Refund problem

[DaveyF]

What are the facts? For 6 months Daniel has refused to refund money he owes me. For the last 4 months i have pleaded with him to do the right thing. In return i got mails
calling me bad things, saying that he would no longer reply in English "because it is not his 1st language and therefore he will write in German!" Etc. It is only after my posts AND so many joined in collaborating it , that I finally got this mail from him yesterday. It is this forum that has him on the verge of doing the right thing by me, but he needs to do the same by Alf and whoever else he has defrauded.
I will post this letter and then comment:


Well Mike,
I would have no problem to talk to you nor to answer your calls ... if
.... if it would be possible to really communicate.
Communication means to me exactly that - communication.
It does not mean to accept being flooded with insults and threatening.
Your last calls on our answering machine were exactly that to me.
When I called you last time 2 weeks ago - it was a flood of dirt and
threat thrown at me.
I had little change to reach you with any word nor argument.
Your mind is already set beyond reach - at least it seems to be so - and
you are gladly falling to any bad word about me.
Rest assured, that I am very well prepared to answer all arguments
against me should we meet in a legal case soon.
Why i am so confident?
Simply because I know that it is not the way it seems to you based on
the internet gossip and the fact that I did not act the way you expected
and demanded.
I told you before that you will get refunded for your down payment as
well as the 8x8 - I told you too, that right now it is simply not
possible, as all our money is in the current project.
Again: simply not possible now at this moment.

my comment:
1. He admits he owes me 17000 for the apolyt and 8,000 for the 8x8.
He neglects to mention the $5000 silver coils for the xover never used,
etc that add up to a total of nearly $50,000!! That has been the pattern. In different ways reducing what he owes me (in one mail it almost got to where I owed him money!), and it changes from mail to mail. It wore me out so i gave up after 4 months and started posting. No reasonable person can say
i have not been patient or not given him lots of chances.
2. He is admitting that for 4 months he has had a lot of my money, but now he admits he is using my money to develop his Apolyt. And want to keep it till development is done. He says that he cannot pay me back because the money is developing a product. Then take a business loan out! Go to your German friends and borrow the money. But you do not have a right to force me into a loan to you.
No, you cannot use my money interest free or without my consent
3. As usual, he confuses the issues. The 8x8 was on a trial and approval basis. He has offered the same in writing to others. I told him in 2 days did not want to keep the monoblocks and wanted a refund. That was in mid-november. You cannot refuse a refund that promised ....because you need it to develop the Apolyt. The same with the silver coils. that was for a cross-over. The same for the Syntax step up that was to be refunded when the Omnigon was purchased. Never refunded. The same with the WBT spades and bananas not used. Another 30,000 beyond the Apolyt 17,000 that he continually has refused to refund. This is dishonest. this is defrauding me out of money. This has been his pattern with others as well.
4. It turns out many of us have experienced this doubletalk. The issue is simple: You cannot keep other people's money for months, even years, to do your projects. But worse, until this thread Daniel had gone silent. He does that. the experience is that when he owes you money, contact broken.
Finally yesterday he communicated and began to admit he owes me money.
5. "Rest assured I am prepared to answer all areguments against me should we meet in a legal case soon". Well, answer them on this forum. Why are you silent? Because you have just admitted in this letter that I am telling the truth!
6 This is not going to be a civil case. This is a criminal case of using the internet and wires for fraud. Have no illusions. I will post later Daniel on audiogon actually advising another that using wires and internet is a criminal offense if a person has been defrauded.

