Reports from some dissatisfied consumers:
April 18, 2011
i knew the guy.
yea he was always a scammer / schemer in life when i knew him a nice guy but always trying to scheme money / steal ideas.. his name is laurence miller and his best friend who would help him in the videos was Bryan Masters.. if you care to know about that they were in a lot of it together.. i stopped being his friend before this DVD when he had his first one out that was not a scam i was his friend anyways wanted you to know if you need to contact me [phone number omitted] he lived in down town seattle WA has a Sister Named Aurora find their facebook im sure u can find him.
-Ben
March 20, 2011
about laurence
He is a liar. I lent money to him, but he never give the money back.
-Anna
February 15, 2011
he's in sydney australia!
a few days ago i met him at pitt street mall in the city. his tricks were amazing! i told him i wanted to buy the dvd as a pressie for my friend--it was $20. I just came across all this info and can not believe this!!! i told my friend i'll still give it to him (as i don't want to know how any tricks are done--i like the magic of it!) but he has to tell me if it's dodgy!! wow if i've been ripped off... what a scumbag he is! he was so nice to talk to, i would never have guessed
-michelle
February 5, 2011
My DVD doesn't work sly 26
-Alex
January 22, 2011
I met some friend of Laurence Miller on the street performing nice magic tricks in 2007 or 2008 I don't remember at Venice Beach. Coincidentally, I was just getting into card magic, so I was very interested. He sold me some DVD that was signed I think by Laurence Miller or maybe just that friend. It was a cheap case just with a DVD inside, but I only noticed this later. At that moment, I knew that there was kinda something strange.
So here is what I got:
sleights -double lifts -double uc -passes -second deal -frustration -elmsley tricks -ambitious card -aces to jacks -dr. daily -red hot momma -2 confused flourishes -basics -1 hand revolution -M5 -reverse revolution
I saw the intro and it was cool. I then sadly noticed that there were not nearly half as many tutorials on the DVD. It was produced pretty good, though. The sleights and flourishes were explained very poorly. He goes into nearly no detail. It's like he's revealing something, but to be honest, a double lift or a pass isn't a trick that you have to reveal, rather an action that you know how it works, but is difficult to perform very well and needs in depth teaching for good results, which is clearly not the case here. He has this "It's best for you to just look and repeat" attitude (yeah, he actually said that). The tricks were just stupid, except for "one hot momma" and "ambitious card". All the tricks were basically double lifts, elmsleys etc. and easy beginner tricks just junked together. "one hot momma" is the same trick as the so called "best card trick in the world" (search it on YouTube).
On this particular DVD there was no real stealing of tricks and sleights as far as I know (tell me if I'm wrong), but the other ones in the intro and I guess on his other DVD or something are clearly not his.
All in all: This guy and his DVD suck!
-Berti
January 4, 2009
u are right about bicycleman. his material that he uses are stolen from other magicians. it is good that u are warning others about him. As for me.....im too late. i was conned into buying his membership. i wasted $40 (instead of $60 cuz he gave me a $20 dollar discount) on tutorials that have a poor explanation and understanding. his tutorials are basically just a slowed down performance... he also changes the name of a trick so it sounds new and exiting, but they are just a rip off of an original trick performed by real magicians. i regretted buying the membership from him. just because i practically wasted my money... Boy, that guy is such a D***!!!
But he did teach me one thing: the bicycleman is a D***!!!!
-Noel B.
January 25, 2009
Thank you for replying, I really appreciate it and I would be happy to give you more information on Laurence Miller.
I actually have met him three times, all three performing on the street of Pike Place Market in Seattle. I bought the second DVD on the third visit. I was not planning on seeing him there. I was with several of my friends when he was performing. I had remembered him from previous times and bought his DVD on my second visit, I was very disappointed with it.
Now this is when he tried to sell me the DVD. I said I had an older one, (the one shot in a studio) from my second visit. He then when on about how this one was way better and he pulled out his iphone to show me the "new" intro and ad for it. The internet connection didn't work, so instead, he showed my some really cool moves (like the Chang Photo Change, which now I know is a rip off), I thought they were awesome, and he said they were on the DVD, then he went into the FISM thing. He said the pull back pass was his pass and that got him the FISM and sponsored by Bicycle brand cards. The man told me that he was a FISM award winner and that his pullback pass won him the FISM. I kept on saying no to the DVD but he sounded desperate to sell it to me, so he knocked $5.00 off the price (the DVD was $20.00), so I bought it. When I got back, I was pretty excited to see the new stuff, but it was just the same one I had bought before. He sold the dvd twice to me because the second time I had bought it he said that it was a whole new dvd. At first I didn't want to contact him because I thought it was just a misunderstanding, but then I begun to think it wasn't, but I never contacted him.
On his DVD, at the end of the intro it said cherrydeck.com, so recently out of curiosity, i visited.
-Adam T.
May 27, 2009
I bought a Bicycleman DVD from Laurence Miller on the sidewalk in Waikiki in May of 2007. I didn’t find the tricks he claimed were taught on the disc. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked him about it when I saw him on the street again. Each time he told a different lie as to why I could not find the tricks he had promised.
Eventually, I asked for a refund, and when he refused, I filed a suit against him in the Honolulu District Court. When the process server handed him the paperwork and asked him, “Are you Laurence Miller?” he said, “No”. I witnessed it. He failed to appear in court and the judge issued a default judgment in my favor. He was served two copies of the judgment, one by mail and the other in person when he approached me in public to harass me. He failed to pay so I had him subpoenaed into court again for an Examination of Judgment Debtor hearing. He failed to appear and the judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest. About 55 minutes late to court, he pleaded with the judge to set aside the warrant. The judge did so and rescheduled the examination hearing.
He tried to file a motion to set aside the judgment claiming under penalty of perjury that he had never received the paperwork. His motion was denied.
At the second examination hearing I asked him if he wanted to pay the judgment or answer the examination questions. He said he wasn’t going to pay the judgment. He didn’t want to answer the questions either. While answering questions under oath before the judge he tried to make the judge think that he didn’t understand that all he had to do is pay the judgment and he wouldn’t have to answer the questions. So he paid the judgment. I got a refund, plus court costs.
-Craig D.
VERY bad product!!
I bought the BicycleMan DVD on the Waikiki Street back in April 2007 directly from Laurence Miller. I wanted to stay there for some more time to watch him performing but I was in a hurry with some friends, so I had to leave soon. Next evening I came back in the same place to see some effects, but he was not there anymore, and I could find him anywhere else in Honolulu. I was there for a conference, so I had no time to watch the DVD, but I put it in my DVD player as soon as I came back home.
I was happy to see so many moves advertised in the intro clip and I was so impatient to learn them, but I was very disappointed when I realized that the DVD contains only some not-so-well explained effects (the only one worthing is Ambitious Card) and some cuts and flourish, for a total playing time of a little less than a hour (DVD claimed to contain material for 1:40!).
I'm still very disappointed about the poor quality and misleading content of this DVD, so I recently tried to send an email to Laurence to receive explanations and an eventual refund, but he never answered, so now that I understand that this was not a single case for me, I hope that he get in touch with his unsatisfied customers and be honest with them!
Shame on you, Tricycleman!!!
-Guido B.
Did you purchase a Bicycleman DVD and get ripped off? Share your story: