Anyone heard from Cris Anderson?

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Filed the dispute with the credit card company (even though the
cc payment was facilitated through PayPal).... it’s over their normal
120 day dispute timeline so it gets escalated to a different team...
they stated that they will work with PayPal to get info on the merchant...expect to receive written correspondence within 30 days
to gather additional information...have to provide answers to their questions by a certain date....
will keep all posted......sucks to have to do this ....and I wouldn’t have if he would have made a modicum effort at communication..
 
So sorry to see it finally come to this, but you’ve certainly waited more than long enough.
 
I commissioned a pair of custom speakers a few years ago from a very talented builder. He had been on the forum I belonged to for several years and had built a lot speakers for other people. Everyone was extremely happy with his work because he was a perfectionist. I trusted him and paid the entire cost up front. I kept in constant contact with him because it was a lot of money. More than a few times I was worried I would never see those speakers and the more time that went by the more worried I got. People started complaining a little because he was taking a long time to get their projects done and there was some talk about him having some money problems. This started to really worry me because people ahead of me in line weren’t getting there speakers. He did finally pull through and the speakers were a thing of beauty for sure but until those speakers were in my hands I wasn’t sure I’d ever see them. He had a big back log because so many people were happy with his work and still owed a lot of people speakers. He delivered one more set of very nice speakers to another well known forum member and then disappeared. Several people had paid for speakers up front and he just vanished into thin air. A few months later there was a rumor that he had gotten divorced or was in the process and had a girlfriend he was seen with. No one ever heard from him again and all of his contact info went bad. A lot of people lost a lot of money because of him. This was a well known member who owned a well known business. He was very likable and was on the forum regularly. You just never know what can happen no matter how safe it seems. I wish you luck on getting some sort of resolution to this.
 
Similar things happened in one of my previous hobby also, it was flashlights. One of the most respected custom flashlight maker fell on hard times, started taking full payments up front, not just deposits. His excellent track record & respect built up over 15 plus years on the CPF pulled through a lot of payments, but he couldn’t keep up with the build. Deeply under water, he made the worst decision ever, started OEM certain Alibaba Flashlight as “custom“, & got busted. After that, all hell broke loose, & lot of people never got get their money back.
 
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In my past dealings with Cris I have consistently found him to be an honest, ethical guy. I have no explanation to offer as to why there have been the sorts of communication problems that have been experienced by several people, but one avenue I would suggest is to try reaching him via Facebook, where he seems to maintain a fairly active presence.
 
Similar things happened in one of my previous hobby also, it was flashlights. One of the most respected custom flashlight maker fell on hard times, started taking full payments up front, not just deposits. His excellent track record & respect built up over 15 plus years on the CPF pulled through a lot of payments, but he couldn’t keep up with the build. Deeply under water, he made the worst decision ever, started OEM certain Alibaba Flashlight as “custom“, & got busted. After that, all hell broke loose, & lot of people never got get their money back.

I remember that fiasco. Back then, he could probably get away with it, as it was good 6-8 years ago. Now, pretty much impossible.

I never bought their stuff, and didn't have any plans to, but it's def a good reminder. I think it was like $495 price for a $70 flashlight
 
I remember that fiasco. Back then, he could probably get away with it, as it was good 6-8 years ago. Now, pretty much impossible.

I never bought their stuff, and didn't have any plans to, but it's def a good reminder. I think it was like $495 price for a $70 flashlight
$495 for a flashlight? :oops: I will never question custom knifemakers asking prices again...CM excepted
 
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$495 for a flashlight? :oops: Now I will never question custom knifemakers asking prices...CM excepted

Pretty much any hobby when you get deep into it, it becomes unthinkable to outsiders. The last flashlight I built in that hobby costed ~$2k. It was no longer a “flashlight”, rather, a modified Navy searchlight running 330W UHP shot arc lamp, Good times.

By the same token, I am pretty sure the flashlight guys will consider $500 kitchen knife unthinkable, let alone knives floating on KKF here costing thousands.
 
Another fairly recent example is Chris Essery who used his platform as YT's Horology House and moderator for the Aussie FB watch sales, to dupe unwitting buyers out of $10,000's by passing off super clone fake Rolex watches incl Daytona's, as genuine watches. By building an apparently trustworthy presence, Chris was able to con buyers for a couple of years until the (Horology) House of Cards came crashing down. He was refunding some disgruntled buyers who discovered they had been duped feigning ignorance and making an honest mistake, using cash from subsequent buyers, eventually events caught up and he was outed on TRF.
 
