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Fred Lebayle Problem - help?

54K views 201 replies 58 participants last post by  armada1905 
#1 ·
After a quick search, it looks like this is a fairly common problem w Fred Lebayle -

I purchased a mouthpiece off his site on Nov 14th 2016 for $470.00.

Now, over a year later, I've not received an email, message or a mouthpiece after many many attempts to contact him.

Jon Ellis and Walter Smith both reached out on my behalf with no response.

Anyone have any advice for me? I'd like my money back of course...

Thanks for your time and help.

Matt Otto
 
#55 ·
Justice? What justice?
You pay a lot of money for taxes, for the city hall etc., but if you dont pay 500 then you are important enough that they will come after you.
When you lose 500 from a thief then the amount is not big enough for the legal system to work, then you need at least four more people or the amount has to run in to 4 figures to move their little finger.
No matter how rich 500 is not a trivial amount of money to toss away. Some people work hard for it and save it in order to invest it into a great mouthpiece. Where is justice for them and compassion.

But i do want to have compassion for Lebayle, want to believe that he is somehow unaware of his actions, but mainly cause i have respect for David Liebman who spoke highly of him.
I wonder what would he say now...
I hope he will get help to do the right thing and pay back all those people he took money from before he ends in jail.
 
#57 ·
it is not true, at least I have proof that it isn’t.

The police do their job very well and in many instances (granted not always but it isn’t always possible) even for small crimes.

I have helped to prosecute a person who had got €150 off me (and others) despite the fact that she gave back the money ( the crime was still committed), the police got her, she was tried and found guilty and got her punishment.
Two of my bicycles were stolen, called the police who promptly sent a car around town, found one thieve on one bike and he told them where th eother was, both were tried and got their punishment.

I know that this doesn’t always happen but it happened to me, not someone else.

With all possible caveats, the system that protects us from people abusing us generally works. Not always and not for everyone, but it does.
 
#59 ·
If you think that the police do their job, so do the Judges, the system isn't perfect but every day people are caught and every day they are sentenced. Do people escape the rigors of the system? Yes, is this common? Not in most civilized places where a good percentage (NOT 100%, granted! Not even close...) of reported crimes come to a prosecution.

Obviously sometimes they can't, but many times they can do something and they do. The only thing that achieves, for sure, nothing is doing nothing.

Read this.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u....w-enforcement/clearances/clearancetopic_final

We are not talking of tax evasion as reported in the Panama papers and other such things, we are talking of one persons who fails to delivered goods that have been paid for.

The name of the person is known, his location, the kind of problems caused and there is corroboration, it shouldn't be too difficult for at least ONE of the complaints to be going to court.

What is it that you otherwise propose? Is there anything else?

Naming and shaming on SOTW hasn't accomplished much in years.

I don't believe in personal revenge ( very nasty idea that one)

So the only remaining strategy is public justice.

Again the only thing that achieves nothing is doing nothing and simply complain that nothing can be done is like not doing anything.
 
#60 ·
We talk here about how Lebayle commits fraud and that is great cause we bring awareness.
If that comes with name calling perhaps it is cause that is the only thing remains in people to vent their anger after loosing money.
It is hard to believe that no one from all those people who lost money didnt try to take action.
But here we are after all this time and Fred keeps doing what he does.
Why? is it too expensive to take him to court that is not worth it? is it not big enough case that can go to court?

Maybe wonder woman is the only one who can stop Fred.
 
#61 ·
I don't think it costs much to take him to court. This won't be tried by a jury and will be dealt with from a local judge ( county court in NYC?)

Felony

https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/nyc/drug_treatment/mtc/index.shtml

Misdemeanors

https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/nyc/drug_treatment/mmtc/index.shtml

Some people did try to report the problem, apparently the weren't successful or they didn't do this the proper way.

I am sure there are people here (there are several Police agents or Ex-Police agents, Lawyers, and who knows even FBI agents ) who would know what to do and how to do it to do this right.

Once more.

Doing nothing will certainly accomplish nothing. At least trying will, maybe, accomplish something.
 
#62 ·
Thankfully, I've never had dealings with this guy. Based on what I'm reading and have read, he has a problem. Milandro is absolutely right, until he's "called to task" and made to take responsibility for his "issues", nothing will change. My question, if, sadly, this ends up in a criminal court: would the court consider the cumulative losses, which by now may be quite a large figure and require serious jail time?
 
#66 ·
I'm tempted to buy something cheap on his website and then ask my credit card company for a refund when he doesn't deliver just to see if that works... since no one has apparently bothered to try that or for whatever reason isn't saying what happened. I'd be pretty shocked if this weren't a simple solution to the problem, at least if the elapsed time hasn't been outrageous. Waiting a year to address non-delivery/non-communication regarding an order seems problematical to me. Perhaps we've been conditioned to be too understanding of poor customer service from some small businesses.
 
