"Open Letter from Tony Reidy of Wargames Factory" Topic

Ha, I'll see your four quatloos and raise you another one (five total). It'll get to 500!

This thread is getting so long that it's impossible to follow any more. I think we need to begin this as a new thread.

But that said, you had the obligation as a cop to not take sides as it wasn't your job. There are other parts of the legal process to handle that side of things. That isn't the case here. Accepting business as usual at WF without comment is the same as blindly accepting the takeover group's side of the story.

Oh, I wouldn't for a moment say it was business as usual. Right now I wouldn't order from WF with somebody else's money.

No not connected at all to this… just hate this kind of thing… this kind of politics within our industry only causes harm…

And this kind of letter isn't going to solve Tony's problems… it's not like we are share holders of the company or something.

Howard Whitehouse here.

I've stayed off this topic, since it became so inflammatory and -- long. Really, really long.

But since my short piece on the WF forum was pasted in, and an odd discussion of whether or not I am, in fact, 'a good old boy' (which is not a term usually used for someone born and raised in the West Midlands) I thought I'd say a couple of things.

First of all, I am glad that those who know me speak highly of my honesty and integrity. Indeed, those that don't know me have not impugned my reputation, and I thank them for that. It's also fair to say that I can only vouch directly for things I have seen and been part of, rather than been told and believe. Nobody showed me the cheque book stubs, and I have not driven to Boston to look at a list of unsent orders. While I accept what those I have come to know well over the past three years have told me, I don't necessarily expect others to do so.

It's probably fair to say my ability to spot a fraud isn't what it might be; I certainly hadn't expected such duplicity from my erstwhile colleague, Mr.Mullins. Nor did I expect a business agreement that clearly offered a great deal to all parties to turn sour so suddenly.

As to the other matters – well, I certainly don't choose to paint the whole Chinese people, or even Chinese business practices, with a broadly hostile brush. The issue lies with one industrialist and his American representative. Indeed, the whole affair seems to have been driven more by ineptitude and personal rancour than a cold-eyed plan to take over a tiny American company. Other investors in the company seem aghast over this blundering attempt at a takeover, since they had analysed the agreement by which Wai Kee's 41% holding would be in return for a much faster rate of new products and – in consequence – a healthy cash return for everyone involved.

It simply seems that, when criticized (privately, within the core 'old' WF team – though the email was forwarded on to him by Mr. Mullins) for delays and incorrect shipments of product, Wai Kee responded with what amounts to a tantrum.

Obviously, we'd all have preferred that none of this had occurred.

I do wish Tony the best however and hope he is able to move on to greener pastures and happier times…

Let me be clear that this is unfounded at the moment however I do wonder if there is some connection here.

It's probably not as ominous as it seems, but I'll bet there is at least a teneous connection.

Possible connections:
- similar situation to WF.
- Bastion was going to use Ghost Studios/Wai Kee as an investor, but the developing WF situation caused them to change their mind
- or the most likely connection: Ghost is simpy a vendor they owe money to.

Bastion was going to use Ghost Studios/Wai Kee as an investor, but the developing WF situation caused them to change their mind

Although nothing to substantiate this in fact, I tend to believe this is the case here as reading between the lines allude to this possible scenario.

Lord Dog, what a trainwreck…

This is posted entirely to push toward that 500 post goal. It's a far more rational reason to add to this thread than many…

BBurger…I'm with you, dude.

I'm going to agree with the thought that this is sad for our hobby regardless of who did what to whom.

It also reminds us that there is a business angle to our hobby that most of us ignore most of the time.

Dan

Mr. Whitehouse,
If I overstepped my bounds in reposting your comment on the WF forums, I apologize.
Your post shed some light on things that I thought we be good here.

Steven

"Woohoo 400!
I'm sure if anything illegal went on, one side or the other will take it to court and it will be settled there rather than here."

Have you never heard the question, "How much justice can you afford, citizen?"

It is one thing to be right, and quite another to be able to afford to prove you're right in a civil court of law, especially if the other side's pockets are orders of magnitude deeper than your own.

