Hi All,
Nate here. I'm Daniel's partner in Nifty LED and the repair side of the business, from which this all began. I'm sorry this has gotten so out of hand, and had a couple other things I'd like to clarify: The communication with the customer was there the whole time. It wasn't a sudden increase in price, it was just a sudden shock of all the things he agreed to as this went along. We've been completely transparent and whenever pricing was asked, we provided, honored and have been in contact. Before we took the machine, we told the customer that the wait time was going to be VERY long, simply because we had a lot of other machines in queue and changes in our lives were going to slow work even further. We finally got to his and started working on it. We like to take our time, to ensure a good job, and this one was no different.... it took a long time, just as we had told the customer up front. It's sometimes said, "The one who shoots first, is usually the one that wins the gun fight". Clearly, several pages of posts before we had a chance to say out side of the story made us look like the bad guy and we were too late to defend ourselves. Your minds had already been made up, and there's really no use beating a dead horse.
Besides all of this, it's so disheartening to see where this has gone. Daniel and I have a strong client base and if you know us, personally, or have shaken our hand at the shows, I'm sure you'd agree that the way we've been made out to look like is certainly not our character. The posting of the game on eBay was inappropriate and we have no excuses for it. We were seeking reimbursement for the time and parts we had put into the game. For that, we apologize for the lapse in judgement. After invoicing the customer, he eventually stopped communicating and we were left wondering what to do from there. We tried reaching out several times but there was radio silence from him.
As a side note, I fell in love with pinball several years ago and became a member of Pinside almost immediately (private acct) and have since been less active due to a busy schedule. So many people in our local pinball league have said what a toxic place Pinside has become and I've always tried to stay positive and see the good in people on this forum but unfortunately we have become the one which fingers are being pointed at. This hurts. I can't help but feel the same way as them and although Pinside is supposed to be a conduit for us as a place to learn, help each other it seems to have turned into something else. I'm sad that this place, the very thing that's supposed to HELP pinball, is one of the reasons I've begun to lose a lot of interest in pinball. The fun is gone here.
To those of you who have sent us PM's, text messages and have called us, we appreciate the support. To those of you who think you know the whole story and have condemned us, that's your decision based on an incomplete set of facts and we respect that. Feel free to reply if you wish, but we will not be responding to any more posts.
Regards,
Nate