I first bought my 1.6m suar wood dining table from the owner Ben back in 2017 and the whole process to choose the slab to the delivery to my new place was a breeze. …

Based on our first purchase from him, we happily paid him around $4.5k upfront for a bookshelf (mentioned below). But he has disappeared now with that money. Told us delivery would be around November and because we were not in too much of a hurry, we told him to take his time. He said he would deliver a smaller bookshelf with black frames instead, as he ran out of the original white frames with us paying the difference and will arrange delivery very soon after. We didn't receive any red flags despite our friends and bordering acquaintances letting us know it was strange since it was a custom order with downpayment made in full for close to exclusivity as 2 of his paintings will also make it up (as of July, literally 14 months ago now). We have tried to reach him in the past couple of months after multiple failed attempts and realizing multiple others in the same situation are reaching out, as he has unfortunately burnt many bridges while leading various stories. Unfortunately we noticed that he has completely disappeared from Instagram it seems with accounts looking like backups have popped up, though he was quite active on one, genx.ben. We don't want him to face any persecution in this matter we just want our money back, in any form or shape, and wish him all the best. It's unfortunate as Collectif seemed to have quite a bit of potential before this happened.