Riley Automotive - Caveat emptor

XXXXXXXXX WARNING - Riley Automotive XXXXXXXXXX

(Moderators - check with Ryan. Post has been pre-approved. Thanks)

It's been close on to two years since I placed an order with Eric for his dry lakes front end. Early January 2010 Eric charged $2443.89 to my credit card. He told me he'd sent the front end out to my shippers in NC. So I informed them to put the package from Riley on a pallet and had it shipped to Germany in Europe. I then paid to have the pallet sent by truck 400 miles to my shop. I'd also paid import duty (about 6%) and sales tax (19%) on the entire lot; on the $2500 plus the shipping. When the pallet arrived at my shop it had a small box on it. In the box were a pair on brake drums. Shipping, transport and tax cost me about $1000 (for a pair of drums).
So after lots of time Eric admitted that the orders were never sent out and he'd deal with it. Then came months and months of stories, how his inlaws were ill and how he couldn't keep up but he would come up with the stuff etc. Basically jst keeping a patient man waiting until the credit card reclaim time limit expired. After lots of pestering he sent out the I-Beam axle in July 2010. So in total I've received $500 of parts. I'm still waiting on $1944 of parts or actually a refund now. Eric has not answered any of my mails since July 2010.
I have regularly written to him, asking for my money back. He knows how to refund me just won't.

This is his website: - www.riley-automotive.com
His telephone number: 1-800-530-7636
His email: [email protected]

Riley Automotive
10457 Pitkin Street
Commerce City, Colorado 80022
United States
(303) 287-6526

Check him out on google maps. He's not slumming it!

Eventually all this came to a head, Ryan got involved, Eric Schill refused to talk to Ryan so Eric got banned from the HAMB. Everyone tried to give the man a chance, I was patient, Ryan was patient with him but he wouldn't respond.

Now a lot have people have been ripped off by Eric Schill since this happened. Some have eventually got their money back, some not. It's still happening! See here:
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=515178

So now after nearly two years of waiting for my $1944 (I'll never give up) Ryan has asked me to post my experiences here on the main board.

If anyone knows Eric Schill and can help me get my money back please PM me. If anyone wants to defend him, save yourself the embarressment. If I owed someone money I couldn't pay back I'd sell things 'til I could and I'd let them know on a regular basis that I was working on it. That's a debtor. Taking someones money and then disappearing, well that's a thief in my book.

Edward Lloyd
Eds Rod Shop
Unterhaid
Germany

 

There is no defending that kind of treatment.............and non performance. And yet they have the nerve to still keep a website and brag about how Rod and Custom featured their frames! Totally inexplicable and inexcusable.

The nice thing is that whenever a potential customer googles Riley Automotive your thread will pop up along with his website and they can be informed of how this guy does business.

Don

 

Wow, ya never know - you have certainly been fair about this. hopefully he will too.

 

Nope, just awful. I was thinking about Riley the other day after I was flipping through the new Rod & Custom and saw an ad for one of his frames. Ballsy.

 

Yup.....buyer beware.

 

Yet another company tarnishing the automotive aftermarket. All vendors should be offended, as this type of deceit reflects on the industry as a whole, and creates doubts, and skepticism. Just receiving your monies back, just doesn't seem like enough. I wish you luck, in re-cooping your money from this crook.

 

Wow! Thank you for posting. Everyone needs to know. For the life of me, I cannot understand why someone would think they can run a business like this. How do they sleep at night? What happened to honor and ethics? I just don't get it.

 

You gotta be a particular kind of douche to allow yourself to get banned from the HAMB and ignore all the bad publicity that this will generate.

Dude sounds like he's off the rails...two thumbs down.

Let's keep this up top.

 

I guess the scumbag figures it's easy to ignore a threat from Germany, figures you won't be knocking on his door anytime soon. Maybe a local hamber can "visit" him for you.

 

I went to their website and tried putting in a comment under the "contact us" page but it wouldn't go through, so I called the 1-800-530-7636 number and they transferred me to a lady who said Eric would be in shortly. She asked if I wanted to leave a message and I told her "Yes, there is a thread on the HAMB right now and I think it is despicable what you are doing to your customer in Germany. You are giving every other business in this industry a black eye and you need to clean this up before thousands of potential customers see how you really do business."

