heavyharmonies

Ah Lonnie, we hardly knew ye... -Dan

Did you at any point leave the page and come back and try to resubmit? Did you spend a long time typing in the data on any page (like more than 5 minutes)? -Dan

Agreed, it's probably a boot. I have the original Japanese release of this, and there is a full booklet. What is the print quality of the tray card? How about the disc? What you may have is an original disc and tray card, but someone lost the booklet and printed up a front card. I've seen that happen on numerous occasions. -Dan

Here are the original RNR Records/Never Say Die Records web pages from whence the majority of the fraud was perpetrated (archived February 4, 2007):

Well... sad to say it looks abundantly clear that Lonnie has taken the money and run. To that end I have done the following: 1. He is banned from the board, although he can still access and respond to PMs (in the unlikely event that he decides to respond to people). 2. I have posted and pinned a summary of this thread warning potential NEWBIEs of his duplicity, along with links to the FBI internet crime complaint center and the Blytheville Police Department. To assist with those considering filing criminal or civil proceedings on their own, I have also reposted his personal contact information. I have verified that all of this information is indeed public record and easily findable on the Internet, therefore not confidential. 3. In the summary thread I've posted pictures of the RnR Records/Never Say Die Records web site that I archived before it was taken down (archived February 4, 2007). -Dan

This is a brief summary of the long thread found here, for those who may be new to the community. In short: Lonnie Holdaway of Blytheville Arkansas, formerly an active member of this community, used his credibility to prey upon and defraud a multitude of people both here and elsewhere, out of thousands of dollars. He created a phony record label (Never Say Die Records, later changed to RnR Records), announcing several sought-after reissues, including several Hurricane albums. No permission was ever obtained for any of the material. He took preorders from the public as well as several well-known retailers, only to abscond with the funds. He tried to fool people by inventing a fake automobile accident, hoping to play on people's sympathies. After being caught in several lies, he repeatedly promised to refund the affected parties, but only a few token small refunds were ever made. If you choose to buy from, sell to, or trade with, Lonnie Holdaway, prepare to lose your funds and/or your merchandise. In the event that you have been scammed by Lonnie, you need to do 2 things: go to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center and file a complaint: http://www.ic3.gov Be clear, concise, and do NOT use inflammatory language or rhetoric, or profanity. Just the facts. File a report with the Blytheville Police Department Officer in Charge Ross Thompson 201 W Walnut Blytheville, Arkansas 72315 Non-emergency: (870)763-4411 If you wish to proceed with filing criminal or civil charges on your own, Lonnie's contact information is below (this is all public information, therefore not confidential): LONNIE HOLDAWAY 117 West Hardin St. Blytheville, AR 72315 United States 870-762-1445 lrc72315@sbcglobal.net His place of business: Parts Manager, Blytheville Ford Lincoln Mercury 305 N. Service Blytheville, AR 72315 870-763-4453 If you are an affected party, I urge you to pursue any LEGAL means at your disposal to file charges and keep this person from ripping anyone else off. -Dan

Aww... Li'l Jimmie is pissed at me for getting him NARUed again: (sounds amazingly similar in style to someone else we know... ) If anyone feels like playing with him today, the email address he's currently using is Jma17356@aol.com. -Dan

Hmmm.... I just received a PayPal payment for $8.99 from Ebay userID "mrcysble" and the ship-to address is: J Michael Arwine 68 North Main Street Apt. # 2 Red Lion, PA 17356 I realize that it's a small amount of money, but dare I ship the merchandise? -Dan

I PM'd you details of my refund, didn't I? That was in the last 1-2 weeks (or since you put up that request anyway) Yes, but that was more than a week ago. My point was that to my knowledge no one has received a refund within or after the timeframe Lonnie promised the funds would be made available by his bank last week... -Dan

I just tried it and it worked fine for me here. Reload the submission page so it regenerates the confirmation image and try again... -Dan

The actual number of people who PM'ed me details about their transactions was extremely small, less than 10. Of those, less than half had received refunds. I have yet to receive a PM or email from *ANYONE* who received a refund last week. More importantly, none of the people who lost "big money" have been refunded, to my knowledge. Lonnie still has not responded to my PM request for an update, and his profile shows him not being active on the board since March 9. I wouldn't count on receiving anything at this point. For those of you who have NOT received refunds, if you have not already done so, you need to do the following: go to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center and file a complaint: http://www.ic3.gov/ Be clear, concise, and do NOT use inflammatory language or rhetoric, or profanity. Just the facts. File a report with the Blytheville Police Department Officer in Charge Ross Thompson 201 W Walnut Blytheville, Arkansas 72315 Non-emergency: (870)763-4411

I sent Lonnie a PM this morning asking for a status update. Looking at his profile, he hasn't been active here on the board since yesterday morning. Has anyone here received a refund since Wedesday? Bottom line is that there is nothing I can do to force Lonnie to come through on his promises. The only thing I can do is ban him, which would do nothing but decrease communication options for those of you still hoping for refunds. I am, however, removing any restriction on what people want to post in this thread. There have been far too many promises and delays. I just request that any discussion be kept to this thread. If the refunds don't come through, I will compose a summary of this thread and it will become a permanant sticky to this portion of the forum so people know not to buy/sell/trade with him again and new members are adequately warned. -Dan

Guys, Emailing and PMing Lonnie every single day is NOT going to increase the likelihood of a refund. Pestering him is just going to piss him off. This week means "this week". It's only Wednesday. If nothing happens by the end of Friday, let's say Saturday morning, then feel free to go apeshit. But continual nagging leading up to that point really doesn't do anyone any good... I'm by no means defending Lonnie, but some of you are looking for hourly updates, and that's just plain annoying. -Dan

Actually, I recommend that EVERYONE read the first two pages of that thread. The parallels are astounding! -Dan

Hmmm.... Hmmm.... Couldn't come through because he got into an accident and almost died... Hmmm.... I *know* I've read that somewhere before... can't quite place it though... Hmmm....