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Another fairly recent example is Chris Essery who used his platform as YT's Horology House and moderator for the Aussie FB watch sales, to dupe unwitting buyers out of $10,000's by passing off super clone fake Rolex watches incl Daytona's, as genuine watches. By building an apparently trustworthy presence, Chris was able to con buyers for a couple of years until the (Horology) House of Cards came crashing down. He has refunding some disgruntled buyers who discovered they had been duped feigning ignorance and making an honest mistake, using cash from subsequent buyers, eventually events caught up and he was outed on TRF.


I'm not a member on TRF, but do spend some time there. Reading some of this stuff was mind blowing to me
 
According to our local newspaper; one of the guys here in town wanted a large acrylic fish tank with sharks and rays. Apparently he wanted one large enough he could have people dance on.

He contacted the guys from "Tanked" (apparently a TV show). They quoted around 300k. He gave them half as operating capitol. They delayed and eventually came back saying it would be 900k in the end.

He asked for his money back and got nothing. No tank, no 150k. Central Florida businessman sues, says 'Tanked' aquarium-maker soaked him
 
I feel like this story plays out pretty often with people who transition into custom manufacturing as their profession.

They're good at gunsmithing or knifemaking, so they've got work, but they're not necessarily good at everything else that's actually required to run a business. Communication falls off, deadlines get passed, product is never delivered.

I have no involvement with Cris, but I'm still waiting on some gunsmithing work from like 2013. So, I kinda know how it goes.

Payment upfront is never the way to go.
 
Did you make that for Batman?

no, for backyard shots :)

building custom flashlights is likely more complicated than knives, since knife involves many many elements done by the actual smith.. where as flashlights can be modded by end user to no end. .

heck, you can build any kind of bazooka yourself if yuu have 3 things: a way to cool it off, a way to power it, and good knowledge of what to do and what not to do :D <--- easy, right?
 
no, for backyard shots :)

building custom flashlights is likely more complicated than knives, since knife involves many many elements done by the actual smith.. where as flashlights can be modded by end user to no end. .

heck, you can build any kind of bazooka yourself if yuu have 3 things: a way to cool it off, a way to power it, and good knowledge of what to do and what not to do :D <--- easy, right?

Building flashlights is also a lot more fun, I knew I had to leave after spending $2K on the Swan Blaster, & still failed to dethrone RA, it was getting out of hands 😱.

Here is BLF Ranking of : World’s brightest flashlights:

I have three lights in the top 10 still, the #2, #3, #7. I kept the #7, Megablsster, & fire it up into the sky from the backyard on July 4th some times 😃
 
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Building flashlights is also a lot more fun, I knew I had to leave after spending $2K on the Swan Blaster, & still failed to dethrone RA, it was getting out of hands 😱.

Here is BLF Ranking of : World’s brightest flashlights:

I have three lights in the top 10 still, the #2, #3, #7. I kept the #7, Megablsster, & fire it up into the sky from the backyard on July 4th some times 😃

It's also instant gratification. I am maybe generalizing a bit but most people don't really know or care what steel the knife is made of. Now, they may know the steel kind or style but in the end, many more things make a knife than steel. You also rea.ly have no idea about heat treatment, so unless you're buying specific knife size/shape as a workhorse knife, you are basically buying knife makers, not knives, for if a knife maker has good rep (as someone knows what they are doing in heat treatment and the rest of the stages in knife making), then likely knife will keep value, or even gain value. A while back I sold a knife with another knife that I don't think I had a good chance to sell on its own. I added a well known knife that gained quite a bit in value, so that even if the 2nd knife would never be used, the buyer would likely still got a good enough price to justify it.

With a flashlight, most are turn it on and you know instantly what it can do. You most likely don't care about anything else... Now obviously, some may collect them and only every titanium model from a well known maker from hawaii, or other things, but in general, one could argue that knives and flashlights are almost polar opposite in that regard.
 
It's also instant gratification. I am maybe generalizing a bit but most people don't really know or care what steel the knife is made of. Now, they may know the steel kind or style but in the end, many more things make a knife than steel. You also rea.ly have no idea about heat treatment, so unless you're buying specific knife size/shape as a workhorse knife, you are basically buying knife makers, not knives, for if a knife maker has good rep (as someone knows what they are doing in heat treatment and the rest of the stages in knife making), then likely knife will keep value, or even gain value. A while back I sold a knife with another knife that I don't think I had a good chance to sell on its own. I added a well known knife that gained quite a bit in value, so that even if the 2nd knife would never be used, the buyer would likely still got a good enough price to justify it.

With a flashlight, most are turn it on and you know instantly what it can do. You most likely don't care about anything else... Now obviously, some may collect them and only every titanium model from a well known maker from hawaii, or other things, but in general, one could argue that knives and flashlights are almost polar opposite in that regard.

