If you think I am trolling, you may need to do some more reading. My post was actually a reply to the person who I quoted that initially came up with what I was replying to. Hence my quote of his post. I was actually NOT agreeing with his theory that the games were stolen, if you had actually bothered to read what I typed. I was commenting on his post and theories. The only trolling was your snide reply questioning what I would do if I was to find out I had a stolen game. You stated what you would do if you suspected a game was stolen at time of purchase, not what you would do if you found out you already possessed a stolen game, which is what you asked me.

Anyway, I feel for the situation that all of the victims (including you) found yourself in. While you may be angry at some of the replies in this thread that you are getting, your anger is directed at the wrong person in this case. Read everything someone types and don't scan it over making assumptions on their position.

I read and understood everything. Please stop wasting my time.

Turns out that of the 4 Stern games I purchased from JD/ASOA, 3 have moved on over the past 2 years. So...if I found out they were stolen today (to satisfy your hypothetical), there is nothing I could possibly do. The games are no longer in my possession.

If you dont get why it matters I am not about to explain it to you.

If what I type is a waste of your time, then hit ignore. Problem solved. I posted in a public forum on a topic plenty are talking about. You are the one who engaged me, not the other way around. Sorry that you feel butthurt over what I typed, but not sorry for posting or for anything I said. Deal with it however you choose.

And since you edited your post after I replied, I will add that the stolen games was not my hypothetical. It was actually jdovaq from this post: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/part-2-beware-of-jonathan-demare-asoa-/page/7#post-6144262
which again, was what I was replying to. I was not suggesting they were stolen. I actually said that I think that's a bit of a stretch and went on about how the serial numbers would have had to been reported if that was the case.

Got it, Morty. Hope you get your game soon...it's awesome.

If it actually happened it would matter.

As of now, there is zero evidence that authorized distributers were in on this scam. Just because some games he sold went through an authorized distributor at some point doesn't mean he got a special under the table deal or the original distributor knew what he was doing. One distributor has already come in to say they sold him a game just as they would to any collector or operator. You've put forth a number of speculative theories in this thread and the original one that try to draw other distributors into this with no evidence.

After reading some of the vague posts in this thread, I’m not so sure that is true statement. Seems a few here know what is going on.

oh?

Why are people trying to look into the dealers Jonathan was buying from? Simple. When he was selling cheap games out of the back door, the other retail dealers (especially Florida?) were losing these sales themselves at legit prices to legit customers and they felt the dealers selling to him (Jonathan) were "turning a blind eye" and should now pay for it.

That's my guess.

Can anyone pinpoint a single game of any type that is on location by ASOA?

Some of the statements being made here do not add up that J.D. is an actual operator of anything.

Its not that distributers were in on the scam its the possibility they were selling to Jonathan at a vendor discount or other discount that is not authorized by the manufacture and is breaking their distribution agreement. This is what needs to be researched. Did any distributer break their agreement or knew what Jonathan was doing? If the distributers did nothing wrong then they have nothing to worry about if all information is exposed. I don't understand some Pinsiders (especially icemans) perspective. Ensuring distributers to their agreement minimizes certain types of scammers and scams as the scammers costs would increase.

not only lack of evidence with this but some are still defending him on other points as we don't have proof. I know this, if you have a warehouse and legit business you don't hide assets. Most small businesses would exaggerate their facilities and capabilities not hide them. No evidence of warehouse, trucks, staff, routed games,.... = probability they all don't exist.

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Suffice it to say there are plenty of people who know whats up but wont get into specifics.

Everyone is just looking out for themselves as people do.

Same way these sort of things go on forever to begin with....

That is simply not true....he was the operator of scams.

Here's a possible answer to your question about the P.O. Box as an address. Using myself as an example, I own a golf cart rental business (in addition to a golf course that I own, and a golf course that I lease, with everything in different zip codes). The location is in the boonies and there is no mail service available. Hence, I have a P.O. Box. It's the only way for me to get mail.

Here's a possible answer to your question about not having a physical warehouse. I have a decent size storage unit where I keep my back stock of golf equipment. It's 20x40. The storage unit next to me is the same size. The guy who rents it routes pinball machines and arcade games. He's got 30-40 machines in there at any given time, and uses those to swap out games that he has on route. He does all of his repairs in that storage unit as well. While I suppose you could call this a 'warehouse,' it really isn't, but it's all he needs to run his business. By the way, it takes all of my will power not to hang out in his storage unit while he's there. Neither of us would get any work done.

