Mindstream

kzp

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 21, 2019
Messages
64
Reaction score
51
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I don’t totally agree with investors. If you are presented will all of facts and you invest I totally agree. But in this case it was totally crap and fraud and gave investors a false sense of the potential success.
I think that at this point, we can all agree that there may have been actual fraud in this case. This is what I was insinuating and suspecting in many of my posts, though I truly wish that my instincts were incorrect. That being said, I am seriously considering reporting this company to legal authorities. I suspect that laws may have been broken. If so, then people need to be held accountable. I mentioned in several posts a similar case in which the CEO was sentenced to 25 years (the maker of Enzyte).
 

kzp

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 21, 2019
Messages
64
Reaction score
51
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My wild guess is the investors were tired of pumping money in and not seeing return for 7 or 8 years and finally pulled the plug. That promoted the company to rush to production so they could have another source of cash inflow but the product wasn't even ready and they didn't even have a reliable contractor to manufacture the product. The presale was the company's last hope to keep the company running but obviously the cash was not enough to turn it around.

The way this ended is truly ugly. The company didn't even have the integrity to refund the customers who paid upfront. They didn't even announce the company was broke. I don't understand how some people could comfortably walk away with other people's money in the pocket knowing nothing was going to be delivered. Coming up with something like "overwhelming amount of orders" is just disgusting.
Actually, in the CEO’s last public announcement, where he mentioned that that they were cutting off new orders, I’m pretty sure he mentioned that SAI was well capitalized (I’d have to go back and read it). If he did say that, then he was lying, which would make it fraud.
 

kzp

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 21, 2019
Messages
64
Reaction score
51
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I’m glad I got my money back when I did. For all those who purchased a unit, this is fraud...not a failed company. I don’t think they had any intention of ever delivering the units they sold. The individuals who ran the company should be held responsible.
I agree completely. This would explain the constant lies about the delays.
 

Millimylilly

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 14, 2014
Messages
445
Reaction score
321
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Actually, in the CEO’s last public announcement, where he mentioned that that they were cutting off new orders, I’m pretty sure he mentioned that SAI was well capitalized (I’d have to go back and read it). If he did say that, then he was lying, which would make it fraud.
I think the CEO said that message before the investors pulled their funding, so wouldn’t really be a lie
 

ca1ore

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 28, 2014
Messages
13,791
Reaction score
19,633
Location
Stamford, CT
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
If you are presented with all of facts and you invest I totally agree. But in this case it was totally crap and fraud and gave investors a false sense of the potential success.

OK, but any savvy investor should be doing their own due diligence, including a TAM estimate, to ensure that what the vendor is telling them is reasonable and verifiable.

I don't know the facts of this case, including whether the company has in fact declared bankruptcy (and what kind), but presumably there are no assets to liquidate so the unsecured creditors like prepaid customers are almost certainly out of luck beyond redress with the CC company. Whether there's fraud or just a failed or bad busienss is anyones guess.
 

MnFish1

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 28, 2016
Messages
22,490
Reaction score
21,733
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
CC Company wont take the loss. The consumer will with increase rates.

I would you appreciate for you to explain how this would work. according to this article - they cannot. (unless they notify you 45 days a head of time - and you can call them and get the reason. They can only do it if you've has the card >1 year. https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/credit-card-issuer-raising-interest-rate-5-times/

Here is an article;https://www.creditcardinsider.com/blog/dispute-fraudulent-credit-card-charge/. That says the card company 'eats' the charge if they cannot get ahold of the merchant. However - if you look at multiple sources - credit card companies and Merchants can buy Chargeback insurance - so that its actually those companies that 'pay'.

Credit card companies also get money back from the interest you pay, as well as the yearly charges. But as far as I can tell - they will not increase your interest rates.
 

bluprntguy

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 18, 2013
Messages
877
Reaction score
1,315
Location
San Francisco
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Actually, in the CEO’s last public announcement, where he mentioned that that they were cutting off new orders, I’m pretty sure he mentioned that SAI was well capitalized (I’d have to go back and read it). If he did say that, then he was lying, which would make it fraud.

He actually said their financial position remains strong and that they were investing in systems to scale operations. Given the fact that they didn't seem to fulfill any orders after that time and closed up shop about 6 weeks later, it's hard to imagine a situation where he didn't know that these were inaccurate statements.

