First let me say that I placed an order with Neighborjohn about two weeks ago and it was excellent. Shipping time was 5 business days (which is what he advertises) and the quality was great, plus he threw in extra. It was a very smooth transaction.
However, there are some things about this vendor that worry me.. 1. He requires FE for every order 2. He only offers a 3-5 day shipping option 3. His product is incredibly cheap (1.25/bar) and has now dropped to .99/bar 4. The only other listings he has are for huge quantities (and of course they require FE) 5. He recently posted that he is running low on supply, so you better "order while you can" cause he will be out for a while after 6. Has over 3 pages of "FE'd, will update" reviews 7. He posted that packages were sent late, but they can be expected this wednesday
All these signs, at least to me, point to him planning to exit scam. He pulled in customers with incredible prices and good quality. He demanded FE from the beginning so buyers would be less sketched about that. His shipping (3-5 days only) leaves plenty of room to say "give it time, it's coming" and not have to worry about a tracking number. Starting out, he actually does complete a bunch of orders successfully with good product, so he has pages of glowing, positive feedback. Then he lowers his prices to the absolute cheapest price on the site and says hurry up and get them before I run out for a while. Meanwhile, people see all the good feedback he has gotten thus far and aren't worried about making an order and finalizing early. And he can explain all the FE's on his feedback page by the shipping time and his delay in shipping.. So placing a date to "expect" orders by for Wednesday leaves a nice window open for more people to place orders before things get fishy.
Full Disclosure - I got scammed on an exit scam by a different vendor pretty recently, so maybe I am just a tiny bit paranoid now. But these signs sure do seem to point to something going on. I honestly hope I'm dead wrong about all this because NJ seemed to be such a great vendor and I loved his prices and product. I was excited about future orders with him, but now I'm scared to make another.
Anybody have any input? Opinions? Bad experiences with him? Has anyone actually received their order since the price drop?
UPDATE It was an exit scam.
Ahh fuck.. he is now on vacation and deleted his profile and pgp. We've been had.