Freakshow Phone is Disconnected.

[kcs1211]

You guys need to give Adam a break... Phone bills come and go and money comes and goes but not always together.

At my business we have 6 phone lines....

The bills although you would think ar connected they are NOt.

I will ahve 1 shot off and then it will not roll over the next line... so if the wrong one goes down we are DOWN 100%.

It has happened at least 5 times in 6 years of business.

And yes we have paid the bill and the phone system has turn it on days later....

They turn it off ALOT faster then the turn it on. HA!!

I bet he will be be up and running fine in no time.

BTW I too have had my UPS turned off for a few days...

Bring it down to a panic and do NOt freak out on Freakshow.

Times are TOUGH folks let work together to mak eit work for us ALL!!

Adam jump on a communicate to get the freaks less freaky will ya!!? HAHA!!

My business has 6 lines as well. None have ever been shut off.
If you pay your bill on time, they won't shut it off.....its a pretty simple concept.

I haven't done any business with Freakshow, but if I had, I would be freaking out for sure. He has people's property and has lied multiple times according tot the other thread. The people defending him on this thread must not have completely read the other one, or they have no sense.

Just my $.02

[ilbob]

I second that... I feel very fortunate to have had a timely transaction, but it's pretty obvous this guy doesn't know how to run a business, which by all accounts should be THRIVING in the current economic and political climate.

A lot of gun dealers are hurting because they cannot get the products people want to buy.

Plus this guy went to a lot of trouble to stick his neck way out on the line with low margin transactions (aka-group buy).

Some things you just have to learn the hard way. Group buys are a great idea if you know how to do them and the product flows freely, but when you are learning yourself, and product is not so easy to get, it can be a killer.

[timdps]

For me, he is sitting on an $1800 rifle and his prepaid service and shipping fees...

Tim

[freakshow10mm]

Well, instead of multi-quoting a bunch of posts, I'll just write a long essay.

When I started my business it was intended to be a side job to help pay down my student loans and my credit cards. I swore to my wife I wouldn't use credit to finance the business. Only cash. Using credit for purchases put me in a bind personally and I didn't want the business to go down that same road. I had no inventory at the time, so I logged a bunch of personal guns into the log book and sold them to generate operating capital. They were low end guns so I had about a thousand dollars to work with. I bought AR tools, placed a few orders here and there for parts to start building and so on.

When customers would order parts or guns from me, in order to grow my business as fast as possible, I immediately reinvested any and all profit back into more inventory to sell. It's no secret retail is usually 100% markup. If I sold one gun, I had the money to buy two more so I'd order one gun for the customer's order and another with the profit to resell. I didn't have the money to have stock on hand and made this clear to my customers when they ordered. Things were going good for the most part, save the group buy on lowers, until the election. I had money to buy inventory, bills were paid, I had reserves.

In November all hell broke loose. AR parts went dry, the back orders piled up, I was a sitting duck. I had to scramble and buy accessories to sell just to keep my head above water because the guns people wanted were all gone. People came to me asking for this and that, so I bought a bunch. None sold. The AK mags I had went for cost. Then the clear ones went for a loss. I dumped $3,000 worth of product on Gunbroker for below cost just to pull my money out so I could give refunds to those customers who had orders placed with me. That came out of my operating costs. I figured I could refund them out of pocket and then when that order ships to me, I can sell it, get my money out of it and be alright. Well, three months later I'm still waiting for those orders to ship to me.

I had $3,100 in sales in March. April I only had $759. I have yet to have a single order in May. Last order placed on my site was April 29th. Last month I gave out over $4,000 in refunds. I have not taken a single paycheck from my business in 2009. My machinist/handloader is being paid with horsetrading because I have no money to make payroll. When the ammunition he loaded for me sells, I can pay him.

It has been touched on in other threads, but this is how a charge back works. The card holder calls their card company and states a claim for a charge back. Product not received, did not authorize, and a host of other reasons. Literally within minutes the business merchant account processor debits the funds from the account the merchant account is deposited ie the business bank account. The business is also debited for a charge back fee regardless if they win or not, ranging from $20-75 (mine is $35). This amount is held in escrow with the credit card company while the dispute is settled. If the business wins the money is put back and all is done.

