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The Pinball Show Ep 189 BONUS: Dark Tales Of A Pinball Distributor: Dr. No Thank You

Pinball Show Patreon Feed·podcast_episode·45m 57s·analyzed·Feb 24, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Flippin' Out distributor shares nightmare customer story involving refunds, tech issues, and unsettling behavior.

Summary

Zach Minney of Flippin' Out Pinball recounts a troubled transaction with a customer (username 'Bail Organa') who purchased a used James Bond Premium, then demanded a trade after paying in full. A pricing quote error by Greg Bone, compounded by the customer's aggressive behavior and threats to post on Pinside, led Zach to offer a full refund plus free merchandise (T-shirt, banner, Doctor No translite). The game later developed technical issues and had an undisclosed playfield chip; Zach refunded the full purchase and paid the customer's $450 tech bill. The situation escalated when the customer demanded Zach refriend him on Facebook and allegedly sent creepy gifts (Mickey Mouse suckers) to the business, which Zach discarded per professional psychology training.

Key Claims

  • The customer purchased a used James Bond Premium game in full before requesting a trade-in for his Guardians of the Galaxy

    high confidence · Zach directly recounts the sequence of events; customer had already paid before trade request came through

  • Greg Bone quoted the wrong trade-in value initially (off by ~$2,100), which Zach corrected before shipping

    high confidence · Both Zach and the customer's Pinside thread reference this error; Zach confirms Greg 'flipped' the invoice numbers

  • Zach offered a full refund after the customer became aggressive and threatened to post negative reviews on Pinside

    high confidence · Zach describes the phone call negotiation and his decision-making rationale; customer confirms this sequence in thread

  • The James Bond Premium had a playfield chip in the shooter lane that was not disclosed at sale

    high confidence · Zach zoomed in on archive photos during an IU game and confirmed the chip was present; offered full refund when confronted

  • The jetpack multiball feature stopped functioning properly after the second or third jackpot due to an opto issue

    high confidence · Zach worked with Greg and Stern to diagnose; customer's tech spent 4 hours and charged $450 (not the $150 Zach offered)

  • The customer demanded Zach refriend him on Facebook as a condition for not escalating complaints

    high confidence · Zach describes this as deeply creepy and intentionally kept it out of his main episode narrative to avoid antagonizing the customer further

  • The customer sent Mickey Mouse suckers (safety lollipops) in the returned game's coin box, which Zach discarded per professional ethics training

    high confidence · Zach explicitly states he threw away all consumable gifts per psychology training to never accept gifts from clients/difficult parties

Notable Quotes

  • “in my experience, nothing good comes of these types of situations because the sale's already done. Typically, trades are either going to be like, you know, I understand they need to make a little money or something, or people freak out and they're like, you're only going to give me that for my game?”

    Zach Minney @ early in story — Zach's prescient warning to Greg that offering a trade after a completed sale creates unnecessary risk

  • “once somebody starts threatening me, it freaks me out. Because I don't – that's not cool.”

    Zach Minney @ mid-story — Reveals Zach's threshold for ending business relationships; his psychology background makes him sensitive to threat signals

  • “I noticed you unfriended me on Facebook and I did because I didn't want him to see our for sale ads come up because as a business I just I knew that this guy was going to be a problem”

    Zach Minney @ mid-story — Explains Zach's decision to preemptively unfriend; customer later weaponized this and demanded refriending

  • “because of this, because of 17 pages later, I know what's going to happen. So I just try to avoid it. If the cost is me losing a little money and I don't have the headache of dealing with an ongoing issue, I can see it coming.”

    Zach Minney @ mid-story — Articulates Zach's conflict-avoidance strategy and willingness to lose money to prevent escalation; references the 17-page Pinside thread

  • “You have to refriend me on facebook i didn't know if you wanted to bring it up or not but that was the one thing that was missing in his story that i was like there was he wisely did not mention the part weirded me out where he demanded you be his friend”

    Zach Minney (with Dennis) @ late in story — The most disturbing element of the encounter; customer using social media connection as negotiating leverage

  • “I don't know if I got back the translate. So I put it all in an old Amazon box and put it inside the crate with the game. For two weeks, I've been asking if Zach gave them the box.”

    Customer (Bail Organa, from Pinside thread) @ quoted mid-analysis — Shows the customer's side of the story regarding the allegedly missing gift box; Zach had no recollection of receiving it

Entities

Zach MinneypersonGreg BonepersonBail OrganapersonDennispersonRetro RalphpersonTimpersonJoelpersonNicolepersonFlippin' Out Pinball

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Distributor pricing error on trade-in evaluation created customer conflict; Greg Bone accidentally flipped invoice figures, initially quoting higher return value than actually offered; error corrected before shipping but customer remained upset

    high · Zach explicitly describes Greg confusing 'what we're getting in return' vs 'what we should charge him'; error was roughly $2,100; confirmed before game shipped

  • ?

    business_signal: Flippin' Out absorbs customer conflict costs proactively rather than fight; Zach paid full refund + tech bill + merchandise to avoid ongoing Pinside thread drama and potential stalking behavior

    high · Zach explicitly states he loses money to avoid headaches; paid $450 tech bill despite initial $150 offer; full refund despite chip/issue discovery; sent multiple free items

  • ?

    community_signal: A 17-page locked thread on Pinside forum detailed customer complaints against Flippin' Out Pinball; customer accused distributor of bait-and-switch and unethical sales practices (both disputed by Zach as honest mistakes and misunderstandings)

    high · Dennis references the thread by username 'Bail Organa'; Zach confirms thread exists and was posted 9 days prior to recording; both cite specific details matching thread content