Leland R. Erickson

My condolences, Mr. Whitehouse. To you, Tony, and the rest of the crew who worked so hard to make your dreams happen. I enjoyed your products, enjoyed praising them, enjoyed complaining about them, and I eagerly awaited each new release in order to praise and grumble about the tiniest bit of detail. You guys were great, and you took each pat on the back and punch in the gut any of us delivered like true wargamers.

Just remember one thing: Wargames Factory might in the hands of others now, but what made that company is inside your minds.

If you choose to start over again at some point, there is this state called Ohio with these plastic injection molding company incubators and money for starting up new businesses and generating jobs. There are also 8,000 or so operators of those sorts of machines working in Wal-Mart or running out of unemployment benefits sitting within driving distance of the city of Akron, and any of them would love to work for you fellows. When your area loses Graco, Little Tikes, Hoover, and Rubbermaid in a short span of time, there eventually becomes a desire in a blue collar worker's heart to be part of something special again…

Just sayin' that one might find that if he gets a new set of wings, there might be some others who would love to help him soar once again.

"And this kind of letter isn't going to solve Tony's problems… it's not like we are share holders of the company or something."

Yes, but we are all *consumers* here, and in that, we do indeed have a say in the matter with WF or any other company whose business practices we might take an issue with! I for one was saving up my hard-and-brutally-earned pennies for a big Persian army project for 2011, but after this situation where what now strikes me as a case of "saving face" meets some personal bad behavior equaling a big kaboom leaving Tony and cadre out of their jobs for *IMHO* no good freakin' reason, is cause enough for me to keep those pennies in my bank account until further notice, or spend 'em elsewhere if Tony and his cohorts can come back somehow with a new venture and give us affordable plastic Achaemenid Persians (among other things!).

Otherwise, fuggeddaboutit, Wai Kee, Lonnie, and George, y'all ain't gettin' my money!

We have a say, Darkster, as *consumers.*

Cheers!

Leland R. Erickson

Amen, Brother Leland.

Valator, that's pretty nice.

Thank you.

Tony is, of course, from Ohio. He's a Cleveland boy.

He always wanted the whole process to be done close to home. The deal with Wai Kee was not a first choice, but rather a last choice. The problem was not that American companies can't run plastic through moulds, but rather that the step where a computer image turns into a steel mould had bypassed N. American manufacturers. In the last twenty years or so N. American companies haven't kept up with the technology, because their customers had already gone elsewhere.

I knew that glass blowing and running a hand loom were lost arts. I had not realised that injection moulded plastics was an arcane skill now largely unknown in the western world.

Which is why we have service jobs at Starbucks and buy things made elsewhere.

And that's a problem in itself.

service jobs at Starbucks

I did not know Starbucks offered THAT kind of service!

Hurm, Ohio you say? I have relatives in Ohio…….

Howard, I know you to be a man of your word, and I know you much better than Lonnie, and so therefore I must remove my statement from, oh, EIGHT pages back that "Lonnie's cool". I'll just go with what you say. Hopefully my foot will stay out of my mouth for a few days……

Don't know what else to say. Better luck next time seems antagonistic and rude. However, I really think you guys should just start up a new company. "Wargames Figures" maybe?

Binky says "I got's me no pretty plastic persians now."

Has anybody considered an alternative reason for these events?

China has a problem that they have a booming economy with internal markets growing quickly. There is a shortage of workers as young people do not want to work in factories. This has lead to dramatic wage rises.

Many Chinese businesses are revaluating their customer segments on a Pareto basis. Some are deciding that small volume niche customers are no longer interesting.

This could be simply a result of a dramatic shift in corporate strategy for the parent company.

Mick

It simply seems that, when criticized (privately, within the core 'old' WF team – though the email was forwarded on to him by Mr. Mullins) for delays and incorrect shipments of product, Wai Kee responded with what amounts to a tantrum.

Interesting: you bitched about the guy who holds the money, he found out, threw his teddy out of the pram and you all lost your jobs.

Harsh lesson on why you shouldn't use work email to bitch about the boss.

I thought it was relatively common knowledge that there is no such thing as a "private" email when sent over a work system? Or is it different in the USA to Europe?

In Russia nothing is private, as you can pay the office boy $50 USD to hack into anywhere…all the IT security jobs being run by nepotisitically appointed idiots…and the genius wunderkind hackers delivering sandwiches. Glad I don't live there anymore.

