Kevin Varney ****Mr. Wilson

[LoGiC]

You don't have to always write something down for there to be a contract.
Do the words "verbal contract" ring a bell and the fact that he took money confirms he made a contract for something?

He took money to preform a service (make a cue) he didn't or hasn't delivered what was promised = Fraud.

I also think it's a bad idea to pay for any service up front. Like someone else said. He has no incentive to finish now other than the law. He's probably doing the ones that haven't paid up front first!

You might want to read the rest of the thread before posting...

There would be no contract about an end time, even if you traced it through paypal, saying you did pay him and that he will deliver a cue, without a specified end date, there was no violation of the law.

 

[Rodney]

umm why is he not considered a top notch ?? lets see some pros using his shafts and cues, he has alot cues sold and most everyone likes , let me see , hmm id bet you consider scruggs , botis , southwest all top notch? but guess what you are paying for the name - the reputation , there is no giant difference among great cues . those are all about collecting and safe queens when gus made his cies years ago and sold for about 150 to 175 bucks total and starting out im sure those cues were the average cue ,but now time ,age ,the word, collectors, those are golden . but guess what those $10,000 and 20 ,000 gus cues now ???? guess --- they are still those same $175 dollar cues

If you think he is considered top notch, you are definately Kevin Varney! Take a close look at some of his posted cues, then take into consideration all the B.S., the threats, and whatever else. Yeah, I'd say he's not even on the same planet as "Top Notch" ROTFLMFAO

Rodney<------- been around for ALL Varney's deleted threads

 

[ribdoner]

By KV's own admission he has 200 cues that have been ordered. This along with his repair work. If he could turn out 3 cues per week it would take him 67 weeks to fill these orders. This is coupled with his repair work. If he had taken payment in full on these cues this means he won't have any "cue" income for 67 weeks. How is he going to fullfill these orders over this length of time with little to no "cue" sales income.

On one of the threads it was stated that he wouldn't build a cue without payment in full in advance. I don't kow if this it true but if it is things don't look good for those buyers at the latter part of this waiting game.

I don't know what his cues sell for but let's say $350.00 each he would have taken $70K. Out of this he has to buy materials. Cost unknown. Utility costs unkown. Repairs and maintenance of equipment unkown.
Shipping and insurance cost unkown. Fuel and maint. on vehicle to procure materials and getting to and from the post office cost unkown. His weekly living costs unkown. After subtracting all of this and continuing to operate for 67 weeks with little cue related income, I have to wonder how is he going to do this. Now add on his personal prob., his travelling on family matters and only he can clearly estimate what is left to complete the necessary work within 67 weeks. It doesn't look good!

Opps, I almost forget to mention the fed. tax, state tax, local tax (if any) SS ded., health care costs. Wow. I'd say this isn't going to end on a pretty note.

INSIGHTFULL and worthy of a bone..


However, I find it hard to believe that he has a backlog of 200 cues all of which have been paid for.

TIME WILL TELL...

 

[manwon]

umm why is he not considered a top notch ?? lets see some pros using his shafts and cues, he has alot cues sold and most everyone likes , let me see , hmm id bet you consider scruggs , botis , southwest all top notch? but guess what you are paying for the name - the reputation , there is no giant difference among great cues . those are all about collecting and safe queens when gus made his cies years ago and sold for about 150 to 175 bucks total and starting out im sure those cues were the average cue ,but now time ,age ,the word, collectors, those are golden . but guess what those $10,000 and 20 ,000 gus cues now ???? guess --- they are still those same $175 dollar cues

There is a Difference between a Cue Assembler and a Cue Maker. Kevin Varney is Cue Assembler, which simply means that he has gotten to the point where his abilities allow him to produce no cues without purchased blanks even if the cue has the simplest point design. Kevin is like many other beginning Cue Makers, including myself and many others on this forum, who assemble cues but have not yet perfected point blank construction. You can not compare his work to that of Cue Makers who make everything except pins and bumpers.

Kevin has made these comparisons in the past, in a past thread there was a comparison to Kevin and Andy Gilbert . This is very laughable, but he was convinced that he was Andy's equal.

In the end what any member choses to believe is their right!!! However, the question now is not how good Kevin's cues may be to some of you, it is in fact his lack of communication with his customers. For anyone to say that this is acceptable, OK, should be expected, or let an artist work, please come back to reality it's not to late, there is still hope for you.

 

[Rocket354]

You might want to read the rest of the thread before posting...