So friends of Daniel, stick to the facts and stop being uncivil. Part of the facts are in this letter. I have other material that is just too much to post.

there is only one solution: Daniel needs to redeem his reputation by paying me and others ALL THE MONEY he owes. I am not going to argue that.
7. "insults and threatening". If he means that i for months warned him that he was leaving me no alternative but to go public for the sake of others not being a victim in the community, if he means that i gave him chance after chance to avoid this and wants to call that 'threatening', well most people will see the pattern again in him.
8. Ask yourself, why did Daniel think he could go silent and defraud me of all this money?
simply because he thought i would be too embarrassed to admit he could take me for almost $50,000. Well, it is embarrassing. I was too trusting and
like others, fooled. But for the sake of the trust in the community, this had to happen.
and that is why some Daniel's German friends are complicit and accomplices. They are extremely compromised. They knew but have never gone public because they want him to continue to produce the Apolyt table. Great. Give him a loan, but the world wide community cannot accept this behavior in silence.
I sincerely hope that logic and truth will prevail, that we will not allow his group of friends to get to the bottom of how FAR HAS THIS FRAUD AND DISHONEST SPREAD. AND that Daniel will redeem his reputation and clean up the mess he has made. Then we will all go on with our life.

CSL, as I asked before, has anyone contacted Interpol so that they can get involved?
Daniel may or may not be guilty of fraud, but so far he is certainly guilty of VERY bad judgment and bad business practice.
OTOH, I have to question why so many a'philes run willingly to any potential charlatan with their wallet wide open! Guys, surely if you have managed to have enough business sense to garner the money necessary to indulge in these fantasies, you should have enough common sense ( never mind business acumen) to know how to properly conduct a simple business transaction.
BTW, DEV how about using a spell checker in your posts, it's really NOT that hard to do, LOL.

Steve, is there really any point to continue with this thread??

 

[Reinhard]

The third complainant is a German called Reinhard. He is also the only person who came forward with an answer about Brakemeier on the German AAA forum. As far as I can tell he is not a client but a competitor of Brakemeier

Please don´t call me competitor. I´m in the audio business as well, I told you in #22, but I have a registered, VAT based company under german and european laws.

Reinhard

 

[silviajulieta]

Dear jdza: +++++ " a competing phono stage " +++++ , certainly my personal unit has no competition from that phono stage, I'm not in tube electronic designs and obviously not on SUT based designs as that unit. In the other side is only trough this thread that I'm aware that that unit was developed by Dertonarm.


+++++ " who has a history " +++++. If you read each single post on Agon about that " history " you can see that in that " history " my posts were only trying to prevent that Dertonarm takes advantage on others persons ignorance, persons in good faith. Tha's all, I have nothing against Dertonarm as a person but as his " audio way of life ".

Maybe you posted that way because those 50K are not yours. Anyway, I hope " things " could be fixed.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

 

[DEV]

CSL, as I asked before, has anyone contacted Interpol so that they can get involved?
Daniel may or may not be guilty of fraud, but so far he is certainly guilty of VERY bad judgment and bad business practice.
OTOH, I have to question why so many a'philes run willingly to any potential charlatan with their wallet wide open! Guys, surely if you have managed to have enough business sense to garner the money necessary to indulge in these fantasies, you should have enough common sense ( never mind business acumen) to know how to properly conduct a simple business transaction.
BTW, DEV how about using a spell checker in your posts, it's really NOT that hard to do, LOL.

Steve, is there really any point to continue with this thread??

Sure I'll try but at the same time can you practice not coming across as such a arrogant know it all "dick" attacking individuals, did I spell check that right?

Reading your remarks above it appears you feel you are above others, why is it that you feel so compelled to try and be little others instead of being sympathetic?

You are obviously looking for attention.

 

[Steve Williams]

Steve, is there really any point to continue with this thread??

Is there any new information to share?

 

[ALF]

Is there any new information to share?

Hi Steve,

I think that it would be interesting to hear from Dietrich"Dertonarm" Brakemeier and Axinia Schaefer. If the thread is closed, they would lose their opportunity to share with us their side of the story.

Also, there is the ongoing filling with the DA in California. It would good to see how they resolve the case, by dropping or filing charges against this above-mentioned pair, Mr. Brakemeier and Ms. Schaefer.

Thanks,
ALF

 

[Steve Williams]

Well as I said yesterday I am willing to keep it open but let's stop the bickering amongst each other. I am sure all of us want to hear from Dertonarm

 

[Steve Williams]

Posts deleted

David and Davey. It's out of character for both of you

 

[DaveyF]

Thank you for moderating, Steve.

