Craig's selling more Pandoras on Ebay for £135

[MrConfusion]

...mostly he just is a bad manager. ...

...The selling would be legal if he ...

Legality does not depend on where the money goes. Legality and obligation to fullfill orders are not the same thing. Companies use money to operate, money comes and goes.

So far I haven't seen a single illegal action by Craig.

A lawyer cannot just study a bunch of forum posts and "come up" with something. He would need access to documents which, if they even exist, can only be accessed by OpenPandora Ltd personnel. Meaning Craig, essentially.

Selling these units is simply the top of the haystack, but it puts the whole stack of hay in a new light.

Suspicions that have been at the back of peoples heads take form in that light. Mostly my suspicions circulate around the questionable existence of Craigs true dedication for bringing this project to an end, when the easier, less bothersome route wasn't so bad either for him.

It is very telling that ED had to take over the project. It also speaks highly of him that he did. The project was a mess and he knew it. But he was honest and dedicated, he wanted to finish what was started (even when he wasn't the one who had been doing the starting!). When I used to work in IT this project would have been the rough PM equivalent of a nuclear waste canister on the verge of leaking... And somehow ED has managed to neutralize the threat so far .

So as for Craig not being a very successfull manager: Yes, definitely not, he sucks at it, bad. A manager needs dedication of some sort to be any good. For the best managers I had the pleasure working for this has never been only the paycheck.

Craig sucking at management is, in a way, amusing, because it seems to me managing was the only thing he ever did?

In fact I'm starting to suspect that in "work life" we'd have labeled him as "a tamperer". He tampers with everything, mostly stuff he knows little about and messes everything up.

If I know anything at all about people like Craig he's probably furious with ED simply because ED succeeded! It makes Craig look bad. Unfortunately deservedly. Which Craig knows and that probably infuriates him even more... So why did he go along with it? Who knows... Because it was an easy way to get rid of dangerous major creditors, maybe?

In retrospect the weird thing is he has been pretty much the single point of contact between the people doing the actual work (dev team people, hw team people, people like ED, Link, Fatih, etc.). And it seems to me quite a majority of these people are not very happy they ever got involved in that co-operation, because of his apparent lack of skills for dealing with people (or anything else for that matter)...

Telling.

And now he's the only one who would really know where the money has gone, because he had no partner close enough to keep track of what he is doing. Who was watching the watcher? And he knows this. He also knew this would be the case at the time things occured. Someone trustworthy in that position takes extra measures to be transparent, clear and careful in his actions. Craig did not have that mindset.

Illegal? He would have had to "sabotage" the project intentionally, so no. Some of you are going to shout "he did", but before you do, think: Why on earth would he have? "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Questionable? A resounding yes!

Should you hire this guy, associate with him, or ever trust him again with anything? Well... not in the foreseeable future. He really has an uphill battle ahead of him to regain trust.

And looking at iCP2 I'd say he, a grown up kid, is heading down the hill on a tricycle shouting "Wasnotmewhodunnit".

Please note the above contains a lot of opinions and musing...

So much so, in fact that I think I don't have anything new to give to this thread any more and will just try hard to shut up now...

So what you're saying is that if people threatened legal action it wouldn't work because Craig would just give them their Pandoras? Sounds like a good plan to me...

Threatening via email... likely not...

Threatening by actually filing the appropriate forms, then sending evidence by mail that they have been submitted?

Yes, that would get his attention I'm pretty sure... I've done that once to a local company and I guarantee you my "customer service experience" got a friggin major boost .

...but it's not going to happen:

If all the remaining preorders were to make a really forceful claim at once that might cause his coffers to go empty and compulsory dissolution might then occur and thus someone might start investigating what happened. But even that is very unlikely. It would also mean the person who happens the be the "last straw" breaking Craigs piggybank would then be the one to continue with the proceedings. How do you know that doesn't happen to some kids parent who only wanted a neat Christmas present for his kid 5 years ago? You need quite a bit of dedication to go through that crap...

It's a game of straws everyone filing the papers would have to participate in. The one getting the short straw would have to deal with it. The community could help, of course, but I really suspect many of the remaining preorders who are not upgrading belong to the category of people who aren't willing to go through with it.

