DJM - Statement of Affairs released

[Colin_McLeod]

3 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

Any merit in crowdfunders voluntarily stating on this thread what they paid. This might not capture everybody but would give an idea of a minimum amount.

 

I'll start off. Paid £250 via PayPal to DJmodels. That got refunded, then I paid £250 again August 2018 for a 14 car APT.

 

2 hours ago, DavidH said:

 

Merely a suggestion, but if it's really necessary (and is allowed under site rules) do it in a separate thread - things like this can result in pages of data that are difficult to wade through.

 

 

Thread started here.  Hope the Mods approve.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/145766-djmodels-crowdfunders-data/

 

[pheaton]

28 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

They were in the process but not, I don't think, where people were led to believe they were. As jjb said:

 

 

Which makes perfect sense with the information given that the tooling was being paid for on the back of model sales and ownership was being retained by the factory??? whats not been made public is the particulars of the deal. But at the same time its likely the tooling would have dropped down the priority list for the factory when direct paid for tooling was being produced.....

 

 

[melmoth]

 

30 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

They were in the process but not, I don't think, where people were led to believe they were. As jjb said:

 

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

How many times was it posted that they were making good progress and about to go into tooling? 

 

As an example from not that far back up this thread:

 

On 03/07/2019 at 09:56, AY Mod said:

...I'd personally pressed Dave on this on 5th April 2018 (along with a very long list of concerns*) that there was no evidence that anyone had done any work on the 74 whatsoever beyond the photoshop mock-up of one end. Consequent to that Dave could not provide proof to Kernow that there had been any progress hence their laudable decision to put a stop to the process.

 

My highlights in bold. Only a mere 18 months after this statement from Dave Jones:

 

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

20 minutes ago, pheaton said:

Which makes perfect sense with the information given that the tooling was being paid for on the back of model sales and ownership was being retained by the factory??? whats not been made public is the particulars of the deal. But at the same time its likely the tooling would have dropped down the priority list for the factory when direct paid for tooling was being produced.....

 

 

I do wonder if the 'King' in particular (and possibly the Class 92) had reached the put up (the money) or shut up stage with the factory and the money simply wasn't there, for whatever reason.  And the amount the factory needed for tooling to commence was much more than the available next stage payments from the crowdfunders.    (So possibly hence the cut and run?)

[Ravenser]

2 hours ago, Legend said:

 

I wasn't being critical of you JJB , and you are indeed correct that every question leads to another one . I think we can all truly say its a shambles.     Can we assume he reached the minimum order quantity + contingency . He may have winged it on the basis that orders would flow in over time . Its not something you or I would probably do but with DJ who knows, I'm sure I've seen a reference to that somewhere.

 

As I've said I think the starting place is trying to figure out how much crowdfunding was sent to him. Then probably you could go to Liquidator and challenge where money was recorded.  You would want to check receipt to see if it was given by Dave Jones or DJ Models . What sort of receipt did you get , who issued it, was VAT charged? Any idea of the account number it was paid into etc .   But this obviously requires a lot of work and co ordination . In addition I suspect there maybe some Data Protection issues surrounding names and addresses were a list to be created.

 

It's an obvious possibility that he might not have, and have hoped that the CAD would shake some more birds out of the trees. 

 

But we don't know either way. Trying to establish how many crowd-funders there actually were , and therefore how much money went into the black hole, seems the most urgent task here. Any number that is established will be a minimum (since there will always be crowd-funders who don't reply) , but at least we would start to get a handle on the issue. 

 

At the moment we can't say that the projects failed because they were never fully subscribed (which would reflect badly on Dave Jones management) - but nor can we say that very large sums have evaporated (although such sums would necessarily be involved if projects were fully subscribed at viable levels of interest) .  Nor can we begin to wonder  if DJM may have undercosted, underpriced, and tried to run on unsustainably low levels of interest - which is another scenario.

