Artesian Builds... at it again?

[uf0s8mycat]

Artesian Builds will be holding an Bankruptcy Auction, selling off a lot of stock from two different locations. Motherboards, GPUs, Fans, etc all available according to their inventory lists, (Info on this can be found on their instagram) along with what appears to be copies of the legal paperwork regarding the auction being posted directly on their instagram.

The auction itself seems fine, getting rid of items of value, overseen by the court. However the part that gets weird is when there were photos posted of one of the PCs that has a content creator's name and logo on it, when they were told that Artesian Builds would not be sending them their PC.

Maybe they were legally bound to not be able to send this PC out after everything went down. But it seems a bit odd since there was a contract worked out beforehand to provide this PC to the content creator. Kind of have to wonder how many others may have had deals that ended up not being honored.

Then a step further than that, in the link on Artesian Build's instagram giving more details on the auction that will take place, there's a lot that will available "Lot 3", which will include their customer list with 10,000 names (Buyers within the last three years), and "influencer list" with over 1,000 names and their info. Literally selling off the names and info of people who had supported them, and I'm not sure they'd even have authorization to do so unless it was written in their purchase agreement somewhere that the buyers authorized this.
 

[Spotty]

17 minutes ago, uf0s8mycat said:

The auction itself seems fine, getting rid of items of value, overseen by the court. However the part that gets weird is when there were photos posted of one of the PCs that has a content creator's name and logo on it, when they were told that Artesian Builds would not be sending them their PC.
Maybe they were legally bound to not be able to send this PC out after everything went down. But it seems a bit odd since there was a contract worked out beforehand to provide this PC to the content creator. Kind of have to wonder how many others may have had deals that ended up not being honored.

It's very likely that part of the bankruptcy they filed in order to repay their creditors they are required to sell off all existing inventory & assets, which appears to be the case here. The sucky thing is that customers owed money are considered "unsecured creditors", and are paid out only after all the secured creditors are paid out in full, which rarely happens as if a company had the funds & assets to pay off their secured debts they wouldn't have filed for bankruptcy. Having a contract of sale won't really help as if he tried to enforce the contract the court would just tell him to get in line after all the other creditors with contracts seeking to get what they are legally owed, including any ex-employees owed money. Customers owed money are usually one of the last ones paid out when a company goes bankrupt.

 

Do you know if Ramee actually paid for the PC or just had the contract (with maybe a deposit) to buy it? If he already paid in full then it does indeed suck that he won't get it or his money back. If he didn't pay for it yet he could always just try and buy it from the auction, potentially paying less than what the original contract was for, but that's assuming that the PCs are being sold off in individual lots and not as a complete bulk lot. The inventory list for the auction just lists "Partially built custom towers x 43", which might just be sold as a bulk lot instead of individually and I'm sure he wouldn't want to buy 42 other partially built PCs just to get a O11 Dynamic XL case with his logo on it.

[uf0s8mycat]

3 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Do you know if Ramee actually paid for the PC or just had the contract (with maybe a deposit) to buy it?

I don't know any of the details on any of this other than I assume a contract was worked out with the company as it was a sponsorship sort of thing between him (and a large group of creator friends). I don't know what the money he's owed is about, however the computer I believe was part of the sponsorship.

Aside from all of that, it's a bit odd they would be selling a pc with his name and logo on it without his permission.

[Spotty]

36 minutes ago, uf0s8mycat said:

Aside from all of that, it's a bit odd they would be selling a pc with his name and logo on it without his permission.

The liquidators don't care if it has some streamers logo on it. All the liquidators care about is selling off the assets to recover as much money as possible to pay off the debts owed. The liquidators can only sell property that belongs to Artesian Builds, if Ramee completed his contract of sale with Artesian Builds for the computer and *owns* it then he should be able to claim possession of it. Though my guess is the sale/transfer of ownership was never actually completed and it is still Artesian Builds property.

 

It might actually be worthwhile for Ramee to contact the firm handling the liquidation and registering as a creditor if he isn't already listed as one. If he can prove that he is owed the PC or what he paid for it, then he might be able to negotiate to receive the PC to settle the debt. Since the value they sell the PC for at auction would likely be less than what the debt is it might be worthwhile for the liquidators to give him the PC in exchange for wiping off that 5k debt or whatever he is owed... Though, that might depend on how much they're going to struggle to pay back the secured creditors based on the value of their other assets and how much is owed.
(Not financial/legal advice - I don't know how this stuff works Wouldn't hurt for him to get some legal advice from somebody who specialises in this stuff)

[TetraSky]

It's a sad world we live in, where creditors get to have some of their money back, but customers who are owed items(that are paid for), are getting nothing. It really should be customers being refunded first and then creditors... Yay capitalism... Where the poor lose it all while the rich get to have their money back.
I just hope whoever was owed anything can get it back through their credit card or something.

