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Any thoughts on the newer manufacturers?

mission65 said:
Cointaker have paid money to Heighway is also mentioned on pinside, which means Heighway may have a lot of pins to sell cheap soon, paid fo in some large part by unfortunate yanks who paid deposits.
Heighway keep the deposits , cointaker don’t lose and the consumer gets walloped. Very sad, especially as I love the pin theme
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No they haven't - CT haven't paid for this bunch of machines.

I doubt they would sell them cheap; that would definitely be the end of their business and frankly I wouldn't touch them if there was any question that they belonged to other people.
 
Hope that’s true, at least people won’t have lost money then.
 
There are two main issues- 1: CT have had to take back a load of Alien machines because they have broke and there are no parts available to fix them (in my view this is nuts).
2: CT don’t want to pay for something until they are able to verify that it’s getting what they are told they are getting and that the machines work.

If I had my money with CT and I was watching this I can’t imagine not asking for the money back or asking for a different machine from a different company.

Neil.
 
CT doing this does not surprise me one bit Highway Pinball is destroying there credibility as a Pinball company with many many unfulfilled promises no parts no back up service and machine that where promised last year I think re funding people’s payments so far or transferring deposits to other machines is the right way to go
Would you transfer serious dollar to a company who has failed to keep promises so many times in the past I wouldn’t
If ct did transfer funds and hpgo bust without shipping then I suspect that would also take down ct and no customers would not get there games
I also see helmut has left the only guy that ever answered e mails and thought of very highly by most alien owners
It also looks like he just left and hasn’t got another job to go to that to me says it all
 
Unsurprising stance by CT as they're left on the hook to fix bad machines I guess. There must be something very wrong structurally with the company or some critical issues with the hardware they can't get around as it seems like they have a very playable machine, with a great theme and despite horrible issues, a huge bunch of people that want them. The fact they can't make it work with all that going for them is pretty damning.

Am I nuts to be wondering if I turn up at the factory with cash I could maybe pick the 'most working' machine to take home...?!
 
cyberkryten said:
Am I nuts to be wondering if I turn up at the factory with cash I could maybe pick the 'most working' machine to take home...?!
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Not nuts, but it wouldn't do your karma too much credit, in this community, what goes around and all that...
 
So how I'm reading it ............

US market - currently no hope of getting any Alien machines ?? So that's effectively killed it over there then.

UK market - HP have never really shown any interest in the UK market, Andy just used to have the occasional hissy fit on here then go back into his cloud cuckoo bunker where he was king of the pinball universe. When he wasn't lying to your face trying to get a deposit out of you :mad:. ...thank god I wasn't drinking then. And now we have to pay more than anyone else and go through HLD. So the UK market is pretty much dead too.

Euro market - some machines do seem to be trickling through. But seriously how many need to be sold to keep HP afloat ?

It's a cluserf*ck of TSB internet banking proportions.

Such a shame. I played the Alien at Flipout again last week and there is no denying that there *is* a great game there. The whole package is fantastic. I mean if you imagined what an Alien machine could look like ... they pretty much nailed it.

Too bad it has panned out like this.

 
Looking at the companies house records, it looks like Heighway Pinball is owned and run by a group of Norwegian guys now. Anyone know who they are or what their experience is?
 
Its the same guys that bank rolled HP from the start, they just took over the reigns when they sacked asked the Highwayman to leave. One might think that some of the deposits went to buy a Hydrofoil, allegedly.
 
Adajam4 said:
Not nuts, but it wouldn't do your karma too much credit, in this community, what goes around and all that...
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I really meant the fact that despite all the issues, I'm still really tempted by the game, not wanting to steal someone's game from a container bound for the USA, and of course the fact that they clearly need cashflow, so if no-one buys the games, there won't be a company for much longer.

I assume those that paid deposits direct to Heighway in the past are already stuffed as Heighway Pinball (Sales) Ltd was dissolved and so that money is gone.
 
AlanJ said:
Looking at the companies house records, it looks like Heighway Pinball is owned and run by a group of Norwegian guys now. Anyone know who they are or what their experience is?
Click to expand...

From a Pinside post, a guy in Norway.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Like oyvindmo says, we have paid in full (GBP 5394). Six days ago (in an attempt to escalate / or at least elicit some form of response from the company), I sent the following email to Roger Svanevik (who owns 50% of Umbrella Corporation AS (a norwegian company), which in turn has a 25% stake in Heighway Pinball). The same email was sent to Morgan Potter and Mats Daniel Janson (One of the board members in Heighway. The other board members are: Cato Paus Skrede, Alexander Thomas Spohr and Johan Patrik Tenn).