 

How much would a 14 car APT actually have cost to develop and produce? Would the 400 x £1000 indicated in the case of the N gauge APT really have been enough to carry through the project ?  If not , then DJM was guilty of asking people to subscribe large sums to a project that could never have worked, on the basis that their money was non-returnable if it failed...  And what contingency did he have if it took 2 years to raise the minimum subscribers - and rising costs in China drove up the total costs by 40% in that time??

 

Is some kind of publicly announced costing actually essential information for those buying into crowd-funding?? It is the easiest thing in the world to underprice substantially. Anyone can recruit Miss Rosy Scenario to come up with a price that people would like to pay, rather than one that covers the likely costs 

[PenrithBeacon]

Why is it that '00 Works' can produce their beautifully crafted locos, engines which have a distinctly minority appeal, while DJM couldn't produce an N Gauge  King?

[AY Mod]

4 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Why is it that '00 Works' can produce their beautifully crafted locos, engines which have a distinctly minority appeal, while DJM couldn't produce an N Gauge  King?

 

Apples and oranges. 

[cctransuk]

7 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Why is it that '00 Works' can produce their beautifully crafted locos, engines which have a distinctly minority appeal, while DJM couldn't produce an N Gauge  King?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't OO Works models moulded in small numbers in resin, to a standard of detail that would not be acceptable to most potential purchasers of an N gauge King.

 

Producing resin mouldings in a small workshop cannot be compared to mass-producing plastic injection mouldings.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Edited July 4, 2019 by cctransuk

[wasabi]

I have a recollection that at some point DJ produced a list on one of the threads on this forum showing how far he had to go to get to the minimum target for each proposed model.  I haven't found it yet (although I think it was repeated at least once) but if someone can find it then it would provide a starting point for calculating how much money was paid - although I accept that the numbers still have to be treated with care since they obviously could have included expressions of interest which never led to a payment.

[Covkid]

15 minutes ago, wasabi said:

I have a recollection that at some point DJ produced a list on one of the threads on this forum showing how far he had to go to get to the minimum target for each proposed model.  I haven't found it yet (although I think it was repeated at least once) but if someone can find it then it would provide a starting point for calculating how much money was paid - although I accept that the numbers still have to be treated with care since they obviously could have included expressions of interest which never led to a payment.

 

Whilst that would be useful to you "wasabi" it would actually probably serve a useful purpose in identifying how viable each project would have been - if the quantities were known of course. As an example we are told that if xxx models can be guaranteed, they can be produced at £ yyy   

 

Based on the fact the the OO King didn't work out, the OO 74 didn't work out and the N  APT-P didn't work out, this suggests that Dave Jones was confident of enough ubscribers to go ahead with the N King, and the OO 92 and APT-P.

 

 

 

[Phil Parker]

2 hours ago, Ravenser said:

But we don't know either way. Trying to establish how many crowd-funders there actually were , and therefore how much money went into the black hole, seems the most urgent task here. Any number that is established will be a minimum (since there will always be crowd-funders who don't reply) , but at least we would start to get a handle on the issue.

 

Why do "we" need to get a handle on the issue? As far as I am aware, RMweb is not the body charged with sorting out DJ Models, that is the role of the liquidator and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to appreciate a load of amateurs telling them how to do their job. It might be interesting to know all the details, but realistically, this isn't going happen unless someone wants to fund an extensive and very expensive investigation.

 

2 hours ago, Ravenser said:

Is some kind of publicly announced costing actually essential information for those buying into crowd-funding?? It is the easiest thing in the world to underprice substantially. Anyone can recruit Miss Rosy Scenario to come up with a price that people would like to pay, rather than one that covers the likely costs 

 

That is up to individuals deciding to take part in any crowd-funding project. No-one is going to set up a statutory body responsible for model railway crowd-funding, and if they did, there would be people moaning if said body ever decided a particular project shouldn't go ahead.

 

The words to bear in mind are caveat emptor. I'm sure something along these lines will happen again one day and there is nothing we can do about it.

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Why do "we" need to get a handle on the issue? ..,,I'm pretty sure they aren't going to appreciate a load of amateurs telling them how to do their job. 

