Frank, If you have charged a credit card for parts and have not delivered, then you have the guys money. If you have his parts, and you haven't shipped you still have his money. If you charge a guys card and wait months to order, you still have the guys money. If you charge a guys card and make excuses about why you haven't ordered, you forgot, you are growing, you are sleepy, you are on vacation, you stay at home all day and watch soap operas, you still have the guys money and you owe it to him in the form of either his parts or his money back. Again, when the customer gives you his hard earned scratch, it it fully your responsibility to make every thing right from that point forward.

The only thing "sticking" here is what you, not me or anyone else on this board that has commented in either direction, just you, are being perceived as right now. One last time, if you charge for parts and don't deliver for months, you have the guys money. When he has the parts you are square. Period. You simply refuse to hear those simple words. If you charge for it and it isn't delivered, you are in the wrong and you have to expeditiously make it right.

I'm not trying to re invent the wheel here. You have some serious issues to address. The first is what the difference between perception and reality is. I wish you well.

Jeff, charging the cc at order time is fine and dandy if the customer is informed. The problem we are experiencing form members is the parts are not ordered until way later. And given the runaround until the customer plays detective and finds out and informs us because we allow that business to be represented here.

Bottom line guys.

I agree with this.

From Frank's perspective, if his customer calls to place an order for wheels, custom everything, 4-6 weeks delivery, he HAS to charge the customers card, even if the wheel mfg does not charge him at the time of order. If the customer has no skin in the game, that person can bulk when he needs to sack up. As long as the customer knows, it is a fair practice for custom parts.

In this case, it appears the customer places an order, card is charged, and no product ordered from the other end. Completely different issue.

Darren

Ah, no, I'm not wrong about MY experience. You may have had a different experience, but that would be your experience, not mine.

This subject of charging CC has come up in the past. I would like to address it out side of the context of the issue being discussed here. I say that because I think it is importand for everyone to understand how the system should/must work inorder for everyone to be happy.
When you call to order parts from a vendor and supply your CC# you are agreeing to have your card charged for the amount agreed upon at the time of order. be it for a spark plug or custom one off wheels. Now before you hit "reply to " and start ripping me a new one, IMHO here is where it gets tricky.
IF the vendor is also the manufacturer........ then i think the parts should NOT be charged for untill they are about to deliver. I say "about" because if I run your card and it is declined, for any number of reasons then I am not going to ship the parts. The other senerio is this, if you order 5 parts and one is B/O then I am going to call and see if you want the 4 and I am going to charge your card for the parts and ship them when the card is approved.

IF the vendor is NOT the manufacturer here is where it gets tricky.
Mr. Customer orders 3 parts a,b,c, all need to come from different manufacturers, at what point does the Vendor charge the customer.
When Mr Customer orders the parts or when the manufacturer ships? I think the customer needs to pay at time of order???
take Wheels, ALL manufacturers (that we deal with) are 100% prepaid prior to building. so that means everyone pays upfront customer and Vendor and waits 4-6 weeks. no biggie it is industry standard.
The Vendor MUST keep his risk to a mimimum especially these days with CC Fraud as rampent as it is, and that still does not protect against charge backs. now who's problem is that??

I am not trying to defend anyone......... I just think that if this forum is here to help and inform as it does very well than this is a topic that should be talked about. prior to there being a problem.
I think if you ordered from AMAZON OR god forbid EBAY(who by the way does not give advise or answer their cell phone) you click "Buy Now" enter your CC# and hold your breath.
but that seems to be ok??
Obviously there is a REASONABLE amount of time to wait, and that time varies depending on the product, a custom built twin turbo motor should take longer to deliver than a master cylinder.
I think everyone customers and vendors need to communicate what the expectations are.

just my thoughts

Stuart,

I was never informed that it was going to be charged in full, the next day. I went through the same thing with Frank, back in February 2009 when I bought some parts. Well, I contacted Hector at Rick's, and he informed me that the part was never ordered. Then I had to go back to Frank, and actually found out that the fuel tank was in the custom shop. Although, I never asked Hector when it was ordered. I had several emails, and phone calls to Frank. It was a bit annoying, but basically you call them enough.. They get annoyed, and you get your parts. The CC though was charged back in February in full, but I didn't get the parts until late May. You shouldn't charge the CC unless you have that product on hand. Most industries that do custom work, like construction for example. They base it on 50% down for material and then 50% at when the construction job is finished. Although, I do prefer this contractor that I hired to pour a concrete driveway. He gave me a price, and completed the job. So, I had to hunt him down to pay him.

Jeff

I have no skin in this game, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I do know a thing or two concerning customer service...

