Hot Rods Denver CO builder who takes $ but doesn't build

Hi. I've given $$ to a Denver Colorado "builder" who keeps making promises but doesn't deliver. I'm wondering if there is anyone else in the Denver area who is in the same situation??

The reason I'm writing this is because I don't feel I'm the only one. At the thanksgiving car show someone told me I'm not the only one. I don't want this to continue to other guys with hotrod aspirations that get taken advantage of. If you are in this situation, and in Denver, PM me, as I would like to know if this guy is doing this same thing to other people.

There are people out there who aren't honest and will take your money & make promises, lie through their teeth, then move on to the next guy as your cars sits in pieces, literally for years.

I'm looking for an attorney in the Denver area as well if anyone knows someone good, PM me.

Cheers

 

Not to throw the shop under the bus but who is it? I just moved from Greeley a little over a year ago. Just curious if it's one of the first shops I worked in. They were some shady guys

 

Hoping you did your homework before you jumped-references, Better Business Bureau, HAMB search? Hope you are not in too deeply. Do they have any of your stuff, or was this their own ground up build?

 

Not to throw this thread under the bus, but this is a forum, if you have a problem with a vendor or builder on a hot rod related problem, you put it on the forum, not in a "PM", or "Conversation".
Forums serve 2 purposes, to help the poster with a problem, or at least he perceives a problem, as there mat be other members who have had the same problem and found a solution.
The other function of a forum, is to warn other readers of the existence of this problem so that they, the reader, may avoid said problem.

 

Well said Dave.

 

This is a ground up build. I'm in it for a lot. I blew it based on trust. My mistake and I own it based on dreams of building my favorite car that I've saved for, for years.

Dave, no problem with the hijack. I don't understand what you mean? Did I post this under the wrong section? Do you want me to name the person or business?

I didn't name names because I don't want to smear someone's name publicly on a social media site. I'm trying to see if there are more guys in this situation in Denver.

With all due respect to this forum, I didn't intentionally, knowingly do the wrong thing. I'm just doing the best I know to try and get my car built, or back. I know I won't get my cash back. It's a pretty sad situation .

 

But you can say......hey, this guy took my money and hasn't delivered, his name is......has anyone else here had dealings with him?

 

Thanks for adding the name. Now if someone is checking out a builder they will find this by doing a search on their name. In case this gets resolved with a positive result be sure to post that also.

Charlie Stephens

 

Threads like this are all too common. It causes me to wonder why more people (customers of shops) don't require the use of "escrow" accounts for the work they have contracted for.

Escrow accounts insure both parties that their expectations will be met. The builder knows the customer has the funds and the customer knows the builder doesn't get any money until work has been performed. In real estate construction it is commonplace. The builder submits a request for payment for a certain amount of work, the customer inspects the work. If satisfied, the customer signs off on the request and the escrow agent or bank pays the contractor. Exactly the same process could be utilized in the hot rod fabrication business.

I suspect many, if not most, builders of hot rods would be reluctant to agree to this arrangement for one very critical reason. They have little or no working capital and need the down payment to both buy the materials needed and live off of as they build the vehicle.

That in and of itself is a very bad omen for the customer. Even a scrupulously honest builder can suddenly find himself unable to do his part, for any number of life related reasons, and money is used up and the work is unfinished. And that's the risk in the best case scenario. Imagine where you, the customer, are when the scruples aren't there to begin with.

Any builder who deems himself worthy of being considered a "Professional" should have access to working capital to operate his business in a business like fashion. If he does not, and you choose to hire him, you are taking a substantial risk and setting yourself up for grief.

But nothing will change until a sufficient number of customers demand it. And, again, those customers must have the financial means to post the required funds. That's what makes it mutually beneficial.

Further, all work to be done, a reasonable time frame for that to be accomplished, expected cost of that work, etc., must be in a written contract form, signed by both parties.

Ray

 

To sluggo1936: Now that o0thers have commented, I hope you see that you have done nothing wrong, you just didn't do enough! And it's always bad when you save up for a project and put up your money, and then the builder doesn't deliver, but we all want to help, or at least help others to avoid this. Perhaps, if this is the way Papa's Rods has done business in the past, and someone else had posted earlier about their shortcomings, then if you or anyone else had done a search here on the HAMB, and discovered that the shop had a history of non performance, you or anyone else would have looked further for a builder. That's one of the main purposes of a forum of any sort, not as a social group, that's what the social group "side groups" are provided for.
With the amount of money involved in a "ground up" build, some sort of legal agreement such as Hnstray outlines would be ideal, although it could be done on a similar basis in stages of payment for next period of work to do, AFTER the last period's work paid for was completed.
Maybe you can relate a bit about what was agreed and what has been accomplished to us with a little more detail and we could offer suggestions.
Never meant for you to think I was accusing you of doing anything wrong.

