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Paulo Balzano

Like most folks, I am shocked that Balzano was able to get so many people to give him money. Then again, Koster (a maker with a history of telling blatant lies, taking peoples money and never sending knives) recently did a kickstart and it is doing exactly what Balzano is doing. He is VERY behind schedule and refuses to communicate with his customers.

So many people seem more than willing to give their money to people with VERY tainted professional histories. I am sure that there are legitimate businesses getting funding on Kickstart, but it seems that there are a LOT of scams there too.

Check out the comments on Dan Koster's Kickstarter project. More than 6 months overdue and still not delivering knives or requested refunds. I ordered a knife over 4 years ago from Dan. No response to emails over the years and only recently when I asked for a refund did Mr. Koster reply that he didn't give refunds, I just have to wait, try to sell my spot or just walk away. What a jerk. I still have all the emails from 4 years ago when he estimated delivery in 6 to 12 months. There a list out there of all the orders he took years ago (over 800 according to him) and he claims he's still working on the list yet I don't think anything has been delivered for over a year. Meantime he is still taking large orders from dealers and committed to another batch of knives with the Kickstarter project. Dan burned his reputation by screwing customers who ordered off his web site and like any good thief has just moved on to other ways to get people to send him money.
 
he's now officially on edc thieves.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BeCsCxclDeX/

after he saw my comment there he blocked me on instagram.

I don't instagram. If you do and care to reach out to the person running EDCthieves, please let him or her know that the company that actually owns the Sonic Drive-In that Mr. Helton claims to have owned confirmed that he is no longer an employee. Note the use of the word, employee. Just another in a long string of lies spread by Mr. Helton.
 
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I don't instagram. If you do and care to reach out to the person running EDCthieves, please let him or her know that the company that actually owns the Sonic Drive-In that Mr. Helton claims to have owned confirmed that he is no longer an employee. Note the use of the word, employee. Just another in a long string of lies spread by Mr. Helton.


Who is Mr. Helton?
 
Who is Mr. Helton?

Sorry I misplaced a paragraph there.

The instagram poster EDCthieves you referred to also has a listing for Heath Helton in his rogues gallery. He's another scammer that has been banned from here. The listing shows his now deleted Facebook page on which claims he owned a Sonic Drive-In franchise in Eudora, KS. He doesn't now and never did own it, he was employed there and sometime during the recent relevations about his scamming he ceased being employed there according to the people who actually own the franchise.
 
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Sorry I misplaced a paragraph there.

The instagram poster EDCthieves you referred to also has a listing for Heath Helton in his rogues gallery. He's another scammer that has been banned from here. The listing shows his now deleted Facebook page on which claims he owned a Sonic Drive-In franchise in Eudora, KS. He doesn't now and never did own it, he was employed there and sometime during the recent relevations about his scamming he ceased being employed there according to the people who actually own the franchise.
I made the comment. edc thieves says ty.
it looks like torvish and a bunch of people on reddit are standing up for him. who knows what's what. but that's off topic. if a mod would like to move these few posts to the balls to the wall thread that would be helpful.
 
I was NEVER business partners with paulo ever. He never paid me for mars work and I had nothing to do with his kickstarter. Originally he was going to pay me to make them like I did his FOU parts but after seeing those sit on his bench for over a year untouched after I finished the parts, seeing him constantly lie to his customers, blow all his money from his kickstarter on everything but his kickstarter products, and interfering with my clients on multiple occasions making it seem like he was my business partner in order to take the work away from me, I had enough and was done with him entirely. I refused to work on anything for him again and he had a tantrum.

He ended up making threats to my property management company after he demanded to be put on my lease after I told him it was time for him to move on and find his own shop. Management issued him and his now business partner Robert Voso from Vosofferyn (who are both now Vosano Industrial LLC as far as I'm aware) a 15 day notice to vacate the unit due to his threats, multiple complaints from neighbors and after finding out he was sleeping in the unit after being told multiple times not to. He and a bobby refused to leave, paulo made more threats apparently to management and they ultimately refused to resign the lease with me because of his actions which was up on March 31. I moved out before the lease was up to avoid any notice or evictions on my name however he and Voso refused to leave. They were served with a 30 day notice, didn't leave and then served with an eviction. That was why they finally got their own shop in LA where they both live.

I haven't seen or spoken to either of them since March. As of March 31 paulo still didn't have material for his kickstarter even though he told everyone they were finished in December but then suddenly needed laser and sharpening. Now over six months later he's decided to tell everyone he paid me to do the work and I never did which is complete bullshit.

I knew you had an issue with taking responsibility, but the lies you tell are astounding. Lets go point by point...
blow all his money from his kickstarter on everything but his kickstarter products
Was a Brother CNC not purched with a large portion of the funds made from the Mars Kickstarter campaign just as the campaign stated a portion of the funds would be used for? The answer is YES, but lets hear it from you before we move on to the next one. Tick-tock.
 
Unless vosofferyn used his kickstarter funds to buy a brother CNC for balzano, I doubt it.

It has been pointed out to me that this is exactly what happened. The two of them partnered up, share a shop, and have both apparently put their Kickstarter money into the same equipment. Here's an October, 2016 "update" on the FricBric where Vosofferyn indicates that his Kickstarter funds went into the CNC machine too: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...c-friction-folding-blade-bottle/posts/1709981

Both Balzano's and Vosofferyn's Kickstarters are nearly two years old at this point, have siphoned off $73,297 from paying customers, and no one has gotten anything.
 
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