"But nevertheless, our financial position remains strong, and we feel it’s important to focus on delivering the orders we have"

"As we continue to invest in manufacturing systems to allow us to scale operations"

 

JoshH

Tank Status: Wet...ish, growing things....
View Badges
Joined
Dec 3, 2016
Messages
9,994
Reaction score
35,391
Location
Humble
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
So, inspite of all the well deserved hate on for SAI. I've been told it might be worth it if ANYONE wants to see the Mindstream live on to contact Coralvue and Express your interest to see it survive... owners and interested customers alike...

I've been told that there team has already expressed some interest in acquiring the rights to it. Also, if anyone has the contact info for any of the upper management at SAI if you wouldn't mind PM'ing me that info?
 

MnFish1

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 28, 2016
Messages
22,490
Reaction score
21,733
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
So, inspite of all the well deserved hate on for SAI. I've been told it might be worth it if ANYONE wants to see the Mindstream live on to contact Coralvue and Express your interest to see it survive... owners and interested customers alike...
Do you happen to have the contact info - you can PM me if you like
 

MnFish1

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 28, 2016
Messages
22,490
Reaction score
21,733
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
So, inspite of all the well deserved hate on for SAI. I've been told it might be worth it if ANYONE wants to see the Mindstream live on to contact Coralvue and Express your interest to see it survive... owners and interested customers alike...

I've been told that there team has already expressed some interest in acquiring the rights to it. Also, if anyone has the contact info for any of the upper management at SAI if you wouldn't mind PM'ing me that info?

By way - I dont think hate is well deserved - but I would like to see the technology developed.
 

JoshH

Tank Status: Wet...ish, growing things....
View Badges
Joined
Dec 3, 2016
Messages
9,994
Reaction score
35,391
Location
Humble
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
By way - I dont think hate is well deserved - but I would like to see the technology developed.

I think that to some degree the hate is warranted, mostly with how everything's gone down. But it's technology I too was interested in and would like to see continued on as well.
 

bluprntguy

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 18, 2013
Messages
877
Reaction score
1,315
Location
San Francisco
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
So, inspite of all the well deserved hate on for SAI. I've been told it might be worth it if ANYONE wants to see the Mindstream live on to contact Coralvue and Express your interest to see it survive... owners and interested customers alike...

I've been told that there team has already expressed some interest in acquiring the rights to it. Also, if anyone has the contact info for any of the upper management at SAI if you wouldn't mind PM'ing me that info?

Rights to what though? The only beta tester that I've ever seen share their experience (after the company folded and the NDA was presumably unenforceable) says that they had significant drift in the values from disk to disk and over the course of the month as the disk degraded. They didn't even buy a production unit because they had serious doubts. These issues were reinforced by the few users that actually had one and had some of the same experiences.

It was a neat idea, but it doesn't seem like the product could withstand the challenges of being submerged in our reef tanks 24/7 and the variability of all the different environments. I'd have serious doubts that it could ever work as advertised. I guess coralvue could buy the rights to an aquarium monitor that seems to have worse accuracy and precision than anything else currently on the market. I'm not sure why they would do that.

It's time for everyone to admit that this was just a big enormous hoax or potentially a scam or fraud.
 

MnFish1

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 28, 2016
Messages
22,490
Reaction score
21,733
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
Rights to what though? The only beta tester that I've ever seen share their experience (after the company folded and the NDA was presumably unenforceable) says that they had significant drift in the values from disk to disk and over the course of the month as the disk degraded. They didn't even buy a production unit because they had serious doubts. These issues were reinforced by the few users that actually had one and had some of the same experiences.

It was a neat idea, but it doesn't seem like the product could withstand the challenges of being submerged in our reef tanks 24/7 and the variability of all the different environments. I'd have serious doubts that it could ever work as advertised. I guess coralvue could buy the rights to an aquarium monitor that seems to have worse accuracy and precision than anything else currently on the market. I'm not sure why they would do that.

It's time for everyone to admit that this was just a big enormous hoax or potentially a scam or fraud.

This is not a post in defense of any company or against any company.

There are multiple users who had good results - there are some who have not. When the Apex 2016 came out - multiple users had great results - some were not - its the same with every product. Unfortunately this company did not have enough money or whatever to continue. Most of your post seems to be speculation right?

