On Jan 27, 2021, CopperChopCup wrote:
After several messages and being assured my custom Revamp would be going out soon, I guess I’m just getting a refund. Oh well.

How hard is it to make the Revamp gimmick? I’ll be ordering from Penguin and making my own I suppose.

On Jan 27, 2021, NicholasLawrenceMagic wrote:
Yupp.. there has been a few CUSTOM orders that slipped through the cracks, out of all the orders I’ve gotten, someone asked “how hard is it to make a gimmick?” it’s not that hard to make one gimmick ..But it does become a task to manufactured and ship as many as I have . I’ve apologized to the couple of people who never received their orders but you can’t deny that I’ve been respectful, professional and made sure you’ve been refunded.

I’m doing my absolute best to run my online store and of course there are people who feel it’s necessary to bash you even after apologizing and being refunded. Believe me, I understand you’re upset that you didn’t get what you wanted, but again.. I’ve apologized and you’ve been refunded.. No harm! It was an accident and I’ve made it right.. I’ve even went out of my a few times and gifted the item free of charge because of how understanding and respectful they were. If you don’t want to order from my online store after your bad experience that’s fine, I completely understand. As my late father used to tell me, “You can’t please everyone.” It’s true even in these cases.. things happen and all you can do is make the best of the situation and move on..

Also, as the comment before my response has mentioned, I’m Not too worried about my reputation suffering, not in the slightest... I’m doing my best to improve but for what I’ve already contributed and offered the community I’m extremely proud and know that I have thousands of happy customers, supporting what I do and for good reason..

I know most if not 99% of people who have purchased directly from me are extremely happy with my service and also know I’m doing my absolute best to escape the grasp of big magic companies and producing my creations myself. Of course there will be some issues when running a business, even big companies (Penguin,Ellusionist ect..) encounter these issues and people still like to put you down and to go out of their way to alert the community after we’ve not only refunded the customer but also offered a sincere apology..

If your mission is to spread your bad experience to attempt to attack my business and dramatically lower my sales, I have some bad news for you.. it’s not going to happen. Yes it might sway some of you but again I have an extremely high success rate with my online store and can bet my life saving most of my supporters don’t even use the magic Café.. they understand that most people here are absolutely TOXIC..and simply get joy and it’s a hobby trolling creators hard work anonymously..

With all that said.. I again apologize to the few who have had a bad experience but know I’ll always do my best to make it up to you. I can’t express how much I appreciate all of those who are supporting my work..

On Jan 28, 2021, RNK wrote:
Right here from your post: it’s the same as saying that 99% of people are happy with your service that’s simply not true .

On Jan 28, 2021, CopperChopCup wrote:
I would like to clarify my point from a few posts back when I asked "How hard is it to make the Revamp gimmick?" This was not at all rhetorical. Since Nicholas was unable to fulfill my order, I will still be ordering, but from one of the larger magic dealers. I will be making my own gimmick out of real currency as stated, and I was asking owners of the gimmick to provide their feedback, essentially "how hard is this to make?"

Additionally, I would like to use this space to discuss the transaction that I had with Nicholas, as it seems warranted based on information in this very thread and his disposition to anyone who has anything less than positive to say about his business or gimmicks. My experience is relevant and speaks to some of the issues brought up here and an honest accounting of what happened should help make things clearer.

I love buying magic. I love learning magic. I love supporting creators and interesting ideas. When I first saw Revamp I knew it would fit perfectly with what I do in healthcare. As a result of the pandemic, my ability to interact with my co-workers and patients has been greatly diminished due to the types of magic I would regularly perform. I have switched to much more visual items, and things that do not need to be handled or touched. This looked so good, but for $40, I wanted to do some more reading on it, so I headed to the Café to read up on it from others. I was disappointed to learn that it wasn't made out of real currency, as it seems others were as well. Immediately I was struck by how the creator was instantly available in the thread, talking about the process with Penguin and what options and avenues people could pursue. He offered to make custom gimmicks and sell those on his website store for anyone who wanted to purchase. Not long after that he had to walk that proposition back due to his agreements with Penguin, but he had a workaround where people could contact him privately and he could make the gimmick and sell it that way. Perfect! I'll do that. Messaged him on his website at the beginning of December. I waited a few days and never got a response. Okay.... not a problem. Happened to see him pop up on a FaceBook page we both belong to answering questions about something else, so I messaged him that way and asked him to check his emails so that we could work something out.

