Syco... Real or Fraud???

[Johnny2d]

I'm trying to get to the bottom of this because I was really looking forward to the Skarlet statue. Rumors are coming out that Syco doesn't have the license to sell mk products, and more rumors are popping up about artists and business partners having problems with them. Some of my info has been coming from profile posts and most rumors are leading back to this thread on Statue Forums, and more specifically this post from a poster called mrichards2002:

Hi Everyone,

First let me say to all of the artists and people who have been scammed by this individual and company in the past, I am truly sorry. Being in business for 25+ years I've run into many characters myself. We've been following this closely and based on the information provided, we decided to check into this.

With this being said, we can confirm that Syco DOES NOT have the licensing rights to sell in the US. The legitimate license is between Jazwares (Figures) and Pop Culture Shock/Sideshow (Statues).

With this being said, our company no longer has any affiliations with Syco collectibles or Mr Martin (or whatever his real name is). We have cancelled our exclusive (which is a shame because I really liked this piece) and ALL of this company's illegal product has been removed from our website/Ebay store etc.

We are not sure what the legal jurisdiction is, but we will try to legally pursue this.
We feel really sorry for all of the individuals and companies involved who are going to get hurt because of this.
In closing, we want to thank all of the people who brought this to light. I wish all of you well.

Thanks,
Mike

Source: http://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=134692&page=29

I am not a posting member of the statue community so I don't know what is truth or bs, or even bad blood between business dealers gone wrong. I don't know what to believe here. I've seen Syco new releases posted on TYM front page STORMS, and I've seen threads where people are talking about getting statues. Have people gotten their statues?

This apology was issued on the Syco website:

I am sorry that We/I have to make another apology/statement again. I am not going to write a long statement or explanation here,. There is a lot of things being said and accusations being made, but what I want to let everyone know is that, Yes there is no Smoke without Fire. I am not totally innocent of some of these things, but things are being blown out of proportion. I dont want to start or get into a mud slinging contest.

I have made mistakes in my past and trusted certain people, I am only human I was sometimes over enthusiastic but just wanted to succeed and try to do something good with my life.

All of this is in the past and in the last 2 years Syco has produced good products and delivered to its customers along with a good customer service...

I can only apologize from the bottom of my heart and with sincerity to anyone that has been caught in the crossfire and to anyone who has been hurt due to any misgivings on my part. Also to all our customers and fans that have had to read everything over the past few weeks.

As a company we will continue to develop good quality products and improve on our quality and production times. Sometime things out of our control, such as factory schedules change, there is a problem with the some part and needs to be fixed, these unfortunately delay the product.

But we would rather delay then to send out a sub standard product to our customers.

All customers that have orders with us can rest assure that they will be 100% delivered, we are ramping up production after Chinese New Year and items that have been delayed will be coming out for release shortly.

Smoke is on target and Noob Saibot. After Chinese New Year Scorpion and then the others will follow.

We are getting back to showing you Production Blogs and so you will be able to see all the products and the stages they are at right up until production.

As a company, we just wanted to create good quality products and give a good service to our customers. That's all and we want to continue to do do this.

I can only hope that you will continue to let us do this.

Thank you,
Jonathan Martin
Syco Collectibles

Source: http://www.sycocollectibles.com/content/syco-collectibles-announcement

I have given them my preorder money for the Skarlet statue, and I've gotten emails from them confirming that my order will be shipped in the next couple of months... but I am pretty concerned at this point. I'm also wondering what the official TYM staff think of this, if you guys know anything, because frankly, the TYM logo stands out front and center on their home page, I kind of took that as a symbol of trust, 'oh TYM endorses this company??? hell yeah I'll buy some statues'. Not that I would blame you guys if things are going downhill for them, I just wonder if you guys know about this stuff, or are looking into it since your logo is right there, and a lot of us trust you guys.

Any thoughts are more than welcome, I need to know if I should try to get my preorder money back. I guess I'm still holding out hope for the Skarlet statue since I know no one else is going to make anything like it.

 

[Johnny2d]

s_paulik87 You are welcome to join this discussion since you've given the warning and the links. Thanks for the info btw, now I'm just trying to weed through the rumors/facts.

 

[G4S Killin Natzees]

Damn that sucks that she never came dude. I haven't bought anything from them before do i can't say anything about them being legit or not.

 

[Johnny2d]

Damn that sucks that she never came dude. I haven't bought anything from them before do i can't say anything about them being legit or not.

Well I knew it was preorder, I just think its bad that they take your money months ahead of time before its ready... that and then all these rumors are coming out now

 

[BDMao88]

Remember that poetry contest that wanted you to give them your e-mail? Yeah it disappeared and I bet they sold our info...

 

[SLy]

Skarlet Statue?

I was looking forward to her Alternate costume that never dropped..Im still mad behind that

 

[Johnny2d]

Skarlet Statue?

I was looking forward to her Alternate costume that never dropped..Im still mad behind that

Yeah, this: http://sycocollectibles.com/content/skarlet-10-statue But people are saying that they don't even have the license to make/sell these.

 

[Verstande]

Skarlet Statue?

