Bill,
I am sorry to hear this happened to you. You taken such care to get things done right. I have to agree and suggest very strongly that the pressure you bring to bear on the individual will do the most good. You will get some satisfaction one way or the other. Then again if the guy was getting out of the replica scene, then no good will come of it, short of letting the Cobra guys know that one of their own is not on the up and up.
Having had problems of one sort or the other long distance, I feel I can impart a little knowledge to the forum members on this subject. If you buy expensive parts(see 930 Saga), or even whole cars from afar. Member or not, use an ESCROW service.
There are several out there. When I bought my car from a then member of the forum, I used
http://www.escrow.com for the transaction. It works something like this. Once you and the seller/buyer agree on a price, the money is deposited with the service. Both parties contact the company and list their banking information which is kept confidential. Agreements are made(or should be) about shipping, who pays for what, who pays for return shipping if something goes wrong, and the lenght of inspection. Usually 3-5 days. The escrow company has links and information much like ebay about when shipped, next step for you to take, etc. All pretty straight forward. The money is deposited with the company. The company notifies the seller and then is told to ship the merchandise. Once recieved the company is notified of delivery and then the inspection period begins. You should inspect the merchandise or have a qualified individual inspect it. If the merchandise is acceptable, the company is advised of it and the money is released to the seller.
If the inspection is not suitable, then the company is notified and the alternate plan(s) are instituted. The merchabdise is either shipped back to the seller as pre agreed to. The equipment is repaired if agreed upon, or whatever arrangement is agreed upon by both parties.
The key here, is that the money can not be released to the seller unless both parties agree. The money can not be returned to the buyer unless both parties agree. So if something goes wrong, you have a stong position to play. Most of these services have an arbitration board that handles disputes. The important thing here is to make sure there are alternate plans in place if the deal goes south. Takes a litle thought, and some times a little creativity. Then you are covered no matter which way it goes.
This saved me a bunch of money when I bougth my car from a chap from Australia. The engine was a freshly rebuilt 351 Windsor bored 30 over with a mild cam and a dual weber carb. Problem was, he let it sit out in the rain and there was water in the engine with considerable damage done. He had also shipped the car with the engine and trans in the car, not outside the car as instructed. The car would have had to be shipped out of the country, motor and trans removed, and then reshipped into the country. Fortunately for me I had him put some race stickers on the car and I had it brought in as a race car. That issue and a few other ones kept the car in customs impound for an extra week, resulting in some stiff storage fees. This allowed me some negotiating room and I got a refund of over $1500 on the car, which came out of the escrow account.
This has been a painful and expensive lesson for Bill and I know he really is hurting over this one, as most of us don't have that kind of money to just throw it away. Hopefully some is salvagable.
I wrote a nice article for the GTD group on buying a used of partialy built replica and I would like to make it available to the forum. It would work for expensive parts as well. I don't know how that would work, but I would like it to be available to new members or to whomever. If their is a way to post it on the forum so it could be read anytime, would be great. Ron would know how best to do it if it can be done at all. There is a lot of good advise in it as it was written after I bought my car and is based on the many pitfalls I fell into along the way. Eveything from buying, inspecting, shipping, and oh yes, paying for it. If any one would like a copy just let me know and I will send it out.
Bill, I feel your pain. Sorry it had to happen to such an outstanding peson.
Bill
