Re: Steeldragons.net Steel Dragons AFV / Richard Tripp and ongoing theft .
Hi Guys
As promised here is a follow up on Steve's original post. This is a long post as I have a lot to tell and show. I am using as many pictures as I can to explain things to cut down on your reading.
First I need to address the claim by Tripp that I stole over $6000.00 from his company. In 2009 Tripp and I were in negotiation for him to be my retail outlet for my parts and he was to eventually over a period of time take over the company. Our agreement was he would put up $12500.00 as a investment to get things started. The amount was to be applied to his eventually purchase of the company and I agreed to supply him with parts over the next year to reimburse him for the same amount at cost of my parts, so in theory the amount paid towards the purchase was at no cost to him.
During 2009-2010 I sent him four parcels of parts valued at $8594.40, leaving a balance of $3905.60, the last parcel was sent on August 9, 2010. I continued working on parts for him until September 2010 when, in late September I noticed a part on his web site (PzIV/Hetzer U Shackle) that was being sold in sets of 4, these were my parts, but he would not be able to sell them in sets like this as the parts were from another one of my sets and only one U shackle was in each set. More explained later. Over the course of the next week or so more recast parts were appearing on his web site. My contacts with him about this were received with denial and they were my original parts he was selling.
I contacted a Attorney and was advised to send a Cease and Desist letter that was sent on November 16, 2010. In that letter he was asked to remove all my personal pictures of products from his web site and use pictures of my parts he still had in stock taken by himself. My attorney had advised me that I had to allow him to sell the stock of my products he still had.. It took around 6 months for him to remove most of my product pictures, but he still continues to use in some of them, he simply replaced most of them with pictures of my parts from customer builds.
In short I decided I was not going to refund him the money owed until such time as the situation was resolved, which to date it has not. I continued to build a case against him, advising were I could of his wrong doings. Since then you are all, I am sure, aware of his misconduct to both myself, other companies and customers.
Here is the proof of these first parts he recast.
Extract from his attorneys letter dated November 29, 2010, in which the attorney states Mr. Tripp is not recasting my parts. Here he lied to his attorney.
The following is a invoice dated September 1, 2010 in which the U Shackle in question had been purchased from a caster.
Here is a copy of his web site showing the part in question and what followed.
Here is a picture of the mold that was used to make the parts.
More evidence of recasting and the quality the unsuspecting customer will get.
My TT21 Tiger turret air vent which he first purchased from the caster on 1/17/2011. Note the wing nuts and L clamps are cast in white metal. Not strong enough for their purpose.
he even used my instructions with his logo imposed.
My TT05-02 Tiger C Shackles. Purchased from caster on 10/1/2010. Again white metal wing nuts and posts.
My Gent002 Early Fire Extinguisher. Purchased parts from caster 9/10/2010 and photo-etch parts on 11/11/09
Here are pictures of all 72 white metal casting molds commissioned by Tripp to be made. In these molds there are over 400 Armorpak parts, over 200 6th Scale Icons parts and over a 100 parts from other manufactures. I have copies of 20 invoice from 9/10/2010 to 3/1/2013 showing parts Tripp purchased.
Here are picture of the resin casting molds with original manufactures names were known, if you can identify and parts please let me know.. We know there are more molds, we just do not have pictures of them yet or any invoice to show what he purchased. We believe that these molds have been used by at least 2 or 3 casters to produce parts for Tripp.
Here are scans of the artwork commissioned by Tripp to copy photo-etched parts. In talking with the owner of this photo-etch company I was told that Tripp told him he had the rights to these parts and the original company making them for him in the UK had gone out of business. Tripp either sent the company the actual photo-etched parts or scans of them for the company to copy to produce the artwork. You will notice that Tripp has put his company logo to all these set and used our product numbers. I have 39 invoice from 9/4/2009 to 2/13.2013 which show all the parts Tripp has purchased.
These are 10" x 7.5" sheets of artwork. The first picture is a montage of 20 6th Scale icons sets
Here is a picture of the Armorpax German Tool Clamp Set AP054 along with a copy of Armorpax instructions.
The following pictures are of parts sent to various casters by Tripp to have them recast. I have copies of all the corresponding e-mails that go with these pictures. Some parts I cannot identify the original manufacture, let me know if you can help.
To sum up, Mr. Tripp has recast or copied about 90% of the parts offered on his web site. He has done no research or spent any time making masters or artwork to produce these parts. He simply stole what he is producing and making a lot of money with no effort. That money is a loss to all the people that put in the work to make the parts. For my part, checking all the invoices I have of parts Tripp has recast or copied I have lost over $15000.00 in potential sales.
Lastly I want to emphasize that all companies and individuals to date that have been involved in the reproduction of parts have been very helpful to us and all have stated that they will no longer do business with Mr. Tripp.
Regards
Mike Stannard
6th Scale Icons Inc.
arts and picks
