January 26, 2008
Thank you so much for contacting us about this matter. We were the actual company 'disapproved' when attempting to join the 'hotractionmodeling' group in December 2007. And this disapproval appeared to be for no legitimate reason. The form message sent to us stated "...Please note that this decision is final and that Yahoo! Groups does not control group membership..." On January 1st when the January Trolleyville Times was posted, we still had no idea who the moderator of 'hotractionmodeling' was. It was not until January 3rd that we were notified by a customer and member of the group that the moderator of the 'hotractionmodeling' group was Mike Bartel. On January 4th Mr. Bartel posted the statement shown below in its entirety. But at that time, we had no direct access to this posting, so we could not respond. When it was made available to us, we found so many inaccuracies and omissions in it, we felt that you should have our view of the situation. To be complete, this response has to be lengthy and we have to release some of the less than professional level correspondence sent to us by Mr. Bartel in June 2007. If you do not feel like reading this, we understand. That is why this statement has been provided as a link from the February 2008 issue of the Trolleyville times.
Hi folks,
Since George Huckaby has decided to bring a private dispute out into the open, I will respond in the open.
I am the 'moderator' to whom he refers in this 'article', and his article is a result of my dissatisfaction with Mr. Huckaby's behaviour in a dispute we had last year. I will not go into the details of this incident, as it's between the two of us and we need to work out out on our own, and our issues go back several years. No businss person is 100% professional all the time, and I'll admit that I have not always been the most professional business person in 15 years, but it takes very egregious behaviour to spur me to such a reaction. His was sufficient to make me question his attitude towards me and my business, and the motives driving his conduct as an ambassador of the hobby.
I had let the issue lie on the shelf, as more important matters were taking my attention in the interim (my wife's battle with cancer, my own expanding business and its resulting growing pains, etc), but obviously it was still on his mind. His article was obviously an attempt to ellicit a response from me by attempting to shame me to action in a public forum, but in doing so and condemning my actions as 'unprofessional', and disparaging me in an open forum (even threatening to do so in an open forum), he is now exhibiting those same traits himself. He is breaking rules of honor in addition to already breaking rules of conduct for which he is now in a period of Mike-imposed purgatory. I then decided to put space between myself and Mr. Huckaby after our dispute earlier this year, thinking it might help both of us gain a perspective on the whole disagreement. I guess I didn't realize how much he valued our relationship and this board.
I harbor no ill will towards Mr. Huckaby, I do not hate him, and he has been a respected contributor to the hobby for many years. However, I will not tolerate certain behaviour when I do business. I am not afraid to do what it takes to send an individual a message of displeasure when I feel wronged or dissed, but I feel most issues can eventually be resolved. If he wants to resolve this situation, he knows my phone number and business hours. He could have done this directly at anytime; it is suspect that he chose to go the indirect route. I think he thought he could hurt my business and reputation, which feeds my perception of his aforementioned motives. Even so, I welcome the opportunity to resolve this whenever he feels he is ready to discuss it in a calm and professional manner.
My apologies to everyone on the board for this spilling into the public forum and taking up your time and bandwidth, but I suppose all fammilies have their disputes and emotional estrangements.
Thanks,
Mike Bartel
IHP
Some of the members of the group responded. Shown below are two of those responses:
Mike,
Another member wrote:
To the group and moderators:
This group just got blasted in the Trolleyville Times for denying membership to an unnamed manufacturer who tried to join this group in December. Go to www.trolleyville.com/trolleyville.shtml and then click on the parkbench that says Jan Times. The mention is in the righthand column near the bottom of the page.
Just thought I'd pass this on,
All of this began around the end of November 2007, when several members of the 'hotractionmodeling' group, who are also Custom Traxx customers, told us of the group. They suggested that it may be advantageous for the company to join the group and discuss our products and future projects. So we applied in mid-December using the decals@customtraxx.com email address and the owner's name, George L. Huckaby. We shortly received a message stating that we were in "pending" status to be approved by a "moderator. We expected this after reading the conditions of the web site and had no problem with those conditions at that time.
While Custom Traxx was sitting in the "Pending" position, a close friend, who is member of the Southern California Traction Club (SCTC) and reporter for the Trolleyville Times, John McWhirter (mrleclub), applied and was accepted within 24 hours. On 22 December we got a form letter saying that we were "disapproved", without any recourse or explanation. We are not spammers and do not engage in any form of annoying web or telephone activity, so we were extremely curious about this "disapproval". We were annoyed why our company could be barred from a site for no apparent reason by an unknown person who hid comfortable behind "security concerns". When a another SCTC member was admitted within 24 hours of application, we approached a Trolleyville Times reporter, narrated the entire situation and that resulted in the article that appeared in the January Trolleyville Times.
