Hello everyone...I am yet another person in the "Jonathan took my money" group. I didn't even see the original post but I did just receive the first phone call from Jonathan in over a year. He seems to be shitting his pants over the posts. He told me that I am one of 12 remaining customers not compensated for what we purchased.

The "promise" was that I would receive an email today detailing a payment plan which will repay me for my original purchase amount. Based on verbal details of his plan it would take him roughly 13 months to complete.

I can't say that I trust any of this, but if he sends it over I will gladly start accepting money right away. I would love to get back some of my lost dollars.

LOL. I'm sure this is going to work out just fine.

I haven't even finished the original thread, but if what crwjumper says is true we can't go around posting details about him and his family. Legal action is the only technical way to handle this. The group of people I have been emailing with are all plotting the most logical progression. I am confident we'll find a way to highlight the crime and use the system to extract some sort of revenge.

I agree this is good to talk about openly...it just makes sense for us to stay above the belt right now. I've lost a lot of money but I still consider myself fortunate based on how much I could have lost.

I think I caught up to the other thread...it seems to confirm what I've suspected for a while. There is a bigger scam going on here. Somehow Jonathan was getting these games as he sold me 3 new in box LEs without any issue. About eight months ago I called Stern to inquire about ASOA's status as a distributor. They told me that there was no affiliation and that he was not a distributor. If that was the case, it seems unlikely I could have gotten these games shipped directly from Chicago.

Because of these Pinside threads I now have a letter from ASOA stating that I will receive payments starting this month. I don't believe it as I believe nothing around this whole situation.

I have tried to keep quiet out of respect for others who have lost money in this situation. My research has lead me to a similar believe as @iceman44...if we push the business into bankruptcy everyone may suffer. I also agree with iceman44 in that there is something to be said for Jonathan's attempt to contact me and start making his debt whole rather than just scurry into the dark like a roach.

That said, I speculate that if he is in fact an effective con man, it makes much more sense for him to cap this like an oil fire. He may have multiple other big dollar cons going on and he would need to shut this down ASAP.

At this point I'll wait and see if this first payment comes through, then the second, then the third, etc. If there is any sign of stopping or negotiating I'll just create a FL police report and hit up atty general's office. I like the IRS route and 1099 approach someone else suggested as well. Maybe I'll do that on top of the other two.

Frankly I would consider it good money spent if I could be responsible for taking a scammer off the street and putting them in jail. After 15 months I consider that money lost and I've just been looking at effective ways to bring him to justice without damaging everyone else's position. Thanks to crwjumper I am pretty confident that I can go full bore now.

Not trying to snipe at the comment, but if you found out many other people were out huge money and just making waves could cause them to lose it forever, what would you do?

It is easy to sit back and speculate but the conversations we've all had in private email to this point helped me to stay my hand as I wouldn't want anyone to lose money due to my rogue sense of justice.

It has been a REALLY hard call for me over the last 15 months or so.

Frankly I was scared it would take money from others pockets.

I have a fear that ASOA bankruptcy would effectively "steal" money from others. Also, I was under the impression that ASOA had stopped selling pins post this issue with myself and a few others. If I had good data, or any of the data laid out in that other post I may have acted differently. You have to understand, I'm thousands of miles away from ASOA...I was trusting what others were telling me and it wasn't just Jonathan.

On top of that I did confide in three other distributors and two pin manufacturers. I thought we had stopped the burn for lack of better knowledge.

I haven't seen anyone come forward who was burned post February 2020. Acting on the data I have today, we did actually stop the scam and limit it to a smallish group.

Look team internet...this was a hard situation.

I am not saying I did everything right but I challenge anyone who says those of us who have been burned did anything wrong. What you don't see are the months of scheming, planning, talking to lawyers, researching DOJ complaints, talking to FL collection attorney's, etc. that we all did.

Once you are inside of a big money possible con you kind of become a deer in the headlights. You don't know what is true or false. You worry about the impact to others and you even wonder if the things you perceive as lies are sometimes founded in truth. It is super easy to sit behind those keys and imagine what you would do...but you don't really know what you would do until it happens.

At the end of the day I was just issued a partial payment from ASOA because of these threads. I spoke with Jonathan on the phone and made it very clear that the portion of what he owes me is not enough. I expect to continue to receive the scheduled payments as promised and furthermore expect that EVERYONE else receives their payments as well. I told him that if I did not see progress in that direction I would be splitting this money amongst the other outstanding liabilities as I see fit and attacking him with every resource I can muster. Again, now that this is public I have less concern of protecting the anonymity of the innocent.

Lastly I will say, although complete opinion, it is possible that a small business man got in too deep too fast and was hugely impacted by the pandemic. I waffle back and forth as to my own belief here, but if you look at some of the facts he actually could have been running a reputable business which was crippled by an uncontrollable situation. If he makes everyone whole and repairs the damage caused, this would actually be one of the more impressive stories of pinball corruption that I've read about.

I've heard of people who are still waiting for their JPoP machines or whatever other scam out there. At least Jonathan seems to be attempting to recover.

