Getting ripped off by thieves and vendors (Sometimes at the same time)

[Lenie]

time to move on....

[garickman]

Originally Posted by Lenie

time to move on....

I don't understand why it is time to move on. Why can't Frank just answer one simple question. He brags that he has over 1000 happy customers so that justifies the handful of people that he has ripped off for thousands of dollars, putting people through unwanted stress, causing projects to be delayed for weeks, months and in a few cases over a year. It isn't like these problems just crept up, it has been on going for a couple of years.

In the meantime he throws it in everybody's face that he is debt free with no mortgage payment, credit card or car payments. I would be debt free too if I was using someone elses money to pay all my bills. I have ordered through Frank before and although I got my item it took forever and I had to make many phone calls. I hear everyone defend him and say he is a nice guy. Sure he is a nice guy, have you ever met a con-artist that was an a-hole. The defination of a con-artist is a person adept at lying, cajolery, or glib self-serving talk, a person adept at swindling by means of confidence. Let the man explain himself.

[John510]

I just found another guy who was conned on pro touring during his March pulley system sale. The guy ordered parts and paid for them but Frank never ordered from March. This is from 3 weeks ago. Curious what excuse he has on this one.....

[Bucketlist2012]

Originally Posted by garickman

I don't understand why it is time to move on. Why can't Frank just answer one simple question. He brags that he has over 1000 happy customers so that justifies the handful of people that he has ripped off for thousands of dollars, putting people through unwanted stress, causing projects to be delayed for weeks, months and in a few cases over a year. It isn't like these problems just crept up, it has been on going for a couple of years.

In the meantime he throws it in everybody's face that he is debt free with no mortgage payment, credit card or car payments. I would be debt free too if I was using someone elses money to pay all my bills. I have ordered through Frank before and although I got my item it took forever and I had to make many phone calls. I hear everyone defend him and say he is a nice guy. Sure he is a nice guy, have you ever met a con-artist that was an a-hole. The defination of a con-artist is a person adept at lying, cajolery, or glib self-serving talk, a person adept at swindling by means of confidence. Let the man explain himself.

Gotta say the man is right...Thanks Frank for telling us all about your debt free life and your dropping many hundreds of thousands of dollars on upgrades by choice..

Sure your customers that seem to be getting burned appreciate your heartfelt apology..

seems to me , too many people with the same story on this site, and one man, with a defensive and condesending response...

[ErikLS2]

I'd like to hear Frank answer Jody's question too. I'm another one, ordered my Vaporworx tank, got a good deal, waited a couple months at least and nothing. Called Hector, he had no record of the order, and I had my tank in a couple weeks. I would just like the question to be answered already.

[XLexusTech]

Why do we have so many people who say that they've ordered and paid in full for parts and months later they have not even been ordered from the manufacturer?

Why not just post a policy where by you guarantee parts will be ordered when paid for? Wouldn't this help? Would this be a smart thing for a vendor to do?

[Lenie]

Originally Posted by garickman

I don't understand why it is time to move on. Why can't Frank just answer one simple question. He brags that he has over 1000 happy customers so that justifies the handful of people that he has ripped off for thousands of dollars, putting people through unwanted stress, causing projects to be delayed for weeks, months and in a few cases over a year. It isn't like these problems just crept up, it has been on going for a couple of years.

In the meantime he throws it in everybody's face that he is debt free with no mortgage payment, credit card or car payments. I would be debt free too if I was using someone elses money to pay all my bills. I have ordered through Frank before and although I got my item it took forever and I had to make many phone calls. I hear everyone defend him and say he is a nice guy. Sure he is a nice guy, have you ever met a con-artist that was an a-hole. The defination of a con-artist is a person adept at lying, cajolery, or glib self-serving talk, a person adept at swindling by means of confidence. Let the man explain himself.

