10/13 Update.

[Jason R]

Hi All.

I think that it is important for me to post things in the interest of public dialog.

The CEO of AU.com is heading to BMG tomorrow, ostensibly to discuss and/or make the final payment. However, I also know that the company, in the past, has made excuses or expressed untruths about previous "attempts" to pay BMG.

I fully expect AU.com to tell BMG that it cannot be expected to pay the balance because I am somehow telling people to cancel their orders and buy from other retailers instead. For the record, I am telling you to make decisions based on your own judgement and based upon the way you have been treated by this retailer.

Nevertheless, I stand by my commitment to you. If BMG is not paid in full by Wednesday, October 16, 2002, I will email all of the petition signers, as well as any of the customers for whom I have email addresses. I will tell them that AU has not paid for the DVDs and I will recommend that they cancel their orders.

There is an easy way to prevent all of this. AU must prove me wrong, and pay BMG and GWhiz in full. Au must send this product to the customers who have been waiting for so long.

Jason Rosenfeld

[pgh kenny]

I want to write in support of what Jason said here. I do not feel like he was telling anyone what to do. I think that he had an obligation to correct untruths that were posted by AU.com concerning vendor payment.

I am close to cancelling but I have not yet cancelled because I actually have a tiny piece of hope that I may someday see the lunchbox. If I thought Jason had made a recommendation to cancel, I would have cancelled by now. If payment is not made by Wednesday and Jason recommends cancellation, then I will cancel.

I have read most of the posts in the last two weeks and I did not interpret anything Jason said as a recommendation to cancel. If anything, it appears Jason has been very reserved in what he has posted, given that much of the headaches with the retailer began several months ago. Clearly, if AU.com had paid people when they were supposed to, there would be no Monday meeting with BMG. I am certain that if AU.com were to make the argument that Jason described above, they will be laughed out of the office.

[so-called customer]

I already have the set preordered at Amazon, but am waiting until Wednesday to decide whether to cancel my AU order. There has been ample time since my money was taken for AU to settle its accounts and proceed with producing the sets we were promised in February.

While AU may have an argument that Jason is hurting their position, I believe that AU has, quite probably from the beginning, been trying to undertake a fraud from the fans of this series. I see no tangible evidence to counter Jason's claims, and the history with AU has proven that they are not to be trusted at their word. The fact that they were accepting payment in full for a product that didn't even have all its rights cleared (which I also have issue with BMG over - you shouldn't be selling something you don't own, I'm sure that is illegal), added to the ongoing and ever changing story (excuses) from AU leave me little hope that they ever intended to release this set.

If there is not some major, substantiated, news by Wednesday - including a mailout to every person who ordered this set with the terms of their compensation offer, I will be cancelling. AU's financial problems are not my concern. We have more than covered the cost of this set and all its bonus items with our payments. It's time to put up or shut up.

[Debs]

Jason Rosenfeld -

" I fully expect AU.com to tell BMG that it cannot be expected to pay the balance because I am somehow telling people to cancel their orders and buy from other retailers instead. "

AU had our money up front. How can they possibly use this as a reason for non-payment??

I have not cancelled my order with AU but if Ross cannot make payment tomorrow I will be. That is me making up my own mind.

I just pray Ross will refund us. I cannot afford to simply give this kind of money away. It's not even mine - it's the bank's (!).

PS: On a completely different subject - How do you get the quote box to work??

[frail_bbeditor]

Your telling people to cancel their orders? Ugh please! Your just giving us fair information that they are not telling us! So far AU has done nothing but do everything possible to irritate customers into cancelling orders! I'm glad Ross gave in and let Amazon and other better companies have the DVD cause atleast we know we have a chance of getting it!! I am so cancelling my order now, screw the lunchbox!!

[north_Star98]

i think i'm just going to cancel no matter what. i feel so much safer with amazon...and i dont really care if i get the lunchbox or the bonus disc...there are no interviews of the cast...i think that would be the most exciting if that was on there...all i want are the dvds...to watch them without having to see white lines running through the screen or having to attempt to adjust the vertical hold...

[lance]

Jason,

AU may blame you , but they are the ones to blame for this fiasco. Thanks again for the frank and consistent updates. I am glad that you and Gord have kept us in the know. Which is more than one can say for Ross or AU..

Lance Man

[Lurker1999]

Blaming one individual (i.e. Jason) for the inability to pay for a product which has already been paid for by the customers is ridiculous. We certainly don't have our money back so AU must have it still, or should I say Ross and his personal bank account.

[Cate]

Hi All.

I think that it is important for me to post things in the interest of public dialog.

The CEO of AU.com is heading to BMG tomorrow, ostensibly to discuss and/or make the final payment. However, I also know that the company, in the past, has made excuses or expressed untruths about previous "attempts" to pay BMG.

I fully expect AU.com to tell BMG that it cannot be expected to pay the balance because I am somehow telling people to cancel their orders and buy from other retailers instead. For the record, I am telling you to make decisions based on your own judgement and based upon the way you have been treated by this retailer.

Nevertheless, I stand by my commitment to you. If BMG is not paid in full by Wednesday, October 16, 2002, I will email all of the petition signers, as well as any of the customers for whom I have email addresses. I will tell them that AU has not paid for the DVDs and I will recommend that they cancel their orders.