I was looking forward to her Alternate costume that never dropped..Im still mad behind that

I know I would instantly switch mains if she had her alt

 

[C-Sword]

Not sure about the whole licensing stuff, but the paint job they did on Ermac was beyond terrible, don't let the pics fool you

 

[YOMI Reno_Racks]

TylerLantern

 

[STORMS]

Johnny2d you should have no issues getting your statue. I am hearing from a source that processed orders will be sent out.

We as "TYM" are not affiliated with them besides the discounts we were offered on the early MK statues. We've had no contact at all recently nor do we know the facts behind these rumors.

 

[TylerLantern]

Remember that poetry contest that wanted you to give them your e-mail? Yeah it disappeared and I bet they sold our info...

First of all, this is not true. I was actually one of the runner ups and I got my free statue, so we can lay that rest right now. See, that right there is exactly how rumors like this get started in the first place.

Second of all, I have ordered many statues from Syco and I have always gotten A+ customer service from them. I even got a statue in the mail that had a tiny piece broke off due to being thrown around during the shipping process, and I contacted Syco about it, and they sent me a free statue and let me keep the damaged one as well. I have heard a lot of the people calling Syco out are people who were fired from Syco and are now mad, but that is just rumor also.

I can't really speak on what is really going on because I have no idea, but I do know this: Syco has been nothing but exceptional in their shipping and customer service to me. They have went out of their way to make sure I was happy on 2 different occasions. I will keep ordering from them until I have a bad experience. I now have over 10 statues/busts from Syco, and am very happy with them. As far as paint jobs go, every statue I have gotten from them has awesome paint jobs. I don't know how anyone could say the Ermac paint job sucked.

Yeah, this: http://sycocollectibles.com/content/skarlet-10-statue But people are saying that they don't even have the license to make/sell these.

They do not have a license to sell their statues from a physical location WITHIN the US. They are not located in the US though, they are located in China, hence why they are able to do this. Netherrealm people and WB people themselves have ordered these statues and had them delivered directly to their door step, so I am pretty sure they are able to ship to the US without a problem from WB.

And as far as your Skarlet statue goes, the release date was pushed back. This happens ALL the time with statues. They even posted on their FaceBook page not that long ago explaining when Skarlet will be shipped out. Statue release dates get pushed back all the time.

 

[BDMao88]

First of all, this is not true. I was actually one of the runner ups and I got my free statue, so we can lay that rest right now. See, that right there is exactly how rumors like this get started in the first place.

So rumors get started by me following the process and NEVER getting an e-mail?! Notice I did post in the original poetry thread and never heard anything after that. Signed up for their newsletter and you will be e-mailed instructions, I NEVER was yet I do get an e-mail from them time to time... STB TakeAChance

I'm not spreading a rumor, I'm speaking from personal experience...I never saw anything on the front page regarding the contest going live either.

 

[TakeAChance]

I agree, I submitted my e-mail and never EVER got a follow up. All that they said was that there would be a link on the website within a couple of days. I can confirm BDMao88's testimony that I was never once contacted afterwards.

TylerLantern

If you indeed did get second, which almost assuredly you did, I would really love to hear about the process you went through to actually submit your piece.

 

[Johnny2d]

I can't really speak on what is really going on because I have no idea, but I do know this: Syco has been nothing but exceptional in their shipping and customer service to me. They have went out of their way to make sure I was happy on 2 different occasions. I will keep ordering from them until I have a bad experience. I now have over 10 statues/busts from Syco, and am very happy with them. As far as paint jobs go, every statue I have gotten from them has awesome paint jobs. I don't know how anyone could say the Ermac paint job sucked.

They do not have a license to sell their statues from a physical location WITHIN the US. They are not located in the US though, they are located in China, hence why they are able to do this. Netherrealm people and WB people themselves have ordered these statues and had them delivered directly to their door step, so I am pretty sure they are able to ship to the US without a problem from WB.

And as far as your Skarlet statue goes, the release date was pushed back. This happens ALL the time with statues. They even posted on their FaceBook page not that long ago explaining when Skarlet will be shipped out. Statue release dates get pushed back all the time.

Awesome, thanks for your detailed reply. I was hearing ALOT of negative so I wanted to throw out a post to see if I got any positive responses. I really wanted it to go well, and I don't even care about waiting, I was expecting it when preordering. I just had no way to determine what was truth or bs without getting opinions from those who might know more than me.
Also for the record, they have been good about answering the questions that I have asked when I have asked them, I was just getting a little worried when I was reading all the negative posts, and people were telling me I am getting scammed.

 

[Johnny2d]

Johnny2d you should have no issues getting your statue. I am hearing from a source that processed orders will be sent out.

We as "TYM" are not affiliated with them besides the discounts we were offered on the early MK statues. We've had no contact at all recently nor do we know the facts behind these rumors.

Thanks man, I just felt out of the loop and was hearing a lot of junk.

 

[Red Reaper]

I would be worried too if I read all those rumors..

Especially konsidering all the money you have to lay down.