If there is a delay on your end, it is not up to the customer to call you, it is up to you to call the customer.

You have their money or their order. You are the CSR (customer service rep) and a customer rightfully expects his CSR to keep him aware of what is going on with his order.

You keep giving all sorts of reasons, etc, but those are about you. This conversation is not about you, it is about your customer. Keep all you replies about your customer, and you will become the hero of the conversation. Keep them all about you, and you will continue to loose ground.

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

Frank, I understand the idea of charging a guys card up front for a custom set of wheels, an engine, etc. As long as the guy knows this up front with an estimated time of arrival that's fine. And I also understand that if the engine builder or wheel company doesn't deliver on that schedule that it isn't your fault, but you need a system in place to stay on top of it so the customer is informed of any changes to the estimated delivery date of his items. For example, Summit won't charge my card on a back ordered item until it ships. They give me an estimated ship date and it usually arrives earlier. If for any reason it doesn't make it on that date they send me an e-mail or postcard telling me it's still back ordered, do I want to keep it on order or cancel. I love this system.

What I would appreciate you addressing (I apologize if you have, but keep seeing it brought up without a response) is how you take payment in full up front but do not order the parts until much later, up to six months later by some accounts.

I understand in the case of a group buy where you need five orders of wheels or three engines to get the extra discount. In that case you need their credit card info up front but you should not charge it until you get that group buy together and actually place the order with the manufacturer. Charging their card in advance (could be weeks or even months) is not right. Since you have no money going out until the group buy is called in then their card should not be charged until that order goes in, and you should contact all the customers to tell them it's a go.

I would like an answer in the other cases though, where you charged a card or received payment in some form on a non-group buy purchase yet held up ordering for weeks or months. For an example I'll use the set of wheels and tires we ordered from you for my friend Don last year. The money was in your hands in early October with a quote of 3-4 weeks, yet the wheels were not even ordered for over two full months (wheels finally ordered mid December). I know this as a first hand fact from talking to the wheel company directly, and not to just a sales guy but someone who would know. Though he protected you and would not directly answer me as to when the order was placed, he did confirm that their build time was three week MAXIMUM for the entire time the wheels were on order. My friend and I were hearing that they were behind, that they're in-process, will go out next week; this was before you'd even placed the order!

Since this is not an isolated case (I have other personal friends I've sent to you that had the exact thing happen and verified by calling the manufacturer that the product was in stock and on the shelf, and had been since before they paid for it, and they had no order from you for that part). I want to know how this is happening. This has come up several times in this thread in addition to several pm's and e-mails to myself and other staff members. If you could explain how this particular sequence keeps re-occurring and what you are going to do to eliminate it in the future, I think it will help your business immensely.

After reading thru this thread it would seem that if Frank is going to be in the business of selling a multitude of parts on a volume basis.....he needs to get some software that is designed to monitor and track the orders, billing, and delivery's...............It's not Rocket Science..........If you are going to be in this business, .....do it correctly.........Just my $.02

Ken

<philosophical rant on>

I've been thinking about a reply to this thread, not directed at Frank in this case, but as a general philosophy towards the issue of vendors' ability and right to charge customers. The above comment goes against my position, so I'll try to explain how I see this issue... (warning, this might get long.)

Here is where I disagree with your statement... As a vendor, you have accepted the tradeoffs associated with running a business: the risks (non-payment, manufacturing defects, unhappy customers, etc), and the rewards (profits from the business, flexibility in lifestyle of being your own boss, etc). If you didn't understand those tradeoffs when the business was started, you will certainly learn the lessons over time. My father ran a business for 35 years, and I inherited and ran if for 6 months after he passed away. I got to see firsthand the issues on both sides of this coin...

In my opinion, it is wrong for the vendor to justify putting the risk on the customer. There are many reasons that I feel this way, and this thread has highlighted several related to customer's opinions of the situation. One other reason is that businesses actually have a way to recoup losses incurred by a bad customer (one of the reasons to / advantages of starting a business, part of our federal tax code). But a customer often has little recourse or ability to recoup losses incurred due to a bad business. When taking over our business, I learned that each year we wrote off between 1 and 2 percent of our income as bad debts, customers that we serviced that never paid us. In many cases, we even had legal judgements against customers and still couldn't get paid. But at least as a business, we had some amount of recourse through tax writeoffs (not that you get everything back, but at least it's better than nothing).

As a customer, I can 'hope' that I have some protection if my purchases were made through a CC. But that's not guaranteed. If I don't get that, then what, I can try and pursue the matter legally? How likely is that to happen anymore given that the majority of transactions of these types are with companies half way across the country?

