WOW. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS HAS HAPPENED TO YOU..
ESPECIALLY FROM SOMEONE SO WELL RESPECTED ON THIS FORUM.

I am sure Trochoid feels bad about this and will do everything
possible to make it right as soon as possible, and we'll all
be friends again real soon.

:grouphug:

You make a good point Sterling. I always paid you up front and insisted Marc do the same, and have never had any problems with it.

At least you have the ability to have a dozen or more people step up and say "I did business with Sterling, I paid him up front, he treated me like royalty, and I'll go back in the future"

Plus the "some sort of assurance" part that I spoke of is covered in your policy - you have a 30-day money back guarantee posted right on your website *and* you don't request the core until after the Sterling is in the customer's hands.

So I don't think you'll have much of a problem with buyers trusting you, or at least I hope you don't.

But I'm sure you can understand where I'm coming from. Especially for something that is a multi-stage process (get the blasting media, get the polishing supplies, get the powdercoating material, buy the tires, ship it) I'm sure that a pay-per-milestone deal or something could have been worked out. I'm just trying to encourage other people to be safe and cautious. If you don't know the person has a good reputation as a seller then step lightly.

I personally have never hesitated to pay upfront for people on this forum who seemed trustworthy to me, but for large-ticket things I may pass up buying them if the person doesn't have people vouching for them as a seller, or try to work out a different payment strategy. I really don't want to get burned for that much money again.

Jon

Your other post pointed out a thread with a completely different topic that was moved to a completely different section. It had no relevance, this thread does not belong in the classifieds like that one does.

This IS in the good guy bad guy forum, notice the link in the first post. I'll merge it with the one in non-tech because you're right, this isn't a technical thread.

Jon

well if its already in the good guy bad guy section why is it here?!!!
exacly, im glad we agree..
off to the good guy bad guy section please

I held off on posting this thread because I didn't want to "wipe the forum with his dirty laundry", it's not my style. But I tried to resolve this individually with trochoid, and when I heard that I wasn't the only one having this problem with him I realized it might not be an isolated incident. It was enough to make me want to make sure that everyone knows what happened to me.

I'm sure that you would want to know this kind of thing about a potential seller rather than have all the people screwed by said seller stay quiet because they all think they're "isolated incidents"

Jon

Can't believe it. I was actually very close to sending him both of my spare gray checkered door panels and about $100 to have him re-do the panels. I think I'm going to reconsider that now. Sorry to hear about all that has happened to you Jon, I still can't believe it..

RELAX, Robert. There's no reason to get all high & mighty. Jon's already taken care of it.
You really had to go and tattle, huh? Man, WTF's wrong with you? Jon's a reasonable guy, he's just really pissed off right now about somebody not coming through for him. Surely you're familiar with just what his state of mind is right now, after all. I PMed Jon, and respectfully made a suggestion, and he reconsidered.

You could've done the same, but I think you're more concerned about taking advantage of an opportunity to satisfy a personal vendetta than you are about the preservation of the forum rules.

...BTW, this isn't about any of the 3 of us, it's about trochoid, who's been online, but notably absent from this thread.

Wait you have spare grey checkered door panels?

PM sent.. lol.

