BEWARE -- REPORTING A VERY BAD SITUATION INVOLVING PETE TONKIN

After rereading this I feel like ken should have thought about things a little better.... Though tonkin did wrong no doubt but ken didn't have enough money to buy the cue but still got strung along for 18k ... Just awful on kens part ...
 
After rereading this I feel like ken should have thought about things a little better.... Though tonkin did wrong no doubt but ken didn't have enough money to buy the cue but still got strung along for 18k ... Just awful on kens part ...
So, I should have stopped making payments? Then I would have had 0 chance of getting anything? I would have lost all my money! And if I could have seen a Post like this about Tonkin, I never would have started sending money in the first place. I really trusted Tonkin.
 
So, I should have stopped making payments? Then I would have had 0 chance of getting anything? I would have lost all my money! And if I could have seen a Post like this about Tonkin, I never would have started sending money in the first place. I really trusted Tonkin.

Yes .. better than being 18k in the hole.
 
I wouldn't have sent him another dime after the first missed deadline probably not even hlafter the first thousand
Who cares what you would have done if you were in Ken’s shoes throughout his whole ordeal? Are you trying to blame Ken and absolve Tonkin of liability? No need to respond to my questions with more of your unintelligent comments.
 
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Who cares what you would have done if you were in Ken’s shoes throughout his whole ordeal? Are you trying to blame Ken and absolve Tonkin of liability? No need to respond to my questions with more of your unintelligent comments.
If you can read.... I wrote several times that what tonkin did was wrong ... But what ken done was strange ... Why keep paying money we are talking about 18k for a pool cue .. at 3k I would have started asking serious ass questions ... And I feel like at some point before it got that expensive a line should have been drawn .. I mean I don't get it... am I the only one here that wouldnt have let it go this far along ... 18k that is silly ... He could have bought of those fabled southwest cues for less than that
 
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He IS a genius cue maker, not a criminal or a thief as depicted by these posts., the pandemic closed his family business, his wife of 45 years died a slow prolonged illness that resulted in her death. during that time he was her sole caregiver. If you have been in this situation, you will understand how time consuming that task is and how that causes priorities to shift away from work and on to the reality of human mortality. .so dont kick people when they are down,, have a little compassion. give the guy a break, there is no premeditation to defraud , the person who ordered it will get his order and will be very pleased with it.
If he is a genius he should be able to figure out how repay the man he is accused of stealing from. If he is a genius why hasn’t he built the cues already? What proof do you have of his family business being closed? And why does that even matter in this case?

Speaking of compassion. Perhaps you could repay some of the money the buyer has lost?

You also claim the buyer will get his cues. What proof do you have to support that claim? When will that happen?

I cannot wait to hear more of your tall tales with zero facts to back up your assertions.

Fact is the buyer was given excuse after excuse and strung along until it was impossible to ignore. Then after being repeatedly warned that legal action was coming Mr. Tonkin went silent. It does not require much thought to figure out why..
 
If you can read.... I wrote several times that what tonkin did was wrong ... But what ken done was strange ... Why keep paying money we are talking about 18k for a pool cue .. at 3k I would have started asking serious ass questions ... And I feel like at some point before it got that expensive a line should have been drawn .. I mean I don't get it... am I the only one here that wouldnt have let it go this far along ... 18k that is silly
Let me explain my "strange" behavior. This boils down to I agreed to pay $400 a month until I reached 18k for a cue. I try to be a man of my word. So, I continued payments until I reached 18k. That was over 3and 1/2 years ago. I have got nothing! A ton of lies and false promises. Hope that makes sense.
 
Let me explain my "strange" behavior. This boils down to I agreed to pay $400 a month until I reached 18k for a cue. I try to be a man of my word. So, I continued payments until I reached 18k. That was over 3and 1/2 years ago. I have got nothing! A ton of lies and false promises. Hope that makes sense.
What you did makes no sense at all,you were a willing partner to a scam and you didn't see it coming.
18K for a couple hundred dollar's worth of wood makes no sense again.
 
You're being a clown too. Why are you here defending a fraudster?
Maybe if the suck-ups to Tonkin scream loud enough to try and explain away his scumbag behavior, he'll agree to make them a cue, too.

All it'll take is $400 per month, and and agreement to:

1 Not ask questions.

2. Not expect to get what they paid for.

3. 4 gallons of unicorn semen, delivered FedEx Express.
 
It doesn't matter why Ken paid for a cue for a long time. It doesn't matter why he wanted an $18k cue. It does not matter why he paid $400/month for several years. Heck, all of us could simply play with a house cue...

All that matters is that he recovers what he has invested, or gets all his money back.

You can not blame the victim here, because he trusted a legendary cue maker, who promised him a "legendary" high-end cue, if he continued to pay.

This was his "one chance" to have a high-end, memorable cue. I do not know of any other top-level cue maker who would take payments over a period of years for the promise of a high-end cue.

It is certainly sad that Pete has gone through struggles and heartaches, over the last several years. I do wish him the best, in recovering from his loss.

However, Ken deserves his cue/money. If all accounts are as noted, Ken & Pete had a firm agreement, and Ken followed through completely on his end.

