Unfortunately, it's also the way some scams start out. Get on something like dvdpricesearch to pull in customers and ship out orders and conduct business so it looks good for a month or two while building a reputation on a few boards. Then starts the monkey business. The stream of money starts to look tempting and it starts going to other uses besides order fulfillment, things get blamed on distribution problems and the pleading for people not reverse their CC charges begins in hopes of stringing them along until it's past the deadline to do so. Credit card companies aren't stupid, once those chargebacks begin and hit a certain level, the money tap closes pretty quickly.

I don't want to get into a whole thing with you here, but I think you're going way too easy on this clown. Accepting orders and taking people's money when Mike KNEW (by his own admission) full well that he would NOT be able to supply the product was more than negligent...it was downright criminal.

Now, I don't want to see his band ruined either. I mean after all, there's 3 other members of that band that have done nothing wrong (POSSIBLY - see below). But he should not be coddled as you seem to be doing. He did something wrong and should suffer the consequences. If that means lawsuits from the CC companies, criminal prosecution for fraud, insults from people that he ripped off, etc. then so be it. Bottom line, this isn't about DVDs or failed business plans. This is about a person that took money for services that he knew he couldn't provide, and then proceeded to use that money for personal pleasure/gain.

The money that was used for Radio Holiday/CTW Records could have went to creditors. It could have went to a different distributor to get the product out to the customer. It could have simply went to refunds for people that have complained. It could have done a lot of things, but it didn't. It went into Mike's pockets (and the pockets of his fellow band members). There really is no excuse.

It also seems that the band knew (at least somewhat) that their funding was coming from Mike's little "business venture."

If you go to their MP3.com page and scroll down to the "Group members" section, you will see that every member of the band has a nickname. Mike's nickname or forte is "bank accounts."

http://artists.mp3s.com/info/286/radio_holiday.html

You have to remember that people like Mike with their "creative" accounting practices are responsible for people losing a lot more than a few DVDs (insert reference to Enron execs here). This isn't like listing a disk on eBay as "Great" when it's actually just "Good." Mike took a lot of money from a lot of people and did a bad thing. He should suffer accordingly.

And to top it all off, to add insult to injury, to take the cake, and break the camel's back...in all of this fiasco, not once has Mike shown remorse, given a (sincere) apology, or accepted ANY of the blame. His contention is that he (the "little guy") is being screwed. Well, I hate to break it to you, but Mike's NOT the little guy...I am. We are. Mike's made plenty of money from his little experiment. Maybe he'll make more with his band. The fact of the matter is that Mike has perpetrated on the us the very thing he claims to be a victim of.

And BTW, I highly doubt he took his site down because G.K. told him it would be a good idea. I'm pretty sure he took it down because the cat's out of the bag and he's gonna have a LOT to answer for with the CC companies.

Well said. If you remember he has trying to attract large order's with his $5 off $100 coupon last month before he "toured" with the band and suddenly stopped shipping order's at the same time blaming "someone else" didn't handle his order's. Where is Mike of BigCD now, eh? Where's hundred of customers cash with nothing being notified as shipped or refunds? Where is a email telling me where the hell my order is after 3 weeks?

Bueller....

I don't feel sorry for Mike, I feel sorry for the poor soul's that used a Check Card.

Ever notice that before he was accused he was posting in here about once or twice a week, and now that he's being accused of misappropriation of funds (is that the correct term?) not a word is being heard from him??

Has anyone tried to contact him on his message board and ask what cell he'll be in??

I ordered with a debit card--stupid mistake. I contacted my bank and Visa, since it has their logo on the card. I will get my money back, they said (but not anytime soon)

Contrary to what others have said, I truly, truly, hope Mike's band never makes it. If a president--however wonderful he may be--wins an election through the illegal use of campaign funds we would want him to resign. Bad analogy, but it is related:

The fact of the matter with Mike's band is that he was able to tour, and attract the attention of major labels WITH OUR MONEY. In other words, he used our money as an investment. This means if he becomes "famous" we should be getting a piece of the cake, with his multi-milion dollar signings. The fact is that we are not, and if he does become famous it will be off the back of us poor guys... SO I truly, truly hope he goes to jail and his band breaks up leaving nothing behind but a few artistically shallow MP3's...

Let not Mike be an example to would-be entrepeneurs who want to be "famous" off our buck (and back)...

Me? I am happy listening to Pink Floyd...

thought it'd be interesting to see this brat brought to justice. go crazy:

"Business" Address:
Mike Warden
Po box 40282
Redford, MI 48239 US

<i>removed phone number as it's his home phone</i>

Email: [email protected]

Record label: www.conquertheworld.com

<i>removed home address</i>

a really poorly attempted scam. let me know how things turn out

[sarcasm] Well, I'm sure that Mike won't forget the little people who helped him finance his band when he makes it big. [/sarcasm]

Re: more updates
 

I just read through this entire thread, and although I already knew the outcome, it was this post from "Mike BigCD" (should be "Mike BigD*C*") that started formulating my opinion that this is fraud and not stupidity. I mean, it's like catching a pickpocket with his hand in your pants, who then says he's looking for some gum, then pulls out your wallet because it's preventing him from looking for his gum, pulls out your car keys for the same reason, keep fishing around in your pocket, and then, when you call for the police, calmly says "Oh, no, there's a ray of hope that I might find that gum, so don't bother with the police, that will just cost all of us a lot of time and money, I'm almost done here."

