The reported Daniel Hood XenForo Scam/Sham with XenReviews

[SneakyDave]

This crowdfund mess has part of it's origin here:

Add-on - XenReviews [CrowdFund]

 

This is the summary as I understand it. I believe this all started around early 2015, and things started going sour on our about July 2015....

Daniel Hood and later and another developer (Jeff Barry), had a crowd fund started to develop a review system for XenForo, named XenReviews. It used a XenGrid system that Barry developed that was supposedly a GoodThing™, according to Daniel. Things seemed to be going well, and then Jeff Barry bowed out, and gave the project to Daniel Hood.

 

Now, as I understand it, Daniel got married, or maybe was in the process of getting married, maybe had a new job, or new addons to develop. In particular, a new addon he is developing for avforums.com upset a few backers of XenReviews because both addons have similar features. So people started asking about the progress of XenReviews, and when the next update would be available.

 

After some poorly worded explanations (in my opinion) from Daniel about the status of the project, backers freaked out and are demanding that Daniel either provide some updates, or refund their money. Daniel claims he doesn't have the time to finish the project, but he does plan to release it eventually.

 

Today, Daniel posted a comment that he and the "XenForo Team" reached "an agreement" about the addon, referred to as a "resource" on XenForo. It says:

The XenForo team and I have reached a solution, well at least it has to be. I have until the middle of May to either deliver a stable version 1.0 that can be listed in the Resource Manager, refund the 14 people that contributed to the pozible campaign ($3,670), or have all my resources delisted from here. I will be working towards option a. The release will be what we agreed upon for 1.0 a while ago, pretty much all of the current features (with XenGrid elements finished being ported into widgets). Monetary features will be started shortly after. I'll provide the weekly updates that I mentioned on Easter, starting next Monday.

 

To clear up concerns of option a being impossible/improbable: I'm planning to achieve option a by only providing critical updates to my other add-ons (there are a couple of bugs that came up last night in two different add-ons, don't be alarmed when they get updated). Better organization and goal tracking should also help.

 

If you read that, it sounds more like XenForo gave him an ultimatum, there really wasn't an agreement made.

 

Of course, Howie from TAZ has to fly in as the self proclaimed arbiter of the situation, all the while make sure that the many commenters and viewers see his signature link to TheAdminZone, lol. His meanness toward Daniel was never really a threat, he was just trying to spread the sunshine! lol.

 

So, if any of that information is wrong, please correct me, that's how I understand it. I don't have a license to this system, or any of Daniel's addons, at least I don't think, so I don't have a horse in the race.

 

My questions are:

1) It appears from reading all of that content in the thread that the project originally had funds saved in an escrow account, and that Jeff and/or Daniel would only get these funds, paid by the backers, when the project was complete. Was this escrow a farce, or did the situation with the escrow change so that Daniel and Jeff got all of the backers' money, or what happened to the escrow?

 

2) I thought Daniel had somebody helping him with this work? What happened to him/her/them?

Add-on - XenMods/XenReviews Hiring

 

3) Was this resource available on XenForo at one time? It doesn't appear to be available now. If the resource was never available on XenForo, why did Daniel let all the complaints happen on XenForo? Why didn't he just allow people to bitch and moan on his own site. Did he advertise the crowdfund on Pozible? I'm just trying to figure out why XenForo wouldn't have closed all discussions about the resource, similar to what they did with the Brivium fiasco

[SneakyDave]

So this appears to be what happened to the escrow. It wasn't really an "escrow", it appears to have been just Daniel's PayPal account:

 

Well, I may as well just copy this here since it's evident that you're all communicating together anyways (doubt it's a coincidence two people have asked about this in the past 14 hours after all this time of not asking for it).

 

↑

Hello,

 

No, when I relinquished control of the project to Jeff, I gave him the portion of the money that was his. The general consensus was that everyone was happy with him taking control and happy with the general direction of the project.

 

I realize now it's gone on very long, there's no stable version even though the latest beta is used in some production environments with success, and get why you want to give up on it.

 

Jeff has RC1 prepared, is giving me control of the project back, and I'm going to be finishing it. I cannot offer a refund though. I apologize that this venture has not gone smoothly, to say the least.

