Hunting Washington Forum
Classifieds & Organizations => Contests, Events, Organizations, Charity => Topic started by: MikeC on March 29, 2025, 10:30:28 PM
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How is this guy still out there working his scams???
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.koin.com/video/vancouvers-outdoor-expo-is-the-start-of-good-adventures/10451135/&ved=2ahUKEwjCnrOxg7GMAxWDDjQIHWikK0YQwqsBegQIDRAE&usg=AOvVaw3EbPZgXsaJJleUsykO-uWo
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Hunting trips of a lifetime. :chuckle:
This guy has scammed endless people over the years from people booking “elk trips”, trying to criminal trustpass and use bully tactics for land access, scammed taxidermists, along many other factors. Biggest scam artist in Pierce county. I have had first hand experience seeing his scams in many ways and personally know many people that have been scammed in one way or another from this clown. How he keeps getting away with everything is beyond me.
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Organizer of the Vancouver Expo!
Whole different level of baiting now! :chuckle:
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WTH! How does this guy keep getting opportunities to scam more people. A quick google search of his name and it is IMPOSSIBLE to even find ONE positive review. Negative review on every hunting sight I am aware of. DO Your research people!
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Facebook is full of posts from vendors who attended the show and are pissed. Some were told that ticket pre sales were 50k and the foot traffic would be great. People are saying it was dismal for attendance and many vendors lost their backside on expenses vs sales. Sad to see that Shane was able to scam so many people into his newest scheme.
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I bet Shane still made a hefty profit though.
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I'm not familiar. The show itself was a scam? Backstory would help.
I went to a gun show at Clark Fairgrounds. Big Top or something like that. That was a frickin joke. The radio ads made it sound pretty awesome.
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I'm not familiar. The show itself was a scam? Backstory would help.
I went to a gun show at Clark Fairgrounds. Big Top or something like that. That was a frickin joke. The radio ads made it sound pretty awesome.
Search Shane Barbour on this site (top right search bar).
You'll find tons of reviews and comments.
CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!!
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I honestly can't believe he's still out getting away with crap. It blew my mind seeing all the Facebook posts, then learning he was the organizer. What a chump.
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Aside from this dude did anyone actually go to the show? How was it?
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Wow.
“The Vancouver outdoor expo was a transformative experience, albeit not in the way we had envisioned. Tons of amazing vendors and products were showcased, but unfortunately, the anticipated foot traffic didn't materialize. When we booked our booth months ago in January, we were all given the same promising forecast: “We already have 50,000 tickets presold and a spot just opened up for you.” Although this turned out to be inaccurate, it's essential to acknowledge the value of perseverance. I was informed that at 1 pm, there were 27 people who walked in, and it opened at 9 am on a Saturday, Friday totaling under 700. Despite the low attendance, the only people walking around were vendors, who made the most of the opportunity to connect with each other. Setting up at these shows requires a tremendous amount of time, hard work, and money. This photo, taken during what should have been the peak hour, serves as a poignant reminder that even in challenging situations, there is always room for growth. I'm grateful for the few customers I met and had the chance to sell tackle to, and I appreciate the great vendors I met and had meaningful conversations with. While slow shows can be disappointing, it's essential to focus on the positive aspects. When everyone is told the truth, and we prepare and travel with realistic expectations, it's a more empowering experience. Unfortunately there were vendors that traveled great distances to join this unsuccessful event; including Africa, Argentina, Texas, Canada, and other places! I would encourage vendors and attendees to explore alternative options, like the sport shows organized by O'Loughlin. Shane Barbour's actions have left a lasting negative impact, and it's crucial to acknowledge the importance of integrity. My purpose in sharing this is to inspire others to speak out, ensuring that we can all learn from this experience and create a more supportive community. I will continue to focus on the sport shows that align with my values, and I look forward to connecting with like-minded individuals. Let's rise above and continue to inspire each other!
Fish on and see you on the water!”
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20250330/8c7564122602527a7529414991176b59.jpg)
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“...Don't go..... Warning
Outdoor expo in Vancouver... Don't go.... I was one of those vendors and packed up and was out the door, my spider senses told me something was off with the event coordinator a Shane Barbour of Graham WA phone number 253-353-9420.. Most vendors packed up and left on Saturday due to them giving pipe dreams and lied to. It's so bad that the Clark county fair grounds is now offering free parking and admission. Big warning and a lesson learned. I left and headed home. So if you were planning on going... Spend time with your family.. Go fishing.. lost money on this but some people drove out from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to be at the show as vendors...”
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“A spot just opened up…” - classic high pressure sales tactic that scammers use
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Seems the vendors would be in prime position for a civil suit....
