Shipping internationally sucks for a small business. I have lost more money in the last two years than the past 8 shipping internationally and having my merch just disappear. Don't even get me started on the EU BS and VAT taxes.

Steve's been in business a long time and is quite happy and doing quite well. Clearly you need him more than he needs you.

So wait...is The Bronx from The Bronx NY, or Bronx, Canada?

i don't believe that for a minute. he can't help it.

NONE OF THIS MATTERS to your complaint. If I'm in Alaska I don't get to complain to people that my costs are higher even though Alaska is truly domestic and tariff free.

Doing business with Canadian customers is more expensive - deal with it. Shipping is more expensive. Admin is more expensive. Currency fees/handling. Etc. None of that has anything to do with tariffs or legislation barring them.

As a Canadian you have constraints when buying from PBR because there are greater costs and differences when dealing with Canada. Find a Canadian parts supplier if you don't want to deal with those cross-border challenges. (and guess what.. you find they aren't as cheap as buying in the US)

I remember as a kid in NJ they tried that for a while. We had a similar "milk pitcher" for the bags. This would have probably been in the early '70s. It lasted maybe about a year, and then sort of fizzled out.

That's how many transactions take place in a business-to-business setting. However, this process is unusual for individual customers.

The subset of pinball people who buy stuff from PBR are a bit different than the US population as a whole. This place (USA) is filled with a pretty large ratio of lowlife a-holes. The types that will put some gas in their car and drive off without paying. I've seen people do it. Thus, we all pay first now, because they have to run their business and not constantly lose money. Its no big deal to me, I have to pay for it one way or the other, before or after is good to go.

How secure are the catalytic converters in your cars up there in Canada? You probably never have to worry about such things. We just had another one stolen last night from a car in the neighborhood, this was 3 houses up the street, and the car was in their driveway. This is a common occurrence around here, at least several times a week someone gets hit. I'm shopping for some weld-on protective plates to try to protect my cars. That's what kind of place America is these days. Its pretty damn annoying.

Seems like Otaku is always having a bad day when he stirs up crap here.

I have really come to enjoy the periodic Otaku eruptions.
He's very entertaining.

Long live PBR as it was previously posted. Just glad he has what I need. Happy to do business the way he says at it is HIS business. His business his rules. Thank you Steve!!

I’ve been a customer of Steve Young’s and supported his business for almost 30 years. He is a unique individual who has been a great asset to pinball for almost 50 years. If you don’t like how he does business move on.

I’ve never been to Otakas arcade but I did receive this t shirt after donating to beezleboobs escalera replacement fund.

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Steve Young is great. And #savetheboob beelzeboob

Gameseum posted that he has machines that are the only public examples in the WORLD!
Damn I thought it was mostly musty EM’s and 80’s video games. Steven please list the rare machines.

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Must have borrowed one of PBR's Escalera's and got banned from ordering

You never send cash. Just go the the post office where you are going to mail his letter and get a US Postal Money order.. easy peasy. This is not that hard and not even worthy of this question thread. I for one as a small business owner that pays unreal credit card processing fees applaud Steve for his business model.

He's not lying.

That day just happens to be Saturday.

But if he truly believes it, it’s not a lie.

I stand corrected...here it is on all it's glory, if anybody wants to take Gameseum's/Otaku's biased critique of PBR in any kind of context.

I will say it's a pretty hilarious thread, and a sign of moderation has tightened up around here over the past five years (not complaining just an observation!). The shit we used to get away with!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/awful-first-experience-with-pbr-any-good-alternatives

The best part of his coming back and starting this up again is he's actually not supposed to be allowed to post on pinside anymore. He closed his account 3 times (on his own) which is as you know three strikes and you're out for good yet here he is posting through a business ad account.............

Quoting myself seems so silly, but I wrote that having no idea that Gameseum was Otaku.

Still funny as Hell.

I often think people exaggerate things about Steve since damn - every time I call him I have a blast. He's fun to BS with! Mention what game you're working on - he's more than once made sure I was ordering the right thing. Only time he's ever chided me was when I stupidly said I needed two flipper rebuild kits when he knew I was working on a Jacks Open. "Jacks Open only has two flippers - what the Hell are you doing?"

My most recent order was going to be upwards of $600 so I called ahead of time just to make sure it would be cool with him. I've ordered a fair amount, but I know my account is small potatoes to him so I wanted to make sure I wasn't being nuts. I call him up to tell him what I'm planning and that I was going to do it via email since it's a big ass list of parts. He checks my account says - you're good to go, thanks for checking. Then we proceeded to just BS for damn near as long as it would have taken to order the parts in the first place. I hang up laughing to myself wondering how people ever get on his bad side.

Read that thread. That's how.

Steve is Great! Way back in the late 1990’s I got worried certain not so common parts would/could be hard/impossible to locate in the future. He tried to talk me OUT of buying a swing arm target assembly for DE Star Trek and a few other things. He would always say if there’s demand for an obscure part someone will step up and eventually make it.

Phone conversations with him are always a learning experience. He instantly spouts out obscure part numbers at a moments notice.

He is a huge asset to Pinball!

That's something else that amuses / confuses me. Everyone knows the mantra - have your customer number and part numbers ready. Yet I'm pretty damn sure I've never needed a single part number. The second I say the name of a part - he can spit that part number out off the top of his head faster than I can read it to him anyway.

The guy is just a walking talking encyclopedia.

I once called to order a few coils amongst other things. A rare case where I didn't mention a machine at the start of a call. I swear to God - two coils into my list and he says "What, you working on a Contact or something?" Yes, yes I was. I asked how in the world he just guessed that and he laughed. "Wasn't really a guess."

Great Guy Alert Steve Young

Great Company Alert Pinball Resource

Great Cabinet Maker Alert Kirk Weaver

Pincyclopedia!

I just remembered - I need to call PBR and place an order. Time to dust off the checkbook.

I can picture a guy with a personality like Steve’s operating the $1 grilled cheese trailer.

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Well said.

That's the secret, isn't it?

It's always hilarious to look at doofuses like Otaku saying moronic things like "Steve is shooting himself in the foot!!!" by refusing to mollycoddle people who act like children, and refusing to cave to their whims. No he's not...he's doing EXACTLY what he aims to do: eliminate interacting with idiots and pain in the asses.

At the same time, he's protecting all of us. That's fewer people trying to call and clogging up the phone lines him with complaints, address changes, shipping changes etc. etc. By filtering them out from the get go, not only does he not have to deal with them, neither do we.

Basically, he's a genius.

Yep, this is the way Wico did it. In the 1970's, when I started doing home pin repairs, I became aware of Wico from the trade journals. Their prices were way lower than the local distributors (one for Williams and another for Bally & Gottlieb) even with shipping. With a toll-free number too. I called in my first order. They had me mail a check and then the box came. From then on, I would call it in and the box came slang with a bill & payment coupon. It was net 10 days and I lived in Detroit and they were in Niles, Illinois. No sales tax either.

Steve carries on the tradition....

In sales we say if you're gonna lose, lose quickly and some customers you have to fire.

True. All transactions sent as "Friends and Family" on PayPal and Venmo are not subject to the 1099K reporting. For now. Trust me, once the IRS gets word of PayPal and Venmo's 10000% increase in F&F transactions and corresponding drop in Goods and Services transactions, those will get taxed, too.

Zelle reports nothing to the IRS. Zelle puts all responsibility to report on the individual. If you're receiving money to your business and not reporting it, you're opening yourself up to possible audit, regardless of payment method, even cash.

https://www.zellepay.com/faq/does-zelle-report-how-much-money-i-receive-irs
https://www.zellepay.com/faq/i-have-small-business-account-will-zelle-report-how-much-money-i-receive-irs

Just like when Ebay had to starting including shipping fees as part of the auction price. " $10.00 for the car and $5,000.00 shipping fees."

Oh man, I love Hamilton! We have family up there and are looking forward to visiting again now that the boarders have opened up!

To go back to your original question, though, cash in the mail, can you do it? Yes. Should you do it? Probably not. It's a gamble, if it gets lost, you lose the money and the post office isn't necessarily known for its reliability. If you're sending $5, maybe the cost of getting a check or money order cut isn't worth it, but it doesn't take much more to tip the scales.

See, if it was just that venmo quote, I'd be like, "Okay, boomer", but with the whole trailer, it's hilarious. Perfect example of context matters, exactly like it does with Steve. He's great.

Too bad that photo is 100% shopped...

I’ve met steve several times he used to go to Allentown every year.

Those days are long past. It wasn’t worth the effort for him to haul all of stuff there.

There’s some footage here, on my old public access cable show, of Steve, about 14 minutes in.

You’ll see how steve behaves like such an ogre!!! He’s truly a monster:

Yes. (Not me)

Not anymore.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/a-tour-in-pictures-through-steve-youngs-pinball-resource

Thanks Levi,

It is nice to see what the man looks like.

Ah, here again another thread devolves into the expected Steve Young as “Malignant Pinball Shaman” Pinside trope! It must be a butthurt snowflake thing, because I had uniformly faultless experiences and interactions with him/PBR (and sometimes I was unsure of the part#, lol). (I haven’t placed an order since about ‘07, maybe he has gotten cranky more recently?)

I had no issue with the payment terms, and neither should anyone else, IMO! I mean, it’s ridiculously straightforward: all it takes to establish yourself in good standing with him is to prepay for the first order (several options), then on subsequent orders he TRUSTS YOUR ETHICS and sends your goodies with an invoice. This kind of old-school “gentlemen’s handshake” square-dealing is vanishingly rare in this day and age, and any man who is willing to give this kind of benefit of the doubt to a total stranger based upon a single transaction is most certainly NOT a jerk!

The better question would be for you to ask Steve that if he was starting out today would he still use his current business model?