There is an easy way to prevent all of this. AU must prove me wrong, and pay BMG and GWhiz in full. Au must send this product to the customers who have been waiting for so long.

Jason Rosenfeld

I have stated this elsewhere but will repeat it here because I think it is important to this discussion -

this is a direct quote from Ross -

BMG has received the deposit they required, and as soon as they finish the authoring and the give us a ship date, we'll be paying for the balance and arranging to receive them and get them to the customers As Soon As Physically Possible.

--end quote

now as far as I know (and have read here again and again) AU does not yet have a definite ship date. They obviously have an arrangement with BMG. So why don't we all just remain calm and see how this unfolds.

Why the Wednesday deadline?

[Natasha (candygirl)]

The reason that people aren't remaining calm is that AU claims they "wired" the balance to BMG two weeks ago, yet BMG has not received the funds. As discussed in a previous thread, a wire does not disappear since it is a transfer of funds from one account to another - it's not a case of the check's in the mail (or as AU would claim, that the check got lost in the mail). That alone raised some red flags. Add to that - GWhiz has not been paid the balance for the lunchboxes. Some of us are jumping to the huge conclusion that these two outstanding balances indicate AU is having some sort of cash flow problem, which might be understandable if we had each paid the $20 balance and AU was scrambling to come up with the cash to cover their expenses until they shipped the product and charged us for the remaining $79 or $95 BUT since we all paid for our sets months ago (and some of us "paid" two or three extra times) AU should have the funds to pay these two vendors so that the BMG will ship out the DVDs and GWhiz will send out the lunchboxes and we can get our sets.

[Cate]

The reason that people aren't remaining calm is that AU claims they "wired" the balance to BMG two weeks ago, yet BMG has not received the funds. As discussed in a previous thread, a wire does not disappear since it is a transfer of funds from one account to another - it's not a case of the check's in the mail (or as AU would claim, that the check got lost in the mail). That alone raised some red flags. Add to that - GWhiz has not been paid the balance for the lunchboxes. Some of us are jumping to the huge conclusion that these two outstanding balances indicate AU is having some sort of cash flow problem, which might be understandable if we had each paid the $20 balance and AU was scrambling to come up with the cash to cover their expenses until they shipped the product and charged us for the remaining $79 or $95 BUT since we all paid for our sets months ago (and some of us "paid" two or three extra times) AU should have the funds to pay these two vendors so that the BMG will ship out the DVDs and GWhiz will send out the lunchboxes and we can get our sets.

And you're getting this information IRT payments from where? If there is a message somewhere on this board where -Ross- states that he wired payment to BMG could someone point it out to me? I haven't come across it and I have been spending a helluva lot of time going through these messages. (and for the record I am also one of the people who was overcharged.)

[phelix]

And you're getting this information IRT payments from where? If there is a message somewhere on this board where -Ross- states that he wired payment to BMG could someone point it out to me?

http://www.mscl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1207

BMG has been paid for 5,000 units

We now know the above statement is a lie.



Here's something even more amazing, from a mass emailing by AU on March 26, 2002:

3) Full payment for the sets is going out to BMG next week.

Ross has been lying for a long, long time.

[Mold E. Peaches]

And you're getting this information IRT payments from where? If there is a message somewhere on this board where -Ross- states that he wired payment to BMG could someone point it out to me?

http://www.mscl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1207

BMG has been paid for 5,000 units

We now know the above statement is a lie.



Here's something even more amazing, from a mass emailing by AU on March 26, 2002:

3) Full payment for the sets is going out to BMG next week.

Ross has been lying for a long, long time.

There it is Cate....black and white....so you can stay on the AU ship, but I'm afraid there are no lifejackets aboard.....and even if there were, Ross would take them all for himself and leave us screwed...just like he's doing now...

[Cate]

And you're getting this information IRT payments from where? If there is a message somewhere on this board where -Ross- states that he wired payment to BMG could someone point it out to me?

http://www.mscl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1207

BMG has been paid for 5,000 units

We now know the above statement is a lie.



Here's something even more amazing, from a mass emailing by AU on March 26, 2002:

3) Full payment for the sets is going out to BMG next week.

Ross has been lying for a long, long time.

Thanks for the info ... not quite what I was asking for though but helpful all the same. (I was asking about wire payment)

Ross stated on Oct 10th that BMG was paid for 5,000 units.

You say "we now know the above statement is a lie".

How do we know that? Because Jason says so?

Just asking.

[Mold E. Peaches]

And you're getting this information IRT payments from where? If there is a message somewhere on this board where -Ross- states that he wired payment to BMG could someone point it out to me?

http://www.mscl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1207

BMG has been paid for 5,000 units

We now know the above statement is a lie.



Here's something even more amazing, from a mass emailing by AU on March 26, 2002:

3) Full payment for the sets is going out to BMG next week.

Ross has been lying for a long, long time.

Thanks for the info ... not quite what I was asking for though but helpful all the same. (I was asking about wire payment)

Ross stated on Oct 10th that BMG was paid for 5,000 units.

You say "we now know the above statement is a lie".

How do we know that? Because Jason says so?

Just asking.

Why don't you call BMG and ask them yourself since you won't believe anyone's word on here....Jason's told us nothing but the truth so far, so why would he start lying now? And if Ross isn't lying to cover his ass, then why would he have sent that e-mail back in what was it MARCH, saying that full payment was going to be at BMG next week.