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Hi folks, I recently discovered that the ADI forum has a "no badmouthing" policy. This doesn't sound bad, but in practice it allows sponsors of the forum to have any content they don't like removed, even objective reviews. After recently posting a negative experience with one of the forum sponsors, my post was removed and I was threatened by the sponsor with a lawsuit. But in the meantime I was contacted by several other distillers who have had even worse experiences with this particular company. I now know there are numerous lawsuits in the works against this company, which appears to be in the business of taking deposits and providing faulty, late or no equipment to its customers. Because of ADI's forum moderation policy, there are no candid reviews of this company on the forum. Presumably if other people have shared similar experiences they have been taken down. If I had known about other people's experiences, I would not have done business with them. Since this is the primary place where distillers talk to each other, having the ability to share negative experiences is absolutely critical to the industry. I asked Bill Owens to consider changing this policy, and he has not responded, so I thought it wise to post it here. Either the ADI forum needs to change its policy to allow for open dialogue and reviews of its sponsors, or we need to open a new forum that is not censored in this way. Thanks, Joel Vikre

After rereading my original post I shortened it to the below, because I believe that I came on to strongly. I apologize if I offended anyone. The Scots Irish in me just sort of burst forth. Jo-el-eo is correct. This is a really bad situation. More people who may get ripped off, are placing orders with this company every week and there is no way to get the word out. For all of you who are looking for equipment. The company that we are referencing, that we cannot name on here, is a company that builds stills in the USA in one of the western states. If you fly out to their facility everything looks great, but they don't really have any references, IF A VENDOR CANNOT GIVE YOU AT LEAST 10 REFERENCES DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM. This company runs big full page ads in the Distiller Magazine. Their equipment looks really good in their pictures on their web site, but up close not so much.