Bad S2ki Sponsor...very bad business..., WE WANT PROOF FILLMATIC'S ASSETS FROZEN

I'll give you the cliff notes then I'll cut and paste my communications to him that I made via pm, email and paypal dispute.

Vendor: Fillmatic

His Location San Diego California area

Date purchased: May 3, 2006

What: In Stock Bilstein PSS9's from his Group Buy


***For an update check page 2 regarding his assets were frozen

On May 2nd or 3rd I got the last spot in Fillmatic's Group Buy that he posted/held on s2ki for a set of Bilstein PSS9 Coilovers that were IN STOCK. I immediately transfered the funds via paypal. The GB price was $1299 shipped. I added the 3% for paypal and transfered $1337.97 to Fillmatic (Phil), I even told him just to ship them to my office so his shipping costs would be less. Approximetely 1 week went by and I had still not received them. When I first attempted to call him the phone number on his email receipt to follow up the number (619 852 1978) was BOGUS, area code and 1st 3 are his real number but the last 4 aren't (looks more like a year born)....then I was able to get his REAL PHONE NUMBER with the correct last 4 digits and called him. Mind you THIS WAS HIS FIRST EVER RESPONSE RIGHT AFTER I transfered the funds to him:

Fillmatic: May 3rd
"Sorry I didn't respond earlier... Yes, we're sending ALL the Bilstiens out next week via UPS. Now that you've completed the GB."

efthimios May 10th
"Have these shipped yet? Just checking in. Will you be able to provide me with a tracking #?
thanks,
Tim"

efthimios May 11th
(in regards to the May 10th pm I sent) I sent this message to you yesterday (10th) around 9am your time, and then you read it around 5pm (on the 10th) but you still haven't replied (now May 11th). Any reason why? I'm just curious since I did pay in full and you said they would ship at the beginning of this week.....thanks again and i"m just trying to follow up.

Fillmatic May 12th
I just got word from (*NAME REMOVED)... I swear I submitted a response yesterday. Sorry about that... We had a problem with picking up your coilovers at Bilstien (here in San Diego[poway]) I just realized that the phone number in the e-mail is wrong... the Phone number here is 61985231**. I'm correcting the problem and i'm sorry about the wait.

*
???Problem picking them up from Bilstein? Thought they were in stock?!?!?!

Fillmatic May 12
Oh, just so you know, the problem was we had such huge response we sold to many and you were the last guy. I had 5 here, but Jennifer here had already shipped them all out. So we're attemting to get 4 more that we over sold on, but they're trying to charge me like way over what you paid for em.


efthimios May 12
ok I'm following along, but where do we stand? how long till you can get mine in your possession? (and thank you for getting back to me )


Fillmatic May 17
Sorry, just got back in town, i'll give you a call tomorrow and let you know what's going on.


efthimios May 19
Phillip you seem like a very nice guy, but nice only goes so far I do not mean to come across like a d!ck, but you are not even keeping up with your own timetable. You said you would call me tomorrow (2 days ago), you did not; you read my pm, no response. I would think that you would understand just a little more. If you cannot get them then just refund my money. I do not have weeks to wait here. A little communicatino goes a loooong way. Like I said, I'm not trying to be an a$$ here, but it's been over 2 weeks now and I've spoke to you once and all I know is that the coilovers I paid for were given to someone else , that you are working on getting them, and you've been out of town. Just doesn't appear that you care that you have $1337.97 of my money. You are the one who said "I have 1 set left in stock" when I asked BEFORE I paid, you are the one who said "I am working on it" and you are out of town, you are also the one who very early morning on the 17th sent a pm saying "i'll call you tomorrow, I just got back into town", you had all day on the 17th you could have called and worse you did not even call on the day you said you would. Phillip you seem like a great guy, now please live up to that.

***So I caught him on the phone over the weekend later at night and he said that Bilstein SENT them out directly to you already. I didn't feel like he seemed too sure about himself on the phone but I gave him the benefit of the doubt at that moment and told him thanks. But once I got off the phone that uneasy feeling wouldn't leave me. So I tried to call him again on Sunday (21st) but he did not answer, I even tried to email him a couple of times, never any answer.

efthimios May 22
Phil do you have the tracking info yet?

