Considering the large amount of dishonest business that happens within the automotive aftermarket industry I wouldn't be surprised if the BBB slapped an F to every single shop in the country.

 

Granted Steve could have gone about it a different way and informed the customer of any issues going on.

It sounds like this guy was trying to get an expensive job done for a cheap price and went through a friend who couldn't deliver. he got pissed and wrote more pages than one should ever read on a internet forum and expects people like myself who have never seen this side of a person to just bow down and trust his word over someone I actually know.

If I hear Steve say oh yes I dicked that guy over I totally could have had it finished but I bought a big screen and hooked up my grungy *** shop. Then I will stand corrected.

More than likely Steve used the money to get him self out of a ditch and this guy gave it to him versus paying when the job was finished. Both parties faults.

Moral of the story don't give someone 50k and expect them not to spend it on frivolous ****. Pay for work when its complete, or take any collateral that was promised to you the day you drop your personal property off.

 

You, sir, speak the harsh but true, uhh, truth. Your initial posts looked like you were purely defending him but based on your firsthand experiences, you had no reason not to. This seems to make much more sense!

 

I'm just a human being. I know what happens when you give someone lots of money upfront work.

Its like paying someones annual salary up front. "here ya go now go work hard for no reason!"

I was defending Steve and still am to a point. I'm just trying to figure out the other side of the story and running through scenarios. Hopefully we all learn a lesson from this.

In the car world a shop or company shouldn't charge you until the package is shipped or the car is complete. If you pay beforehand you're taking a risk.

 

haha get ur story straight... he approached me and said he wanted to build a car to get his shop name out but didnt have money to do so. this is after i told him about a project i was suppose to do w my other friend who owns a shop but didnt go through. so i asked him "oh really? ok..... how long will it take and how much do you think you will need?", he was the one that said "about 50k " and he was the one that said " for this year sema show (it was april 07 when we talked about this) so yeah... he promiesed me that he will finish the car in 6months and YES when i asked "are you sure? isnt that too short?" he said "no its plenty" i trusted him like how you trust him back then. then when he couldnt finish the car by sema he tells me he will finish the car by next year aug. hmmm what do you think happened? then he said dec. i hope you get the whole picture and just not his trusty words. Im happy that you live in ur happy little bubble of urs and love SR, but dont believe everything that he tells you just cause he let you borrow some tools.

i suppose you also know that he has another trial w another person cause he didnt pay her back, huh... since hes such a honest person like you said.

ignorance is a bless my friend...

 

exactly... i told him that, i told steve that i dont feel comfortable w me giving him all the money, like i said up till the point that i gave him all the money, he was very cool with me and being all "buddy, buddy" it is my fault that i trusted him with all that money, and no i didnt change anything w the project, he even gave me the invoice of what he was charging me and what parts we was getting, there are about 7k worth of parts that r not in the car but he charged me for it.

like i said in my original post "yes it was my fault, trusting him on the first place w all that money" and not following the simple rule "never do business w your close friends"

im not stopping anyone who wants to goto his shop, i really dont care, if you feel like hes a trust worthy guy then go. im just telling my story so ppl can judge by them selves. im going to post more pics of the car and what he did to it. but just be more patient cause i want to wait till my court day is over.

p.s. you call him a good friend of ur, I use to call him a good friend of mine also. you have no idea how many times i went to his shop to make this work out. he would beg me not to tell our friends what was going on between me and him, every time he would say "dude, im sorry, ill make it up to you, i'll finish the car as we planned" now i know, he was just f*in w me.