In April, right after the Expo, I sent a cue to Martyne Bachman that was to be photographed to appear in the May or June Billiards Digest in the Wand Workshop section. She received the cue on April 14th and we traded a few emails that day. One of the emails said I would have the cue back early the next week.
It is now August and I still do not have the cue. I also have not received a response to my emails or phone calls to Martyne. The cue had been sold prior to sending it for photographs, but the Buyer wanted it to be in the magazine. We had no idea it would end up like this. He has been more than patient and both of us were against making this public, but it seems at this point we have no choice.
He has also made several phone calls and sent several emails to both martyne and the other email address at chalkers.com. Neither have replied. Nor have they replied to another AZer who set this up for me.
Billiards Digest was also no help. Their only response was:
Hey *****, the best chance to contact Martyne might be at the addresses/numbers listed on her website:
http://www.chalkers.com/id174.htm
Due to various circumstances, we have not run a Wand Workshop since our April issue, and we have no plans to revisit the section in the near future.
Sorry I cannot be of more help. Good luck.
Nicholas Leider
Managing Editor — Billiards Digest
We were starting to think that she dropped off the face of the earth, until another member here inquired about a cue on her website. She responded quickly and they traded three or four emails. When they had agreed on a price on the cue, she emailed him payment instructions. His reply to her (on Friday) was:
Hi - Thanks for quick response. I will make payment when Tony Zinzola has notified me that he has possession of the ebony butt that was sent to you months ago.
I will not buy a cue from you until this situation has been resolved. If you don't own the cue, return it. You of all people know how small this community is and while I don't know ALL of the details, I understand that this is not a good situation for a dealer to be in and made public.
I'll contact you to move forward once this issue is resolved.
He has not received a response from her since then.
At this point, I don’t know what else to do but make this public and hopefully people can put enough pressure on her to return the cue. I’ve already started a new one for the Buyer, but he will have to wait quite a while for something he should have had months ago if she doesn’t return this.
If anybody knows her, please help me get my cue back.
Thanks
Tony, I hope you get resolution from this situation but, I have feeling things will have to be handled by the law. The gentleman, I sell cues for also had the Spider cast one of her Webb's in his direction. She saw his cues and promised to include them in one of her articles. However, he had already heard about her dishonest business practices from other cue makers who she screwed / attempted to screw. So he offered to send her Photo's for the article, but she claimed that the photo's were not good enough to use, because she was trying to get something for nothing like she had done in the past. This broad doesn't do anything for free, and you are not the first person to fall in to her trap, I am surprised she has been getting away this this shit so long. I mean it is kinda a well know fact throughout the Billiards community she is dishonest.
After she screwed Brad Simpson on the Blue Book of Cues deal a few years back, which also caused the book to be delayed for two additional years, I though that most people new how worthless she is. I like the way Brad politely outs her in the beginning of the Third Edition of the Blue Book, the guy has class I certainly would have named places and names. I say to hell with Chalkers.Com, I hope this news spreads and I hope that Chalkers.com suffers over this crap. I will never order anything for my Business from them after this even if she makes it right, I hope that others follow suit and Boycott that place. It appears that some people do not understand how small the world really is.
Tony, again I hope everything works out, I am really sorry to hear about this.
Respectfully