 

Oh and the fact that they are selling customer data... and influencer addresses and what not... Yeah I would sue the auction house for that one. Major breach of privacy and potentially dangerous. Usually they sell that data to other companies. Now random nobodies can buy that too, imagine a creep getting that and reselling that info on the web for stalkers to get.

[wanderingfool2]

14 hours ago, TetraSky said:

It's a sad world we live in, where creditors get to have some of their money back, but customers who are owed items(that are paid for), are getting nothing. It really should be customers being refunded first and then creditors... Yay capitalism... Where the poor lose it all while the rich get to have their money back.

It's bad that customers get nothing, but I sort of understand how the laws originally came to be to protect lenders first.

 

Most companies rely on lending, so if it were customers first it would make it a lot harder to get loans.  Without loans, and without loans (or higher interest loans) more companies would end up going bust...or not even making it off the ground.  e.g. A company gets $100k to buy a building.  Company starts selling products as a loss leader.  Company goes belly-up and now you have a building worth $100k but $50k worth of customer debt.  The bank lending them the $100k originally would be out $50k. (so to secure funding in future bank only lends to companies they know will succeed)

 

It's examples like the above why customers are put last.

 

14 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Oh and the fact that they are selling customer data... and influencer addresses and what not... Yeah I would sue the auction house for that one. Major breach of privacy and potentially dangerous. Usually they sell that data to other companies. Now random nobodies can buy that too, imagine a creep getting that and reselling that info on the web for stalkers to get.

It's going to depend on the terms.  There must be strict terms when selling data like that, in my opinion...otherwise they would be breaching the privacy terms from Artesian Builds.  I believe RadioShack or one of the major companies ran into similar issues like that during bankruptcy (auction house was sued for breaching privacy)

 

22 hours ago, uf0s8mycat said:

But it seems a bit odd since there was a contract worked out beforehand to provide this PC to the content creator. Kind of have to wonder how many others may have had deals that ended up not being honored.

It all depends on who "owns" it, and when ownership changes.  A lot of the times, until it's shipped it remains property of the seller.  Once it's in transit it's the customers.  Of course contracts can change that (like they can claim ownership on each part as it arrives at AB...but no one realistically would write it like that unless they thought the company was about to go bankrupt).  So unless they told him the PC was done, and now his it's now the creditors property.

 

[bickman2k]

The former CEO is also going through and making unauthorized transaction claims through PayPal on a lot of transactions as well.

 

 

[Middcore]

Gamers Nexus has a new video up with an in-depth investigation of Artesian, with info gleaned from personally talking to former employees (Artesian's east coast facility that was actually doing work while the CEO tried to be a bigshot on the west coast was located quite close to GN). It's a must-watch.

 

It is staggering to me they were apparently shipping hundreds of PC's a month and I had never heard of them prior to the CEO making a massive bellend of himself on Twitch. And yet the seeds of their demise were sown well before that. 

[IkeaGnome]

40 minutes ago, Middcore said:

It is staggering to me they were apparently shipping hundreds of PC's a month and I had never heard of them prior to the CEO making a massive bellend of himself on Twitch.

And this is why I like trying to unconvince people of becoming their own SI.

7 and 8 figure revenue, partnered with streamers. And yet no one heard of them until they messed up big time.

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, IkeaGnome said:

And this is why I like trying to unconvince people of becoming their own SI.

7 and 8 figure revenue, partnered with streamers. And yet no one heard of them until they messed up big time.

 

I mean, they could still have been a successful company without people having "heard of them." But it's pretty clear that the CEO's real priority was being internet-famous and sucking up to streamers and starting an SI was just his planned shortcut to that. 

 

I was reminded of the Michael Scott quote about wanting to have a bunch of kids because they wouldn't have a choice about being his friend. 

[Zodiark1593]

2 hours ago, Middcore said:

Gamers Nexus has a new video up with an in-depth investigation of Artesian, with info gleaned from personally talking to former employees (Artesian's east coast facility that was actually doing work while the CEO tried to be a bigshot on the west coast was located quite close to GN). It's a must-watch.

 

It is staggering to me they were apparently shipping hundreds of PC's a month and I had never heard of them prior to the CEO making a massive bellend of himself on Twitch. And yet the seeds of their demise were sown well before that. 

Artesian aside, it’s also worth noting that PayPal, in allowing the false fraud claims to go through, has thrown a number of people under the bus, and forced them into attempting to reclaim their money through the bankruptcy proceedings.

 

Absolute dick move on PayPal’s part, and I’ll certainly be wary of using them for large transactions going forward (or at least, be sure to move money from PayPal ASAP to protect myself).