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Pinside forum thread about Flippin' Out customer dispute received 'almost universally' agreement from community that Zach's handling was appropriate, though Zach intentionally omitted the most disturbing details (Facebook demand) from his public episode

    medium · Dennis mentions feedback on thread was largely supportive of Zach/Flippin' Out; Zach withheld Facebook refriending demand from main episode to avoid antagonizing customer

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.138

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. Thanks again for the ongoing support as a Pinball Show Club member. Enjoy this exclusive TPS content and make sure to visit the Pinball Show Club Discord to chat about the bonus material. All right, Dennis, these people are here to hear a story. Yes, yes. Look, Zach, I know this can be painful for you, but your pain is their entertainment. And we've gotten very good feedback on the other two that you have done here on Patreon. I love the dark tales of a pinball dealer. Yeah, and that's really what this falls under. But this one's a little different because in the past, these are stories no one really knew about because they'd only been between you and Flippin' Out. But in this case, and so for those that want to know, there's a thread, a locked thread now on Pinside by someone who's handling – You follow along. If you want to, in fact, because I originally thought I should read the post. It's way too long. We only want to be here like 20 minutes, and that would take me about 10 just to read it.
1:07
But Bail Organa is the handle of the user, and the name of the thread is my very bad, bad all caps, experience with flip in out. So you can easily find the thread. You'll probably have to search for it because it's falling way down the list now that it's locked. But this was posted nine days ago at the time of this recording. And as I mentioned on the main show, I started reading this when someone emailed it to me. And I about once I got down past the second paragraph, I said about four lines in the first lines. I'll just throw the first paragraphs. I'll throw away stuff. But I realized that this story you had told me about because this was bugging you before all of this has happened. So, Zach, why don't you go ahead and kind of I mean, it's really your story. Why don't you take us through this grand adventure about what it was like to deal with this individual who apparently had bought multiple games from you? Yeah, I'm going to try to remember it without having to reference it. I'm trying to not get it mixed up with other people. I'm going to try my best here. So this was – the short of it was this individual wanted to buy a used James Bond premium from us. I think it was the one that Retro Ralph bought new and had some mods. I think it was. Not many mods. I think it was. It had some mods in it. Was the main mod the chip in the shooter lane? We'll get to that. Okay.

  • “there were suckers and I threw them away because as a psychologist, we were always trained. Never accept any gifts from clients, even any clients. Doesn't matter. It's just you're never to accept gifts.”

    Zach Minney @ late in story — Professional ethics boundary-setting; Zach treats difficult customers like therapy clients and maintains strict gift-refusal policies

  • “Well, no, man. I mean, shit, dude. All this T-shirt would be. Okay. I probably asked him his size at that point, which is relevant to this thread. I probably did. Either I asked him his size and he told me 2XL, or I went in the back, grabbed a T-shirt, and just sent it to him.”

    Zach Minney @ mid-story — Shows how Zach sent XXL shirt as peace offering; customer later interpreted the size choice as calling him fat

  • “so he notes a box arrives the same day with an xxl t-shirt a stern army banner and a doctor no translate oh yeah i gave him a banner too yeah i have no idea how he knows i wear xxl but it's kind of weird because without asking to me that just says i think you're fat”

    Customer (Bail Organa, from Pinside thread) @ quoted mid-analysis — Customer's hostile interpretation of Zach's good-faith peace offerings; paranoid reading of intentions

  • “I thought that was fun.”

    Zach Minney @ after tech issue resolution — Sarcastic understatement; dark humor used to cope with the escalating stress of the transaction

    • company
    Stern Pinballcompany
    The Pinball Showpodcast/organization
    Pinsideorganization
    James Bond Premiumgame
    Guardians of the Galaxygame
    X-Men Progame
    ?

    design_philosophy: James Bond Premium game had a defective jetpack multiball feature that failed on second/third jackpot; likely opto or programming issue; required $450 in external tech service to diagnose (not successfully resolved)

    high · Zach worked with Greg and Stern to troubleshoot; customer's independent tech spent 4 hours; issue was intermittent (first jackpot worked, second+ jackpot failed)

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Greg Bone handled warranty and tech support claims at Flippin' Out; manages customer issues independently; takes responsibility for errors and attempts to placate upset customers

    medium · Zach describes Greg as managing warranty department; Greg offered $150 toward customer's tech bill; Greg apologized for pricing error and felt guilty about it

  • $

    market_signal: Trade-in pricing on used pinball machines highly sensitive; Guardians of the Galaxy valued at $4,200-$5,100 range; shipping to remote US location can add $1,200-$1,500; thin margins make it difficult to absorb tech issues or returns

    high · Zach discusses margin structure; describes shipping costs to remote states (highest in US); mentions building $500 cushion for damage risk; refund dealt significant financial hit to Flippin' Out

  • ?

    product_concern: Used machine quality control issue: James Bond Premium had undisclosed playfield chip in shooter lane that Zach did not catch during initial inspection, though he claims to over-report defects on used machines

    high · Zach confirmed chip via zoomed archive photos after customer complaint; Zach offered full refund; Zach typically prices down games with visible damage

