 The Fall Of BF42.com
After many years of service to the community here is why we are no more.
Shamus Writes: Quote:
Open letter: WiredLabs, LLC - The thieves among us?
How many of you remember the phenomenal success of BF42.com; BFCentral.com and FPSCentral.com? Now how many of you remember the merge of these three sites with WiredLabs, LLC wherein the FPSC team created AmpedDX.com to encompass the whole of the most popular gaming titles? Those of you who have suffered along with our mistakes during the process may be interested to hear the rest of the story.
I want to say right off the bat that I don’t and will not receive a penny for my activities and efforts regarding these sites. I do it for the love of the gaming community. Although legal recourse may be inevitable, I want to share the story with the community in the interest of transparency.
Prologue:
I’ll keep it short and to the point. It was August 2004 when FPSC entered into negotiations with WiredLabs, LLC for the purpose of combining resources. These negotiations were eventually agreed upon by all parties on November 10, 2004 after many revisions and legal review. The determination was made to merge all of the FPSCentral resources with WiredLabs, LLC resources. A percentage of ownership was agreed upon and the contract was signed granting Ryan Shoemacher the position of President of WiredLabs, LLC and Jeremy Wood Vice-President of WiredLabs, LLC – each being equal partners. Others were promised financial compensation for their duties as assigned in the terms of the contract.
FPSC agreed to provide the staffing, expertise and over a quarter of a million registered members to WiredLabs, LLC. FPSC would provide all the bandwidth, hosting, game servers and file service for this new venture to be called AmpedDX.com. In return, WiredLabs, LLC was to bring their expertise in marketing, development and pre-arranged corporate sponsors. (Supporting documentation can be made available to those interested upon request.)
The events:
Again, keeping it short – FPSCentral and its staff worked diligently for several months developing and implementing AmpedDX.com. We then shifted our focus to the daily operations of the new site and nurtured it along with relative success. That is when the problems began.
Simply put, Ryan Shoemacher decided to generate revenue by means of mass advertising on the AmpedDX.com website. Although the advertising garnered modest income, the money was not accounted for by Ryan Shoemacher or WiredLabs, LLC. The funds were not placed back into the site as was agreed upon. Instead, according to Ryan Shoemacher and Erik Olsen of WiredLabs, LLC, these sums of money went to pay WiredLabs, LLC staff members for work they preformed on behalf of WiredLabs, LLC prior to the merge with FPSC.
Over the next few months, Jeremy Wood’s and my own enquiry into the continued revenue disappearance were met with hostility from Ryan and Erik. Eventually, both of them stopped responding to our requests for information and to our requests for a corporate meeting of Executive Staff to address the issue of missing corporate assets.
Finally, on December 21, 2004, Jeremy Wood determined that he would gracefully bow out of the WiredLabs, LLC venture into AmpedDX.com in the interest of maintaining the good will of the community and the working relationship of the remaining staff members. On Christmas morning, 2004, Jeremy was locked out of the main server without notice thereby preventing him from finalizing his transfer of ownership to others.
After much bickering and disagreement, WiredLabs’ Ryan Shoemacher and Erik Olsen agreed to enter into negotiations to finalize the Terms of Separation between Jeremy Wood and WiredLabs, LLC on February 10, 2005. On February 13, 2005 the Separation Contract was signed with the provision that WiredLabs, LLC would pay a small sum to Jeremy Wood as follows:
Quote:
• $250.00 due on or before Feb. 25, 2005 (Completed)
• $1125.00 due on or before April 31, 2005
• $1125.00 due on or before May 31, 2005
Current situation:
The funds did not arrive. Email requests for information were eventually met with this reply from Erik Olsen, Chief Financial Officer of WiredLabs, LLC:
Quote:
From: Erik Olsen (CFO)
Date: Saturday, April 30, 2005 11:59 PM
To: Jeremy Wood
Subject: RE: WiredLabs, LLC Terms of Separation with Jeremy Wood
Sorry, I was gone most of the week. Just so you know we are under advisement not to discuss this matter any further. This will be the last response you will receive from me.
Erik Olsen
So here we are, cheated once again by Ryan and Erik. Can we go to court? Yes. Will we win? Yes. Is it worth it? I don’t know. According to the signed Terms of Separation, Jeremy Wood should now be the sole owner of AmpedDX.com and its assets as per this clause in the Agreement Contract:
Quote:
“9. WiredLabs, LLC agrees to abide by these terms of separation in full. Any violation or default on the part of WiredLabs, LLC or its agents will result in WiredLabs, LLC forfeiting all claims to AmpedDX.com.com immediately granting Jeremy Wood sole ownership of AmpedDX.com and/or its subsidiaries created within the time period between the commencement of this separation agreement and the date of violation of the terms outlined in this agreement.”
Now I ask you, the reader; the community that supports gaming news sites such as AmpedDX.com and FPSCentral.com – What would you do? Or perhaps a better question would be – What would you have us do? Should we take the loss and chalk it up to a hard lesson learned and allow WiredLabs, LLC to cheat and steal? Or should we spend even more money than we already have in order to compel WiredLabs, LLC to honor their contractual agreement? It is fair to say that my attempts at diplomacy have clearly failed.
Please let me know what you think.
Darin “Shamus” Smith
| It was great working with the Battlefield community for so long, I also enjoy reading these forums, Thank's for not deleting this thread.
Summit www.bf42.com  |
May 1st, 2005
good bye we'll miss you 
![Dreadnought[DK]'s Avatar](http://forums.filefront.com/customavatars/avatar35698_29.gif){kind=avatar}
You will be missed 
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