joe_b

He's already made it clear in my case (and probably others) that he won't be doing that. A guy who refuses to process a refund and allows PayPal to continue with an investigation after he's already canceled our orders appears to be up to something. There is no other way to interpret that in my book.

bse

Yesterday he posted on Twitter: 9am-220am I think that's an ok work day??? Whoever ordered house/sorority row tomorrow gets tracking if u didn't already. Night all

I had an order that contained House on Sorority Row and I know two other people who, none of us received said tracking, surprise, surprise.

maxfisher

Yeah, I finally gave up and filed Paypal claims last night. He has until Feb 3 to respond. I sent him an email that I'll happily withdraw the claims if my orders arrive before then. The thing that I found a little worrisome is that when I put in the claims, Paypal said that the dispute could take extra time because the account is based out of the country. The dude's in Chicago. Not sure how he's got his account set up to make it look like he's not in the US, but it certainly doesn't do anything to make me think I should've given him more time.

joe_b

^ I know, I got the same notice about it being a foreign account. I have over $200 tied up in this, so I'm pretty damned concerned. If he follows the same method as with my orders, you'll be getting a cancellation notice in the next day or so, with no mention whatsoever of a refund being submitted. My follow-ups have all gone unanswered.

I'm kicking myself for going on good faith with this guy. He'd sent me one order in the past (via Amazon) and Blue Underground themselves advertised his sale on their Facebook page. I believed everything was on the level... but refusing to issue refunds because a claim was filed by the customer looks downright criminal. It makes it seem as though he's run off with everyone's money and doesn't care about PayPal suspending his account.

jrsl76

Agreed.

jrsl76

Didn't someone say there was an order inquiry address? Can you post it. I would like to at least take that step.

joe_b

It's [email protected], but don't expect to receive a response by the end of the week.

stroszeck

Wow. Just wow. by far this is the biggest online scam i've ever been involved in (and that includes getting the entire series of Two and a Half men in the form of cheap chinese imports. But that only cost me $40 and the dam things played well) Its been since december and this guy has replied to exactliy 1 of my emails in early january. No luck on fb or ANY of the other modes of contacting him. How is he even in business? I noticed someone put an order and received it 1 year later. If it wasn't for bluray.com or Blue Underground I would NEVER have ordered from this TGTBT site. How the hell isn't anyone banging on his door to get their money back? I'm truly at a loss....

GoldenWheels

I admit them advertising the sale themselves almost got me to bite--I wanted to upgrade all my fulci's. I wonder what their relationship with this guy is, if any--probably they are just trying to drive their own business but you gotta be careful who you promote.

The report of Don May ordering some of his own Synapse DVDs (somewhere in this thread I think) had me raising my eyebrows though, and I held off. Seems like even he thought it was fishy and wanted to see if they were boots or something. (that was my guess anyway, and that was enough for me)

davidlynchfan

So Demetrius Siomos is the guy's name? Sounds like a James Bond villain with a Swiss bank account.

SethDLH

The guy just posted on FB saying the only way to get a response about orders is to send an email to the order inquiry email address... apparently there is no way to get a response since I sent an email there and never got a response.

SterlingBen

Man, you guys are making me worried. I paypal'd on the 19th but I have a Jan 31st Preorder in mine so I was going to give him a few weeks beyond that (it would put me out of Paypal claim range though)....

stroszeck

I'm calling it. Its definitely a scam, this is no joke. Just feel like an idiot for falling for what seemed like a good deal at the time. Sad part is people are literally kissing ass on FB begging for information and that they will "use them again." Called up my credit company, filed a complaint. Report it to fraud department.

junglalien

I had an order of 4 titles. 2 were pre-orders. I received the 2 non pre-orders. So its not like he is waiting for the pre-orders to ship them out.

NoirFan

Has anyone tried calling his number: 773-382-8645

I'm guessing it just goes straight to voicemail.

clckworang

I haven't, but I know other people have said they have. Apparently, it's a Skype number. I'm assuming that's the same number. People said it was the one included with their original invoice.

stroszeck

And you still don't think its 100% a scam? I've never bought something online and begged a representative to respond to my emails. I wish we could take some sort of class action act (obviously not a lawsuit) and set this situation straight. My credit card company says I have to do a whole bunch of paperwork for them to initiate an investigation. I'm thinking they'll contact him, he'll deny everything and say he sent me my items and i'll end up getting the shaft and the finger simultaneously.

TomOpus

I see, according to his website, they have some kind of event in Chicago March 7-9th in 2014. I guess for those in the area you can get the movies you've ordered

sirbrady

I probably won't contact my CC company. And I doubt I'll get a refund if I send an email. My mistake for not going with my gut in the first place. I only ordered 3, but passed on 6-7 more that I wanted. That's good at least. Not worth my time and getting more pissed off trying for a refund.

If we all get screwed, he can keep my $30 as part of his retirement package when he goes out of business.

efordvt

I've actually had good luck contacting him on twitter.

ProfessorEcho

I don't think you should give up so easily, SirBrady. $30 is still a lot of money these days.

It all depends on the credit card company, of course, but I have had to file disputes a few times over the years and the process has always been relatively painless. Citi always seemed to be the easiest bank to deal with in my experience and always came through for me no matter what the dispute was or how involved it got, but obviously it's a big YMMV. Still, at least initially, it only costs you a phone call to find out what your options are.

jwstl

If it were a scam on us he wouldn't have shipped and continue to ship items. If it were a scam he certainly wouldn't have bought things directly from Amazon which cost him more. If it were a scam the company whose products he advertised would not have promoted the sale.
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and believe it was simply a case of too much too soon; he got more than he could handle. That's in no way an excuse however. You don't fix a mistake with more mistakes and zero communication. One of the best customer service business tips I received long ago was that good news can wait but bad news cannot. If it truly was a case of being overwhelmed he should have sent emails right away stating there would be a delay and offering refunds. If he really is an honest businessman then let this be a lesson on what not to do if there's a next time. If there is a next time. His performance may cost him his business. A hard lesson to be sure.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

He posted that he won't respond about order inquiries on twitter or facebook anymore. You can only do it by email. You'll then get an autoreply stating that if you ask about an order more than once, he'll just delete the emails, after the first one of course.

blamofilms

I contacted him about order status once at the original email address and once on the inquriy email address. After no response to either, I asked him to cancel the order. Still haven't heard anything.

maxfisher

This is purely conjecture, but here's my theory. I'm guessing the sale started taking off and his stock got depleted quick. Rather than mark things as out of stock, he just kept taking orders and cash. Then things got crazy and waaaay more people than expected started ordering titles. He's loving the growing publicity, but some people start posting worries about doing business with him and if they'll get their orders. He sees he has a ton of cash and decides to fulfill a bunch of orders from Amazon to keep things rolling. That costs way more than if he waited and bought them from his supplier, but he's thinking it's worth it and he can take the hit to keep the momentum up and grow his business. Promotion ends, sales slow back to a crawl, cash dries up, and he realizes he can't afford to order nearly enough new stock to fulfill all the tons of orders he's taken.

Anyway, that's purely me spitballing, being pretty sure he's not a crook and trying to think what would account for everything that's happened.