Jon

lets see what the other party has to say before we jump to conclusions

Now that we have the 'where this thread should be' mumbo jumbo out of the way
I have just a few thoughts I'd like to express.
1. Whether or not to bring this up shouldn't be argued about because both actions, to bring it up or not, are justifiable. ie. doing one action doesn't make the other wrong.
2. Trochiod should not shy away from posting on the forum because of this.
3. Trochoid's actions on always helping others out with technical info shows to me he is a 'good' person.
4. I have a brother who I have lost over a thousand dollars to because he has money problems; yet when you ask him for help with anything,except money since he never has any, he will help you. I wouldn't say he is a 'bad' person but can't be trusted with money. This is how I see Trochiod now;I don't know the details of the transaction except money is owed to Jon.
5. Trochoid is not a 'bad' person, just someone who can't be trusted with money.
6. A payment plan needs to be made NOW to Jon, whether it's $100 a week or $100 a month, Jon and Trochoid need to come up with a plan they both agree with and this thread will serve the purpose of acountability. I believe it worked in this thread - https://www.rx7club.com/bad-fugly-members-185/yet-another-12-31-customer-victim-unsatisfied-697159/page6/
7. For the random person who doesn't know Trochoid personally, think twice before you think of him as a jerk, I wouldn't call him one because I can relate him to my brother.
8.Has this thread made me hate Trochoid, no; Is this thread going to stop me from buying anything from Trochiod, maybe - if a revised payment plan like Jon suggested can't be accomodated then yes I would be more hesitant to pay upfront for services.

Finally, I humbly think Trochiod should simply acknowledge this claim and state that He and Jon are going to work it out. At least that is what I wish He would do.

agreed

I was wondering about that. Normally he would have chimed in instantly on any thread.

I feel for you Jon. I too have been screwed before, by people I actually knew, and considered friends, and also by people I've never met. I try to give everyone the absolute benefit of the doubt as I can see you certainly did. I actually now consider my trust in people a flaw. There are very few people that have my full and earned trust now, but everyone has a little. As an example of this, I sold a piece of my Marroon interior to someone on this forum, and my trust in people is so great, I actually shipped the item before it was paid for. The buyer however came through, and was very grateful for the part. That's one forum member I would definitly do business with again. I hope this gets resolved and everyone can go away happy. This as well as many others is a simple situation that could have easily been dealt with way before this post had to come out. Good luck man.

Also I can vouch for Sam's problems. Every time I went over there over the summer, I was asking where his shell was, and every time it was, "Well maybe next month".

No one called him a jerk. You're mistaken? :Wconfused

^^ sorry I was speaking in the future tense incase someone reads this thread and thinks of him as a jerk.

Well maybe its time for me to spill my beans too...as much as I hate doing it.

My story starts in July/August 2006 with Trochoid(Scott). Having know his "reputation" and work on the forum, and seeing him selling a shell I decided to jump on it to try to steal it. "Prepped" shell 400$ I think is what his advertised price was (Can't find the thread). How could you go wrong! I decided to add a few more things to the list like doors, hood, cowl pieces ... basically all the panelling and exterior stuff like mirrors bumping the price up to 800$. I was still happy at that price because he said there was basically no rust on the car, it came from california, and was basically good to go.

Fall of 06 went looking around for storage to try to get ready for the shell to arrive since he said 2-3 weeks to get it done. Paid 100$ non-refundable deposit for the winter season and I thought that was set. Next up trying to find a shipping company, after much talking between a few companies and Scott. Scott agreeded to drive the shell up himself, with the terms that I would pay for a U-haul tow dolly, gas, time, food and accomodations. I even told him that I'll buy him a steak and lobster dinner once he gets down here at the place that I work at (If you guys know the Keg Steakhouse you know its good stuff :D). Terms were to pay him 1/2 price of shipping cost upfront which I thought was fair and was actually willing to pay full if needed.

Weeks passed with the widebody in the shop and no progress on my car, weeks grew to months with still nothing done to my car. Winter month passed, I had lost my 100$ deposit for storage and not used it and was alright with that as it wasn't a huge loss, but I did upset the owner. Him calling me when the shell will be there as he needed to close the doors up and needed to know where to fill my car in. Part of the reason of the delay was also due to his motor on his air compressor blowing out on him and waited for a bit to get it fixed/ replaced. So i was still very understanding with him and no hard feelings.