 

[MrConfusion]

I still guess that Jacquelyn selling them on ebay is a way for him to not need to pay tax for them and that he can do what he wants with the money afterwards.


That's just a guess though, as it would be quite illegal.

(And here's me right after I promised myself to try and stop posting to this thread.)

Not illegal.

For example Jacquelyn can buy broken units from OpenPandora Ltd for pennies (PCB's for 2 pounds, as we all know).

In fact weren't these units bought already way back when...?

These units, as you might notice are:


Item condition: Seller refurbished

Jacquelyn is obviously a rework station wizard.

And this is only one scenario/possibility.


I suspect OP Ltd will soon go into voluntary liquidation and it will be a very empty shell at that point where money is concerned.

 

[mcobit]

My point is still valid, if he sells them for pennies to her, then she sells them privately and gives the money back to him.


It's like when a car trader would gift a car to his mother who sells it privately, while the money goes back into the pockerts of the trader.


This would be illegal as the trader himself gets around paying taxes. As he is a trader with a company, he cannot just sell stuff he would normally sell through his company in private.

 

[EvilDragon]

You are trivializing whole problem to "I am just helping this out" (and I don't have to). So this is it, if we are adoring you, then ok, but we have to be quiet, or... you'll leave us? Or is there other reasons to repeat FOUR times:

• Should I stop deliver units to Craigs preorder customers and don't care about them anymore?
• But I guess I can either support Craigs remaining customers or let it be.
• It's my own decision to help out Craigs remaining preorders.
• I could stop helping out Craigs remaining preorders and no one could do anything against that.

I do not want to be part of this "chain of guilt", it is sick. Thanks for helping it, but you DID some things that we did not know about it at time, and... I feel that many of you know much more of Mr C "operations". More about it later.

Well, I quoted that a few times because it seemed you tried to tell me what to do - but there's not much I can do except the above. 

eMails and customer data cannot be made public for legal reasons.

And a public list with artifical numbers doesn't really make sense, does it?

I believe you will not make artifical numbers, I trust you, and most people here do.And, let us decide does it have sense, please???

I haven't seen anyone except for you who is requesting these numbers.

I already told how many are in the survey and how many have been shipped.

What difference is that from a public sheet with numbers from 1 - 500 where 60 are marked as finished...? 

And last, but not the least:

You won't let "customer data" out because of legal reasons, even if that could help to stop Mr C make bad things to people?

People that send money and get nothing in return, have right to give you legal permission to make part of their order data public.

You have just to ask them, or find somebody that you trust, to do that for you.

You are our last hope, ED-Wan Kenobi.

You know, transparency, no hush-hush anymore.

How would that stop Craig from doing bad things to people?

Whether that list would be online or whether we know how many are left and have been shipped - Craig would still sell everything he got.

Why would he care about that online list?

And yes, I would need the permission from every single person on that list.

I can't just make it public - that could quickly lead to legal actions against my company.

I still don't see the benefit having a public list with numbers and simply telling how many are left and how many have shipped.

Public list, please: thousands got Pandora, few hundreds did not. People will donate money / upgrade if they see it at one place.

Because, _that_ kind of kickstarter (based on that kind of transparent data) will give us solution for preorders mess. And the best possible way out.

And where is the difference from telling "50 served, 450 still to go"? 

The donations seems to work pretty good.

> And what business secret do I have...?

As a first, I am not accusing you, just I am appealing to be much responsible to "that" kind of people:You did continuing sell parts to Mr C, fixed him broken nubs free of charge. Indirectly sponsoring him.

As posted in the Old Preorders sections at the boards quite a few times (even before that):

These units were for the ones who decided to get a CC unit right away.

The PCBs are legally owned by Craigs company. I couldn't have used them for anything else.

The nubs were not free, I will get them from the iCP production run (besides, they're not expensive).

The 3 hours working time was free, okay. But I did that during the night at home, so it's basically my free time I offered for that.

And the remaining parts have been SOLD to him - so that he can build the finished units and ship them to his waiting customers.

That was what we talked about, that was what I even posted to the public.

If I hadn't sold the parts and replaced the nubs, he wouldn't have sold working Pandoras, but just the PCBs.

