Share your AU/RR Story! And a talking RR doll

[mephisto]

They must have paid for the AU seminar on how to cultivate the wrath of your customers (or employees).

there are so many useful seminars AU could offer

1) Communication Skills: Don't have it - don't need it
2) Negotiate and let them wait
3) Planning - What For?
4) Conflict As An Opportunity
5) Cheat Your Way To Success

[mephisto]

btw, I have a new Ross-Song

do you know Monty Python's Lumberjack Song?

Ross:
I'm Ross Rojek, and I'm okay.
I sleep all night and I cheat all day.

AU Customers:
He's Ross Rojek, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he cheats all day.

Ross:
I steal your money. I eat my lunch.
I don't pay the DVD.
And then I read your e-mails
And laugh until I pee.

AU Customers:
He steels your money. He eats his lunch.
He doesn't pay the DVDs.
And then he reads your e-mails
And laughs until he pees.

(chorus)

Ross:
I lie on the phone, delete your mails.
And you don't know so far.
I put on women's clothing
Spend your money in bars.

AU Customers:
He lies on the phone, deletes your mails.
And we don't know so far.
He puts on women's clothing
Spends your money in bars?!

(chorus)

Ross:
I steal and lie. I wear high heels,
Suspendies, and a bra.
I wish I'd been a girlie,
Just like my dear Mama.

AU Customers:
He steals and lies. He wears high heels,
Suspendies, and a bra?!

[Howard]

Okay, mephisto... what do you use to clean coffee-spew out of a keyboard?

[So-Called Loon]

Holy cow!
I didn't realize Ross had been dabbling as an author!





note fine print

[raprazant]

ok, i don't know if anyone cares but i think i'll share my story just the same.

i worked for the original AU and am the author of the entire AU site. i built the current iteration back in 99 before fandom acquired AU. as most of you may well know after fandom went in the toilet ross was able to weasel in and make an agreement with diamond comics to revive the AU site, remove the lien and sell the remaining merchandise. at this point he contacted me because it was beyond his staff's capability to bring the site online themselves. i ended up working for ross for 6 weeks to bring the site back up with about 90% functionality and even though i was being paid weekly he managed to bounce 3 checks written to me. i'm now suing him in VA for failure to pay. if i'm able to secure a judgement against him i will be able to place a lien on his product and possibly his infrastructure.

before dealing with ross it was beyond my conception that men such as he existed. before any of you do business with this man and risk your money being lost as customers consider the fact that he won't even pay his employees for services rendered.

[Jason R]

Hey Raprizant,

this just gets more and more interesting.

Do me a favor and email me at jasonr@mscl.com.

I may be able to help you track down some of Rojek's accounts, as there are others who have sued, but he hides the money so the accounts cannot even be garnished!

Jason

ok, i don't know if anyone cares but i think i'll share my story just the same.

i worked for the original AU and am the author of the entire AU site. i built the current iteration back in 99 before fandom acquired AU. as most of you may well know after fandom went in the toilet ross was able to weasel in and make an agreement with diamond comics to revive the AU site, remove the lien and sell the remaining merchandise. at this point he contacted me because it was beyond his staff's capability to bring the site online themselves. i ended up working for ross for 6 weeks to bring the site back up with about 90% functionality and even though i was being paid weekly he managed to bounce 3 checks written to me. i'm now suing him in VA for failure to pay. if i'm able to secure a judgement against him i will be able to place a lien on his product and possibly his infrastructure.

before dealing with ross it was beyond my conception that men such as he existed. before any of you do business with this man and risk your money being lost as customers consider the fact that he won't even pay his employees for services rendered.

[Howard]

ok, i don't know if anyone cares but i think i'll share my story just the same.

Oh yes... care very much, actually. Your story strikes close to home for me.

i worked for the original AU and am the author of the entire AU site. i built the current iteration back in 99 before fandom acquired AU. as most of you may well know after fandom went in the toilet ross was able to weasel in and make an agreement with diamond comics to revive the AU site, remove the lien and sell the remaining merchandise. at this point he contacted me because it was beyond his staff's capability to bring the site online themselves. i ended up working for ross for 6 weeks to bring the site back up with about 90% functionality and even though i was being paid weekly he managed to bounce 3 checks written to me.

Bounced checks are probably the one thing Ross *can* ship out with any form of regularity.

i'm now suing him in VA for failure to pay. if i'm able to secure a judgement against him i will be able to place a lien on his product and possibly his infrastructure.

Jason, when he contacts you, PLEASE pass him MY email address as well. He may be interested in the info I have.

before dealing with ross it was beyond my conception that men such as he existed. before any of you do business with this man and risk your money being lost as customers consider the fact that he won't even pay his employees for services rendered.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Well, neither of us is the Shadow, apparently.