Keep in mind that Custom Traxx could not view any of these responses directly as we were in "Mike-imposed purgatory" for an alleged "dispute" and "egregious behaviour", but our customers could and several of them forwarded them to us . We could not respond within the group but did respond to the customers, who so notified us. Shortly after these postings were made by the moderator and group members, about twelve postings on this subject, including the posting by Mr. Bartel himself, were censored and removed from the group by, who else, the moderator. Was there profanity? No! Were there inflammatory statements? Absolutely Not! The messages merely questioning the motives of and/or indicated disapproval of the moderators actions. There are several questionable statements in the posting that we will address:
First: In this 1/4/08 posting, Mr Bartel refers to a 'dispute'. There never was a dispute. A dispute requires at least two opposing points of view. Custom Traxx, as an IHP customer, bought three items from IHP at the East Penn Traction Club Meet in May 2007 at a cost exceeding $800.00. One, the PCC-II, was satisfactory. The second, a PST 1949 St. Louis Car Co. Interurban had minor defects and a third, a pair of Budd 1960 Market-Frankford M-III Subway Elevated Cars, would not work as advertised. Trolley poles provided with the PCC-II and the 1949 Saint Louis Interurban of the models would not even reach the overhead wire at NMRA Specification S-5 heights and the fabricated trolley shoes did not meet the specification of NMRA S-5. When we first told him of the problems, we anticipated that he may not be aware of the problems or that our experiences were not the norm. We attempted to be "up front" with him and told him that we had been reviewing resin kits and were considering his products for a possible review in the Trolleyville Times. His response was "...Oh, and I will NOT respond to a condescending 'opportunity to respond nor will I defend my products based on specious criticisms. ...". and "...I don't appreciate being told dumb little things about my products that don't affect everyone the same, and then being treated with condescension like some novice apprentice learning his craft"...". He would finally admit that he was aware of all the problems stated (therefore, no 'dispute'). "...No, I haven't noticed any serious consistent problems on these particular cars other than the need to find stronger spring wire for the poles, and the need to use resin underbodies for the dummy transit cars to make them lighter, reserving metal underbodies only for the powered cars. The trolley poles I designed are fine except for the springs, and if people decide to use them, they can modify the shoes (and they always need to be on every model pole). Some of the Red Arrow cars I built did have truck clearance issues, but the problem was not consistent nor present on all of them, and people can figure it out for themselves if skirting material needs to be cleared away on their model. If people need to make this and other minor operational and mechanical modifications, or do other nipping and tucking, please let them make that determination. Unless it's a glaring problem that will affect all users, it's not for you to call little arbitrary things to their attention and make them part of a 'definitive' review. In fact, I consider it bordering on bad taste...". Now the Trolleyville Times has a dilemma. We (1) now have products with problems, (2) the owner has admitted knowledge of those problems and (3) does not state any intention to correct them now or in the future. There is no offer to return anything. In fact, we are wrong for noticing them and reporting them. There were statements: "...If you like the models, great. I appreciate your business and hope the product gives you great satisfaction and value. If not, put them on eBay and let others who really want them own them..." and "...So, what exactly are you trying to prove? Are you trying to bring the entire traction field under your purview, and damn all those that don't want to play by your rules?..." and other assorted rantings. The last message to Custom Traxx was simple. "....I can't deal with the attitude disguised as altruism. I would prefer not to have any correspondence with you at all, then... At that point, we felt that Mr. Bartel had turned the entire matter into a personal vendetta, so the review of his cars was turned over to the Southern California Traction Club. John McWhirter wrote the actual report for the club that was printed in the July 2007 Trolleyville Times. John McWhirter was admitted to the 'hotractionmodeling' group with no problem at all.
Second: The statement "... I think he thought he could hurt my business and reputation, which feeds my perception of his aforementioned motives..." is ludicrous and almost laughable. Nowhere in the Trolleyville Article was Mike Bartel's name or his business ever mentioned. The fact was that we did not know who the "moderator" was when the article was written. It is Mike Bartel who posted his response very briefly in his restricted environment, identified himself and linked this issue to his business, IHP. He could have just signed his statement as moderator of the group. As far as his reputation is concerned, that is a done deal. He made his reputation a long time ago with similar unprofessional actions and just cemented it with the incident that spawned all of this. He seems to be the only one that may not know his actual reputation.