We talk about the power of the HAMB, maybe if a few (hundred) of us called and told them how we feel it might cause him to reconsider how to treat a HAMB brother in the future. We would be doing Riley Automotive AND our German friend a favor.

Again, that number is 1-800-530-7636.


Don

 

under what rock is this fella located?

 

Some times it helps to be low on funds. I wanted one of his 30-31 Roadster subrail kickups for use on a '32 chassis. They looked like a very nicely made unit. He ran auctions for them on (That Auction Site), but I remember all the HAMB posts about bad deals with him and looked at the photos and kept my money. Somehow he has a 100% positive feedback record there, but I still wouldn't bid on his stuff. Ed is in Germany and I follow his build threads here on the HAMB, it is bad enough when someone gets cheated, but when you cheat some hard working person in another country it it makes us all look bad, I hope everyone that is owed money or parts gets things settled. Bob

 

This has been done. I have seen him and his car. Nothing has come of either. Thief to say the least.

 

Riley Automtive has a Facebook page... another outlet to voice your feedback.

 

I like your thinking. He can ignore me. Can he ignore 1000 phone calls. BTW, I'm not German, not that it makes a difference - we're all God's children.

 

Awright! Good job, man! I think I'll call on Monday. We can be a force to be reckoned with if we stick together and support our HAMB brothers and sisters in a situation like this.

 

Done.

 

Sorry, I saw your location listed as Germany and just assumed.......... As for the phone call, he is a businessman and has to know of any potential problems so he can address them. I see it as us doing Eric a favor by giving him a chance to make this right and turn his reputation around.

Don

 

Well I'll just assume you're an American eh Don;-)

 

Bob, this is NEARLY verbatim of what I think every time I see those kick-ups. I'd love to buy them from the mfr. though.

I think HAMB sales had to be very good for him and can't see that revenue being easily replaced.

 

I am a scout leader when Im not playing with cars

I teach young men the scout oath & law which starts with...

On my Honor!

when you have no honor you have nothing !

2 parts of the scout law are Honest and Trustworthy

its my guess Eric was Never a boy scout

 

he also sells a hellings style air cleaner i want. no way would i buy from him!good luck

 

Almost ordered a bunch of stuff through him a while back - damn glad I held off then. He was super helpful and sounding like he'd really go out of his way. Being in another country makes it tough to buy stuff we need at times, we sure don't need shit like this to make it worse.

Got something going on right now waiting on a guy to send out stuff (luckily much smaller than this) that I ordered back in March. Still waiting and hearing his reasons for it. Will give him a little while longer I guess.

 

I'd exclude any sumbitch that defrauds and steals from that category. Draw your own conclusions about Eric. Just sayin'---.

Bob

 

Would this qualify as mail fraud? If so, it is a federal offense, and not taken lightly.

 

we all are gonna start callin him monday morning.ill tell you all monday about a little thing im gonna pull on the phone.nothing illegal!! just waste of his time.

 

My Son Don contacted them a while back about some parts and was telling me and my other Son Dan about how helpful this guy Eric was on the phone. We clued him in that he better do some research into Riley before sending any money. He was shocked because Eric came across so helpful and friendly. I guess that is how scam artists operate, and why they are called confidence men.

BTW, thery are there today and answering their phones so no real need to hold off until Monday to call them.

Don

 

While I am no attorney, how many people does he have to defraud before something like this can become a class action law suit, if it can at all.

It really sucks to hear about stuff like this though, it makes other purchases more difficult because I always wonder about the others guys now.

Luckily I do search the HAMB when I need to get something as well as find all reviews I can online and sort of add them together and draw my conclusions from there.

Best of luck to all of you guys that got screwed over by this company.

Jeff

 

Yes it is, it's a federal offence because it's cross border. Do you think the police in his home town helped? I spent hours talking to them then filing an official complaint. Response? Nil.

Laws are written for those rich enough to afford a lawyer.

Ed

 

Pathetic lowlife. Isn"t he the clown that used to complain about another Denver companies business practices? Hope this gets resolved.