[bmw0bsession]

Since he is basically saying I accepted fault and he was right, I feel the need to post this.. I will not post any email screen shots because I think that is taking it too far but they do exist. Besides, this is not the first time this happens.

He is right, I got a partial refund back after I declined this morning. According to the original post the product should be ready in another 2 months but as you can see in the previous posts on here and the emails he sent me, he had no intention of even making that deadline.... this is my argument. Because of his reputation and the fact that my only options were to wait since my project was being put in the back burner I chose to get out of this and not be another victim like the Stage 3 guys. He takes your deposit and finishes your product when it is convenient for him. In the email quotes below you can see when he tells me I am not important because he has a ton of n54 orders and only 2 n55s so I have to wait.

"I want to revisit the facts here. Please take a second to see the initial thread, the JB's were given an estimated time of being done in the 3-5 month range it has been 3 months and 5 days. Leaving us another 2 months to actually finish to even meet our original estimate, which is still an estimate, not a promise."

""Until then it is going to take a back seat to other things that are more pressing, like 30 orders for N54 stage 2's compared to 2 order for n55 JB Stage 2's".

I got some money back, they make great products, but if you can go somewhere else you should. Anyways, I am done with this. I refuse to speak on the matter anymore, am I happy? No, but I did get some money back so that is probably a first. I hope no one else gets taken advantage of and hopefully has a better experience than I did.

[Tony@vargasturbotech]

Originally Posted by bmw0bsession

Since he is basically saying I accepted fault and he was right, I feel the need to post this.. I will not post any email screen shots because I think that is taking it too far but they do exist. Besides, this is not the first time this happens.

He is right, I got a partial refund back after I declined this morning. According to the original post the product should be ready in another 2 months but as you can see in the previous posts on here and the emails he sent me, he had no intention of even making that deadline.... this is my argument. Because of his reputation and the fact that my only options were to wait since my project was being put in the back burner I chose to get out of this and not be another victim like the Stage 3 guys. He takes your deposit and finishes your product when it is convenient for him. In the email quotes below you can see when he tells me I am not important because he has a ton of n54 orders and only 2 n55s so I have to wait.

"I want to revisit the facts here. Please take a second to see the initial thread, the JB's were given an estimated time of being done in the 3-5 month range it has been 3 months and 5 days. Leaving us another 2 months to actually finish to even meet our original estimate, which is still an estimate, not a promise."

""Until then it is going to take a back seat to other things that are more pressing, like 30 orders for N54 stage 2's compared to 2 order for n55 JB Stage 2's".

I got some money back, they make great products, but if you can go somewhere else you should. Anyways, I am done with this. I refuse to speak on the matter anymore, am I happy? No, but I did get some money back so that is probably a first. I hope no one else gets taken advantage of and hopefully has a better experience than I did.

Will, thank you for the post. Yes to be 100% clear we do put precedent on customer orders who have been waiting much longer than you and their estimated delivery date has already been passed, they patiently waited and when the parts arrived we give these orders our full attention to make sure they get out quickly, we then go back to the other products and orders that are not only not late, they are still 2 months out of estimated delivery times. As far as the refund, we have a no questions asked refund policy on all products within the product warranty as long as they are found to be faulty. This does not fall in that category, this is you not happy with the time frame and wanting to cancel an order well early of the estimated delivery date, in this case a cancellation fee is warranted. We have many many happy customers for every one that is not, as I said in my email we are disappointed it worked out this way, but you made no effort to handle this person to person, so it had to be conducted on this forum, which benefits no one. We wish you luck with your N55 and future build.

Side note: I am not sure if you are aware, but since you made mention of it. Due to the extreme delinquent status of our Stage 3 kits we offered each and every stage 3 customer a 100% refund on deposit no questions asked if they wanted, and we would have done the same with you if we went past the original estimate, and you would have asked for it.

[CJ421]

Originally Posted by Vargasturbotech

We have many many happy customers for every one that is not, as I said in my email we are disappointed it worked out this way, but you made no effort to handle this person to person, so it had to be conducted on this forum, which benefits no one. We wish you luck with your N55 and future build.

A slightly off-topic rant - I'm in full agreement here.

I have zero respect for people that, as soon as something goes 'wrong', knee-jerk cry wolf to others instead of trying to resolve it with the business. Why would you not go to the business first? It's a private transaction and should be kept as such.
That kind of behavior is shameful. As VTT said, it benefits no one (quite the opposite). I used to be admin on a couple forums and we had an ban policy for people that abused the forum in this manner.

