Worth Mentioning; One Fella To Avoid

I live about 2 miles from the guy. I bought a few small parts from him a about a year ago but after looking at his operation I wouldn't have trusted him to do any work for me.
I remember seeing your CA when I was there, it was pretty well intact by your description then.

JimD wrote: Ya shoulda called me Tim.  I would have ridden shotgun (literally).  We coulda winched it on my trailer and had it loaded in minutes.  Honestly I can't believe your tractor was still there.  I've answered a lot of questions about District Attorneys and such from out of state.  Some even called thinking I was him since I have the business name similar to his alias.  I could fill in a number of gaps to the stories, but it really serves no purpose on the forum.  Maybe over a cup of coffee at a show someday I can tie things in together for a bunch of ya, but not here. I never lost money to him, but got real close.  A personal visit seemed to encourage things. JimD

Hello Jim and i wondered if you would jump in.

The other bad apple in OK is that POS David Collins, from Roland. Took me and at least one other on here. I contacted the sheriff and he knew the POS too. Not feasible money wise to have pursued it farther. Seems like there was several in line ahead of me. Just wanted to clear that up. Tracy Martin

Hello Armand, no on the D17NF. Just a small Ford and Massey that look like they showed up after the fire as they are sitting on the pad.

I can't believe that you had the cool to go all the way there and load it up without losing your cool.   I myself would have probably lost it if he would have came out.   Seeing as you thought someone was home but didn't come out shows you what kind of person he is, can't even face you.  

ChuckLuedtkeSEWI wrote: I can't believe that you had the cool to go all the way there and load it up without losing your cool.   I myself would have probably lost it if he would have came out.   Seeing as you thought someone was home but didn't come out shows you what kind of person he is, can't even face you.   Maybe the fire was a way of someone higher then us all giving him what he deserves.   Having a family member that is very similar to this, I know all too well what many of you have went through.   Years ago, I often thought of changing my last name to not be associated with him, but that would be disrespectful to my dad, as he's as honest as they come.     Another suggestion, maybe Darrin can put a buyer/seller feedback section on here, kind of like on the YT forum.   Then when we all have a good deal with someone we can put it on there, and when something like this happens, it can be placed there as well.   Would have maybe saved some of you guys some trouble and heartache.   It seems that 99.9% of the people on here are the best to deal with, but I'm sure all of us would love to know the other 0.01%.

JimD wrote: Before

JIm that picture was taken at Dale Haymakers at the frist get together there. That is Okieboy on the left.

I consider myself lucky when it came to dealing with Bob. I lost a lot less than Tony, Darryl, and a few of our other Orange family members/friends here. But, let me say this, I DO NOT agree with what was said about money up front. Obviously, you were never in your own business, so you don't know what its like to get burned the other way around. I built many a custom car/street rod & engines for my customer's over the years out of my shop, and I learned many years ago, you use THEIR money to build THEIR cars, not yours. I got burned a couple times cause' I was a nice guy, did the hand shake thing and wound up loosing quite a bit of money on projects that went sour due to divorce, money problems, gambling problems, drugs, or whatever. Then I would have to try to recoop some of my lost money by either trying to sell the rejected project, or whatever needed to be done. The difference is, when your dealing with someone with a good reputation, receipts and invoices for money exchanged towards the T&M of the project are drawn up after a sit down one on one with the customer to see exactly what he or she wants from this endevor. Also, a contract can be an option so the owner of the vehicle or in this case Tractor knows how the work is performed and what is expected of the owner, and the  person doing the service for that exchange of money. The "handshake" and a "mans word" doesn't mean a thing anymore. There's to many crooks out there looking to take advantage of you! When you build cars, there's thousands of dollars being spent on parts and labor, ( and Tractors are starting to get that way also), so you sure as Hell don't want to spend thousands on someone's car or Tractor or whatever project, and wind up stuck with it due to non-payment!! As age comes on, I don't have the ambition anymore to build cars for my customers like I did in my younger years, only for myself, and I can't get them done either. I still have customers asking me if I would build another car for them. Its very flattering to hear that, but I decline. That's one of the reason's I decided to stick with the electrical division of my business and offer my services that way.