There would be no contract about an end time, even if you traced it through paypal, saying you did pay him and that he will deliver a cue, without a specified end date, there was no violation of the law.

For me at least I have saved PMs that are dated and show KV promising certain delivery times. There's also many, many people who would be willing to say that KV promises 90 days on his J/B cues. I think demonstrating that KV has not met contracted dates would be pretty easy.

Oh, and to short-circuit your next desperate attempt to play lawyer, but if all this did go to court I think people would make sure it goes through civil court instead of criminal court, where the standards of proof are much lower. Beyond a reasonable doubt has no meaning in civil court.

 

[ericdraven]

hey logic how are you doing today. any plans for rest of weekend it is getting hot here as usual . heading to a good ole fashion pig picking tonight in charlotte . you like to fish and hike ??

 

[dave sutton]

There is a Difference between a Cue Assembler and a Cue Maker. Kevin Varney is Cue Assembler, which simply means that he has gotten to the point where his abilities allow him to produce no cues without purchased blanks even if the cue has the simplest point design. Kevin is like many other beginning Cue Makers, including myself and many others on this forum, who assemble cues but have not yet perfected point blank construction. You can not compare his work to that of Cue Makers who make everything except pins and bumpers.

One of the greatest of all time was a cue assembler. I think he can make a short splice blank. I am in no way defending kv bc communication is key.

as buyers and not maker some have no clue the problems that can occur. You can be a month or more into making the cue and have to start all over. Sometimes wood moves and mines again and that's it.

I never understood over inflated wait times. Now I do. If I say 1 year and you get it in 10 months your happy. If I say 3 and you get it in 5 your pissed.

How Many times do you think a maker finishes a cue and the buyer doesnt have the money. Now its a mad rush to sell the cue. You never hear a thread about this This buisness will never be perfect.

 

[Buckeyejim]

Delete

One of the greatest of all time was a cue assembler. I think he can make a short splice blank. I am in no way defending kv bc communication is key.

as buyers and not maker some have no clue the problems that can occur. You can be a month or more into making the cue and have to start all over. Sometimes wood moves and mines again and that's it.

I never understood over inflated wait times. Now I do. If I say 1 year and you get it in 10 months your happy. If I say 3 and you get it in 5 your pissed.

How Many times do you think a maker finishes a cue and the buyer doesnt have the money. Now its a mad rush to sell the cue. You never hear a thread about this This buisness will never be perfect.

Delete-DELETE

 

[manwon]

One of the greatest of all time was a cue assembler. I think he can make a short splice blank. I am in no way defending kv bc communication is key.

as buyers and not maker some have no clue the problems that can occur. You can be a month or more into making the cue and have to start all over. Sometimes wood moves and mines again and that's it.

I never understood over inflated wait times. Now I do. If I say 1 year and you get it in 10 months your happy. If I say 3 and you get it in 5 your pissed.

How Many times do you think a maker finishes a cue and the buyer doesnt have the money. Now its a mad rush to sell the cue. You never hear a thread about this This buisness will never be perfect.

Hey Dave, I agree with you for the most part, however, I personally always give the buyer the opinion when the cue is completed to either buy it or receive a refund if a deposit was given.

How Many times do you think a maker finishes a cue and the buyer doesnt have the money. Now its a mad rush to sell the cue. You never hear a thread about this This buisness will never be perfect.

Maybe it is my location, however, while I have had this occur, due to a financial difficulty, I have never had a problem moving the cue. I have never been able to put a completed cue in a display case for sale, and I am just a hack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By doing things in this manner, the buyer has always returned and bought a different cue later, simple because of the treatment they received.

Have a good day Dave.

 

[dave sutton]

the advantage to doing work locally is adjustments can be made. I am a "players" cuemaker. What's best for the player. I also havent made a cue that wasn't sold before completion. Only 2 if my cues made It to az and that was for resale. You're a stand up guy craig. I wish there were more makers like us. I hear many stories about a customer getting a cue and itvwa a lemon and they got stuck. Maker doesnt want to hear anything. Its happened to me. That's why I only deal with - R- for my customs. I don't care how high he gets in price. He treats me right

Hey Dave, I agree with you for the most part, however, I personally always give the buyer the opinion when the cue is completed to either buy it or receive a refund if a deposit was given.

How Many times do you think a maker finishes a cue and the buyer doesnt have the money. Now its a mad rush to sell the cue. You never hear a thread about this This buisness will never be perfect.