#70 ·
JL I know you are a good person and I am sure that we agree on many things, including the bulk of the things concerning this sad issue.

Whether the act of not providing the goods that someone has been paid for can be called, legally, theft, I am not sure, but I am sure that if one is on the receiving end of such an action it certainly feels like that.

I have been in my life in the position of not being given money that was rightfully mine by someone whom took it from me.

It was a considerable sum of money, at least for me it was, and to this day it stings, but the worst thing was not even the financial loss, was the fact that it made me loose a bit of my trust in my fellow humans.

I hope that Fred Lebayle gets the help that he so desperately needs. If this involves the judiciary, so be it. Hopefully people will get the money back but getting the money back won’t repay them of the bad experience that they went through.
 
#71 ·
Brian just posted about his new mouthpiece on facebook. Ron Blake inquired about getting one and within minutes Fred Responded. I feel like I should have brought this thread and the many others to their attention but in all honesty I don't think it would have been received very well.
 
#72 ·
I complained to Fred on his facebook page maybe a year ago. Fred had my post removed within two or thre days ... Looks like brand name players get served rapidly and nobodies like me and others just get tricked off from their money.
 
#73 ·
I can tell you from personal experience that anyone able to manage wwbw/musicians friend ahould be able to serve their customers. Its difficult to work with large vendors and complicated. Not personally difficult...the big issue is their complicated ordering software that is anything but intuitive. Also agreements for delivery are strict. If you pack and label things with the wrong rewuired barcoding system you get fined. If you are late you get fined. Some of these deductions can be pretty significant. I never had one but it took great care.

...so, unless someone is managing this for him the whole story of personal problems is bunk. Im not say he may or may not have them...dont we all? Im just saying that if you can keep an ongoing relationship with the big box stores its childs play to serve an individual customer. If you are biting off more than you can chew and taking peoples money its simply dishonest.
 
#75 ·
This is not an incident.

This has been going on for a very long time and it appears to be a structural and ongoing problem.

It is a crying shame that it has been dealt with (or rather not) in a denial fashion. Everyone can have a crisis or a momentary lapse of reason or business practice but this is way past that incidental stage.


I agree the only way that large amounts of mouthpieces can find their way to the shops around the world means that there must be someone managing the makers (is this really a one man band?). If the production goes on without a problem for these and many small sales get delayed or never delivered after payment and they are aware of the problem (as we have been told they are from several sources), this is no longer a fluke, this is culpable negligence.

There has to be a way to stop these things happening.

I think that only by continuing to report this to the authorities they can begin to form a picture of the magnitude of this.

At this point I think that the damaged parties should form an association and give their entire body of grievances to a lawyer (we have a few among us) whom will pursue this from the legal point of view. Perhaps not all the money will be recovered but at least the case , collectively, will show the authorities what kind of problem this really is.

Good Luck.
 
#76 ·
I think that only by continuing to report this to the authorities they can begin to form a picture of the magnitude of this.

At this point I think that the damaged parties should form an association and give their entire body of grievances to a lawyer (we have a few among us) whom will pursue this from the legal point of view. Perhaps not all the money will be recovered but at least the case , collectively, will show the authorities what kind of problem this really is.

Good Luck.
I agree totally and it seems the best way to try "something". Maybe we could make a group complaint including all the cheated people here and try some legal actions. As i live overseas and my english is not the best could some of you help with this?
 
#77 ·
I suppose the best thing is to email or PM all the people whom have complained,

After that you have got in touch and see how many are there and were they are in the world, then you need to ask a lawyer practicing in NYC or thereabouts ( maybe one of the many lawyers here would be prepared to do this “ Pro bono” ?....) to take care of this, of course, should this be solved with a county court legal action the costs are probably not very high but it is possible that they would run high.

This is probably the worst hurdle.

Although it is possible that, if found guilty the defendant might be condemned to pay the costs but there are always elements of uncertainty here and probably this will initially cost money.

You really need the professional opinion of a practitioner in the legal profession.
 
#81 ·
Well I suppose that threads like this will have some impact of the one on one sales but as long as there are well stocked shops selling them ( here in the NL there are several), a boycot with any impact seems to be highly unrealistic.

We have had to conclude many m,any time before that despite the number of people on member list here the numbers are way lower than the general public.

This thing has been going on for years and there are old threads on this matter, yet, it doesn’t seem to have had any effect.


Legal action is the only way to stop this. A boycot won’t. Legal action in a county court won’t take years, we are not talking of supreme court here.