 

Dave.....I agree that it could be a payment plan based on segments of work, but if I read your post correctly, you suggest paying for the next segment to be done before the work is started. But that is exactly what I advocate being changed. Work should only be paid for after it is completed. The shop owner needs some skin in the game....i. e., parts and/or labor invested so that it serves as an incentive to get the job done and collect for his effort.

Of course, the shop operator could just delay starting the job because he has no money to operate on, but better for the customer to get no work done with no money yet spent than the other way around, in my opinion.

Ray

 

I have built somewhere over 40 completes and many pkg cars both for customers and my self over the last 45 years. For customer cars I have always worked with a down stroke to start and future payments based on work completed. For work that I farm out it's with shops I've worked with for many years and we have a trust between us as far as work and payments are concerned. If I am working with a new provider I always do a thorough vetting process and I would expect a new customer to do the same to me.

 

I probably shouldn't mention this but any reputable shop has accounts and can obtain the materials needed to do the work. You bring you heap to them they do the work and are paid on delivery. this pay up front thing is a 21st Century thing and it leaves you open being scammed, it also take away any incentive for the shop to do the work.

Sorry if I crapped in anyone's cornflakes.

 

OR......this is typical of our hobby, some guy's do enough of their own work they think they'll be good enough to run their own shop, without realising the capital outlay required. They then require the customer to pony up front to finance the start of the project, it's the only way they can perform the work and survive financially. So....would you give a substantial amount of money to any other business up front based on trust with nothing to fall back on if the deal doesn't work? No.
All the years I ran my shop, the customer paid for work done, after all, I had their car, if the parts were costly, an arrangement was made with the customer having a credit account with the part supplier, I got the parts, he paid them for parts.
Even now, I'll take the odd guy, take him to my parts guy, set up an account, I get parts, he pays them, I charge for work done, no money up front.
This is exactly how I got started, I up fronted a "reputable" shop, got took, vowed that I could do work at least as good as them, and started my own shop.
Good luck resolving this, you may have to walk away.

 

The other side of this thing, either with construction or car builds is this,,,
If the client isn't willing to invest into his own project, why should the contractor, or why should the contractor go first? Should there be some up front money from a client? Absolutely but it should be with in reason, fair and equitable and certainly not paid in full. There should be a deposit just to hold a scheduled time slot on the calendar. That's especially true when there's a line waiting to get in.

The clients choice of contractor should be done with due diligence before hand, not investigated after the fact. That's just the way it is, there's plenty of schmucks, I'd say its one outstanding craftsman for every 10 schmucks. Maybe more. It's easy to find the schmucks because they advertise every place.

Every single outstanding craftsman with a good work ethic has never advertised , not one that I've found. You almost need to know someone to find them. They have more work than they could ever want and that's just the way it is. They pick, they choose, they turn down .


Someone posted this on the Hamb a while back - seems quite fair for both.
Pseudo escrow account with no red tape & no delay.

$xx an hour for shop time.. $xy on anything paint and body. On bigger builds you must keep a $2500 deposit at all times. On each project, I pull cash from there for parts. Each billing period the kitty needs re filled to the max of $2500.00. If you don’t pay your invoice I then pull cash from the kitty. Once the kitty is dry, you either refill the kitty or come get your project. easy peasy….

 

Hnstray, yes, I'm saying pay for what's to do in the next week or so, but only if what you paid for last week has been completed as agreed.
I agree, the shop owner "needs some skin in the game.", but most shop owners I knowaren't gonna let you get too deep into their pocket and then have to wait for their money while the owner of the project struggles thru whatever has happened in his life to interfere with paying the shop owner.
When a builder of a custom home, or for that matter, a builder doing a major remodeling project, there's usually a loan involved on the customer's side, and an escrow is imperative. But not all customers for a major build project on a car have all the funds to put them in an escrow up front either.
If the shop has enough "cushion" to do the work, buy the parts, and then get paid periodically, and the customer has the money to put it all in an escrow, then what you suggest is ideal. But most of the time, the shops that can do this are high end shops that get a premium for their work.
That's how they built up the reserve cash for that "cushion".

 

This is part of the reason that I had to close my business.

I had to lein-sale customer cars, when they vanished.

I had to sue customers to get them to pay for what they agreed to pay for.

I had the gate cut at my shop, and a 95% complete car taken, by its owner, without paying. The police did nothing, said it was a civil matter.

