In a scheduled chat with who the group claimed was a Canadian producer with a plan to bring back "Star Trek: Enterprise," TrekUnited officials on Sunday instead pulled the plug on the campaign.

"We have been in talks with Paramount," founder Tim Brazeal said in a release following the chat. "We have brought millions and millions to the table to keep the show going. We have had two companies in Canada that were involved in trying to move it to Canada. We also proposed another way of keeping it in the (United States) so that no one would have to move. This was all thought out very well in advanced [sic] and pushed forward not just by the staff at TrekUnited, but by the other Canadian companies as well."

Last week, Paramount released a letter sent to the fan campaign last March that said that the decision to cancel "Enterprise" was final, and then warned fans about giving money to various campaigns trying to bring the show back, since the company could not accept fan donations to fund series.

Before the letter was sent, TrekUnited had formed a for-profit corporation that officials said would get the attention of Paramount as any other sponsor with lots of money would.

The campaign raised more than $3.14 million in pledges and donations, including a $3 million pledge from anonymous donors. Brazeal in his release said that refunds of all the actual cash on hand would begin on Monday or Tuesday.

"We had many people involved in this outside of TrekUnited," Brazeal said. "We are not producers, directors or know anything about the television business. This is why we got in touch with people who were. We made a proposal to these companies in Canada and they wanted to take it to the next level, which was Paramount."

Last Friday, the campaign introduced a producer who they said was named Al Vinci. He presented a plan that would provide $18 million in fan donations and international financing to move the production to Canada. His plan expected Paramount to pay the other $18 million needed for the season, and that it would be presented from both sides. However, Vinci's announced resume could not be corroborated by news outlets over the weekend. His name is not listed on Internet Movie Database despite his claims of appearing in a 1963 Sophia Loren movie, and his further claims of being involved with two syndicated television series in the 1980s. A standard Web search also turned up no information on the producer's name, or his past projects. Studios and such were closed over the weekend, and Airlock Alpha will continue to try and corroborate the claims made by Vinci.

Paramount has denied that any talks have taken place, as late as last week, but Brazeal said that Paramount officials are going to admit to the negotiations as early as Monday.

"Paramount has agreed to do a release on our combined efforts proving that we were involved with these talks, negotiations or whatever you choose to call them," Brazeal said. "This is supposed to come from" the office of John Wentworth, Paramount's vice president of marketing and media relations, who went on the record last week denying negotiations. "We will see if they stay true to this."

Brazeal also responded to recent reports of questions raised about how the campaign operates. While he did not provide answers to those questions, he said he felt they could've been handled in a different way.

"Although non [none] of our members that have contributed to the campaign have complained, most everyone else has," Brazeal said. "It boggles the mind that people do not have at least some trust in the fellow fans. It does not matter what series you are a fan of. They all push for unity as well as peace, and that is not what all of our fans here on the Internet have made this about. It has turned into a total concept of who is going to win and who is going to loose [lose].

"That has been wrong from the start and should not have come down that way by either side. If you were not happy with the way we were doing things, offer suggestions, not criticism. Not one of the people putting down our efforts even tried to offer advice or contacted me personally to say 'try this,' or you might want to run this by your staff."

Brazeal did thank those who were involved in the campaign, and said that the money collected was more or less being used to make a statement rather than actually pay for something.

"We are all winners," he said. "We had the dream that we could make this happen. TrekUnited will continue to be here and we will explore new ideas, but the fan donation part [of] it has made the point we intended it to."

A report on Saturday at Airlock Alpha raised several questions about the campaign (story). "Chris R.," an official at the campaign, posted a statement for Sunday night's announcement, defending the campaign against the questions raised in the story.

"In the last weeks, the TrekUnited campaign to save 'Star Trek: Enterprise' has been asked to provide more information on the validity of the conditions and guarantees for raising funds to sponsor a fifth season, but in particular, regarding the rightfulness of its assertions concerning its dealings with Paramount," Chris R. said. "TrekUnited has always aimed to be as transparent as possible (not: as necessary) regarding our dealings as a fan volunteer organization. Unfortunately, we are restricted by the sensitivity of certain information that cannot be released to the public, as well as the nature of business negotiations."

Chris R. responded to questions about the affiliation of ad revenue to fund a dedicated server that is reportedly owned by TrekUnited founder Brazeal.

"Within the last two months, everyone working for TrekUnited has spent hundreds of hours of unpaid work to make this goal a reality, in some cases even put in a significant amount of money to finance the server, ralles, [flier] campaigns, etc.," he said. "Recent associations with a merchandising company (LogoDogz) and Amazon, as pursued by many self-financing Web sites and Internet organizations, aim to reduce these expenses that staff members had to completely waive on their own."

Brazeal, who according to Whois listings, was hosting the site on his own dedicated server Web host business, claimed that costs to maintain the site on the server exceeded $500 a month.