 

[Steve Williams]

Closed unless there are forthcoming replies by Dertonarm and I will be happy to reopen the thread. I doubt if a reply will come forth

 

[Steve Williams]

I gave been asked by CSL to keep it open for one more day but again no more bickering

 

[CSL]

This is reply to Davey post a day or so again. mistakenly in wrong place . sorry.

Interpol is a good idea. I will explore that.
But i have gone to the DA of my town. This is definitely criminal fraud using internet and international wire.
See Daniel's own advice on audiogon thread under LYRA TITAN: STYLUS BROKEN DURING SHIPPING.
AND I QUOTE: "I would strongly recommend contacting your lawyer right away to handle the case. Sepecially so as the deal was via phone/internet.
This looks very much like intentional fraud. Cheers D. " The DA agrees with daniel in my case, and i am in process of submitting final documents.
The idea he has of keeping my money of almost 50K to fund his project of the Apolyt is ridiculous.
He has some German friends who have money. He can get a loan and repay me and others what he owes and get a business loan for his project like anyone else.

I am very disappointed with the uncivil posts of some of his friends. Stick to the facts. Has he admitted he owes money? Yes. Has he kept silent for months and only now
saying he will repay when he has been exposed? yes. a fact. Has he said that he is using my money to for his apolyt project and expects me to allow that? yes, see the letter.
Has he written mail trying to weasel out of this? Yes, and he knows i have that evidence. How can he resolve this and redeem his reputation? Not by trashing people, but repaying what he owes people and stop this practice not repaying people. Is that a fact. Yes. this thread has attracted the notice of other victims.

It escapes why THAT IS NOT of huge concern to the whole community and why anyone would defend it. It is insidious and toxic to the hobby. His public exposure is the only hope for him to desist and become honest. Plus the criminal charges that are coming. Again i have given him multiple chances over 4 months. He never thought i would admit how much money he defrauded me of, as if it would embarrass me. It does not. I trusted him. Susie and I liked him very much and had him stay in our home 3 separate occassions. My stupidity, yes. But ultimately, the issue is fraud and dishonesty.

 

[Steve Williams]

I'm curious as to how a California DA can bring forth charges

 

[CSL]

Davey yesterday had a post saying that it is to the benefit of the community for people to take the trouble to expose fraud, and then he made a very good point -- if the person can be shown to be guilty. My previous posts present facts that do prove guilt, and someone else posted the ebay references and his alias Kasugi and the duplicitous fraud perpetuated. There is not question he is guilty.
I am very busy person, but have taken the time to participate because i continue to believe it is our obligation to expose criminal and duplicitous behavior. Edwin Burke famously said, "Wrong advances because good people do nothing."
As for the DA, she has seen some of the documents and is waiting for me to collate the remainder which i am doing. I wanted to know if this is merely a civil case, but turns out that the international wire and internet changes the game. This is criminal behavior if i can assemble enough of the evidence, which is no problem.
but that is not the main issue. The issue is deceptive behavior, behavior that tries evade repayment of money that is substantial. here is the itemization, and this is why what has happened to me and others is not a little thing. This is misbehavior on a very large scale. This is no mere oversight, no 'mistake', but intentional and over many months.
17,000 for the Apolyt
8,000 for the 8x8 amps
234 for their batteries which had me order but were part of the original product of course. he could not get them thru customs so wanted me to order.
1,650 for the 'Syntax' step up which was to be refunded with purchase of Omnigon preamp. Took it back on one of trips to my house, but no money to me
4,500 for subwoofer parts that never built and promised refund
2,600 for wbt spades that did not use when he changed all my cables in his Jan trip to my house. took them and was to send money. no money
1380 for wbt rcas that unused for same trip. same deal
480 for 3rd tonearm tower not installed on micro-seiki and cancelled
274.12 for 2 DACTS he asked me to buy for him to modify someone else's gear when he left my house. never paid me
5340 for silver coils that did not use in xover built for me because instead used copper never paid me as above.
5,8333.33 for Lamm 2.1 amp mods he did when syntax and he were at my house that made them non-functional. He tried to fix and could not. told me to send them to lamm.
when he came back in january he assured me could fix. never let me see inside. i was busy in my office and trusted him. He was on the phone with Vladimir trying to figure out what had happened because never worked after his mods. Finally said send them to vladimir. i did and they sent me pictures that horrified me what the soldering and the destruction of the 'board'.
Vladimir sent me mail on why the mods ruined the amps and a completely new board had to be built at great expense for both amps. Daniel, of course, refused to pay the repairs, and of course, said Lamm is all wrong, that it was not anything he did. !!!!!!!! I will post the pictures, the correspondence.
These are INDISPUTABLE FACTS. PICTURES DO NOT LIE. AND IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF DANIEL TRYING TO DEFRAUD people. He is never the problem.....
There is more, but this is almost 50,000 that slowly accumulated.
That money is being used to develop his Apolyt. He does not have permission from me to do that. He needs to man up, find a loan from his rich German friends, and pay his debts, and get a business loan, and start doing honest business. I hope the best for him if.....he stops this behavior.
Until then.. he should not be trusted, he should not be allowed to victimize others.