 

I have run a shop off and on most of my adult life. I never had any problems getting accounts for my materials, but I have had customers who wanted to buy the parts up front or brought me the parts as well.

These days I don't have a "shop" I will work for people that I like to help me make ends meet. Most of the time those who are bringing me work know that I am not actually in business so they don't have a problem paying for materials up front, but if I was in business I would not expect it at all. I don't move to fast anymore and my clients know that, but I charge flat rate so it is not like they are paying me by the hour, if a job is a 3 hour job they get charged 3 hours if it takes me 3 hours or a week.

I have found that when you pay up front and the work isn't getting done the absolute best thing to do is go after your stuff and figure that you just got schooled. Education is not cheap these days.

 

Unfortunately rod shop rip offs are becoming more and more common. Same goes for paint jobs. Once they have your money and your car apart your screwed. I'd recommend a newbie buy a running driving car then go through the hassle and chance of being ripped off. Probably cheaper as well.

Gary

 

all too common these days. See it all the time around here. They take your money then stall-know of quite a few cars in paint/body shop purgatory half done with lots of money spent. I may not build any more for this very reason. Helping a guy now with a 40 that was not up to par and cost a lot of $$ -finally getting it right but wish I had never gotten involved-felt sorry for him.

 

A bit of a sidetrack here, but I am a little amazed that different industries seem to handle the money so differently from each other when for the most part they are doing the same thing; pay for services rendered. My shop is similar to a normal machine shop/job shop, but I do work for different industries so I see the differences. For example a normal job shop wins a quote for a part, usually supplies material with their own money, has net 30 to pay for material, has to cover all the overhead of a business with either a few days to pay for labor or 30 to pay for utilities etc, and has all this invested in a job that then the customer has net30+ to pay for their parts (some large corporations force 180 days). Now, the only reason that this seems to still be the case is that it has been that way in the metal industry for a century so if you aren't willing to do it, then the next guy will.

The other industry I work in is woodworking and the normal for something like a residential cabinet job is for the customer to put money down and then we buy material and the customer makes payments based on completion with a final payment held until the walk through is done and everything is signed off on. This is pretty standard with the specific percentages and time frame being different per shop, but it is expected. Very different from the metal machine shop business. Commercial casework is yet again different payment terms and expectations.

Auto repair usually absorbs all the costs of the repair until it is done and then the customer pays in full to take it home, if not they keep it until it is paid for.

Myself, I usually get some sort of down payment or the customer provided the material etc so we are in it together. I have had very little trouble with this and it works well so far. Most of my jobs the material is app half the final cost, so it is a big chunk and not as easy for them to walk away from. I have a good reputation and all of my work is word of mouth, there have been a couple customers that I have been wary of and even a couple that I turned away, just didn't feel right. I spent a very long time reading what I could and talking to other business owners about payment and options etc so that when I did open my doors I had my expectations of my customers set from the start so that I wasn't changing things up on them down the road.

I think the escrow account setup would be the best thing to do for long term car builds, it takes some of the personal feelings out of the transaction as well, which is a big reason I don't do residential cabinets anymore.

Hopefully the OP gets his car back.....

 

How long has your car been there? Have you seen it recently? Its been a couple years ago I heard Ian packed up and left town. Didn't know he came back, or did he?
I've also heard of others paying and not getting work done, you aren't the only one for sure.

 

This don't sound good @ all

 

Sounds like Gearhead Graphics has some ominous news of the illustrious rod shop. I would check it out and if he is gone head to the Sheriffs Office and file paperwork pronto. If he is there get your car out now.

 

It's been about 13 hrs. since the OP last posted, assume he's at work trying to make a living and we'll hear from him later today.
The news above doesn't sound good at all.

 

Time to get the car out of there. Either deal with the $$ in court or chalk it up.

 

Perhaps I have missed mention of one item or perhaps it has been skipped....written contract.
Is there one? what are the terms? If you want to buy a refrigerator at Home Depot and have it delivered you will sign one so why not big dollar projects like this?

.

 

Some people buy a bucket of bolts off epay and take it to a builder to have it finnished. When the builder discovers the hidden problems ( ie: too much bondo ) the price must go up. Then it is up to the customer to decide if they want to spend more on the project.

 

Good analogy, but that's not the case in the situation. Is this directed at my post in particular? Or, building in general?

 

Its been just shy of four years and if its not done or at least close to being done i would have to think that the money is spent and gone. Bring this thing to a head now, get him to sign some progress[or lack of] reports to arm yourself with. If you can't completely cover yourself with recent,detailed paperwork than just get your car out of there and get a lawer. I hope works out in your favor.