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HERO RESTORATION - BOOKS NOT BEING RETURNED
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Started by Kamenliter,

956 posts in this topic

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bc

bc

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On 6/24/2023 at 12:55 PM, wombat said:

So he doesn't have the money people originally sent him for the work. If he did he could do refunds. So then the only way he can hope to give refunds is to get money from new customers. I believe there is a word for this. 

Hint: rhymes with

fonzi thumbs up - MoreThanTheCurve

-bc

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Nick Furious

Nick Furious

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In Maoist China's Cultural Revolution, they held "struggle sessions" and "denunciation rallies".  At times this thread has felt like a very legitimate, very necessary, two-week struggle session.  But I think it's going to be cathartic for Mike and HR.  It seems like Mike is coming to grips with the reality that he has to do the right thing for these circumstances, even if it's not the ideal thing overall.  I hope so, for his sake and the sake of his clients.  The two top priorities overall have to be Mike's health and the security of the clients' books.  The money paid for services and the future of the business are both distant secondary concerns.     

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Mystafo

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On 6/24/2023 at 10:01 AM, CAHokie said:

I like to debate with Jaybuck on a lot of topics but rarely the law. He knows his :censored:.  I would take his advice. 

Thought the same thing...would just take his word on that subject.

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ExNihilo

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On 6/24/2023 at 7:53 AM, jaybuck43 said:

O boy. I’m sure my generosity will only come back to bite me in the rear, but eh.

Heros, as a practicing attorney, i can tell you several things. 1) your understanding of libel is off by a country mile (this is coming from an attorney who has successfully won defamation cases as high as the state Supreme Court). 2) You are doing yourself no personal, legal, or health favors with your responses so far.

My guess is you’re overwhelmed and not thinking straight so let me help you out. Here should be your next steps. 1) publicly post you’re going to follow my plan. 2) begin organizing all of your current customers from first received to most recently received. 3) once you have all their information, start with the oldest and reach out to them. Be contrite, apologize for the delay, and give them the option. Give them a reasonable estimate of how long the work will take. Ask them “I can return your book(s) or it will take between 6-9 months for me to finish. Which would you prefer?” Tell them that you will wait 7 business days for a reply and if none is received you will return their books in whatever state they are currently in, including half finished. 4) If they tell you to wait, great. If they don’t respond or tell you to send back, pack them up and return them. Do this as quickly as possible. 5) Rinse and repeat until you’ve cleared out the backlog. 6) this process should take no more than a week. Use a master letter where you can just replace the name and estimate of time, it will make your life easier.

Given the value of books here, it’s starting to get into serious legal territory. Based on the values shown here and the length of time things have gone on, a competent attorney can easily Pierce the corporate veil. Not only that, there’s also the risk of criminal liability for theft by conversion (if a person makes a demand for their property back and you ignore or refuse to return it, it does rise to the level of theft). Even a low grade purple label AF 15 is several thousand dollars these days. Now multiply that by how many other books and you’re talking felony charges. In Oregon for example, the theft of something valued at $1,000 or more is a C level felony with consequences of up to $125,000 in financial penalties and or up to 5 years in prison. Each $1,000+ book would be its own charge.

Good luck with everything. People here have been extremely patient and supportive and I would hope you appreciate that.

I'm nowhere near qualified to argue against this, and I agree it's the right course of action, but the problem goes back to the early pages of this thread where someone said they had been told at multiple points that their book was either being worked on or in the mail for it to ultimately turn out to be a lie.  Hero's actions and follow through would go a long way towards repairing the damage to the brand.  Until then, it's just a case of the boy who cried wolf.

On 6/24/2023 at 9:57 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

charles-ponzi-creator-of-the-ponzi-schem

If that's an image of Charles Ponzi, I think that's the incorrect reference.  The word is "fraud".  A Ponzi scheme would be more like taking Customer A's book and replacing it with Customer B's book, and then replacing Customer B's book with Customer C's, ad infinitum.  A Ponzi scheme is a type of fraud, but this just seems like a string of bad luck and bad business decisions.  Like I feel with a Ponzi scheme there's no legitimate business activity going on other than cooking the books.  Hero was running a business and up to 5 years ago seems to have been doing okay(ish) successfully delivering a product to customers.  Where they went wrong was accepting too much work, vastly exceeding expected turnaround times, coupled with a refusal to acknowledge return requests, all during a time of economic recessing.  To me refusing refunds is fraud.  Ponzi would imply that the customer was owed the fees in addition to a completed product.  Businesses are free to do what they wish with revenue earned through fees.  An inability to set aside a certain % of money for refunds is poor financial management.

