Craig's selling more Pandoras on Ebay for £135

[comradekingu]

http://www.civilmediation.justice.gov.uk/ use this then, its a mediation service. Ive used it once in norway and it works well here, doesnt cost anything.

Edit: it costs 50 pounds for one hour in the UK.

Im in for 20 if someone does this. Im not in england, so i cant.

Small claims court, costs something like 100 pounds

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/overview

https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

 

[Løra (Lolla)]

@rohezal: Why should everyone else fix his mess? Sometimes, if you do a bad thing, then continue to do that bad thing, then run off leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces, then you do indeed need to be punished. As for an "honest talk", you can't have that with a dishonest person, which is exactly what he is. I wish life could be that way though.


@ekianjo: Good idea. I'd help

 

[levi]

I've had recommended in the past (before this mediation service came online I suspect, but still - I wouldn't be confident of that working with Craig) to get a Form N1 and fill in a copy.  Send the defendant a copy with a cover letter stating that you're capable and ready to take him to small claims court.  State what you'd be happy to settle for without taking him to court, and what you'd be claiming for it you did go through with proceedings (I assume you could claim back the 100 pounds it would cost to take them to court, but I don't know).

If you're in the EU I believe the EU provides an equalivalent service for cross-border claims, but I only saw reference to that when looking for the above form, and don't know anything else about it.  If you're outside the EU it may still be possible to do something, but I don't know of any process there and I suspect it's expensive.

 

[EssoAir]

I dont think legal action would get us very far, sadly. British law is lax in areas such as uncontracted money exchange. Assuming its not for laundering or illegal needs, if people blindly pre-order sometjing that never comes out, I doubt the UK government would realy care


especially since its not /that/ much money

 

[edgex004]

It says there are zero available. Have people bought them already? How many was he able to sell?

The one thing I worry about legal action, is that while the donation fund is helping fulfill Pandora orders, screwing Craig now will also be screwing everyone who ordered iCP2. There's no donation fund for those sad folks.

I would think the best route for Craig would be to sell control of iCP2, let someone invest the money to finish the project in a timely fashion, and hopefully let him make it out of this mess with as little debt as possible.

I don't want iCP2 preorders getting screwed, but I also don't want Pandora preorders getting screwed just so Craig can finish the iCP2 and take credit for producing another product.

 

[MrConfusion]

I would think the best route for Craig would be to sell control of iCP2, let someone invest the money to finish the project in a timely fashion, and hopefully let him make it out of this mess with as little debt as possible.

... a.k.a. letting him "get away with it"?

Fine, if you assume he's been placing and investing the funds responsibly.

Not so if he has taken the habit to play a millionaire while there's still funds to use and then just go "whoopsee" when the money is gone.

I thought the iCP2 was supposed to be a sure case, as in, worst case cost estimate doubled?

 

[ekianjo]

its not to harm him. its to make sure he stops this kind of business practices.

 

[EvilDragon]

The one thing I worry about legal action, is that while the donation fund is helping fulfill Pandora orders, screwing Craig now will also be screwing everyone who ordered iCP2. There's no donation fund for those sad folks.

iControlPad Ltd. is a different company than OpenPandora Ltd.

So unless he did some illegal money transfers between both companies, iControlPad Ltd. would not be affected.

 

[edgex004]

The one thing I worry about legal action, is that while the donation fund is helping fulfill Pandora orders, screwing Craig now will also be screwing everyone who ordered iCP2. There's no donation fund for those sad folks.

iControlPad Ltd. is a different company than OpenPandora Ltd.


So unless he did some illegal money transfers between both companies, iControlPad Ltd. would not be affected.

Sorry, I thought perhaps from the speculation that he was funding iCP2 with money from these sales that the two companies would be linked through him financially.

I would really prefer that he not be tied to any of these projects any more.

@MrConfusion - I don't want to let Craig get away with anything, but I don't want him to be continuously in debt, abusing the trust of those in the open source community to try and claw his way out of it. I just want him to be severed from the community without any profit or loss. If he loses money, he would feel like the community owes him, using this to feed his desire to start more projects. If he makes money, he would feel like he could start another project and make money again. I don't think he's a bad person necessarily, but I don't want him linked to any more projects that I would otherwise wholeheartedly support.

