There seems to be a whole lot of missing information behind this entire thing and since google still seems to dig it up, its about time it gets sorted out.
First, some quick facts.
The person claiming to be wronged in this instance goes by the name of Andy Youtz. Owner of superfly bonsai. After several dealings with Bruce Rhea, including hiring him to ghost write some info books for use with superfly bonsai’s “bonsai kits”, the purchase of some trees, ect. Andy asked Bruce to acquire a tree for him. Long story short, Bruce did. Andy was quite happy with his purchase and proud of his tree. Several weeks later Andy and a bunch of bonsai folk got together and were talking tree as bonsai nuts do and Andy wanted to show off his new tree. Amidst that group, one of the folks made a comment “I wouldn’t have paid $100 for that tree”, Andy’s feelings were hurt and so the saga begun.
Andy never reached out as a respectable human being about the matter, he instantly went to “I have _______ (insert arbitrary number) followers on facebook and _______ (insert arbitrary number) who will destroy you if you don’t give me my money back. Now, I’m not sitting in front of a dictionary at the moment but I would be willing to bet if you looked up the definition of the word extortion it would surely sum up what was about to happen here.
As business goes, if you’re in business long enough sooner or later you’re going to get a disgruntled customer and since the invention of the internet there have been trolls. Welcome to the stage Tim Shoup. Now it doesn’t take a whole lot of internet sleuthing to discover that the profile “Tim Shoup” is nothing more than a cutout. Go to his profile here and look at his posts. ALL of them are on this bonsai scam topic, and the profile only came to be created at the start of this. You don’t have to have a PhD. To see what happened here.
Moving forward, if you spend any amount of time scouring around this forum, or google reviews for that matter you will find that Stillwater Bonsai has HUNDREDS of good reviews and had thousands of customers. On this forum alone there are several sale threads a good chunk of them even after Andy started his defamation campaign. Not a single person had anything bad to say, everyone got their trees, several people got bonus trees, and everyone was satisfied.
To summarize the Andy Youtz scandal, the only thing that really happened is that Andy got his feelings hurt and acted poorly by starting a defamation campaign. Nearly every other comment / cutout post / anything else on this subject are just ramblings of people who have 0 firsthand knowledge of anything.
Moving on, the latest post from ‘LST takes time’. Again, take a look at the profile. Currently 3 posts, all on this topic.
Likely the work of one Laura Calderwood. Since its posted here, might as well respond to it.
Nothing beyond the fact that after the passing of Bruce’s late wife, he ended up married again is true. If you just search the name Abby Schofield, or Valleys Edge Nigerians, you will see who the real con-artist was there. Here’s a friendly link to a facebook group with over 150 of her victims (
https://www.facebook.com/groups/468470107645815 ) You can make up your mind about the rest from there. Defamation is not at the top of my list of priorities.
In closing, a handful of brand-new profiles, just like this one, pop up and start spreading hate and defamation. Worse a handful of lonely internet souls buy into it and want to perpetuate it as if they have any first-hand knowledge. That’s just the way the internet goes these days.
Lastly….
Yes, the nursery was shut down due to Covid. Shocking isn’t it? Just like about a million other businesses in this country. What’s missing in Laura’s narrative is that Bruce was a farmer / rancher long before he started growing bonsai trees as a side business born from his passion for the art. Seems the internet sleuths never dug back far enough to find that his original ranch was incorporated in 2011 in Montana where he raised Boer Goat and Angus cattle before he moved to Maine. Growing tiny trees in field that could be growing food when the grocery store shelves were empty would have been irresponsible.
Stillwater Bonsai LLC Is still a legal company in good standing with the State of Maine. While it no longer operates as a nursery. Bruce still maintains several private collections for people across the north east as he has since moving to Maine in 2012 and still leads Yamadori hunting trips for groups several times a year. While it is unlikely the business will ever operate as a nursery again, it’s still alive and kicking, just not on the internet as who really wants to deal with kids throwing tantrums online these days.
This post will not be followed up on, so if any of you trolls out there want something to make you feel self-important, please feel free to start on your conspiracy theories again.
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as of now you are a nobody trash talking one man's name