Alexander Spohr seems to have jumped ship in march 2018 and is now CEO of a german pinball company (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderspohr/)

This email was sent six days ago, and none has bothered to reply yet. This email should have rattled someone's chain and prompted some sort of response. It didn't. From a business point of view, there is absolutely NO excuse for not responding to an email like this, unless the company is dead.

The contents of my email was the following:

"Hi !

We preordered an Alien on 12/09/2016 (order ID: 2014322) and paid the invoice in full ( GBP 5394).

On the 24. Of July 2017, we requested a shipping date. You replied with the following:

“We will be in touch soon to let you know the delivery timeframe of your
machine. I can say that you are towards the front of the queue and will
be among the first to receive your Alien Pinball SE”

In october 2017 we again requested an estimated ship date.
Roger Svanevik then called Øyvind Møll and hinted that it was possible to ship the game by the end of the year.
In november 2017, you sent out a newsletter, stating the following:

"We promise to be in direct contact with all of our pre-order customers
with good news and bad and, as soon as we have the planned production
week for your machine, we will tell you. We hope to have delivered the
machines to all of you by late Q1 2018,"

This deadline has now passed. You have not been in touch with us, nor have you shipped a machine to us.

In January 2018 we contacted Morgan Potter, requesting a status update for the third time.
Again, you were unable to provide us with a production or shipping date for a machine we have paid for.

On the 13. of April 2018, I once again requested a delivery date via Facebook. You replied:

"It seems you sent an email today. It has been received but unfortunately there was no time to answer it yet. Sales should come back to you soon with an answer."

On the 17. of April, I requested an update via Facebook. This was ignored. We still haven't received any response from sales.

When you bought out the original owner of Heighway, you also assumed responsibility of delivering on outstanding orders. You are obviously producing and shipping games. Subsidizing production of games delivered to new customers with capital obtained from early sales is slightly reminiscent of a Ponzi scheme. I question the legality of this.

If you do not respond to this email and provide us with an imminent shipping date, I will make this timeline public by the end of the week.

This means it will be published on our website, on pinside.com, as a post on your facebook page and as a comment on all future post you make on facebook. This as a warning to all existing and future customers.

We are running a professional business and we expect you to do the same.

Regards
Hans J. Grimstad
Pop Bumper AS
Norway"
 
cyberkryten said:
I really meant the fact that despite all the issues, I'm still really tempted by the game, not wanting to steal someone's game from a container bound for the USA, and of course the fact that they clearly need cashflow, so if no-one buys the games, there won't be a company for much longer.

I assume those that paid deposits direct to Heighway in the past are already stuffed as Heighway Pinball (Sales) Ltd was dissolved and so that money is gone.
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The deposit payers from the Andrew era are being honoured and are getting games at the original price, ie quite a bit less than the current HLD price.
I think there may be a few in the UK with deposits down waiting to see how this pans out before risking paying any more.
 
mark9 said:
The deposit payers from the Andrew era are being honoured and are getting games at the original price, ie quite a bit less than the current HLD price.
I think there may be a few in the UK with deposits down waiting to see how this pans out before risking paying any more.
Click to expand...

Or not as above!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Sgt GrizZ said:
We preordered an Alien on 12/09/2016 (order ID: 2014322) and paid the invoice in full ( GBP 5394).

When you bought out the original owner of Heighway, you also assumed responsibility of delivering on outstanding orders. You are obviously producing and shipping games. Subsidizing production of games delivered to new customers with capital obtained from early sales is slightly reminiscent of a Ponzi scheme. I question the legality of this.
Click to expand...

If they paid Heighway Pinball Ltd then they do owe them a game. However, if they paid the now dissolved Heighway Pinball (Sales) Ltd then there is no obligation, that's the way limited companies work.

If you can prove fraud or dishonesty then you can go after the directors personally but it is time consuming and very costly to do so.

Just look at the various 'pre-pack' administrations that go on all the time - unsecured creditors get screwed and lose out. It isn't nice, or 'fair' but corporate law is what it is.

mark9 said:
The deposit payers from the Andrew era are being honoured and are getting games at the original price, ie quite a bit less than the current HLD price.
I think there may be a few in the UK with deposits down waiting to see how this pans out before risking paying any more.
Click to expand...

Which is great news and all power to Heighway Pinball Ltd if they are doing so, though that may be at the long term risk to the company (no-one can sell things below cost for long) as clearly this is all more complicated/expensive than they realised. Staff and bills need to be paid every month and if sales aren't coming in, there's a limited amount of cash/credit to keep things afloat. I'm assuming that at some point he realised things were likely to go wrong and so started the (Sales) company to take the money, thereby protecting the rest of the business.

It isn't a nice way to do things for the people who paid up front, but it isn't uncommon or illegal. In fact, it is pretty much what a large percentage of Kickstarter businesses do all the time!
 