[Tony@vargasturbotech]

Originally Posted by CJ421

A slightly off-topic rant - I'm in full agreement here.

I have zero respect for people that, as soon as something goes 'wrong', knee-jerk cry wolf to others instead of trying to resolve it with the business. Why would you not go to the business first? It's a private transaction and should be kept as such.
That kind of behavior is shameful. As VTT said, it benefits no one (quite the opposite). I used to be admin on a couple forums and we had an ban policy for people that abused the forum in this manner.

The customer did start out with a couple emails and we responded quickly, but as soon as we told him something he was not happy with, we received no response and next thing we know we are getting notices from not one, not two, but all three forums with the same post. This could have easily been avoided with a few more email exchanges, the outcome would have been the same without all of this. Either way we wish the customer the best of luck, and no one is more disappointed when a customer walks away unhappy than us.

[Sfvalley135i]

Originally Posted by Vargasturbotech

The customer did start out with a couple emails and we responded quickly, but as soon as we told him something he was not happy with, we received no response and next thing we know we are getting notices from not one, not two, but all three forums with the same post. This could have easily been avoided with a few more email exchanges, the outcome would have been the same without all of this. Either way we wish the customer the best of luck, and no one is more disappointed when a customer walks away unhappy than us.

If it wasn't for him posting his experience on the forum, you wouldn't have even thought of giving him a refund minus 25%. You would just repeat that your invoice and policy states no refunds...

Plus it benefits anyone that might be interested in doing business with you.

A suggestion, if you have such a large back log of orders, you should either hire more people, get another machine shop or stop accepting deposits when you have no ETA.

[Tony@vargasturbotech]

Originally Posted by Sfvalley135i

If it wasn't for him posting his experience on the forum, you wouldn't have even thought of giving him a refund minus 25%. You would just repeat that your invoice and policy states no refunds...

Plus it benefits anyone that might be interested in doing business with you.

A suggestion, if you have such a large back log of orders, you should either hire more people, get another machine shop or stop accepting deposits when you have no ETA.

We appreciate your feedback, but your lack of knowledge of how we conduct in house policy is expected as you do not work here, our first way to try to rectify a situation such as this is to offer other products for the deposit price, which we did. At that point the customer stopped responding and came to the forums, the responses here had nothing to do with our decision to give him a refund, what it did was provide us will all the information we needed to come to the conclusion this is not someone we would like to do business with on any level, meaning selling him a product, any product, at this point even if he accepted the offer of a stage 1 or DBB stage 2 we would have politely declined, refunded him minus the cancellation fee, and washed our hands. The non-refundable deposit policy is in place for a reason, and this is a prime example of it. Do me a favor and go head over to websites such as Full-race.com, etc and see their policy for deposits on custom turbo builds, its 100% payment upfront before work begins and is 100% non-refundable, this is industry standard as people with nothing invested tend to change their mind very easily leaving the builder high and dry on custom products. We also appreciate your feedback on staffing suggestions, we are interviewing people, but this is a highly skilled industry and finding people qualified is not as easy as posting a CL ad.

[Subaru335i]

I think OP's post is helpful. I was considering their stage 2 turbo upgrade but this saved me the money and wasted time.
The thread probably could have done without so much name calling towards vargas but to say its not useful to anyone is ridiculous.
If I was OP though I might have just taken the discount on the DBB stage 2 turbo instead, assuming it doesn't get delayed like crazy as well.

[Tony@vargasturbotech]

Originally Posted by Subaru335i

I think OP's post is helpful. I was considering their stage 2 turbo upgrade but this saved me the money and wasted time.
The thread probably could have done without so much name calling towards vargas but to say its not useful to anyone is ridiculous.
If I was OP though I might have just taken the discount on the DBB stage 2 turbo instead, assuming it doesn't get delayed like crazy as well.

Hello, we appreciate the feedback. We are not quite sure what you are referring to when you say "delayed like crazy". Our original estimate was 3-5 months, it has been 3 meaning we are not even past our original delivery estimate, so nothing has been delayed. No one was more unhappy that we could not deliver early than us, but just because something is not early, does not make it late if the estimated delivery time has not past, this whole situation was just unfortunate, the OP got excited when you told him we could deliver early and was equally as upset when we had to let him know we were not happy with the parts and would not be shipping something we did not think was 100%, sometimes that is business, you cant always make everyone happy. As far as the DBB Stage 2's have been shipping on time, and we have already sold over close to 25 units to more almost 10 countries. We apologize for the inconvenience this caused the OP.

