After my experience with Maxim AI, I decided to dig deeper. I wanted to see if this was just one sloppy payment dodge or part of a larger pattern. I researched the company, the product architecture, GitHub activity, public mentions, and compared it directly to the real Caveman alternative. Here is the factual research — every claim below is verifiable as of April 27, 2026. My Exact Experience (Documented Timeline) April 20: Matthew Jacob from Maxim AI offered paid deep-dives on AI gateways and MCP. April 23–25: Nakul (cc’d with Pranay) confirmed $60 payment, approved my outline, and asked me to complete full testing + article. April 25: I installed Bifrost gateway + CLI, added real provider configs, connected MCP, enabled Code Mode, routed Ollama/cloud models, launched coding agents, and delivered the complete draft. April 26: Sent draft + direct PayPal invoice (INV2-3VF2-A6GW-Z2EP-WFYH). They said they pay within 48 hours after publish.…