 

I hope you'll consider sticking around a little longer and at least trying the RC series when I release it along with the 'gold' release once it's ready. If you don't want to, there's not much I can offer you unfortunately, but I would be willing to give you free licenses to any of my products on my XenMods up to a value of $300 or help as much as possible with the sale of your XenReviews licenses to another user.

Replace "$300" with 150% of the value you contributed to the project. This offer does not extend to those that contributed to the project after I was no longer part of it

 

 

Xenforo Review system - Would you invest

[SneakyDave]

I think AWS has got the answer as to what will happen to Daniel Hood's addon's before the XenForo imposed deadline of May 1st.

 

My bet is that someone acquires his current addons and he disappears sometime before the deadline hits. Unlike others I always thought the guy was a little shady and not to be trusted.

 

What happened to crowd funding projects on XenForo - General Discussion

 

Let's see ThemeHouse make a few appearances in that XenForo thread next to swoop in and save the day!

[SneakyDave]

Every other drama piece on XenForo gets imported imported into TAZ, but for some reason, this one didn't? Why is that?

 

First I thought maybe Howie was good buds with Daniel Hood, and had any mention of the XF thread forbidden, but after the severe scolding Howie gave Daniel on XenForo, that probably isn't the case.

 

Is Daniel staff at TAZ, possibly? I mean, who isn't?

 

Yes, it appears he is, a 'tech admin', whatever that is.

 

Interview with Daniel Hood

 

And reading that thread, I forgot that Daniel developed the hashtags addon too. I have a license for that but I don't think I'm using it at the moment.

Edited March 30, 2016 by SneakyDave

[11]

Funny for the last line.

[Paul]

What happened to crowd funding projects on XenForo - General Discussion

 

Another topic idea that GTB stole after seeing it on my forum first.

 

First I thought maybe Howie was good buds with Daniel hold, and had any mention of the XF thread forbidden, but after the severe scolding Howie gave Daniel on XenForo, that probably isn't the case.

 

How tight is Daniel with Lisa? I think she has just as much say about what happens on TAZ as Howard does.

[11]

Daniel has wore the sides out of that thing.

 

Or are you talking about the other type of tight. ...

[Paul]

Daniel has wore the sides out of that thing.

 

Or are you talking about the other type of tight. ...

 

LMAO, I meant "close".

[11]

Sorry.

 

Yeah, she's hoodwinked him into getting all of his mods for free, free work, etc. She keeps the heat off as much as possible. Main reason no threads at TAZ were made about this subject. It's not allowed.

[SneakyDave]

Well, this was on Tuesday OS this week, when Daniel missed a milestone.

 

edit: Jesus my screen shots are HUGE

 

[ATTACH]27._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Edited April 15, 2016 by SneakyDave

[fool]

It seems like he's only thinking/doing it on the day of the deadline.

Wouldn't that affect the quality?

[Sheldon]

Well, I personally don't see it getting finished.

[fool]

Why didn't they (the customers) demand refund when one of the developer bailed out?

That's clearly a red flag and they still went on with it?

[Sheldon]

I think they asked, and went through the motions.

 

This new deal was reached about deadlines and such.... plus the XF staff got involved. So now, who knows what happens.

[SneakyDave]

The deal with XenForo was to release "a stable product" by mid May, refund the $$$, or have his addons delisted from XenForo. That deal didn't include any weekly updates. The weekly updates "deal" was something Alfa1 suggested the Daniel committed to prior to XenForo getting involved.

 

At least that's how I read it. He probably thinks that agreement is null and void now.

 

Pretty vague option, to release "a stable product".

[SneakyDave]

Well, I guess he did say that he was going to provide weekly updates (on Monday) in the same paragraph that he mentions the deal with XenForo. Hard to tell if that is part of the "deal", or if it's just a way to irritate Alfa1, lol.

 

The XenForo team and I have reached a solution, well at least it has to be. I have until the middle of May to either deliver a stable version 1.0 that can be listed in the Resource Manager, refund the 14 people that contributed to the pozible campaign ($3,670), or have all my resources delisted from here. I will be working towards option a. The release will be what we agreed upon for 1.0 a while ago, pretty much all of the current features (with XenGrid elements finished being ported into widgets). Monetary features will be started shortly after. I'll provide the weekly updates that I mentioned on Easter, starting next Monday.

