Doug, I am still in shock because I expected the meteorite community to be small, friendly and ethical. I have had wonderful experience purchasing, learning and getting guidance from Martin Horejsi, Adam Hupe, Greg Hupe, Michael Farmer and others.
Martin Altman and Stefan got blinded by the large $$$ sale and couldnt control their greed. They sold all of their ethics, morals and even the sense of unlawful activities for $264K. I commend IMCA board members for taking the ethics violation seriously. They spent countless hours investigating the complaint and concluded that Stefan and Martin needed to honor their obligations. See below email from president of IMCA so you can see the facts. This is not my personal opinion of fraud committed by Stefan and Martin Altman but this the opinion of 8 reputed meteorite community leaders on the board of IMCA. Here are the string of emails from Anne Black (President of IMCA) that speak for themselves: ========================================================================= From: Impactika [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, August 01, 2011 1:18 PM To: Naveen Jain Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: Update Hello Naveen, Ok, we are done. Martin was voted off the Board last week. Then we asked for his resignation from the IMCA. He asked for a few days to think about it, then this morning he emailed us that he was resigning. I am still very sorry that we could not get to an amicable resolution of this dispute, I really hoped......., but in the end we were giving very little choice. Thanks you for your patience. Anne Black =================================================================== From: Impactika [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 12:28 PM To: [email protected]; Naveen Jain Subject: Complaint: Last attempt at a solution Naveen and Martin, Thank you for all the documentation you have both sent to us. We have reviewed it carefully, discussed it within the Board of Directors and we have voted on it. And we are now ready to act on this complaint. However, to be absolutely fair to both of you, we would like to give you one last chance to resolve this dispute with a mutually acceptable compromise. Going through the documentation we have isolated three options that have been suggested by either one of you at one time or another. These 3 options are listed below. Please look at them carefully and do let us know if there is anyway you might agree on either one of them. Let's give it a couple days for both of you to think about it, but if you tell us that no compromise is possible, then we are certainly ready to publish the decision we have reached in accordance with the ByLaws of the IMCA. 1)Return Kreep lunar for $124,387 and Green lunar for $54,152. Total $178,539. 2) Keep green lunar but return lunar Kreep for what was paid ($124,387) and refund 25K from the price of green lunar. Total refund: $149,387. 3) Return all meteorites for a full refund. Thank you for your patience and your cooperation. Copy sent to the Board of Directors Anne M. Black www.IMPACTIKA.com [email protected] President of IMCA www.IMCA.cc ============================================================================ = From: Impactika [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 1:24 PM To: Naveen Jain Cc: stefan ralew; [email protected] Subject: Dispute Resolution Hello, I am sorry to have to admit that the resolution is not what we were hoping for. Stefan Ralew has informed us that he is the legal owner of "Chladni's Heirs", as proven by the fact that your payments were sent to him and that the invoices came directly from him, not from Martin Altmann. Therefore he is the only one entitled to making any business decisions. Further Stefan Ralew has resigned from the International Meteorite Collectors Association, and has made it very clearly that any efforts from the IMCA regarding this dispute were not welcome. Therefore, working strictly within the framework of the IMCA ByLaws, there is nothing further we can do. Again I am very sorry we were not able to help you reach a mutually acceptable compromise. Thank you for your patience. Anne M. Black www.IMPACTIKA.com [email protected] President of IMCA www.IMCA.cc ============================================================================ == Naveen Jain Founder - Moon Express, Intelius, InfoSpace Board of Trustee X Prize Foundation, Singularity University http://www.linkedin.com/in/naveenjainintelius From: MexicoDoug [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, August 01, 2011 7:49 PM To: Naveen Jain Subject: OFF LIST: Martin & Stefan Hello again Naveen - I am very sorry to learn about your problem. Shocked is more like it. I have always held Martin and Stefan in high esteem and honestly so you know have considered them friends. It is a shock that this would have happened. Though I am friendly with