Complaint Review: Gene Brinkley

In 2009, Signs & Wonders owner Gene Brinkley contacted our office (Mr. Vs Restaurant Equipment & Store Fixtures) in need of a food storage facility for Signs & Wonders / The Quinn House, the non-profit organization that he is affiliated with. In placing the order for a 20ftx20ft Walk In Cooler to be used as the food storage facility, Gene Brinkley expressed the immediate need for the unit and placed a down payment of $10,000 that was issued to him by Jackson EMC as a grant toward
purchasing said storage facility. Upon receiving the down payment from Mr. Brinkley, I proceeded to purchase the storage unit that he had requested. Our office then contacted Mr. Brinkley to inform him that his unit was available
for him to view, pay the balance & pick up, but received no communications.
Our office contacted Mr. Brinkley every month for an extended period of time, much longer than our company policy states that we shall hold items that are abandoned by the customer.

After over 2 years of storing the facility that Mr. Brinkley made payment on, our office receives a phone call
from Mr. Brinkley in efforts to get a refund of the money deposited on the unit. Our office simply explained the company policies to Mr. Brinkley & that we had made an exception for him and held the merchandise for this
extended period of time. We explained to him that there would be no refund
issued and that he was welcome to pick up the unit that he purchased.

Upon further review of this matter within our office we found that Gene Brinkley and the sales person ( Jim
Calhoun) that he was working with at the time of purchased were affiliated outside of this transaction.  As this
seemed odd we further found that Jim Calhoun was terminated from his previous
employer ( Trendco Vick) for stealing. We also found that Gene Brinkley is an
ex drug addict and alcoholic, as well as our company is NOT the only company
defrauded by Mr. Brinkley. How is it that this criminal is representing the
public and this organization like this? Being a non-profit organization, Mr.
Brinkley in essence receives everything at no cost to him, including the legal
representation needed to fight this issue. We as a small company cannot afford for Mr. Brinkley to hustle us like this. 

What will become of our company & our employees? This scheme will essentially tear down our small company. 
This type of hustle is immoral & should be illegal.  If it was legal, we should all stop working
and hustle small companies and corporations paying out grants for bogus use.

We are asking the law, the community, what is the solution to this? How do we as a small company defend
our livelihood against a criminal like this?