Most of us have ordered from vendors and not always had positive outcomes. In this case Frank has been banned from this site for sometime now w/reasons readily available to read. Most of his business problems have been stated in fore mentioned post, yet we keep asking the same questions already pretty much knowing the answers. Do we really need to hear him gravel? You will never get the answers you're looking for. I believe the people on this site are better than that. It's good to keep members informed but it also helps to do your research on the vendors history before ordering and in this case there are plenty of red flags out there as this topic has been addressed several times in the past. Again there's really no need to push, push, push when you already know the answers. I wish you all the best of luck retrieving your losses as I have been in this boat before w/several vendors. The hobby is tough enough w/o vendors making it tough on us.

[brans72]

I will say I have order parts from Franks and had no problem on getting my parts. I did not spend alot was maybe 2k but I got my parts in reason amount of time. Just my.02 and hope this matter with everyone and we all just get along once again

[ProdigyCustoms]

Jody, I have taken my time answering this thread initially, and then after your response because I can give a dozens reason why this has happened on SOME orders and no matter what I say it will just fuel the fire. I could throw a employee under the bus, complain about being to busy, blame it on the way payments are received, blame it on bulk purchases, blame it on group buy, blame it on timing orders, blame it on automatic order system failures.

It does not matter what reason I give, I can break down every scenario as I have here and in the past and whatever that answer is will still be seen as BS by my witch hunters here. In the past I have accepted responsibility and explained every problem in detail only to get absolutely mugged for say "I screwed up"

How many orders is it? 10?50? 100? orders. We do THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of orders! And when I point that out someone jumps in and says I am bragging. Just last night I got my dinner completely botched at one of our favorite most consistent restaurants.

I cannot answer this and win. I try to give comfort in the fact we are debt free so people are comfortable we will be here tomorrow, and I get my head ripped off for bragging about being debt free.

I get accused of ripping people off but there is not a single documented case of someone getting ripped off and NOT getting what they paid for. Not one person has never gotten what they paid for.

I will tell you this, it is a small percentage of our orders. I will also tell you that not many people run out an brag about things that go as they as supposed to go, as expected. Not many people go into work and brag, "Just want to let everyone know I got my Egg McMuffin in 2 minutes this morning just like I was supposed to". But if someone gets their Egg McMuffin in 20 minutes that guy will bitch and bitch and bitch. Now if you combine that basic thought process and create a atmosphere where people are allowed to back slapped for saying something positive, like here on this forum, it makes it even more unlikely anyone will say anything. I have emails and text for people saying. i still love you man! hold you head up, but they are afraid to speak up because they will get mugged!

And I see you deleted Ummgawa's post, but when the moderators lead the mugging like they have in the past, they are leading the choir!

And you Jody in particular are 100% blaming me for something that is 100% not true and not as you state it to be, And I have emails to back it up. But you are carrying a torch for me for something that did not happen.

Jody, how many other orders did you and I do that went just fine?

So I will TRY to explain how someone can order something and the PO not be sent but the card is charged. This is a PERFECT example that can documented right here and now. I will give you a perfect example of how this can happen. The nicest guy in the world has posted in this thread a couple times and had a problem order he has not mentioned, in fact he has tried to slow the flame without bringing it up.

Lenie came to visit us at out new shop. Wanted to see the shop, wanted to buy some stuff while he was here. He hung out and we talked for a couple hours, My phone blowing up like it does all day, me answering every call all the while. Lenie commented many times on how amazing it is I take everyone calls, he stuck through it. All of a sudden Lenie has to go, we realize time is up, I also have to leave, Lenie wants to order some stuff real quick before he goes.

I write a hand written note, 10 items, multiple manufacturers. Give him some pricing, Lisa runs the card while Lenie is there, we all leave at the same time. hand written note on my desk. Lenie calls 2 weeks later, just checking on my stuff. Oh ****, where is that note? Can't find it. Find it 2 weeks later under a chair in my office, ceiling fan must have blown it off. Frank TOTALLY forgets because it is not in his face Monday morning. Call Lenie, Lenie is cool. We start getting his stuff to him, but I send Lenie a 69 dash instead of a 67 dash. Lenie calls, OK, I will handle it, phone rings. That gets forgotten.