[Davey303]

What's the point of a deposit? To allow for the vendor to generate cash flow for R&D? To cover initial costs of the product? To grantee first dibs on the product upon completion and release?

Might not be the best thread to ask questions, but I've always wondered.

Glad to see some sort of resolution was achieved and both parties seem to have some sort of acceptance over the result.

[marCOCOpuffs]

Originally Posted by Davey303

What's the point of a deposit? To allow for the vendor to generate cash flow for R&D? To cover initial costs of the product? To grantee first dibs on the product upon completion and release?

Might not be the best thread to ask questions, but I've always wondered.

Glad to see some sort of resolution was achieved and both parties seem to have some sort of acceptance over the result.

Probably because these are made to order, not much market for keeping these in stock for a surplus. Once demand picks up, I doubt a deposit will be necessary.

[Tony@vargasturbotech]

Originally Posted by Davey303

What's the point of a deposit? To allow for the vendor to generate cash flow for R&D? To cover initial costs of the product? To grantee first dibs on the product upon completion and release?

Might not be the best thread to ask questions, but I've always wondered.

Glad to see some sort of resolution was achieved and both parties seem to have some sort of acceptance over the result.

There is one and only one reason for the deposit. These are custom units built to order, we use the deposit as a way to keep people from cancelling their order for any number of reasons before they are finished. Most people with a little invested even as little as 25% will not back out unless they absolutely have to and they understand the deposit is non-refundable. Companies such a Full-race.com ask for 100% up front before they will even start a custom order. It is not because the money is used for any R&D etc, it is to ensure people do not just simply change their mind after ordering and we have ordered parts for them etc. If these were off the shelf units, we would not ask for any deposit.

[Davey303]

Originally Posted by Vargasturbotech

There is one and only one reason for the deposit. These are custom units built to order, we use the deposit as a way to keep people from cancelling their order for any number of reasons before they are finished. Most people with a little invested even as little as 25% will not back out unless they absolutely have to and they understand the deposit is non-refundable. Companies such a Full-race.com ask for 100% up front before they will even start a custom order. It is not because the money is used for any R&D etc, it is to ensure people do not just simply change their mind after ordering and we have ordered parts for them etc. If these were off the shelf units, we would not ask for any deposit.

Right on, that makes more sense. Thank you for the clarification and knowledge!

[JETmn]

Originally Posted by Vargasturbotech

There is one and only one reason for the deposit. These are custom units built to order, we use the deposit as a way to keep people from cancelling their order for any number of reasons before they are finished. Most people with a little invested even as little as 25% will not back out unless they absolutely have to and they understand the deposit is non-refundable. Companies such a Full-race.com ask for 100% up front before they will even start a custom order. It is not because the money is used for any R&D etc, it is to ensure people do not just simply change their mind after ordering and we have ordered parts for them etc. If these were off the shelf units, we would not ask for any deposit.

This is a stocked model on your web page, this isn't some custom one off unit. You just got done having several DBB units in stock and ready to ship, so that is obviously not true that you only make to order.

[Tony@vargasturbotech]

Originally Posted by JETmn

This is a stocked model on your web page, this isn't some custom one off unit. You just got done having several DBB units in stock and ready to ship, so that is obviously not true that you only make to order.

No sir, this is not the case, but we appreciate you letting us know what we do and do not have in stock or custom build per customer. All the N55 pics on our site are stock photos of a built DBB unit as that is what we had for shooting purposes, we have built exactly zero Stage 2 JB's. As we said we were not happy with the parts. Each and every unit is built to order, and are not assembled until ordered, this includes every N54, and N55 turbo. In stock simply means we have the available parts for some models, and some we do not, the stage 2 JB we had zero parts for these, so we used the pre-order process to gauge interest and give us some insight into how many parts we should order and have machined. Thus a deposit was taken to avoid ordering in parts and having the customer back out. This is unfortunately a way of life when building from cores, or doing custom work. Again we appreciate your feedback.

[JETmn]

Originally Posted by Vargasturbotech

No sir, this is not the case, but we appreciate you letting us know what we do and do not have in stock or custom build per customer. All the N55 pics on our site are stock photos of a built DBB unit as that is what we had for shooting purposes, we have built exactly zero Stage 2 JB's. As we said we were not happy with the parts. Each and every unit is built to order, and are not assembled until ordered, this includes every N54, and N55 turbo. In stock simply means we have the available parts for some models, and some we do not, the stage 2 JB we had zero parts for these, so we used the pre-order process to gauge interest and give us some insight into how many parts we should order and have machined. Thus a deposit was taken to avoid ordering in parts and having the customer back out. This is unfortunately a way of life when building from cores, or doing custom work. Again we appreciate your feedback.

