I hate to throw this in my build thread but feel I should warn others

WARNING

User b00stME is a scam artist!!! He tried to rip me off and almost got away with it.
If you read earlier in this thread he tried to sell me his entire turbo kit for $2000. It included pretty much everything, header, turbo, injectors, hondata etc.
I told him to put it on ebay with a buy it now and I'll buy it and pay through paypal. He kept refusing saying it was a waste of money. That should have been my first red flag.

Finally I told him OK I'll drop the ebay part but I want to pay through paypal. He insisted I send the money as a gift. I refused so the price went up to $2200. Part of that was for shipping he now decided to throw in. OK fine. I added up all the parts I was supposed to be receiving and it was still a good deal.

Next he insists I paypal him the money a week before he'll even take it off his car. So that money can clear he says. My second red flag.

He gives me an email address different than his own to send the money. Says it's his wife's. OK sounds normal... I suppose. More on this in a bit.

4/5/11 I paypal him $2200 (not as a gift but for goods). First thing I notice is the email address comes up as belonging to a Jefferey, unlikely to be his wife and his name is Michael so it's not him. Humm third red flag but now the money is sent. That's a Tuesday and that up coming weekend he's supposed to take the turbo off the car. He will take pics of the dis-assembly to help me in putting it on my car and he'll have it all boxed and ready to ship first thing Monday morning.

Weekend rolls around no pics no contact. Monday comes around no tracking numbers no contact. I start emailing him and suddenly no responses. By the evening I'm calling him and get his VM. Later that night he calls me back and says "yeah I saw you called". Umm yeah did you get the turbo kit off your car and mailed to me? No he says. He got busy. Wow. OK when will you be able to do it? "Well I got a new job" he says and he's really busy. He goes on to tell me he can do it on Wednesday because he gets off work at 3pm. OK fine I can live with that.

Wednesday comes around and at noon I contact him to see if he's still on target to get things off this afternoon because now I'm getting worried. He says no sorry I'm working late again. I said OK please issue me a refund. No hard feelings I'll just go else where.
He emails me and says sorry I got home late so I can't do the refund. I'll do it another day. WTF? it probably took longer to write that email than it would to just login to paypal and click on "refund".

Then no more contact. He does not respond to emails and no longer takes my calls. I open up a dispute with paypal. He then calls me and says sorry he's just been busy he'll get the refund to me.

After another few days pass I escalated it from a dispute to a claim with paypal.
Now suddenly he issues a refund since I made a claim. At this point I think great I'm finally getting my money back. Hell no I'm not. Paypal comes back a few days later and tells me the funds were denied by his bank and they will try again in 5 more business days.

At this point I'm getting a little upset. I start emailing this guy, sms'ing him, tried calling. Where's my money? I told him what's going on. He responded saying he tried to refund me but since I opened up a claim paypal put a freeze on his account and that's why the refund won't go through. Nothing to do with his bank.

That seemed odd to me so I called paypal's customer service and they told me that was BS. They said when they freeze someone's account it's to stop funds from been sent and that the only feature that still works is refunds. So essentially they freeze the account to refund people that were ripped off. They confirmed lack of funds from his bank account.

Well skip ahead some time and paypal sided with me in the case and issued me the funds back. Thank you thank you thank you paypal. However paypal is still out funds from this guy and taking legal action against him. They also emailed me telling me to contact him if possible about getting payment.

So while it's been a rough month for me trying to get my money back from this scammer I hope nobody else falls for this guys so called turbo kit for sale.

In Summary b00stME is a scammer!!

Take care guys
Malcolm

 

he's gonna get sued and wind up with a judgement against him for the amount if he has any assets at all.

i honestly wonder where the line on fraud is with stuff like this. i mean he was taking money for parts he didn't have or sell you, then splitting.

 

I hope you learned not to buy things from random strangers on HT. Buy stuff from people who have a rep or buy it from the company yourself. Saves a lot of headaches. You are pretty lucky to get your money back though.

 

Gotem!!!!

 

What a terrible experience you've gone through. Please don't think this is representative of all the great (and even mediocre) members of H-T, or the Honda scene in general. If you have questions on where to avoid and what to use, please PM me, I'd be happy to help in any way I can. I'm sure I speak for a lot of people here on this forum.