Pete is still a legendary cuemaker... It is inconceivable, to me, that this situation has not already been rectified...
 
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It doesn't matter why Ken paid for a cue for a long time. It doesn't matter why he wanted an $18k cue. It does not matter why he paid $400/month for several years. Heck, all of us could simply play with a house cue...

All that matters is that he recovers what he has invested, or gets all his money back.

You can not blame the victim here, because he trusted a legendary cue maker, who promised him a "legendary" high-end cue, if he continued to pay.

This was his "one chance" to have a high-end, memorable cue. I do not know of any other top-level cue maker who would take payments over a period of years for the promise of a high-end cue.

It is certainly sad that Pete has gone through struggles and heartaches, over the last several years. I do wish him the best, in recovering from his loss.

However, Ken deserves his cue/money. If all accounts are as noted, Ken & Pete had a firm agreement, and Ken followed through completely on his end.

Pete is still a legendary cuemaker... It is inconceivable, to me, that this situation has not already been rectified...
Joe: You are spot on. It is inconceivable that Tonkin did not deliver the cue to my office by the end of July 2023 to avoid the thrashing that I started and he is getting here. He deserves what is being written about him in this thread. The detective that Ken met with this week wants copies of all 48 checks that Ken wrote to Tonkin. Ken has ordered copies of the checks from his bank to give to law enforcement. It could take a little time for the bank to get copies of all the checks, which go back many years. Ken is going to pursue the criminal prosecution route because felonly criminal charges against Tonkin are his best avenue to recover the $18,000 he was defrauded out of.
 
True Story...
I had a NIGHTMARE of an experience with TONKIN several years ago too. I ordered and paid $400 for a shaft.
He promised me ONE MONTH for delivery. 2,3,4,5 months went by and NO SHAFT. In time, PETE stopped replying to my emails.
Eventually I ran out of patience and had enough, and called him " unprofessional and a liar." His response to me was DON'T CONTACT ME AND GO F*** YOURSELF. Never got my money back.

TONKIN might be a good cue maker but KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT "Customer Service or Running a Business !!"
I truly believe TONKIN has mental issues. And he's NOT A GOOD PERSON...
Just my two bits.
 
True Story...
I had a NIGHTMARE of an experience with TONKIN several years ago too. I ordered and paid $400 for a shaft.
He promised me ONE MONTH for delivery. 2,3,4,5 months went by and NO SHAFT. In time, PETE stopped replying to my emails.
Eventually I ran out of patience and had enough, and called him " unprofessional and a liar." His response to me was DON'T CONTACT ME AND GO F*** YOURSELF. Never got my money back.

TONKIN might be a good cue maker but KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT "Customer Service or Running a Business !!"
I truly believe TONKIN has mental issues. And he's NOT A GOOD PERSON...
Just my two bits.
Yet another person comes forward with a horror story concerning Tonkin. Thankfully, midnightmark only lost $400.
 
I am amazed (and maybe I shouldn't be) by the number of people posting on the Forum and on Facebook, who have been screwed by Pete Tonkin. I have also received numerous PM's from people who have similar experiences with Tonkin to mine. They don't want to go public because they are still hoping to get their cues-after years and years of lies and broken promises! I can only conclude he is a Thief!
exactly! and i’m not amazed one bit by how many people got screwed after the bad experience I went through with him cause I believe pete can screw anyone and I mean anyone at anytime doesn’t matter on the situation
 
6,000 plus different computers have viewed this thread in less than 5 full days. The more views the better and the greater the chance that another person will not be cheated out of his or her money.
 
I’ll throw in another couple of observations as an attorney with 40 years practice. Reading just a little between the lines (and maybe it’s said outright by the OP, I haven’t read every post), it appears that the OP is a personal friend of the Mr. Peters. In this kind of situation, having a personal relationship with an attorney or someone in law enforcement is worth it’s weight in gold which ties into my second point. Typically, when this kind of situation arises on this forum, the cue or cue repair in issue is in the hundreds of dollars in value or maybe a couple of thousand. It may be more, but not usually. Speaking not as a matter of legality, but of practicality, the amount usually in issue is so low that to a potential attorney, cop or prosecutor, they just aren’t motivated to take it up. The attorney can’t make money on it and the police/prosecutors have bigger fish to fry, especially if the aggrieved party is from another state. Here, with an amount in issue pushing $30,000, that is enough to get the attention of law enforcement. If the cues were $600 or $800 there is a good probability that Mr. Peters, especially if he had been without an attorney, would have just been told to go to small claims court which, to an out-of-state victim, is worthless. This is a cautionary tale which I have addressed a couple of times on this forum. Be very cautious on any long-distance deals, especially if they are out-of-state and with someone you don’t know. Unless, as here, the amount in issue is substantial enough to raise a few eyebrows, you will probably be out of luck. What people never seem to grasp is that while civil and criminal avenues may technically be open to them, unless the amount is particularly substantial (as here) or you have a tie-in with an attorney or law enforcement, no one is really vested in helping you. Best of luck to Mr. Peters and to the OP and kudos to the OP for taking the case.
 
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