    • 2:39
    So Ralph, and then Ralph traded it back in to us for something else. So we get it back. This guy wanted to buy it. Great. ask all the questions, all this stuff. I think we went back and forth. We had a lot of questions, a lot of communication. It was very clear that he made it clear that he liked the videos that we did, the podcast. He was a fan. Great. Awesome. Not this one.
    3:10
    So sealed the deal. He paid for the game. It was probably on like a Friday or something. Game would be shipped out Monday. All was good. I think to the point that Tim, who works at Flippin' Out, who runs the shop, he had already broke it down, wrapped it up, palleted up everything. Great.
    3:30
    Greg gets a hold of me. Greg Bone does sales with Flippin' Out. He said, hey, I got this guy. We'll call him Bale Organa. What is that reference? Oh, well, it reminds me of – that was Leia Organa from Star Wars. Okay. So Bale maybe is – I don't know if that was her dad's. Anyway, I'm assuming it's a Star Wars thing, but I don't know. Okay. And like the upside-down pin – That has nothing to do with Star Wars. So maybe my thing with Organa may not be coming from Star Wars, but that's where I bring it from. So we've – I think this guy has been – he likes the streams and stuff. He's been kind enough. And he said he bought an X-Men Pro from you guys New in box Yep, happy with all that I think So everything was good And then Greg gets a hold of me and said Hey, there's this guy He's wanting to trade His Guardians of the Galaxy For that James Bond premium That used one I said well that one's already sold He said no, it's the same guy Okay, so he bought it But now he wants to Paid for it Now he wants to trade And I said well Greg that doesn't I don't make any sense, man. I was like, he already bought it, so we should just stick with that deal. We don't need the – like the term's already – the sale's done. We need to ship it. He was like, yeah, I mean, I know, but I just – like big on customer service. Like if he's wanting to trade, do we want to just at least entertain the idea? And I said, in my experience, nothing good comes of these types of situations because the sale's already done. Typically, trades are either going to be like, you know, I understand they need to make a little money or something, or people freak out and they're like, you're only going to give me that for my game? It's just the way car industry, it's the way everything is. I was like, so we already have a successful sale here. And I was like, but if you're wanting to pitch him a trade, now keep in mind when I'm doing a trade evaluation on something like that, there's already a deal that's done. I'm entering in a bunch more risk if I'm going for a trade than just selling it outright but nonetheless if a guy wants to trade he wants to trade whatever at that time we were doing I forgot what type of we were doing like a crate system or something like that it's not important but it wasn't as efficient as we've gotten it to be now so we gave him an evaluation for the trade that he wasn't happy with and he had a reaction an emotional reaction to that and the long and short if it was go fuck yourself uh you're only going to offer me he said like three thousand dollars for guardians it's like no that's it's not actually the case it was probably around i think was it a high play one i don't know what it was might have had things on it but it was like on the lower end of what a guardians pro would go for um and with shipping he was like he's in a i won't say a state but in a state very far away the highest shipping cost in the u.s uh he was in one of those three states and so to get something there to get something back it adds to the cost so it ended up probably a lower end of like four thousand dollars forty two hundred for a guardians whatever now to some people that might seem low but it's not really that low if you know they're selling for five thousand i get it forty two hundred i'm risking if that thing gets damaged that's going to cost me more money. You don't want to lose money on deals. So you try to build – I'm going to be transparent. Try to build like maybe a $500 cushion in there for a what-if kind of thing. So are you saying that – so in his post, just to tie it back in,
    7:10
    he indicated that when Greg initially – that Greg told him the wrong amount and then – So that's – so when he went back, he gave the wrong amount, and I think it was whenever I was doing the invoice. Greg sent me an invoice and I'm like something adding up here so I if again if I remember correctly I was like hey Greg so we're giving him what are we giving and he was like oh shit dude I freaking that's what we were getting in return not what we should have been charging him it was flip flop yeah it was close enough where he was like shit so I was like no big deal just message him back because the guy in the proper amount when you're just now the reason I'm bringing that up wasn't so much About that, though, it's a key part of the story, but rather – so in his post, he articulated that the correct amount he was told was that he was getting three grand.
    8:02
    Okay. I don't even remember what the hell – like I'd have to go back and look. I really don't care. But it was close enough to where first he didn't – I don't remember. I know he's pissed off about the price. Right. Because it was – But maybe that came after the – It was $2,100 less than what Greg had first told him. Could have came after the swap, though. Maybe the swap is like, oh, okay, I'll take that. But it's like, no, we wouldn't – it would end up Guardians being like $5,500 to $6,000. It's like, I'm not going to take in one of those on top of ship. No. But it was a mistake that Greg had made or we had made at Flip It Out. And so we told the guy Hayes Hart. He said Greg said $5,100 was how much he was going to get back for trading the Guardians Pro. Yeah, for a James Bond premium. So hell, I should have known too with shipping both ways. Because the shipping alone would probably have been like, I mean, $1,200, $1,500.
    8:57
    Okay. Anyway, sorry to interrupt. So, yeah. But keep in mind, this guy already made a deal. He already paid for the game in full. We were supposed to ship it. He's wanting to go back, change the terms of those for a trade deal now. Greg made a mistake, gave him the wrong thing. In the thread, he calls it a bait and switch. So, he's accusing us of, like, some unethical sales practices, which is just, that's usually what pisses me off. Because I'm like, fuck off, dude. Like, no. we are busy enough we don't have to pull bullshit so no it was a mistake straight a mistake no you didn't advertise the price of the game at that it's not it doesn't meet the technical definition of a bait and switch at all sure an error happened a mistake a mistake so he was quoted the wrong amount that he'd get back but no this was all fixed before like it was corrected before anything happened he hadn't shipped the game so yes you had then what happened Greg was like, dude, I'm so sorry. I did fuck up. And I was like, yeah, I make mistakes too. Everybody's going to make – who gives a shit? This ain't the end of the world, Greg. Because he was beating himself up about this. And I was like, dude, it's not that big of a deal. He's like, well, now this guy is pissed off. Now this guy says we need to pay that price or we need to – I was like, what do you mean pay the fucking price? He already bought the game. And he was like – or he wants to cancel everything. He said he ended up landing at, sorry, this is the quote from the thread. I'm trying to help it keep the timeline in place. The Organa guy goes, sorry, cancel it all, send me my money back. That's what he claimed he ended up saying.
