MagicBunny.co.uk

Got the Email from Sankey. A case of "I told you so"

My God, you look like Oz Pearlman! But wait a minute, isn't his stuff exclusive to.....

...aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!! Paranoia....

and I would have gotten away with it if it was'nt for those pesky kids and that mutt

I just hope Oz gets out quick as well, me thinks Jay should have a chat with him

WOW!!! Such a busy day...there's two sides to every story as evidenced by this response from Penguin Magic over at The Magic Cafe:

Re-produced with permission from Maxwell Murphy at Penguin Magic:

Hi Everyone,

All of us at Penguin Magic are deeply saddened and confused by the public accusations that Jay Sankey has made this morning.

Penguin Magic has not infringed upon the copyrights of Mr. Jay Sankey,
Sankey Magic, or any other individual or company. We have never manufactured any Sankey Magic items ourselves (or any other item that is owned by another manufacturer). Every single unit of Sankey Magic we've ever sold was purchased directly from Sankey Magic (or from one of their authorized distributors). We'll be happy to prove that we have not in any way violated the trust or copyrights of Sankey Magic.

Thanks to everyone who has contacted us in support. We work very hard to be the best magic shop we can be, and we're proud of what we've achieved so far. We'll continue to work night and day to serve you better.

Sincerely,

Maxwell Murphy
Penguin Magic

Hmmm the plot thickens.

I believe Jay.

UNLESS: someone has gotten into his email account and this is an elaborate hoax...

Pretty unlikely though.

Where on The Cafe is the Penguin statement? I've hunted around that board and Penguin threads are popping up (and disappearing ) all over the place but I can't find one containing a statement from Penguin.

As to who I believe.... well, I don't know Mr Sankey and I don't know Penguin. I've heard favourable and critical comments on both of them. I know that Magic Bunny has had specific problems with Penguin. However, I don't feel that necessarily means that Penguin is entirely guilty and Mr Sankey is entirely innocent - they might be, he might be, but I don't know that for sure - I shall therefore reserve judgement.

What I find odd, however, is that Mr Sankey did not make his complaints privately known to Penguin prior to launching this public attack. I just looked on the Penguin site and they are still featuring Mr Sankey's products prominently, so I would guess that they had no reason to suppose that Mr Sankey was about to do this.

Moreover, I am uncertain about this complaint by Mr Sankey: "For the first few weeks of September they posted many of my products at
lower-than-agreed upon prices and undercut all the other authorized dealers they had just agreed to work together with!!"

If this violates a contract, then Mr Sankey would do better to seek a legal remedy than to call for a boycott. If no such contract exists then discounting seems entirely fair business practice (it's one of the reasons I buy my books from Amazon) and an agreement to avoid discounting is tantamount to price-fixing among a cartel of dealers, which is anti-competitive and generally frowned upon. I am not suggesting that this is what actually happened. I only comment that superficially this could be taken to be one possible interpretation.

So, in short, this story seems more complicated than just the bad guys v the good guy and I shall hold judgement until more details emerge....

best wishes
Huw

Here's another response from Penguin.

I'll just give the URL as I didn't ask for permission to reproduce it:

http://www.penguinmagic.com/sankeynote.php

Seems like Penguin Magic's taking it seriously, must be a major threat to business. Note they've also put a price correction on 3 ring circus.

Never bought anything from Penguin and now never will.

Thats a fair enough comment I suppose. I like how they add in that subtle compliment to their customers in the brackets



Isn't that just plain wrong? I mean if the creator sets a price the seller should stick to it. It sounds like they changed the price without notifying Jay...



So penguin change the prices and lets the creator take the blame?



Sorry did you say the worlds most efficent seller of magic? BOLLOCKS! This sentence is also showing off a bit. "We can afford to have the worlds lowest prices". Wow!



Wow, did you hear that? Our customers love us for cheating Jay out of money!



This don't sound like the sort of thing Jay Sankey and Co would do. But if it's true then I think Jay should have responded to this.



Thats . this moan is just a filler to make them seem more right. Oh no slow down Jay. This company is the last company who would tell one of the best seller creators to slow down!

Quote:

Last year we were able to successfully convince Sankey Magic to adjust their release schedule from 12 new products per year to 8 new products. Sankey Magic may not have liked our cautious words, but our customers (and Sankey Magic's worldwide network of dealers) deserve the very best of Sankey Magic, not just the very newest

.

I'm sorry, your saying your customers are happy. Due to your actions from the past and present many people have boycotted you who were once customers.And why would customers deserve to have less of the magic they liked?

Quote:

Specific issues between Penguin Magic and Sankey Magic are completely confidential. We haven't been directly notified from Jay or Sankey Magic that there has been any change in our relationship

Well according to Jays email theres been a huge change in your relationship. I mean, he says checks arrived later and you took longer to reply to emails etc etc.

Quote:

Jay's a great guy, but we just couldn't see eye-to-eye with him about price, quality, and quantity of Sankey Magic. Our deal with Sankey Magic appears not to be working out anymore

.

Yes Jay feels the same way.

Quote:

We're sorry for that. For you (our customer) this will mean more magic from different inventors and lower prices on Sankey Magic products

I'm sorry. Are they saying they are going to continue selling jay sankey products at an even lower price?

Quote:

We very much hope that Sankey Magic will reconsider their position and work with us to continue the relationship

Why would jay sankey want to work with you anymore after what you've supposedly done to him? It's not the sort of thing Jay would make up is it...

Quote:

You can count on Penguin Magic to offer you the lowest prices in the world

Not true, many sites offer products from the site at lower prices.

Quote:

As always, we stand behind each and every one of our products with a 100% satisfaction guarantee

yeah sure....

Quote:

Thanks for being our customer. Please let us know if there's anything at all we can do to help you achieve your goals in magic.

You could stop screwing people, and get better customer service. how about that?

Quote:

lease give us a call or send us an email if you have any questions for us. We're always here for you.

haha. We're always here for you. How touching.

Yours sincerely,
Dave

It's long, but its an EXCELLENT critique of the whole thing. I like it a lot!

Very nice!

I don't understand this point. Price fixing - whereby a group or cartel - of businesses get together and agree on a fixed price, is anti-competitive. In some cases, it is even illegal (you may be familiar with recent accusations in Britain of certain public shools forming a cartel to fix their prices).

Do you object to Amazon, Tesco, WH Smith, HMV etc. competing on prices by discounting their DVDs and CDs? I know, I don't. Would you object if, on the other hand, Amazon, Tesco, WH Smith and HMV all got together and agreed to fix their prices at a higher level? I know I would.

So why do you object to Penguin offering discounts?

best wishes
Huw

Both arguments seems to have flaws. This is probably a disscussion best left to them. We don't know all the facts.

Obviously Jay is going to word it in his favour but PM will do the same.

Don't get me wrong I don't like PM for their reputation but we just don't know all the facts.

Emotions are running high....... and most people here are supporting Jay Sankey.

I just want to point out two things:

1. If Penguin Magic has copied material from Jay Sankey, then Mr. Sankey must provide proof. Otherwise why should I believe him.

2. Well, I read a lot about the fact that Mr. Jankey IS INDEED putting out too much material.... Just read some comments about his latest products here on MagicBunny, TalkMagic, MagicCafe or some german forums.

Magixx

I can´t say it better: WE DON´T KNOW ALL THE FACTS. So how can we decide who is right and who is wrong??????

Magixx