There’s a pretty big and bad assumption there...

 

model railway enthusiasts have day jobs, outside the hobby and they can be very professional in their occupations even if sometimes their wording on here may be more “off duty”.

 

The hobby has provided me with contacts for advice on many subjects with nothing to do with Railways from experts in those fields, Even tax collectors have model railway layouts.

 

The outside network of the hobby is one of its great strengths, were certainly not all numpties playing trains.

 

If an interesting 6 figure sum popped up In the spreadsheet it might be a bit less amateurish.

if it’s only a few £k, then it would quash one element of the rumours and go some way to giving some sense of closure for those seeking reasoning behind the minimal progress and failure, which a Liquidator probably wouldn’t provide.

 

People lost money they’ve worked hard for, it’s not unreasonable to collectively ascertain why if it’s just adhoc.. some of the worlds largest companies started from adhoc conversations in social situations

 

 

Edited July 4, 2019 by adb968008

[Phil Parker]

1 minute ago, adb968008 said:

There’s a pretty big and bad assumption there...

 

model railway enthusiasts have day jobs, outside the hobby and they can be very professional in their occupations even if sometimes their wording on here may be more “off duty”.

 

The hobby has provided me with contacts for advice on many subjects with nothing to do with Railways from experts in those fields, Even tax collectors have model railway layouts.

 

The outside network of the hobby is one of its great strengths, were certainly not all numpties playing trains.

 

Are you the professional liquidator charged with sorting this out? No? Well then, in this case, you are an amateur telling the people who have the job, how to do theirs.

 

I know modellers have other jobs (how stupid do you think I am?) but when they are doing those jobs, they don't generally appreciate a load of people wandering up, telling them they aren't doing them properly and offering advice based entirely on their own opinions. I know at least one railway signalling designer on here who despairs at being told how to do his job by those with more experience than owning a Hornby colour-light signal.

 

In this case, there are many considerations for those who are suppose to be doing the job, not just entertaining a group of nosey people.  Even if you are a professional liquidator, this isn't your job, leave it alone and let them get on with theirs.

[RLWP]

8 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

I know modellers have other jobs (how stupid do you think I am?) but when they are doing those jobs, they don't generally appreciate a load of people wandering up, telling them they aren't doing them properly and offering advice based entirely on their own opinions.

 

It is much the same when they are modelling...

[LBRJ]

Reading through the latter stages of the thread one does wonder that when applying Hanlon's Razor to the matter, which is actually the most staggeringly bad option? 

Edited July 4, 2019 by LBRJ

[adb968008]

I’ve not intention of playing liquidator and never said as such, that’s actually quite insulting that you are saying I am. Indeed I’ve suffered no loss in this, but I do empathise with those who have.

 

But I don’t see anything wrong with people trying to understand where their money has gone.

 

obviously your responsibilities of the forum determine if this site is a suitable medium for such activity, and I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do their either.

 

Why though are you ascribing something to me that I have NOT said and then telling me not to do it ?

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, wasabi said:

I have a recollection that at some point DJ produced a list on one of the threads on this forum showing how far he had to go to get to the minimum target for each proposed model.  I haven't found it yet (although I think it was repeated at least once) but if someone can find it then it would provide a starting point for calculating how much money was paid - although I accept that the numbers still have to be treated with care since they obviously could have included expressions of interest which never led to a payment.

This one was published in April this year in respect of N Gauge projects.  I can't recall seeing anything similar for the 00 gauge projects but various comments - rather than real numbers - were made by DJ in several model specific threads on RMweb.

 

[Ravenser]

11 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Why do "we" need to get a handle on the issue? As far as I am aware, RMweb is not the body charged with sorting out DJ Models, that is the role of the liquidator and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to appreciate a load of amateurs telling them how to do their job. It might be interesting to know all the details, but realistically, this isn't going happen unless someone wants to fund an extensive and very expensive investigation.