At this point I've already sent him about 1000$ in deposit with nothing being done. Total price at this point was 1900$. Excessive for a first gen? Maybe but I thought "Trochoid" whom was like god of 1st gens in my eyes was prepping it and bragging rights for that alone was 1/2 that money :D. Few more months have passed with still no shell for me, but my list of stuff grew more as I had taken my car off the road since January 2007 and saving more money because I have not being paying insurance nor gas money. Well the list grew to this:

300$ Gas tank prep to intank pump
800$ For shell
400$ For shipping deposit (800$ on arrival)
90$ For gas tank Cleaning and coating
150$ For Hood Prep
105$ For Powder Coating parts
75$ For Powder Coating more parts
392$ Summit and Ebay parts
375$ For Bodykit
---------------------------
Total= 3,387$USD

I decided to get the Mariah Body kit that he had (cracked in almost every single way possible). The summit parts I had originally sent him the money as cash so that he would buy it for me under his name to be shipped to his address but he has spent that money on himself. So i had to buy the part through my name again without getting a refund back yet on the original money sent. As you can tell its a huge chunk of money and if you're sending that much you must be trusting the person ...

Spring and summer passed with me still nothing in my hands and nothing to drive all summer. I had already basically gutted the shell that I had, painted my whole interior, got my seats redone, got the carputer worked out, the megasquirt built, the FI system in, was even getting so bored that I made the fuel lines on the old shell and cut them to length to be even more ready for the new shell to arrive. By the beginning of fall I decided that was it and I need to go down there and grab my stuff. So I went out bought a flight ticket, and set up a bus to go down to detroit. That was about 250$, plus me having to take a week off work cost me about 500$, Uhaul truck and trailler about 1600$, close to 1850$ with gas. So travelling expenses for me was about 2000$ and if you want to add money lost from work 2500$. I could of bought a whole new car for that money alone. But I was still the fool I guess.

Upon Arrival there, I stayed at Scotts place to do all the work and crash there. I was there for a solid week. Work that needed to be done was basically EVERYTHING First day didn't do much as I needed to relax a bit and familiarize myself with his place and shop and stuff. Day 2 I had to basically re-sand the whole body for prep as the antenna hole needed to be filled in along with the rear washer sprayer. The body was not the smoothest neither so I took some time to try to get things straightened out a bit. Day after day I would be up till 2amish and back up at around 7/8am to go back to work. I also had to go buy some supplies that we needed (I did mess up the rest of the epoxy that he had so I bought a new jug), along with cleaners, cloth, gas tank sealer, sending tanks to get cleaned which I had to pay for those 2 again. On the last day I even pulled an all nighter just to get Dan_S_Young's tank done too which I had to repay for his cleaning and tank sealer which he had already paid for to Scott.

By the time that I was done it was about 8am on friday morning and I was suppose to leave the night before that. But I stayed up the whole night to make sure that I atleast had Dan's tank with me too. I wanted to do Jon's wheels too, but due to my time restraint and Scott not having the material there was not doable, other wise I would of done those too. So by the time I dropped off the shell to my painter and was back home I hadn't really slept in the past 2 days. In that time I almost killed myself twice behind the wheel from falling asleep. I know I should be shot for doing that but I was on strict time. Getting home and off to work and before I could sleep again about 65 hours had passed.

Since then I've been trying to settle the money that he owes me which is:

324.03$ (Summit Order and pump)
400$ (Shipping down payment)
90$ (For gas tank cleaning and coating)
33.94$ (For Eastwood black Powdercoat)
totalling ~ 850$

And I should of made it even more because I don't know why I paid him for labour to do all that prepping when I did it. Plus having to pay for some of the supplies which would bring the total to about 900$. After this, this is a quote from his PM:



After all that I've put up with, he had to put this up. I replied him back with:

"Scott,

As much as I'd like to give you a break on the price, I'm sorry to say I cannot. I have alot enough money on this as of now. I lost 100$ on a storage deposit taking your word of you delivering the shell last year before the winter time. Plus me having to pay for an Airline ticket price to fly down there to get the rest of the work done, along with another 45$ for a bus from London to detroit airport. Not to mention the money that I've lost taking time off to come down there has cost me about 500$. And lastly me having to pay for some of the supplies that should of been included in the original price that you quoted me for all the parts done. If anything I'm being nice not to drop our agreed price of the shell more for me goind down there and paying you for labor that you should of done on your own."