 

[s_paulik87]

Just read the posts in the link in one of my previous status. Very shady. On my phone right now so i will join the convo when i get home

 

[Dizzy]

I know a while back they provided a statue for Medina4life to use as a prize for a fundraising stream when he was trying to get money to go to EVO. Was extremely cool of them to do that just out of goodwill to support a streamer.

GGA 16 Bit has a few of these and I think might have one of pre-order too. I think he has been happy with them as he keeps ordering them. I don't know any details really though.

 

[aj1701]

I'd be surprised if they weren't licensed to make these statues. Being in China doesn't mean they can violate American IP; it's likely the government would block imports of their products if they were making them without a license.

They claimed they licensed from WB all the MK characters from 1, 2, 3 & 9, and I haven't heard WB say otherwise, so I'd say they're legit. [Source: http://dailydead.com/contest-and-qa-mortal-kombat-statues-from-syco-collectibles/]

 

[s_paulik87]

So basically this just really needed to be brought to the attention of as many people as possible, especially those within the MK community which I do not want to possibly see get scammed/conned out of their cash. So much has been brought up in threads @ www.statueforum.com and many well respected sculptors within the community have chimed in and have no reason to lie about anything.

Sculpts have been stolen (which is the reason their Lou Ferrigno Hulk was pulled) and sculptors have been taken advantage of. The ceo Jonathon/Darren Martin has gone by different names and has fled countries apparently to hide from the law because of his past fraud charges, as well as personally put people in massive debt and bankrupt companies he has been part of due to his actions.

TylerLantern GGA Dizzy Johnny2d Indeed, there has been great reviews in their costumer service which, I am not saying this man is just going to scam everyone and take all the money and bounce, but since this has been exposed and he has posted 3 different apologies in the last few weeks to only take them down and shift blame on other people makes an alarm go off in my mind about him. As well as he is a known criminal, someone even posted links to his charges/ police records.

There is a crap load of info in that thread and it would be impossible for me to sum it all up here, but I will tell you if you have pre orders, or are thinking about pre ordering something the multiple threads on statue forums are a must read.

http://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=134692
http://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=134280
http://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=134563&page=7
http://statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=118976&page=47 starting@ post #468 this is about the lou ferrigno hulk stolen sculpt. and continues here:
http://statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=127401&page=10

and the following link you have to be a member to the site to see which is free but this is where it really all came out, that these are not all just rumors or people who are trying to get payback.

http://theclubhouse1.net/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=9

 

[TylerLantern]

Like I said, until I have a bad experience with them, I am going to keep ordering from them. I showed all of this to everyone I know who is ordering with Syco, and they all agree that Syco has never done them wrong, so we will stick behind them. I can't completely be against a company who has treated its customers with respect and helped them at every turn just because rumors are a float. I dont really see any REAL proof of anything in those threads besides the Hulk thing, and they wrote an apology letter for that after the fact from what I have read.

To be honest, it seems like a witch hunt for Syco's CEO, and like I said, no one has shown 100% proof that its the same guy everyone is talking about. Even if it is, people can always change. It just looks like 98% of the people commenting on that thread has no idea what is true or not and is just blindly following what they hear without proof. If I hear of customers getting treated badly, then I will reconsider, but I can't say screw this company just because people made bad business decisions and trusted the wrong people. That happens all the time in every type of business, and when it does, the customers do not get affected by this 90% of the time. Thanks for the info though guys.

 

[C-Sword]

Message from their facebook admin

Syco Collectibles' CEO, Jonathan Martin, is preparing a statement in regards to the recent accusations made against his name and his company. Effective immediately, I, Eduardo, have absolutely no involvement and no association with Syco Collectibles as the friendly and creative Community Manager of their Facebook or anything else involving the name of Syco Collectibles. I knew absolutely nothing of the recent events and accusations made against Syco Collectibles (until tonight) and I still do not have the proper understating/knowledge of their entire situation and of their background. ​

​

I have absolutely no part and no role in any of this. I can sincerely say that the CEO (Jonathan Martin) is making sure to step up and address these matters, but, I will not continue to be associated with Syco Collectibles in any way until all pending matters are resolved. Again, I must remark that this is only until everything is sorted out and explained and until all pending matters are resolved. I have sincere hope and faith that the good CEO will put all rumors and accusations to rest. I can only hope for the best. Only when all of this is cleared and resolved I will consider resuming my position as one of your humble Facebook administrators and MK friend. Until then, my best wishes to Syco Collectibles, and to all the followers of Syco. -Eduardo.​

 

[DanCock]

i better get both of my sindel statues.. O_O

 

[s_paulik87]

TylerLantern totally understandable, if I were to have bought from a company with no issues whatsoever and all of this came up I would probably be on their side also. The MK community just needs to be aware of the current issues that have arisen. If the CEO is able to address all of these issues, and continue to supply the statues without stealing sculpts and being 100% legit and give the sculptors that they stole from their fair share and due them right, then more power to them. This is what we all hope happens, so this is far from a "witch hunt" as you put it. I just urge you and everyone else that has SYCO pre orders in to keep up to date on what is happening in this situation! If any other major events happen I will for sure keep this discussion up to date as I do not want anyone to lose out on money. Just looking out for the TYM'ers since I myself have never dealt with SYCO.