Vendor owes me money. How do I get it?
 

A certain vendor on here (I wont mention names but Im not the first person complaining based on other posts I found) owes me a $260 credit from overcharging me on a steering column, Vintage Air, and Steering linkage.

Last response from this guy was Jun 22nd (I can copy and paste emails if needed) He said he was going to put it on my card or send me a check.

Since then he has fell off the face of the earth. So I will give this guy one last chance to give my credit back or I will post his name so other people cannot get screwed.

Not a good way to do business since I still need to order about 20K more in parts.

What do I do?

John, he's not a vendor here anymore....

Sorry to hear this. Again...

Said vendor (I assume PC) is still over on the "other" PT forum. I'd go there. Phone would be great choice too.

Hey John

We know the name - keep calling, emailing, texting!

Sorry to hear this again bro. Not trying to make light of a sensitive situation about your hard earned money, but at least it's only $260. Rather you get it back or not, your project will still go on, as compared to if it was $5000 in parts. Good luck!

Isn't it amazing how the once mighty have fallen...

Yea, it's a bummer. I'm shocked so many people have had problems with him.

My experience was so different. I was going to ship him my son's 67 Camaro project and get back a painted roller. Trevor and I would then finish it off. PC actually talked me out of it and turned down the business. He said to look around and that there was a local San Diego place where Trevor and I could participate in the build. If it wasn't for PC we'd never have met the guys at BOS. I'm very grateful to PC for that.

Call your cc company. That there is the problem, the vendor needs other peoples money to pay you back.

Was that before or after all of this "ish" hit the fan. Just aksing because not too many shops will turn down money. That's how many shops get into trouble to begin with. Taking on too many jobs and not having the man power to do the jobs. Then before you know it, they are way in over their heads and overwhelmed and have spent peoples money in other areas of the business. Then when the word gets out and the situation is out of hand, which is the case here, the business owner then and only then he may stop for fear of legal action.

As was suggested above, contact your c/c company. Which card did you use?

These situations are where AMEX typically shines. Not all vendors can take that card, but their customer service, and dispute handling method, are far superior to other cards.

Before.

That is true. I suppose it is a good thing it isn't $5000...

Frank has been involved in our community for quite some time, and I won't be making any character judgements for a while, but I will be paying attention to what goes on over here. I hope he makes things right, even if it takes time.


On a somewhat related side note, I recently checked my CC statements and found that Prodigy owes me about $250 as well, for a bolt kit. I had pretty much kissed off any chance of getting it back, given that this happened two years ago, and it is possible that both of us forgot about my back order. I also figured that if he owes people a couple grand, he might not even bother answering messages from guys like us.

Matt

The other way you might get your money back is purchase an item worth $260 and tell him to send it to you instead of the cash back. It might work better for him that way.

Here's a little CREDIT CARD issue I learned the hard way.... and this will amaze people to find out. IF you pay your bill IN FULL each month -- they will NOT dispute an item. Paying your bill infers that everything is "fine" will all the purchases. Now isn't that just the dumbest thing you ever heard?

So I argued with my bank and said --- so because I'm a good credit card customer and pay my bill in full -- I get PENALIZED for that... by not being able to have the CC company have my back in a dispute? Yep -- that's right -- you're on your own.

I've seriously considered paying all but ONE DOLLAR each month -- just to reserve my right to dispute a purchase.

Sounds like you're being treated "Unfair." :rofl:

This makes you a smart man, but far from a "good" credit card customer. They hardly make any money off you that way.

I love your idea of paying $1 short. :D

I don't know if the policies and procedures are different in the US for MasterCard, Visa and Amex, (I am in Canada) but paying your bill in full at the end of the month does not affect your ability to dispute an item. In fact they encourage you to pay your bill as if there is no dispute.

I have disputed a few items bought from a couple vendors months after paying for the item (within 90 days) -- from the time of the dispute the CC company gives the vendor 90 days to respond to the claim, if they have not the CC company will credit your card for the funds and deal with the vendors bank. Hope that helps at all and I do have some experience with MasterCard and Visa should you need any more info to get your money back....its sucks to have to get to this point but its usually pretty painless to get your money back just takes about 90 days.