The matter is involving a minor court at best and can be deal with by a judge of minor justice ( I don’t think you need a jury for these things).

Any NYC lawyers out there?
 
#82 ·
Legal action is the only way to stop this. A boycot won't.
True. I wasn't suggesting that I had an ultimate solution (scam artists have been around since the dawn of time and will flourish long after our lifetimes end). Just saying at least some of us can avoid this particular scam by not buying these mpcs. Especially given so many other great options available from honest sellers.

And I'm glad Matt alerted us to this fraudster; I wasn't in the market for a Lebayle mpc, but for those who were, it might save them some grief.
 
#84 ·
Look at the political and business world.

Being successful and skillful does not insure integrity or honesty. One either has it or they dont.

Most criminals that go to prison are also ineffective people...that may be their biggest crime. Some criminals get elected, run corporations, or become bug stars. They happen to be effective in many other areas besides integrity.
 
#85 ·
A long time ago someone tried to screw me out of a few hundred bucks. I filed in small claims court and won. The next step was to have his car seized for auction, but that required me to front more money (which I didn't have) for the cop to show up, an ad in the paper notifying the world of the auction, etc. Proceeds from the auction would have payed first for storage and tow fees, then I'd have gotten paid if anything was left, then he'd have gotten the leftovers. Being totally broke, I resorted to more creative modes of encouragement which I can't really recommend but which eventually worked.

I imagine that a similar process exists in NY. If several people did it at once enough of Fred's assets might get seized to put him out of business.

A google search of "Lebayle mouthpieces" and "Lebayle mouthpiece review" doesn't find anything negative, and a search on "Fred Lebayle" finds only one negative hit: a SOTW thread on this issue. There's got to be a way of changing that. Also, how about flooding the various Lebayle youtube videos with negative comments?
 
#90 ·
I think your experience illustrates the problem with using the legal system to deal with this kind of situation: it takes a lot of time, costs a fair amount of money, and in the end it's up to you to find some way to collect the money. So you have to ask yourself whether you're willing to go through all of that to try to collect $350.

Similarly, most prosecutors are going to feel like these kinds of cases are a low priority. Even if you could pull together a dozen people who could prove they've been ripped off, the total amount of money involved would probably be less than $5,000, and the assistant deputy DA you're talking to has a backlog of auto theft and wire fraud and various other scams on his desk that involved many times that amount, so he's not going to be eager to take the case.

I tend to agree that the best way of dealing with this is to expose what's been going on, and let the market forces take their toll.
 
#86 ·
How about a "Fred Lebayle Did Not Rip Me Off" facebook page? It could have a short bit about how great his pieces can be, a mention of the rumors of him ripping people off, and an invitation for people to talk about their wonderful experience with his awesome customer service.
 
#87 ·
I disagree.

Resorting to digital guerrilla practices will bring the right doing into the wrong doing reflecting negatively on the plaintiffs should this ever get to court.

As for not finding negativity on internet

well depends how you search:



This is the man in person on a SOTW members Brian Landrus interview

 
#91 ·
I disagree.

Resorting to digital guerrilla practices will bring the right doing into the wrong doing reflecting negatively on the plaintiffs should this ever get to court.
Maybe that's how it works in the NL, but I'm pretty sure that over here the only thing pertinent to small claims case would be whether or not Lebayle delivered the goods paid for. If Fred wanted to he could return with a separate action alleging libel, but I don't think that that would be a good strategy for him (unless everyone here is making this stuff up). And even if you're right, people who've lost all hope of ever getting anything out of this guy, and have no real way to take him to court, have nothing to lose.
 
#100 ·
Did you get ripped off by Fred too? Oh no, I see you didn't... you're just advising those who did and putting words in my mouth.

Well thank goodness this site has a den mother to look after all us cubs and offer such sage advice because otherwise who would have thought of getting a lawyer involved? And who would have done google searches for us??? What novel ideas!

Thanks bud! Keep up the good work.
 
#102 ·
I think what sucks the most is that generally folks have been giving Fred the benefit of the doubt, with his health and accident etc. he has made statements in some cases saying he will get the items out and then ultimately never does.

Unfortunately Visa, paypal (whatever) does not care about these mitigating factors and leaves the buyers SOL for trying to be good reasonable people.
 
#103 ·
...he has made statements in some cases saying he will get the items out and then ultimately never does.
That's the bottom line for me. Of course I'm assuming Matt and others are not spinning yarns; I guess they could be lying through their teeth, but somehow I doubt it. So it's really very simple. This guy took their money and never sent them their mpc. A straight out rip off, theft, fraud, whatever you want to call it. No excuse whatsoever. Call him what he is: He's a thief.
 
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