The result: Basically the same - no other customer from him would've gotten anything.

The difference is:

There was the chance that he actually ships these units to his customers. That chance was not given if I hadn't replaced the nubs and sold him the parts.

If you asked people here, by "private mail" (or whatever): "Should I give him another chance?", there is a big probability that most people will say:

"Look ED, you're a nice guy, but this is like a give a drug to drug-addict". Unfortunately, that was not public but your private decision.

True, and I never gave and will give him another chance after the 1GHz fiasco happened.

However, he owned the PCBs.

I couldn't have used them.

So the decision was:

1. I sell him parts, repair the nubs. Nothing lost (except three hours soldering in a nightly session), but he MIGHT deliver to his customers.

2. I won't repair and sell parts. He'll just sell the PCBs without anything else. It was 100% sure none of his customers would get something.

You (he, everybody...) can't be half a decent man, and half a dirty player, agree? So, you can't do business again and again with somebody of that kind, and trivializing it with: "I'm just helping here, I did not know what is he doing until now, and what he _could_ do if I help him again."

Yep, and I am not doing business with him.

He cannot buy any Pandoras from me. But case parts and LCD Cables are no issues, as my stock was big enough. 

Last thing you need is connection ED = scam, and this prick is very dangerous. You stole him his preciousss. So this is answer to

Where exactly am I his hostage?

Still don't see a hostage here.

I don't see any danger he could do to my company.

No one would believe him anything about the Pandora anymore.

And it doesn't take long to find out that I'm not scam, I doubt he can make a connection here.

We are all, but: as there is only one remaining unsatisfied preorder, or investor, you are in situation to get accused / get dirt on your name because of that situation. As Mr C said: "I do not have anything with that anymore, everything is in ED's hands". Do not forget that he publicly said that you broke the arrangement between you both (omg how is this sick to write about). So it is just a question of time he will try again to make things like this construct.

He can't. No one would believe him anymore. In fact, no one did believe him when he wrote that sentence.

I haven't had ANY issue after that. Sales kept high, and none of his customers tried to accuse me. In fact, they're all friendly when I talk via eMail with them and understand the situation.

In my opinion you think he has a lot more power than he really has.

That was a few years ago. Now everyone except his old preorders mostly thinks about me when it comes to Pandora, not about Craig.

And most of his remaining preorders fully understand the situation and know who I am and who Craig is.

Pandora project should be cut out of Craig, not just because he is doing much more damage then whatever he contributed to project, but also because he is hurting people beyond Pandora project. There is no excuse for that behaviour, whatever you do can not fix damage he did/is doing/is planning to do.

He is already cut off the Pandora for a while.

But no one, not you, not me, not anyone can prevent him selling remaining parts he has.

If it wouldn't be refurbished Pandoras, then it would be PCBs. But it would still be Pandora parts.

The only way to stop him selling his old parts would be bankruptcy (as he wouldn't be in control of the company anymore) or when he runs out of old parts. 

That's what we have to wait for, there's no other option.

Pandora was a jumping board for ICP2, ("we have been involved in such as the OpenPandora, iControlpad, GP2X &GP32"), and he will hurt more people just if he could, using you and Pandora.

And still that's something I can't change.

He was involved in the Pandora. That's not a lie. Nothing anyone could do here. He can state that whereever he wants and it would be the truth.

The only thing WE can do is let people know that he nearly killed the full OpenPandora project and that I'm the one who saved. And that I do not support anymore of Craigs projects (as you can see, I'm not on iCP2 member list as well).

There's nothing else we can do here, because he is not lying.

 

[Timstertoo]

It's easy to dismiss Darkborn based on his profanity and speaking directly to ED. But if you strip all of the rhetoric he has a point.

 

[levi]

What point is that again, sorry? I just painstakingly read the last page and can't see any point he made that hasn't been addressed by ED and others.


For reference, if it's about him asking for ED to publish the list of remaining customers, he should have a read about data protection in europe.


Anyone who wants to can email ED and ask him if they're on the list, and get a response in due course. Seems to me that would achieve just as much as putting the list up on some public URL and posting about it here. It's not as if ED's email address isn't publicly findable - he's not hiding.

