Here are the plain and simple facts, we have all documents to back them up.
- Between June 2005 and January 2006, Mr Madl purchased a few items from us through Ebay. We didn't know who he was. He offered to retail our work. We declined as we prefer to look after it ourselves.
- Soon after, we were informed by a head writer for numerous important miniatures magazines that Mr Madl was selling our work on his site under the generic name "French Banquet" knowing full well that this was against our will.
- We asked Mr Madl to stop this immediately. He replied that he would. However this took several months.
- We met Mr Madl at the 2007 SIMP miniatures show in Paris. Mr Madl came to see us, apologised for his 'misunderstanding' (his words) and shook our hands saying that it wouldn't happen again.
- A few months passed. A new buyer on Ebay using the name "snookiewon" won a batch of our items. Using a simple address check (which revealed that the contact details provided to Ebay by the seller were false), we discovered that this was Mr Madl who was using the name "George Model". This was confirmed when "George Model" replied to us denying our claim, signing his email....Greg! We said we'd prefer to keep the items and leave it there.
- The items were relisted and many of them were purchased by someone using the Ebay ID "miniaturemaker". This was in July 2008.
- Yesterday, alerted by a friend, I discovered these very items (from 2005 and July 2008) are currently for sale on Mr Madl's website.
- I would have most certainly approached Mr Madl to settle this, but not only does he continue to not respect my choice as an artisan, he doesn't respect the miniatures themselves and I want people to know about it:HE IS TRYING TO SELL MY MINIATURES BROKEN!
- Here are the pictures of my work that Mr Madl currently has on his site. Remember this is someone claiming to "represent" miniature artisans from around the world.
- To be clear - there is no way whatsoever that you should buy our miniatures through anybody other than us - Emma and Neil. Any other method exposes you to second hand items, possibly damaged and likely overpriced.
Thank you for reading this. Please be careful with your purchases and don't hesitate to leave your opinion (which can be anonymous!) and let's hope this sorry affair with Mr Madl is over.