But, seriously…? Why oh why use the work email system to have a go at the boss? On a scale of 1 to dumb, its pretty dumb.

Do you know any entrepreneurs who aren't sensitive about their reputations? I don't.

Bad move, clearly.

Has anybody considered an alternative reason for these events?

I dont think we need to now that the real reason has come out.

Dont bitch about the boss on the work email system!

Actually the emails weren't accessible to anyone outside the four or five people involved. There was no system administrator who could read them. The Chinese partner had no authority in the matter.

It was simply a case of one person choosing to forward the email to another party, violating the trust placed in him by the man who had hired him when he was out of work.

As to the reasons for the venting email --- reports indicate that the shipment from China did, in fact, consist of entirely the wrong things.

It was simply a case of one person choosing to forward the email to another party, violating the trust placed in him by the man who had hired him when he was out of work.

Ah, but who to be loyal to in a situation like this? What was never black and white seems to just keep getting greyer.

Looks like there was some confusion in peoples minds as to whether he was a supplier, partner or boss….

I have a personal aversion to sneaky sales people but I still thing bear has a point.

Actually the emails weren't accessible to anyone outside the four or five people involved. There was no system administrator who could read them. The Chinese partner had no authority in the matter.

It was simply a case of one person choosing to forward the email to another party, violating the trust placed in him by the man who had hired him when he was out of work.

As to the reasons for the venting email --- reports indicate that the shipment from China did, in fact, consist of entirely the wrong things.

So the thing you were bitching about wasn't even a definitive thing?! You just "thought" it might be wrong?

Unless you sent your email from a private address the "no such thing as a private email" still applies and I would agree with Old Bear that the other person bore some responsibility to the owner/investor to report such emails sent via the company email system.

Certainly if you had a system administrator they would be obliged to do so.

I don't think your actions are anywhere near as innocent as you are making them out to be, after all, if you hadn't written the email in the first place none of this could have happened.

It is convenient to "blame the other guy" but I'm not so sure you can just imagine away your responsibility for writing the emails in the first place, especially as you didn't know, factually, the contents of the order in question.
Look for the pebble that started the rock-slide and its easy to point at whoever wrote that email, not who reported it to the owner.

Passing the buck and blaming other people does not abrogate ultimate responsibility for writing the email in the first place does it?

If such was the case then you would do the same again without changing a thing?

Link Hunter, clearly you are solidly entrenched in your position.

From my own vantage point, it was a clear case of betrayal by someone I had wrongly assumed to be a friend. The email certainly does not seem to be the only instance of his deliberately poisoning the atmosphere between the Chinese partner and the company founder.

You may see it differently. It's probably fortunate we don't work together.

Howard is correct.

While it may be wiser not to send anything in an e-mail that you don't want someone else to hear, the same could be said of a written letter or for that matter a conversation. That it was an e-mail has little to do with it, except the ease of forwarding that exists in the Internet world.

It is not unethical to vent in a private e-mail. It is unethical to forward such a letter to another party without permission, a truth which most people learn in grade school— you don't tell Sally's secret to Suzy.

Lonnie owed his loyalty and at very least his personal integrity to Tony. He had no right to send Tony's private words of dissatisfaction on to the Chinese corporation— they may have held 41% of the company, but that didn't make them Lonnie's boss or Lonnie's friend. His boss was Tony. His friend was Tony. Lonnie's loyalty should have been to him.

Aside from trusting Lonnie, what exactly did Tony do wrong? There is nothing wrong with speaking one's mind in a private conversation. Nor is expressing one's displeasure with a company situation particularly egregious— geez, who hasn't griped about a boss or a business contact or a supplier? It's no crime, nor even necessarily damaging to business at all. In fact, it can be a way to talk out problems and derive solutions for dealing with them. That's the way human beings interact.

So the question that I have for you is this: What was Lonnie's purpose in sending the e-mail on?

Lonnie had to have known that Tony's words were considered private.

Lonnie had to have known that Tony was expressing dissatisfaction with a situation that was current and real, even if Tony was misinterpreting events that Lonnie understood (which I doubt).