If legal action is the way to make this all happen, then I'm in support of it. I honestly would just hope there is another way that everyone can move one and not let anyone be screwed over.

EDIT: But I guess this is what people have been working toward all along, and Craig selling these Pandoras instead of sending them out as preorders completely flies in the face of that goal. So I guess his actions make him not deserving of my desired "everyone just walk away" scenario.

 

[pmprog]

I don't like punishments in generall.

I hope that wasn't a serious comment. Punishment serves a very useful purpose, providing that it's adequately applied relating to whatever caused it.i.e Somebody who drops an empty crisp packet doesn't deserve 10 years in jail, but what about somebody who intentially dumps tons of oil/toxic waste where it can harm people/animals/etc.?

Ignore him and hope to see him never again? Making an Internet Page about him (maybe craig-rothwell.com) and write about the things he did (just the facts).

Because everyone will believe that it's true - it's on the internet after all.
What about the people that don't see it, do you think they should suffer because they preordered his "iCP3" or "Pandora 2"?

 

[skeezix]

He has no money, so what will legal action do? Or do people mean to personally go after him? Hmrf. I'd be of the mind to just let bygonse go, move on; but if people want to punish him, he does deserve it for his deceptions - but he certainly doesn't deserve jailing or the like, so what punishment would you have given?; but he also has been financially wrecked by all of this, so perhaps thats punishment enough? I dunno.

The real thing to me, has always been his attitude; he will _never understand_ what he has done wrong; he will always carry this as 'I did my best, these people are all out to get me'; I just wish he could see how he screws people over, friends and faceless people alike. Ah well. In this, its on him to grow up; so the rest of us just have to move on, with no justice

The problem with all of this is he will do it again, and again, and again; it is his mode of operation. He's a user/abuser, and more people will get screwed.

jeff

 

[ekianjo]

jeff you have no idea if he is financially wrecked or not. a limited company means just that.

 

[pmprog]

He has no money, so what will legal action do?

... snip ...

The problem with all of this is he will do it again, and again, and again

I'm not a lawyer, but IIRC, legal action will force him to declare OPLtd bankrupt (if he doesn't finish cleaning up), which will not harm Craig personally. The bankruptcy, however, will prevent him from setting up more companies, at least for a few years, which should stop him from doing this to more people.

 

[Grench]

Well, sad to say, but at this time I also hope that multiple people will take legal action.


I always tried to support Craig to get him out of that mess, but that's just ridiculous.


Hm, I could send him an invoice for replacing the nubs, as he clearly uses it for commercial purposes, not to fulfill his remaining orders.


He also got an invoice for the cases and TV Out Cables (and I didn't get a reply to those yet), so I could try to report him as well.

I'm not going to buy anything from Craig.

It is a bit ironic, though, that he's selling complete units for less than half of what I'm trying to pay you (ED) for the parts I'm after to repair my two Pandoras.  (Order/request sent in IM on Oct 2nd.)

What Craig is doing to his customers and you by selling these units at fire sale prices is bad.

What Craig is doing to Jacquelyn, potentially ruining her vendor rating for her knit cap business, is very, very sad.

She makes some pretty cool/wild hats.

 

[MrConfusion]

I'm not a lawyer, but IIRC, legal action will force him to declare OPLtd bankrupt (if he doesn't finish cleaning up), which will not harm Craig personally. The bankruptcy, however, will prevent him from setting up more companies, at least for a few years, which should stop him from doing this to more people.

I just took a quick look at this place which I found via Google:

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/about/gbhtml/gpo8.shtml

And also, to verify the process is same for limited companies:

https://www.gov.uk/protecting-company-from-compulsory-liquidation

Things look very familiar, actually. Stuff I've heard from local friends and acquintances already... the UK differences are probably in the details which I don't know about, because I've never been involved in proceedings like this personally. This is definitely not rocket science, but there are pitfalls in this case, biggest one of which is clearly the one I've mentioned before: Scattered claimants.

You'll want to read chapters 5 and 6 of the first link.

Pay special attention to the difference between liquidators responsibilities when talking about voluntary and compulsory liquidation:

Chapter 5, whole text:

"The liquidator is appointed to wind up the company's affairs. The liquidator does this by calling in all the company's assets and distributing them to its creditors. If anything is left over, the liquidator distributes it among the members of the company."