I wouldn't base anything on what a beta tester said - by definition - a beta tester is using a 'beta version - so its expected to have bugs. By the way - I'm not sure what stage the company is 'at'. Because their office is locked does not mean that NDA's are no longer enforceable by anyone that buys the assets of the company - right? I mean maybe they are - but you have no way of knowing that. Right?
 

JoshH

Tank Status: Wet...ish, growing things....
View Badges
Joined
Dec 3, 2016
Messages
9,994
Reaction score
35,391
Location
Humble
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I'd have serious doubts that it could ever work as advertised. I guess coralvue could buy the rights to an aquarium monitor that seems to have worse accuracy and precision than anything else currently on the market. I'm not sure why they would do that.

Doubts are allowed, but who knows, maybe all it needs is a fresh look by an actual team of industry professionals. In your lab testing expert opinion, what makes you think it could never work?
 

MnFish1

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 28, 2016
Messages
22,490
Reaction score
21,733
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
Just got a reply from the CEO of Coralvue. Since I dont think its appropriate to post Emails that are private - I would suggest that people interested in keeping the technology alive to use the contact provided by @JoshH
[email protected],
 
Last edited:

kzp

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 21, 2019
Messages
64
Reaction score
51
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Rights to what though? The only beta tester that I've ever seen share their experience (after the company folded and the NDA was presumably unenforceable) says that they had significant drift in the values from disk to disk and over the course of the month as the disk degraded. They didn't even buy a production unit because they had serious doubts. These issues were reinforced by the few users that actually had one and had some of the same experiences.

It was a neat idea, but it doesn't seem like the product could withstand the challenges of being submerged in our reef tanks 24/7 and the variability of all the different environments. I'd have serious doubts that it could ever work as advertised. I guess coralvue could buy the rights to an aquarium monitor that seems to have worse accuracy and precision than anything else currently on the market. I'm not sure why they would do that.

It's time for everyone to admit that this was just a big enormous hoax or potentially a scam or fraud.
Thank you for backing me up! I echoed the same in previous posts on this and another thread!
 

Joe Rice

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 25, 2016
Messages
283
Reaction score
341
Location
Littleton, MA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
It's always easy in hindsight to imagine that it should have been obvious that a project that failed would fail. But I see no reason to believe this was anything but a bunch of hard-working and dedicated people attempting to build something revolutionary for our hobby. Did it prove to be too hard? Possibly so, but that's the kind of the risk-taking that we should applaud, not condemn.

They made a big mistake at the end, taking people's money before they were able to ship a product. No argument there - that was unethical. But it seems far more likely to me that they were desperate and had some plan in their head where that money would be enough to get them across one last hurdle, rather than any sort of "fraud" with some goal I can't begin to imagine. It's just human nature not to give up after you've put so much of your life into a project.
 

MnFish1

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 28, 2016
Messages
22,490
Reaction score
21,733
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
It's always easy in hindsight to imagine that it should have been obvious that a project that failed would fail. But I see no reason to believe this was anything but a bunch of hard-working and dedicated people attempting to build something revolutionary for our hobby. Did it prove to be too hard? Possibly so, but that's the kind of the risk-taking that we should applaud, not condemn.

They made a big mistake at the end, taking people's money before they were able to ship a product. No argument there - that was unethical. But it seems far more likely to me that they were desperate and had some plan in their head where that money would be enough to get them across one last hurdle, rather than any sort of "fraud" with some goal I can't begin to imagine. It's just human nature not to give up after you've put so much of your life into a project.
I liked your post - but I dont think it was 'unethical'. A willing buyer agreed to those terms. In fact one of the reasons I delayed some in ordering was that concern. But otherwise I agree - they were people that were well meaning - not fraudulent. At least - I havent seen any evidence of anything like that - in fact I'm amazed that so many posts seem to claim it - because that the company locked its doors. Now I agree thats a bad sign - and likely they have ceased business - but claiming fraud implies that this was a plan - rather than a sudden problem - and I don't know who would know that except the company itself
 
Last edited:

Aquatic acrobat in your aquarium: Have you ever kept an eel?

  • I currently keep an eel in my tank.

    Votes: 29 14.3%
  • I have kept an eel in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 35 17.2%
  • I have not kept an eel in my tank, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 36 17.7%
  • I have no plans to keep an eel.

    Votes: 100 49.3%
  • Other.

    Votes: 3 1.5%
Back
Top