 

[DaveyF]

CSL, I would like you to know that I do commiserate with your circumstance. Even IF half of what you say is true, then IMO you have been dealing with a person who clearly has a different value system than most of us.
However, even though I personally may not like his behavior or his demeanor, I do think he has a right to a) defend your accusations and b) to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

The reason I brought up the Interpol is because they are the policing entity that is charged with dealing with international crime and not the local US authorities. Like Steve asked, I do not see how a US or Calif DA can bring charges on a foreign party, except in the US and under US law. IF the defendant is a German citizen and resides in Germany, this will be of little value to you. OTOH, the German authorities can and should be contacted about this individual as well as the Interpol.
Interpol is a VERY strong enforcer of international law and would be my first contact with your issue.

Nonetheless, I do think that everything that can be discussed from this thread has been, short of Dertonarm coming here to "justify" himself, nothing of further value can or will accrue.

 

[CSL]

Daniel modded my Lamm amps and then they did not work. he came to try to fix them, and could not. He even called vladimir on the phone. but vladimir did not know the soldering mess
and the values he changed. I will post vladimir's letter. i have pics from lamm but they are pdf and i cannot get them on the thread. but email me privately and i will send.
here is vladimir's letter
Hello Mike,

Just to recap the things that contributed to malfunctioning of the amps:

Replacement of original parts (mostly capacitors).
The amp could not function properly because of the wrong value for two of the replaced capacitors -- the original value of capacitors C109-1 and C109-2 was 10 uF, and the replacement was made for 1 uF.
In the “good” amp (B10226) some small parts were replaced for no apparent reason, and that degraded it.
Soldering of small tube sockets was really disgusting in both amps, and short-circuit in the small tube socket was a result of this soldering. That’s why the amp could not work properly.
Soldering of the replaced parts was really gross in both amps which would make re-sale of the amps very hard and at very reduced price.
In both amps the replacement of the RCA input connector led to the lifting of the corresponding pcb trace
In B10226 one of the quick disconnects just fell off when we were removing the pc-board from the amp

In a nutshell, the unauthorized soldering was really disgusting. Once we revived the amp with original parts and fixed the soldering, the amps started functioning properly.

The most cynical part of this so-called “upgrade” had to do with the two “new” capacitors which were actually of similar quality to the original ones; and that’s why it’s absolutely unclear why this replacement took place at all. The rest of the caps were actually of lower quality compared to the original ones.