[mephisto]

this just gets more and more interesting.

that's better than any TV show! Perhaps Ross just screwed too many people by now to get away with it. On the other hand he seems to get away with everything

[raprazant]

thank you guys for your interest in my situation, i'm just sorry that he's managed to further defraud people with this whole mscl dvd release scam. i'm not very informed as to the details of this situation but i do have a fairly accurate understanding of ross's m.o. in general so hit me with any questions and i'll try to give my .02 cents.

i'm sure rojek has bigger worries than my litigation but i will never go away. this is quickly becoming my personal crusade.

[Jason R]

raprazant,

i think that Ross's problem is that thousands of customers are now on their own personal crusades.

thank you guys for your interest in my situation, i'm just sorry that he's managed to further defraud people with this whole mscl dvd release scam. i'm not very informed as to the details of this situation but i do have a fairly accurate understanding of ross's m.o. in general so hit me with any questions and i'll try to give my .02 cents.

i'm sure rojek has bigger worries than my litigation but i will never go away. this is quickly becoming my personal crusade.

[raprazant]

ok, i've just now read the three part poopshoot story and what everyone who preordered needs to know is that i could've coded the AU shopping cart to correctly process preorders in less than a day. when i got the sight up and running i disabled the advanceorder store and didn't bother to ensure that the site had the most current advanceorder code. much of the the code that did exist on the site when i stopped work was obfuscated and in some cases just plain missing. if ross had only paid me this would never have been an issue for anyone because i would've finished development of it long before this initiative ever saw the light of day.

[Jason R]

This is interesting.

raprazant, could the site have been responsible for double-billing customers? and if so would it have billed a totally different amount each time?

it was not uncommon to see 3 or 4 separate charges for totally different amounts, i.e. $20, $79, $115, $125.

also, it sounds like if they deployed an unfinished shopping cart, and they KNEW it was unfinished due to nonpayment, that tortious conduct could exist.

ok, i've just now read the three part poopshoot story and what everyone who preordered needs to know is that i could've coded the AU shopping cart to correctly process preorders in less than a day. when i got the sight up and running i disabled the advanceorder store and didn't bother to ensure that the site had the most current advanceorder code. much of the the code that did exist on the site when i stopped work was obfuscated and in some cases just plain missing. if ross had only paid me this would never have been an issue for anyone because i would've finished development of it long before this initiative ever saw the light of day.

[raprazant]

This is interesting.

raprazant, could the site have been responsible for double-billing customers? and if so would it have billed a totally different amount each time?

it was not uncommon to see 3 or 4 separate charges for totally different amounts, i.e. $20, $79, $115, $125.

also, it sounds like if they deployed an unfinished shopping cart, and they KNEW it was unfinished due to nonpayment, that tortious conduct could exist.

absolutely, the advanceorder cart was written to conform to fandom's method of order fulfillment which assumed the existence of a particular piece of warehouse management softwar on the backend. without that system in place order management would be almost impossible unless the frontend piece was rewritten to provide some of the functionality that was lost. this is exactly what i was planning on accomplishing given my continued employment by ross. i had already started development of the new advanceorder code but it was unfinished when i stopped work and never made it into the production site.

what people need to realize is that cc authorizations put a hold on the needed funds for up to two weeks. this appears to the customers as though the cc has actually been charged. when you order from the regular store the period between auth and fulfillment is usually very short so this isn't an issue except in the case of backorders. as far as advanceorder goes you auth initially to make sure the funds are there just to get the order processed and then if the wait is more than two weeks you must auth again and then settle when the product goes out the door. at least this is how it is done correctly.

whatever they're doing now as far as AO goes is a complete hackjob and has to entail much interaction by ross's lackies just to get the orders out. i guarantee this is what is causing erroneous amounts and incorrect charges. in addition they're not using real-time cc authorization so they have to be getting the amounts from the cart and then manually authing them individually or in batches.

[Jason R]

so is it possible that double bills were intentional? especially if it seems they are being entered by hand? it seems very irresponsible to deploy a shopping cart in this state. so, i believe that there is negligence in either case.

did you make them aware of this state before you left for non-payment?

[raprazant]

did you make them aware of this state before you left for non-payment?

oh yeah, i explained to ross that considerable development had to be done on the existing AO system before it could go live which included presentation code, cart code and database schema modification as well as the creation of a custom order management piece.

the AO cart has no functionality for credit card authorization. it did but i removed it because they did not use cybersource [the system that fandom used]. this is all being done by them in non-real-time on the backend. all errors can be attributed to post-cart processing assuming that the initial product totals coming out of the cart are correct which they appear to be.