them, business is business and I would never mix the two. I have made several purchases from Martin and Stefan, some appreciable in amount and I am sure it is about $10K in total over the years. I would like to hear the story to be able to form my own opinion of what happened. It is very important to me to know that I am dealing with ethical people, even those that are/were friends. Sometimes friends can be terrible business associates, something I have run into in the past. So please give me the detailed information. I will keep it confidential - doesn't matter, and I'll be sure to give you my personal and confidential take on it if you ask in return for the information. And they are bigger fools than I though to mess with you, perhaps they didn't know who they were dealing with. Kindest wishes Doug -----Original Message----- From: Naveen Jain <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, Aug 1, 2011 9:57 pm Subject: [meteorite-list] Stefan Ralew and Martin Altman kicked out of IMCA for illegal activities I just got the conformation from president of IMCA, Anne Black, that Stefan Ralew and Martin Altman are no longer member of IMCA. As you may already know, Stefan and Martin were systematically engaged in mail fraud and wire fraud. I was one of their many victims and decided to file a complaint against them with IMCA since they were both members of IMCA. Martin Altman had lured me in by lots of stuff by telling me that he was a board member of IMCA and I can return anything that I don't want or like. I have to thank IMCA board members for their diligent effort in investigating the complaint. IMCA board members unanimously concluded that Stefan and Martin needed to honor their obligations and act ethically as a member of IMCA. IMCA board laid out options for Stefan and Martin to honor their obligation. They were essentially asked to stop engaging in unethical and illegal behavior. See below is my official complaint to IMCA. As I said, IMCA thoroughly investigated the complaint and IMCA board unanimously voted to force them to honor their obligation of full refund. I strongly suspect that Stefan and Martin either sent me the either fake or low quality meteorite and were afraid to give the refunds for the garbage that they sold me under deceit and fraud of promising full refund with clear intent of not honoring the obligation. I am sending this note to warn all meteorite collectors to watch out so they don't become their next victim. I will be happy to provide more details if anyone wants it. I have consulted my legal counsel and probably will file lawsuit to avoid them from profiting from their illegal activities. I may also contact my friends at FBI to investigate their mail and wire fraud scam. ----- Original Message ----- From: "I.M.C.A. International Meteorite Collectors Association" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 10:18 AM Subject: IMCA Complaints > > Your Name: Naveen Jain > Your E-Mail: [email protected] > Are you an IMCA member?: no > > Message: I am a new collector and purchased 9 meteorite specimens from > Martin Altman (director of IMCA). Martin touted his being a director of > IMCA to give me comfort and entice me to buy it from him. I specifically > asked him if I will be able to return any item that I didn't like and he > said that it's their normal practice and part of the German consumer > protection law (see email from him below). The return policy on their > website also clearly states the same i.e. a customer can return any item > within 30 days for a full refund. i contacted them within 24 hours of my > receiving the items that I want to return 2 of the 9 specimens that I > received. They are now refusing to return the item and refund my money. I > am now being told that I am somehow a business customer and my order that > was sold from their stock as shown on their website is somehow a custom > order because it was packed for shipping to US. > > I will like to refund everything to them if they have problem returning 2 > out of 9 orders. > > Here is the email from Martin Altman: > > From: Martin Altmann [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2011 3:37 PM > To: Naveen Jain > Subject: AW: Few thoughts.. > > Hi Naveen, > >>As we discussed in the past, I am assuming that you will happily return >>any of the meteorite that I don't like after I look at them for a full >>refund. > > Nja."happily". perhaps not :-) ; > But of course that is our business standard. > And btw. here in Germany we have a strong consumers protection. By law we > would be obligated to take back everything sold via internet, if the buyer > returns it within 3 weeks. Warm regards, Naveen Naveen Jain Founder - Moon Express, Intelius, InfoSpace Board of Trustee - X Prize Foundation, Singularity University http://www.linkedin.com/in/naveenjainintelius ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