    10:30
    So I was like, man, how did we get here? I knew we shouldn't have done this trade shit. The guy was happy with his order. So he was like, I'm so sorry, man. I'm like, no, it's not a big deal. I was like, let me call the guy and see if I can at least just talk to him. So I called him. The guy was already just staying in office. He was pissed off, and I'm like, oh, my God. I'm sorry. And usually I'll come in like just a fucking vase of roses. I'm just – because especially since we did make a mistake. It happens, but we made a mistake. So I talked to the guy, and then he started like with the demands and shit like that. Like you need to – like you're bullshit. And then he started like the whole threatening thing. I think I'm just going to go on pin side and I'm going to talk about all this and how you guys are shady. I'm like, what are you talking? It was, I'm sorry. We made a mistake. I was like, why couldn't we just go back to you already paid for it? It already wrapped up We just ship it You don have to worry about the trade We made a mistake with the trade It fine It done We just ship your game It all good And then through the course of it I quickly realized I don want to do business with him because not because I was being, like, this guy ain't going to have it or anything. Like, he's already given me a lot of red flags here, and I'm not comfortable moving forward at all doing a deal with him. I'd rather him just not purchase from us because of all the threat. Like, once somebody starts threatening me, it freaks me out. Because I don't – that's not cool. Well, you're in your other life. You come from a world where those threats could be taken pretty seriously. Absolutely. Like you've got to – you're dealing with mental health issues, and like I'm just – I'm very aware of some of the red flags that can turn bad quick. I'm just trained in that. I'm not saying – just not that I'm – I don't want to come across as like, oh, I'm this expert. But I just know when shit is going to go bad a little bit sooner than some people. So I could just tell it wasn't going to be a great situation. So I ended up saying, you know what? I was like, I think you're right. Let's just – I would feel better as well if we just – we'll send you a refund for what you paid for this game. That way you don't have the stress of the trade. You don't have the stress of even you even yourself wanted a refund. We'll just do a refund. Again, our sincerest apologies for messing up that trade evaluation, shit like that. And then that wasn't good enough on the phone. And then I knew, good call, Zach, because this is not a guy you want to be messing with because he's a little unhinged here. And he started like, fine. If you don't sell me, like, because I got to the point of, like, reasoning with him so he was good with our quote unquote relationship at that point and okay well you know my apologies for freaking out on you know we all could do better and I was like I didn't do anything wrong we didn't really do anything wrong but you're you're making me question things so I just tried to ease him okay good deal and then I was like I do think it might be best for us just to refund you in total and then he got pissed off again he was like what the fuck do you we were cool man now you're going to start this shit again I was like no I just it would be best for us not to you know send the game I think you know we'll wash our hands of this we'll try again in the future if you're interested in the game but maybe we just I'll give you a refund he was like and then he started the threats again I'm going to go on pin side and tell what a shitty company you run if you won't sell me this game like fuck you Zach we were right here We made amends, and here you are again, not wanting me to sell me this game now. And I'm like, it's like reverse psychology shit. Like ultimate sales. Like, no, we won't sell you the game. Well, I want the game. It's the whole Bugs Bunny thing. I felt like I was in that. And I was like, I won't sell his name again. I was like, I just, I don't want to sell you the game, man. It's nothing personal. It would be best if we don't sell you the game.
    14:30
    I'm trying to tie it to the Pinside post, So people who have followed that will kind of have some of those aspects to help guide this. So in his part where he tells this, he notes that you did call him. But in his iteration, you were mad the moment you've called because you were going to lose $45 in the pin side fee that you had to pay to list that game.
    14:53
    And you end up losing $2,300 in this deal. So, yeah, the 45. But I probably said like, well, because when he initially was like, I want it all back. I was like, dude, like we've already wrapped it up. It's getting ready to ship. I done spent the damn pin side fee on it. Like, come on, man. He mentioned that he mentioned that it's wrapped up and ready to go. He says you, you guilted him regarding how Greg felt bad for messing up. And then he indicates, okay, so you said all of that. And so then he believes you and then he tells you to ship the game. And then that's when you say, no, I want to refund you. And that's where he, I mean, he described it as now I'm going to have to talk about this whole thing on pin side. He, being you, doesn't like that. So I tell him, throw something cool in the box to make up for the hassle. And we did. Yes. So he was like, so finally, because I felt like it was like a hostage negotiation. I was like, fine, just get off the ledge or put the gun down. I'll give you whatever the fuck you want. Just because I know a lot of people are like, I think Dennis even told me like, why do you let the, why do you reinforce these people? Like, if you know that you didn't do anything wrong, who cares if he goes to pit? Like, but because of this, because of 17 pages later, I know what's going to happen. So I just try to avoid it. If the cost is me losing a little money and I don't have the headache of dealing with an ongoing issue, I can see it coming. And I'm like, fine, I'll ship you the game, whatever. I know this ain't going to be the end of it, but I'll ship you the game. and he was like, well, shit, the least you can do after all this shit you guys put me through, send me a