DJM, the end.

[Wheatley]

 

 

1 hour ago, blueeighties said:

We did, and were either shot down as being overly negative, or ignored. 

Or deleted by admin.

 

Didn't he have a public falling out with someone senior when he was at Dapol ? Along the lines of "why are you asking him ? He's only the md. "

[Markwj]

1 hour ago, njee20 said:

It’s a very random thing to lie about for sure. Exaggerated? Flat lie?

 

Anyway, crack on with the character assassination of a man who’s not here to defend himself!

It kind of feels we are in the anger part of the grief cycle and people are grieving either over the money they lost or the model they will never get to own either that or we are in a mass counselling session where we all stand up for our turn and say my name is Mark I was ripped off by Dave Jones

 

Either that or our male egos are struggling with the fact we had the wool pulled over our eyes! (Apologies to the female modellers who may also have been ripped off)!

 

I do agree though the junior modeller thing is a bit of a low blow and not really related to what just happened.

[brittannia]

The PayPal representative did not give me the impression of him holding back any information, more an unknowing of any problems with DJM and I would rather agree with your comment "but now I am wondering if the refunds and repay by other means was designed to avoid PayPal fees "

I did not get any information from DJM and when I queried him on not receiving any updates he gave the excuse of emails being blocked and look in the "spambox". Also I found it strange that he would not allow me to register to his website until after a second payment was to be made.

That started the alarm bells in my mind and I had already written of my deposit anyway and had decided to order from Accurascale.

In reply to Colin Mcleods posting onpage 23 and it would appear Colin's name has been i

Edited June 9, 2019 by brittannia
clarification on posting been split

[DY444]

1 hour ago, 7013 said:

 I am not defending Dave Jones, he started a business that has ultimately failed, well the world is littered with failed dreams, and lets face it most people thought DJs venture was a breath of fresh air, especially at a time when Hornby were going through its woes. I am intrigued by the amount of posters who 'always knew he was dodgy' and 'the warning signs were there'. Being wise after the event is not clever, if these same people knew so much why didnt they ring the alarm bells years ago? I remember a time when DJ was with Dapol he was lauded for his communication and frankness with modellers, but it would appear he was just being big headed and self promoting. 

I only ever bought one of DJs models and it runs perfectly, as good as any other model I have and better than many. It is a sad day when a business fails, especially a model railway business, and it is easy to point out DJs business flaws, but character assasination is unbecoming when a person is down, especially by the majority who do not even know him. Berate his business venture but leave the man alone.

 

Trying to be wise before the event on an internet forum, particularly if the wisdom on offer attempts to temper the general enthusiasm for a given venture, invariably attracts huge criticism from the general membership and often censure from moderators. 

[Colin_McLeod]

Re this thread......and they say a week is a long time in politics!   

[Colin_McLeod]

13 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

All this is just proving that model railways are incredibly tribal. Red boxers, blue boxers, purple boxers, it's like a rerun of the Sinclair vs Commodore arguments we had when I was at school.

 

Does it help? No. So knock it off. 

 

Do you mean like this?

 

 

Edited June 9, 2019 by Colin_McLeod
To show image

[7013]

3 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

Trying to be wise before the event on an internet forum, particularly if the wisdom on offer attempts to temper the general enthusiasm for a given venture, invariably attracts huge criticism from the general membership and often censure from moderators. 

I suppose it depends on how constructive and fact based being wise before the event is? I agree though DY444 I have been told off in the past for having an opinion, and often got the standard line 'The manufacturers are not our enemies' I bet DJ does not feel as if he has many friends at present.

