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Old 12-07-2012, 9:40 AM
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Valkyriearms Valkyriearms is offline
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Location: Milpitas
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Some of the speculations in this thread are correct. When the store moved from Milpitas to Santa Clara, a new owner took over. The store was renamed Valkyrie Arms Police Supply and Firearms by the new owner. Tim was on board to help the “new” store. Before being renamed, 10-8 Police Supply was not doing well and Tim was contacted to help with 10-8 Policy Supply’s business. Tim’s advice was not taken and the new owner continued to run the store as he pleased. Tim became less and less involved in the company as time went on, and eventually left. The store started sliding downhill, exponentially in the past weeks. The owner created the recent “inventory & audit” closure to buy time to deal with the situation. Some of us (store employees) stuck around to lend a hand for a short time.

What was happening that dug Valkyrie Arms Police Supply and Firearms' hole was that many of the firearms orders placed at the Santa Clara store were for items that were out of stock. When many of these items came back into stock (sometimes 2 weeks, other times it was months) the new owner had already spent the money. The new owner disregarded Tim’s advice to keep the money aside for customer orders and other store necessities. Tim and the store employees stuck with it for some time and tried to fix the store and the owner’s habits, but were unsuccessful. Tim signed onto 10-8 Police Supply under false conditions and promises issued by the owner. Tim was told 10-8 Police Supply did not have any debt and that they were making a profit. It was eventually found out that 10-8 Police Supply actually owed debt to various vendors. In the past months, the new owner was taking profits from Valkyrie Arms, which was supposed to be used for customer orders, inventory for the store, and employee pay, and instead used it to pay off his debt, and bills. Tim was supposed to have control on how the finances were handled and used. The new owner did not like how Tim used the money, and decided to transfer the money out of the company’s account. Valkyrie Arms (Milpitas) did have guns on order which were transferred over to Santa Clara; however this was because the guns ordered were harder to obtain. Money from these orders was also spent by the new owner.

We made it a point never to gouge customers, we wanted to stay competitive. Many of us working there made and became friends with customers and what was happening behind closed doors affected this friendship. We tried our best to get customer their guns, some went as far as using their personal credit cards to acquire inventory, which was quicker than having to use the store’s accounts to order products. Some of us spent time on our days off to track down guns from other dealers, or whoever may have that particular gun in stock. Because of this, we built a good relationship with other dealers. Customer service was a top priority for us. We personally witnessed it lacking at times as things headed downhill. We were proud to hear from customers that we were the friendliest gun shop they had ever visited, and really took pride in that. With the new boss, our morale sometimes dipped and that showed in our customer interactions. We sincerely apologize for the poor customer service.

It is unfortunate that it has come to this. All the employees have left the company with Tim. Currently, the new owner has been issuing refunds to customers and transferring the guns he is able to. Since Tim is no longer part of the company, Valkyrie Arms Police Supply and Firearms is unable to perform Single-Shot Exemptions (SSE from now on) of off-roster pistols. Those pistols pending DROS (have yet to be registered) are being arranged to be transferred to another FFL that can provide the proper SSE service. Firearms currently in DROS (already registered and in the 10-day waiting period) can arrange a pick up by calling the store and getting in touch with the owner, unless it is an SSE. Upon our parting with the company, it is still undecided what is to be done with the off-roster pistols that require the SSE to be picked up. We speculate that those DROSs will be cancelled and the pistols transferred to a FFL that can re-register and facilitate the SSE.

This post was much longer than expected. We are simply writing to let everyone know the status of the Santa Clara store. This is a sad and unfortunate event for Valkyrie Arms. All of us were customers at the Milpitas store before being asked to come aboard as employees. Many of our personal reputations were tied to the store, not just Tim’s or “Valkyrie Arms”. We employees never intended to “scam” any of our customers or steal their money. We sincerely hope that everyone involved will be able to reach a resolution. It has been a pleasure working for Valkyrie Arms and meeting everyone that came in, even if it was just to hang out.

Happy Holidays,

Valkyrie Arms Employees
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Valkyrie Arms
07 FFL / 02 SOT

Last edited by Valkyriearms; 12-07-2012 at 9:44 AM.. Reason: fix typos