T-shirt or something. At that point, I may have been passive-aggressive because his self-awareness was not to the point that he would even detect it. So I may have been flippant with my response because I'm honest. Honestly, I would get to that point. When somebody fucks me over so much, I'm like, well, what the fuck else do you want? I'm like, oh, here, fucking let me open the door, bro. What else do you want? Let's keep on. What other extortion shit are you going to pull with me after I don't want to fucking do any of this deal anyway? At least you can just give me a shirt. I fucking, oh, my God. You've got to be shitting me. You've got to be joking me. Who does this? So I said, absolutely. I'll get you a T-shirt. Anything else that you want? Well, no, man. I mean, shit, dude. All this T-shirt would be. Okay. I probably asked him his size at that point, which is relevant to this thread. I probably did. Either I asked him his size and he told me 2XL, or I went in the back, grabbed a T-shirt, and just sent it to him. Not thinking anything of it. But with this guy, again, because I knew this guy was a little loose, I was like, you know what? I really don't want him thinking he was taken advantage of or something. Like, let me at least send something additional. T-shirt, and he just bought a James Bond premium game. I've got a James Bond pro-translate. Some people like the pro-translate, like you said with the Jaws thing. I'll send him that. It goes with his game. If he sells his game, boom, he's got an extra translate. It's awesome. Or he can hang it up by the, like, I thought that's a no-brainer. So I sent him that. All right, so we get the game. A couple weeks later, I think he's like, hey, this bond on a wand is not working. I'm like, fuck, of course it's not. It worked fine. Now, to his credit, it was working fine, but we found that, and we found this after Greg was helping with tech and stuff like that, it works fine initially, but it's like once you get to the second or third jackpot, I don't know if it's programming. I mean, I think ultimately it was probably an opto issue, but it was having issues picking up the ball on like the second or third jackpot. So the first jackpot, super jackpot, was fine and all this, so you wouldn't have detected it. Right, it's the jetpack multi-ball that wasn't working. Jetpack multi-ball was working. Was. Was working. Just not all the way. Not once you reached the second super jackpot. Ah, okay. First super jackpot was totally fine. It picked up the ball, taken it, drops it where you're supposed to, goes back to home, all that. But for whatever reason, second or third. And we didn't figure that out until I got the game back. But Greg was trying to work with him. And it's just a weird issue that comes up when they were just trying to figure out what it was. And this guy was bitching. You better pay for this tech. You better pay. And Greg's like, absolutely. That's what we do. We'll pay for it. Even though we didn't want to chip through this game in the first place. But that's fine. We'll get a tech. He's like, my buddy's a tech. All right. We'll give you $150. See if your buddy can come out. Fix that thing. Take a look at it. So his buddy came out and all that. We didn't know anything else. We just knew that it continued to have problems. We were talking to Stern. We were waiting to hear back on it. Well, according to the thread, so his version is – now, he does opine as an aside about the goodies. So I will note that he said that the game arrived well-wrapped. He talks about that a separate – This is where he lost people though. Yes, it is. That's why I want to share it here in case people don't want to go and read the thread. so he notes a box arrives the same day with an xxl t-shirt a stern army banner and a doctor no translate oh yeah i gave him a banner too yeah i have no idea how he knows i wear xxl but it's kind of weird because without asking to me that just says i think you're fat stern army banner wtf am i gonna do with that i don't have an arcade doctor no translate that's garbage you are now sending me garbage thanks then he says game is broke after a couple days he realizes it jetpack multi-ball not working right talks about the ball picking up it picking up but for the second time with the super jackpot you know it's not everything you just described greg no help uh advice completely off base um he calls stern stern says there's a voltage issue or something Greg says that he will give me $150 to fix the game He calls his friend And his friend comes in And now his friend Could not after four hours fix it And his friend's bill is $450 We didn't know that initially We did not know And also at this point He's realized that there's a chip A playfield chip That you didn't disclose That's what I heard from him next Because oftentimes when there's a tech issue Or warranty claim or something Greg runs that department for us. So he's managing that. He's not coming to me with every little thing. He's doing as he's supposed to. He's managing it. And if there's some crazy issue, then he'll come to me, and as a team we'll figure out what the best course of action is. So he's managing it. I didn't hear any more about that. Then on, like, a Saturday or something, I get a message from this guy in the afternoon. Hey, don't you think it would have been more responsible if this game had a chipped play field that you would have disclosed that? And I'm like, what the fuck is he talking about? So I was like, what do you mean? He's like, there's a chip in the shooter lane here. I'm like, fuck. Like, do you have a picture of it? And this was like a month after he's owned it. So I said, okay, send me a picture. I said, you didn't notice in a month that it had a chip in it? Because, as people can tell, all my used games, I try to over-report stuff so people know what the hell they're getting. If there was a chip and I'd seen a chip, I would absolutely, I would have sold it for cheaper, too. I would have reduced the price, and I would have said, hey, there's a chip here. So I didn't see it. And according to his post, he didn't notice it. He says his tech noticed it.
    22:34
    His friend, who charged him $450. So he messaged, and I said, dude, my apologies. If that is the case, I had no clue. And then I remember fondly, because me and Nicole and the girls were at an IU game, and we were having lunch and I was like Nicole I don want to have to drive home and be worrying about this I going to go look at the picture So I pulled up the archive pictures zoomed in Sure enough I seen a little spot And I was like he right So I messaged him back and said, you know what? You are absolutely correct. I now see the little chip, did not see that. And I said, we will pay for this game in full. We will refund this game every cent that you paid. And I will pay for shipping to come back. Not a big deal. That's what we'll do. And then he was like, yeah, because the piece of shit game you guys still didn't fix. And I'm like, well, have you been working with Greg? I remember Greg saying he'd pay for a tech. He said pay for $150. I said, how much was the tech? He said $450.