 

 

That is up to individuals deciding to take part in any crowd-funding project. No-one is going to set up a statutory body responsible for model railway crowd-funding, and if they did, there would be people moaning if said body ever decided a particular project shouldn't go ahead.

 

The words to bear in mind are caveat emptor. I'm sure something along these lines will happen again one day and there is nothing we can do about it.

 

 

I wasn't suggesting any kind of regulatory body for crowd-funding - I was simply suggesting that if promoters of crowd-funding wish to float projects , it may be appropriate and even necessary for them to state publicly how many crowd-funders they need before proceeding.  And therefore how much money they are trying to raise. And potentially whether the costings on which the project is based are broadly credible.

 

If promoters of crowd-funding projects refuse to provide such information to their "investors" - then (in the light of this debacle)  that should arguably be a huge warning signal, and should immediately call into question the promotion concerned

 

We - the hobby - need to get some kind of handle  on what happened here , because there will be more crowd-funding projects , and unless we - the hobby - start to have some accepted conventions about what to look for , and what questions need to be answered for people to have confidence to fund , then the hobby is at high risk of being ripped off for large amounts of money by questionable and incompetent promoters.

 

At present it seems crowd-funders have no rights, promoters have no responsibilities , and need not provide any information to anyone- and when it all goes pear-shaped , "c'est la vie" - shovel the bodies into a ditch quick and carry on without a fuss

 

"Crowd-funding" has proceeded on the basis that the "risk" is in fact illusory, so you don't need to worry about any of the details. Now we find the risk is real

 

It does matter whether the total damage here is £30K or £200K.  I don't think the hobby can or should sustain repeated losses of the larger amount

 

It is for the promoter to provide adequete information , and to put in place an adequete structure for a project.  If they don't - avoid .  But what is "adequete" ? Caveat emptor - fine , but of what should the buyer beware? That can only come from seeing what has gone wrong in practice

 

A basic list here:

 

- Track record of promoter: is there a company, properly registered. Does anyone know him? ("KR Models"   alarms me...)

- Has the promoter stated the total amount to be raised, and how many crowd-funders are required ?  If people are to be asked to "invest" with money at risk - does this even begin to look like a vaguely credible costing? 

- Is the money ring-fenced , is there a deadline for funds to be pledged, and is there a mechanism to ensure the promoter can only access the money when sufficient funding has been pledged?  Or can they plough ahead without having raised sufficient funds , spewing out upbeat reassuring emails and decrying any doubts as "manufacturer-bashing" ?

- What is the contingency if costs escalate?

 

It is for the promoter to provide this to his prospective "investors" - and for those interested to ask him for it. And if they don't get it......

 

There is something we can do, as a hobby. We can start asking promoters to demonstrate they have put the necessary arrangements in place and done the costings. Everyone assumed we could trust Dave to get it right , and that if he said it was fine it would be....

 

It won't b e fail-safe , but it would reduce our risks. The hobby - as a community - ought to have some reasonable expectations of what promoters should be giving us in terms of info and structure

[Phil Parker]

1 minute ago, adb968008 said:

Why though are you ascribing something to me that I have NOT said and then telling me not to do it ?

 

It would help if we could look at what you did say, but you have chosen to perform significant edits and then reply, so I don't think there's much point in me responding. 

 

[adb968008]

9 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

It would help if we could look at what you did say, but you have chosen to perform significant edits and then reply, so I don't think there's much point in me responding. 

 

Happy to clarify...

you quoted my original post which is unchanged, I added 2 extra paragraphs underneath that text, which clarified why I said it.

 

As an amateur, i’m Pretty certain legally anyone can contact a liquidator, with whatever information they have, good or bad quality, if they are owned money, amateur or not.

 

That is why they are paid to liquidate.

I’m sure they prefer only to deal with professionals, but dealing with civilians is part of the job. 

 

It might not change anything, but it’s an attempt to create an accurate legal public record.

 

if it results in 1 miss marple versus 100 miss marples, chances are your doing the liquidators a favour.