Lonnie had to have known that forwarding the e-mail to the Chinese executives would be harmful to Tony and the others at Wargames Factory.

And he did it anyway.

Why?

It is quite clear to me that Lonnie did so in a deliberate effort to undermine Tony and brown-nose the Chinese corporate bigwig. Not content with what he had— a good job in a field of interest of his— he wanted more, and he didn't care if he hurt others to get it. Maybe that's common in the world, but that doesn't make it any less pathetic.

Bring back Tony.

On the bright side, I just got a confirmation from the good folks at USPS that my chariots and celtic warband (purchased from my Friendly Online Game Store 5 minutes after I read Tony's letter)should be waiting in my mailbox when I get home from work today. Looks like I got their last 2 – hopefully their stock of Romans will hold until my next paycheck.

Sorry to see WF go – I really wanted me some Amazons, Orcs and Persians. Tony and Howard, if you guys decided to try again, you've got my support.

It is convenient to "blame the other guy" but I'm not so sure you can just imagine away your responsibility for writing the emails in the first place

I keep reading this stuff and trying to understand where people are coming from, but you know folks it does come down to personnel responsibility! The guy signed/ sold or what ever his CONTROLLING interest in his company for what ever reason, at that point it was no longer his company. I don't believe he did this to loose it and for what ever reason it seemed like a good idea at the time (only he really knows the answer to that).

I do believe the guy was trying with what he had to work with to improve and expand (which mind you in this day and age is hard as hell) his company. Then a series of events leads to him not only loosing his company or any chance of getting it back but he also looses his job and cant work it anymore – DAMN! That has got to hurt like hell. This is a mistake he will have to live with for the rest of his life and you have my sympathies because I know how that must feel – once again just because the guy could take his company does not mean he should have. Contracts are only good as the men signing them and if you got a guy with deep pockets you will have a hard time winning in court (even if you are right) if you don't match his money – in a court case.

You have other guys involved to what ever extent and to me they could be neither here nor there, but one new fella we are to understand takes emails and send them to the now owner and BOOM!! All hell breaks loose. Are we to believe this guy sent this information to the new owners not knowing what was going to happen? Did he really do this because he felt a loyalty to the new owners? If so what about loyalty to the guy who gave him a chance? I leave this to you to discern for yourselves. I have my thoughts on this and I get angry to know that there are people that do the "legal" thing every day to ******* someone over for a buck. However there could be things here that completely change the outlook on this also.

You can go on speculating, finger pointing but the truth is responsibility for your own personal actions, the person who sold his controlling shares, the person who started all of this (by forwarded emails we are to understand), the fella who fired all of these guys and so on – many people dropped the "ball" here.

No matter what any of you do now and you ALL had a part in this rather it be intentional or not, this company will NEVER be the same again. Among the MANY issues here I believe the main one is lost of trust, trust has been supremely sacrificed here.

Many decisions were made here, some with good intent and some I dare say with ill intent – which are the ones that truly did the damage here – now you all have to live it.

I have my own thoughts and I do believe there is one individual in this that carries the burden of most of the responsibility for the destruction of this company, this is only speculation but if this person did do these things said here and acted out of selfish self preservation it will come back to you and when it does you also have my sympathies because you will most likely be alone in your pain.

Just my thoughts on this.

Warlord

"Maybe if they actually made their products in America (or the UK) instead of using the Chinese indentured servitude system things would have been different? They got what they paid for."

I presume the writer (who never trusted WF from Day 1 – I do love prophets!) of that point has no microwave, digital camera or PC in his house. The issue is not the Chinese economic system and its rather patronising/neo-imperialist to suggest it is (speaking as someone whose sister in law works 6 days a week for 12 hrs a day in a factory near Shanghai to support her family whilst my brother in law has 2 jobs). And yes it would be great if Chinese workers were paid better (both for them and for UK/US workers as maybe then less work would go there) but they are not and the fact that it makes economic sense to make stuff there is how capitalism works – its not a level palying field and never will be. The old "stuff made in China is crap" is so old hat. look what has happened at WH Historicals – so please stop banging on about the Chinese in stereotyped generic terms- its business!

You may see it differently.

A whistle-blower requires something to blow about.