MY LAST PM TO FILLMATIC
efthimios May 25
To: Phil (fillmatic from Final Level Garage)
Phil what is going on? you won't respond to any of my voicemails,emails, or pm's now for 6 days ???? When we last spoke around the 19th you told me that since the set that I paid for that was suppossedly in stock was accidentally sent to another buyer that you had to get me a set straight from Bilstein, you said they shipped them out to me..I sent you numerous requests asking for the tracking information and you will not respond. So I via email, pm, & cell phone I left you messages being completely upfront with you and telling you that I just did not believe you when you told me that they were on the way. And still no response. I am being MUCH more patient with you than I would normally. I do business across the country and build my business off of referrals as I'm sure do you, this is NOT the way to get them. This is the process that I will take from this moment on: You are getting this pm along with 2 other board vendors that will hopefully touch base with you, next I will file for a refund via Paypal, 3rd I will make sure you never sell anything else on s2ki.com or any other board. I DO NOT want to take it to any of these levels but you are leaving me with NO CHOICE! I know we are all busy and that things come up, but they are NO EXCUSE. My father-in-law is going through Quadruple Bypass Surgery, my little cousin just got in an accident and was paralyzed from her neck down so I understand that "things happen". Either update me, provide me with my tracking info, or refund my money...please....I don't think I'm asking too much of someone to simply respond when they have my money? Mind you that I paid for the PSS9's on May 3rd, and they were part of a Group Buy and IN STOCK!!!!!


Since he obviously has no concern or regard in getting back to me to simply let me know what the status was ( I NEVER asked for anything more than that..fill me in d@mnit!) I opened a dispute with paypal on the 26th. I don't feel as if he deserves to have any more time what so ever as if I alot him anymore time on this to go by I am only hurting my chances of getting my money back. So on the 27th (today) I turned the dispute into a full on Claim.

*** The following is the info I submitted to PayPal in case anyone is curious:

From buyer: timothy eliopoulos on 5/26/2006 05:16 PDT

To: Phil (fillmatic from Final Level Garage) Phil what is going on? you won't respond to any of my voicemails,emails, or pm's now for 6 days ???? When we last spoke on the 19th you told me that since the set that I paid for that was suppossedly in stock was accidentally sent to another buyer that you had to get me a set straight from Bilstein, you said they shipped them out to me..I sent you numerous requests asking for the tracking information and you will not respond. So I via email, pm, & cell phone I left you messages being completely upfront with you and telling you that I just did not believe you when you told me that they were on the way. And still no response. I am being MUCH more patient with you than I would normally. I do business across the country and build my business off of referrals as I'm sure do you, this is NOT the way to get them. This is the process that I will take from this moment on: You are getting this pm along with 2 other board vendors that will hopefully touch base with you, next I will file for a refund via Paypal, 3rd I will make sure you never sell anything else on s2ki.com or any other board. I DO NOT want to take it to any of these levels but you are leaving me with NO CHOICE! I know we are all busy and that things come up, but they are NO EXCUSE. My father-in-law is going through Quadruple Bypass Surgery, my little cousin just got in an accident and was paralyzed from her neck down so I understand that "things happen". Either update me, provide me with my tracking info, or refund my money...please....I don't think I'm asking too much of someone to simply respond when they have my money? Mind you that I paid for the PSS9's on May 3rd, and they were part of a Group Buy and IN STOCK!!!!! -Tim

From buyer: timothy eliopoulos on 5/27/2006 14:06 PDT

The seller has continued to ignore my many emails & phone calls so I am assuming that his intent in to rip me off. I paid for the product almost a month ago (24 days to be exact), and he has been given several opportunities to simply respond and let me know what the status was. Seems like some thievery to me. I would like a full refund of my funds. Thank you for your time and assistance.

Paypal:
A claim has been filed against this transaction. The seller's deadline for responding to this claim is Jun. 6, 2006. If the seller does not respond by the deadline, the claim will be decided in your favor.


***MY POINT:
I understand things come up with people, but if you read through this whole mess you'll see that we all have "things" that come up. No excuse when it comes to business and holding other peoples money. I sold my Buddy Clubs to another member on here and they were shipped within 24 hrs of $transfer. When someone pays, you deliver, if you can't THEN HONESTLY EXPLAIN. If you cannot fix it within a reasonable amount of time then REFUND THE MONEY. Over the past 4 YEARS I have made a lot of transactions on here and never had to deal with this. This is a cut and paste of all the transactions I've made from the Good Guy Thread and I haven't even updated it since NOVEMBER 2004 ! So I think I've given FILLMATIC MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME & CHANCES TO REFUND MY MONEY NOW!