    23:38
    You got the shirt. You got the translator. You got the banner. You got that. So you $150 for the tech. So I'll give you the $450 for the tech and a full refund. I'll give all that to you. All right. is there anything else I can do for you at this time? And then what was it? What else?
    23:57
    Oh, yeah, he was like, the game's not fixed. Fuck, of course. Of course the game's not fixed. Fuck. And there's a chip. There's no problem. But I mean in those situations, I'm usually too busy to like care to. I'm like, all right, no problem. We'll take care of it. Thought that was fun. And then what was the other thing? oh then then we get the game shipped back to us and at this point he continues messaging me but i try to distance myself a little bit because oh my one of the biggest things that i'm hesitant to share here but i will just because this guy's fucking hosed us um typically i wouldn't though what creeped me out in our first one phone call me saying like what prompted me when I was negotiating with him so that he wouldn't do whatever he was saying he was going to do the dude said I noticed you unfriended me on Facebook and I did because I didn't want him to see our for sale ads come up because as a business I just I knew that this guy was going to be a problem and i didn't want him to be triggered i didn't want him to see games and inquire about him so i unfriended him if that makes me a bad guy makes me a bad guy i just didn't people fucking creep me out when you're saying oh i'm a big fan and all this shit so what creeped me out on the phone call dennis was he was like as one of his like conditions so that he wouldn't extort me he said you have to refriend me on facebook i didn't know if you wanted to bring it up or not but that was the one thing that was missing in his story that i was like there was he wisely did not mention the part weirded me out where he demanded you be his friend and i don't think i'd have to go back and look i don't think i ended up doing it i mean i agreed to it but like almost since chills that because dude that shit's creepy and i you just can never be too safe you don't know who you're dealing with with some of these people so uh i was like oh my god like it just was sad and scary all at once so so yeah uh so that creeped me out so that's why yes i was always hesitant with this guy like here take what you want play you know um so we and then when he he we sent him out a crate so he can put the game into he shipped it back um oh he didn't ship it back i had fedex pick it up there was issues with there he said FedEx can't come to this side of the house.
    26:39
    There's more work, but it's fine. We've got it taken care of. We've got it. When I received this game back, I do not remember. He wanted to ship something to Joel, a present. Again, no, I'm not feeling great at this time for anybody to be sending gifts to anybody.
    26:59
    But supposedly he sent something to Joel. and Joel is smart and he doesn't give his home address out to people to send him stuff so people send through flipping out if they want to give to Joel typically I don't have any problem with that in the future I may so I didn't see anything with the crate or something like that but what I did find was in the coin box of this James Bond premium there were what was in there I think it was candy he mentioned candy he mentioned, let me say what part. I think there were. He said, I wanted to send some stuff, some shirts, the XXL shirt too, since I know Jared is XXL. Some hats. I don't remember. I didn't see any of that. Some hats, some beef sticks.
    27:49
    Hence, everything I did is thematic. And in the main episode with all of this, I deliberately, I don't even know the guy's name. I deliberately didn't name him because I'm not trying to piss him off because I don't need a stalker in my life.
    28:05
    I don't know if I got back the translate. So I put it all in an old Amazon box and put it inside the crate with the game. For two weeks, I've been asking if Zach gave them the box. Nope.
    28:18
    I finally asked Zach today, which was about 10 days ago, where is the box? He sends me back a question mark. I explained to him that some stuff and there is a hat in it that is unreplaceable. It was for Joel because he loves TMNT, and it was a hat my league made for the launch party that says middle-aged mutant pinball players like the TMNT cartoon. Zach says, not sure what happened. I don't remember seeing anything. I'm sure if you ask Joel for his address, he will provide it for you. Send some stuff. No need to ship me anything. And sorry to hear that. Maybe it fell out of the crate. Not sure. I don't know where in the hell he put this damn thing. But there was candy in the coin box of this game, and it fucking creeped me out, man. Because the kind of candy it was, it was fucking suckers. But it was like the bank suckers. Oh, the dum-dums.
    29:13
    No, not the dum-dums. The ones like the loop handle. Oh, the safety suckers. Yes. And it had like the face of Mickey Mouse. It was fucking creepy. Dude, a sucker is weird. Oh, I wish I had known the type. I would have bought those. Those Mike and I. So there were suckers and I threw them away because as a psychologist, we were always trained. Never accept any gifts from clients, even any clients. Doesn't matter. It's just you're never to accept gifts. And you certainly if anybody gives you anything that's consumable, do not use that. so I've been trained and I happily took those suckers and threw them away because who the hell knows but yeah like the t-shirt and shit I don't it's probably on his fucking work bench I have no fucking clue but yes whenever he messaged me back and said that first off I have hundreds of people messaging me I put a question mark so I was like who the fuck is he and I was like oh it's that guy and I said yeah I didn't see it asked Joel what his addresses maybe he'll give it to you i knew he wouldn't but i didn't want to mess with this guy so that's where we're at so i thought it was all said and done i mean shit i gave this guy all this shit and uh i thought it was done and then people messaged me it was like wow this thread and i'm like ah fuck i mean the thread almost not quite but almost universally agreed that this guy was completely unreasonable. Absolutely. And that you went if anything too far with the accommodations.
    30:56