He's on my Blocked Bidder list... must be there for a reason. -Dan

Some incendiary posts that added no value to the discussion deleted. Folks, let's hold off and see how the next week goes, ok? If some of the major players (Georg, Adriano, Music-Buy-Mail) have not received full refunds by 11pm on March 9, we will have a definitive answer. In the interim, I would like to get a better handle on who has or has not received refunds and the extent of the refunds. DO NOT POST HERE IN THIS THREAD! Instead, please PM me the following information: 1. Your full name 2. The email address used to send the PayPal payment 3. The amount of your purchase from Lonnie 4. The date of your original payment to Lonnie 5. The date that you received a refund and its status (complete or pending) 6. The amount of the refund (full or partial) Thanks, -Dan

(emphasis added) What are you talking about? Your PM to me did not ask for any information. -Dan Edit: After I posted this I received a PM asking for my mailing address. Lonnie says he will have his attorney contact me. We will see what transpires.

Well this thread is rapidly expanding out in all directions... and none of them good. PayPal isn't the problem here. Let's not try and deflect the issue. PayPal does NOT retroactively reverse payments upon its own initiative and randomly pick successful transactions to reverse in order to bring some other account up to a zero balance. Why would it want to? It would be robbing Peter to pay Paul and would be doing much more damage to itself by pissing off many more people. If PayPal reversed the payments to NEH it was because either (1) Lonnie made a claim with PayPal that the merchandise was never received or (2) Lonnie or his bank initiated a claim that the payment was made with nonauthorized funds or a stolen credit card. PayPal does not operate in a vacuum. Use some common sense. Lonnie has PM'ed me saying that the loan HAS been approved and that refunds will be received by all next week. Lonnie claims that he has shown this thread to his attorney and that his attorney says that it "falls easily under slander and defamation of character." Lonnie has asked that this thread be removed or else he "will have to go a different direction and get my attorney involved." I disbelieve. If his attorney actually said that, then Lonnie needs to hire a new attorney. Slander is vocal defamation of character, not written. An attorney would refer to a claim in the print medium as "libel" not "slander." But hey, I'm a reasonable guy. I responded as follows: I've had all sorts of threats from people over the years to take down bad reviews or comments about their albums, the band, etc. It's all fuster and bluster and then they threaten to sue me, etc. They figure they can intimidate me into removing material that they don't like. Mark Alger tried at length to get me to take down the Z Records page, first by threatening me, then by trying to bribe me with promo releases (which he never did send me). If a bona fide law firm makes a proper formal request in writing I will take it seriously, but otherwise it's all just B.S. -Dan

A couple of posts deleted. Let's settle down a bit. I'm in communication with Lonnie behind the scenes. He assures me that the loan acquisition is indeed in progress, but it's just taking some time with the bank to get the approval and the paperwork done. He anticipates things being finalized and funds deposited next week. If you are not one of the people directly affected by this, please refrain from "piling on" in this thread. Thanks, -Dan

"Adult Oriented Rock" is a bogus term, created relatively recently (1990s) and applied to the melodic rock genre. "AOR" as it originally was coined, meant "Album-Oriented Radio" and had its heyday in the 1970s and early 1980s. Since it was used most frequently during a period when Journey, Foreigner, Styx, etc. were at their peak, it became synonymous with that style of music, although that was not the intent. During that time period it was not uncommon for radio stations to play ANY cut from an album, not just released singles like today. In fact many stations frequently would pay entire album sides, hence the term. That really was the pinnacle of rock music on the radio, since DJs and station managers had the freedom to play anything they wanted, not just the singles that labels want shoved down people's throats. During that era people were exposed to a lot of unique songs, material that today wouldn't even be considered. The parallel with today's internet radio stations is interesting... -Dan

Not that I'm aware of... looks like that verifies that at least someone else thinks he's a pain in the ass... -Dan

First, several distracting posts removed. If you don't care that people here were systematically ripped off, then just move on to another topic. Belittling the affected people doesn't help the situation, nor does it do you any favors... No. Getting people to donate lets Lonnie off the hook at this point. I want to see how this plays out and whether or not Lonnie is true to his word. [Ok, I can here the laughter now; bear with me for a sec...] Some people have gotten refunds. Not all, but the number is increasing. Let's give it time to work. Let's see if Lonnie actually gets a loan and repays anything to Adriano and Georg. Also, there's the logistics of how you handle donations, to whom they go, and how you determine that recipients are ones that were actually ripped off. How do you handle PayPal fees? Is it done with a single PayPal link? If so, to whose account? Are they trustworthy? How do you make sure that someone doesn't receive donations in excess of the amount they originally lost? Are there tax implications? What if someone donates and then does a chargeback, or does a donation with a stolen credit card? The person whose PayPal account is the "clearing house" could end up being hit. As always, the devil is in the details... -Dan

That's an excellent start. I do want to ask though, what is your timeframe and/or plan regarding those who are out large sums, specifically Adriano, Georg, and Music-Buy-Mail? Thanks, -Dan

I received the following bit of advice: http://www.ic3.gov/ If enough people who have been defrauded report this, the federal authorities might take action. -Dan