dolphin cad/cam under legal investigation?

Was wondering if anyone knew anything about this? I was at their website reading and clicked the store button and a notice came up say. "
ATTENTION:

Due to false advertising and accusations within Dolphin CAD-CAM, Dolphin CAD-CAM USA is currently under legal investigation and will no longer be operating. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
" Was wondering if anyone knew anything about it. Was thinking about going with their milling software, but want to make sure they are going to be around. I'm going to give them a call in the morning, but was wondering if anyone heard anything.

Thanks,
Steve

Update, call the number from their site 717-819-999. I call in the morning and around lunch time and got nothing but busy tone. I did come across this info after doing a search and linking to this info.

"Dolphin Cadcam USA

We are in the process of changing our distribution arrangement in the USA and will have new contact details soon

We will have a new website shorlty with some great offers

In the meantime if you need any help with your software or are waiting for licenses, please contact us at

[email protected]

or call us on +44 (1)563 543989

If we don't answer due to time differences, please leave your number and we will call you back next business day.

Assuring all North America customers of our ongoing support.

The Dolphin Cadcam team UK.

Read more: http://dolphin-cadcam.webnode.com/"

Guess they are having some info. I'm planning on going with their newest version, but I'm going to wait and see what pans out. If I hear anything I'll post it here. If anyone hears any info. Please post it.
Thanks,
Steve

I was going to leave this for the folks in the United Kingdom to answer, but felt it was my obligation to post on here as I am saying some farewells. When I took over Dolphin CAD-CAM for the North American region in 2008, it was virtually unheard of. Dolphin had 2 customers in the USA, and it was a long tough road to get it on the map. Throughout the years, it took hundreds of nights with no sleep, countless hours of research, and all my blood, sweat and tears to build Dolphin to where it is. It was no where relevant on any search engine, it was never mentioned on CNC Zone or any other forum besides a Yahoo forum. Throughout my years, I built a customer base of over 1500 customers, put it high on every major search engine, was responsible for getting the placement on CNC Zone, and much more. Throughout the first 5 years, I developed a very good reputation for Dolphin CAD-CAM, and had 1 refund in a 5 year span.

Roughly 3 years ago, I brought on a sales rep to help with the North American sales. This is where matters took a turn for the worse, and this will be the new face of Dolphin CAD-CAM within the USA and Canada. Over the past 3 years, there has been over 25 refunds, and over 100 refunds that were denied. Dolphin began the selling the software to anyone and everyone, regardless of whether Dolphin would be a viable fit for them. 3D packages were being sold LONG before 3D was even a thought at Dolphin, 5 axis packages were being sold when Dolphin is clearly a 3 axis package with some rotary 4th axis options, prospects were being sold Robotics packages while being told Dolphin could machine robots. The salesman at Dolphin had always pointed the finger at others, blamed the customers for lying, denied refunds, and would never pay refunds back,

Over the past few months, as the provider of Dolphin CAD-CAM USA, I took it upon to evenly distribute back these refunds where it would come out of Dolphin USA's pocket, as well as Dolphin UK. The salesman that was selling many lemons simply wouldn't pay a penny back, while knowingly being in the wrong. Dolphin USA and Dolphin UK had not agreed upon this, and ties were severed. I have developed an excellent relationship with hundreds of customers over the past few years, and I am saddened to be parting.

My final words to anyone perceiving to do business with Dolphin in the future is this:
1) Do your homework and THOROUGHLY demonstrate what you are looking for before committing to buy as you will not be granted a refund.
2) Do not overpay. Many customers will buy a package for $200, only to have the next customer pay over $1,000.
3) If you are told you have a money back guarantee, get this in writing as there are MANY false promises.

I always prided on customer support and treating my customer base with the utmost professionalism. Again, the employee that I brought on will be taking over Dolphin within the USA.

If anyone would like to private message me, please feel free to do so as I will monitor for a short time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dolphin USA

the employee that I brought on will be taking over Dolphin within the USA.