Here's a possible answer to your question about meeting a delivery guy in a parking lot to deliver his games. Going back to my storage unit neighbor, if I were him, I wouldn't want to have people over to my storage unit and see all of my games. Why give someone the idea of breaking into the unit when nobody is around? And there are enough nut jobs around that I wouldn't want to have someone over to my house to purchase a machine either. So meeting someone in a Walmart parking lot doesn't seem to be that bad of an idea. That is presuming that I do not have a brick-and-mortar location where I have set up a showroom and part of my business model is to sell pinball machines to anyone who might walk in the door.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I went through a real tough three month stretch in 2019, and while I was getting things squared away with my creditors, I (obviously) wasn't able to do any business with them. It would have been very easy to take orders for golf clubs, then blame it on the manufacturer's when the orders didn't arrive. I didn't do that. It would have only gotten me in more trouble. It cost me $50k to $60k in lost club orders, because I told my customers I could not get what they were asking for. It wasn't any of their business why I couldn't get what they wanted. But to have taken their money then started doing the deflection dance, man, I was already stressed to the max. I didn't want to add to it, plus it's not the way I roll.

This is all conjecture on my part, but it does give possible scenarios to your questions. Personally, I think this guy might have started out with decent intentions. Then he either got in over his head, or he saw an opportunity to take advantage of folks. Either way, in my opinion, he's at the very least not a good business person. And based on everything I've read in these two threads, he's not very honest, or isn't as honest as he should be. Interesting couple of threads though. It would seem that there are some shenanigans involved at some level.

Just my .02.

This is a possibility

I just can't square "good intentions" with lying about an imaginary Alien remake.

This is some Costanza-level lying shit.

"Not only is CGC (not some Italians as it turned out) remaking this thing, I've got two of them in my warehouse and I'm doing all sorts of testing for them! It'll be ready in 30 days! SEND ME MONEY!"

Anybody willing to shovel that amount of bullshit to solicit money hasn't had any good intentions for a very long time. He said he actually had two of these things in Florida!!!!

People who come up with schemes usually do better than this crap. This seems half hazzard.

Its possible that...the guy has a drinking, drug, or gambling habit.
Hookers and blow.

It's what they do.

Do you know this for a fact, or is it conjecture?

I am in no way, shape or form sticking up for this guy. He needs to make good with everyone. Once he's done that, he needs to go to jail. But some of this seems to be really over the top, unless there's information to back it up.

I in fact got a game from him.
I got at decent price that undercut my normal distributor who lost out on a sale.

Stern sent this to you but who ordered it from Stern? And which distributor that you normally order from missed out on an order?

Oh yeah and the manufacturer told distributor to cease & desist.

So let’s hear the rest of the story from someone that knows more....

My bad. I should have phrased it more clearly. Sentence should have read Its possible the guy...

I read many cases while working in a prison law library. I listened to many white collar criminals in a year long 500 hour drug program at Lompoc. The behavior that I read here is typically fueled by alcohol, drugs, gambling, or even a woman. Doesn't mean this is the answer here. Maybe he enjoys the thrill of using other people's money. Seems a tad strange that a thread is posted and all of sudden payments are made after all this time.

This is over-thinking things. If a dealer sells a game, he "writes off" the cost as COGS. If on operator buys a game and puts it on route, he can most likely expense ("write off") the entire thing under Section 179.

What this is doing is simply not reporting income, and doesn't require the "stories" about theft, fire, etc. loss. We've had a few clients get caught for under-reporting income, one with criminal implications. Just deposit business income into your personal account and hope the IRS doesn't catch on - worked for this guy until it didn't. No stories needed.

I have no idea who ordered it from Stern. Not on the invoices, not discussed and not mentioned on the box. Support was done with JD/ASOA.

I don't have a "normal" distributor. I've used many over the 17 years I've been in the hobby. Over that timeframe, I've lived in many different states/homes.

I've told my story in considerable detail...24 posts in this thread and 16 in the first thread (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/beware-of-jonathan-demare-asoa). I have nothing more to add!

snaroff,
You are overall pretty patient,extremely honest sounding and forthcoming to the non-vetted jury-Thumbs up to ya

Just don't piss him off

.