Then Lastly he quote's me back with:

"One reason I didn't help you a lot was to give you an idea of what it really takes labor wise to get the shell in the condition it was in when you got here. While you may have bought a few supplys to finish up what was done before you left, other things to that you may not have taken into account is that you did use many of the supplys I had on hand, my tools and shop. The shop was also left in the worst mess since I built it and will take several days to clean it up. Had I trailered the shell to Canada, I would have lost even more money. Between tagging the van, buying 4 new rear tires and paying for insurance, I would have spent more than 1500 bucks before I even rented the trailer, that's probably the biggest reason why I was willing to let you come down, do the needed work and trailer it the back home. It's not that I would expect you to pay for the tires or a years worth of insurance, but without those, I couldn't have made the trip

I had hoped that by doing the work yourself, you would have more respect for what I had done to the shell so far and how much work, effort, tools, supplies and actual costs I already invested in the shell. Apparently I was wrong in thinking that you would appreciate my work effort, material costs and tools/equipment need to for the job.

I shot you a lowball price not only for the shell to get it sold, but I also greatly under valued the extra work that was added, thinking that you were a poor/broke college student and I was trying to give you a break so you could complete your project. I know better now and in all honesty feel like I got suckered. Had I known your financial resources/ability to make money, I wouldn't have cheapened the price of my work well below it's true market value. Guess that's what happens when I try to be a nice guy and help fellow membrs out. I don't mind helping fellow members out, but it's getting very old working on others 7s and not even making $5/hour doing it. Particularly with the investment I have in tools, equipment, building the shop and gaining the knowledge to perform said work.

If you can't find some sort of concideration and understanding, then we have a problem. I don't know what your paint guy charged you for the body and paint work, but I do know that if you sent the shell out to have the work done that I did, it would probably cost you twice what the finish paint cost you. That's how much work was done before I even sent you pics of the shell.

Before you reply back, take some time and think about what you've ended up with in the long run in regards with a good base shell from which to build your dream car."

I did not post up a thread saying how much the price of the shell should be. He did that on his own. And lowball or not, he did not do the work as I ended up doing most of it, I don't see why i should be more "understanding". I thought I was pretty nice to him this whole time. Anyways this is where it rest at right now between me and him to give my 2 cents.

Sorry that I had to do it too... I still have much respect for his knowledge as we all know, and his abilities to do things, but he does need to learn to prioritize, and manage his money better.

dj55b:

You don't have to be more understanding. You're in no way at fault here, all you did was be a nice person and give out an inconsiderable amount of trust to someone who has a great rep so you had no reason not to, and for that this is what happened. It's very unfortunate because your case seems to be even more extensive and worse then Jon's. I'm really anxious to see what Scott is going to say, I'm sure he has much on his plate to discuss. Sorry to hear that happened to you though. Good luck with that project.

:(

+1

Well, I think having this thread in the 1st Gen forum has provided some exposure to Scott's track record. Buried in the feedback forum, I doubt anyone would have seen it.

Trochoid, this is really sad....

First of all, to run a shop, you need tools. You did not ask him to go buy tools and learn about these cars to do something specifically for you, He was already doing that. You owe him nothing for tools nor time. Also if he tells you he's going to trailer the shell to you, the insurance, registration and tires for HIS van are not your concern. He should have thought of that before he made that part of the deal. Also asking you to pay extra when you have to finish the job yourself is not exactly what I would call a fair move. The buyer does not need an appreciation for the work involved. He needs to pay what is asked and have the product delivered in a timely fashion. I don't give a damn how much anyone thinks the work is worth, you accept the price you have posted and live with lowballing yourself, or raise your price.

