Mark Alves + Don M&R Tech Scammed Me Out ot $8,000 - Need Advice?

By shirtmatic on Sep. 02, 2016
Forums: 
General Discussions

Hello guys,

I have waited a little over a month already to post this but I've finally gotten to a point where I have had enough. Mark Alves is a very active seller / middleman on these forums so I advise anyone to NOT do business with him. I purchased two dryers from this man and one was delivered, the other he made up some story about it getting damaged and that they found another one. They sent me the other one and it wasn't at all similiar. It wasnt the same size belt, heat chamber was smaller, and it wasn't even M&R! I did not accept the second dryer and they went back home with it.

Note ( I paid for professional delivery yet mark himself delivered it, these guys must be itching for money to pull that )

Now he has gone missing and I have about 10 texts or so deep with no response and its been several weeks. Throughout this entire exchange I was also in contact with his M&R tech "Don" that is all I know. Somehow these two are related and do these deals together. Mark sells the equipment and Don goes and installs it. Don was also the one who was offering me a different dryer and actually handling the discussion after the second one that I was supposed to get was 'damaged'.

I have plans on calling M&R and reporting this tech as well and will be putting them both on blast in the next several days on the internet and various other forums. I also plan on filing a police report and filing a lawsuit, only issue I dont have much info on them at the moment. If anyone can help or has information please share.

So far I have this:

Mark Alves
812-572-5334
markalves3342@gmail.com
His profile on here: http://www.digitsmith.com/members/markalves.html
As you can see he was actually active today, yet doesnt respond to his phone.
Location: Indiana / Kentucky
His bank info:
BANK INFORMATION
BANK NAME MAINSOURCE
ADDRESS 100 E. SPRING STREET
NEW ALBANY,INDIANA47150
CONTACT SHERRY SIMPSON
ACCOUNT NAME ALVES INDUSTRIES
ACCOUNT NUMBER 727 741 2
ROUTING NUMBER 074903308

Don (the m&r tech)
864-473-9789

Last person I talked to was Don and he was trying to tell me how they arent a 'scam' and if they were I would have not received anything, yet I received one dryer. I'm not sure if this man has lost his mind or is just an imbecile, but when you purchase such as a conveyor dryer for a business, you need it delivered and set up as soon as possible. Not wait 2 months.. Not to mention I have no response from him for sometimes several days, to a week, and when I do get a response it would be very generic like, we are working on getting you another one, just few more days, etc. Then they will tell me they found something and not tell me the specs for few more days later, then say something completely different just to prolong the wait.

Case in point, the original purchase of the second dryer was made for a particular unit that was damaged according to them. I agreed that I would let them send me a similiar replacement instead of just asking for a refund, (which I believe i am entitled to 100 percent as the original unit was damaged by them). I gave them a favor to resolve this and still keep the money, yet now its been almost two months and no second dryer and no money, and no response from them. Scam or not, when you purchase something and have to wait weeks to receive a response, and wait months to possibly receive your item, its a not a way to do business and to me is a scam.

Location: 
United States
Submitted by danlilsade on Sun, 11/13/2016 - 12:50

Used Equipment is rarely sold on any terms other than "pre-pay". This is for many reasons, but I think mainly it is due to buyers expecting something other than what they receive. Remember the commercial where the guy was supposed to be a French fashion model? If not it's like internet dating, get the idea?

Rarely does anyone decide to travel and inspect what they are considering for purchase. They want pictures, this can lead to serious deception. If the seller (broker or owner) sends you shots of then machine, ask them who took the pictures and when, or if they are even of the exact machine or a similar unit. When looking at these pictures study the background items (floor, shelves walls etc). It has been my experience that people will clean the machine up for the picture, but not the entire shop. The background areas are clues to to the type of shop the machine is coming from.

When I do an inspection to consider a purchase or contract for purchase, I have pretty good idea what is inside the building from what is outside the building eg: ratty cars, broken windows, knee high grass etc. This usually translates to crappy equipment on the inside. The background area of the photos can be used the same way for tip offs as to how the machine has been cared for during it's service life.

Some people are "neat freaks" that don't know the first thing about maintenance, these are the ones that can really hurt your bank account. I always recommend "in person" inspections, if you can't travel then send a qualified technician.