I have all three Stern LEs I bought from JD before the fourth purchase that went bad. What can I do with the serial numbers to determine the distributor? All three games shipped directly from Stern. All three games have been registered with Stern. All three games have been supported by Stern. I have always listed ASOA as my distributor even when I started doing the operator and tournament stuff.

Stern never said a word about my games being stollen or coming from a weird place. As many have articulated, things were good until a sudden stop.

As a first time Stern buyer there was zero indication of foul play. JD started to get fishy around January 2020 for me. That was when I was getting the “it should be shipping next week” type of lies.

What can you do? well nothing really.

Only really two scenarios here... Im going with option B but draw your own conclusions.

A. they didnt know it was going on and shut it down when they found out hence the stop of flow of games

B.For quite a while they were allowing an unauthorized person to buy through authorized channels and flip games as a broker.

Its was all fine when money is flowing but cash issues arose and people and likely suppliers started getting stiffed (hence to stop of flow of games).

Sent PM - but basically email Stern your serial numbers and ask who distributor was on these. For reasons already stated on knowing the distributor- see previous posts.

As far as warranty I am sure Stern is good and will honor everything. So you are good and enjoy the games.

Pretty much sums it up for 90% of the post on this thread!

The games aren’t stolen.

If you were one of the many legit dealers following the rules who got screwed out of 2 years of sales you would probably feel differently...

everyone else was just a sucker for a good salesman

OP here

FWIW, each game that I got through JD came addressed to ASOA at my address. None were ever addressed to me personally, which tells me that the distributors thought that they were shipping to (an admittedly tiny) ASOA location. I know that JD does have quite a few locations of different types such as video arcades, trampoline centers and the like. I think that many of these don’t focus on Pins, but may have one or two pins in the food or observation areas.

This is speculation on my part but would explain how JD could easily make the distros think that they were shipping to ASOA locations.

Again, let’s be careful not to get possibly innocent parties in trouble because of JDs practices. I started this out with the goal of making JD pay each of us the money that he owed us, and I hope that we will accomplish that. There was a definite bad player involved and I exposed him.

I don’t want to harm possibly innocent parties. Unless we can prove a distro’s full knowledge that they were not shipping to ASOA, then we ourselves may do harm to unknowing parties. And I think that intent or knowledge is impossible to prove without a shadow of a doubt.

I want to help the community, not hurt it.

Thanks again
Bill Clement

If Jonathan had all these locations and money why wouldn’t he just become a stern distributor? Why would he pay a middle man?

Because operators aren’t distributors. Just because I own 37 cars (I don’t) doesn’t make me a dealer. And Ford isn’t going to make me one to cut out the middle man.

operators buy from distributors... hey wait. lol

Not the same thing....he was selling games too acting as a distributor...This is stern pinball not Ford.

FYI - since you are technical about operator and distributor...... YOU are not the OP of this thread - please correct going forward.

Secondly - If multiple Stern distributors were involved here - JD is the truly the scum bag here.

Third - If this is 1 Stern distributor - IGNORANCE is no excuse. Especially if he was sending dozens and dozens of games this way. You don't think a single distributor would know this?? Common man - I have another pinball to sell you - trust me - dang.

Fourth - People don't think the operator/distributor knew something up when they were sending games to you as ASOA? WTF?

Just read this post and couldn't help think of this thread. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gnr-price-increased-by-1k/page/22#post-6145391

I was also an early JJP supporter like the poster above. After ~2 years, finally asked Jack to refund my money (rather than sell it for a premium on the open market, since I didn't want to be blamed if the game took another year to show up).

Until we stop buying "futures" (and hope our drug will be delivered in a timely fashion there will be disappointment in the NIB market. In a sane world, none of us should be paying for any game that isn't on a truck toward it's destination. Period.

@ DoorCounty - I think you are on the money on all points. That distributor knew. I'd put good Coin on that and Take that wager.

You may have that suspicion but assuming these things is not wise.

Thats why folks should check those serial numbers with Stern.

The distributors gets an order that says ship to ASoA at this address.

From the distributor’s point of view there isn’t anything shady about it.

What is it about that process that stands out to you as something a distributor might flag as unusual behavior?

Sending pins to a residental address with curbside and lift gate services requested and phone contacts that are not ASOA and different names might be a clue and also they are spread out to various different states across the country.

Highly probable that distro knew. Guessing Stern got wind of this and put a stop to it.