Complaint Review: Noah's Ark Feed Barn

Kelly;

I laughed when I read your rebuttal because it is full of lies.  

You were pretty clever in trying to shift the blame to the victims (us).  That's an old trick that's been used by con-artists and swindlers and thieves for hundreds of years.   

You failed to mention that Kerry Ingrham-Criss was in debt over $100,000 at the time we bought the store.   She was in terrible financial distress, and was desperate after her divorce from Darin.    

She needed to pull off a scam to pay off her debts.   Since the store wasn't profitable enough to justify that much money, she hid expenses from us to make the store look more profitable than it really was.  A profitable store is worth much more than an unprofitable one.

I have a Master's degree in Finance.  I've been analyzing financial statements for more than 15 years, and I can tell you that Kerry Ingraham-Criss greased the numbers in a way that would have made Bernard Madoff blush with embarrassment.

As a result, I paid Kerry Ingrham-Criss $100,000 for a store that was really only worth $20,000.   Kerry's misrepresentation of the store's financial condition caused me to overpay for the store by amount $80,000, and that is the amount that I need to be refunded to settle this matter.

When we bought the store, Kerry Ingrham-Criss tried to pull a gift card scam on us.  Under the terms of the store purchase, we paid Kerry cash....and we were supposed to get the assets, and she would keep the liabilities.  Kerry hid the fact that there was over $3,000 worth of gift cards outstanding that she had sold to the public.   She expected us to hand out free merchandise for which she had been paid.  (That is called "Heads I win, Tails you lose)

I'm not going to stop writing these reports.  Your family has destroyed our family.  Therefore, I'm going to make life difficult for all of you.   Maybe that will cause you to pause next time you think of ripping of a family.

We are not sure why Paul has started this string of lies, but it needs to stop!  Noah's Ark Feed Barn is owned by Ken & Laura Ingraham.  It has been for the past 10 years.  His greivence with Kerry has nothing to do with our store.  The two stores have nothing to do with each other,  One is a feed store, the other was a toy store.

Since Paul has not been honest with his "story", let me tell you the other side of what happened.

Kerry Criss did indeed own Geppetto's Toy store.  She worked very hard to make it sucessful.  She did not sit behind the counter and wait for people to come to her.

Kerry went to all the charter schools in town and ordered books and games for them each year.  She went to the resource Center in town and orded books, games, and toys thoughout the year.  She did monthly arts and crafts for the children. The items for these projects were donated by the vendors to promote their products.  So there was not cost to Kerry. She sold small toys at the 4th of July show that the city hosted. She did art in the park, the grandma club.  We would go out early the day after Thanksgiving and hit all the sales so we could purchase games, toys, and books that we could sell at the store.  She was always looking for ways to make money for the store, and she did. She had a steady customer clientel. 

Now when Kerry sold the store to Paul and his wife.  All records and bank statments were available to them.  My sister had nothing to hide.  Paul and his wife knew exactly what they were getting.  Kerry stayed and trained them for several months.  She told them everything they needed to do to be sucessful.  She wanted them to suceed.

I went to the toy store to buy items for my kids once they took over.  Pauls wife would sit behind the counter and would look up from her computer to say hello.  Or she was busy with their daughter.  She rarely came out from behind the counter.  She did not understand the concept of customer service.

On several occasions, when I was shopping at the store, I would end up hepling frustrated customers who were looking for gifts for their children.  My mom even went in there one day while she was shopping and pulled her from out behind the counter to show her how to help customer.  It did no good.

Because we live in a small town, I would hear from our customerss how frustrated they were with the new owners of the toy store. The customers would place special orders and they would not get ordered.  So they went else where.  The community resource center placed orders, again items not ordered.  So they too went somewhere else.

 They did not order any new product or do anything in invite customers in to their store.  Kerry would order items for the different holidays, change the front window according to the holiday.  They did nothing.  The store did not change from season to season.  

There is no wonder that the store closed.  This had nothing to do with Kerry.  But everything to do with Paul and his wife.  They chose to do nothing to enhance the store.  Anyone who has owned a retail store knows that you can not sit and wait for sales to come in, you have to go out and get them.  You can not sit behind the counter and ingore your customers while they shop.  It doesn't work that way. People like to be waited on and helped.

Paul and his wife need to look in the mirror and realize that they have no one to blame but themselves.  They were the ones who did not follow Kerry's advice.  Kerry did not ignore the customer, but you did.  Kerry did not ignore special orders, but you did.  Kerry went out and found ways to make the store sucessful, you did not.  

You need to take responsibilty for your actions, and stop blaming others.  No one forced you to buy the store, you did it all on your own.  There were no secrets, no lies, no deception.  

Actions have consequences.  Your posting of these horrible pictures and threats need to stop.  Man up and take responsiblity for your poor decisions.