How do you know any of this?

Factual history shows MANY situations where small companies boldly lied to better their stance and ultimately became Atari, Apple or Microsoft. The world is business is ultra nuanced and you can't just say there is one clear way to grow.

As I've said in other posts, I intend to help everyone else get back to even. I'm not defending anything he has done. The data I have does not indicate parking lot deals, million dollar homes or Ponzi schemes. I have speculated all of those things over the past 15 months but my data has never shown it. As of today, the data indicates a rapid attempt to right his wrongs.

We will see how this plays out. I hold true to my word that I am in this for the group and not myself. I will help everyone who has an outstanding liability get their money back.

Yeah, my original dealings were pre-pandemic. I believe the pandemic is an easy cover but chances are things had hopped off the rails before hand.

At the end of the day, if he can square everyone up and get back to running a reputable business I see it as kind of a success story. Either that or this becomes the next Tiger King on Netflix. Either way we all benefit right?

You have to prove fraud though right? My concern was always that my claims of fraud were "strawman" since I've never done anything more than talk to him on the phone. Yes, I believe I've been fed lies or "untruths" but I could never actually pin down fraud.

At some point you don't want to be one of those people that calls the police because Popeye's ran out of chicken sandwiches.

Yeah, the advice I've received from multiple attorney's was to continue pressing and not destroy the business. I guess I could have talked to a fifth attorney or studied law myself but I didn't have time.

The power of the internet is amazing. The guy is currently trying to repair damage and refund people. I say let him do that. If he falters the collective internet can go ape on him and the business. In the meantime it doesn't seem productive to defame a person (not saying you were doing that) who seems to be making an attempt to recover. Time will tell. If he is going to pay people back month by month, the first month that doesn't happen is the first month of absolute never ending hell for him.

Mark my words, I'll spend another 17k to absolutely destroy him if he truly is a scam artist.

Yeah, that is what I want to know.

I actually got a letter today and some of my refund to my PayPal account. I have my doubts but thanks to crwjumper this is a step in the right direction.

I honestly didn't think posting on Pinside would do anything but it seems to have done A LOT. I honestly appreciate the good people in this hobby who try to keep things on the up-and-up. It is really nice that a lot of people who don't have skin in this game are standing up for the ones that do. All I have been saying is that we have evidence things are moving...we can douse the torches and wait for the next payment, then the next payment, etc. I am not defending him at all...just using facts I have behind my money to recommend a direction which might benefit all of his outstanding liabilities.

Awesome, you rock Bill! TY for stepping out and trying to help all of us. You have all my contact info in Pinside and email if you need anything.

Yeah, I didn't know any of that. Honestly I didn't even know he was on Pinside. I will absolutely be researching it.

Is there any chance that if we go hard starting right now we end up f'ing over others who he is working to pay back? My original concern still stands unresolved. Maybe I am completely naive to the process, but I did check with multiple attorney's on this.

This is a super trollish statement. You’re honestly saying that Pinside couldn’t include “a real reputable attorney” that got scammed in this way?

I tend to think a high percentage of people on pinside are possibly “real reputable attorneys” because these games cost a ton of money!

It is clear to me that some of these exceptional posts should be on Facebook helping to invent the news and cripple all human society.

I don’t disagree with the constructive posts. The guidance to view this as a criminal matter seems logical. I do however feel compelled to call out people who are just lobbing shit into the air and hoping for the worst possible situation.

Do any of you with the attacking and accusatory comments think you are helping any of us? If someone can produce material evidence of a “Jonathan scam” that happened in the last six month’s I am all in for immediate jail time. If not, it is possible there was embellishment and massive personal “fuck up”.

Again, there is no defense or support coming from me. I am trying to use the facts I have to make my decisions. Posting about someone having a multi-million dollar house and lavish cars sounds good but I haven’t been able to find evidence of it. Someone please PM me all the data you have and I’ll take it right to the police.

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.

I received another payment one day earlier than the agreed payback plan. I'm not trying to get into anything...just wanted to make sure that I reported status for the rest of the group.

I just received my third installment. I'm now 41% paid back!

I got my may payment just now. Hopefully everyone else is being trued up! I really appreciate crwjumper for kicking this into gear and I appreciate Jonathan for working to recover from a bad situation.

Awesome, this is great!

I received my June payment on time again. I think Jonathan is actually doing a great job of building his credibility back. He is also helping me with a Stern claim on one of the games I purchased from him.

Again, not trying to start anything...just posting for record keeping and others out there in the same situation.

Received July payment.

In my case yes. I stopped posting because ever time I did the thread turned into a flame war. He has like 5 more payments with me and then I’ll be 100%. Hopefully everyone else is getting close as well. He has been really responsive.

I’m very close to paid back in full. I think I have like $4k left and he pays me $1k perfectly on time every month.

Like everyone else, I am pleased to be reporting this and I think it shows some character that he did the right thing.

As of today, I have been fully paid back! Thank you to everyone who provided valuable comments and PMs. Thank you to Jonathan for following handling this the right way.