It be one thing if he claimed he sold allot of pre sale tickets..but making claims of 50k is purposely misleading which lead to financial loss...
I'm really surprised no one has knocked this guy out yet.... people are more patient than I would be..
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SSS
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Had a buddy that builds custom calls that booked a $700 dollar booth and decided not to go after finding out that folks were promised to be there and some of those big names weren't even asked.
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We went this morning. Liked the setup, vendors that were there. Immediately knew something wasn't right with the lack of cars in the lot. Was easy to talk with vendors, buy some stuff. Met Melissa Bachman. Feel very bad with all the vendors we talked with. Not surprised now to read who the promoter was.
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I went and took my stepson and the 2 granddaughters(8 and 10). I had no experience as to size of show. We spent about 2.5 hours there. Walked every aisle, did not go to extra building.
We liked it, talked to some nice vendors, most saw the girls and offered stickers, bags, Candy. They got a couple of free fishing poles, big smiles. I met vendor for "rockpot" it is neat. Vendor for "strikeman", bought 2 of them, laser cartridge for pistol, target and stand. It works with phone app and Makes metalic sound when hit. Shoot all day and not waste your ammo. Beautiful selection of furs, would I do it again. Ya. I went to see displays and vendors, did not even know Shane was involved till I read on Facebook
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I went after going down for a wedding on Saturday. Talked to quite a few vendors we knew and they were not happy with the turn out. Saw Nick Mundt there from Bone Collector crew. He was on the phone not looking happy and absolutely no one at the booth. Did not know who the vendor was till I started reading this post. Now I totally understand. Lots of empty booths.
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Probably a one and done in Vancouver. The grifter will hit up a different location next year.
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Probably a one and done in Vancouver. The grifter will hit up a different location next year.
I believe he has 3 other venues booked already. Wenatchee and Yakima being two of those. Not sure about the third. I'm sure word will travel fast among the vendors though.
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I never even heard about the show until I saw a post from someone I follow on Instagram. I might have gone down to it had I heard of it sooner. Seems he reached out to sponsors and the general public might have had limited reach.
I also heard Skagit County might be having an outdoor expo show coming up. Hopefully Shane is not behind this one as well.
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And the aftermath......
https://www.koin.com/local/clark-county/vancouver-outdoor-expo-vendor-complaints-03312025/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJYQMlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHbk0ipIBO64O0cdvwrtitGq2gdF8T_vpWB7eq42Eh2gn7t1brKPQhamtCg_aem_WBKhaxoFtiOVEM93D_fLbw
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And the aftermath......
https://www.koin.com/local/clark-county/vancouver-outdoor-expo-vendor-complaints-03312025/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJYQMlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHbk0ipIBO64O0cdvwrtitGq2gdF8T_vpWB7eq42Eh2gn7t1brKPQhamtCg_aem_WBKhaxoFtiOVEM93D_fLbw
WOW!
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And the aftermath......
https://www.koin.com/local/clark-county/vancouver-outdoor-expo-vendor-complaints-03312025/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJYQMlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHbk0ipIBO64O0cdvwrtitGq2gdF8T_vpWB7eq42Eh2gn7t1brKPQhamtCg_aem_WBKhaxoFtiOVEM93D_fLbw
WOW!
Just sad that you can't trust folks.
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Smart dude, comes out of the gate telling the news he only sold 30,000 tickets when he claimed 55,000. Sounds like there weren't 3,300 people there.
Hopefully the vendors can band together and get an attorney.
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This dude tried roping my sister in law into putting up her booth for his show. I told my brother don’t even think about it! Glad they didn’t get scammed sorry to hear about those who did
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I'm shocked the guy is still able to pull off scams like this. I feel kind of bad for those that got took, that being said his claim of having sold 50K presale tickets would have been an immediate red flag for me. Who really buys tickets to these things in advance? Not 50K. I would have run when I saw that.
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Hopefully this one puts him down for awhile. Telling vendors you have 10s of thousands of pre sold tickets without receipts seems like a good case for fraud! :twocents:
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He can't say the word "public"... he says "plublic"... this is clearly his worst offense, lol
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Didn't Shane have an account on here years ago, if so, has he been on lately?
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I stood in line next to him and burnworth for an hour trying to get a multi elk tag one year, what a couple of tools
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Sounds like it was good for visitors. Many vendors little competition for their attention. Perhaps even some price cutting to try to make something out of nothing. Sounds like pretty sucky for the vendors.
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Didn't Shane have an account on here years ago, if so, has he been on lately?
