If you have the documentation to back up your claim, then he can't go and accuse you of harassment and get you kicked out of the Con.

Someone has to confront him and ask him why he isn't honoring his commitments and contracts.

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I thought about that, too. I'll have to do a little research into preparing an airtight case. Luckily for me, I've got a couple of friends who practice business law; I hate to waste their time on such a trivial matter, but at least one of them must have at least a functional knowledge of this type of situation, or would know someone who does.

Whether by luck or forethought, he's got a foolproof way to avoid Paypal disputes (there's a time limit within which you can open a claim, and he all but guarantees that your order won't be ready while it's still in effect), but it can't be this easy to commit fraud and get away with it. This guy isn't some criminal mastermind, or else he would be smart enough not to leave a trail of angry, embittered customers amid a very small niche target market; he's obviously content to lose a percentage of sales from horrendous word-of-mouth, but with such a narrowly-focused business, it has to be cutting into his profits. I'm a little ashamed to be involved in such a ridiculous situation, but this has been going on for years now (I was definitely around for at least one or two previous iterations of the exact same situation), and I'm sick of hearing about how easily he's been able to slough it off and continue his consistently abysmal business practices.

I can't believe so many people are still friends with him on Facebook and such. He clearly is not a good guy. I wish this would get resolved for all of you guys.

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I'm going to post this here as I just put a post up on Facebook as well as my True Gritt Customs facebook page. I had dealt with Alyosha in the past a couple of times. I never had a problem with my orders but I've now gotten one of his broken arrows in my ass as well. Basically what happened was back in August I placed an order for about $39. I read that Alyosha doesn't want to be contacted until after the 6 week mark after an order has been placed(which as sgartz noticed as well is convenient since Paypal won't let you file a claim after 45 days-which is about 6 weeks). In October I sent him an email politely asking him for an update. He never got back to me. I sent him another email after the 2 weeks he requests people give him to respond-still nothing. I then looked to see the status of my order on his website and his website was inaccessible since he has had it shut down for a while. I went back to his page to see he typed up a note stating he had changed emails. I sent an email to that address and waited his required time before contacting him again...still nothing. I finally sent him a message Dec 14th on facebook so that I could track if he opened it. He finally got back to me on the 15th stating he would see what the deal was and to give him a day or two. I responded that day asking him if he needed any further information to let me know. Dec 22nd I followed up with him again-no response. On Jan 3rd I sent him another message, followed by January 18th, and one final one on Feb 4th. He has read all of these messages and he also has been posting on his personal page during this time so it isn't that he hasn't been on. I don't have any idea how this guy is still able to operate in the fandom, it is simply inexcusable that he does this consistently. Whoever runs the cons should be notified that Alyosha is a con-artist and have any privileges he has to attend the show or have a table revoked. I'm curious the level of hatred and self-loathing this guy has that he screws over so many people.

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I'm sorry to hear this, even though I know there are more stories like it.



This is the first thing about the whole situation that I haven't been bummed out by; nicely done!



This is a really smart idea. It makes me wish I had been Facebook buddies with him. I think the odds are rather slim that he'd accept my friend request now...



That's the thing I keep coming back to, as well: what's to be gained from doing this? Did he really need my $120-some dollars that badly, but couldn't afford to turn out the products purchased? That seems unlikely, since he's been operating his store since then and does what appears to be a pretty brisk business on eBay as well (and, as I've mentioned ad nauseum, they were all listed as "in stock" in the first place, so I kind of figured they didn't even require any effort beyond putting the damn things in a box and shoving them in a mail slot). Does he just enjoy playing the villain? He's obviously not afraid to, since this has happened several times in the past. Did I violate some sort of unwritten code that he runs his business by? He's clearly fulfilled other orders in the 15 months since I placed mine, so how does he decide which deals he chooses to honor and which ones he doesn't? Beyond the ethical questions, I just don't understand the logic of running a business this way. If fraud is the goal, pick a better group of targets than a small and relatively close-knit group of niche-y hobbyists who are also notoriously cheap.