So if anyone from Cali knows Phil (FILLMATIC) inform him that I would like an immediate refund and that I am not playing. This will most definitely only get uglier, a lot uglier. I'll use every penny I have just to bury him.

hope this gets cleaned up

And to all those brave souls who actually read through it all thank you; I know it was a lot, but I wanted to give the whole story. I think everyone needs to be aware of situations like this.

Good luck, Tim.

Good luck. Having read your posts and feedback in the For Sale forum, I can deduct that you are a stand up guy. I hope this gets resolved.

Tim, I feel for you, bud. You did the right thing. I hope u get ur $$ back quickly.

Fillmatic a/k/a Final Level Garage is bad news: http://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=388945.

Thanks for taking the time and effort to post the story, Tim. It's good to know that we try to look out for each other here. I wish you the best of luck!

Nice find Aaron I cross linked this thread to that one.

this just isn't right I'm glad I didn't participate in the sparco group buy, thanks for the heads up....

Hope this will get resolved quickly. I know a lot of people will be watching how this unfolds..

edit: wrong thread. anyway, hope this gets resolved.

This post has been edited by jackalope on May 27 2006, 05:12 PM

Hey, my name is on your list.

Good Luck Tim.

Good Luck Tim....


*Mental Note to Self* - Stay away from Vendor Fillmatic

thanx guys for the support..hopefully some of Fillmatic's local Socal Crew will nudge him a bit while there is still a window of opportunity for Fillmatic to make this right the easy way.

He seems like a very shady guy lately, I hope you get all your money back and he doesn't get anymore business ever again if thats how he is going to run his business

Good luck, Tim, thanks for taking time to share all details on this ugly mess. I certainly would never do any business with any merchant who treat customer like this. I'm sorry, this is just one of few bad apples out there who are not responsible for their own business in long run. I'll share your experience with all my friends who are considering buying the same product.

Good luck with the purchase and, more importantly, your family.

Get this guy off as a sponsor. There's a level of trust that is expected with sponsors.

Pull FLG's ads until this is settled. Its the right thing to do.

Good luck Tim!

I cant believe another thread about FLG. This is beginning to make me feel uneasy. I talked to him friday night but nothing sounded out of the ordinary. I hope everything gets settled soon

So what do you zap someone with in a situation like this? It's fraud to take money for something you don't have and then not refund the money, but what kind of fraud? Mail fraud/wire fraud?

Bump for views. The socal group is on this already, correct?

Sorry to read this Tim. I know how it feels to be ripped off. Hope you recover your funds and that Fillmatic straightens everything out!

Ryan

Yes we are I will call him or stop by and talk to him today!! We dont like like this in
Socal

when i saw the title to this thread all i could think was, oh great this ass struck again. bet of luck to you dude, if i can get a hold of him I'll make sure he knows about your situation too. And if any socal guys want to have a "friendly buisness meeting" with Phil (I'll supply the baseball bats) to help some fellow S2KI'ers I will glad compinsate you for your time and effort. If not I might just have to suck it up and get a plane ticket out there and have a little meeting with him myself.

Good luck Tim hopfully we can get this all settled and get this guy off the forums and put him out of buisness

I really want to thank everyone for their concern and especially the SOCAL Members for their added efforts.

I prefer the 5 step method, allowing every opportunity for the Vendor to simply make it right...nothing more, nothing less...just make it right.

1.Well you start simply by communicating with the Vendor.

2. If you cannot get a response then then the next step is to file a claim with either PayPal (as did I) or your credit card company. The Vendor then has an opportunity to make it right once again and close the case (and if I were to get a full refund by Wednesday(31st) I would drop the case right there).

3.If the Vendor chooses to ignore the claim then the case is automatically decided in my favor and they will recover what ever funds they can.

4. If 100% of my funds are not recoved by them, then I have my company attorney bury him and make sure that in the future he cannot even sell hot dogs on a street corner.

5. My wife is going to be in LA in July, if I need to I will travel with her and then go and visit some friends of mine that I served in the military with which are stationed in San Diego. Then we pay a friendly visit and collect the remaining funds if any.