Someone @'d me and wrote that I should "chime in". As you can imagine, I've been swamped over the last few days (Boruch Hashem for Shabbos!), and there's no way i am going to read the last 10-15 pages of this thread that I missed.
I did post the following on another site, so I figured I'd just copy and paste it here... Enjoy! (the middle piece is about some guy who claimed I stole his coin and never paid him.)
Guys, this is becoming increasingly pathetic.
Please – anyone that opted in to our deal – please stop looking for ways to rationalize a decision or a contemplation of a decision of backing out of the deal that you made.
If you’re okay with yourself to back-out and don’t care about commitments, terms and agreement, then that’s fine, but to start pulling at straws like this, it’s ridiculous.
If you have a moral compass and know what’s right, do what’s right. We all get it. Money makes people do strange things, but this is asinine.
Let’s go over that single individual’s case, and then move on to this deal…
That case – the weight of the package when dropped off at FedEx – the initial scan – showed that just a box was sent. An empty box. We had one email to the member notifying him that the box arrived empty and that he’s not getting paid. From his response (or lack thereof) It was obvious to us and to our attorney that that was the case – so we didn’t even bother to file a claim with FedEx.
We’ve had dozens of lost packages or missing content packages and we’ve filed claims on all of them ex-this one, and we’ve always paid out our members in full (including promised commissions).
We have thousands of satisfied members, thousands. This is one guy, that obviously tried to scam us, and we didn’t fall for it. end of story.
THIS DEAL – it’s simple. Our business model follow this typical path – We pre-sell our EXPECTED orders to a dealer or two – we made great connections (over 13 years doing this, and work with the largest in the business – names that were mentioned in this thread, name you all know).
we do this for EVERY DEAL WE RUN. the last time PFS didn’t pre-sell our expected orders was in October of 2015 (JFK C&C sets). We have done >20 deals since. This is a fact.
Now, typically we give ~60% of the premium the we receive (over mint cost) to our members, we have about 20% of opex, and are lucky/extremely happy if we net 20% of what the total premium is.
The price and premium we get ALWAYS has to do with the pre-sale “value” of the item.
CASE IN POINT – this is our 4th deal we ran this year. We did the Apollo coins at the start of the year, The Pride Sets in July, and we just did the Palladium coin a bit ago. ALL THREE OF THOSE DEALS we received a premium, shared it liberally with our members, and they ALL – each one of the three – declined in value RIGHT AWAY – neither sold out at the Mint, and buyers (including ourselves and our dealers) were able to buy as many as they wanted 24 hours later directly from the mint.
We came through – to every buyer – there were between $700 and $1987 in spend (depending on which deal) there were commissions paid out, FedEx labels sent, emails answered, boxes packed etc.
PFS NEVER went and negotiated with our members, hey, cancel your order, or let me pay you less since they’re worth less, or let me buy the coins ourselves so we can get our own credit card points. never.
ALL OF A SUDDEN there’s a deal the works in the favor our OUR DEALERS – (for us – and our members – this was a guaranteed deal and this should be like each and every other deal – where we had the guarantee and we had the risless profit…) but no, now PFS is the villain!! PFS is preying on people that had no clue while they knew this was going to explode!
FACT: PFS sold our entire quantity – even more than we’ll likely end up getting – PRIOR to the “value” increasing.
Realistically, there are two items here, there’s the silver eagle on Wednesday the 13th – that we all had a price and a fair value for, and we were all were SO EXCITED about getting paid $100 for spending 20 minutes at lunch break the next day.
And now the item dwarfed into something so much bigger, everyone wants in on the upside! I don’t get it, I really don’t. You can’t invest in a guaranteed Bank CD at 2% interest and then call the Banker and ask for the 20% that the S&P 500 returned!!! This is precisely what’s going on.
We clearly warned about it to…
“*There are 30,000 of these coins being minted, and we do not want to hold any extra inventory for ourselves. It truly is impossible to know if they’ll be a good investment / speculation and if they don’t sell out, the Mint will likely lift the household limits 24 hours after they go on sale.
*You must be approved before making the purchase. If you do not receive a confirmation email to purchase you will not be reimbursed.
*On the same note, since we want to fill our entire purchase order and are not accepting extra opt-ins, if you do want to partake in this deal, please make sure that you will be available to make the purchase at exactly 12PM ET.
*We cannot afford to be a backstop for people wanting to speculate afterward. Any unfilled quantity we have, could have went to someone else that may not have been approved for the offer because of your spot. If you opt in – you must be fully committed to fulfill the deal.”
Bottom line for all those who opted in and are reading this…
For those that would like to honor their commitment to PFS, so we in-turn can honor our commitments to our buyers… we have been bumping member’s payout up to $300 total. (I did one person’s to $337 as a unique case. I can’t do that across the board, sorry.) email us and we’ll raise yours to $300, no questions asked.
If you don’t want to honor the deal after reading this, please, grab your “courage” and email me stating that you read this and still don’t care, and i’ll close you out of the system. Again, no questions asked.
The back and forth in this thread and with some of the emails is straight out hurtful. People counting the money that I’m certainly making and how I’m the villain! PFS has helped THOUSANDS across the country earn hundreds and thousands of dollars, points, miles, all without risk, and in easy, simple, pleasant fashion on a robust platform and with great execution. We don’t need one comment of one unhappy member who is looking for an excuse to make a few extra dollars, changing that.
Over and out.
– Aron