Oh yes!!!! Let’s talk about that a bit. Ok Shane came on to defend himself years ago. Talking about all the crazy good elk hunts he had to offer. No one believed him on the site and questioned his credibility. He then offered to take one member on the site on a cow elk hunt for free with the expectation of providing a good review of his guide service after doing so with the site. Being a local to the area I had agreed to do so. After a number of messages back and forth he then came up with if I went with him on the free hunt for advertising purposes I would then have to book a bull hunt with him the following year as I would see on the cow hunt a crazy amount of bugling bulls in my face like I have never seen before. I started to agree that if the cow hunt went well I would then hunt with him the following year for a bull hunt. But then the expectations changed again. I was then told I would have to pre book the bull hunt prior to the cow hunt taking place. Which was supposed to be the indicator of his credibility for myself for future hunts as well as the advertising to the site for his guide service for his credibility. So at the time I was supposed to go on a free cow elk hunt valued 1500 to 2000 no lodging or meals and later after the hunt pay a 4k fee for the bull hunt with no meals and lodging. Which after long conversation and Shane’s tactics of bait and switch quickly turned into prepay 4k for a hunt before ever seeing credibility as he was claiming to try to get within the site. His repeate tactics for years on individuals say enough. But I have stories for days. If you want more I will continue.
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There’s been enough horror stories with dishonest guide services in WA that I question why we don’t require some type of license to commercially guide hunts. I’d be curious what current WA guides/outfitters would think of this, along with WA hunters. Nothing crazy, pay a small licensing fee to WDFW to be a registered guide so there can be some oversight to who’s advertising guided hunts. There’s been some debacles with salt water waterfowl hunts here lately, I’m curious if this would be generally supported or shot down.
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Over the course of the years there have been many encounters in regards to his scams from people I have followed or knew.
1. A close individual to me had family visiting and had booked a trip for elk for his family member. After paying and being told to meet at the local Safeway in Graham for the hunt Shane never showed to meet with the hunter. Completely Ghosted all his calls and never was able to contact again. Completely stole his money. He did not tell me at the time what was happening as he was embarrassed about the situation. I wish I would have known as circumstances would have resolved in one was or another.
Another circumstance was Shane showed up at a family member’s property one day. Working his magic saying he wanted access to the land to hunt elk. The one family member stated that he was willing to talk more later on in regards to possible access that he didn’t have time at the moment to talk in regards to access as he was headed to work. I had heard about it and after knowing who Shane was at this point I told my family the circumstances and do not let him on the property. Shane showed up later on another day. He then started walking around the property like he owned the place. Another family member told him to get off the property that he was not welcome and did not have permission to be there. He was very disrespectful to her. Saying my other family member told him he had full access to the property to do as he wanted and she had no say. She told him she was the owner of the property and if he didn’t leave immediately the cops were going to be called for trespassing. Even upon leaving he was trying to argue telling her she had no right to tell him to leave. Ummm as the owner of the property she has every right.
Another circumstance was I have a past supervisor who retired that booked a trip with him. At this point I had a lot of knowledge of Shane. I told my supervisor to cancel that trip as Shane was a scam. Supervisor did not believe me. Paid $3500 this time Shane actually showed drove separate vehicles to a field along a busy highway. Pointed to a blind a couple hundred yards off the highway and said sit that blind. This trip was scheduled for 4 days. After day one supervisor never heard from Shane again. Supervisor reluctantly went back to the property the next 4 days sitting in that blind on an unknown property in which he didn’t even know who’s property it was. Never saw any elk.
More in regards to taxidermy’. I know several he has tried to Scam and caused long drawn out lawsuits which were all scam lawsuits in which were huge hardships toward the small businesses to take time to fight I can get into details but in respect to the taxidermists I will stop right there on that topic as they are long stories.
Eva Shockey years ago actually came and booked a trip . She was hunting local farm fields too. Of course being a big person in the industry Shane took time to be with her. But throughout the hunt Eva had been posting social media pictures of her hunt posing on the mainline of Elbe Hills near the shooting pit that they had been up in Elbe hills hiking the hills all day looking for an elk. In late Archery season there is no season to be up there. So unknowing at the time to her Shane had her illegal in an area. She also did not shoot an elk and later pulled the photos from social media upon backlash.
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It’s amazing this dude still consumes oxygen :chuckle:
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It is mind blowing with all the ripoffs this guy has pulled, he is not in jail, or at the very least lost his hunting privileges.
So too many Hunters know of his scams, now he turns to Vendors.
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In no way am I trying to victim shame anyone but how can you dump a bunch of money into something/someone without taking a minute to look at the interweb ? Literally just type this dude's name in and there is nothing positive you can find
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I feel like he changes business names fairly often... So he probably escapes quite a few bad reviews. Understood that his name should pull up a majority of them.
