Bartertown.com

As of 4/20/09, Nate of BK was not taking anymore orders due to updating his website and moving into a different B&M store. He estimated a stoppage of 1-2 weeks.

I assumed he decided not to relaunch the service since there haven't been any updates, but while checking out the wares here I saw his ad at the top of the page. I took a peak and as of 6/15/09 the website address is still an "error 404- page not found".

Is he done? Delayed?

Any info is appreciated.

I pegged him as a fly-by-night operator from the get-go, so I doubt he'll be back.

I hope you don't have any outstanding orders with him.

If so, you'd better call your credit card company and have the charges reversed ASAP.

http://www.bkinnercircle.com/

He still wants your money too.

Nope, no money lost and no product outstanding, but I am interested in what happened to his business.

Info about Nate and the business in general has been bandied about over at the Bolter and Chainsword. Basically, the scuttlebut is that the move to the new shop location, combined with an avalance of ordering, overexpansion of websites and discount scheme caused a massive backup in Nate's orders and ability to fill them. Customer service suffered greatly, and his rep went down the flush hole.
There's a user over at B&C who's local to the shop, and who was doing per-order lookups for people whenever he drove by the shop and managed to corner Nate in person. Last time he did so, he posted pics of the new shop and such that confirmed that there's product on the shelves there, but made no mention of a return to the bits side of things.

Of course, this is all rumour and speculation, and may not be true at all.

I ordered from Nate once when he first started out. Prices and selection were good back then. He was the cheapest source at the time (last summer) by far. But then the selection of individual bitz declined. The website was redesigned several times, each one heralding a smaller and smaller choice of bitz, eventually leading to a "buy this whole frame" approach. Prices were still alright, but when you're after just certain bits, and not a whole frame, there's no incentive to buy. I turned to eBay sellers for individual bitz and parts.

/shrug

Thanks Rhino. Link to said discussion perhaps?

Sure.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/inde ... pic=134440

That's my original post from last year. You can kinda watch the progression of events by reading through all of the thread, though what you're after is in the last 3 or so.