Southern California Club Xterra
Southern California Club Xterra => Off Topic => Topic started by: PainRoller on September 21, 2015, 04:56:48 PM
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You may not agree with me posting this, but I'm tired of the Xterra community not knowing what is happening with the Insain Fab GB. At this point we are asking for a refund. Which we may never get. Who knows....
If you would like a refund on a bumper I cannot help with that. 100% of all funds collected were in IF's business account. If you would like a refund, I cannot give you one as I do not have access to their bank accounts, balances, etc. (except paypal); so you will need to stop by in person (if local), call, leave messages, send emails then if you still don't hear back unfortunately you will need to take things further with bank claims, BBB claims, letter from a lawyer, etc. Last I talked to Corey he stated "no refunds" as you all saw in a previous post and I DO NOT agree with it, but irregardless of what David Boyd thinks he knows, I have ZERO control. I think and have told Corey that I feel his cavalier attitude about all this is absolute sh&t.
If I had my way I would 100% refund ALL remaining items because this is a huge waste of my personal time as we are far past what any expectation was. And for that I apologize. I am very tired of this dragging on and still having to deal with it all as well as people bashing me personally when all I do is try and get sh*t out of that shop. So you all would be doing me a favor if you stepped it up a bit with the refund request.
When I set this up, 100% with Corey (I have every single email/message saved as I am not taking liability for something out of my control) I told him the ONLY way I would do this is if he would follow through on lead times. I told him how bad it was and what type of opportunity this is with my prior reputation and other companies. He assured me up and down that it would not be a problem, I kept laying on the part options, drumming up new business and putting it all together as he knew P&P and Hardcore were offering a GB as well. As the orders poured in along with the money it was the best thing ever. That is until he realized he is the one that actually had to build all this stuff.
Then as time went on I realized more and more that Corey would just tell me whatever I wanted to hear as he loathes conflict. More time went on and I had to get his wife involved, until she too separated herself from all of it and wanted to focus on her career and not continue to babysit the IF business. So it was back to just Corey and I tried my best to make sure work was getting done, that the employees were working on GB stuff, pushing out all his retail stuff to focus on the GB. Then I would find random side work going on when I would work on Friday's, from local off road stuff, to dealer stuff, even a sh*t ton of brackets for some sort of construction build. It got personal many times until I made the post that I want nothing to do with this anymore I would no longer help develop his business. It was then that his FT employee went BACK to his previous job and Corey was left to the shop by himself.
Now don't think you guys are any different than the local jobs. He had a "friends" toyota sit on the property for longer than mine until he finally just had it towed to another shop to have it completed (he was wheeling the following weekend). Lead times were rarely if ever hit with local projects and other builds to where people would be coming by to check and see in person cause they couldn't get in touch with anyone via phone or internet. He had months to finish the Toyec project for the FJ Summit and they were all literally working day and night the last week to do the entire build and you guessed it, it still was not done 100% in time for the summit.
I am sorry guys, I truly am; I thought I vetted the situation thoroughly and completely but I was sadly, sadly mistaken. With that said, feel how you will about me, let little troll Boyd say w/e he needs to in order to save face on his personal site and for "his friends" piss poor customer service. But at the end of the day, I sleep very, very well at night knowing that I do not have one of your pennies, have a extremely thorough (like forensic accounting) reconciliation of accounts on 100% of this GB and that my true friends and companions that I have made in this community over the past 5 years know the type of person I am as well as how much I cared about this community.
Thank you for your time.
At this point, people are asking for refunds, contacting the BBB, and trying to get the GB public again.
It's annoying and now we don't know what we are going to do for bumpers prior to the November trip.. ??? ???
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That sucks.....very unfortunate =/
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Won't be the first time. These are all small shops, sole proprietor, they stop working the build stops. A family issue comes up, the build stops. Unless they have a bumper designed and sent out to CNC Laser and pre bent, mass production on anykind in a timely manner is impossible. shrockworks have this and that's why I think they can better manage their turnaround.
Creative Fab did runs of group buy for the dodge bumpers in 5s even in that quantity it was hard to keep a time line. If any of your supplier screws you your intention of meeting the timeline goes out the window. They had the Laser cutter bend the frame horns wrong and the entire production just comes to a halt.
It happens with calmini, slr, shrockworks, AOE and many more will have the same problem.
Really sucks that it happening to the people that paid.
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Oh, he's working, just not on the GB. He outsourced it. And hasn't bothered to finish it.
ZERO communication. ZERO quality control.
And everyone was required to pay upfront - the ENTIRE AMOUNT.
Now, I know some people think we got what we deserved. That we were "wolves" looking for a too-good-to-be-true deal. Or that we should have known better.
But the reality is, this was our very first Xterra buy. We had no idea. How do you research for issues you don't even know exist?
He took our money - and hasn't delivered. It sucks for everyone involved. This was a very expensive and long drawn out lesson.... :(
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I would search the group for the group and se if he/she can send him a nice letter.
I hope you guys have some sort of invoice with dates.