I get a pretty quick email back from him on 12/17 and we discussed what I wanted. We agreed on $50 for the custom gimmick and the routine and that while it was custom, I understood it could take a little time. The transaction was completed via Paypal on December 18th.



On December 29th I reached out via email to see where we stood, realizing of course that with the holidays and delays with USPS, I might very well be waiting a little bit. He did not respond to my email so I reached out again on January 3rd and politely inquired about my order and when I might expect it.

Still, no response. So, on January 7th I emailed again, explaining that I was trying really hard to support content creators who take your money and don't return emails. I was firm but polite. I never received a response to any of those emails, so I reached back out via FaceBook messenger and asked him, again politely, to check his email and respond back with an ETA for the gimmick I paid him for. He did respond back "Hey! Your order is on its way". This is January 7th. Great. I'll look for it in a few days. He went on to explain that he was very busy and emails were slipping through the cracks, but he assured me that any December orders (I placed mine on Dec 18) would go out by the end of the week, which would have been Saturday January 9th. He went on to tell me that custom orders take time, etc. Fine, no problem, I get that, and I honestly thought we were on the right track. I thanked him for the update and waited another week.



On January 15th I asked for some tracking information for my package so I could know when to expect it and keep an eye out for it. Again, not upset or angry. I was polite in my communication with him. I was however keeping a close eye on this thread as there were a few eyebrow-raising posts, some from Nicholas himself that seemed a bit antagonistic towards anyone who had anything negative to say about his shipping habits. I was happy he responded and told me on January 15th "I just checked, your custom Revamp is scheduled to be shipped on Monday!" then some more apologies about delays. At this point, I'm still not upset. I was eager to receive my gimmick and happy to support a small business. I was however a little put-off by his lack of candor and I told him that I would have appreciated a little better communication. All it would have taken was a simple "Hey man, I'm behind...I need a few more weeks to get this made for you". At no time was I pushy or demanding. It's at this point he begins telling me how overwhelming everything is with custom orders, running his shop, family clients etc. Okay, again, not a problem, but I'm glad he was able to let me know the situation with his time and organization. This will be important later on. I continue to let him know I like supporting creators and it's my pleasure to wait.

On January 27th I reached out to him again. Having given the item more than a week to arrive after he promised it would ship. I asked for a tracking number again so I could keep an eye on it and know when to expect it. I was again polite and understanding. He responded with an apology and began telling me that it "didn't work out" and offered me a refund. This was confusing as he made it seem in his earlier correspondence that it was ready to go out on several different occasions...so forth and so on. He offered me a refund at that point and also offered many excuses as to why he was unable to complete our transaction. He went on "I'm also very busy with filming, shipping orders and don't have the time to make custom orders right now" which again was interesting because it was in the very thread that he offered to do that. I didn't solicit something from him that he wasn't already offering. Keep in mind that we had been regularly having messages back and forth, so the excuse that his Shopify system was somehow to blame rings hollow. We were in direct contact about what I paid for. There was no confusion. My name was directly attached to the FaceBook messages. I was led to believe the gimmick was complete and all that needed to be done was ship it. There is no indication that he hadn't even started it at that point.

Okay, that's fine with me, just a little miffed about the whole thing, kind of had a low opinion of his business practices, but he was offering me a refund so all seemed well. The whole thing just bolstered what had been alluded to in this thread earlier. I appreciate anyone sticking with this longwinded explanation, but I thought it best to be as clear and honest as possible.