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So the guy who has been screwing people is taking over north american sales ?

In a nutshell, yes. The fella that has been selling refund after refund is who Dolphin UK has opted to sell Dolphin in North America for the foreseeable future.

doesn't sound like a smart business decision . I honestly thought that you've done a great of selling and supporting the software . Too bad that things sometimes just turn out wrong

I appreciate that dertsap. I've developed many good relationships over the past several years. I'll be moving into new adventures in the manufacturing world; excited for what lies ahead.

Well this really sucks. I've been in a local community college program and can't afford Mastercam. That's what I've been trained on and love it and was looking at Dolphin to get going with a little business. Guess I'll have to look else were. Thanks for the info and sorry to hear what happen. Doesn't sound like a smart move for Dolphin UK. Thanks Dolphin USA for all your hard work and being honest about what's going on. Best wishes to your future adventures.

Thanks,
Steve

Steve,

Have you looked at Fusion 360 from Autodesk? It provides integrated CAD/CAM and is free for students, startups (up to 100K/year revenue) and hobbyists. 3D CAD/CAM Software for Product Design | Fusion 360

bob

Just sent you a message Dolphin USA

Yes, I've tried Fusion 360 and really liked it. The problem I have with them is they used a cloud and I don't like the fact about not being able to work if the cloud is down and also storing work on the cloud. Plus, autodesk doesn't like dealing with firearms and I was told they would not want to deal with us. See, I work with firearms and design parts for them. Me and a partner are ex Army Infantry and have 3 working model of drones that we are going to present to the DOD. Our local community college uses the new version of Mastercam and that is where we got our training and did all our work. We have taken every class we can. To keep us in the lab so we can work on mastercam. Till we get some money coming in with other projects. We are looking for something to hold us over till we can afford mastercam. All our work is in mastercam and we like it allot, but can't afford it.

Sorry, about going off topic. Thanks for the help

Recently we at Dolphin Cad Cam Ltd discovered that our USA Distributor has been cheating us of Income, I do not know how long this has been going on but I do have evidence going back several months. When confronted with this by us the response of the Distributor was one of denial but eventually he admitted what he had done and I have a couple of emails from him confirming his guilt.

As a concession we told the Distributor we would keep all details between ourselves to assist him in rebuilding his business but his continued misrepresentations have forced us to add our contribution.

We have worked with this company for many years and I considered him to be a personal friend as well as a business partner, we were totally shocked when we learned of his duplicity, this matter only came to light by accident due to his laziness in providing us with market information.

We work on trust and we took this behaviour personally, there was no way we could continue with this Distributor and terminated our relationship immediately, we regret this situation very much and in particular feel sad for the situation the Distributor is now in but this whole mess is of his making regardless of the justifications that are being peddled, as recently as 4 weeks ago one of the Dolphin Partners reached out to him and asked if he was having problems and telling him any issues could be solved if he was open with us but we were stonewalled.

After Denial then Admission of Guilt we were bombarded with many reasons as to why this Distributor was being harshly dealt with and we were even begged to continue with the Distributor on a Probationary capacity.

Dolphin Partners have been in this business since the late 1970’s and have been an independent company since the mid 1990’s, we have installed thousands of systems all over the world and last year an independent US market survey gave us the best approval rating in the industry from our Clients.

We plan to be around for many years to come.

At the moment we are working long hours to put in place a Sales & Support infrastructure for the US market and assure our Clients of our continued attention.
If any Clients or prospective Clients wish to discuss this with us please email your details to us at [email protected] and we will contact you directly.

Our main website is www.dolphincadcam.com and full product details can be obtained there.

Finally, please accept our deepest apologies for this situation, it was not of our making and certainly not of our choice but we have come across behaviour like this before and probably will so again.

We had hoped this could have been dealt with in a professional manner with minimum of fuss but recent Threads have put us in the position where we were forced to respond.

Hopefully this will be our last comment on the matter, if anybody wishes to discuss matters with us directly please make contact at your convenience.