[jjb1970]

I do think that there is a need to accept personal responsibility for choices. It is too easy to just blame Dave Jones, there were red flags all around for quite a while and even without knowledge of n'thusiast or the reasons for his departure from Dapol his plans were very optimistic to the point of being unrealistic from a very early stage and his withdrawal to dependence on crowdfunding was indicative of a failed business plan. I honestly wished him well and just viewed him as an enthusiastic dreamer who needed a reality check until his manipulative and unpleasant diatribes about China kicked off but even before that it seemed clear that he was not the most organised or professional person trying to run a business. I would love an Apt but I decided at the outset that there was insufficient information from DJM, too many unanswered questions and too much risk and that it just wasn't a credible project. That judgement had nothing to do with whether Dave Jones was a splendid chap or a villain but simply an assessment of the offer. If anything good is to come out of this sorry mess then hopefully it will be that people apply a little more diligence before handing over money to crowdfunding schemes. Ultimately we all have a responsibility to ourselves to apply some judgement and take responsibility for our decisions. 

[Oldddudders]

Many of us, perhaps particularly in hobbies like ours where absolute detail is absolutely essential, have some sort of mild personality disorder, compared to the bland mainstream of society. But I do wonder whether a psychologist, if still awake after 23 pages, might conclude our subject is a narcissist. That "condition" consists of much more than staring fondly at one's reflection, but Edwardian's recent analysis, together with other members' remarks in this thread, does point to it. The failure to face facts, constant blame placed upon everyone but self, towering self-belief and substantial self-promotion, all fit nicely. That doesn't prevent a narcissist from being a decent and honourable businessman, but when things turn difficult, it may not help. 

[Widnes Model Centre]

2 hours ago, Ian Hargrave said:

 

It is too easy I know to be wise after the event and in this I certainly plead guilty,along with many on this forum who were like the Pied Piper’s children led along to the goody bags on the distant horizon .But way back then there were a few sceptics here who were unimpressed.Some are now long gone from this forum .Some are still here and have been astringent critics all along.Good for them.

    

      DJM’s onward ( unfortunately not upward ) progress was fuelled by this forum.He used it as a means to promote his ends  until it became a double edged sword which cut both ways.The silence from that point probably marks the beginning of descent into failure.I’m afraid glib promises enticed the understandable gullibility of those who wanted what he offered.Ultimately he failed to deliver and much of what he produced was flawed.

 

But yes,the danger signs were there from the start.,beginning with a seemingly uneasy parting with Dapol 

 

 

I  have made no secret of my distrust for the man. Some of you may recall the customer who came into my shop and asked me to refund his £250 for his deposit on an  APT. I had told him that it was nothing to do with us. He insisted as he had picked up the information in our shop. Unbeknown to us you again may recall, a raft of flyers had been left amongst our show etc flyers. DJ denied all knowledge and I took a fair beating on here and via personal email, even a berating phone call from Mr Jones himself. I gave the guy the money back from my own personal money after DJ stated he could find no trace of him on his order book. Well he wouldn't would he?

 

I would love to conduct an in depth interview with DJM. As a retired Detective in Merseyside Police, strangely enough my last office was in the station covering the registered office of DJM in Liverpool. I would love to carry it out as a still working Detective.

 

This is not I told you so post, but simply that there were quite a few of us who were shot down and named as "naysayers and trolls".

 

From the moment he first entered our shop seeking an order for J94's, which we were happy to place at that time. Only to discover he had been shall I say.... less than truthful?

 

Dave, when you read this, remember I was willing to help you, only because you were based in "Liverpool for your sins". There are lots of honest Scousers. We would rather have a shoplifter in our shop. Need I say more.

 

Anybody thinking of taking up from DJM will need to fill these shoes.

 

Yes I am still angry.

 

 

[Allegheny1600]

If you can filter out the chaff, this thread reads a bit like one of Esther Ranzens investigative programs (or similar)!

I do remember "n'thusiast resprays" and recall some controversy there but I didn't know that Mr Jones was the man involved.

For me, he redeemed himself when at Dapol by producing their class 52 even though it was not immune from criticism, it was a very decent model. Therefore, I was supportive of the man when he started off on his own as that's the kind of thing I've done and I did wonder why he attracted such criticism.

It's a great shame that DJ linked controversies generated on here led to the loss of Julia Adams, Adrian Swain and several others, I for one, certainly miss Julia as she was a very talented modeller. At least certain others have come back though, thankfully.

