My road trip to ECS and a scam was involved!

[TheFlyingBananaSS]

This is a bit long but worth the read. I bought an East Coast Superchargers Novi 1500 kit from the members classifieds, the thread is still there. When it arrived I noticed it looked brand new, never installed. The parts looked different from the instructions you can download off the ECS website. I started thinking I got scammed and just lost $4k. I started talking with ECS last week.

My car goes in for the build next week and I'm not sure I have the complete kit. The seller ghosted on me. I asked follow up questions but he never replied. Now I'm panicking and almost certain I lost $4k.

So since ECS is next door in Jersey I decided to play hooky from work today and bring the kit to them for inspection. Upon arriving I finally met Chris, the dude I've been emailing and talking to. The following is our first conversation;

Chris-where did you buy the kit from?
Me-some guy in the Air Force
Chris-really? From texas?
Me-yes
Chris-Matt?
Me-Yes, Matthew Courtney!
Chris-That's a stolen kit! That kit is one of our newest, it's a couple months old.
Me-What? How?
Chris-He purchased the kit and claimed he never got it, we had to refund him through PayPal since UPS never got a signature. And now that kit is in your trunk! That's interesting.
Me-Holy S###.

At this point I show Chris all of my documentation from here and paypal. We talk a bit more and Chris asks me if I would help him recover the money they had to refund this guy. I email Chris some stuff and he says they will honor the original warranty for me!

Long story short..... this guy scammed ECS then made a cool $4k selling me the kit he claimed he never got. ECS is pursuing this now. This guy is military and I am a veteran, deployed, almost died. I can't stand people making the military look bad so I told Chris I would do whatever he needs including testifying if ECS decides to press charges

The $4k he made will probably wind up costing him a lot more down the road.

The kit is brand new, never installed and under full warranty. I saved at least $3k. Chris said I got a great deal, lol.

ECS are hella great guys to work with. I highly recommend you guys consider buying from this American company.

[Bigdumogre]

Atleast you got a great deal from it. But yea people do that shady stuff all the time.

[Scotty D]

Craziness!!!!!

[larry_g]

Unreal, props to ECS and, as someone also in e-commerce, I hope they nail that bastard.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[sdynak]

Prob why he removed the photos then.

Good to hear ECS did you good. I am close to them and they did my tune after the e-mail tunes didn't pan out after a cam purchase & install.

Best of luck with the build. I am keeping an eye open myself for a kit eventually.

[Warship2k15]

Glad you still had all the documentation.
Wonder how many times he’s scammed other people on other things!
Hopefully they will get it resolved and it will stop this guy from scamming anyone else.

[Deputy347k9]

The good point is "if" this scammer is still in the military then ECS should get in contact with the individuals' Command! My first career was in the military and several times I had received notice that one of my Marines had either scammed someone or hadn't returned something.... once in my office and after a heart to heart talk the matter was quickly resolved. Failure to do so could end up in a less than honorable discharge.

After my retirement I returned to my home state of Maine where the wife and I purchased a sizable farm, cows and all! When hay season hit us I realized we needed another tractor for raking. Just so happens I saw a beauty in a neighboring town. Long story shot I met the gentleman and we came to agreement on a price. Gave him my check (got a receipt thank God) and the tractor was delivered to the farm. Out in the field haying an elderly man stopped and asked if he could look the tractor over... once he did he advised me that it was HIS tractor? What? Seems he had taken it to a shop to have all the fluids changed and the shop owner sold it to me! I showed him all the paperwork and advised him that together we would take this crook to court so I could get back my 12K and I would return his tractor, hopefully after hay season was over!

The seller was an assistant Chief on his town fire department. The original owner and I went to the local District Attorney's Office and filed a complaint. Following month we had a hearing with the Judge who asked the original owner the value of the tractor, he produced a written estimate from John Deere showing a little over 20K. He was thrilled when the Judge found in his favor and ordered the crook to pay the 20K! Luckily he had the assets to come up with the money. The old man was more than happy with the 20K as he was going to sell it for 15K. Karma will sometimes come back to bite the scammer's right square in the walnuts! By the way the crook was no longer on the Town's fire department either!

[RupertPupkin]

What’s he mean by “newest”? What’s new about it?

[TheFlyingBananaSS]

The headunit main mounting plate has been redesigned along with a couple other minor things. The installation instructions and pictures do not reflect the changes.
The change is on the electric steering cars but I don't know if they apply to the hydraulic steering cars.

Also, the entire kit is only a couple months old too. So he may have been referring to this as well.

[Risingson05]

Damn ! Glad ecs are standup guys .. I hope you guys catch this guy .. smh garbage .

[102SS]

Nice to see that this scammer has been caught with his fingers in the cookie jar.

Good luck with your build op.

[Redgt03]

I am current Air Force shoot me a PM.