ZX Vega +


RCL posted the following on their RCL Facebook page. Seriously , you could make 50 movies out of the Vega+ drama

Appeal for information

Paul Andrews and his fake law firm LSB INTERNATIONAL LEGAL SERVICES
==========================

It has come to our attention that Paul Andrews, our company's former Managing Director, has been pretending to be a legal advisor with a firm called LSB International Legal Services, operating from his home address of Luton.

Since September 2017, he has been using paper giving the solicitors registration number 420716 and the names Caroline Crawford. Mr Andrews has sent menacing letters to ourselves and various of our company's suppliers and collaborators, in an attempt to intimidate and disaffect them from dealing with Retro Computers Ltd along with the threats of legal action if the recipients do not comply with his demands.

We wish to advise you that there is no such law firm registered in the UK as LSB International Legal Services. Furthermore, the law firm registration number at the foot of the paper on which Mr Andrews has been sending these threats is the expired registration number of the firm Crawfords which has ceased trading some time ago.

If you have received a letter from this company, we ask you to contact us in confidence at hello@retro.business

Yours sincerely,

David Levy
[Chairman - Retro Computers Ltd]
 
What the actual Feck?

If this is true then I don't see this fiasco ending any time soon, deliveries or nay.
 
If this is true it's a bit stupid to use your own home address, surely that would be spotted pretty quickly.

I really don't know who to believe in all of this saga.

All I know is that RCL had a lot of money and have delivered nothing, Andrews and Smith got a fraction of the same money and have already delivered a working product.
 
Well it's all coming to a head, they are still saying deliveries will commence may 8th-12th. plus if it doesn't happen this month igg steps in
 
Delivering the few prototypes they have to some backers will likely keep IGG off their backs I reckon.
 
It's difficult to know what the hell is really going on, with both sides slinging insults and lawsuits at eachother, and shills for both sides fighting hilariously on facebook - though recently the tide seems to have shifted away from RCL and towards Andrews/Smith. It's like watching a train crash in super slow motion.
 
So RCL have got a statement from Sinclair saying they do not wish to have a share holder meeting to replace the directors. Now Andrews has issued a statement saying Sinclair changed their mind and were for a spill previously. Andrews claims that Sinclair was with them to oust David Levy and Suzanne at RCL, however, Andrews claims that within the hour of their statment for a director spill, RCL made the statement that they would deliver between 8th-12th. Andrews claims Sinclair then changed their mind for the spill. It's hard to know who to believe. Anyway, the shareholder meeting for a spill is off for now.
 
Yes, there's some very interesting timing going on there, and one party is lying and it's impossible to tell who. Hoping this all gets wrapped up one way or another soon. There's some speculation that they only have 50 units to send out at most - I guess we'll see soonish if that's accurate or not. And what the quality is like... I have a feeling it might be a rush job.
 
ZXDunny said:
Yes, there's some very interesting timing going on there, and one party is lying and it's impossible to tell who. Hoping this all gets wrapped up one way or another soon. There's some speculation that they only have 50 units to send out at most - I guess we'll see soonish if that's accurate or not. And what the quality is like... I have a feeling it might be a rush job.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what a ot of people suspect.

In other news Andrews posted this on facebook about a letter he sent RCL :


Just to pre-empt any attempt by RCL later today to say they cannot show a games list because of or, that is in some way connected to anything I, or Chris, or other third parties have done, I thought it appropriate to share with you all relevant parts of the communications between ourselves and fellow shareholders/current directors of RCL over the past few days.

Here is part (the relevant part) of an email sent the other day to them –
__

Dear Sir/Madam,

Representing 50% of the shareholders of Retro Computers Limited we obviously have an eye on the success and wellbeing of the company and its shareholders. Therefore, BEFORE any units of the Vega+ V2 (or whatever its currently being called, and regardless of if 5000 odd units are shipped, or the 50 units speculated by backers to be sent out next week, after they contacted alleged manufacturing partners as seen on social media to merely pacify Indiegogo and the press) ship we insist that the current directors of RCL immediately supply us all with evidence of CE ratings (for the current proposed hardware, as opposed to the alleged V1 hardware), PEGI rating, and all other legally required documentation for such an items to also include the WEE, and Green Dot legally required registration details (and payments) to those regulatory bodies, and also all UL requirements covered as well. This should take you moments to email proof that all these registrations and legal requirements have been taken care of.

We would also like to let it be known that we will hold the current directors personally liable for any legal action instigated against Retro Computers Limited, following their failure to obtain certification and ratings approval if this was the case. Any fines will also be recovered from them as individuals and we would co-operate with any enforcement agencies or public bodies in that enforcement, quoting this email as evidence we have also bought it to the current director’s attention.