Good luck to eveyone in getting their money back, I hope we haven't heard the last on this one, but that only good news follows.

Shoveler

It's sh*t like this that is making me return to Brick & Mortar shopping. I'm losing faith in making online purchases.

New online retailers are getting hurt by guys like this because no one dares to make a purchase on an unknown online site. Then on the other hand going to "secure" well-known sites like Amazon.com will "cost" you and as a consequence the discounts become nonexistent leaving in actuality very little benefit and reason for shopping online other than some convenience.

And like most people in this forum right now, I want his head on a platter.

I don't think you guys have to worry about his band becoming succesful. Being signed by a major label is a ticket to financial ruin for a majority of bands. Mike may be a con artist, but in all likelihood he is way, way, way overmatched by the con(tract) lawyers that work for the labels. The copyright industry will chew him up and spit him out like a wad of chaw.

I can only say this that Mike needs to be reprimanded at the fullest extent of the law. If he indeed ran a scam which it appears that he did. To fund his band. If he isn't brought to justice then the people who got scammed by Mike are doing Mike a disservice. Mike may verb his usual BS statements but until he is brought to realizing what he did was wrong he will more or less try something like this again. You need help Mike from Mike himself by refuting your credit card orders and filing mail fraud www.usps.gov. Their site has a form. I'd also recomend filing a complaint with the IRS. I'm sure the IRS will find alot inadequecies in his accounting measures. It's considered fraud if after 30 days if one doesn't provide the services. It's called I believe failure to provide.

Also as far as his band is concerned. I for one wouldn't buy a CD of his nor recomend him to anyone. Most companies won't hire or do business with someone who has committed fraud and I believe he will have to dig himself out this one and make retributions fast.

Cool, let's all book flights and go knock on his door.

I plan on hiding all his bands future CDs in the William Shatner section :D

wow, he's only about fifteen minutes from me. If I had ordered from him, I would certainly be literally knocking on his door. One could call the Redford police perhaps?

Anyone who says his band is the next Nirvana is a f-ing idiot.

His band is obviously pretty popular in your area then, right, badlieut? :)

Seems like he put http://www.bigcd.com back online! He probably needs more money from us to support his band! He added an update to his page. Here it is:

2. Shipping policy change - Only use Priority mail if you are ordering 1 or 2 items on a ticket. If you order more than 2 items and select priority mail they will be sent out at complimentary free standard rate rate. Please understand we cannot afford to ship multiple packages priority mail when your only paying a small flat rate.

I guess he wants more money so you can upgrade your shipping and he will send it out to you!

updates....
 

Hello I was not around a computer for 3 days so I had no idea this was going on here. I do not appreciate the level of personal attacks here. I have a personal life you know and if I spend money I make on myself for dinner, for bills or for my record company then it's my business. BigCD finances my record company and it pays for my trips to taco bell or whatever else I pay for.

I don't have all the money for the orders. I never even got most of it up until the other day. They released some of it to me but they still are holding $10,000 of your money which is to pay for orders.

I am still trying to work it all out to get the orders out but Ingram doesn't care much or put much of a concern on the orders. I also had big discrepency with my bank as it appeared than the money that half.com sent to me was reversed then taken out for 2 days my bank account read -$36,000. I could not even cash a check from some CD sales because the account was on hold. So instead of raking myself in personal torment over this situation I had band practice a couple days and only now have I returned.

I am not a thief, nor a scam artist and I'm definitely not a criminal so it
would be nice to not hear people calling me that. I don't have your money
Ingram has it holding it pending what we decide to do between the three
parties. If anything I'm guilty of having hot pots in the oven and having to
divide my attention to both of them. The worst comes I'll declare bankruptcy
because I won't let this ruin my life because it's not in my hands. I am a
small fish and there are much larger ones in control. For god sakes I live
with my mom so i can cut all my expenses so I can operate while the business
grows. The business can't function unless people let it function. My credit
was revoked because people did not pay me money they owed my card processor
that is. Not to mention my advertising on dVd talk, my campaigns on
pricegrabber.com, bargainflix, and dvdpricesearch.com, my server and
internet bill they are all monthly expenses that money was taken out for.

Well anyways I have so many things to catch up on. Nothing is going to be
resolved today we tried to conference call in half, ingram but they didn't
answer.

Mike

Re: updates....
 

:hscratch:

Re: updates....
 