Used equipment is a great deal, a little effort when buying can payoff in a big way. Sitting behind your desk and trusting the seller could lead to a date with a Gorilla.

Seritech Inc.

ch54panel@yahoo.com

Submitted by shirtmatic on Fri, 12/30/2016 - 05:28

Information on these guys here. They both scammed me and I will not let it rest until every penny I am owed gets sent to me. They didn't scam me but outright stole my money. I paid for a dryer which I never received, and now they are sitting with my money for the past 4-6 months with no refund. Essentially stealing the money. I am hunting down family members, businesses, anyone that has contact with them I will find them and make sure these people are dealt with. The money is not the motive anymore, stopping these criminals for good is.

Mark Alves
https://www.facebook.com/mark.alves.7946
(812) 572-5334
800 S 4th St Apt 1804
Louisville, KY 40203
Email Address: markalves3342@gmail.com

Donald Blackwell
(864) 473-9789
Inman, SC 29349
Shop Address: 8180 Valley Falls Rd, Spartanburg, SC 29303
Possible home address: 201 Pointe Rd, Inman, SC 29349

Submitted by shirtmatic on Tue, 11/29/2016 - 04:36

Still nothing from these scumbags. They literally postpone everytime I contact them by another week, assuring me just one more week, almost done, almost this... Its complete nonesense to be handled like this. They owe me a little less than 5k at this point and for both of them not to have this money to send to me is a complete disgrace.

I try to just keep it cool and give them the time they need to come up with the money, however its looking like they may just be pulling my leg. Not only should you not to do business with either of them, they are criminals and deserve to be in jail. I am giving them about one more week before I escalate this to local authorities.

Submitted by shirtmatic on Fri, 09/09/2016 - 22:05

Just to update this thread:

They both contacted me very shortly after posting on here and asking for me to take it down. I told them absolutely not until they refund me my money obviously. Not to mention everything I said in the thread is 100 percent true, so if anyone else wants to buy from them then its a huge risk to take with these guys. You may not get the item, they may try to sell you another item, or they will just waste your time completelty, so beware!

Anyways, they sent me a photo of a bank wire that they "supposedly" sent last week on Friday, which at the time of writing this is 7 days ago, and guess what, the wire never hit my bank account. They were sending me 3k for a partial refund and insisted I take this post down "on good faith". Luckily I kept it up and now I'm glad I did since no money was received at all!

It seems like since I am keeping this thread alive and open I will not be getting a refund from Mark Alves so we will proceed with legal action and I encourage anyone that has any info to please message me so we can get this guy!

Thanks in advance!

Submitted by sieggysrv on Tue, 11/29/2016 - 10:20

shirtmatic wrote:
Still nothing from these scumbags. They literally postpone everytime I contact them by another week, assuring me just one more week, almost done, almost this... Its complete nonesense to be handled like this. They owe me a little less than 5k at this point and for both of them not to have this money to send to me is a complete disgrace.

I try to just keep it cool and give them the time they need to come up with the money, however its looking like they may just be pulling my leg. Not only should you not to do business with either of them, they are criminals and deserve to be in jail. I am giving them about one more week before I escalate this to local authorities.

This is Sieggy from Atlanta area and the phone number you posted for (DON)
is in fact Donnie Blackwell , and if he is envolved you will never see your money.

Robert Young's picture
Submitted by Robert Young on Sun, 11/06/2016 - 19:21

just a question... how did you meet these people? what did they do to make you think they were OK? as a person interested in future printing... I would like to learn. As a digitizer I have never given a nickle until the embroidery machine was delivered and in obvious working order..... so confused about you giving money up front? I am sorry, just not something I personally have ever done.... you deliver the goods.. show me they work THEN and only THEN will I give you payment. Otherwise you are just wasting my time.. and those companies that refused these terms... well not interested.

Modern Embroidery Designer
volant-tech.com
volantfineart.com

Submitted by shirtmatic on Sun, 11/06/2016 - 19:52

Robert Young wrote:
just a question... how did you meet these people? what did they do to make you think they were OK? as a person interested in future printing... I would like to learn. As a digitizer I have never given a nickle until the embroidery machine was delivered and in obvious working order..... so confused about you giving money up front? I am sorry, just not something I personally have ever done.... you deliver the goods.. show me they work THEN and only THEN will I give you payment. Otherwise you are just wasting my time.. and those companies that refused these terms... well not interested.