We are also highly concerned about the potential of any copyrighted materials being used without license on the alleged V2, I have already been receiving messages from concerned games rights owners, who have not had sales reports two years on…

(I go on to confirm that I am aware income for sales of the original Vega console has been paid into the RCL bank account, and make it clear this was for sales AFTER myself and Chris left, and AFTER the whole Cornerstone debacle, and that could not be used as an excuse for not paying games rights owners/GOSH, as that money was after both these events, and HAD been received by RCL. I also made it clear on that basis I was aware many games rights owners had removed their games permissions, that being from making anymore original Vega stock, or adding them to the proposed Vega Plus console.)

For clarity no one has responded to us in this matter in anyway, therefore we wish to make clear we are in no way responsible for any actions the current directors of RCL might carry out in this matter.
__

With regards to the games withdrawn, again to be clear, there are games we are aware of which have been withdrawn, mostly I understand due to non-payment of royalties, or lack of reports, or non-payment of money to GOSH. I cannot, and do not speak for these games rights owners, other than I am aware of the games withdrawal, hence why I will not detail the specific games I know have been withdrawn.

I believe (but as I have no direct contact with many of these other rights owners) that other games, of both low and high consumer visibility have also been withdrawn, ‘Ultimately’, that would be down to those companies concerned to confirm on that.

A selection of the games rights owners who it is believed have withdrawn their rights for the Vega Plus, were all copied in on an email sent to me, which in turn was forwarded to the current directors of RCL (as above), and as stated, RCL has not replied to me in this matter, and not to the games rights owners either to the best of my knowledge.

So in terms of volume, we are looking at least 400+ odd games with no rights owner’s permission to go onto the Vega Plus, that total could be higher of course we don’t know for certain (but we think it could be in the region of another additional 50-100 removed being a total removal of in the region of 500 games), but of course RCL may have new games to be added to the machine we have no knowledge of. You may all recall in May 2017 they made multiple updates on Indiegogo, saying games rights owners were flooding them with new games to add.

But to be clear once more, as long as they don’t use games they don’t have permission for as above, (as we have said several times over the past two years), and as long as they provide the Vega Plus to people, us, or backers won’t care as much about how many games it has on it, just that they do get the physical machine (in an appropriate format), and it’s a legal and safe machine. So on that basis to be clear one more time, nothing we have said will, or could stop RCL from delivering your Vega Plus consoles to you all next week.
 
So a number of things have happened in the Vega+ saga. Basically RCL have claimed that Andrews and freinds have been contacting license owners for games planned for the Vega+ and talked some out of providing them to the Vega+.
I think the mob who are making the Vega might have also been contacted (allegadly) in order to stop them putting games on the Vega+ by saying that RCL didn't have the rights from the game owners.

Anyway, that is RCL's excuse now for not delivering between the 8th -12th as they said they would.


They have now put out a poll on facebook asking people if they would like to get the Vega+ without games now, or wait until they have 1000 games . Of course most said just send the thing as the have been saying for ages

Of course there is also the looming deadline coming up in 9 days where Indiegogo said they would send in the debt collectors by the end of the month if backers didn't get their units

Supposedly a shareholder meeting has successfully been planned between Andres Smith and RCL for some time in the future.
 
They were already claiming that before they set this last delivery estimate/deadline IIRC. That's not new!

I hope IGG stick to their deadline, and don't take any shit from anyone.
 
Well IGG said they were giving RCL until the end of May before calling in the debt collectors. The end of May has now gone by and a new update has appeared on the Vega+ IGG campaign page

image.png.782794310998f70d88dd5c4e0b78ba3a.png


Here is a list of deadlines RCL have mentioend and subsequently missed:


279075906_releasedates2.JPG.a98ad9740ab25c5672020f367c81a739.JPG
 
So RCL did not meet the demands set by IGG. They could not back up their claim that a game licensee was backing out, by providing a phone number for IGG to contact. And they did not provide any evidence of a real product.

So ladies and gents, the Vega + is coming to it's long coming sad conclusion.

Today Indiegogo posted an update to the Vega+ Indiegogo campaign. Here it is:


jWyuq0V.png
 
"This has been a challenging situation for all involved"

Not really, IGG still got their cut & RCL got their cash, only the backers have lost out.

If the Spectrum community hadn't been so vocal this would have passed into obscurity much quicker.
 
Indeed, it's quite rare for IGG to step in - most projects fail and disappear.
 
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