Third: What is even more incredible is the statement "..If he wants to resolve this situation, he knows my phone number and business hours. He could have done this directly at anytime; it is suspect that he chose to go the indirect route.." and "...Even so, I welcome the opportunity to resolve this whenever he feels he is ready to discuss it in a calm and professional manner...". No two statements could be further from the truth. Knowing that any conflict between two businesses whose products are complimentary is not a desired situation, Custom Traxx immediately took direct action. We make 13 different decals sets that can be used on shells made by IHP. In addition, we also sell A-line repowering parts, Bowser drives and Miniatures by Eric trolley poles that can also be used on IHP products. But, obviously, Mr. Bartel has conveniently forgotten the two letters dispatched to him in early June, both of which contained an explanation and attempts to resolve the situation. Both times the letter was sent back without being opened or read. The envelope containing the second mailing was returned unopened and is shown below.
In a third attempt to rectify this situation, on June 25th, we attempted to buy a second PCC-II shell from IHP via eBay and Paypal for a fellow traction club member and customer. This was the one product of the three purchased in May 2007 that had no problems. It was hoped that this would re-open some sort of adult relations. But this was not to be. Less than 24 hours after placing the order, we received the following abridged note from PayPal on June 26th:
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Dear George Huckaby,
This email is to let you know that Mike Bartel has returned your payment of $72.50 USD. This means that the transaction is not complete and the funds have not been transferred to the recipient.
We encourage you to contact the recipient directly to find out what type of PayPal payment would be acceptable.
Message from Mike Bartel:
I told you, George. I am not interested in doing business with people that disrespect me and talk down to me. I will not deal with that kind of behavior. It's done. Leave me alone. No more.
eBay Item Headline: HO PCC-II SEPTA trolley body shell by IHP
eBay Item Quantity: 1
eBay Item Unit Value: $65.00 USD
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team
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PayPal Email ID PP282
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Within days of this refusal, we were contacted by eBay/PayPal to explain why WE had cancelled the transaction with implications that WE could be breaking the rules of eBay/Paypal, forcing us to reveal the complete situation. We were wondering why they were not aware of Mr.Bartel's actual answer to us. This mislabeled 'dispute' at this point had now been brought into the Southern California Traction Club, PayPal and eBay arenas, solely by actions instigated by Mr. Bartel himself. So it is Mr. Bartel who brought this private issue into public forums, not us! Since Mr. Bartel's actions up to this point did not exactly sound like the willingness to resolve the situation as suggested in his statement, there was no further communication instigated from Custom Traxx to Mike Bartel from that time. No communication was made at all until Custom Traxx attempted to join the 'hotractionmodeling' group and the rest is history.
On January 20th, the following email was received by Custom Traxx but it also refers to this same 'dispute'. This was the first direct contact to Custom Traxx from Mr. Bartel in over six months:
Hi George,
I do not wish our private dispute to become a public 'east coast-west coast' kind of thing, as that would not be good for either of us nor the hobby in general, so if you wish to try again for membership in the Yahoo HO Traction modeling group, you are invited to do so, and you will be approved. Everyone on the group is already aware of what Custom Traxx has to offer for the traction hobby and your new product announcements and input pertaining to the overall support of the hobby would be welcomed.
Please be aware that even though you and I do not agree on certain issues, I do not hate you, and have never bad-mouthed you or your products to anyone. I have always praised your product range and dedication to the hobby. This board consists of active modelers and manufacturers in the HO traction community and it is largely unmoderated except for keeping spammers and potential disruptive influences out. If you can keep your comments on-topic, regardless of our own private issues, then you will be a welcome addition to the group.
Mike Bartel
Moderator, hotractionmodeling
After some consideration, Custom Traxx has accepted the invitation. We applied again on Thursday, January 24th at 8:15P.M. PST and entered "Pending" status. We were approved for membership early the next morning at 7:27 A.M and made our first posting shortly thereafter. If there are no further erroneous or misleading statements posted concerning this event anywhere, as far as we are concerned, this will be the end of all of this. We appreciate all those who took the time and patience to read this statement and we also wish to thank all of those whose emails, phone calls and subsequent transactions indicated their overwhelming support in this matter.