That message above for me is the last nail in this sorry coffin. It looks like one set of crooks has replaced another!

Neil.


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cyberkryten said:
Unsurprising stance by CT as they're left on the hook to fix bad machines I guess. There must be something very wrong structurally with the company or some critical issues with the hardware they can't get around as it seems like they have a very playable machine, with a great theme and despite horrible issues, a huge bunch of people that want them. The fact they can't make it work with all that going for them is pretty damning.

Am I nuts to be wondering if I turn up at the factory with cash I could maybe pick the 'most working' machine to take home...?!
Click to expand...
Someone on Pinside who seemed to have insider knowledge commented that Andrew Heighway had a CCJ against his name because of a failure to pay suppliers. It could be that Heighway 2.0 is having difficulties getting 30 day terms with suppliers, and therefore needs money from CT etc in order to actually buy parts themselves. The same guy suggested that "the new investors are the old investors". Whichever way you cut it - it doesn't seem like a sustainable business from the outside looking in.
 
cyberkryten said:
If they paid Heighway Pinball Ltd then they do owe them a game. However, if they paid the now dissolved Heighway Pinball (Sales) Ltd then there is no obligation, that's the way limited companies work.

If you can prove fraud or dishonesty then you can go after the directors personally but it is time consuming and very costly to do so.

Just look at the various 'pre-pack' administrations that go on all the time - unsecured creditors get screwed and lose out. It isn't nice, or 'fair' but corporate law is what it is.



Which is great news and all power to Heighway Pinball Ltd if they are doing so, though that may be at the long term risk to the company (no-one can sell things below cost for long) as clearly this is all more complicated/expensive than they realised. Staff and bills need to be paid every month and if sales aren't coming in, there's a limited amount of cash/credit to keep things afloat. I'm assuming that at some point he realised things were likely to go wrong and so started the (Sales) company to take the money, thereby protecting the rest of the business.

It isn't a nice way to do things for the people who paid up front, but it isn't uncommon or illegal. In fact, it is pretty much what a large percentage of Kickstarter businesses do all the time!
Click to expand...

I think you are simplifying things a tad.

It’s not legal for a director of a company to use another company to hide financial risks in either of those companies.

From what I recall of the accounts Heighway sales did very little trade at all.

Neil


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Durzel said:
Someone on Pinside who seemed to have insider knowledge commented that Andrew Heighway had a CCJ against his name because of a failure to pay suppliers. It could be that Heighway 2.0 is having difficulties getting 30 day terms with suppliers, and therefore needs money from CT etc in order to actually buy parts themselves. The same guy suggested that "the new investors are the old investors". Whichever way you cut it - it doesn't seem like a sustainable business from the outside looking in.
Click to expand...

That guy is me. You can look up the ccj IF you pay.
 
To be honest though, UK manufacturer that didn't favour the UK market... I mean, pricing ABOVE what a new Stern would be, with no shipping/import duty, was a no go anyway.

Shame hey, could have been so good.
 
I paid a £1k deposit a few years ago, only paid my balance recently, based on original price, and got a machine the following week!
 
ianw said:
I paid a £1k deposit a few years ago, only paid my balance recently, based on original price, and got a machine the following week!
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It’s good you got your game but underlines the shady practises going on - it’s Dutch Pinball all over again. The fact people who paid two years ago are still waiting tells me all I want to know about the crooks at Heighway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Not playing Devils Advocate, but the guys who took over - whether they're new, old or whatever - claimed that they took it on with an empty bank account. As such, any money paid into the company up until that point is as good as gone. Under the circumstances delivering pins to those guys would cost them money, not make them any...

BUT, since they didn't do a pre-pack I presume the new owners took on the obligations of Andrew, but it's easy to say that but less easy to actually action anything, especially if you're based outside of the UK. I wouldn't go as far as to say that Heighway 2.0 know that American customers aren't likely to be able to chase them through the courts as UK based ones... With Cointaker wiping anything Heighway related from their website, it doesn't really bode well for any kind of resolution for them.

And delivering machines domestically when there are people who have paid in full 2+ years ago is shady as f...
 
My first thoughts about them:

American Pinball: They worked with JFLOP for profit/publicity. Says everything about that company imo.
Homepin: Guy that owns it seems to think the world owes him a favour. Made a machine on a long forgotten theme, looks like kids under 9 would play it to death.
Heighway: Saw it coming a while ago, Started to listen to people who knew what they were talking about and decided not to even bother.

My most overwhelming thought:

NEVER PRE-ORDER A PINBALL MACHINE. NOT FROM ANYONE, ANYWHERE, AT ANYTIME. ESPECIALLY FROM A NEW MANUFACTURER.
 
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