 

I know it's not all HT people that's why I'm warning the rest. I've met some very helpful guys on this forum that have been helping me along. I've also purchased a fair amount of parts in the Market on here for my Turbo project from some great people. It's just random jackasses like b00stME that sorta ruin it for everyone.

I mean $2200 might not be a lot to some of you but for me it's a lot of money and I'd be lying if I said I didn't loose a few nights sleep over it.

 

sorry to hear about this...at least you got your money back cause $2200 is a **** load of cash,lol. thanks for the heads up.

 

$2200 would bother someone who makes 100k a year. you would seriously have to be making more cash than 99.9% of people who turbo hondas not to notice it

 

Yeah man I saved a long time and used my tax refund to get that money for my Honda Turbo project and then some guy just comes along and steals $2200 like that really bites.

I have to give props to paypal. I honestly didn't know if I'd ever see that money again. I'm also so glad now I stuck to my guns and insisted on making the payment for services and goods and not as a gift like he was insisting.

 

for a nominal fee, i do break kneecaps...

 

Cell #?...

 

Lets get this straigt before you start calling me a scammed. I can called you back and replied every message you sent. I never once refused to give you a refund. And even called you back after the refund to make sure you received the refund but you never picked up? I called you three times three days ago and you still didn't pick up. And before you start accusing me about me for canceling the refund get your facts straight

Paypal fuked up and pulled 2136 out of my bank instead of your money in paypal that never left my paypal. I even told you that I didn't spend it or transfer it. Paypal pulled 2136 and left my bank in over draft I called my bank to file a claim for what paypal did and called paypal to correct the mistake. I even picked up your phone call after I give paypal permission to give a refund. Like I said before I am sorry for my end for not doing my part. I did not how ever tried to scam you.

You should call paypal yourself I accepted the refund if not it would've drag out 30 days. I even told them I am giving a full refund and I am not scamming him. They saw the money in payPal and known it was a mistake. They even sent me a letter for the mistake they done to clear my bank for the overdraft fees. And after the refund paypal pulled out more then They should and end up refunding my back 50 dollars

And the other people calling me me a loser and a dead beat I agree I would be one if I scammed or tried scamming him but I didn't. I worked hard for everything I own and have receipt of everything I paid for. I did not run and like I told you after the refund I will still watch your thread to see your progress and still give you tips in whatever ways I can even after refund. But my question is why didn't you picked up my phone call the last 2-3 days after I approved the refund. I called to make sure you have receive your refund

 

Fact: You received my money and did nothing
Fact: Took me a month to get my money back
Fact: I had to file a dispute and claim with paypal to get it
Fact: So called refunds were denied because of insufficient funds
Fact: Paypal is still after you for their funds

How is that not a scam?

 

you really want to call me out a scammer dont you. I cant be nice about this, and the only thing i can say is sorry for failing to ship you the turbo kit. I have kept you updated and been honest by telling u i did not remove the turbo kit and will need more time. i then gived u a option for a full refund or a few extra days. U then gived me the extra day and i have failed. so u asked for a refund i have agreed.

Fact: If u read my post above u will know why it took a month. Paypal ****ed up and overdrafted 2,136 from my bank when your money was in my paypal.
Fact: you filed a dispute before i could even touch a laptop which was the very same day you asked for a refund
Fact: read the 1st fact and u will get your answer. The money NEVER LEFT PAYPAL. PAYPAL took 2,136 from my bank and over drafted my account. i filed a dispute against paypal through my bank and this is why PAYPAL sent me a letter to my bank stating this was a mistake.
FACT: I was the one who approved the refund NOT PAYPAL. HINT WHY PAYPAL FAVORED YOU over the "THUG". It takes 30 days for paypal to review and complete a dispute. This only took 1-2 days because I APPROVED the refund.
FACT: Paypal is not after my account or bank. I still have a postive balance, BECAUSE the money NEVER LEFT PAYPAL.

so please get your fact straight man. before u call me out. Ive helped u with the owner manual and even gived u a basemap for the s300. and if u read the dispute history u would see it stated: SELLER HAS APPROVED REFUND within 1-2 days you filed for the dispute. If in fact i did not approved the refund this could have dragged out the full 30 days.

heres a copy and past from my paypal account Subject:
You have sent $2,135.90 USD to Malcolm Strydom with PayPal.