Its just the risk I was willing to take. I buy goods from ebay and other websites all the time without seeing them first. Its also a risk you have to be willing to take when your buying used equipment anyways, always something could be off but thats why your getting it for much cheaper than new, so most of the time its worth it. He has had a long standing account on here and also has been a consistent broker, a few hundred posts and counting so I figured he was legit.

Unfortunately no one will deliver equipment, install it for you and then let you decide whether you want it or not, would be nice if it worked that way!

Submitted by shirtmatic on Tue, 11/29/2016 - 16:43

sieggysrv wrote:
This is Sieggy from Atlanta area and the phone number you posted for (DON)
is in fact Donnie Blackwell , and if he is envolved you will never see your money.

You are right on, it does sound like a very similiar situation. I just googled for his name and found this thread, everything sounds exactly what they did to me.

http://www.digitsmith.com/warning-donald-donnie-blackwell-2-38863.html

Submitted by MightyClub on Sun, 01/08/2017 - 01:38

Yeah those dudes scammed me too. I bought a dryer and it was a **** show when it arrived. the boards were missing and all sorts of stuff needed to get fixed. They said they would cover whatever was wrong and missing but never did. Still chasing them to this day.

Submitted by shirtmatic on Thu, 10/20/2016 - 02:10

I received half of my money back, he still has not refunded me the entire amount. He claims I need to wait until he sells some more equipment so he has the money to pay me back. Not happy at all that I have to wait, very unprofessional and I wouldn't be surprised if I don't get the other half anytime soon.

Submitted by levdevplusm on Sat, 09/03/2016 - 17:14

I can easily relate to your problem. They did the same with me a year back.
I had to leave a ton of messages to his bank manager telling about how shitty was her client and expose them here on digitsmith. They finally refund me but it took 3 months.

Hope you get your money back. Never buy anything from those 2 guys.

P.S They even tryed to sell me a dryer that when I called the owner cause they were offering to little detail and wanted be sure what I was gonna get, I then learned it wasnt even for sell. They are pro scammer.

shirtmatic wrote:
Hello guys,

I have waited a little over a month already to post this but I've finally gotten to a point where I have had enough. Mark Alves is a very active seller / middleman on these forums so I advise anyone to NOT do business with him. I purchased two dryers from this man and one was delivered, the other he made up some story about it getting damaged and that they found another one. They sent me the other one and it wasn't at all similiar. It wasnt the same size belt, heat chamber was smaller, and it wasn't even M&R! I did not accept the second dryer and they went back home with it.

Note ( I paid for professional delivery yet mark himself delivered it, these guys must be itching for money to pull that )

Now he has gone missing and I have about 10 texts or so deep with no response and its been several weeks. Throughout this entire exchange I was also in contact with his M&R tech "Don" that is all I know. Somehow these two are related and do these deals together. Mark sells the equipment and Don goes and installs it. Don was also the one who was offering me a different dryer and actually handling the discussion after the second one that I was supposed to get was 'damaged'.

I have plans on calling M&R and reporting this tech as well and will be putting them both on blast in the next several days on the internet and various other forums. I also plan on filing a police report and filing a lawsuit, only issue I dont have much info on them at the moment. If anyone can help or has information please share.

So far I have this:

Mark Alves
812-572-5334
markalves3342@gmail.com
His profile on here: http://www.digitsmith.com/members/markalves.html
As you can see he was actually active today, yet doesnt respond to his phone.
Location: Indiana / Kentucky
His bank info:
BANK INFORMATION
BANK NAME MAINSOURCE
ADDRESS 100 E. SPRING STREET
NEW ALBANY,INDIANA47150
CONTACT SHERRY SIMPSON
ACCOUNT NAME ALVES INDUSTRIES
ACCOUNT NUMBER 727 741 2
ROUTING NUMBER 074903308

Don (the m&r tech)
864-473-9789

Last person I talked to was Don and he was trying to tell me how they arent a 'scam' and if they were I would have not received anything, yet I received one dryer. I'm not sure if this man has lost his mind or is just an imbecile, but when you purchase such as a conveyor dryer for a business, you need it delivered and set up as soon as possible. Not wait 2 months.. Not to mention I have no response from him for sometimes several days, to a week, and when I do get a response it would be very generic like, we are working on getting you another one, just few more days, etc. Then they will tell me they found something and not tell me the specs for few more days later, then say something completely different just to prolong the wait.