This is when things really went off the rails.

Based on our previous history and his explanations about why things ended up how they did, I thought it was in my best interest to begin a PayPal claim to keep a paper trail about the whole thing and keep him accountable to me for the money he owed. According to his own emails he was swamped with family, work, his store, his clients and things were falling through the cracks.... I didn't want to be waiting for my refund. I stated in my claim it was for goods not delivered and awaited his response. Immediately he had sent me $50 (not a refund from the original transaction). When I went to Paypal to cancel the claim I realized that I only netted $48.25 or something and that he needed to send more to make me whole as Paypal was now taking their percentage. During the course of those few minutes I get this message "I just checked the Paypal case, it's still open. I'll check back in a bit to make sure you've closed the case. Wouldn't want you to forget and then negatively affect my Paypal account, thanks". Bit of nerve there, but okay.



Hmm...so suddenly, action on my part for you is extremely important because this is something that affects you personally? Okay. Like, literally we are talking mere minutes from me opening the case to me closing it. Most of that time was spent letting him know he did the refund incorrectly and asking him to make it right. I explained "I was more than patient with you, the least you can do is offer the same. However, the tone of the message is condescending and unwarranted" This seemed to be a trend, as his Café posts hint at the same attitude when things aren't going his way.



I informed Nicholas that I had closed the case and followed with "please understand that I can only be honest about our transaction when discussing in online forums or reviewing my experience". He literally expected that because he said he was sorry and refunded my money that I have no grievance. It's definitely not a big deal, and I did post exactly what happened. But his behavior, the lying, and the constant putting me off is my experience with him. That is a valid criticism whether he likes it or not. If you look at my response a few posts back I said exactly what I wanted to and let people know what my experience was with him. Nothing that wasn't untrue. No wishing harm upon his business. No asking people to not do business with him. Just straight facts. Nicholas then begins by arguing with me over it, and becoming belligerent to the point of calling me a "terrible jerk" and losing his mind telling me how disgusted he was, and I agreed, I was disgusted too.

Nicholas does not understand that people were literally having issues with receiving the items they paid for and his response was to be arrogant and flippant as if he was doing us all a favor. I leave honest reviews about positive and negative transactions all the time, and this would be no different just letting people know what to expect. I ended our communication after he responded with:

"Whatever dude. I'm over it. Do your best to break me down. Please!! Destroy me!! Roast me!! Please!!!!! Please!!!!! Destroy me!!!!! I deserve it!!! I'm a terrible person and business man!!! I'm such a terrible magic creator too..let the world know"



Okay. This is his response after I told him I would only be honest, and all I posted was exactly what you see a few posts prior. Essentially, "this dragged on, he wasn't going to make my gimmick, he refunded my money. That's my experience with Nicholas Lawrence." I was polite, direct and firm during the course of our conversations and in no way deserved this diatribe and effort to flip this into a guilt trip as if it was my fault. I am not having that at all. I wish him all the best. I hope he gets whatever help he may need and begins to balance his workload. Stress is an awful thing. I harbor no ill will towards the man and wish him the best in magic, business and life. With all that being said...whew.... I don't think it helps anyone to not post my experience, and the balance of folks who have had positive experiences help offset that. It is incredibly unfortunate that it came to this.

I want to close in stating that I have purchased many things over the years directly from the creators. I have had great luck with lots of them, and as long as their communication indicated delays or problems, I was always happy. Folks like David Regal, Richard Sanders and the like are top notch to work with and I know they are extremely busy people. There are probably dozens more that I can't think of off the top of my head at the moment.

I'm open to whatever conversation any of you want to have on the matter, and would be fine with posting proof of all of our messaging if Nicholas wants to refute anything I've stated here. People in any business need to be accountable to those who they are doing business with. I told him I would be honest, and I have been.