However, with the guy in TX, this is how it went down. Charge was $450 minus the 3% processing fee was deposited in my account. Chargeback was for $450, so $450 was immediately removed from my business checking account. Notice the amount included the purchase amount not the actual amount minus the 3% fee I was charged to accept the payment. Now on the $450 I already lost 6% or $27 plus another $35 for the charge back fee, $62 total. I won that time. Money was put back into my account minus the 3% again so now I'm out another $13.50 for a total of $75.50 off the original purchase amount of $450. A week later he starts a second dispute. $450 taken out again, note for the full purchase price of which now net amount minus all the BS fees I had to pay is now $374.50 subtracting another $35 for the charge back fee I'm down to $339.50. After getting a signed and notarized affidavit from the dealer who did the transfer and a copy of the 4473 and forwarding this to my merchant people I win again. $450 is deposited to my account yesterday, minus the 3% again bringing the final talley to $326 all said and done. I lost $124 from that sale, bounced several checks at a $33.50 per check fee, and all the money I had collected to ship out the guns I have in the meantime has been passed back and forth between my bank account and the CC company and is subjected to numerous fees leaving me at a loss.

Now going through all that **** left me in a ruin. Due to the amount of the refunds given out this year I can't pay bills. I have a ton of guns to ship out and no money to do so. I've been waiting on mag locks for AKs so I can get those shipped out. None of the suppliers will ship to me and I have $200 of my/other people's money with one supplier that won't refund me or ship the locks to me. I borrowed $40 from my neighbor and I got 20 feet of tubing to make my own locks for the AKs. Now I have to sweet talk a buddy of mine to let me use his mill because I had to sell the one I had here in order to pay the mortgage. I have enough material here to make 200 AK locks.

My communication leaves much to be desired. I have to figure out something that works. With very limited hours I have to balance answering calls and emails with performing the work. My only employee is done with school for the year so he might be more available to help out during the day. Checking my email every morning is a nightmare. I get around 50-75 emails a day, about 20 phone calls. I do not have the money to hire much if any of a staff.

No matter how much I say it here, in PMs, on the phone, or in emails your order status on my site is the current status. If nothing has changed in your status there will be no change. I will not send emails indicating no status change. It's a waste of my time. Log into the site, check the status. If you don't see an update, there is no update. I am not and never was a business that will hold your hand from start to finish. I apologize if anyone got that impression and I misrepresented that somewhere on my site.

I have hired a shipping clerk but can't have them start until I get my UPS account under control. No sense in them having them here unless I can print labels and get things out the door. I can maybe have them come in to organize and get everything ready and printed out and at least start training. It's almost useless as I doubt I will see any more transfers come my way. That's pretty much a wash.

Some of you have probably put the address in Google and checked out where I live. Since being half way across the country you don't get the full experience or understanding of the local area here, it's a far cry from your busy lifestyle. I live in the very northern tip of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I'm 14 hours north of Detroit. I'm six miles away from Lake Superior. The police department is the chief and two part time officers. Their backup is usually 20-40 minutes away if they need help. There are no railroads, a single airport with flights to and from Duluth, MN and that's it. The largest employer is Michigan Tech University 15 miles away. The closest UPS or FedEx shipping hub is in Eagle River, WI and it's a two hour drive for me. The Shipping Shop in Houghton,MI (15 miles away) will not accept firearms for shipment, they can only be shipped from a UPS shipping hub (2 hour drive) or from a daily pick up account. The post office is available and is twice as expensive as UPS. When I get enough money to actually be able to ship things out, I pay a pickup fee to have UPS stop by. Luckily if I have more than one thing shipping the same day I can just do one pickup call and he gets everything.

My issues are communication and money management. What is draining the account is the refunds being issued are coming out of the money from current orders. Banking on more orders coming in to replace that refund money I paid out so that transfer can ship has caught up with me. Now I'm flat broke paying refunds out and due to the delays with shipping and getting products in here I have no money coming in.

I tried to reorganize back to what I did best when I first started. When I was just doing transfers and loading ammunition I was on top of the world. I had business coming in, things were getting shipped out quickly, and my reputation for the go to middle man spread. I got into more and more things not wanting to ever say no to a customer. Sure I can do that. I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Now I'm eyeball deep in a cluster****.

[freakshow10mm]

I refocused on three things now. Transfers, ammunition, and developing suppressors. The suppressor line is on hold until I clean up back orders and get cash flow back in the mix. Transfers are nil and ammunition isn't selling. I have 750 rounds of .223 55gr FMJ loaded and ready to be sold with another 250 rounds being loaded today and ready by week's end. Thankfully the police chief stopped by and told me he needs 1500 rounds of 40 S&W loaded for his department and I need to submit a bid for the job by 1pm today. I cleared out as much inventory as I could in order to raise cash and that went to refunds, not operating capital. Bad timing for this as I found a machine shop that can steadily supply me with billet 80% receivers for a cheap enough price I can buy the 80% from him, finish machining them in house, and get my own billet lowers in the market. I think $200-250 would make them sell quickly. The programming code is the same POF uses for their lowers. They will have the trigger guard machined. Looks like that went to **** too.