Add-on - XenReviews [CrowdFund]

[Edge]

They will give him another pass come the deadline..

[Edge]

I dug this up. I had posted it in the thread, but Mike deleted it saying it didn't contribute positive to the thread. So turns out the real reason he can't give a refund is he used it for a down on the house he recently purchased after receiving the money..

 

"Agent Angie Hendricks helped home buyers Daniel Hood and his wife find their new home! Congratulations Hood family on your new purchase!"

[Sheldon]

Not sure that's relevant either, really.

 

That was 2015, money was our in very very early 2014....

 

I could be wrong, obviously.

[Edge]

Right, but wasn't the money untouched in what we thought was Escrow, which turned out only to be his PayPal account until he was dropped from the project in I thought 2015 at which at that time he gave Jeff half and kept the other half according to him. Also buying a home can take months, finding the right home, paperwork, finding a bank to loan against your down payment etc..

[SneakyDave]

Right, but wasn't the money untouched in what we thought was Escrow, which turned out only to be his PayPal account until he was dropped from the project

 

Right. I never understood how that transaction transpired.

 

He kept the money in PayPsl as a personal escrow service, but then he removed it when he was no longer part of the project? Maybe that was the only thing that could have been done, bit it should have still been saved in an escrow

[SneakyDave]

So, if I remember correctly, I think there was about $3000 in this "escrow" that was to be paid to Daniel and Jeff Barry.

 

The last I heard, there were differing views on how much Daniel and Jeff got, I don't think it was split evenly. There was one post where somebody mentioned that Daniel had received $2000 of that total, but I think Daniel disputed that amount.

 

If Daniel has to refund the money, will he refund the entire $3000, or will he just refund his slice of the total, whatever that is?

[SneakyDave]

It's all over. Daniel will be refunding everybody their monies.

 

Some things in my life have changed. There's no reason for this discussion to go any farther. I'm not finishing XenReviews, the classifieds system, or continuing development on my add-ons here. I'll still be refunding the people that crowd funded XenReviews along with Stuart for the few milestones that were completed on the the Classifieds system.

 

I sincerely apologize for ignoring literally every person that has contacted me in the past two weeks, it's not the type of person I've ever been but I needed some time away to clear my head and reevaluate my future.

 

XenForo (both the company and community) has been great to me even throughout this XenReviews mess. However, I've been essentially working two full time jobs for the past two years and it's taken a toll on me, my family, and my real job. I got in over my head, not in terms of skill level or anything but simply having a business that consumes that much time without the resources to cover it. The thing is that my XenForo 'career' started with a crappy chat add-on that I built because I was bored in the hospital room while my wife was sleeping off and on through laboring the birth of our son. Then I moved onto small few dollar add-ons that just made a little bit of money which was cool and all. It just kept growing and while the pay was nice, it's gotten to a point where I need to choose between growing XenMods or advancing in my career. Therefore, I'm taking a position that requires me to work exclusively and give up freelancing. I hope you guys understand although I expect a select few of you will not.

 

To clear up a few things;

• My home was not purchased with money from XenReviews. I actually got a loan for more than the selling price so I didn't even pay out closing costs.
  
• Everyone that crowd funded the add-on, will be receiving a refund for their contributions. I never had any intentions of doing this up until about a week ago. I never had any attentions of leaving the contributors of this add-on hanging. Invoices can be sent to mrdhood@gmail.com via PayPal. I'll pay them in small segments as the funds are available. Note that I am posting this a couple weeks before my deadline.
  
• I am not seeking out or offering my add-ons to any other developers, however I will hear out people that are interested in taking them under the condition that the existing license holders get to receive support until their license expires. I do not want any money in exchange, just knowing that they'll get support (and allowing Liam to continue working on them in his free time would be a nice bonus -- he's a good kid and I don't want to leave him hanging either).

• 
  

 

TL;DR;

He's busy with a new career, and can't freelance anymore

He's refunding the money.

He didn't buy his house with the money.

He's not selling his addons to other developers, but will donate them to devs interested in them.

[Sheldon]

Seems to me, selling the rights to help find his refunds would be better.....

[SneakyDave]

Yeah, that seems to make more sense, considering he said he can't refund everybody at once. But whatever, it's over.

 

that should be the last crowdfund fiasco we have to see at XenForo hopefully.