Steven Salmon is a Scammer
Transport
Early on, issues related to shipping hint at Steven’s scam taking shape.
Video game collectors are spread across the globe. As such, all but one of Steven’s “sales” had to be transported to their new owners. There are a few logistics companies that frequently work with collectors to transport these games, one of which is STI. Steven made it known that STI could be used to pick up the games for transport as he had a close relationship with them and the broker, Michelle Bianchi, as he frequently had games shipped to him.
Within two days from Steven’s first posts, a member in southern California interested in purchasing some games offered to fly up to Steven’s warehouse, pick up games that he and any other members purchased and transport them back (provided they were along his return driving route), splitting the shipping costs. When another California purchaser mentioned this option, Steven's immediate reaction was to tell the buyer to beware, that this transport person could pick up the games and never deliver them and keep them for himself. Steven stated that he had no confirmed California buyer at that point, but that there was a potential buyer who was asking about games but was wasting his time.
After this scam was exposed, that member shared his interaction with Steven. There were 3 messages in the exchange: the 1st asking about the games (Spy Hunter and Bosconian, take note of these titles), the 2nd, a few hours later, asking if Steven received the 1st message and the 3rd was Steven telling the member the games were unavailable, all on the same day; there was no tire kicking, low balling or anything else that could be construed as wasting a seller’s time. Ultimately, having told the interested party the games had both sold (within 2 days of Steven's first post, yet those games were never marked as sold), Steven prevented a large number of expensive games from being picked up in person.
As Steven was offering so many games at once, he was asked about timelines for shipping. Steven stated he would like the games removed as soon as they were paid for. This would normally not be an issue as multiple shipments can be picked up at the same time, given availability and truck space. It was then that the buyers contacted STI/Michelle and began arranging shipment. By mid July, buyers expected the games would start leaving, but they were not going out. In response to buyers’ questions, Steven blamed the delay on various things that he claimed were out of his control. He claimed STI was unable to make scheduled pickup dates for the games because too many of their drivers were out with COVID (which may have occurred, though not to the extent Steven claimed). However the broker stated that was not true, and that multiple attempts to schedule were met with excuses from Steven on why he was unable to allow the games to be picked up.
When discussing shipments with Steven, he told at least 3 California buyers that he would offer shipping with his own trailer, telling at least one buyer he was planning on traveling down to southern California to pick up a vehicle.The first scheduled California transport had games leaving on July 22nd. That trip was cancelled a few days before, as Steven stated that one of the games purchased did not work due to a PCB failure. Steven stated all the games had been loaded, that he found a spare working PCB in his warehouse, and the transport would leave when the game was repaired, likely the following weekend. However, anyone who has worked with video games knows that switching out PCBs is the simplest and quickest repair possible; the majority of the video game repair industry of the 1980’s revolved around pulling and replacing PCBs to get the games up and running ASAP to continue to make money. However, Steven apparently only told one of the California buyers this story. When asked about the issue, the purchaser of the game in question knew nothing about a transport even being scheduled for that date and stated it would have been foolish to hold up a full transport for one PCB when it could have easily and cheaply been shipped by itself at a later date.
The second California transport, for the weekend of July 29th, was also cancelled at the last minute when Steven claimed that his brand new transport trailer needed repair. He believed that it would be repaired in time to leave the following weekend.
On August 1st Steven
posted
to the KLOV forum that all games were at his warehouse in Gresham OR (29329 SE Orient Dr) and that they would be leaving either 8/4/2022 or 8/5/2022. Steven stated he would be dropping off the majority of games at the local STI hub (recalling that he previously refused them entry to his property for pickup on more than one occasion) and those games going to purchasers in California would depart in Steven’s transport vehicle.
But that never happened. On August 5th, word went around that there was an issue at the warehouse. Steven confirmed there was a "fire" at the warehouse, but offered no details.
Then on August 6th, he left this brilliantly worded post:
