Videobob has been banned for recasting. He is selling poorly made, overpriced copies of a Proton Pack shell on eBay under the username tcbtexas. He is a known recaster of Back to the Future props and is already banned on several other forums.
He is also supplying false information about the origin of the shells and has been name-dropping Venkman71, with whom he has ABSOLUTELY no relationship.
Do not fooled by this con-artist and avoid him at all costs.
I’d just like to point out a few things that were mentioned in the video. As VinC has mentioned, I am perfectly willing to answer any questions anyone may have about what Videobob said. The most damning of stuff of course was just not true.
Videobob’s claim that I told eBay that I owned Ghostbusters is not true. You can even read the reason eBay listed off his screen in the video. Videobob was using images taken directly from GBFans in his auction. I requested eBay to take the auction down for using them without permission. Here is a snippit from the VeRO report sent to eBay.
All I did was told eBay that he was using our images, the watermark was in the corner… they verified that and removed the auction. Standard procedure with eBay.
The second thing I would like to debunk is the fact that he said I required him to have a $50 Gold Supporting Membership. This is the one and only correspondance I have had with Videobob recently. (He has ofcourse recieved other notices from GBFans Moderators and the banned message on behalf of Ghostbusters Fans).
Everyone already knew I was the queen mother of all douchebags.
I could strangle Ross AND Thiago for dragging this into my life.
There’s a lot of selected things he’s showing on screen. The PM’s he’s sent me PEIODICALLY OVER THE COURSE OF MANY MONTHS were all to do with personal altercations, Delorean related stuff etc.
Not friendly banter as he makes it sound.
I was PM’ing back and forth for two days while I was at the Reno air show trying to sort out this shell crap which has been dragging on for MONTHS.
I dunno how many more times I can ask to NOT BE DRAGGED INTO THIS and now I’m the center of some twisted spin campaign.
Its the part he is hoping people don’t notice by claiming they are real Universal cast packs.
Here is the lineage as I understand it.
-Ghostbusters 2 Mold (Same one used to make the stunt packs for GB2, molded off of a GB1 Proton Pack).
-Produced a Shell to be cast professionally (with permission) to create packs for Universal Studios. (New Mold Created.)
-Pack Shells were created from a Universal Shell. (Perhaps from another mold).
-HMS got either castings, or made a mold and more castings.
-HMS had a parking lot sale and sold one of their shells to Ross Arbuckle (A user who has been banned from GBFans for probably 2 years now).
-Ross Arbuckle created a new mold and made new castings (recasting).
-One of those castings was sold to “GBFreek” Thiago (another member who has been banned for several years).
-Thiago sold the shell casting to VideoBob.
Videobob took the shell to a fiberglass company who made a new mold to make NEW castings off of the casting Videobob BOUGHT from Thiago (who bought it from Ross).
(There may be some errors in the linage between Universal and HMS… but the first and last parts of the linage are absolutely correct. From buying the pack at HMS onward, and as far as I know the GB2 casting.)
Videobob is selling a recast of a recast, which may or may have not been recast, which was cast (notice I don’t say recast here) professionally for Universal Studios (who obtained rights and permission), which casted the shell from a casting of a GB1 pack made for Ghostbusters 2.
So Videobob has a 4/5th generation Proton Pack that has been recast several times and is now trying to sell recast copies of. He is under the impression though that since it is a warped copy of a copy of a copy of a screen used Proton Pack that it falls under the category of “OK” to make castings of. This came under question recently on the RPF where he was summarily banned for the discussion.
Hey guys. I know we like to have reference to the eBay auctions… but we cannot be posting links to them. This is just a way to promote them. I know you guys aren’t doing it intentionally. But yet. The auctions he has posted are of recasted shells.
He claims in the auction they are recast, while using delicate wording.
I don’t know how something can be a “reproduced original”? Especially when he recast a shell that was a recast of a shell, which was casted off of a cast of an original.
The shell itself doesn’t even have a direct lineage to a production mold. The only “original” part is the N-filter which was taken off and cast seperately. HMS did not disassemble the rest of the pack they were given to cast shells, they took direct measurements and created an entirely new buck to cast from. At least that’s the info I was told and it makes sense to me.