Hi,

Well you seem to have filled one order.
Can you fill mine.
ANY sort of reply to ANY communication would be most appreciated
- but honestly if you don't fill my order at least have the courtesy to return my money
I got the following message from you
JULY 6th of LAST YEAR.

The status of your order id: 130418-202005-7613 has been changed to Processing

I have received NOTHING

Oh please give him "my best" if you do.
For some reason after I actually posted on his FB page asking if ANYONE got any of these orders he's sending out (he will list like 5 or 6 every 4 or 5 weeks) and all of a sudden I was booted.
I know at least one other person who was a little less polite than me who had the same thing happen.

He has a "store update" page on FB is there any way to get Facebook to remove it due to criminal activity?

IF you can get on his page.. hit the settings tab.. report group..

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Haha thanks sgartz, yeah the broken arrow seemed to be appropriate. You actually don't have to be facebook buddies with him, I"m not, you just send him a message and when he views it you'll get a "seen on" under your message. He seems to be obsessed with attention regardless if it is positive or negative so I'm sure he'll see this. As roguetiger stated you can report the group as a fraud or scam on facebook.

Yeah my history with Alyosha has been an interesting one. Back during the JvsC era his customs would get a lot of notice and so would mine. They were completely different takes but I really liked what he did and he would state the same thing back. He would send me private messages asking for advice on customizing techniques etc. I always gave them because if you're going to be proprietary in this hobby then don't even bother being in it. We're all making customs based off of work of characters that were initially created 30 years ago by one person, and have been altered, changed, redesigned, over the years by many different other people so the entire franchise is kind of a customizer's dream.

So anyway after helping Alyosha with customizing advice and skills I started to hear from other people that at the cons or in messages he would trash talk me. Bekker (when he was still involved in the boards) told me that Alyosha would go into depth about how my work sucked and lots of other details. I never spoke with Alyosha on the phone and honestly a lot of the things people were saying were way too much drama for me for a hobby, so I let it go. I would order from him from time to time if he had a part that someone else didn't have etc. He always fulfilled the orders so I didn't really care.

I hadn't ordered from him for awhile so this past summer I needed a few parts that he had and figured I'd give it a shot. Apparently even though he had trash talked me I did something wrong to offend his "moral code" (whatever the hell that code is) and I'm now on the broken arrow sticking out of my ass club...honestly that's a better club to be in. To be in Alyosha's "Liked" club would make me question myself as a man and my moral code. So god speed Alyosha I hope my $40 is worth it on whatever you spend your money on. I hope Sgartz $120 was worth it along with ALL of the other customizers who trusted you to be a person of integrity and fulfill your responsibilities.

Ill begotten gains always have a way of coming back and biting you (or more appropriately in this case) sticking you in the ass.

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Where do you think he gets the "FREE" parts for his classes......................the parts he don't send to people..............

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Sadly no, not since I was booted about asking when I would finally see my stuff.

And...
In like with his procedures about questions and complaints I'm sending him an e-mail once a week.
I'm sure he's not reading them but I hope he at least gets reminded about what a wonderful person he is every time he ignores the notification.

He's no good, I'd never order from him again . I've twice in years past and both were wrong.No one should be his friend. There's another caster who's really bad too and I'm sure a lot of you know who, but he treats some right

I am considering starting a web page/ tumbler called Letters to Broken Arrow Toys.which will contain all of my old and unanswered letters and have a new one once a week. Alyosha has not seen fit to respond to any of my e-mails on either facebook or through any other service except for a few conciliatory posts which resulted in nothing so perhaps I should fling my posts to the Aether and so anyone who looks up the bastard will find them.
Opinions?

I like it: anything that'll dissuade people from ordering his products* is OK with me. I'm no lawyer, but I don't see anything potentially problematic with this: you're only posting your own messages and noting that they haven't been answered and that the order hasn't been fulfilled, all of which could be proven. It can't hurt: maybe some poor customizer will see it and be spared the annoyance of trying and failing to get the items that they paid for.

*And is it even technically "ordering products" if the items don't actually exist and never arrive? Broken Arrow Toys casts are the Schrodinger's Cat of online commerce.

I like it.

You're posting your messages. If there isn't any responses from him, then he can't complain about his messages being put out there.

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