The legal system ie. small claims court is your best option preferably in the geographical area where he does business. Unfortunately, international customers are at a disadvantage in these situations unless you take matters in your own hands. With the emphasis of doing this as inexpensively as possible I would find out how to legally assign agency of your claim to a local lawyer and run this up the flag pole as expediently as is possible. I also feel that it is very reasonable to attempt to collect interest to offset some of the unintentinal currency risk you incurred during this process.
Word is that after selling his building and coming into some money now is the time to get this done. It is very sad to see these course of events taking place. Several years ago I told Ron on this forum that if he did not change his ways it was only a matter of time until other camera makers that understand customer service would erode his sales to the point where it would take him out of the game. All I heard from him at the time were excuses about how hard it is to get good workers or how difficult it is to juggle the enormous demand and continue to bring out new products. Complete denial of the issues at hand and a continuation of the poker table business practices. Collect money on future orders from people that should know better, promise the moon to the pleading clients and hope that there is enough cash flow to make payroll and pay the rest of the bills.
People like Ron that have this personality type continue to look for external factors to blame for the sequence of events that take place rather than taking personal responsibility for the fact that you should not say one thing and do another. He is the reason that his business is at risk and we in the LF community are the ones that suffer. An extension of this mentality will blame the demise of film or needing a rest of something for his departure from the game hoping that customers will be pleading with him to make them a camera and once again - front the continuation of his "new" business with pay ahead orders. Not a good thing before and surely not one in the future.
The LF industry will survive quite well without him for as long as he decides to be a victum. Maybe one of these days he will buy a full length mirror and start looking into it on regular intervals.
Keep us posted on your efforts to get your refund!
Onward!
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