FACT: after you filed the disputed I approved and accepted the full refund right away. but you wouldnt know because YOU DIDN'T read the DISPUTE HISTORY stating that seller has agreed for the full refund.

and for you calling me out about posting on ebay, and how i denied. I told you I would make a ebay post for the turbo kit in one condition. You pay for all fees including ebay and paypal. you said never its ok. and u trusted me

Then you said I tried to scam you by telling u to GIFT the money instead of a sale. The only reason why i asked for a gift is because i wanted 2,000 for the kit (paypal fees not included). and u were only willing to pay a extra 100 for shipping and paypal fees. which i denied because that wouldn't cover for shipping and the paypal fee was 60 dollars. so we both agreed if 200 (including paypal fee) bucks is enough to ship everything then we have a deal.

dont forget to tell everyone u also low blowed me 1,500 shipped for everything.

heres a fact u failed to prove "Fact: Paypal is still after you for their funds?

heres a direct copy and paste from my paypal account.:
PayPal balance: $12.92 USD

so if they were really after "their money" then why does it show i have a positive balance?

and you still haven't answered my question. Why didnt you pick up my phone call the last 2-3 days ago. i called u 2-3 times with no one picking up. I called to see if you did receive you;re money.

The information you have stated are false accusations and defamation. I will take legal action for all the false accusations that you have made if you do not remove the false accusations down. It is honestly unnecessary for you to post these accusations.

As I have once stated, I had continuously informed you even until the end. Even after the refund, I had called you to ensure that you had received that I had accepted the refund. I had apologized continuously over the phone and through this thread.

The following picture shows the honest facts of the Paypal transactions (a screenshot directly from my Paypal account. I have blurred out your address for your privacy).

April 14th: The day you had filed the dispute, in which also shows that it is the same day that I had accepted the refund.

 

Glad you got your money back, but sorry a month has been wasted and no parts to show for it. I personally would never purchase a kit that is still on the car. Chances are that is the person's daily driver (a lot of broke people drive Honda's and cannot afford a second car) and they are not going to have the time to ever take it apart and return it to a stock, drivable state.

Like many others have stated, you seem competent and your knowledge of Honda's is growing from your first post. I would piece together your own kit: the HondaMarketPlace is a great place to start looking for new/used parts at great prices, and I see you have already shopped around there. I see you refer to "kit" a lot. I wouldn't really be looking for a one stop shop, as researching individual parts and not "kits" and getting exactly what you want for your build can be much more satisfying.

I see you're from Kansas City; I live in Blue Springs. Maybe I'll see you sometime when you're car is finished up or even help you with some things along the way, although I am no "guru" by any means. Have you looked into tuning, yet? I see you are going with S300, which is perfect because this is what Chuong @ RevLine tunes with. His shop is located downtown right off 18th and vine I believe? Could be wrong on the streets, but either way he's a great guy to talk with and discuss goals and get you pointed in the right direction. He was the first person in KC to have a 9 second full chassis Honda; "the turtle," haha.

Jake

Edit: One more thing: if you haven't already, check out KCSR.org. It's a local website with cars, parts, and a lot of other dumb crap you can browse around on as well.

 

I'm just buying parts from the market and piecing it together. I've been posting some updates with the new parts.

Thanks for the info man and yes I've seen Chuong's turtle lol. In fact I've raced it many times on the i435 loop cruise nights. I've just never met him in person. I need to take a drive down to his shop sometime and say Hi. He'll recognize my Cobra for sure and know who I am.

 

I can vouch for him that he's not a scammer, mishaps happen and **** happens he was gonna drive all the way up to washington to put all the stock parts back on to sell the turbo kit to you he even asked me if I had room so that he can get it all done but it turned out to be too much time and too busy to drive up so he decided to refund you, yes it took a long time and what bank and money transfer companies don't take long it's always a process and the bank messed up on the transaction he even has the proof copy of the transaction, I've dealt with him over the years and haven't had a problem, I've bought parts through ht and nwp also from other members, all a mishap and long process yeah 2200 is a ton of money, I've sent over 2000 before at a time for parts and haven't had any issues. Thanks to the trustful true ht and nwp members, He has proof of your money and it was just sitting in his paypal not even transferred in his bank account and you got the refund.