Scott also made the mistake of "assuming" you were a broke student, but had he asked, he would have known better and not needed to make excuses later.

Also had the work been completed by the Scott, the shop would have been as clean or dirty as he usually would leave it. The hassle of 3 days of tidying up versus the hassle of taking a week off work, losing a weeks wages, spending MORE money to go there and then doing the work that he paid Scott to do, and finally having to arrange and pay more again for transportation is hardly any type of comparison.

I have asked Sam for help with my car many times, and the knowledge I've gained from him (what my memory retained anyway) is quite valuable. But not once did he ask for payment and if he had I would have gladly payed for his time. However I doubt he would expect me to pay him a percentage for the usage of tools he already owns for his own use, or a shop that he built of his own accord.

If the worker ends up using more supplies than what is called for, guess what, it's the workers wallet that empties. And you LET him come there? To finish your work that should have been done by you many many moons ago, and then let him spend his money to get it home? Your such a nice guy. The many times I went to his place and see that look of dissappointment of someone thats eager to get work done but is stuck waiting on someone else's promise, it might as well have been a punch in my own face. In just one post you've lost all my respect. You don't give a damn, I know, but that's where it lies.

I knew it had turned out badly Sam, but I honestly didn't think it had gone THAT far. And you give me shit about the $200 I spent on my CD player mounting bracket. Again another situation that could have been avoided had someone not made promises they couldn't keep. And to think that Sam did work on other forum members parts, and actually feels bad that he couldn't get Jon's wheels done before he left, knowing he would never see a dime of what Scott received for the work he said he would do. A man really is only as good as his word, and when you don't come through, your "worth" goes down the shitter with the buyers money.

+10

Hope everything works out for you Jon, terrible to hear about this. :(

this is a really difficult thread to read. guys whom i have the utmost respect for on this forum are really hanging it all out. i understand Jon's position and dj55b's position. i would be upset as well. but we have to remember that money is the root of all evil and as weird as it sounds here on the forum, is the cause of a signifigant number of divorces here in america (and i'm sure in canada as well). sounds pretty dramatic on rx7club no doubt. every bit of me wants to believe that things will be made right and i will continue to maintain a positive attitude towards everyone's situation and try to believe that everything will be worked out. this was the first thread that i read this morning at 5:30 when i woke up. its been on my mind all day. i've got a lot of respect for Scott and for Jon. i respect Sterling for his knowledge and devotion to rx-7 owners and the rx-7 community (though i've never personally dealt with his products and for that i'm ashamed and will have to punish myself). i read the post of others that are fellow 7 owners that i respect but do not speak with reguarly and it really gets me down because we are in fact such a close family. heck, i'm not perfect and it always takes me so much time to make the time to get pictures of parts for fellow rx7club members. and although i always try to ship people's parts out extremely quicklym sometimes because of my work schedeule, it takes a day or four longer than expected. for that i'm ashamed. but family has to come first. i want to throw in a few bucks to try and help things get sorted out but i don't think that is the right way to approach this. i think it will have to be made right by those who are being held accountable. remember gentleman, time heals all non fatal wounds.

Yea, this makes me sad as well. I've met Scott, and really like him...he's VERY knowledgable, and VERY helpful. And I've exchange PMs with Jon several times, and he's also VERY knowledgable and VERY helpful. I really hope this gets worked out

Rich

I have absoulutely no grievances with any of you, however I know that If I did this, I would probably get the ban hammer on me for it, so Jon, follow the freaking forum rules like all the rest of us have to.

That being said, maybe he is in a bad way right now, I have never had anything but positive dealings with the man, Have never met him inperson, but have trusted him for several thousands worth of parts, and had no problems (this was a while back though) so maybe he is having health or money issues. work out a payment plan so that you two can go back to kissing cousins or what ever.

Kenn