I can certainly see now why this character attracted such criticisms.

If such things happen in the future, would people listen if say "J. Edge Enterprises" made rash promises?

Not that I would of course as I'm happy in my own business but if I did, I would at least try and dress smartly and shave, it is helpful to at least present yourself well, surely?

Cheers,

John (Edge)*

 

*In case anyone wonders who I am!

[srihaggis]

I have attempted to refrain from commenting, however despite many of us [potentially] loosing money (my self included), I would still thank Dave for his efforts to try and get the market something that we all wanted, and that was detailed models. 

 

Looking to the future, I don't think I would invest in crowd funding again - DJM was a stab in the dark for me having never done anything like this historically, but I doubt I'd do it again for any product. I'd sooner see a product on the table, available for me to buy and take away, or at the very least in the same way the APT-E came via Locomtion: Deposit to secure and then balance pre-delivery. That worked very well and was delivered. Ok, not on time but it was worth the wait.

 

I hope good things come out of this, and wish everyone affected the best for the future - I'm sure nobody would have wanted this.

[DY444]

28 minutes ago, 7013 said:

I suppose it depends on how constructive and fact based being wise before the event is? I agree though DY444 I have been told off in the past for having an opinion, and often got the standard line 'The manufacturers are not our enemies' I bet DJ does not feel as if he has many friends at present.

 

My doubts at the time were neither constructive nor fact based, they were merely based on my personal prejudices and opinions and would undoubtedly have been severely criticised had I posted them.  Essentially I thought the product range was too ambitious for a startup plus I have a long standing personal scepticism about "pay now get later" payment schemes and another long standing personal suspicion of grandstanding mission statements.  As a result I decided not to commit any funds but wait and buy the model I was interested in as and when it reached the retailers.  Needless to say it never got close. 

Edited June 9, 2019 by DY444

[Markwj]

Never in the field of toy trains has so much been owed to so many by one man.

 

 

 

Apologies to everyone!

[PMP]

1 hour ago, Markwj said:

I do agree though the junior modeller thing is a bit of a low blow and not really related to what just happened.

 

@Markwj

 

Please note that the original query re this claim was raised within a day of the publication, six years ago in 2013, by me, because it indicated a huge plausibility and believability issue in the companies claim. In this thread there has been much hand wringing of how 'we' missed red flags regarding elements of the DJM operation.

A bit more context for you. At the time I worked for MRM in London Kings Cross in my early twenties. We had a huge number of younger customers, those are likely now in their 40's. The shops and clubs at that time we were the 'social media' of the time. A national competition from No10, would surely have been high profile. My brother similar age and his compatriots were plastic kit modellers, and bought Scale Models/Airfix Magazine/Military Modeller, their magazine equivalents. None of those I've asked either in 2013 or subsequently recall this event. Some that I have asked are at the very top of the UK 'kit' hobby. Whilst there have been many views of this thread, and the original 2013 one, no-one has said I recall that, or something vaguely similar.

 

I'd suggest that if my suspicion is true that a national Prime Ministers Young Modeller competition didn't exist, then the low blow was struck by a false claim on the originators web site.

 

To end on a positive note if this claim is significantly substantiated, I will make an apology here, and by means of a cheque forwarded via the BRM editorial office donate £100 to the Railway Children charity.

So it has to be

National Prime Ministers Young Modeller competition for 1982

Proof of advertising, eg mag/club media

We find five other entrants, any field of modelling.

Award given by Mrs T at No10 validated by the No10 appointments diary. This is available under the FOI act for non classified data. Its a hard copy document.

Edited June 9, 2019 by PMP
edit spooling chock

[Ravenser]

3 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

Strange.....

 

Unless of course the PayPal saga was just a made up story upon realising the magnitude of PayPal fees when  a few hundred people pay in three figure sums.  Purely speculation on my part. but now I am wondering if the "refunds and re pay by other means" was designed to avoid PayPal fees.  If so it backfired as it gave people the opportunity to drop out, coming as it did at more or less the same time that it took ages to submit micro accounts to avoid striking off. 