Maybe it is my location, however, while I have had this occur, due to a financial difficulty, I have never had a problem moving the cue. I have never been able to put a completed cue in a display case for sale, and I am just a hack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By doing things in this manner, the buyer has always returned and bought a different cue later, simple because of the treatment they received.

Have a good day Dave.

 

[Rocket354]

One of the greatest of all time was a cue assembler. I think he can make a short splice blank. I am in no way defending kv bc communication is key.

as buyers and not maker some have no clue the problems that can occur. You can be a month or more into making the cue and have to start all over. Sometimes wood moves and mines again and that's it.

I never understood over inflated wait times. Now I do. If I say 1 year and you get it in 10 months your happy. If I say 3 and you get it in 5 your pissed.

How Many times do you think a maker finishes a cue and the buyer doesnt have the money. Now its a mad rush to sell the cue. You never hear a thread about this This buisness will never be perfect.

Your points are certainly valid, and I agree a lot goes on in cuemaking that us customers don't realize.

However, I think an experienced cuemaker (or assembler) should take all those potential delays and problems into consideration when dealing with customers. If the maker thinks he can get a cue made in 90 days but only if everything goes right he should probably say "It should be 3 - 6 months." He should not say, "I will have it ready to ship 90 days or less." The former is accurate, the latter is quite clearly not. In fact, one could argue the latter is downright dishonest, and possibly only done to draw in another unsuspecting customer willing to hand over money. Some people, myself included, only bought because of the 90 day guarantee. Otherwise I would have gotten a production J/B off the proverbial shelf.

Also, a mad rush to sell a cue? Really? What's so mad about it? A cuemaker has a cue and he lists it for sale and it sells often enough. As someone in a previous thread once said, unless a cue is somehow super unique or strange, there's a market for it. For example, up until this snafu occurred, KV's J/B cues were as good as cash on these forums. If he completes one and the buyer backs out, he can simply list it for sale and have it gone within hours often, if not then definitely within a couple days.

Yes, I'm sure it's annoying when a buyer backs out, but a small deposit takes care of that. I have no problem with a cuemaker requesting a non-refundable $50 deposit or whatever. Then if the buyer backs out, he has $50 for his troubles, and can turn around and sell his cue and maybe even come out slightly ahead. Any quality cuemaker should not have a problem selling a cue. And if he is having problems selling cues, then, as this current situation shows, taking money upfront with unrealistic promises is most definitely not a good way to help his business.

 

[J$Cincy]

There is a Difference between a Cue Assembler and a Cue Maker. Kevin Varney is Cue Assembler, which simply means that he has gotten to the point where his abilities allow him to produce no cues without purchased blanks even if the cue has the simplest point design. Kevin is like many other beginning Cue Makers, including myself and many others on this forum, who assemble cues but have not yet perfected point blank construction. You can not compare his work to that of Cue Makers who make everything except pins and bumpers.

Kevin has made these comparisons in the past, in a past thread there was a comparison to Kevin and Andy Gilbert . This is very laughable, but he was convinced that he was Andy's equal.

In the end what any member choses to believe is their right!!! However, the question now is not how good Kevin's cues may be to some of you, it is in fact his lack of communication with his customers. For anyone to say that this is acceptable, OK, should be expected, or let an artist work, please come back to reality it's not to late, there is still hope for you.

Then KV must be in rehab... because if he thinks his skills are equal to Andy Gilbert's skills then he must really be "HIGH"...He seems to me as another one of those makers who think they have just reinvented the wheel... The only thing I have every seen him do that no other person does is make the jump handle of the jumpbreak cue long, which is f****n' stupid; defeats the purpose , which is to create a light jump cue...hence why no one else does it... JS

 

[Snapshot9]

Actually

everyone on this forum has to have an email address. When you PM someone, it sends out a notification to their email address notifying them that they have received a Private Message on the forum.

I, personally, would think that Kevin would tell customers his personal or business email address for communicating with them anyway when he was making a cue for them.

There is no reason to start a thread on the subject, it is personal business, and best kept between the 2 parties, unless you thought the thread would give you some type of leverage.

 

[Rocket354]

everyone on this forum has to have an email address. When you PM someone, it sends out a notification to their email address notifying them that they have received a Private Message on the forum.

I, personally, would think that Kevin would tell customers his personal or business email address for communicating with them anyway when he was making a cue for them.

There is no reason to start a thread on the subject, it is personal business, and best kept between the 2 parties, unless you thought the thread would give you some type of leverage.

KV shares no personal info. Now much of that stuff is floating around anyways, but it still remains that he seems to prefer communicating through this board.