I have 3 upper receivers to build upper halves. One of those is to fill a backorder. For that I have a delta ring, handguards, front sight block, gas tube, bird cage, barrel, LKP and the upper. I need the weld spring, snap ring, gas tube pin, the M4 stock, BCG, and the lower. Everything but the stock and BCG will be here tomorrow.

I have 3 M4 type carbines on backorder. Two are built and ready to ship, the last one is being built and the paragraph above is the status on that. One customer now informs me he wants a refund. Great. Now I'm in another bind. I have three guys who need M4s but only 2 built, one of which wants a refund and one guy wanting a firm ETA on his order which I've been waiting for parts for 6 months that he's been waiting for his gun and is basically half built.

Of course I don't have the money to refund the one customer but do have the rifle he ordered all ready to ship. If he wants his money I'll have to sell the rifle I built for him for enough to cover his refund plus the shipping to the buyer. But then the customer is waiting on his rifle will say WTF why did you sell the very same rifle type I've been waiting for 6 months for?

So, CGers who know more about customer service than I do, what should I do? 2 rifles ready to ship. Built, test fired, have bullet buttons in them. Just need a CA letter printed and I barely have enough money in my account to get these shipped UPS ground on a pickup.

[Intimid8tor]

Communication is the first step and you just did it. As hard as it is to write those messages you need to keep doing it. By doing that you let people know what is going on and some (see my PM) might even be able to help. But, you have to communicate first.

Without communication it all falls apart.

Second, you consolidated your business. Stay true to what you are good at and only expand into areas that are at the right point. Trying to get into lowers right now is tough since we are starting to see prices drop. If you were trying to ride the wave you had to already be in production when all this crap started.

Overexpansion is the death of any business beause of the return on investment and the difficulty in managing multiple expansions at once.

Take your time and do it right. Protect your customer base and they will treat you right. But you have to treat them right as well.

I'll say it again. Call me! My number is in your PM

[Matt C]

Adam,

You screwed up, a few ways. Ok. I'm not going to dissect your post since it's pretty clear you realize that at least. Everyone deserves a second chance IMO.

My advice: Get to work and clean things up as best you can, and rebuild your reputation. I'll support you as much as I can when you do. Don't let this thing drag you down completely, and don't give up.

The one thing I will comment on:

No matter how much I say it here, in PMs, on the phone, or in emails your order status on my site is the current status. If nothing has changed in your status there will be no change. I will not send emails indicating no status change. It's a waste of my time. Log into the site, check the status. If you don't see an update, there is no update. I am not and never was a business that will hold your hand from start to finish. I apologize if anyone got that impression and I misrepresented that somewhere on my site.

You are making a big mistake here. If your customer is unhappy, you need to talk to him. That isn't handholding, it's customer service. It is very unlikely that you will have a successful business without it, especially when you run into problems like you did. People are a lot more forgiving when you give them a personal phone call explaining the situation on a regular basis.

As far as what to do with the product you have now, why not call and at least try work something out with the people who ordered it?

[freonr22]

pm sent to adam "hey adam, i dont have any business with you, but i would be happy to donate $50 to your cause... do you have a paypal? you seemed to help us californians out @ one time, and welll thats what i can do to help, its not much but....

[freakshow10mm]

My father in law is on his way to pick up my son so I can get time alone to work on this instead of keeping one eye on my son and the rest on the task at hand.

I have spoken with my wife and when she gets done with work and we have supper together, she will keep our son out of my office so I can continue to work on things. Yesterday was our 3 year anniversary and we got to spend a whole hour and a half together (we work opposite shifts). Dinner time on Thursdays is the only time we get to spend together during the week.

I will sort through everything I have that is pending. I have a few things I have to open yet.

I have boxes in my office from Phoenix Dist, Classic Arms (probably a PSL), MD Supplies, and CMMG (has a bullet button stapled to the box so I'm not waiting on that. There's more upstairs I have to go through.

I get my AR BBs from JK Supply and they are excellent at getting those out. I should have 5 more here by early next week.

The AK type rifles I've asked those people if they want me to take the parts off but haven't gotten any answers and it's been over a month since I asked them so I take it they still want a lock. The PSL stock should come off but some are really in there and will need a lock so I don't damage the gun taking the stock off. I prefer the JP style lock as the Raddlock is overly complicated and permanently alters the weapon, which I'm not fond of. A few sent me those and in the interest of getting them shipped I will install them for this batch of transfers only.