Chapter 6, just the first paragraph:

"The Official Receiver has a duty to investigate the company's affairs and the causes of its failure."

--> You can read this as "crap really starts to hit the fan here".

Also, for the people who do not want to bother with "Fancy Text " (i.e. most people ;-) this has been put in plain English in the second link:

"You can be banned from being a director for 2 to 15 years or prosecuted if the liquidator decides your conduct was unfit."

So, do not automatically think this would not harm Craig personally because the company is "Limited". It could.

One addition, I got interrupted and lost my thoughts for a minute:

Do note that compulsory liquidation is not neccessarily easy to "start", much less "enforce" at all!

This is not only because of the paperwork, costs, etc., but because the whole idea of systems like these is that you

first try to settle between the company and creditor without court orders etc.

then the company can still act in a panic and try to settle with the creditor when papers have been filed (i.e. the paperwork is considered as a "threat" more than a decisive course of action)

and only if both of these steps fail does your company end up in compulsory liquidation.

So it is a... whatcha call it... "graded" thing?

Like I have already pointed out earlier, Craig can probably avoid the heavy stuff by simply settling when things get too hot with a single creditor, because the sums involved are so very small.

 

[hitbyambulance]

what legal action can those of us in the USA (or outside the EU in general) take?

 

[EssoAir]

what legal action can those of us in the USA (or outside the EU in general) take?

You could take the average Wal-Mart customer route and just complain ti everyone as loudly and as publically as possible

 

[EvilDragon]

what legal action can those of us in the USA (or outside the EU in general) take?

You could take the average Wal-Mart customer route and just complain ti everyone as loudly and as publically as possible

That won't help much, as everyone would just remember that OpenPandora screwed him, no one would know who Craig is.

 

[MrConfusion]

what legal action can those of us in the USA (or outside the EU in general) take?

As I said with far more words and background information in the previous post: Any legal action will trigger Craig to give a refund to you thus making the legal action redundant from your point of view.

"Dangerous" creditors are those to whom you owe so much money you can't pay and are not in a position to settle with. We do not know is such ones exist. I doubt it.

But having said this: I don't think legal action is "bound by your nationality" as such, it is just a matter of convenience... you don't want to book a flight to a possible hearing, paperwork is far, far messier etc.

What people shouldn't expect is for "something to magically happen with a turnkey action". Class action lawsuits are not as common in Europe as they are in the US... you can read this as: they are rare enough to not matter.

The way I see it: there is not way to stop Craig, really, because he doesn't even need to call for bankruptcy. Any proceedings started by an individual claimant will quickly end as Craig hands over the refund. And even if he does apply for voluntary liquidation himself, that still does not automatically mean an independent party could or would investigate the situation.

There are several grades/layers to go before that and he can collect funds to make sure he can close up safely. Which, like I've said before, is what I suspect he is aiming at: a safe retreat.

He hasn't done anything criminal either.

If compulsory liquidation came into effect, I'm almost sure something nasty would turn up and that would burn him.

But it won't, so that won't and that's the end of it as far as I can see... you can read the docs I linked to yourself to verify this...

 

[ingoreis]

@ED Is there a List how many Pandora preorders are to deliver yet?

Let Graigix out of Pandora Business.

Craig should say that Repairs can be send to You and Askarus or to Linux-Swat or to Link.

Maybe you find another one who make this Repair Service in England too from the Forum here.

Wow thats a hard Message:

Craig sell Pandoras on Ebay and Preorders wait and wait.

This i a Point where we must hold on together as a Community and help that People out who still wait for Pandoras.

I will Donate this Evening again for the Pot.

Let us end this and let us hold together because we are a real Community. ^_^

I think also about donating my golden Pandora for other Preorder waiters.

Maybe i send it to you ED for little restauration and then have one People more a Rebirth Pandora.

I still have a GHZ Pandora here then

Edit;

@Pandora Community:

Let us end this Preorder Problem finaly,

i donated 51.39 Euro(2.6%Fee)

We can finish this without Craig.

We all can do it,lets hold on together

Please donate too now