Best regards,

Elina Lamm

Elina Lamm, VP Operations
LAMM INDUSTRIES, INC.
2513 East 21st Street (new street address)
Brooklyn, NY 11235 USA
718.368.0181 phone
718.368.0140 fax
lamm.industries@verizon.net
www.lammindustries.com
_______________
clearly Daniel mods the problem. i sent him the letter and the pics. here is his response:

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



On Feb 11, 2012, at 9:34 AM, shepherd.a@t-online.de wrote:

Good morning Mike,
as you can imagine, this is totally out of the blue to me.
I see from the "Due Date" on the two invoices, that this already was
discussed and decided between Lamm and you last week.
I still thought it was about getting the relay/pre-heat section of the
amp B10225 back to normal work.
Now I am confronted - without any prior hint in the past 2 weeks - with
a complete reversal and a total cost of USD6000 pointing at me.


I am very sorry about this too.
Especially as all this was - and is - totally unnecessary.

Let me briefly address a few things - especially the comments from Lamm
- here:

- Of course Lamm is blaming everything to the modification.
What else to expect - no manufacturer is happy to see others changing
parts in their products.
I wouldn't be either.
I already had a strange feeling when Vladimir refused any further
thought that tuesday morning and started right away requesting to ship
the amplifier to him.

- ALL that was changed by me were coupling capacitors and tube sockets!
I did not change ANYTHING in the circuit nor did I change operation
points.
It was impossible.
These have technically absolutely NO influence at all on operation
points.
Thus they just CAN'T produce a "malfunction" or "not full power".
All that changes when a coupling capacitor's value is lowered, is that
the cut-off frequency is raised slightly.
That's all.
Of course I changed the way too large original 10µF coupling caps to
lower value 1µF (which still is way enough - if these were my own amps I
would have gone down to 0,47 or 0,68µF !!!).
The difference ??
Technically we are moving up from about 3-4Hz cut-off frequency to about
10-12 Hz - THAT's ALL !!
Coupling capacitors of 10µF - like Lamm and Audio Research do use in
their amplifiers - are absolutely nonsense.
They do result in a very low cut-off frequency which does nothing else,
but allowing even low wrap infra-frequency to be transferred to the
speakers.
If those points mentioned by Lamm were true, how come that the "good"
amp were functioning at all ?


Did you remember that I did the exactly same modifications to Thomas' ML
2.1 ??
Flawlessly functioning since a year now........ soldered with the same
"Disgusting (read: too expensive to be used by Lamm...) soldering".
Do you think he wouldn't hear "malfunction" or "enormous distortion"
sitting only 9 feet away from his speakers ?
Did you note that Lamm didn't mention at all the not functioning
relay/pre-heat section ?

Then Lamm mentions a "bad" 6C33C and exchanged it in the "bad" amp - the
B10225 !!
I am sorry - how on earth can an amplifier function at all with a "bad"
power tube!!
Most likely this was all that was bad and the true reason why the relay
didn't engage.


Honestly - I checked EVERY SINGLE SOLDER JOINT of both Lamms when I came
back to Salinas and had the large Fluke Multimeter with me.
There wasn't a single bad solder joint left.
There was none.

Of course the solder joints do look different to Lamm's - it is a
different solder !!
I used your Cardas and Cremet silver solder - these solder joint do look
dull because there is no lead in their metallurgy.

Lamm is plain lying if he accuses the malfunction of amp serial # B10225
to the exchanged parts or solder joints - I know it, because I know the
technical back ground and because I checked EVERY SINGLE SOLDER JOINT
that monday before leaving Salinas to fly back home.
All measured perfect conductivity.

Apparently Lamm wanted to teach you a lesson - never again having any
component modified.
He mentioning that the modifications would "make re-sale of the amps
very hard and at very reduced price" which most likely ignited some
serious concern in you and subsequently prompted you to send in the 2nd
amp and had both amplifiers reversed to “original parts and status”.

Really wished you had given me any note or any mention about this before
doing it.
I had no chance to know nor to react or propose.
I would have done that for free for you - now I am confronted with a big
bill without even knowing before what was going on.

Best,
Daniel
__________________
typical. daniel if he owes money is never at fault. He actually says Vladimir lied. Notice throughout the letter everyone is lying , and then he ends up accusing me
of doing this without his knowledge. he could not fix his mod messup. he told me to send them.