A few have contacted me offering to help out financially. On every occasion I've declined. This is my fault and I have to make it right. I don't want to bring anyone else down with me. Thanks for the offers everyone.

[hawk1]

Adam my offer still stands as I posted on page one to get cyrus his rifle shipped that you have. I have not heard from you on this...
You said it's ready and right in front of you. Let me pay to get it to him now. That's one less thing for you to worry about. I'll even schedule the FedEx truck to pick it up.
PM or email (email address is in profile),

[Kestryll]

I need to address a few points and add some things to this.

Adam, you got in too deep and started sinking, it happens to a LOT of new businesses.
I know you don't want to 'hold people's hands' through the deal but when there is an issue or problem that takes time even an email or PM that just says "I haven't forgotten your order, it's still pending and I'll let you know as soon as I hear something." can make a huge difference.

Everyone, Adam has put his cards on the table and now we all know where he, and you, all stand.
It does not sounds like this was malicious, criminal or of bad intent.
It does sound like things got out of control and then spiraled further down.
Now that we know what's going on we can look at fault and such later, let's see what can be done to rectify things now.



Some have asked how Adam is still listed as a Vendor here, that deserves an answer.

Adam, as he himself has said, has been in arrears on his Vendor fees for a while.
I knew he was having issues due to charge backs and as such was not going to make an issue of it while he was having problems.
I rarely pull an ad or forum right away when people fall behind, I try to find out why and give time and room if there is a problem. I've done it for others as well and will do it again.

I had hoped, and still do, that Adam could get things turned around and back on track and continue in business.
Now that we are more fully aware of the depth of the problem I will making some adaptations to meet the situation.

The Freakshow banner will come down as will the 'Vendor' title.
However the 'Freakshow' forum will remain, not as a sales forum but as a place for Adam to post updates to the situation and for people waiting for products or refunds to be able to contact him.

To the customers and others, let's use that as a place to work on resolving this situation as beneficially as possible to everyone, not as a venue to flame Adam.

Adam, I'd really like to see daily, or every other day, updates as to what is going on. Even if it's just to say thing are much the same, keeping the lines of contact open will help.


Nothing can change what has happened, what matters now is how we handle it and where we go from here.

[freakshow10mm]

Contacted Cyrus yesterday after speaking with my police chief. His rifle is in the garage ready to be shipped. I forwarded tracking to him yesterday. I did a UPS on call pickup for this afternoon so they should stop by and get it. Package is insured for $1,500.

[freakshow10mm]

I'll try my best, Kestryll.

My son just got picked up for the afternoon so I'm going to bow out and work on getting a foothold on the status.

I will post as much of an update of the current stock and situationals as I can and will aim it as a 4pm Eastern, 1pm Pacific deadline. Hopefully it won't take that long but just to give myself a solid 2 hours to get lunch and sort everything out.

Adam

[Geo]

I'm a sucessful small business owner. One of the ways that I maintain my sucess, and my customer satisfaction, is that I maintain a very healthy cash reserve to deal with contingencies. Cash solves problems, excuses don't. If a small business can not effectively capitalize itself, it should never have started in the first place.

Take this advice for what it's worth. If you are determined to stay in business, you need a minimum of $10,000 sitting around doing nothing but earing 2% interest and waiting for emergencies like what you are dealing with now. I keep $100,000 on hand in a money market, but my business higher risk and has higher equipment costs.

If you can't stomach keeping a big cash reserve, you are doomed to be a failure in both business and customer service.

Best of luck, Geo

[freakshow10mm]

I had a thousand dollar buffer when I started. Now it's gone and hasn't been rebuilt.

I just picked up my paycheck from my other job. A whopping $400. I talked to my credit union to check on account options. I wanted an account where I could separately bill things to instead of having one account to pay for everything. When I get an order in and the funds would deposit into my account (2 day delay) I want to be able to move the amount I collect for shipping to a separate account so the shipping money would always be there when it is ready to ship.

Not as streamlined as that happened but I have a subaccount to my business checking. When I get deposits from orders, I can now go online and move the shipping money over to my subaccount to keep it separate from the primary account. The subaccount will be isolated from the primary account so no matter what happens in the primary account it will not affect the balance of the subaccount unless I manually transfer funds to the primary account.

I put $150 in that subaccount from my paycheck. I should be able to ship several transfers with that money. At least get caught up with the things that are ready to ship out over the weekend.