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I am surprised that so many businesses from out of state even tried to participate. Well known long existing shows don’t draw that much interest here. I didn’t hear a single word about this show until the aftermath. Whole thing is a bit weird.
But definitely agree that Barbour should get what is coming to him. Whatever that might be.
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What’s even more surprising to me is the hunting/outdoors “celebrities” that got suckered into this show.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20250402/0612c7d6069beab73ac3cf3fdaf54bed.jpg)
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Kind of crazy, almost worked. If he had some marketing to get people there it could have been a great show?
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Reminds me of the Fyre festival.
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Only that guy actually went to jail. Of all the things WA regulates, why hunting guiding isn't on the list is mind boggling. You have to be licensed to take someone trout fishing or give them a haircut, but not hunting? One would think the revenue alone would have made it happen already.
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Investigation still ongoing, hopefully Barbour will have to reimburse some of these vendors he allegedly hosed!
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He sold a booth to the Clark County Sheriffs department!??
HaHa! What a Tool!
They should tie him to the bumper of a truck and drag him from Puyallup to Vancouver and then try his remains...
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There’s been enough horror stories with dishonest guide services in WA that I question why we don’t require some type of license to commercially guide hunts. I’d be curious what current WA guides/outfitters would think of this, along with WA hunters. Nothing crazy, pay a small licensing fee to WDFW to be a registered guide so there can be some oversight to who’s advertising guided hunts. There’s been some debacles with salt water waterfowl hunts here lately, I’m curious if this would be generally supported or shot down.
Like taxidermists in this State, even if they are licensed. Alot of them are shady, so choose wisely. The State won't hold the bad ones accountable.
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There’s been enough horror stories with dishonest guide services in WA that I question why we don’t require some type of license to commercially guide hunts. I’d be curious what current WA guides/outfitters would think of this, along with WA hunters. Nothing crazy, pay a small licensing fee to WDFW to be a registered guide so there can be some oversight to who’s advertising guided hunts. There’s been some debacles with salt water waterfowl hunts here lately, I’m curious if this would be generally supported or shot down.
Like taxidermists in this State, even if they are licensed. Alot of them are shady, so choose wisely. The State won't hold the bad ones accountable.
That's a whole other can of worms, some really ugly scenarios have played out here with taxidermists in the past. Unfortunately, I've been apart of two myself.
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Is the event organizer, Shane Barbour, in jail yet? This has got to end with him in cuffs
https://katu.com/news/local/vendors-claim-false-ticket-sales-at-vancouvers-outdoor-expo-investigation-underway
"KATU News also checked our marketing database and found that Barbour did advertise the Outdoor Expo on KATU News. While he did advertise, we were not a sponsor of the event."
The other day I looked at the KATU website and they had a promotion of the event on their website interviewing Shane Barbour and they took it down (quote above). In that interview, Shane said "it was the largest expo in the NW". He was also advertising $65,000 in prizes for a mechanical bull riding competition. Would like to think something was illegal with that.
He was running a "raffle" at the Puyallup sportsman show. First thing I thought when I saw his raffle was that he was stealing that money and there was never going to be a raffle winner. I am curious if the Washington State Gambling Commission is in the loop on these scams.
Have the other venues he had booked for scam expos cancelled his shows yet?
https://wenatcheeoutdoorsportsmanexpo.com/
https://yakimaoutdoorsportsmanexpo.com/
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Pierce and Clark County Sherriff's office have open investigations on him currently, I hope this is the final straw that finally catches up to him.
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Some of the people that paid him to guide should call one of those offices up.
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I am honestly surprised he hasn't had the snot kicked out of him or worse. I am not saying it would be right but if there ever was someone who deserved it....
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He seems to be pretty adept at jumping in the truck and exiting stage left at the right time. One of the articles said he bailed right out of the show right when everyone was getting pretty steamed. Reading the stories around here, he seems to magically disappear on guided trips too. Too bad Washington doesn't do any of those cops shows.
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https://www.koin.com/local/clark-county/ex-partner-sick-to-stomach-over-vancouver-outdoor-expo/
He had shows booked in Spokane, Wenatchee, Yakima, and Nampa in addition to this....thats alot of vender money at $500-800 booth.
If there was 100 vendors booked for each of the 5 shows at $500/vendor = $250,000.
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How is this guy still out there working his scams???
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.koin.com/video/vancouvers-outdoor-expo-is-the-start-of-good-adventures/10451135/&ved=2ahUKEwjCnrOxg7GMAxWDDjQIHWikK0YQwqsBegQIDRAE&usg=AOvVaw3EbPZgXsaJJleUsykO-uWo
“Plwublic”
After watching this video the vendors should have known. Yikes!
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Has there been any updates on this? This guy needs to be in jail