 

[vcoleiro1]

How many more preorder Pandoras does ED need to fulfill in order to uphold his agreement with Craig?

 

[EssoAir]

How many more preorder Pandoras does ED need to fulfill in order to uphold his agreement with Craig?

He has already fufilled 60 more than he is contractually required to

 

[Løra (Lolla)]

Maybe the people that want to take him to court should do so. The people that want to donate to help make that happen should do so. The people that have other ideas on how to rectify the situation should carry those out accordingly. Then everybody's happy .

 

[EvilDragon]

How many more preorder Pandoras does ED need to fulfill in order to uphold his agreement with Craig?

Basically, not an single one. It wasn't a contract, it was a plan.


The business plan involved that with 4000 produced Pandoras, 1300 could be delivered with the profit of them (so 2700 sold Pandoras made enough profit for 1300 free ones).


Of that 1300, Craigs customers were 800, 500 were mine.


When my queue was finished, about 250 should still be left from Craigs queue which would be sponsored with the remaining profits.


Craig needed a lot of money (for refunds, according to him), so I bought all parts off him for about 80k EUR and reduced his remaining Pandora queue (if that money really goes to refunds, then that's just okay).


Then there were the 1GHz Pandoras Craig never paid to me. These were reduced from the queue as well.


In the end, when we had 2600 units produced, based on the bookings, he got enough money / Pandoras that his queue should've had 150 left, so he got more than was planned originally at that time.


However, in reality he still has over 500 left - impossible for me to fund these with the remaining orders.


A unit ordered as upgrade doesn't even make profit - so it doesn't help much.


I've seen replies to customers where Craig complains that he didn't get as many units as were planned and he is disappointed that my customers got all their units wherease his didn't.


Well, he didn't get that many Pandoras, but enough money to pay for the same amount of refunds.


Moneywise, I got enough for 500 free Pandoras, he got enough for 650, so I even used more money for his customers than I used for mine.


The real problem is that despite he got enough money or Pandoras to fulfill or refund 650 of his customers, his queue only shrank by 300.


No one knows what happened with the rest of the money (a whopping 40k EUR) - especially as he made quite a bit of profit with the 1GHz sales as well (about 70 were sold to new customers by him for 600 EUR, so he made another 21k EU profit on those!)


It's all a big mystery what he did with all that money, he probably doesn't even know himself. But now complains in replies to his old customers, that I didn't send him enough Pandoras...

 

[FaeMinx]

^ That post should be stickied.

 

[vcoleiro1]

It's getting late, so I'm not clearly understanding whether ED still owes Craig 150 Pandoras in line with the original plan?


Or did the 150 shortfall get covered someway else?

 

[mcobit]

He never owed Craig anything.


It is purely him being nice that craigs customers get Pandoras at this point at all.


Craig got a shitload of money with this plan, nobody knows where that went as it should have reduced his queue to 150 by now.

 

[Exophase]

It's getting late, so I'm not clearly understanding whether ED still owes Craig 150 Pandoras in line with the original plan?

Or did the 150 shortfall get covered someway else?

The original plan involved all sales of new Pandoras going through ED, who would then use the profits from those sales to fund outstanding preorders. This plan was made null and void once Craig asked to collect money for 1GHz Pandoras directly then purchase them at cost from ED (and AFAIK he never even did that much, ED sent him a batch of 70 which Craig somehow thought was a free gift). From this point onward, since Craig was collecting profits - mind you, at a much higher rate due to $700 per unit instead of $500, it would be his responsibility to use money from those profits to pay for his preorders (by ordering additional ones from ED at cost).

Otherwise the whole thing loses its balance. But Craig clearly didn't understand that. Point is, whatever the original agreement was it doesn't really matter anymore. But yes, had they stuck to the original plan ED would have still paid Craig Pandoras from his own profits.

Let me reiterate all this once more, since the whole 1GHz Pandora mess is so descriptive of how Craig does business. Had he went with the plan as originally detailed ED would have assumed all the remaining responsibility. He wouldn't have had any hope of making profit but he wouldn't have taken on any additional risk. The heat would have really been off of him and he could stop worrying about the Pandora mess and focus on new things. But then he goes ahead and takes $700 from a bunch of people, then gets 70 units from ED and can't give half of that money to pay for their manufacturing. When ED tells him he won't send the other 80 units until he gets his money Craig refuses and all of a sudden that many more people are left without Pandoras. And we're stuck wondering how Craig lost all that money he got for the orders. Some people (well, one person) still feel sorry for Craig because he is in a difficult financial situation. But I don't feel sorry for him at all. I bet he was thinking he'd get a couple thousand new orders for 1GHz Pandoras. He would have made a ton of profit from that. He took on a risk hoping for a big reward and he handled it terribly guaranteeing he'd fail (after giving the finger to half of his very first 1GHz orders of course his prospects were instantly destroyed), I don't feel sorry for him at all. And then it's pretty much the same story with everything else he does. He brings this on himself, takes down people like ED in the process then blames them.

 

[rohezal]

Wait there were 150 sold Ghz units for 700$. This are 105.000$. On top of 80.000$ dollar for the parts ED bought. Almost 200K $. All Ghz Preorders were solved right?

 

[ekianjo]

All Ghz Preorders were solved right?

No, apparently there are still 1Ghz preorders waiting in Craig's line. I saw one not too long ago on the boards.

 

[notaz]

The original plan involved all sales of new Pandoras going through ED, who would then use the profits from those sales to fund outstanding preorders. This plan was made null and void once Craig asked to collect money for 1GHz Pandoras directly then purchase them at cost from ED (and AFAIK he never even did that much, ED sent him a batch of 70 which Craig somehow thought was a free gift).

By now I'm quite sure "somehow thought" was actually his intentional misinterpretation of ED's plan, as he received the invoice multiple times when he was sent the 1GHz units (based on what ED said). Craig knew that he would get no profits according to ED's plan, so he deviced a plan of his own: raise the price of 1GHz as much as people would pay (first do some usual probing on a forum thread (first post didn't have a price originally)), then ask ED for units that he would supposedly buy for production costs. But the thing is, he never intended to pay for those 1GHz units, as he just knew he can write them off as "free pandoras" from ED's plan! He also exploited ED's naiveness (once again) to get as many units as he can in one go before the supposed payment, and then ask for more until denied. The whole "I'll buy units for production costs" thing also served as a workaround to long wait time on pandoras that come naturally from wait on ED's profits to fund free pandoras according to ED's original plan.

This may sound as a conspiracy theory but if someone has better explanation of 1GHz fiasco, feel free to provide one. The assumption that he sees those 1GHz units as free ones is further supported by his attack here and here (of course he also "forgot" about the bought out parts too).

As for where the money went, no explanation was ever given so I can only assume they went somewhere "safe", Craig's relatives perhaps? Legal action could be useful to help finding out.

 

[rohezal]

This may sound as a conspiracy theory but if someone has better explanation of 1GHz fiasco, feel free to provide one.

But I don't get it, could Craig not just pay ED the half of the 150 * 700 = 105000$? And keep over 50.000$ for himself? Without destroying his business relations? And drop ship Pandoras in the future for production costs? So he makes 250$ per sale, without doing anything for it, for a long time?

I don't get it, if I would have wanted easy profit, I would go the long term way, by giving 50% of my profits to manufacturer, so I can make profits in the future.

But if I had no feeling of right and wrong and would be greedy and won't think in the long term, I would have taken the money and run, this is maybe right.

If the story about the mortage on his house is true (he took a mortage on his house to pay CC for the Pandora Production), maybe the bank did some trouble and he had to use the money to keep his house?

 

[mcobit]

Well, if he got into such serious troubles, that would be understandable and if he would be honest to ED there I am sure he would help him.


It is just this hide and seek playing without any information that pisses everyone off.

 

[FaeMinx]

^ My assessment is that Craig was desperate to pay off debts (not even necessarily related to any Pandora business)...

debts about which he believed he couldn't disclose to anyone.

I wonder what those debts could be that has caused him to behave in such a manner?

I could speculate... and due to the troubled 'colorful' period of my younger years... I'm all to familiar with this kind of behavior, and what leads to it as well as ongoing mounting 'debts'.... (and inability to think clearly or long term).

But that would just be speculation.

It fits though.