And yes, these threads are leverage for us many unhappy customers. He has our money. We can't get a hold of him. Our only recourse is to apply more pressure the only way we can. And to share with others, who may have been in danger of getting blinded by the hype, the reality of being a customer of KV.

This also serves to let each other know that we aren't unappreciative, pushy, rude customers, which is what our scant communication with KV would have us believe. There are many of us all in the same boat, so it's nice to know that we are in fact sane, reasonable people being pushed around.

 

[The King]

Shame ...

It is a ashame that a person that had such a great reputatiopn going for him has let it go down hill like this . I had considered Varney after reading all the great things about his cues. Now I am very glad that I went in other directions ... this is very sad to read all of this over and over in so many different threads. Not sure why he does not step forward to try to do type of damage control. It also does not look good that his freinds are on here defending him and he does not come forward to back them up but kind of leaves them out there hanging to support him. Somehow , Someway this mess had had to leak back to him and what all is being said here...

Very sad situation for all involved.

 

[Dawgie]

Nothing is going to change what has happened to those who have sent in deposits or payment in full to KV in exchange for one of his cues. I know it will hurt some more than to let this situation go but it's something to think about. Try to chalk it up to experience and maybe some day KV will actually send you what you have paid for. Then again maybe he will not send you anything.

Move on and save your money and buy another brand of cue. Let's be realistic about his abilities and materials. He simply can't be better than all other cue makers, it's just impossible. It isn't a magic wand and it isn't going to be. For those that think otherwise you are just fooling yourselves.

Our country has many good and excellent cue makers with years of cue making and business experience. Of course it financially hurts but it is the way it is. If KV's cues have some type of magical powers, has he had his design patented, his brand trademarked? If he is really as good as his "friends" say he is why do people buy cues made by other cue builders. After reading these and other threads about KV I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one, and this is being kind.

 

[dave sutton]

I'm not sure how many of you read this post but how effective would an email address be if someones computer is down. I know his pc crashed and I don't have a dime invested with him. Maybe all numbers were in the computer. That is what they are for

 

[hoosier_cues]

I'm not sure how many of you read this post but how effective would an email address be if someones computer is down. I know his pc crashed and I don't have a dime invested with him. Maybe all numbers were in the computer. That is what they are for

That is one scary situation. I would HOPE he had all of his info backed-up.

 

[manwon]

Nothing is going to change what has happened to those who have sent in deposits or payment in full to KV in exchange for one of his cues. I know it will hurt some more than to let this situation go but it's something to think about. Try to chalk it up to experience and maybe some day KV will actually send you what you have paid for. Then again maybe he will not send you anything.

Move on and save your money and buy another brand of cue. Let's be realistic about his abilities and materials. He simply can't be better than all other cue makers, it's just impossible. It isn't a magic wand and it isn't going to be. For those that think otherwise you are just fooling yourselves.

Our country has many good and excellent cue makers with years of cue making and business experience. Of course it financially hurts but it is the way it is. If KV's cues have some type of magical powers, has he had his design patented, his brand trademarked? If he is really as good as his "friends" say he is why do people buy cues made by other cue builders. After reading these and other threads about KV I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one, and this is being kind.

Nothing is going to change what has happened to those who have sent in deposits or payment in full to KV in exchange for one of his cues. I know it will hurt some more than to let this situation go but it's something to think about. Try to chalk it up to experience and maybe some day KV will actually send you what you have paid for. Then again maybe he will not send you anything

Dawgie, what you said above may be OK for you or even me if I had a cue coming from Kevin. However, many of these people have spent hard earned money that did not come easy. Next, it is very important to never let this individual do this again to anyone on this forum. You see Dawgie history along with peoples negative actions tend to repeat themselves if forgotten.

This is something we as members can not allow to happen to our new members. This situation must continue until every person owed a cue either gets that cue or a full refund of their money. Anyone who disputes this only looks foolish, and will lose their credibility along with Kevin, because everyone is judged by the company they chose to keep!!!!!

 

[manwon]

I'm not sure how many of you read this post but how effective would an email address be if someones computer is down. I know his pc crashed and I don't have a dime invested with him. Maybe all numbers were in the computer. That is what they are for

Dave, he could simple go to any public Library and post to the forum, or contact a friend and use a friends computer to post to the forum. Then there is his buddy Irish that has Kevin's cell number, he could have contact all these members, and passed their numbers along to Kevin.

With communicate resources available today there really is no excuse for a lack of communication Dave.

No disrespect intended, I just can not buy that this could just be a misunderstanding, sorry Dave.