This person should not be allowed to continue this fraud. His only redemption is to pay the money he owes and be hones.

 

[CSL]

daveyF
there is no question of facts. they are simply plain in this thread. And yes he does have a right to prove his innocence. but..... this is his chance here. We are not a court of law. but too many people have similiar story. sorry, but if he is honest, then why all the people who jumped in on this thread with their own stories. sorry, but he does have a chance to answer these issues, and he has not. see my post below. and as far as calif da, the issue is that charges are filed and he and his wife will be arrested if they try to come to the usa. that is a fact. i have warned and warned him of this. no, they cannot arrest him in Germany, but he is finished in the states. the only way he can erase that is pay the money he owes. and yes i will pursue interpol. This time this is not going underground like the ebay thing did. too much money is at stake.

 

[Young Skywalker]

Interesting story regarding the modifications to your Lamm ML2.1, CSL. I own a Lamm LP2 Deluxe which had been modified by Dietrich prior to me purchasing it. When it arrived I was very disappointed with the workmanship of the modifications and one of the capacitor leads had broken away from the PCB as a result of the capacitor's unsupported weight and the untidy excess length of the capacitor lead wires. This necessitated a trip to a local technician who has been building valve electronics since the time when RCA Living Stereo recordings were made in the 60s. He removed the after-market and mythically rare Cornell-Dubilier teflon capacitors, measured all of the values so that they were matched as perfectly as possible between left and right channel for each gain stage, tidied up and shielded the wires, supported the capacitors on the PCB using ceramic mounting blocks and then properly resoldered all joints. He said that all of the previously "modified" solder joints were akin to cold joints and that in the RCA School where he learned his craft this sort of workmanship would not have passed stage one (they used to check every joint under a microscope or high powered loupe). He also replaced several large resistors where the bodies had started to crumble to dust due to excessive heat. The replacements are high temperature, super low tolerance types mounted to hand crafted heat sinks fixed to the PCB. The resulting unit sounds spectacular and is perfectly stable in operation but it set me back an additional $650 on top of the already substantial used purchase price.

I also own a Syntax SUT and upon opening the case my loudspeaker builder was very unimpressed with the quality of the soldering between the primary and secondary leads and their respective RCA connectors.

Even if I had the cash to throw around I would not buy an Omnigon preamp, no matter how amazing it is purported to sound, based on the workmanship I have observed first hand in other products which Dietrich has been involved with.

This should not be seen as a beat up on Dietrich since my technician was equally critical of the very cheap parts used by Lamm elsewhere in the circuit. The fact that these electronics manage to sound superior to pretty much anything I have experienced just goes to show how important implementation is in any electronic design.

 

[DaveyF]

CSL, as I said, I do commiserate with your situation. I also agree that it is a good idea to expose individuals such as Daniel on the web. I think you have successfully achieved that goal in this thread...to some extent. Having said that, i still cannot see the purpose of continuing this discussion; the alleged perpetrator is NOT going to show his face here and your further protestations are not going to change that.
However, please do fill us in as to your results after you have contacted the proper authorities to resolve your case. I will wish you good luck with that endeavor.
I am done with this thread now.

 

[Reinhard]

Of course I changed the way too large original 10µF coupling caps to
lower value 1µF (which still is way enough - if these were my own amps I
would have gone down to 0,47 or 0,68µF !!!).
The difference ??
Technically we are moving up from about 3-4Hz cut-off frequency to about
10-12 Hz - THAT's ALL !!

The formula for cut-off frequency is: fg = 1/2pi * R * C. When you alter the cap value by a factor of 10 you alter the cut-off frequency by a factor of 10 too. So you move from 3-4 Hz to 30-40 Hz. At the cot-off point you have 70,7 % in amplitude. That means you have a linear frequency response from 150 - 200 Hz. I think Vadimir Lamm has a good reason to choose 10 uF.

Reinhard