Well said. I remember there were two famous custom makers from Hawaii, Mr. Bulk & McGizmo, did you get to try their lights? I tried one of each, Mr. bulk’s brass dragon heart with the dragon scales, a thing of beauty that I regret selling. The McGizmo light I had was weak, I didn’t understand how he became so successful, something more than just the Ti shell? McGizmo was the Shig. of flashlights with even more fierce following, if I had cut up one of his lights, I could’ve been kicked off CPF 😱
 
Well said. I remember there were two famous custom makers from Hawaii, Mr. Bulk & McGizmo, did you get to try their lights? I tried one of each, Mr. bulk’s brass dragon heart with the dragon scales, a thing of beauty that I regret selling. The McGizmo light I had was weak, I didn’t understand how he became so successful, something more than just the Ti shell? McGizmo was the Shig. of flashlights with even more fierce following, if I had cut up one of his lights, I could’ve been kicked off CPF 😱
The equivalent of converting an Ashi Honyaki gyuto into a nakiri?
 
Well said. I remember there were two famous custom makers from Hawaii, Mr. Bulk & McGizmo, did you get to try their lights? I tried one of each, Mr. bulk’s brass dragon heart with the dragon scales, a thing of beauty that I regret selling. The McGizmo light I had was weak, I didn’t understand how he became so successful, something more than just the Ti shell? McGizmo was the Shig. of flashlights with even more fierce following, if I had cut up one of his lights, I could’ve been kicked off CPF 😱

Ya, McGizmo... I never understood the same... very underpowered, never used 18650 or 26650 (i stopped following like 4-5 years ago). I guess, people look at it was toys vs tools. Obv ti is more expensive, but not 10-20x more expensive for what he charges his flashlights with like 1/5th power. I should check things out, maybe they changed, although I doubt it...

I never tried the Mr Bulk. I actually only ever tried few customs due to their overwhelming cost and it always felt like I was paying for exotic materials vs performance. I wouldn't mind paying that for knives if I was in the market because I'd use knife multiple times a day, vs flashlight, maybe few times a year...

These days with flashlights it's more interesting. Many manufacturers offer uber performance for little cash and custom markers can hardly keep up with actual performance, so they only sell on collectivability, which is fine, just not for me.

I still have a nice keychain light with trits. I should probably use it :)
 
These days with flashlights it's more interesting. Many manufacturers offer uber performance for little cash and custom markers can hardly keep up...

So true., the factory light performance, mostly from China, had grown unbelievably in the last 10 years.

I remember a moderator used to put people in time-out if anyone mentions made-in-China flashlights on CPF, repeat offenders get banned. As a noob, I asked a question about a light from dealextreme, was put in time-out, can’t post for several days 😱.

He had banned so many people because of that, they started a separate forum, the Budget light forum, lol. The funny part is, he himself was stripped from moderator status, & banned when he kept attacking a Chinese manufacture who became sponsor of CPF 😜

I believe the same will happen to kitchen knife. Chinese kitchen knife will become main stream on forums, no longer automatically cheap junk. The handles are already there, rival custom makers f&f at fraction of the cost, some even has mammoth tooth spacer 🤘, the blade not yet, but it will.
 
So true., the factory light performance, mostly from China, had grown unbelievably in the last 10 years.

I remember a moderator used to put people in time-out if anyone mentions made-in-China flashlights on CPF, repeat offenders get banned. As a noob, I asked a question about a light from dealextreme, was put in time-out, can’t post for several days 😱.

He had banned so many people because of that, they started a separate forum, the Budget light forum, lol. The funny part is, he himself was stripped from moderator status, & banned when he kept attacking a Chinese manufacture who became sponsor of CPF 😜

I believe the same will happen to kitchen knife. Chinese kitchen knife will become main stream on forums, no longer automatically cheap junk. The handles are already there, rival custom makers f&f at fraction of the cost, some even has mammoth tooth spacer 🤘, the blade not yet, but it will.
I had the opportunity to try a carbon steel knife from AliExpress that cost $30. Not sure what steel it was but it was hair shaving sharp ootb. F&F was decent for mass produced knives, at least Shun-level.

Not sure how it will be at sharpening, but if it's carbon steel, it should be easy.

Lots of people here trash Chinese knives, but after trying this, if you asked me to pick between, this, Shun, Tojiro, or other cheap brands, I would give this a chance.
 
I had the opportunity to try a carbon steel knife from AliExpress that cost $30. Not sure what steel it was but it was hair shaving sharp ootb. F&F was decent for mass produced knives, at least Shun-level.

Not sure how it will be at sharpening, but if it's carbon steel, it should be easy.

Lots of people here trash Chinese knives, but after trying this, if you asked me to pick between, this, Shun, Tojiro, or other cheap brands, I would give this a chance.

Wow, can you share which one? I’ve been trying once in a while, but not yet a carbon. I have an Aus10 in the mail still, looks promising but I anticipate re-grind being necessary.
 
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