Case in point, the original purchase of the second dryer was made for a particular unit that was damaged according to them. I agreed that I would let them send me a similiar replacement instead of just asking for a refund, (which I believe i am entitled to 100 percent as the original unit was damaged by them). I gave them a favor to resolve this and still keep the money, yet now its been almost two months and no second dryer and no money, and no response from them. Scam or not, when you purchase something and have to wait weeks to receive a response, and wait months to possibly receive your item, its a not a way to do business and to me is a scam.

Submitted by sieggysrv on Wed, 11/30/2016 - 19:19

shirtmatic wrote:
You are right on, it does sound like a very similiar situation. I just googled for his name and found this thread, everything sounds exactly what they did to me.

http://www.digitsmith.com/warning-donald-donnie-blackwell-2-38863.html

I just called that phone number and it is Donnie Blackwell and He is a crooked dude, I am sorry but you'll never get any money back from him unless you file a law suit against him. He lives in South Carolina. and that is a good phone number.

Submitted by sieggysrv on Wed, 11/30/2016 - 19:30

Also Donnie is not an M&R Tech, he is not qualified to work on M&R presses or anything else they make. So my advice is to locate both of their place of residence and get a Lawyer to
to serve them notice of intent to proceed with a lawsuit, that will get their attention.

Submitted by embroidtek on Sat, 01/14/2017 - 18:29

shirtmatic wrote:
Where are you located? We should pay them a visit perhaps. I don't take too kindly when someone steals from me..

I know how you feel. I don't like it when somebody steals from me or tries to beat me out of money if I have an agreement with them. I actually have a customer who bought a used M&R and it was supposed to be installed by Donnie. Needless to say he was a no show and my customer found someone else to set it up. Donnie is about 2 1/2 hours from where I live.
Submitted by 244 on Sun, 01/29/2017 - 11:52

shirtmatic wrote:
Information on these guys here. They both scammed me and I will not let it rest until every penny I am owed gets sent to me. They didn't scam me but outright stole my money. I paid for a dryer which I never received, and now they are sitting with my money for the past 4-6 months with no refund. Essentially stealing the money. I am hunting down family members, businesses, anyone that has contact with them I will find them and make sure these people are dealt with. The money is not the motive anymore, stopping these criminals for good is.

Mark Alves
https://www.facebook.com/mark.alves.7946
(812) 572-5334
800 S 4th St Apt 1804
Louisville, KY 40203
Email Address: markalves3342@gmail.com

Donald Blackwell
(864) 473-9789
Inman, SC 29349
Shop Address: 8180 Valley Falls Rd, Spartanburg, SC 29303
Possible home address: 201 Pointe Rd, Inman, SC 29349

s you can clearly see this Don is in no way connected to M&R. I would appreciate you trying to correct the title of your post removing M&R tech. Thank you in advance
Rich Hoffman
M&R CEO
Submitted by danlilsade on Sun, 01/29/2017 - 13:23

This whole discussion should show all the need for background research (due diligence). The world is small thanks to Google and the internet. Check everyone out, use any aliases you can dig up. I know one guy that is actively selling machines on this sight that is on his third alias. In my opinion, if you operating under an alias, you have had some unscrupulous dealings in your past.

A good tip on Digitsmith for sketchy machine "brokers", would be their "join date" this is located by their nickname in the upper left hand corner of their posts. I am not all saying newbies are scammers, however this could be a clue to the legitimacy of a machinery dealer. Another excellent way to check dealers out is to ask about them right here in the discussion section. Ink and supply salespeople along with real technicians are great resources for background information also. Be careful a good deal of people see dealing in used machinery as easy & fast money. If you can't verify the seller and their reputation, run away from the deal.

Seritech Inc.

ch54panel@yahoo.com

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