That is really semantics whether you have the parts assembled or not, you still have the parts made up and in stock at times.

[trixdout]

Originally Posted by bad karma

Vargas, a deposit doesn't become "non-refundable" just because you call it that. The purpose of non-refundable deposits, or "earnest money", is to demonstrate that a buyer has a stake in procuring the product or service. If you as the seller fail to uphold your end of the agreement by not providing that product or service in a timely manner, nor offering a refund of the earnest money, at best you are demonstrating remarkably poor business acumen, and more than likely setting yourself up to be sued for non-performance. Case law has consistently ruled in the buyer's favor in instances like this. Though most of my research has centered around real-estate law, it's the same principle with fewer zeros in the numbers.

You promised the guy a turbo. It sucks for you that your product arrived from the manufacturer with defects, but that is between you and the manufacturer. In that situation the customer should immediately get a pleasant email that states that you're incredibly sorry for the delay, that you have a solid timeline for delivering the product, and that you'd be happy to refund the deposit given the circumstances.

You don't get to tell him to wait an indiscriminate amount of time for the product you promised him because its "on your back burner". Having owned a small business, and having dealt with logistical issues and manufacturing issues on my own products, customers who have pre-paid go to the very front of the line when it comes time to make things right. That shit isn't on the back burner. It's on the front burner and the pot is boiling over.

BMW0bession was right to bring the issue into quite literally the public forum, because while I don't have a horse in the race, it sure seems based on other users' experiences that this isn't your first rodeo when it comes to unexpected delays. You've now been forced to address the customer's claims and grievances publicly, and as a result the effects of your actions will have far broader consequences than if this was brought up privately. You can choose to promptly and amicably refund him his money for the product you seem disinterested in delivering, or you can continue to dig your own grave.

BMW0bsession, I'd look at your options for filing a charge-back with your credit card company.

EDIT: Removed some harsh language

25% cancellation fee because of your fuckup?! Wow Vargas! Class Act!

[Tony@vargasturbotech]

We did not mess up anything, we actually still have 2 months left on our delivery estimate. Customer could have glady waited and still received his turbo. HE chose to cancel his order because we could not deliver early. That was his choice 100%, it was this choice that required the cancellation fee. To the person you quoted, we will not even get into it. Its clear he does not understand what a deposit for built to order products means. Order a custom product from full-race possibly one of the most respected companies in the business. Let them know you want to cancel your order because your product isn't deivered 2 months early, come back and let us know what they say. Spoiler alert, you will be receiving nothing back. This is industry standard, that you guys cannot understand that is ok. We will continue to produce the turbochargers for the N55 / and N54 that simply out perform the others. As of yesterday we took the N55 pump record with our Stage 2. Our products work and work better than the competition. All of our customers with realistic time frame expectations, rave about our customer service. We couldn't be happier with these results. Thanks for the feedback.

[trixdout]

Originally Posted by Vargasturbotech

We did not mess up anything, we actually still have 2 months left on our delivery estimate. Customer could have glady waited and still received his turbo. HE chose to cancel his order because we could not deliver early. That was his choice 100%, it was this choice that required the cancellation fee. To the person you quoted, we will not even get into it. Its clear he does not understand what a deposit for built to order products means. Order a custom product from full-race possibly one of the most respected companies in the business. Let them know you want to cancel your order because your product isn't deivered 2 months early, come back and let us know what they say. Spoiler alert, you will be receiving nothing back. This is industry standard, that you guys cannot understand that is ok. We will continue to produce the turbochargers for the N55 / and N54 that simply out perform the others. As of yesterday we took the N55 pump record with our Stage 2. Our products work and work better than the competition. All of our customers with realistic time frame expectations, rave about our customer service. We couldn't be happier with these results. Thanks for the feedback.

The problem is you said it would come in 2 week, via OP's 1st post in this thread. And then you have an issue and say no its going to be another 2 months. Don't jump the gun and say you will get the product out early. Take responsibility for leading people on, regardless what the original deadline was.

[AlterZgo]

Was the original commitment to the customer 2 weeks or 3-5 months at the time of the order? If the customer was not told 3-5 months initially, I'm not sure why they should be held to the no refund or 25% cancellation fee. If the customer was fully informed that the product would take 3-5 mos and that there would be no refunds, then the customer shouldn't expect a refund in month 3.