Taking an extreme position (and I'm NOT directing this comparison at Prodigy or any other vendor, just trying to present an analogy), what if a company comes up and offers really great deals for a while, offers a few GP's, collects up a bunch of money by requiring the charges up front, and then disappears with everyone's funds without ever shipping the first product. One could argue that it was a poor choice on the part of the consumer to make that purchase, but one could also argue that the people who invested with a Bernie Madoff should have known better too. He took money from some of the best and brightest minds in the country! But in a worst case, it could happen with any vendor. Most of us on sites like these have never met any of the vendors that we deal with, so we don't know what their personal situations might be. As paranoid as that sounds, it can and unfortunately does happen that good businesses sometimes turn bad... So why even give customers a reason for this fear to ever enter their minds?

So you could then argue that the middleman (the vendor) has to pay the manufacturer up front, so they should be able to charge up front. I will again disagree, and for similar reasons as above. The vendors (or to use my term, the middleman) have generally built established relationships with these manufacturers. They are much more likely to know the state of the business and the people they are dealing with, as they have day to day dealings with them. It's a very different dynamic than the customer that comes to a vendor for a one-time purchase. That's not to say that something couldn't go wrong between businesses also, but the likelihood of that happening is much lower. And additionally, the vendors do have the right to charge at the time of shipment, so they should be able to arrange things to work with the manufacturers to 'approve' shipments after payment has been received. That's a detail for businesses to work out with each other, not a detail that should ever be apparent to an end customer.

Customers expect, and have a right to expect, a certain level of customer service. That encompasses the entire customer experience, from pre-sales, to appropriate processing of their payment, to delivery of the goods and service. If you were a local company and your customer service was poor, there would be reports to outlets like the BBB and other places where people could go to get some insight. In that example, if I, as a customer, didn't do a little homework before dealing with a local company, I could share some fault for making a poor purchasing decision. But in this ever increasing web-connected society, it's harder in many cases to find good feedback about these types of transactions or to truly understand the 'real' underlying reasons for the delays. I can't walk in the doors of a remote vendor and get face to face with someone that has my money and owes me something. All that I know is that a person that I may have had a few conversations on the phone with charged a large sum of money to my CC, and I'm left wondering why I don't have the goods or services that I paid for...

Ok, enough of my philosophy... I don't pretend to have an ideal solution to how all of these transactions should be handled either, and I probably tend to be a little too optimistic that people are going to come through and honor their end of any transaction. But I do strongly believe that businesses need to accept a high-level of responsibility and respect for how they handle their customers' money. At the end of the day, that is going to define how they are perceived likely moreso than any product or other service that they provide...

<philosophical rant off>

As I stated before, hopefully some of this dialog will help both customers AND vendors going forward in a constructive way...

Well said Bryan

In my opinion and experience in the legal and business world "Buyer be aware". Red flags are everywhere.

If you are risk tolerant as just in investment.... Then continue on as you were.

Good luck all,

I've read through most of the posts here and this is my take on the deal. There is really one blaring issue. Charging a customer and not sending in the order.

I can understand why he would want to charge a customer if an order is placed and it's on back order. (As long as it's disclosed) The manufacturer sends the part and now the buyer doesn't have the funds. The vendor shouldn't be expected to take that loss. Put yourself in those shoes for a few days. I bet you change your mind. Sure, you or I wouldn't stick Frank with the tab, but I guarantee there are many that don't give a damn and wouldn't lose one wink of sleep.

I just don't think it's neccessary for everybody to keep piling on him with the same problem. (See paragraph 1) I just can't imagine that he didn't place an order for a referral(In Jody's case) on purpose.

He's taking the steps to make his business more professional. Mainly, adding staff and computer systems that can fill in all these blanks. It's important to keep customers in the loop by answering the phone and following up on orders. I've told him 100 times that he's nuts and needs help BAD. I've also told him that it will be the best thing he's ever done for his business. The top dog shouldn't be placing orders and following up with customers. That's what assistants are for..... Frank is a great car guy but does that make you a great business man? Not usually, he clearly knows where he's dropping the ball and is taking HUGE steps to fix all the leaks.

The parts business is a volume business. It's no different than the cashier at Wal Mart ordering inventory, stocking the shelves, working the check out, and being the greeter at the door. You just can't do it all. That's Frank's mistake.

After reading all this myself I am a bit surprised that Frank is still taking orders. With everything going on with his move, and trying to keep track of existing orders as well as staffing issues I would take a step back and straighten out what I had in front of me first before adding more to the steaming pile of poo you are dealing with right here. I think I read somewhere here he has around 200 pending orders?

