Amir Saarony

[Havanaphile]

Not sure if he is a member here but if he is he needs to check in with Robert Gray over at GCCH facebook page. Robert has posted the following:

Hello everyone

I’ve been getting the run around for the last 2 months from Amir Saarony. Has anyone had any communication with him lately.

I hate to resort to this, but I feel this is my last resort before seeking legal proceedings. I haven’t received any notification from him via phone, text, instagram, Facebook, email or Facebook messenger in almost 6 weeks now.

He sold one of my very rare humidors (cuaba Salomones II humidor, one of only 50 produced) in early December, and he agreed to transfer me the funds for the sale minus his commission for finding a buyer. He sent me one transfer for $2500 in early December shortly after the sale, and he still owes me the remainder $6000.

He had multiple excuses for not transferring me the remaining funds for the first few weeks, and now he has been avoiding all communication with me, as well as others who have tried to help me resolve this problem.

He needs to reach out to me ASAP to resolve this situation.

If there are extenuating circumstances, he needs to tell me about them,but I can’t think of any excuse to completely avoid me/no communication for 6 weeks, especially when I see he has been very active on social media platforms.

If need be, I have all correspondence and a receipt showing Amir took possession of the humidor, and I can share that to verify/validate everything I am saying. I want be be very transparent in all of this, and I want to be clear that I am not trying to slander him for no good reason. I have exhausted all other avenues and I feel this is my last resort.

If I am being taken on this deal, I want to make sure that nobody else gets burned by him in the future.

I hope Amir does the right thing corrects this situation.

2nd post

I have had several messages from people asking for more details in my dealings with Amir and the sale of my Cuaba Salomones II humidor.

I want to start off by saying that  it is not in my character to slander any person or party, and this was a last resort that I really wanted to avoid. I am just sharing my experience in hopes that Amir will do the right thing, and if not, hopefully inform the cigar community to prevent a similar misfortune in the future.

I am posting this as I have received several private messages, and several people who would like some more insight to the transaction.

I will post several screenshots that include our most recent conversations via text messages and messenger.

In early 2017 I was offered to buy a collection of vintage cigars from a deceased private collector. Part of this collection was the Cuaba Salomones ii humidor.

A friend of mine ( xxxcc ) referred me to Amir to try and sell the humidor. Amir gave me a receipt for the humidor ( pictures to follow) and then proceeded to try and sell the humidor through his extensive contact in the cigar industry.

I think it is important to establish that the referral to Amir was before the popular scandal involving the fake habanos books. I also think it is important to note that I do not hold any ill will against xxxxxx for referring Amir to me. Both he and I knew that selling such a rare and expensive piece was going to be a challenge. Especially for someone like myself who had little connections with large private collectors. I also think it’s important to know that I had no idea Amir was caught up in the scandal, if I had knowledge about it would have taken my property back immediately.

I think it is also important to establish I attended the Habanos festival in Cuba 2018 and met with Amir several occasions during the week long festivities. We had many discussions regarding the humidor and I had the opportunity to get to know him on a more personal level. I enjoyed the festival and was thankful to Amir for helping me arrange a vila, festival tickets and a driver for the week.

Over the last 2 years, Amir messaged me several times stating he found a buyer for the humidor and cigars, but each of those instances consistently failed, until December 2019.

In hind sight, I should have known better as I made arrangements for the humidor to be picked up in Toronto and returned to me in Winnipeg Manitoba. I decided after 2 years with no luck through Amir, I would keep the humidor in my own collection. Surprisingly, the week that my sister in-law was to pick up the humidor, Amir found a foreign buyer.

Being very weary as he had strung me along in the past with potential buyers, and knowing it was an international sale, I verified that all funds were received by Amir personally, especially before releasing the humidor. Amir informed me that he received all of the funds, and he would then  e-transfer me the balance owing from the sale of the humidor.

I did receive one e-transfer for a portion of the price, but I never received any more. I did get the runaround that he was going to transfer me the next day on several occasions, then a short period of no contact. When Amir resumed the conversation he said that he had a family emergency he had to attend to (which I understand completely), he said that he would transfer me the funds ASAP. He then ceased all communication with me and I have had no luck contacting him.

I think people should know that I gave him several weeks to reach out to me, I also asked several of Amir’s friends and mutual friends to reach out to him. I feel I gave him ample opportunity to remedy this situation, or at the very least contact me and give me a valid explanation as to what was happening.

I do not enjoy airing this situation on social media, and I feel this is the most unprofessional transaction I have ever experienced in my life.
I still have hope that Amir will do the right thing. My wish is that Amir will give both myself and the cigar community an explanation as to what is happening, and how he intends to remedy this situation.

[tksamtec]

I don't think he is a member here, BUT I have heard of other people having problems with Amir here and on other boards and groups.  So, maybe someone here knows him, and will relay the message.

Good luck recovering your funds, you should have been made whole long ago.