 

Maybe I am wrong as it is also possible that to protect privacy PayPal were not going to give out personal information to Britannia.

 

Depending on how many people you believe had signed up for the APT at £250 a go , there could have been anywhere between £50K and £150K due to be paid into Dave's personal Paypal account. Was that really a responsible way for him to handle such large sums of money? Given the magnitude of the sums involved you can imagine why that might trigger alarms at Paypal

[Roy Langridge]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

The revelation that there was always something "rum" about this supplier, that a previous business failed leaving customers out of pocket, that ill-will was engendered with Dapol etc, etc, adds unpleasant colouring and it must be galling to those who lost money that no hint of this was evident before now. 

 

Yep, certainly galling to me and hence my earlier posts about hindsight. Had I known all of this in Dec 2017 when my APT was ordered, I may have chosen differently.

Roy

[JSpencer]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

That's because people, especially those who are proud to say they never buy magazines, don't want to pay the sort of money it costs to research and write that sort of in-depth article. 

 

I for one would not want railway magazines to descend into sensationalist tripe anyway.

[Simon Lee]

1 hour ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

 

 

I  have made no secret of my distrust for the man. Some of you may recall the customer who came into my shop and asked me to refund his £250 for his deposit on an  APT. I had told him that it was nothing to do with us. He insisted as he had picked up the information in our shop. Unbeknown to us you again may recall, a raft of flyers had been left amongst our show etc flyers. DJ denied all knowledge and I took a fair beating on here and via personal email, even a berating phone call from Mr Jones himself. I gave the guy the money back from my own personal money after DJ stated he could find no trace of him on his order book. Well he wouldn't would he?

 

I would love to conduct an in depth interview with DJM. As a retired Detective in Merseyside Police, strangely enough my last office was in the station covering the registered office of DJM in Liverpool. I would love to carry it out as a still working Detective.

 

This is not I told you so post, but simply that there were quite a few of us who were shot down and named as "naysayers and trolls".

 

From the moment he first entered our shop seeking an order for J94's, which we were happy to place at that time. Only to discover he had been shall I say.... less than truthful?

 

Dave, when you read this, remember I was willing to help you, only because you were based in "Liverpool for your sins". There are lots of honest Scousers. We would rather have a shoplifter in our shop. Need I say more.

 

Anybody thinking of taking up from DJM will need to fill these shoes.

 

Yes I am still angry.

 

 

 

Judging by the comments on the Durham Trains of Stanley F/B page, your not the only one in the trade who feels aggrieved and angry.

 

Maybe a bit naive but if l were in DJs position starting out, l would do everything possible to keep the trade sellers on side viewing it as a trusted relationship and word of mouth free advertising.

 

 

 

 

[Amand]

1 hour ago, Legend said:

 

Model Railway mags don’t tend to go beyond the surface of model railways . I agree I think such an article would be fascinating , along with ones on Hornby, particularly the Frank Martin years and legacy, and Bachmann since their 25 anniversary . But the mags don’t seem to go beyond layout articles , reviews . What manufacturer articles there are tend to read like press releases and be about future plans drawing a line over past activities.

There have been some more in-depth reviews of companies involved in manufacturing model railway items. Model Rail Mag / Enthusiast had reviews by Pat Hammond and Robert Fosythe, and the monthly newspaper style publication (forget its name) had covered manufacturers, some long gone, been taken over or still trading.

 

Other than Vitrains no longer being commissioned to produce their limited range of British models it's been a long time since we had a manufacturer and its entire range lost. Wrenn, thought attempts were made to resurrect the range. Airfix, Lima, Mainline / Replica models mostly live on through Hornby and Bachmann. DJM brown box items be taken over by anyone? Doubtful.

[BR Blue]

I wished I had said more in hindsight but it was difficult. I was told information from 3 separate and unrelated sources about the activities of DJM. None of these people wished to go on the record, not so far anyway.