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CAHokie

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On 6/24/2023 at 2:02 PM, DocHoppus182 said:

There’s nothing wrong with knocking on someone’s door and asking for your property back.

I guess my fear would be false accusations or “misunderstandings” (in general) with these type of highly charged situations.

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ttfitz

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On 6/24/2023 at 1:53 AM, Microchip said:

There's nothing about your posting to indicate you brought up his medical concerns in good faith.

Trying to play it down afterwards, like you have genuine concern for the guy, you still look malicious in your intentions.

 

What a load.

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Black_Adam

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On 6/24/2023 at 8:12 AM, quicksilver said:

How would you know if I was overly concerned or not ?
Do you have a record of all the private messages back and forth between Mike and I ?

Microchip is Mike.   :gossip:

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Hero Restoration

Hero Restoration

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On 6/24/2023 at 7:53 AM, jaybuck43 said:

O boy. I’m sure my generosity will only come back to bite me in the rear, but eh.

Heros, as a practicing attorney, i can tell you several things. 1) your understanding of libel is off by a country mile (this is coming from an attorney who has successfully won defamation cases as high as the state Supreme Court). 2) You are doing yourself no personal, legal, or health favors with your responses so far.

My guess is you’re overwhelmed and not thinking straight so let me help you out. Here should be your next steps. 1) publicly post you’re going to follow my plan. 2) begin organizing all of your current customers from first received to most recently received. 3) once you have all their information, start with the oldest and reach out to them. Be contrite, apologize for the delay, and give them the option. Give them a reasonable estimate of how long the work will take. Ask them “I can return your book(s) or it will take between 6-9 months for me to finish. Which would you prefer?” Tell them that you will wait 7 business days for a reply and if none is received you will return their books in whatever state they are currently in, including half finished. 4) If they tell you to wait, great. If they don’t respond or tell you to send back, pack them up and return them. Do this as quickly as possible. 5) Rinse and repeat until you’ve cleared out the backlog. 6) this process should take no more than a week. Use a master letter where you can just replace the name and estimate of time, it will make your life easier.

Given the value of books here, it’s starting to get into serious legal territory. Based on the values shown here and the length of time things have gone on, a competent attorney can easily Pierce the corporate veil. Not only that, there’s also the risk of criminal liability for theft by conversion (if a person makes a demand for their property back and you ignore or refuse to return it, it does rise to the level of theft). Even a low grade purple label AF 15 is several thousand dollars these days. Now multiply that by how many other books and you’re talking felony charges. In Oregon for example, the theft of something valued at $1,000 or more is a C level felony with consequences of up to $125,000 in financial penalties and or up to 5 years in prison. Each $1,000+ book would be its own charge.

Good luck with everything. People here have been extremely patient and supportive and I would hope you appreciate that.

Thanks for the advice. I was planning something similar. One mistake I have been making is trying too get work done first, then ship. 

I am concerned based on past experience that those who will wait will want a time estimate, or put a cap on it. That would be okay, but I am in a very big hole as a result of the downsizing, and not much revenue. Any date I offer is sure to be wrong, and my current reputation is in that state. That's just pressing, the restores are to big to estimate accurately. 

I had a volunteer last weekend help with shipping, and he may help this week too. I don't feel good about free help, especially if they are busy too, but I humbly appreciate it.

Your plan requires more work than I can do quick enough, but hopefully in time to prevent the other issue you mentioned. I don't want to be know for that.

Hard for me to see the support, but I think that's just a result of what I have been going through. At this point, I expect more punches than hand shakes.

To be clear, I am not trying to keep anyone's book from them. Quick silvers books are disassembled, and with little space, I wanted to wait till I could box those up safely, and account for everything. 

I do get off course easily, I really don't like talking about it, for me, conditions like ADHD are very private info. It doesn't take much, and I always have to many projects started at once.

I would very much like  to continue my work, I was hoping to do it until I due, as retiring did an unlikely future option.

It's likely I am stepping down as a dealer and facilitator, really tired of doing large figures with a company that acts like they do.