BUT, 2 weeks later I DO remember literally in the middle of the night and write to Lenie, Lenie, I forgot about your dash. Lenie handled it direct with the company with out me even knowing. The point is WHEN I remembered, I tried to fix it right away.

So how does it happen. I wrote a hand written note, leave, lose, forget, transposed one digit and sent a 69 instead of a 67. In the end Lenie got everything he was supposed to get. And I think he is to nice a guy to mention he was not THRILLED with the way it went down, but I THINK he also understands how it happened as he was wittiness to just how busy we get. Lets forget the fact that I was probably the only person on the planet capable of specking out some parts of Lenie's order. Lets forget the fact I actually had living projects available for him to see exactly what he was wanting.

Let me tell you something else. A year ago there was a thread about not getting what boiled down to a transmission kit. It was the huge thread I said, oops, tried to time the order and no trans was available. No matter how hard i tried to accept responsibility, I got mugged! Well needless to say i jumped all over getting that transmission problem fixed. The OP was privy to every email between me and the supplier going forward. I specifically asked that this kit go complete, as it is too hard to chase little parts that do not show up to drop ships. Trans kit ships, shows up missing 4 or 5 parts. Send a note, 3 of 5 parts ship. It took 6 weeks to finalize that order and no matter how hard I tried I could not make it end. And the customer was courtesy copy on every email. When it was all done I said, OK, so you have got a snapshot of how damn difficult this can be sometimes. He never came back in and said ya know, I can see how this can happen. It is not the nature of the beast. But at the end of the day there was a SPECIFIC reason I had not sent that trans kit.

I will tell you another thing. There was another customer that jumped on that thread, has a almost identical problem, ripped my head off and pucked down my throat. And rightfully so. In the meantime in the year past I have made constant contact with that customer, checking up on him, seeing if things were OK, how his project was going. A issue came up he DID NOT mention to me 6 months later, I saw it in a post (Not in a negative way) hi m trying to solve the problem on his own. I found out it was something my supplier did wrong. I sent parts, and gave credit to cover the labor. I have bent over backwards after he blew my head off on the thread to give service after the sale, me initiating the service. It would have been real easy to bail on that one. Not many people get their ass whipped and come around seeing if they can help after the fact. And I do not expect him to say something, but you do not see him chiming in saying, got to hand it to Frank, he sees things through.

So in the end, it is a small percentage, I cannot give a satisfactory answer, and nothing I say will change the direction of this thread.

[ProdigyCustoms]

Originally Posted by John510

I just found another guy who was conned on pro touring during his March pulley system sale. The guy ordered parts and paid for them but Frank never ordered from March. This is from 3 weeks ago. Curious what excuse he has on this one.....

So there goes John again, FINDING someone through PMs. LOL! God I wish I had so much time on my hands.

Curious of my excuse. Very very simple. he ordered a brand new kit that was not available and was told from the get go it would be a few weeks as they were waiting for compressors. I was told they would be expected early last week. Customer saw this thread, called march and said he was worried his order was not placed because he heard rumors of us not placing orders.

My rep called me and said he explained to him

(1) That kit was a brand new kit and was not shipping yet, which he knew

(2) That is is not uncommon for dealers to place orders in bulk, and just because there was not a order, did not mean it was not getting ordered.

So, want a snapshot into my business John. To offer that discount, and to get free shipping, I have to place orders of $2500 or more. This order is barely over 1000 dollars, so I have been checking for statues of that kit and waiting to order it when it is ready with another kit which is always in stock.

That is how I offered the additional 5% and free shipping.

AND FYI, Lisa called that customer and left a message at the phone number on file at 11 O Clock soon as we checked in to see the availability.

So I wonder, if I bring March in to verify that conversation and what I say is true, will that end you witch hunt John? Will you stop PMing potential customers and WARNING them about us? Will you stop PMing customers who's deals are transparent in a thread and FOLLOWING UP on our orders?............No, probably not. it really is a bit sick!