I can say I for one will never do business with this vendor. I have read time and again about poor customer service. No thanks!!

Bad customer service
 

I am glad that you started this thread about Prodigy Customs. I too have had a very similar experience with them as you have. Mine started in May of 2010 when I placed an order with them for an AME Max G chassis, rear axles and 13” Wilwood Brake Package. The chassis went ok on the order and delivery about 3 months. But the brakes and axles took from say May 25, 2010 when he said my check cleared the Bank till October 13, 2010 on brakes and Late November 2010 on the axles around 5 months. What makes you mad as a customer is when you’re told things that do not happen time after time and you have sent e-mails that don’t get answered then see them posting on this web site an others but not answering you (looks like others also) and taking care of their customers!!
Below is some of the e-mails sent to me.
7/14/10
(Just got out of the paint booth. It is fricken hot! Brakes should be there any minute, I will check on the frame. I will follow up in the morning and hit you back tomorrow.
7/27/10
Never forget you. I sent this soon as I got a anger. Please let me know you got it this time. If I don;t hear from you I will call.
7/25/10
Just heard back, Brakes are shipping Friday
8/17/10
The rears are ready today, I am shipping those today. the fronts will be a few more days. i should have a update from AME today also.
9/28/10
Front and rear brakes are drop shipping from Wilwood today. Sorry for the delay
9/28/10
I really screwed up trying t split that order, through us right to the back of the line. Bad plan, won;t do that again. But it is handled now
11/8/10
Just got back from SEMA, let me find out where they are, will let you know soon as I hear back
11/9/10
Sorry, i was totally out of pocket all week.There was a question on the pinion location, centered of offset, got the question answered, they will ship Thursday, 2 days to you. Monday / Tuesday at the latest.
11/23/10
From me: Parts are still not here and I have not heard from you. So let’s get this resolved...

There was several e-mails that would not get answered, some phone calls but I did get 98% of what I ordered from them after I felt like I had to worry, beg and hound to get something that I paid for. Frank is a real nice feller but customer service was awful for me. So I would not recommend them to anyone to use because of the past history I have had and what you are also reading about.

Eric

My take on it.

Frank has problems as he has stated, he has also stated that he is working on them and has a solution on the way.

We can continue to take a swipe at him and keep filling the pages of this thread or move on.

I see we all have a choice to make from here, take Frank on his word, that he is honestly working toward a solution and bare with him or move on.

My self personally, I trust him, I have a lot of money invested with Frank and I mean a lot, I live on the other side of the world and I can still get hold of him most of the time and there is a 12 hour time difference, sometimes I get a bit pi$$ed of if I can't get hold of him., but I will cut him some slack because I think his knowledge is fantastic, and I have come to class him as a friend.

Like I have said, you can continue to pile $hit or move on because, I believe a person can only apologies so many times and acknowledge they have a problem.


Greg

I had a negative experience with Prodigy that is not important to rehash.

Good to see the professionalism and composure from everyone on the board. I would like to commend Scott, admins, and mods for handling this so well. :lateral: This thread would not have survived 2 hours on other boards. These forums are exceedingly informative but are also here to look out for the well-being of BOTH the PT enthusiast and the vendor.

I think this thread is a testament to that.

Well said Fernando.

I've tried to refrain from posting in this thread, but this is the one major point I think people should just come to grips with. The sooner customers lower their expectations of sellers/dealers/vendors in this industry, the more people can be pleasantly surprised when things go right and not shocked when things don't happen as they should.

Is that pessimistic? Yeah, maybe. But is it good for everyone involved? Well, yes, I think so.

Very well written. Another reason this forum stands out above the rest.

I have dealt with Frank on a brake kit in the past. With out getting into details I experienced many of the same issues as others. I was never worried about Frank ripping me off, I knew he was good for the parts but it was just one miscommunication after another ( not my fault). At some point it isn't about the money, it was about my time and getting my project done. In the end, Frank didn't resolve my problem, I did. I ended up calling the manufacturer and getting them to resolve the situation. That should never have to happen.

In the end I know Frank is a great guy and does the best he can. He is probably too nice and too busy for things to run perfect. By the sounds of his posts, he is working on fixing that and that is all that can be asked. However in the end I feel frank was the one that lost out as my plan was to order my custom wheels through him. But because of the problems with communication from the brake kit, I could not afford to go through it again with my custom wheel order. I had to go else where to protect myself from that happening again.

There are no hard feelings towards Frank but like I said because of the troubles he lost out on my wheel order. I would love to help out people and shops like his but at the end of the day I have to look out for myself and my project time lines and I couldn't be sure that Frank would be able to be the answer. In the end I just cut out the middle man and went straight to the manufacturer.