It is VERY difficult to get past that rather solid aspect of all this.

You/Tony/whoever provided that to the whisttle-blower, you just dont seem to want to accept any responsibility for doing so.

It is easier to blame the whistle-blower than shoulder responsibility for your own actions I guess.

I am firmly entrenched in that opinion, yes. And it is reinforced every time you fail to accept any responsibility and continue to pass the blame onto other people for your own actions.

It is not unethical to vent in a private e-mail.

Use a private email then – It really is very simple.

However you are missing the point: he blew the whistle, they provided the ammunition, they just wont accept responsibility for their own actions and carelessness.

It doesnt matter to me if Lonnie is cast as good or bad, the other are still the ones who gave him the ammo and therefore have to shoulder a measure of responsibility and blame – they cant sit their pretending to be virginal and innocent, because it is abundantly clear they are not.

Imo this entire thread comes from Tony seeking absolution in his own mind through his letter, anybody who thought that letter would resolve any issues had to be either stupid, or temporarily incapable of rational though.

I dont deny its a sorry set of circumstances, but I really dont like watching these people pretend to have no responsibility whatsoever for thingss they have said and done.

They did them and they said them, regardless of who snitched on them doing so.

Bring back Tony.

Lets face it, would you bring him back after all of this? We don't no way near have all the facts but what I am seeing here I bet that is the last thing on the new owners mind.

What's ironic is that I can see when things settle down, the whistle blower is going to loose his job as soon as a suitable replacement comes along – when this happens companies tend to wipe the slate clean – no old residue. For now they need someone to put them back on track and have intimate knowledge of "the plan" sort of speak.

I could be wrong though, we shall see.

It doesnt matter to me if Lonnie is cast as good or bad, the other are still the ones who gave him the ammo and therefore have to shoulder a measure of responsibility and blame – they cant sit their pretending to be virginal and innocent, because it is abundantly clear they are not.

I totally agree that all share in the responsibility however I still say that "Intent" has a big part of this.

hypothetically If we are to go by what has been said here as true then it appears to me that the former owners acted on good faith and "intent" to further their company and made decisions to better their situation where as the whistle blower acted on self serving undermining "intent".

IMHO he shoulders the heavier burden of responsibility because his intent was clearly ill and consequently had ill affect – it was his actions that set all the others in motion to go in the direction it has.

Emphasizing again this is hypnotically because we don't have all the facts.

Warlord

"There's not much love in the free west for oppressive totalitarian regimes; that's what spills over into the business comments."

Except when they are oppressive totalitarian regimes that are pro western!

Except when they are oppressive totalitarian regimes that are pro western!

…Pro western "MONEY" that is and there is lots of love from the free west when they save or make money on said regines. Always comes down to the bottom line.

Consider this scenario for a moment:

Tony finds out the cargo ship from China has been wrongly loaded with incorrect items. Blasts off an indiscrete email about Chinese inefficiency and worse to his team.
Lonnie, who has wholesale customers chewing his ears off on the phone for late deliery sees the message and in a fit of desperation fwd's the email to the Chinese shipper with a "have you really done this?" question. Not thinking about how harmful Tonys words could be.
Shipper passes email up the line and eventually comes to notice of someone important enough to make the fateful decision

Naïve, Careless maybe but not vindictive stab in the back.

Why is this possible scenario any less likely? Just because Tony said so?

The problems were there before this. I have still never had anyone from WF answer as to why WSS Sprues I paid for in October, which were available for delivery in November were sold again to retail customers at shows (hundreds of figures at a time according to posts here on TMP)rather than being sent to me.
There was no chinese involvement here, that decision was purely the old management team.

"Novelty of a NOT one-party dictatorship: A little bit more freedom of opinion. Gone native, have we?"

bit patronising!

I'm perplexed by the use of "whistle blower" here – were there nefarious dealings or safety breaches being reported? No, didn't think so – "tattletale" seems a far more accurate epithet to me.

Exactly, Dom. But "whistle blower" sounds so much more appealing and noble than "self-serving stool pigeon."