    And so, I mean... Well, he got mad that he put candy in my coin box and I didn't thank him. He also got mad that you didn't give him a thank you for him returning the Translight and Banner because he didn't feel he should keep the free stuff since he was sending the game back. That's a lot of integrity. I appreciate that. I do appreciate it. Like, sure, if he sent it back. I just don't want to fuck away. But then again, I don't unbox. I'm not trying to play stuff on tip. Who knows? We got games going in. I don't know. But, yeah, so then people ripped him a new one for 17 pages on Pinside. I mean, it is Pinside. You kind of are playing with fire. They just had so much fun with this, and it became their own inside joke. It did. And forever hobbyists will associate this ride with – Some say it will live right up there with Deli Meat and Shasta. I remember that one. And Immaculate. Yeah, the Immaculate. I mean I can't deny that I didn't have my own fun, which is why I thought this would be a fun way to – Maybe these meat sticks need to be involved forever. Wouldn't it be funny if this is the exact brand he sent and then he'd be like – You gave them to Dennis and not Joel? There were so many people that made memes. Now the AI is a thing. Like there was so much. If you just go through the gallery, oh my. That's a treat in and of itself. But anyway, I just kind of thought, well, this fit right up the stream of, you know, what we've talked about here before. Now, granted, this guy could very well join the Patreon, I guess, and listen to this. But I don't know. The thread's closed now. Please don't. Don't. I'll pay for whatever you've put into the Patreon. Please. Just leave me alone.
    32:46
    It was strange. I mean, there are a lot of people who claim they're going to buy from you now because you went so far above and beyond. A lot of people did say that this was the best advertisement marketing for my company because it shows how good we are at customer service, how much we put into it, and all of this. you even said probably the best thing a lot of people said that I still disagree I know you do but I think you're wrong Zach this look at I'm not going to say it's the best advertising ever but you when you would share this with me before well before this post happened like a month ago you're you noted that you know there's the algorithm there's the bad reviews you know you've always been very sensitive to the damage that those sort of things can cause and And it's not just me. This came up on one of our happy hours with the Nordman and above club members. And they all of them who chimed in were in the agreement with me. Like, Zach, you're this is too you're doing too much for these sort of customers. Let them put up a bad review. Like, it's not it's not worth this level of sacrifice. Now, some of this you couldn't have. You know, you had your red flags, but who knew that it was going to go this bonkers off the wall bonkers. But, but I mean, ultimately somebody threatened something I've learned. And psychologically you learn that if somebody is threatening you with something, it doesn't matter what the demands are. They will end up probably doing that. Like they'll use that as a lever point. So I did think there was a good chance that he was still going to go on Penn side or write a bad. Well if you never added him back as your friend then I guess you never fully fulfilled your end of the bargain So he you know Fair enough Fair enough But I would argue that this is still bad We were humbled by all the nice comments because these people have done business with us and they've reported really good stuff. We're going to make mistakes though, just like everyone that's watching this has made mistakes at their job. shit happens but it's what you do with those mistakes and how you resolve them uh that makes a man a man but it's still horrible i i hate this type of stuff when it's done and you can't really explain it to all the people having fun in here but for me it was like especially i couldn't even respond we were doing pokemon shit but it's like the stressor that continues on it's not good for my health uh just knowing that we're being discussed in a negative light it's never a good thing, even if everybody disagrees. The problem is that you have over a week's worth of constant bumping of a thread on the biggest hobbyist website in the industry that I have a business in with the headline flipping out or my very bad experience with flipping out. And as we all know with clickbait and stuff like that, it's not the content and it's not the homework because people do not do it. So of all the people that did post in here, sure, they know what the truth is. But the problem is the majority of people just read that headline and that plants a seed. Now, overall, maybe this one single event, the net gain was fine. I still would argue it did more damage because it makes people subconsciously question whether or not to go with my company or not. this also will hit the algorithm, the SEO of, uh, of search engines. So if somebody types in like flipping out or something, the likelihood of this headline coming up as part of a thread topic, uh, in their search results is a lot higher now. So when that just kept going page after page, everybody thought it was cute and it was hilarious. But the business side of me is like, this is damaging. And I didn't do a fucking thing wrong. Like this sucks. And people like, well, So you can't really have the thing closed, nor would I because I don't like censoring either. But, man, it just sucks when you don't do something wrong or you try to do something right, and you still get the effects of if you were to do it wrong. So that's what I mean by – I would argue. And that's a fair point. It's still bad. And today, much – because it's not my business, much smaller thing. But, you know, we were talking this morning and I mentioned someone in the watch community. They put out a video this morning called What is Watches with Dennis Lying About? And it's a it has a good look like a rapper on the cover. It's a it's a satire. The guy, but he didn't tell me first. He is a fan. Yeah, he watches the live stream and stuff. And so someone had sent me this like with your thread. Someone had sent me the link and goes, maybe you have a troll. And I was like, oh, that guy's in the chat a lot. He's never sounded like he didn't like me, but I wonder what he thought I lied about because, again, my rule is just don't lie and then you don't have to keep your lies straight. So I so anyway, I went and watched and I realized that he actually did a pretty good job of it. He was going along and then it becomes more and more ridiculous. Like it starts with the hypocrisy of what I will buy and won't buy. And the next thing you know, he's telling me to go ride my tractor to the because I'm in Kansas, ride my tractor to an authorized dealer. And I just need to flirt harder with them to give me the watches I want. And I didn't follow a criminal team like the Kansas City Chiefs. I'd have been respected. Yeah, it just it gets ridiculous. And satirical. But he based off of I saw the comments, though, that some people were leaving and they didn't watch all the way through or they read the title and they left posts like, yeah, all these people on YouTube are hypocrites. And all like all this stuff. And he ends up pinning a comment saying this is satire and then messaged me separately saying, hey, I did this. If you want me to delete it, I'll