As I said before Frank is a great guy in my dealings with him, there are just things with his business that he needs to address and it seems like he is working on them. I hope that all goes well with his business investment and that these issues become issues of the past.

Are you serious?

Yes. I actually am. It sounds kinda ridiculous, but just think about it for a minute. Buying from a vendor on this site will never be like buying on amazon.com. It just won't.

Don't mistake my words for support for Frank, or any other vendor for that matter. I am just saying that if people lowered their standards they would be less disappointed. It's a simple cause and effect.

Again, I am not justifying any vendor actions in this thread. On the contrary.

I have been a business owner/operator in a construction service industry for 6 years. There are many similarities in the automotive and construction industries. There are bad business people in all industries, but they sure seem a dime a dozen in these 2 fields.

I lowered my general expectations quite awhile ago, so therefore I am rarely disappointed! I win. :D

To your point Flash, this issue is not limited to Prodigy Customs only. I have ran into similar issues with two other vendors on this site.

Thats for sure, not only vendors, but manufactures giving misleading delivery dates.

Greg

I agree, I love Jeg's and Summit as much as the next guy for there quick shipping and no hassle return policy.(Walmart comes to mind) However, I've NEVER expected to call the owner of the company at 7 PM on Friday night with a problem for FREE. Especially at the reasonable prices he offers.

I'm certainly not saying taking someones money and forgetting to send in an order is the right thing to do. I'm simply saying that you can't bake your cake and eat it too.

I can't blame you guys for being pissed. He definitely deserves to be called out on the rug. I think that's what it took to make him realize it was time to make some changes.

This discussion needed another perspective. It was a dump on Frank fest. He's done way more good than bad since I've been around this deal. His lively hood is on the line here and I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Let's give him a chance to set up his new shop and put people in place to make things more seamless.

A year from now, people will gripe that they can't call him at 7 PM on Friday anymore and his assistant answers the phone and won't patch them through to the boss. His prices are a little higher due to his new staff. He needs to find the middle ground. Profitable and personable. Tough deal in my opinion. You can't have it all........

Very well said Todd.

Greg

Whatever it takes.

This is well said, and it is really hard to find somebody to answer your questions for free and at anytime. Frank is really active in this forum and willing to assist anybody here and give technical supports for free which some companies lack. I remember when I used to order parts from Summit, some of their technical assistants were not willing to answer questions or used to give wrong informtion which ended in ordering wrong parts. However, their ordering and tracking systems are excellent.

Lets give him a chance till he sorts out the issue with moving to a new facility and get this inventory issue taken care of first, and I am sure he will, and everybody will happy in the end of the day.

Central issue addressed: Stop charging a man's card for items in full and waiting months to ship.Period. Moving buildings and changing software and not calling customers about various issues aside, stop the CC charges. Then everyone can sit around the campfire and sing "Kum by Yahh".

As has been explained in other posts, this is not going to happen. I agree with not charging till the order is placed with the manufacture, but no vendor is going to be happy to be charged upfront and not charge there customer.


Greg

I must say, I do not condone Franks methods (or anyone else) but I am safe to assume he has learned a key lesson. The moderators have made it clear what they will not toletate. Others have made it clear, Frank's knowledge is an asset to the site members. How about this............put the thread to bed?

Regards,

Tim

Greg, our concerns have been made clear, we are on the side of our members.

Well said Todd.

Please put an end to this thread. People have aired their feelings - and now it is getting repetitious. Frank has heard you and is taking steps to correct this in the future.

X3. I think it's time to end this dogpile and give Frank some time to get his house in order. I'm guessing he has plenty of incentive to get it right at this point.

Don

Yep, I agree. Time for this thread to end. Frank needs to get his house in order. We have a shocking amount of members upset with Frank that are unwilling to come forward because they are over a barrel or just want to be done and never touch that subject again. Frank may not be listening to his customers, but I sure am.

Frank is working on getting his house in order. I'm glad to hear that. Once it is in order, he can then become a supporting vendor again.

He's never screwed anyone, but the treatment of our members has been way out of line. If it were anyone else, they would have been LONG gone. I've been giving Frank the benefit of the doubt many, many times... and for a long time. You simply cannot charge a person in full and then not deliver the parts 6 months later and only after countless attempts to contact via e-mail and phone calls. It's insanely frustrating. It's not the industry standard by any stretch of the imagination.

I HATE that it's come to this, but when it comes to Frank making a profit vs. how we, our members of this community, are treated, it's clear. There's no room for this here. Frank will no longer be a supporting vendor.