Lonnie, who has wholesale customers chewing his ears off on the phone for late deliery sees the message and in a fit of desperation fwd's the email to the Chinese shipper with a "have you really done this?" question. Not thinking about how harmful Tonys words could be. … Why is this possible scenario any less likely? Just because Tony said so?

Not only Tony, but Howard and others. And they have also said that there was more than one incident involved. So we don't just have one witness, we have several. We don't just have one individual being fired (as would be the logical conclusion of your scenario, Rob), we have the entire founding team of the company dismissed. That points to a pattern of deliberate betrayal rather than a single instance of innocent fumbling. As for your complaint regarding October & November, since we now know the e-mail problems extend back to August, I think you may have seized on the wrong scapegoat. Perhaps it is Lonnie you should be demanding an explanation from, not Tony. It appears to be that he was taking your orders (and your money), and not the target you have chosen. After all, even before this blow-up was finalized, Lonnie was the Sales Manager, wasn't he?

I'm not quite sure why Howard refers to them as partners. In my book someone who can replace you is your boss so suspect some ambiguity in this relationship?

If the popular story is true then this mull ins guy is an arse though. My
Problem is that there are always two sides and I dont like mob justice.

I do think some of these recent posts are sticking thhe knife in a bit. By all accounts these are good guys who worked hard for their dream.

Think "shareholders" – they can replace the management team (although doing so would generally be regarded as massively drastic), but they're not what anyone would ordinarily call "the boss".

Tony finds out the cargo ship from China has been wrongly loaded with incorrect items. Blasts off an indiscrete email about Chinese inefficiency and worse to his team.
Lonnie, who has wholesale customers chewing his ears off on the phone for late deliery sees the message and in a fit of desperation fwd's the email to the Chinese shipper with a "have you really done this?" question. Not thinking about how harmful Tonys words could be.

These are wise words because they are extremely plausible as an alternative possibility. Note that 'alternative' does not mean 'definitive'.

It is quite clear to me that Lonnie did so in a deliberate effort to undermine Tony and brown-nose the Chinese corporate bigwig. Not content with what he had— a good job in a field of interest of his— he wanted more, and he didn't care if he hurt others to get it. Maybe that's common in the world, but that doesn't make it any less pathetic.

@ Parzival,

Your list of circumstances before this last statement are utterly flawed because you are only choosing to look at it from one side. You may be quite right but in my experience the chances of an partially uninformed third party accurately assessing a chain of circumstances at every stage and then drawing what he perceives to be the inevitable and only conclusion is rare indeed. It doesn't help that you have already completely made your mind up.

Again, to reiterate, you may be right on the numbers, but I for one would not bet my house on anything to do with this whole sorry state of affairs.

I'm perplexed by the use of "whistle blower"

I see your point however one could say "talking about your boss" behind his back could be construed as "operational undermining" I guess. It was enough to get him fired.

It is quite clear to me that Lonnie did so in a deliberate effort to undermine Tony and brown-nose the Chinese corporate bigwig. Not content with what he had— a good job in a field of interest of his— he wanted more, and he didn't care if he hurt others to get it. Maybe that's common in the world, but that doesn't make it any less pathetic.

How is this "quite clear"? This may be highly possible however there is no way to know unless evidence surfaced that showed this beyond a shadow of a doubt. What if you are wrong? What if there is missing information that can change the way we all perceive this? What if your version is propagated and a guys reputation is fried because a lot of people jumped the gun.

I am not saying this guy did nothing but I am saying that there is still much missing to make that sort of claim and to doom a guy over, if he did this believe me he won't get away with it, funny but those sorts of things have a way of coming back to haunt you.

Except as Tony was the "boss" Lonny would be the one perpetrating any "operational undermining". It's all a bit convoluted since the Chinese connections are simultaneously suppliers (in which capacity they were the subject of said emails) and stakeholders, but stakeholder doesn't equal boss in any day-to-day sense.

Dom, shareholders can be your boss, especially for a small business like this. Call it what u want. At the end of the day it's the one who can sack you u need to worry about!

The point above is made better than i could. To an impartial observer this whole thing could be read in different ways.

Anyways, i shall follow howards lead and stop posting because its all been said and the trolls are gathering.

All the best to the old team.