delete it. And I said, look, it's either satire and there's criticism. I'm not going to ask you to take down something that's a legitimate like I put my you know, this is I have a YouTube channel. I put myself out there. It is his – even if I didn't like it, it's his right to do that. So no, I'm not going to tell him that. I did tell him though you might notice – this is before I saw you had pinned that message. I said you might notice some people aren't going to read all the way – they're not going to watch the whole thing, and they might start leaving you comments. I'm not really worried about them coming and posting on my stuff, but they might start leaving you comments where you're going to be like, oh, they took this serious because they only read the title. People don't. And the title will show up in the searches and all the rest. Not everybody gets satire. I've had to have – I have done – again, on that same channel, my channel I should say. I've done watch roasts. I get the permission of the owners and I open with a disclaimer before I put on the mode of doing like a Friars Club. I still get people going, why are you shitting on everyone's property? It's a joke. I called it out in the first 15 seconds, but they don't – they read the headline and that's all they did. They just read the topic of the threat or in this case the topic of the show. And arguably over time, that does affect things. So I don't know if it does, but I see you may be right. So I do understand that concern. If you – like that narrative gets built over time, and it's been built for me both in media and in distribution where somebody will say something. They don't do the research, see if it's true, but then it's in their processes as a characteristic part of like, oh, he's the one that blah. Oh, he's the blah, blah, blah. And then it keeps adding to the point. Like I was in a business meeting in pinball this last week, and this thread was brought up by the manufacturer as like a joke, a fun little joke thing. But it shows like – That they're seeing it. Yeah, that they're seeing it. And now if that person then sees the Hawaii guy thing that everybody disagreed with and then has heard something in the past where I didn't like a certain – like you start becoming the common denominator. What I've found is that, sadly, in the business that I'm in, in the industry, in pinball, I'm not allowed to report or present things to companies because they already have a preconceived idea as to who I am, being a part of media and being outspoken and all of that. And so where somebody else would be able to speak about this, I'm trying to think of an example that I can use. But coming from me, it's going to be perceived differently than if it were coming from another distributor. And this could be both good and bad ways. So I'm not high-horsing it here and saying I'm not allowed to do this because there are benefits to that too. There are benefits to having the platform that we have. But it's not always great. It's like if I bring up something and bitching about something, people are going to be like, well, he's always in the middle of something. It's like, yeah, but I'm not purposely. I'm not trying to be. But this shit happens where – and that's why I never commented in there. I'm like, if I can do anything wrong, this guy kind of scares me and creeps me out. I got shit to do. I just need to focus on my stuff. No, I do understand. And I completely understand how having it bumped, even saying that aside, would be stressful anyway. So I did feel – so you know, I did feel a little bad. Especially doing Pokemon. So I'm like, fuck off, man. But the thing is – I'm working so hard. The other thing is it's like it's impossible though to keep like a five-star rating. Like that's – like it's essentially impossible unless you had like next to no business. So – It's impossible with there not being truth in the world. Yes, it is impossible. But I still think it is possible.
    42:47
    It is – it should be possible. But when – nothing is vetted. So yes, review systems aren't vetted. It's not like somebody has to speak truth to open a thread. It's not like, well, we're going to run this through a system to make sure that this person's accusations are true. Like you can say and do anything. Well, case in point though, there's a person who weighed in on that thread who said they had an issue where your – whatever you use. I think it's QuickBooks or whatever. sending the invoice it was going into the spam it would have been completely plausible that that person would have left a four-star review saying yeah uh didn't get my invoice in a timely manner because they didn't see it in their inbox in a timely manner um not really your fault but you know they're gonna still hold you're the ones who invoiced so like that's what i mean like it's not it would be like one we had one in the thread here because i when i was reading through i saw somebody complaining about service with us in the past and those at least present like opportunities for me to be like well shit let me let me make sure we didn't uh leave something or overlook something because the guy was like i still don't have my parts from a fun house or something like a year or so ago and i'm like oh shit so i snapped it talked to greg where we had on this like find that he's like you know who this is because the handle you don't know what the name is right so we did a research we found the person and a lot of times like shit that'll happen is we thought it was all fine we got them a new cabinet or whatever it was but they were still missing hinges or something but funhouse dreddy pedretti hey we're gonna ship them over hinges or something so at that point it's like a close case for us because we don't we're assuming that pedretti would then ship but then if pedretti doesn't we wouldn't know unless the customer reaches out to us and says hey i never got what pedretti said they were shipping we there's no way we would know that they didn't So then when they go on form, yeah, they, they screwed me over there. And I'm like, well, we wouldn't, we didn't know. So I reached out, uh, we reached out to Padre and said, Hey, did you not get, you know, and now we're working with it, but that's the kind of stuff that you can't, you can't control everything. But if we don't know, if we know about it and then we say no, thanks. That's one thing. But if we don't, don't assume that, you know, we know about it.
    45:12
    That's just, I don't like that. I want everybody to be happy with buying pinball. And I want the people who are less stable maybe to pick up, you know, collecting watches. Yes, that's all we need is more of that. Well, we can do an uplifting, fun Patreon next time. How about that? We'll give them all the new releases that are about to come out. Tasty. Tell about all that stuff. Okay, cool. Thank you guys for the support, even if you had a no good, very bad experience. No, it's very rare.
    45:48
    Would you have ate those suckers? Hell no.