You knew of all these problems so you decided to leave for three days?

This is incorrect, because you are not spending your money, you are spending other people's money. Any problems you've had with the business were caused by yourself. Leaving orders outstanding -- your fault. Problems with your merchant account -- your fault, you violated a few rules there by charging before shipping (illegal) and also by NOT TELLING PEOPLE what was going on. Problems with half.com -- your fault, because you apparently didn't ship out products (see the other thread).

Whom? I like how when someone else has money that doesn't belong to them, it's ours. When you have money that doesn't belong to you, it's yours...

Pretty obvious you don't either.

Hiding from problems apparently didn't help -- strange isn't it? Often when people ignore problems and the people behind them everything magically gets all better again.


This is interesting. Ingram, a distributor, is holding your money. How did they get your money?

Nice. Just shows you as the stand-up fellow you are.

You seem to be the biggest problem. Living with your mother is irrelevant, but it does clarify a few things.

Wait, you are the good guy! People didn't pay you for products you didn't ship! It's all clear now. You got to watch out for people on this board, they often have outlandish demands. You know, like the products they paid for.

All expenses you knew about and you accepted. Stop complaining, it's your choice, and you clearly made it poorly.

You say there are three parties -- you, half, and ingram. So who else was on the phone with you, or but is that the royal we?

In other posts you always complain about waiting to get paid -- credit card companies, half.com, whatever. You know half.com's payment policies, why would you expect them to change for you? Credit card companies have regulations on when you get paid, why would you expect them to change for you?

To be completely honest, I've seen a lot of people like you. They come and go, complain about stupid and controlable circumstances that they just couldn't put up with. Face facts, Mike, you aren't mature enough to run a business. You ignore it and customers, you take funds before shipping products, and then make up shoddy excuses and blame anyone but yourself. You're the one who's caused the problems, you're the one who can't deal with them, and you're the one who's screwing over a lot of people.

Two years ago, you might have gotten start-up capital, but face it Mike, everyone's gotten a little smarter, and intelligent people can see you as exactly what you are.

Re: updates....
 

Ummm.. and you run an internet based business.. I find that statement very comical.

Your telling my you can't take a day to email all the customer's money you have and tell them why they have no product after 3 weeks. That's simply unprofessional and dishonest and my credit card company agree's.

I'm not responding any longer.
 

This is the last response you will see from me. I did not post here to become personally attacked, have any such personal information posted so you can call here and threaten me with who knows what.

I'm just not going to answer the phone anymore or get it disconnected I really don't care at this point after having so many threatening phone calls people swearing at my mom calling at 4 am in the morning swearing on my machine.

I'm tired of it and I am not going to take the abuse anymore. I did not post here so you could personally pick apart every word I wrote or attack me personally. this is business and this is not handled in this manner.

I'm not even going to pretend to care anymore about anything with this attitude from people.

Re: I'm not responding any longer.
 

:hscratch: Who's doing the mishandling here. Is it us who have paid hard-earned money for nothing, or you who has used our money to buy tacos??? :hscratch:

Goodbye... WTF are you still doing on the DVDTalk forums, anyway? Shouldn't you be packing boxes for shipment or running away to Mexico (and thus eating all the tacos you want)?

Re: I'm not responding any longer.
 

And now he takes his toys and goes home.

Has anyone complained to Half.com about his selling practices? He is clearly violating the seller agreement by not shipping items untill he receives the cash.

That means he is confirming an order, and then not shipping them within the next business day as he's supposed to. Being that he's admitted this, he should have his seller status revoked immediately from half.com.

Re: I'm not responding any longer.
 

Ever seen a man fall out his chair at work holding his stomach and laughing? Well my co-workers just did.

I think this is the real reason that BigCD.com is in trouble. This is a quote from Mike at his record label site. http://www.conquertheworld.com Mike has now deleted the quote from his site, but it was there as late as yesterday.

CTW will always be a record label as long as I have some money from some kind of source and a band inspires me to spend it without any real hopes of really getting it back. It's never been about the money just the music and the friends. I am sure the website will be re designed sometime soon, it's been quite neglected over the past few months. I have had to spend a lot of time on BigCD.com and learning how it can grow. Unfortunately I took too much money from bigcd.com and put it into CTW and now I'm experiencing financing problems with the company itself. It's good thing and it's a bad thing. It's good because the Radio Holiday CD was released with this money and that's amazing because it helps the progression of the band and the chance of the band really getting big seem to be quite high. So hell once we get our 5 million dollar advance from some big label I can pay the $10,000 I owe to bigcd.com to get it paid back. The bad thing is right now there are 500 DVDs just sitting there waiting for the homes of the customers who ordered them. I wish I was smarter with proper business and money management, but honestly that really would not be me. Choose either for the final sentence, "Maybe it's time to change" or "Who cares you are punk rock?"


I think the above quote by Mike shows who is really at fault in the BigCD.com debacle.