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muskadasa
03-08-2006, 01:52 PM
Sterndrive Inc. – A bad experience
I have had a bad experience with Lane Weir at Sterndrive Inc. Here are the facts.
In October/05 I upgraded the 454 mag in my Donzi 22 Classic to a 540, and was in the market to upgrade the outdrive to a Bravo XR. At the time Sterndrive had an attractive offer on these units and so, despite warnings, I called Lane Weir who told me that his current inventory had been sold but that he was assembling orders for a further 30 units of which he said approximately half had already been spoken for. As a result, I placed an order with him on November 11/05. How complicated could it be? I was surprised that he required me to pay the full price, plus an unannounced 3% "handling fee", rather than merely a deposit, but I assumed this indicated a quick turn around for the transaction. No mention was actually made of any specific delivery time.
On December 5/05 Mr. Weir e-mailed me that he would have the unit in "late this week or early next week", and would ship it to me within a day of two of delivery. When no delivery or further correspondence had been received from Mr. Weir by December 21/05, I e-mailed him for a status report. He indicated that if the wait was causing me a problem he would be glad to refund my payment, but otherwise delivery would be "late next week" to my door.
No delivery was received, but on January 7/06 Mr. Weir e-mailed to say that he had received the unit and it would be shipped out "the first of next week".
When no delivery was received by January 26/06, I e-mailed Mr. Weir for an explanation. Following no response I called him on January 31/06 at which time he confirmed that the unit had been sent to me by "Freightliner", because he didn't trust Fedex or UPS. He could not provide me with shipment details because these were "in the front room", but he undertook to call me back in 15 minutes. When I had not heard anything by the end of the day, I called him again at which time he indicated that "after researching it", he was "misinformed by his shipping department", and that the unit had not in fact been picked up yet but that he would do so in the "next day or two" and would personally absorb the additional cost of having the order rushed to me by "Thursday at the latest".
When no delivery was received by February 3/06, I e-mailed Mr. Weir for an explanation. Again following no response, I called him on February 7/06, at which time he told me that he had been having problems with his e-mail server, but that in fact the unit had been shipped and read me the UPS tracking number. Unfortunately, when I tried to follow this tracking number it turned out to be bogus, and when I called Mr. Weir on this he said that he was aware of this and was going to go right down to the UPS depot and "straighten the matter out". I asked him if he had in fact delivered the unit to UPS and he confirmed that he had done so personally.
When no delivery was received by February 9/06, I called Mr. Weir who then told me that, for some unknown reason, UPS had no record of receiving the unit that he had dropped off for delivery, and furthermore that he had no other unit available for me (although I noted that he still continued to advertise the same deal on his website). I didn't bother to press him on why he would drop a unit for shipment without receiving any paperwork, or try to make any logic out of his other preposterous statements, and we decided that at that point he would simply refund my payment.
The next day I received an e-mail from Mr. Weir explaining that the "mix-up" had been due to the press of business as well as a death in his family and that, as it turned out, he had discovered that he had dropped off my unit at DHL instead of UPS, and accordingly would now be in a position to ship the unit if I wanted. At this point, since he didn't have any DHL paperwork available either, I was not prepared to continue the charade and e-mailed him that I would prefer to receive the refund as previously agreed.
When my credit card had not been credited with the refund by February 14/06, I e-mailed Mr. Weir for an explanation, at which point he indicated that his "refund policy" was that a refund would have to be in the form of a "company cheque".
To date I have received no refund of any type from Mr. Weir, despite promises from him and several unhappy e-mails from me, the most recent of which departed from my policy of polite correspondence and stated that in my view he was a crook running an internet scam, who never had any intention of delivering the product or of refunding the payment. I am continuing to proceed on several fronts to try to get my money back.

smokediver
03-08-2006, 03:47 PM
you aren't the only one that had a problem with Lane . Hopefully he will get you a refund soon . I have said before , that when a vendor does one of us bad , there should be a boycott . what other way do we have to protect our own ? Bottom line is that it isn't hard to refund money or ship a product . Caring for a customer is a different story .

muskadasa
03-08-2006, 04:06 PM
Chargeback is certainly one of the options I am pursuing.

Trueser
03-08-2006, 04:13 PM
You can fix this real quick. Get your credit card company on the phone and they will reverse the charges.

