet so no idea if there are any good details in there.

It’s all bullshit. That Donahoo guy is all over Facebook with a ton of rare shit, some of it obviously came from the Silly Salmon guy... and NO ONE ever calls him out on it

I mean look I don’t know anything about anything with regard to the situation, but even Stevie wonder could see this. Called it months ago.

What kills me about how it all went down and ended up is how all these people(including some seriously well off people who probably have some fairly serious jobs like doctors or high level engineers) completely trusted some random, super foul mouthed dude over the internet who can't spell to save his life(and has obviously turned off autocorrect, or is so dumb that even autocorrect can't figure it out) and called each of them all kinds of unspeakable names in direct texts, to send him tens of thousands of their hard-earned dollars for a guy's somehow magical collection of almost all the most sought after arcade games in history. But NONE of them trust the Secret Service or other gov't agencies enough to pursue any kind of legal recourse.

Sad.

Maybe they do... but he deletes those comments and blocks the user. Pretty easy to do on FaceHooker.

He admins a lot of the groups he posts in I believe.

The FBI doesn't care. Search the SkitB thread for FBI.

That may be, but I never suggested they contact the FBI, only the Secret Service based on what my friend who's actually in the Secret Service suggested.

Yep Kris sells stuff all the time, got away with everything. Probably still considered to be a good guy by a lot of people who don't know any better. Only a matter of time until he takes people for another ride.