Edited July 4, 2019 by adb968008

[Phil Parker]

2 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

That is why they are paid to liquidate.

 

 

 

Then let them get on with it. If you are owed money then tell them. They are there to assimilate all the information, including stuff we aren't party too, to sort all this out.

 

If you haven't then officially, it's none of your (or my) business. If you think fraud has been committed, take your evidence (not conjecture) to the Police.

 

To return to the point I made, which wasn't in reply to anything you said but you've enjoyed taking offence at:

 

"Why do "we" need to get a handle on the issue? As far as I am aware, RMweb is not the body charged with sorting out DJ Models, that is the role of the liquidator and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to appreciate a load of amateurs telling them how to do their job. It might be interesting to know all the details, but realistically, this isn't going happen unless someone wants to fund an extensive and very expensive investigation."

 

[Ravenser]

22 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

This one was published in April this year in respect of N Gauge projects.  I can't recall seeing anything similar for the 00 gauge projects but various comments - rather than real numbers - were made by DJ in several model specific threads on RMweb.

 

 

 

It seems reasonable to assume that the "minimum order number" for the N gauge King was much the same as for the N gauge Mogul. It seems not unreasonable to assume that the "minimum order number" for the N gauge 92 was similar . And you would expect the OO 92 figure to be at least as high as for the N gauge model

 

And you would have expected the "minimum order number" for the OO APT to be similar to the N gauge figure (400) . Given that Dave claimed there was a lot more demand for a OO model you would have expected at least double or triple the number of OO orders compared with N (118).

 

RevolutioN (I think)  in a posting on here referred to a minimum order number of 3000 for an established manufacturer and 1500 units for a crowd-funding project. Those sound like "industry norms" to me

 

So - if Dave was telling the truth about reaching the "minimum order number" for these projects - you can do some quick maths about the approximate sums involved in first instalment crowd-funding. We know how much DJM was charging as the first instalment payment in each case

 

And if the sums that have evaporated are a lot less - then those projects proceeded without meeting their targets, despite what we were told - and probably failed as a result. 

 

And it does look as if DJM was trying to operate on lower numbers than other companies in the trade - making his costings much more stressed

Edited July 4, 2019 by Ravenser
finish last sentence para1

[adb968008]

10 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Then let them get on with it. If you are owed money then tell them. They are there to assimilate all the information, including stuff we aren't party too, to sort all this out.

 

If you haven't then officially, it's none of your (or my) business. If you think fraud has been committed, take your evidence (not conjecture) to the Police.

 

To return to the point I made, which wasn't in reply to anything you said but you've enjoyed taking offence at:

 

"Why do "we" need to get a handle on the issue? As far as I am aware, RMweb is not the body charged with sorting out DJ Models, that is the role of the liquidator and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to appreciate a load of amateurs telling them how to do their job. It might be interesting to know all the details, but realistically, this isn't going happen unless someone wants to fund an extensive and very expensive investigation."

 

I agree.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2019 by adb968008

[Phil Parker]

23 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

There is something we can do, as a hobby. We can start asking promoters to demonstrate they have put the necessary arrangements in place and done the costings. Everyone assumed we could trust Dave to get it right , and that if he said it was fine it would be.... 

 

Basically, caveat emptor.

 

The problem with all this, is that it becomes tribal. In this case, the DJ fans and DJ haters would try to shout each other down. You see the same in the red box and blue box threads. 

 

As I know only too well, when it goes wrong, there are loads of people rushing to gloat with "told you so" posts. When a model appears, there will be those who say the same to the doubters. Forget calm logic, that left the building a long time ago.

 

Ultimately, "the hobby" can't do anything about it. Decisions as to where people spend their money are personal and up to the individual. If you really want o give your cash to someone selling snake oil, all the people pointing out problems are likely to harden your position, not change it. Nothing you have suggested is unreasonable, but it's up to the individual to decide.

[truffy]

3 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I agree.

 

 

Oh poop! That was shaping up to be a nice little spat. I'd even popped corn!