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ttfitz

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On 6/24/2023 at 3:24 PM, Hero Restoration said:

Hard for me to see the support, but I think that's just a result of what I have been going through. At this point, I expect more punches than hand shakes.

I think if you read thru this thread carefully, you'd find that there were people supporting you and giving you the benefit of the doubt who changed their minds after some of your attacks against people who had 5-figure books with you and had paid thousands for work that hadn't been done for multiple years, along with your "sure you can have your books back but NO REFUNDS". The attitude you have adopted here has not helped your case, particularly the refund stance. I get that you can't afford to pay everyone back right on the spot, but if you were really concerned with your reputation you would have expressed some attempt to make things right at some point.

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Semicentennial

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I'm wondering what other cards are going to be placed next.  We got the victim card, the libel card, sympathy card, and now the disability card.  You just need to own up to your mistakes and quit trying to make yourself look like you're trying to do your customers right.  I get that you want to finish the work you've started on your customer's books.  That's being ethical and professional.  The behavior being shown in this thread is far from being professional and it more damaging to your image and brand.  Making customers wait longer just because you want to make adjustments to make a book look better, while keeping your frustrated and concerned customers waiting, seems rather selfish.  

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Hero Restoration

Hero Restoration

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On 6/24/2023 at 9:45 AM, NP_Gresham said:

Yes for $3.2 K and years of my time, I get no communication for years, my book cracked out of the slab and maybe just maybe….

I get my book back.

I hope that UPS ground didn’t set you back too much2c

Is it wishful thinking to think the label might be included?

Yes, money well spent, sorry for YOUR inconvenience

Label is included. If I regain control, I should have only the amount of work I can handle. I have made changes already , but it was too late for the older clients.and trust. I'm still willing to do your book. Or find some other way to make it right.

About 3 years ago, I realized extensive page work on 64 pages was jamming me up. Not long after that, I stop accepting those, even partial page work. and cover work only. I kept making changes like that, but it was too late. The help I trained was expected to accelerate production of resto exponential failed, right when it was suppose to succeed.

Others have mentioned this, so I will say that I just had a dream. 

An entrepreneur, a title I probably don't deserve, has to take some risks. I figured no one had done this yet in comics, so why not try. I wanted to be the largest company is it's kind. 

Besides the obvious others have stated, only an optimist would think it was doable. 

Going from independent contractor to a small company required more of my time, and new challenged and responsibilities. The pressure for payroll along caused lost sleep.

Resto funds went to training help, that seemed the best way to catch up, while finding the right specialist for each task.

One person can do a pretty good job, but you can't be terrific at everything, and even if you are some of those tasks take much longer to do. I groomed a color touch artist that had the potential to be better than anyone has ever seen, but life changes and hers did and comic books just was not a priority for her anymore.

So if I could do it all over again would I just do it differently or not do it at all? I think it would be the latter, the expansion pushed me into a place of CEO, and I hated it. Seriously, it's like fight club, except I don't have the experience, or the demeanor. So it really only compounded my problem because I had to spend less time on restoration and more on management, constantly watching my back.

Then I had too many eggs in one basket, a lot was invested in training  the market was strong then. Then a series of bad luck, choices, and market change was too much.and then that's about the end of that story. Now I'm stuck in this hole the size of Crater lake, and I would drop dead from exhaustion before I could ever get it to be full again while doing know work to cover expenses. Then would companies can freeze your accounts on a whim, that's the final nail. Never again, it's just me, Barry, and maybe someone who can handle customer service.

One thing I never did was mix business and personal income. I took a normal check like everybody else, and many times I was not the highest paid person in the group. More  hours was a must, and if Hero couldn't afford it, I took less and leveraged cards.My life is very lean, so What I did earn  enough I was able to buy a few things, but when things got tough for the company I gave it all up. Not only did I sell my Harley to pay for company expenses, but I sold it at a 60% loss and it was. I mean I loved that Harley.

In the grand scope, possessions aren't important to me, and it's true I don't have any and neither does the business.

If you want to know where the money went, it all went right back in the business, my losses on 272 k was so high, I had to dumb it down.

It's it's a lean company now. Just enough to keep going so that I can at least finish what I started. There are days I think after I get my health together I can start again, and then there are days where I think it's hopeless and nobody will ever do business with me again. Oh no! This looks like it's too long It better not delete and disappear. Dang it.

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