Good luck.....

warning Taken

Reedy
03-08-2006, 04:27 PM
Can I ask what ballpark of greenbacks?

hardcrab
03-08-2006, 07:23 PM
I'm sorry for your trouble but can more info be given to location or website of this vendor so we as a whole can be informed buyers???
yeah, that would ultimately be the point ............

smokediver
03-08-2006, 07:52 PM
I'm sorry for your trouble but can more info be given to location or website of this vendor so we as a whole can be informed buyers???
STERNDRIVE INC .

ChromeGorilla
03-08-2006, 07:59 PM
So lets get this straight..... he's had your $$$ for 4 months and he still hasn't gotten your purchase to you?!?!?! I would tell him to sick my duck!


Call your credit card company ASAP! Let them deal with him.....


Note to self: Self don't deal with Sterndrive INC. :wink:

Greg K
03-08-2006, 09:31 PM
I'm sorry for your trouble but can more info be given to location or website of this vendor so we as a whole can be informed buyers???
Here ya go...
http://www.sterndriveinc.com/index.cfm
Take a look at the links...the donzi registry is listed.

Mr X
03-08-2006, 09:43 PM
Wow! Imagine that, ANOTHER bad experiance with Lane Weir!! I also got BURNED by him.......a bunch of hollow promises to "make it right" He is a LIAR!

Read all about it here.....

http://www.donzi.net/forums/showthread.php?t=38408&highlight=victory+marine

I wonder how many will start to believe me now....? :cool:

smokediver
03-08-2006, 11:03 PM
Wow! Imagine that, ANOTHER bad experiance with Lane Weir!! I also got BURNED by him.......a bunch of hollow promises to "make it right" He is a LIAR!
Read all about it here.....
http://www.donzi.net/forums/showthread.php?t=38408&highlight=victory+marine
I wonder how many will start to believe me now....? :cool:
Glad to see you back Ted ...

muskadasa
03-09-2006, 07:04 AM
The Sterndrive price for the Bravo XR was $6500, which if you can believe it is still being advertised as of this morning. I guess its easy to offer a good deal if you have no intention of supplying the product. I can't understand this guy's thinking- I'm going to get my money back one way or the other, and in the meantime he incurs a heap of bad publicity. Presumably bad publicity doesn't matter because there's a sucker borne every minute. Maybe its a way to supplement his cash flow over the winter.

Mr X
03-09-2006, 07:24 AM
He has a bunch of them on ebay too!!
You might want to notify ebay security department.
Someone needs to stop this thief!

Woodsy
03-09-2006, 08:02 AM
Dis you post this over on OSO or Scream and Fly? Everyone needs to know about this crook!

Woodsy

muskadasa
03-09-2006, 08:10 AM
Not yet, but I'm going to do it.

harbormaster
03-10-2006, 10:10 AM
I will ask him to remove the Donzi Registry link.

CosmoKat
03-17-2006, 10:11 PM
Any progress on getting your money back from the con artist?

muskadasa
03-20-2006, 07:42 AM
This crook has no intention of refunding my money. I'm pursuing a chargeback through my credit card company. For everyone , just remember the name Lane Weir at Sterndrive Inc., and don't make the same mistake that I did.

Ranman
03-21-2006, 09:53 AM
I was surprised that he required me to pay the full price, plus an unannounced 3% "handling fee", rather than merely a deposit, but I assumed this indicated a quick turn around for the transaction. No mention was actually made of any specific delivery time.


$6500 plus 3% and no promised delivery date? Sounded fishy up front. You are lucky this was put on a credit card. For that reason only, you will get your money back. Had you paid any other way, you would be SOL all day long.

I'm sure that next time you'll take action before the 11th excuse.

Hope it all works out for you...

Donzigo
03-22-2006, 07:27 AM
............I'm beginning to look at 2 new 496HO's for the Z-33 and I was just about to call Scot Van Alstine to ask him why this STERNDRIVE guy, Lane Weir, could offer a better price by quite a sum, to what Scot's company offers...............I guess I got my answer: "The price is better, when there is no product shipped".

How does this guy continue to exist? Isn't there a principal who owns STERNDRIVES, who would see where this is going and do something about this guy.