I dont know what the answer is but dont think an open forum is it. The problem with an open forum for feed back is there will be loads of BS from both directions there too. Go read the YT feed back forum. Shoddy buyers will claim that honest dealers shafted them and vis-versa. Others  with all good intentions but who have yet to feel the pain will defend the bad guy to the inth degree. I had two business dealings with Okie and both went fine but remember that Darrell G tried to warn every one about this individual when? a couple years ago?  I know that situation personaly and I know for a fact that Darrell waited until LONG after it was clear what Okie was trying to pull on him before he posted, yet he was still bashed by some on here who didn't agree. A little bit of that goes a long way, believe me. At that time I figgured if he will screw Darrell he will try to get me and I stayed away, my decision and turned out to be the right one.  Others made differant decisions and felt the pain. Situation might reverse next time??? I think it best that people read and make up their own mind without a seprrate forum.

In reply to Steve in NJ I was the one that said about not fronting money and other than farming I actully do own a steel fab and repair shop, we do not ask for any money up front, even when jobs have gotten quite large, we have on occasion had progress payments where when the job was half completed we recieved some moneys, however this is rare I usually hold the full amount till the job is completed. I am not saying this is the propper way and I will admit I am kind of old school even though I'm in my 40's. Personally I dont feel right about asking for money for our services up front, and I get cautious about fronting people money ( specailly after the 13 grand roof fiasco) Basically what your doing by fronting money is giving an interest free loan, and where is your money going, and if your working on real estate there can be liens involved for unpaid  supplies so if you front a crook the cash and he does do the work and not pay the vendors you get to pay them and thats the law unfair as it may seem.Back about 15yrs ago we sold a bunch of corn to a mega dairy they were going to pay for it all in advance out of a loan from FmHA we did the due diligence talked to the loan officer was assured of the funds etc but Gov loans have a slow closing date and this guy needed corn to keep his dairy operating so we agreed to let him start having some of the corn till the paper work was finished, well that dragged out for 9 months when it did finally close I got a cashiers check from FmHA for $2400 the balance owed was $27,000, needless to say I went balistic, to make a long story short the farmer had lied to the FmHA office and forged paperwork showing that we had been paid and this was his balance, we hired a lawyer, we talked to the loan officer and we found out what he had done to fool FmHA into thinking he was more solvent than he was, unfortunalty FmHA couldnt do anything about it, the loan was closed it was maxed out so there was no more funding they were going to supply, all they could do was put a note in his file that he obtained the loans by falsafying paperwork so he could no longer recieve FmHA help in the future. My lawyer told me to walk away from the deal because the cost to get a judgement that he wouldnt pay would bring my loss closer to $50,000 and it was decided to just forget it. I told my lawyer we would never do business like that again with out a letter of credit etc and he told me that it would just be a waste of time in his words if your dealing with a crook no matter what precautions you take he will get you, so from that day on we will not sell any grain to any farmer, unless its cash on the barrel head, he gets his corn when I have my money no exceptions, also if I dont know or cant find out about the guy we do no business with them at all, the steel shop is the same way, I wont ask for your money up front but your not getting your job till I am paid. The problem with fronting money, is who is the crook, if the vendor is the crook your screwed and if your the crook the vendor is screwed, so if no money is fronted until the job is comleted you have his item and when you have your money he has his item.

Oh !

"God defend me from my friends; from my enemies I can defend myself."

I remember being at a GOTO. We were having an internet get to gather and a group picture. Someone said something about a group hug. I think some pictures came out with a blur in the area where Okie was.

Dusty, I remeber that!  I think it purt near ended group photos!