Jon

RobH

The problems were there before this. I have still never had anyone from WF answer as to why WSS Sprues I paid for in October, which were available for delivery in November were sold again to retail customers at shows (hundreds of figures at a time according to posts here on TMP)rather than being sent to me.

Actually Rob, yes you have had this (or is it these) questions answered before. I have answered some of them, and I have read answers to you from Howard on public forums, including this one. But, here you go again as the song says:

1st – The "100's of sold sprues" you refer to were at the Fall-In convention. They were a batch of loose sprues with no packaging that WF paid to have flown over because you don't go to a Con as a vendor without product and because WF wanted to get painted samples for box art and PR, and to have reviewed by the gaming press (such as it is). At that time they had a freight manifest and every expectation that the actual retail product would be in hand in November.

2nd – Due to the foul-up (deliberate or accidental, really doesn't matter at this point) that caused the actual product shipment to be impounded and quarantined by US Customs, there still was no actual "product" in November, It was early December before product actually arrived at Triangle. True, it was in the US in late November, but could not be released or touched by anyone for 20 business days.

3rd – Once product was delivered to Triangle, Tony worked pretty much round the clock seven days a week to get it packaged by Triangle, sort orders, box them and print labels, and get them ready for posting. And some did post out.

4th – From some time in November until almost the first of the year, there were problems with the internal e-mail system linked from the web site and the storefront, with customer contact e-mails being deleted or segregated as SPAM. Howard and Tony both went online (including here) and made the public aware of this and began trying to sort things out. That is why Howard published his direct (i.e., personal) e-mail address here on TMP and on the Lefora Forums for people to contact him. And this was in no way "selective"; I assisted with the WSS design and was in constant contact with Tony up until the e-mail problem. I couldn't get through it, neither could Howard, neither could anyone else.

5th – Why did some retailers like Caliver get product when you didn't? You would probably have to talk to Lonnie about this since his role was as Sales Manager for the distributors and brick & mortar retail customers, NOT for orders from people like you and I.

6th – Some orders to individuals were shipped as previously mentioned, perhaps their pre-order was placed before yours, I personally don't know. My pre-order wasn't shipped either. But, when the bulk of the pre-orders were packed and ready to ship (December 18th), that is when Tony and company found out that the funds collected had been transferred out of the Company bank account and there was no way to pay for shipping costs. I was on the phone with Howard during this time and e-mail, and we don't know for sure how he did it, but Tony raised the necessary cash to ship the orders (about $1,000) and (perhaps foolishly in hindsight) deposited it in the account. That was when Tony was told the funds would not be released to cover the shipment costs and when the rest of this sordid drama "hit the fan". Tony had already announced that this shipment would now be going out on January 7th, and once again had no funds available to actually accomplish this.

I know all of the above through direct, first-hand, communication with people inside WF who I do trust and believe. And I have seen the answers above given out previously. As to why your order still has not been shipped, or many other folks orders as well? Once again you would have to ask Lonnie or George, who are currently the only hands behind the wheel.

Bill
Sir William the Aged
(Who swore to himself that he would not post to this topic again. So much for Good Intentions.)

Except as Tony was the "boss" Lonny would be the one perpetrating any "operational undermining". It's all a bit convoluted since the Chinese connections are simultaneously suppliers (in which capacity they were the subject of said emails) and stakeholders, but stakeholder doesn't equal boss in any day-to-day sense.

O.K. I'll bite – There may be things I don't know here (which I have been saying all along)

Then tell me how did they fire these guys? It seems to me they were "share holders", but also worked for the company which makes them employees as well and in which case they have a "Boss".

Keep in mind, I am in NO WAY condoning the actions the "Tattletale" if that is what indeed happened.

Yea, this one is like bad drug. I think I am making my exit as well…

To all the former W.F. team, I truly do wish you guys the best of luck. "Keep your heads up and your powder dry", don't let this put you down, use this, learn from it and move on.

Mr Tony Riedy, I have never met you but my thoughts and prayers are with you. Regardless of what all went down I know this has to hurt man (for what it is worth I believe I understand why you wrote the letter) – good luck and carry on!

To the new owners I bare you no ill will, however only you know what your true intentions was and are, I hope you all get what you gave and deserve – and that is all I have to say to you.

Warlord