Yep, tells me we're not a lot of finks. I've never received motors that weren't properly labeled. Then again, I wouldn't buy motors off of Ebay. Who knows where they've been and what extremes they've seen.

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Retro-grouch

Doug,

I can't throw stones because I to am guilty of less than honorable selling off ebay. I am very ashamed of what I did years back as it makes me into a 'Black J.I.'. To that, every one received their items or money returned, I got way too caught up in model rocket collecting, but why not let 'big fine' himself tell us of the great motor shipment caper?

I admit lapses in honesty and common sense. I paid the price, learned my lesson and not had any recidivism of that low point in my life. I became exactly what I hated most about J.I. and for that I will always feel great shame.

All I know for certain about 'Big Fine', was that he was convicted of a felony for shipping explosives, and had to pay a fine around $40k. If that fine has been paid, I do not know.

'Model Airplane Parts' took on a whole new meaning when the issue came to light.

J

That's about all I know. Although I don't think it was a felony. I think the description I saw was "administrative". (It's sort of a non-criminal, civil fine.)

The part I was questioning was the Texas connection. I don't recall any of that. While it's a huge state, the rocketry community is still rather small in numbers, so I'm extra curious if some of the folks I know were involved in any way.

Doug

.

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YORF member #11

Doug,

OK I will tell what I can recall from memory. This isn't set in stone anywhere and is being pieced together from memory:

Once upon a time, there was a vendor who sold kits, and motors to the model rocket community. This vendor had some pretty cool kits and was standing shoulder to shoulder with people like Gary of Aerotech, Kosdon, and the founders of TRA.

Somewhere back in the late 1970's, said vendor started to make a name for himself by not shipping kits and motors. There was the great, r.m.r. T-Shirt scam, orders being placed and no products received after money was accepted.

One day, a dealer in Texas, IIRC, received a short order from said vendor and the order was missing several thousands of dollars in product. The dealer called the vendor and the vendor explained there was nothing the dealer could do to him as he the vendor was in another state and should just be thankful to have received the partial order.

Well the dealer wasn't going to take that sitting down and decided to hit back at the vendor with the help of other rocketry people and the Feds.

A plan was made where an order for the vendor's goods would be shipped across state lines to the dealer and his friends. Once the goods where received it was noted that there wasn't any HAZMAT information at all on the box. The description on the box read, 'Model Airplane Parts'. The dealer then contacted law enforcement that then led to the arrest, charge and conviction of said vendor.

You see, the vendor had scores of enemies all across the United States. When the dealer asked for help in trapping the vendor, the enemies of the vendor were all to zealously willing to get the vendor back for decades of scams, rip-offs, short shipping or no shipping at all.

Moral to this story, don't screw people as they have a way of screwing you back in the end.

J

The whole Haz-mat deal is a scam where the stinkin' gubmint authorized shipping companies to charge an additional fee to shippers when they choose to ship certain materials that the gubmint requires them to handle a certain way. BALONEY. I would counter the gubmint should just BUTT THE HELL OUT...how items ship should be the purview of the shipment company ALONE on public thoroughfares. When given the choice between gross over-regulation which is what we have now and the "Wild Wild West" with no regs, I will take the "Wild West" EVERY TIME and twice on Sunday !

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

Not one thing posted is accurate and the fact nothing came of it should tell you something about those fixated on narcing. Repeating false rumor IS the problem. I see dead people. Yes it took over a decade to resolve things to zero outcome, but then that was the original purpose for the noise to begin with. The whole point was to post that things were pending. At no time was the zero outcome posted, much less to the same degree, frequency and loudness as the false allegations, including those in THIS thread.

At some point those folks willing and able to make rocket motors for consumers for fun are in commerce. They do not intend to be lawyers for a couple of decades or have their previously claimed friends involve them with interactions with a variety of alphabet regulators, resulting in a scorched earth outcome for the industry generally, visible with such actions as ATF and CPSC, but far less visible from several others.

Besmurching someone's reputation intentionally and with false witness is immoral religiously and secularly, as well as one of the most heanous actions defined by the founders.

Jerry,
Instead of all the rhetoric, why don't you straighten us out? I, for one, would like to hear the whole story, at least as you remember it. Are you the guy that is referred to as the 'Big Fine?' If not, who was he? How do you supposedly 'know' so much about this? Please, enlighten all of us. Really, I'd like to know the whole story...as opposed to the gobbledegook you just wrote...
Is this simply a case of 'thou doth protest too much...?'

Allen

+1 to what Allen just said.
If what is being thrown around is all wrong, then how bout J.I. tells us all how he remembers it.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

It has all been posted to rmr in great detail (by me). The nature of that venue makes hearing the truth difficult due to the piling on and anonymous attacks and the repetition and permutation of claims that never get fully answered or resolved because nobody can address that many false claims and false claims cannot be resolved because they do not exist. On top of all that there is a political bias to vilify manufacturers by folks like TRA and ATF that makes some charges seem to pass the smell test even though baseless as observed by history.

So yes it has all been addressed in great detail, on rmr and this venue host has asked me to not rehash all of that here when it all rightfully exists elsewhere.

Having read your message, I declare you someone open to assuming if there is smoke, there must be fire. Sometimes however, and commonly in this industry (if you can call 2500 people an industry) there are intentional smokescreens.

In case you are confused if that is even true, I refer you to third party witnesses and public sources.

http://v-serv.com/tr

http://v-serv.com/usr/kCSFMtestimonial.htm

This last link I encourage you to parse against public statements of TRA over the years on the topic. It is truly inconsistent.

To simplify one well known story to the actual facts, there was a T-shirt offer, about 200 people said yes. A deposit was paid to a T-shirt company that when all was said and done produced a prototype but no shirts, kept the deposit and went out of business despite being in business for almost 10 years before that. Payments were processed through a 3rd party CC gateway of a paralegal who did some work for me also, who kept over half the money she received without those funds ever being transmitted to me. When it became clear there was the sort of transactional failure that could not be guarded against or resolved, about 6 months later, I simply refunded everyone with postal money orders, out of my own funds, which was widely acknowedged.

But all we hear these days are the false claim of ripoff by me, which was not the case and I made good from my own funds outside of prepayments, ripped off gateway funds, ripped off deposit money, etc.

As for EVERY claim of non shipment ever uttered by anyone for any reason, it is provably false. I (or the company) have shipped rockets "bill on delivery" since 1988 on product. Prepayments are actively discouraged.

There is a bunch of false claim and inuendo that is simply repeated and if you read John Dunbar's post he himself does that and tries to justify it by saying "to the best of my recollection, I heard". Not only is that hearsay, it is hearsay about rumor!

Jerry

Jerry,

OK then let me ask the question:

Why were you arrested, convicted, and fined $40,000.00 or near that amount?

That should be a simple, straight forward, non-convoluted answer. I have the *alls to state my transgressions and not do it again, why can't you?

Look this is stupid, the truth will never be known accept by those in law enforcement and the parties that turned you in, and yourself.

The people on this board are NOT stupid. Even the ones that I disagree with regularly are of above average intelligence, so it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out...

Jonathan