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I would take him to small claims court.
then I would take a short vacation on said court date.
If he does not show then he defaults.
lean can be placed on his business or assets in favor of claimant.
my .02
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Xoskel.
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Barb...have you seen the thread over on Xterranation.org dedicated to this?
There seems to be some information there...NMTerras/Sean McAfee is an attorney who seems to be involved with/helping out. Not sure, as I haven't followed this closely.
I can however RELATE...as I chased a paid for roof rack from Xoskel for 13 months.
Sorry to hear about your troubles, I hope you and Mike can work it out with this guy.
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The more I think about this, the angrier I get.
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CHUSA - thanks for the idea! Hopefully it won't come to that, but it's good to be prepared....
John-Yeah, we've been following ALL the threads very closely for 8 months! LOL We are privy to multiple threads that only the GB can see at this point on NewX.
Unfortunately, people are comparing this to the Xoskel issue. Sorry to hear you were a part of that. :( Did you ever get the rack or your money back?
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FWIW, I don't consider you "wolves" one bit or think you "got what you deserved." There was no reason not to be excited about the group buy when it started. The promises were made, and there was no reason not to believe it would be delivered upon. The deals weren't THAT great (certainly not great enough to fall under the "too good to be true" category), and it had the backing of a very reliable member who had organized many, many successful group buys in the past. It was even thrown out there early on that the Xterra community was doing a good thing for this business by throwing all of these orders at them, and everyone was led to believe that it was benefitting the shop, the customers and the Xterra community. I was really upset that I couldn't scrape the funds together to jump on the GB before it expired, because I really wanted these bumpers too. Slowly over the past several months, it has evolved from "come on everybody, let's help out this great business, help out the xterra community, and get a great product for a good price" into "cut us some slack, we were trying to do everyone a favor and now we're getting screwed here," and it's so not cool to have it flipped around on you like that.
This is a really ****ty shittuation all the way around. The biggest victims are obviously the consumers who paid their money and haven't gotten their product (you guys!), but the reality is that there are NO winners here. The shop is not making money. The consumers are not getting their product. The reputations of many people are ruined. The patience and sanity of many, many more is also completely gone.
As you mentioned, the threads on TNX are not visibile to the public anymore, so I've only been able to follow what is on XN. It looks like some people had some luck getting refunds lately, but I would imagine that stopped when the flood of requests for refunds came in and they (he) realized they (he) was going to lose a small fortune on this if he gave everyone their money back (remember, he's already purchased the metal, outsourced the welding and paid for powdercoating in many cases). Truth be told, I would bet that once the smoke settled, people would buy all of those bumpers up, especially if they knew it was "in-stock, ready to ship" and had been inspected for QC issues. People really do want the product, they just don't want the lead times, the QC issues and the crappy customer service.
Sadly, I'd say you really only have two options here: 1) continue to wait and try not to die from the stress of it in the meantime. This unfortunately means you won't have your bumpers before the trip in November. or 2) threaten legal action (and be prepared to follow through with it). This option would at least probably get you your money back quickly, although it might not be as "cut and dry" of a case as it seems if there was no official contract. Still, the implication is clear and the results are also painfully clear, so it should be a pretty quick (and cheap) thing to get done. It's not like he's going to fight back with a lawyer either, so you can literally file a lawsuit in small claims court and would likely see a refund the day after he gets served. Just my $.02. Anyway, good luck, and I feel for you guys! It's so hard to watch a bunch of good people go through this horrible experience. :(
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i haven't followed this but just heard some blurbs here and there, I will 2nd Joe's comments. these shops grow too big for their britches and seem to just walk away from it all.
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InSain posted on XterraNation today.
you may wish to post there.
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What thread did they post in? I checked all of the threads I've been following regarding the GB and didn't see anything. If you check their username for posts, the most recent it shows was on 6/26/15 when they updated three customers' bumpers that were shipping.
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Check out this thread CHUSA resurrected. It's getting quite a bit of chatter. Might get shut down by ON, so be quick.
http://www.thenewx.org/forum/showthread.php?p=2724298#post2724298
Thanks CHUSA for putting some 'daylight' on this issue....
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GeoYota has assisted as well on XterraNation
good on ya John!!
There is a guy in California "Fixitguy" in Anaheim that has asked for a refund.
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YES!! Thank you, John!! ;D
Fixitguy is Mike (my hubby). That is us asking for a refund. :-\
I appreciate everyone's help and positive feedback on this site regarding this debacle. You all are awesome!!
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YES!! Thank you, John!! ;D
Fixitguy is Mike (my hubby). That is us asking for a refund. :-\
I appreciate everyone's help and positive feedback on this site regarding this debacle. You all are awesome!!
PM sent.
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PM #2 sent.
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Haha! Just replied to PM #1
Will look for PM #2 ;D
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I want PMs :(
Good luck with this endeavor.
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Steve, I sent you a PM :)
Hint: It says nobody cares about you, stop whining >:D
EOTJ
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I want PMs :(
Good luck with this endeavor.