 

Suffice to say in situations like this my sympathies would be with all involved but in this case my sympathies are purely with those who were taken in, the crowd funders. I have seen posts on this thread that related to previous events that predate DJM. I was not aware of most of this information and found it interesting and it informative but it paints a disturbing picture but sadly consistent with other more recent information.

 

This is not a case of kicking someone when they are down. It is ensuring that people are more aware of what was going on. It is also to ensure that it does not happen again with another re-incarnation of a DJ enterprise that could cost modellers their hard earned cash.

[Roy Langridge]

11 minutes ago, Simon Lee said:

 

Judging by the comments on the Durham Trains of Stanley F/B page, your not the only one in the trade who feels aggrieved and angry.

 

Maybe a bit naive but if l were in DJs position starting out, l would do everything possible to keep the trade sellers on side viewing it as a trusted relationship and word of mouth free advertising.

 

 

From a comment I had from a trade seller on Friday, for some that bridge was burnt long before DJ Models was set up. Bargepoles was mentioned... As I have said before, it is such a shame that his enthusiasm has not resulted in products that matched which maybe would have started to rebuild some of those bridges.

 

The baying for blood is not healthy for DJ, those of us who lost money, or the hobby as a whole. Everybody, myself included, needs to move on from this. Let Dave recover from what must have been a terrible experience personally. Yes he was not perfect, but sometimes it is hard to see ones own limitations. My company is run by two of us and, as I have said before, we rely on each other. Sometimes we don't know that we need that until later on and see how much we had needed help. Dave didn't have that support within DJM, somebody who he trusted and who understood the business to give him a sanity check.

 

Some parts of the hobby now need to rebuild. For some, trust in the crowdfunding model has been broken (we can see that by people questioning ventures that a week ago were not) and that needs to be addressed. Is crowdfunding in model railways dead? Probably not, I certainly hope not. However, a look though the crowdfunding thread in Modelling Musings & Miscellany will show people raising possible regulation, oversight etc. along with a fair amount of "not for me" posts (no criticism intended by that - it is all about personal choice). Some of the ideas discussed in that thread may need to be implemented, and possible not just within our domain.

Roy

Edited June 9, 2019 by Roy Langridge

[ruggedpeak]

After many pages all I will say is that nothing in this saga is any different to any other hobby or business sector. I was heavily involved in a car related hobby sector as an enthusiast and business owner for several decades and exactly the same sort of characters and antics went on there as well. Still are so I won't be commenting further!!

[robertcwp]

2 hours ago, John M Upton said:

Looks like this thread is heading for a locking...

 

Before it does however, my first experience of Dave was the exquisite OO Scale Dapol Class 52 Western which is still in my opinion one of the best locos I ever owned.

 

The Dapol 52 is not great in all respects. Mechanically suspect (one of mine went up in smoke), a dodgy runner due to restrictions in the bogie movement - difficult to blame the track when around 300 other models cope with it fine, including Heljan Westerns, numerous 40s, Peaks etc, and headcodes that spoil the look. I have gone back to using my Heljan Westerns which, fortunately, I hadn't sold. The peaked cap spoils the look but at least they run properly.

[JSpencer]

2 hours ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

 

 

I  have made no secret of my distrust for the man. Some of you may recall the customer who came into my shop and asked me to refund his £250 for his deposit on an  APT. I had told him that it was nothing to do with us. He insisted as he had picked up the information in our shop. Unbeknown to us you again may recall, a raft of flyers had been left amongst our show etc flyers. DJ denied all knowledge and I took a fair beating on here and via personal email, even a berating phone call from Mr Jones himself. I gave the guy the money back from my own personal money after DJ stated he could find no trace of him on his order book. Well he wouldn't would he?

 

 

 

Either that customer sounds more gullable than most or he was an exceptional con artist using DJs situation to add flyers to your shelf and then invent some story to extort £250. Personally I would not have gavin him £250 unless he was a regular customer spending 1000s.