The following e-mail comes from Alain Elmaleh of The Kaytel Video Group:
The deal with Ariel didn’t happen as you reported it. A few “small details “ you or he omitted to mention in your piece.
www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=29345
Among others, Ariel’s business associate, a very nice lady named Anat, had been trying to sell me adult content for over 1 year ½ but to no avail because I didn’t know how legit there really were.(way too many fly by nights in this industry).
Finally, around 1 month ago, Anat contacted me again, but this time with a different story.
She claimed that her, her brother and Ariel were getting out of this business and moving to San Francisco. They were getting out of it by mid July, and she was trying to liquidate 600 scenes that “they had produced themselves over the course of the past 2 years” and that they had sold to only “a handful of distributors”, in fact, a maximum of 2 to 3 companies: Critical X, Adam & Eve (only 100 scenes) and Caballero.
Anat offered me these 600 scenes at a very low price, and after receiving a DVD sample containing 2 scenes for screening purposes, I agreed to buy them (both scenes looked pretty decent!)
I decided to purchase under the pretence, and on Anat’s assurance, that these scenes had been produced by Ariel, and that they had not been peddled all over the place to 1000 other guys!.
She then agreed to have the 600 scenes copied for me on 3 hard drives, and I told her that since I was planning to attend the toy show in L.A on July 15th, that the timing was perfect: I would be able to pick up the hard drives, art work, model releases, etc.. during my visit, and that after verifying the content myself, I would pay her by check right on the spot if everything was fine. Anat agreed.
On July 15 I met with Ariel and Anat in L.A at their house, both for the first time (I don’t know why he is claiming that he was not present during the making of this deal!.)
Unfortunately the hard drives were far from being ready. Only 230 out of the 600 scenes were ready. We went to a replicating lab to verify the content, and the owner of the lab, a very nice Israeli guy named Eyal said that the stuff would not be ready before the following week.
I then told Anat that I would keep my check with me, but as soon as she would send the hard drives complete with all the content, I would then send my payment.
I then asked to verify the model release and documents while I was still at their house, and to my surprise, most of the content that they were trying to sell me had really been produced by either Wildlife, No Boundaries, or Ultra Hard! And not Ariel as previously claimed.
I asked for an explanation, and Anat now said that “they also bought scenes from different producers” which they had the right to resell to others. I asked Anat to see the agreement between them and Wildlife, and after reading it, I noticed that this agreement only allowed them to resell to 2 companies specified in the agreement, and furthermore, it didn’t give them internet resell rights, which they had just granted me!!
The story was suddenly very different than initially represented to me back in early June, as I was under the impression that the scenes sold to me came from a lone producer in need of money! And not coming from high volume producers such as Wildlife or Critical X, who make a living selling scenes!
Actually, if I wanted to buy Wildlife scenes I would go directly to him, and not to an intermediate! But in any case….I still decided to honor my deal and go ahead with it!
From L.A I went to the Intex Toy Expo in Shanghai, China. I told Anat to ship the materials to my office while I was away, and that as soon as I got back to Montreal on July 23rd, if everything was OK I would send her the payment immediately.
On July 24th when I got back, my logistics person in charge had only received a total of 320 scenes (please see below a copy of Anats email to me, upon my return) (please take a note of her comment regarding Hard drive 3, which proves that I had already complained to her about the scenes belonging to other producers)
From: Anat Garber [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 2:03 PM
To: ‘Alain’
Subject:
Hi Alain
According to our conversation enclosed the final Excel list for Hard drives 1-3.
(again counting)
Hard drive 1 – 145 less 15= 130
Hard drive 2 – 35
Hard drive 3 – 145
Total 310 scenes
On Hard drive 3 there are 68 scenes that are not wild life and no boundaries, and we have 185 more .
I’ll prepare the final list and will let you know.
Thanks,
Anat
I then asked my person in charge if everything was in, and he said that so far he had received these 310 scenes listed above, but the separate package containing the model releases and art work had not shown up yet from UPS.
On the UPS website, under its tracking number, It showed as “cleared Canadian customs, put on the UPS truck on it way to the UPS sorting plant, and…nothing else!”
UPS just can’t seem to locate it. I obviously have no control over UPS tracking system!!!
BUT AT NO TIME DID UPS SHOW A DELIVERY MADE WITH THIS PACKAGE!!!! THEY ARE STILL SEARCHING FOR IT!!!!
This by no mean was NOT the deal breaker., as Ariel claims.
In fact, as of this past Monday, Anat was preparing a replacement shipment of the art work, model releases etc… to re-ship to us.
What changed everything in this deal is as follows:
When Ariel got involved this week and called me on Monday night in Montreal to see if I was sending the payment, during our conversation he wanted to show me that we had friends in common in Canada, he inadvertently told me that he was also dealing with one of our competitors in Toronto.
I said really??
I got off the phone with Ariel, and the first thing I did was call that competitor in Toronto, whom I have a good business relationship.
I asked him straight out if he had bought scenes from Ariel, and his answer was: “Absolutely yes, I bought the whole 1000 scenes that Ariel had to sell.”
I then called Anat on Tuesday afternoon, told her what I had just found out, thanks to Ariel and the Toronto distributor, (which she had never disclosed to me prior to our verbal agreement), and I then told her of my decision no to go ahead with this deal.
I explained to her, that not only this content had not been produced by them as initially stated, not only that on the agreement that I was shown between Ariel’s company and Wildlife, it only allowed him to resell this content to two other companies clearly mentioned in his agreement (and my company was definitely not one of them!) not only that according to his agreement with Wildlife, he has no right to resell internet rights, not only that the stuff, it now appears, has gone around the globe more than once, but on top of that, they had sold all of it to my closest competitor without letting me know, despite my numerous requests for clarifications on this subject!
What seems now pretty obvious to me, is that Ariel has been making deals behind Anats back! (by the way I fully agree with Ariel, Anat IS naïve, because she stuck around with this crook, despite all his backdoor dealings, and she is now sick of the business, but most of all, she is sick of Ariel’s dishonesty, as she again told me this afternoon at around 11:00 Am L.A time.
Everything tells me that she really believed this content had not been sold to many people, because all this time her good friend Ariel was selling them and getting paid personally , or under his daughter’s name in San Francisco. (how would I know that? If the people that paid Ariel there, wouldn’t have told me!!)
In fact, after hanging up with me, Anat went to check in her accounting books, and saw only 100 scenes as sold to this Toronto distributor, instead of the 1,000 that Ariel had really sold to him!!!
This time, the good spirit was with me, as I had been so close to getting screwed of….$24,000 if only they had the 600 scenes ready upon my visit in L.A!!! they would have put their hands on my certified check!
In conclusion, I want to let you know that I find it so cheap for you or anyone to try to mix in my previous legal battle with Stagliano, which ended in a settlement, friendly terms between us, and a press release from Stagliano, under no pressure , which praised my gentleman’s behavior during this whole process.
So why then go back there and mention it?
If all you want to write is cheap shots and cheap gossip I would suggest you go report for the National Enquirer???