Videobob is claiming that because a screen used pack is somewhere in the lineage that makes it ok to recast. Somehow the recast rules only apply to fan made products. I am curious where he got this idea. My understanding of recasting is it is perfectly acceptable IF you have permission from the original sculptor. If the mold that Videobob is using here originally came from Sony, then the only way that recasting it would be ok is if he had permission from Sony. Am I missing anything here?
It should be noted that GBFans.com is not the only entity that has a problem with this practice. The RPF also told Videobob that they considered this pack an unauthorized recast and forbid him from selling it on their forum. Since THE RPF changed their rules to make it so that members selling on another forum or eBay would be held to the same standards as those selling on their forum, he is likely now infringed on that rule and could probably be banned from The RPF as well.
I don’t really know much about this Videobob fella. I have heard the story on the lineage of the pack and it jives pretty much with what Jack said. I’ve also heard that quite a few people are hesitant to say anything openly about this for fear of retribution from other entities since the original shell sold to Ross should have never been in existence either. Anyway, there are some obvious lies/half-truths/fabrications in the Youtube videos posted by Videobob, made clear enough by freeze framing a few scenes and actually reading what he has on his screen, not to mention Sean’s post above. I don’t know how far this guy will take this (for all you know, he believes what he is saying), so it would probably be wise of someone to rip the Youtube video to hold onto it just in case.
Just checked into it, he actually is already is banned from The RPF for recasting. I’ll say it again, he is banned from the largest prop making site on the web over this issue, a site that is not affiliated with and often butts heads with the show runners here at GBFans.
Ok, sorry I haven’t commented again sooner, I have a friend from out of town staying with me so I haven’t been on the intarwebs a whole bunch since this nonsense started.
I’d like to bring my side of all this to the table, I thought about making a video response but I’m sure that Bob won’t allow it as a response so it’s not really worth it. Besides anyone who actually cares about this whole ordeal is already reading this thread so let’s just go with what works. This is probably going to be a long post but I’m going to try to cover everything that’s been discussed so far.
My interactions with Videobob started a few months back when he posted an interest thread over on the RPF. Just as he’s been doing on eBay and in his youtube videos he’s been non-stop name-dropping Sean to garner credibility and that bothered me to no end.
Sean has been a friend and mentor since I’ve been involved with this community. He’s basically the guy who taught me everything I know about prop making. I hate to think that my being protective of him is what caused all of this to spiral so out of control but it appears as though that might be the case.
All Sean wants is to be left out of this mess and here I am mentioning him again, so I know that might be slightly counter-productive and for that I apologize. Being the selfless person that he is, Sean did a favor for someone we know who made some bad choices. Those bad choices led to one of these shells ending up in the hands of Thiago Nascimento, who is a known recaster and was ousted from our community long ago. As a funny aside, the shell that was sent to Thiago was of very poor quality, it had massive warping and cracks in the finish. That particular shell was a reject casting and Thiago still paid $700 for it. It is nowhere near the quality of others to come from that mold.
Thiago got himself into some monetary troubles and sold the Shell to Bob. Bob immediately started brainstorming on how to turn a profit so he started gauging interest in the shells on the RPF. Because of the nature of the shell it was deemed recasting (rightly so) and the RPF staff locked his thread and told him that he would not be allowed to sell them.
Bob, being Bob, went ahead and started a SECOND thread within a few hours, again trying to sell these shells. As he blatantly disregarded the rules of the RPF and made it very clear that he had every intention of recasting the shells regardless of what anyone said he was banned.
Bob has been banned from various other prop making websites and is a known scumbag in the Back to the Future world so when he started making his posts on here I sent him the following message.