[mastershake72]

Amir is aware. He's made a response that I will repost here. Please note: I am not a Amir sycophant, I think he's scum. I'm just reposting what was written. Here it is in all it's glory:
"There is a lot fo shit flying and a story always has to sides. I am not sending this to mitigate responsibility but out of trust and respect that I believe you deserve. Over the last many years I have been fighting a battle that I had not recognized. Depression has caused my much pain and has cost me dearly. It has cost me financially, cost me love, cost me dearly as often the greatest cost is hope.
After a succession of rapid and close deaths around Christmas I could not continue to struggle and sought help. One of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. One of the conditions of my recovery was the removal of Facebook and messenger from my phone and limiting my interactions. I was sequestered most of the time in a family members home in the countryside with poor cell reception and no wifi. This helped ween me from the phone greatly but has caused long periods of no communications.
I have seen screen captures of what has been posted but have not read it. I will not log back on facebook as it is unhealthy for my treatment and recovery. And in all fairness, meds keep me from getting too emotional anyways. I made mistakes, admitting and correcting is part of the recovery. But I have never intentionally lied or cheated anyone. Yes, I take responsibility for my mistakes but there is always more to a story than one side.
It is important that people know that every word of support or advice they received from me over the years was always offered in sincere friendship. Even in my darkest moments I was always happy to help people in any way I can. Whether an introduction, a word of advice, a tour of a cigar factory or a dinner reservation in Havana, everything was offered in sincere friendship without anyone knowing how dark a place I was at during the time of our conversations. I never asked for help, that is part of the illness. I take responsibility for my errors and will do my best to rectify them. Ironically some of the most hurtful comments I have received have come from people that do not know me or only do so superficially. Those that stick by me or return will do so because they know my friendship was always true and caring. The ones that do not will be a loss I mourn but I have to strive to move on.
I will not go on FB to respond. It is a promise I made to those helping me at this time and to myself weeks ago. You are welcome to share what you believe is pertinent, I trust in your discretion to edit as you see fit.
I thank you for our communications in the past and hope there will be more in the future.
Sincerely,
Amir"

[Havanaphile]

Ya ok,  mental health issues aside there are multiple people owed 10's of thousands of $$. One of the things you'll find most gratifying on the road to recovery when one has fucked people over is doing the right thing and making those amends. What's the plan here?

[Havanaphile]

Why is this shit cloak and dagger, a guy who admittedly thinks he's scum posting a response on his behalf? I mean I'm glad there is some kind of communication here and I appreciate the response but WTF...Oh and he responded to my tweet last night saying he would check Facebook....Facebook the enemy and not all social media LOL

[mastershake72]

If I had to guess, I'd step out on a limb and say that there is no depression. This is a page taken right out of the scammer playbook to try to create sympathy and deflect blame. You might be surprised to find out how often this approach has worked on Facebook. The funniest part about his response is the outright lie of staying away from social media. His Instagram and Facebook pages have both been active throughout this latest incident of scumbaggery and if the bulk of his excuse for the lack of communication is a bold faced lie, we can assume the entirety of his message is total bullshit.

[mastershake72]

I posted his response because hearing his "side" adds value to the story IMO. Instead of simply sending the funds to make the latest issue right, he wrote a long post attempting to absolve himself of his scumbaggery and improve his standing in the court of public opinion. His response included an outright lie and strikes me as the kind of thing that an especially arrogant individual would write because they have confidence that there will be no serious or long term repercussions. As weak as that response is, Amir's many cronies (honorless accessories to theft IMO) will doubtlessly attempt to use this as way to launch a defense for him.

[Havanaphile]

May I ask how you became the "go between" for his message? I do appreciate you providing it on his behalf

[mastershake72]

Like I said, I posted Amir's response because I believe it adds additional context to the depths and lack of morals that Amir possesses. You appear to erroneously believe that I am somehow affiliated Amir in some way. To state that I am a "go between" is 100% a douche move. Amir's response was posted in the H & Co group on FB and is available for anyone in said group to see. I simply copied and pasted from there. For additional context, allow me state a little about myself: my real name is Cass Malec and thats what I go by on FB. If you are in any cigar groups on FB you may have seen some of my prior posts calling out swine such as Gary Bohn (I'm the guy who posted all the info proving that he sold fakes) and Denis Moynihan (I wrote a diatribe on why he is scum and how the people who tried to defend him were at the very least gullible fools.) So don't come at me trying to insinuate that I'm defending scumbags, my record demonstrates the exact opposite. If you don't see how his response adds value in showing how he's scum, then I really don't know what to tell you.

[mastershake72]

Since you apparently don't get how his response adds value I'll go over it one more time step by step. I'm writing this as slowly as I can in the hopes that it will translate better for you in your head whilst reading it.

Background: Amir, a notorious scammer and thief already (sold fake Obra books for a total of $35k or some crazy shit) strikes again and screws someone out of 6K. After 6 weeks of radio silence the victim goes public on FB. Upon hearing this, Amir is so shocked by this development that he:
1. makes no attempt to reach out to his victim and make the issue right immediately, instead making it priority #1 to defend his reputation by deflecting blame and making a play to generate sympathy. As I previously mentioned, this is textbook Scamming 101 behavior.
2. doesn't even attempt to address the accusations and writes babbling garbage that is intentionally vague.
3. writes a response that doesn't even bother to include an apology for his actions, thus demonstrating his complete lack of shame.
4. writes a response that makes no mention of how he will attempt restitution nor does he provide a timeframe for doing so.
5. lies in his response by stating that he's stepped away from social media. And its not even a good lie, several people took screenshots showing his recent activity on FB messenger and IG. This is especially paramount to me personally, because if youre being accused of something as heinous as this the response better be rock solid. Such a weak lie shows that he has no actual reason to have ghosted the victim and to not send the funds he's holding.

Scams generally play out in the following way: an accusation is made, evidence is presented by the accuser and the court of public opinion begins. Occasionally, a response is provided by the accused that proves that the accuser is actually a dipshit and things are easily explained away. That didn't happen here. Amir's response wasn't really even a fucking response to the accusation. Just making this type of response is damning enough because he can't refute any of the claims made nor can he provide any reasonable excuse as to why things have played out this way. I believe it's important to include his response in this discussion because it shows that Amir is scammer scum of low moral fiber.