"So I argued with my bank and said --- so because I'm a good credit card customer and pay my bill in full -- I get PENALIZED for that... by not being able to have the CC company have my back in a dispute? Yep -- that's right -- you're on your own."

Greg,
In the CC company's eye you're not a good customer since you're not paying 18% to use their card.

Nick

Best Of Show turns down money all the time.. they prefer to bill every two weeks for work they did.. not bill for work they are going to do. This keeps them "hungry" and motivated to get work done on people's cars. Of course the other side to this is that if a customer can't pay his invoice they stop on his car and move to one where the customer can pay (after all, they have to make payroll and rent).

Customers offer to pay large chunks up front and he turns them down (except for buying parts). Heck, I've even seen customers just want to pay for the whole job up front but BOS knows this can cause problems when you spend that cash and then have to make rent. That's when a shop gets into a "rob Peter to pay Paul" problem.

It's like hiring a kid to cut your lawn for $50 a month.. if you pay him $600 up front for the year then about 6 months in he will be unmotivated to show up on time and do good work since he's not working each month to keep the payments coming and the $600 is long spent so he's thinking where he will make MORE money.

Make sense?

To some degree I can see this being a problem in the parts area too, but it's a bit different since you're dealing with parts and not labor.

Wait.. isn't that MY bolt kit that you borrowed from Track Rat to assemble your car????

:rofl:

See? Robbing Peter to assemble Paul does work......lol!

Good one :lol:

Check is on its way. Woohoo!

This is so weird to me I just talked to him a few weeks back about my car.

check is on its way. Woohoo!

Me too, I have talked to him twice this week.

I would suggest you pick up the phone and give him a call.

Greg

John,

You posted the email transcripts on Pro Touring. I asked you to call with your CC number (we do not keep on file) so i could credit you back. I can not put the credit on unless I have the card number. You asked me to call you, I did. I did not get a call back.

In your email yesterday you stated you e mailed the number. I searched your emails and do see the card number in another email right after I called and it is indeed there. So the credit will go back on this card Monday when I return home.

If you got missed on a back order, you can either have the kit (they are in stock) or the $$$$$. I will be back Monday and can check on my end but I think Steve stole it, LOL!

Seriously, I doubt you still need it, send me a note and I will have to send a check or do a credit on file.

There's the Frank we know and love!

There is always so much more to these stories. And we certainly hold our portion of the blame. But this threatening to post now has become the IN Vogue thing to do over issues.

So this does go back a long way, because John asked the credit to be applied to a glass order he placed on April 6 and never paid, instead he killed the project on May 14. But the credit floated on that glass invoice (attached) until he killed the project on May 14.:lateral:

I bring all this up because I was not going to bring this up to Lisa on our first weekend off in 4 months, but when I brought this up to Lisa after I responded to the post mind you, she says, Wait a minute! I did that credit!

So sure enough we check and Lisa's did try to credit it. But because it is over 120 days old it did not go back on his card. We run a dozen charges a day sometimes and get confirmations on each on, and what we thought was a confirmation was a rejection do to age of transacation. Keeping in mind from the time of order to mid June when the CC info was resent by John to me, more then half that 120 days was after the credit was applied to another invoice.

I only assumed the cc info got missed when in reality Lisa did catch it and handle it. And no we do not discuss every single transaction and breath one another takes. I just assumed i was taking the hit on this one.

So long story short, I do have to send John a check.

And BTW, I missed Fridays email John. I had some training classes Friday, if you would have called you would have got that message.

But I do find it interesting in this new in vogue way of resolving issues one chooses to post first and email second. Post at 11:34, email at 11:45

From: [email protected] (Add as Preferred Sender)

Date: Fri, Jul 15, 2011 11:45 pm
To: [email protected], [email protected]


From Subject (Thread Messages) Date Size
I am going to ask one last time for my $260 credit to be put back on my card. Otherwise I have to report it to the credit card company and do a chargeback. You have my card number as I have sent it already in previous emails.

John Samples



So anyway, Monday we will send a check

check is on it way. Woohoo

FYI: Posting my invoice with my name address and phone number is NOT COOL.

Seriously Frank? A vendor posting peoples personal info all over the web has to be illegal.

I agree, putting someones personal info out there like that is really not cool. I don't know Frank, but that is a pretty unprofessional move.

I removed it.