Speaking of scams? Remember GunPal/Gpal Ben Cannon?

[AJ Dual]

He's BAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAK! (sorry, minor profanity warning in the image, but IMO, well deserved...)

( I KNOW C&SD remembers him..  )



Just got this tonight on Facebook. 

Solar Panels for tiny otter pond houses?   

Anyone on Calguns who want's to re-post/pass this along, assuming they don't ban you or delete the thread out of butthurt and embarrassment, please feel free to do so. I've already run this up the flagpole several RKBA-related places on Facebook, and on Arfcom, and will be doing so on GlockTalk momentarily.

[Boomhauer]

I love the "why aren't you in *expletive deleted*ing jail" line

[Balog]

I wonder if he has google alerts setup for his name? We always get the best people here from google alerts.

[Boomhauer]

I wonder if he has google alerts setup for his name? We always get the best people here from google alerts.

Ben Cannon, Ben Cannon, Ben Cannon

Ben Cannon is a Nazi

If that doesnt summon him, let me know and I will fetch a witch doctor...

[roo_ster]

I never heard how it ended.  I just assumed in flames and tears and short jail sentences. 

I guess i was wrong or the sentence has been served.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

No sentences.  People got screwed.  He did get his credit card debt paid off

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[K Frame]

I can't get the page to come up and when I search nothing is returned.

[geronimotwo]

aj, love the response!     was he intentionally scamming people, or was the money grossly mismanaged?

[AJ Dual]

aj, love the response!     was he intentionally scamming people, or was the money grossly mismanaged?

To be fair, it's both. I do think Ben Cannon genuinely wanted GPal to take off and work, but I'm getting the impression he likes to roll in on a particular group, subculture, or business community, and try to "fake it till he makes it", by acting like a well heeled businessman, when he was in fact living with his parents and a negative balance sheet.

So it's a combination of scamming people as to his background and business acumen so people will invest or do business with him.

Then incompetence/mismanagement in terms of the execution. 

However, the nature of his intentions is small comfort to the FFL's and other gun businesses that lost their shirts when a bunch of their operating capital got tied up in GPal.

[Creeping Incrementalism]

The CalGuns thread is here: http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=931285

GPal wasn't a scam, it was a failure due to incompetence.  Ben never set up his banking correctly and the money got frozen.  I don't think it was anything he had any experience in and was out racing motorcycles instead of making sure it was run correctly.

Know that Ben was kind of a risky adventurer in the gun world starting back in 2005.  He found the "loopholes" and set up the first group buys of California-legal off-list AR lowers back then.  A portion of them was seized by the California DOJ and he was overly optimistic on how quickly it would take to get them returned.  It went from a few weeks or a month to six months, and then eventually someone else jumped in to help and we got them back two years later.

With GPal he was just as risky and unfortunately the amount of money and number of people with problems was more than could be fixed, unlike with the aforementioned group buys.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

If you want a less edited version of the gpal saga check out the castboolits  thread. Iirc correctly Amex also seized funds commingled to satisfy a personal judgement against him and that was a big hit early on. He encountered many of the same issues paypal did re state licensing.


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[Balog]

Nice to see you again CI. Love the avatar as always. 

[Creeping Incrementalism]

Nice to see you again CI. Love the avatar as always. 

Thanks.  CalGuns has grown so big that there are so many interesting threads it is hard to leave.  I remember back in '05 or '06 six it was like 1/6 the size of THR at the time.  Today CalGuns is so big that it is half the size of ar15.com even though CalGuns caters to only one state.

[Tallpine]

Thanks.  CalGuns has grown so big that there are so many interesting threads it is hard to leave.  I remember back in '05 or '06 six it was like 1/6 the size of THR at the time.  Today CalGuns is so big that it is half the size of ar15.com even though CalGuns caters to only one state.

Plus, about all you can do in CA is talk about guns, right?   

[roo_ster]

Plus, about all you can do in CA is talk about guns, right?  

Ouch.