Was it a bit harsh? Sure. Was I flexing my moderator muscles a bit? Yeah, a bit. But the fact remains that he does not own the rights to that shell and has no right to be making copies. Even having him discuss them would just be a way for him to point people to his eBay auctions and that is what I was trying to prevent. And it’s not like the existence of the shells are a big secret, you’ve all seen pchrisbosh1’s build http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24965 and Ross’s “For Sale” Thread is still active on the RPF (though extremely over-priced). I only intended to stop Videobob specifically from becoming a seller here as it would only eventually lead to trouble. Plain and simple, he is not a savory character to deal with.
Now, here’s where I probably do look like a hypocrite… I SELL SHELLS. Yes, I do. I sell shells WITH PERMISSION from the original builder who is very much still active here on the forums. He is aware of everything that I do and if the day comes when I no longer have his blessing to offer shells then I will simply stop.
Regardless of what Bob will have you believe, my motivation is not money. I am not the only seller of shells here and as a matter of fact I have been extremely supportive of the 3 or 4 others who do so. Feel free to ask any one of them, I’ve discussed many aspects of the process with all of them. We have traded tips and tricks back and forth and I talk to a few of them regularly via phone and text outside of the boards. I have something called RESPECT, it’s something that Bob greatly lacks.
I have poured my heart and soul into this community and I will continue to do so no matter what. The videobobs of the world will come and go and I’ll still be here.
What I find funny is that Bob chose to call me out because of my “$20,000.00” in potential sales. If you watch his video he states very clearly that he has every intention of “selling 100 shells” and at his $500 price tag… well you do the math. His videos are nothing but infomercials to promote his website and peddle his wares. He did the same thing in the Back to the Future world and after he’s used up Ghostbusters he’ll move on to something else and set up shop.
There is something else I’d like to address which I find hilarious
Thiago and Raine are actually the ones doing all the work, this guy has never gotten his hands dirty in his life. He hires all of the work out on his time machine builds and any other props that he’s “working” on.
Here’s a little glimpse into the kind of people that you’re dealing with…
Plain and simple, Bob is not a prop-builder, he is a poacher. The youtube videos that he’s been posting are full of lies and he’s attempting to spin the truth to make himself look like some kind of White Knight. He is self-projecting in the truest sense. In his video he mentioned the “problems that he’s run into” in the Back to the Future world, the problem is that he is a thief and recaster, people don’t take very kindly to that.
I have no problem posting in full, all of my interactions with Bob or anyone else with regards to this nonsense. I don’t need to use half-truths or pull select excerpts from my correspondence, my motivations here are transparent and I pride myself on being someone that you can all count on and trust.
To all of you that have sent me private messages, text messages, facebook messages, called me or emailed me in support, Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It’s been really overwhelming and unexpected and I had no idea that this situation had gotten so overblown.
To Bob,
Keep name-dropping and championing your “cause” all you like. You will be your own undoing. I’ll just sit back and watch you self-destruct and you’re going to be in for a harsh surprise when you realize that no one is going to be there to pick up the pieces. Good luck with your show, given the kind of guy you’ve exposed yourself to be it’s guaranteed to be short lived.
That doesn’t really surprise me. He’s burned his bridges with basically every franchise in the Texas area so he has nowhere else to go. It’s a shame that he’s ended up trying to fit in with those toxic people now.
For those of you who don’t know, trendkiller (Raine Moreno) was also banned yesterday for recasting. To be honest, that really upset me. Up until this whole ordeal I’d have had nothing but good things to say about him. His participation on GBFans and the quality of his builds were always a welcome addition to the community. I just wish that he had chosen more wholesome people as his friends.
You’d think he’d be smart enough to stop using GBFans and GBprops photos in his auctions and videos so AJ would have a harder time taking down his stuff. But then I guess no one here has been claiming Videobob to be a smart man.
I watched Videobob’s video. I noticed in one of his messages on facebook, he mentions that “I made [Thiago] an offer he couldn’t refuse.” This phrase is commonly understood to mean that one is threatening to kill someone.
Did he also make such an offer to Discovery Channel? I’d hate to know one person has the ability to kill an entire network. But if such a person is out there, we need to find them immediately and ensure their wrath is unleashed upon QVC, the Longhorn Network, and on all of those “spanish” channels that get in the way of ESPN.