Steve, I'll trade you ALL MY PM's for your rear bumper.... :-*
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Just to throw 2 cents in on this. The demand for these kinda products can throw a shop into major problems if they aren't ready for it. A disclaimer should have been said once they saw how many rush the doors per say. It's kinda like black Friday at best buy and them only 5 TV's and 100 people want them. It's a mad rush. But with that said it's still no excuse for what they are doing and have done.
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Just to throw 2 cents in on this. The demand for these kinda products can throw a shop into major problems if they aren't ready for it. A disclaimer should have been said once they saw how many rush the doors per say. It's kinda like black Friday at best buy and them only 5 TV's and 100 people want them. It's a mad rush. But with that said it's still no excuse for what they are doing and have done.
Except the difference here is... it's like if Best Buy only had 5 of those TVs, but took everyone else's money and said "we'll get you a TV within 2 months" and it's now mid-summer and you still don't have your TV you paid for months ago. :-\
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Except the difference here is... it's like if Best Buy only had 5 of those TVs, but took everyone else's money and said "well get you a TV within 2 months" and it's now mid-summer and you still don't have your TV you paid for months ago. :-\
Good point. So I didn't say it quite right. Either way they screwed up bad and will end up paying for it. Hence the life of small business. If you can't eat your screw up you go under. And it sucks for those involved there's only so much that can be done.
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Just echoing how much of a BS situation it is for those involved with the whole Insain thing: I think the problem stems from the Nissan/Xterra and others aftermarket being nowhere near as plentiful like Jeep and others, so people try to step in and make some of the market themselves. Great, but the shop has to expect to take a large number of orders or to be prepared to stop taking orders if it's over their output limit, especially if they advertise on the major sites like TNX, Xterra Nation, etc. Even if Insain wasn't big as Shrock or the others, it's still on them to not blindly take money for products if they don't think they can realistically produce them.
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I didn't want to jack the for sale thread where you guys bought the hefty front and rear bumpers. But... since you acquired those, does that mean you guys got your refund from Insain Fab!?!? (fingers crossed) Or did you just come to the decision that it will be easy enough to sell one of each of the two front and rear bumpers once Insain FINALLY comes through?
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I didn't want to jack the for sale thread where you guys bought the hefty front and rear bumpers. But... since you acquired those, does that mean you guys got your refund from Insain Fab!?!? (fingers crossed) Or did you just come to the decision that it will be easy enough to sell one of each of the two front and rear bumpers once Insain FINALLY comes through?
Nope! No refund yet. We will post if that actually happens. So keep crossing those fingers. ;)
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after seeing pictures of their product, i dont know if i would even want insain fab products. some terrible craftsmanship.
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I already have the bumpers on.
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One of SCCX's newer members, OffRdX, received front and back Insain Fab bumpers. ^^^
I'm interested to know how those are working out for him...
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Any updates on your refund request?
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Any updates on your refund request?
Well, it's still kinda pending.... We have a refund check as of Tuesday afternoon - just waiting to see if it will clear.....
I'm not celebrating until next Wednesday - my bank says it will have either bounced or cleared by then. Keep crossing fingers, toes, legs, etc.... ::) ::)
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Next Wednesday will either be a whole lotta THIS:
(http://www.totalprosports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/dancing-penn-state-hockey-fan-dancing-sports-fan-gifs.gif)
with a little bit of THIS:
(http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1768583/harbaughYES.gif)
Or a bucket load of THIS:
(http://q9ajg3m8r764ux2l1qldhv3k5.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/Jim-Harbaugh.gif)
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CHECK CLEARED!!!!!!
(http://cdn3-www.afterellen.com/assets/uploads/2015/02/022015ByeLarry11.gif)
Thank you, thank you, thank you - YOTA and CHUSA!!!
(Seriously, it wouldn't have gone down this way without your help!)
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Overall update from the private thread:
People have been getting their product delivered (it's amazing what happened after Yota and CHUSA posted in the forums).
Some are asking for partial refunds, some are asking for product to be fixed, but most product has been shipped to date. There are still a couple of 1st Gen bumpers to be shipped or put on at the shop.....
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Great news!
Power to the People, Right On! ;D
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Wow....really glad you and Mike are taken care of.
Great news!!
Sent from Cygnus X-1
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One of SCCX's newer members, OffRdX, received front and back Insain Fab bumpers. ^^^
I'm interested to know how those are working out for him...
I have the same Hi-lift issue everyone else seems to have. The rear fit well and I'm happy with it. One thing I have to do myself is find a good spot to mount the trailer harness.
The front was a debacle. I didn't get all the hardware for the bumper. It's sitting really low, I'm going to try to adjust it one of these days, it may just be how I aligned it. The rad skid wasn't bent at the correct angle so I had to fix that. There were also no holes pre-drilled. That wasn't too big of a deal for me but not what I expect as a finished product.
I'm glad the corners got cancelled and refunded. I'm not sure how that would have gone.
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