Undefeated-SouthPaw
United States of America#2Consumer Comment
Wed, December 21, 2011
I am sorry to hear about your father as well. Having recently lost a mother to cancer, I can understand how traumatic that can be. The last thing I would have on my mind is boating, and if they were working on the watercraft and promised to call you when it was ready, I can see where you would not want to "babysit" them either. As an outsider, it sounds to me that this was not an issue of you needing to 'store' the craft someplace, or that you could not afford repairs. Silly for someone to think that considering the cost of the watercraft, and I could also guarantee that if you were wanting to store it, that nearly any indoor storage location in the country would be less expensive than what I bet they want. I also agree that it sounds like the other writer works there, or is affiliated with them somehow. He seems way too nosey about this entire thing to be a simple 'passerby' who wishes to chime in. Way too concerned with it all if you ask me.
Your post comes at an interesting time for me and my wife. Call it a "mid life crisis" if you will, but my wife and I recently decided that we are going to purchase two top of the line SeaDoo GTX's; they just seem like a lot of fun to us, and it would be great to use alongside our Black Thunder boat. We actually visited CVPS because it is relatively close to our home. We sat around the showroom for quite a while with not a soul offering to help. They didnt seem busy at all, but we decided to go back there this Friday and see if we can put an order in for these. After reading your post: Hearing about them taking so long on repairs and poor customer service, and then getting no sales rep when we were in there, we are absolutely going to go elsewhere. I also checked with the BBB and saw they had EIGHT consumer complaints listed. EIGHT! As they say "Whoever coined the phrase 'let the buyer beware' must have been bleeding from the a**'".
I am sure that with everything going on in your life, that this kind of thing can easily happen and was just an honest oversight (if you can call it that). I dont know that I would have handled it any differently. Again, I am sorry to hear about your father!!
Wesley
Robert
Irvine,#3Consumer Comment
Tue, December 20, 2011
Sorry about your father, but if you post on a Pubic Web Site you are going to have to be willing to accept views that you don't agree with. If you don't want people to comment on it then start your own site where you can control what is said. But just because someone does not say things you agree with that does NOT mean that we are employees. In fact once a person throws out the "employee" card it really means they have nothing and just don't want to admit that it is possible that they are wrong.
Now you are right it's not your job to "babysit" them but according to you THEY didn't contact you during the entire "usable season". If it is worth $12,000 didn't you at least wonder why a job that was supposed to be taking a week was taking months? I would bet you still tended to other things that would be part of your daily life. We are not talking a week or two, so if you really wanted to I am sure you could have at least made a couple of calls during the entire "usable season".
Why would you abandon a $12,000 piece of equipment. Who knows, but it probably happens more than you think. Perhaps you can't afford a storage location, perhaps you can't afford the insurance. Perhaps you are going to be moving and don't want to pay to have it shipped. Perhaps it is one of a dozen other reasons. But since there is no contact between you and the shop how are they supposed to know?
By the way you still haven't said what happened with the watercraft two months later. Do they still have it? If so as I said before you may be fighting the clock. They are probably nearing the point where they can consider it abandonment. If you just keep saying "I am not going to pay" eventually they will say okay and sell it. So you need to either pay the bill, take you watercraft and then sue them to get the money back, or sue them before they are able to sell it to get them to release it.
While you will probably loose, perhaps you may get lucky and convince a judge why they should give you free storage. But at least you are not just sitting on your a** doing nothing more than saying you are not going to pay.
Wade
Wentzville,#4Author of original report
Tue, December 20, 2011
Sure sounds like you work there to me. Typical of what I would expect from this place. My response is simple: It is not my job to babysit. I dont abandon $12000 watercrafts. Perhaps you missed the part where I said I had been traveling constantly due to a father with cancer that is over 1200 miles from me. Gee... do you think my mind is preoccupied with anything else? Geez... you are a complete fool and this did not require your input at all. Get a life, moron.
Robert
Irvine,#5Consumer Comment
Tue, December 20, 2011
I heard nothing until the first week of October, when service said that the watercraft had been ready and that they were going to charge me $10 a day for "storage" (outside-large parking lot) if I did not pick up the watercraft in the next week.
- So for what sounds like you thought was relatively minor repairs why did you let it go the entire "usable season" without calling them? In fact it wasn't even you who contacted them, they contacted you.
The fees are very legal and pretty standard with any mechanic/repair shop, $10 per day does not sound out of line. Your only recourse here would be to check your local laws as to the amount they are allowed to charge. These fees are put in so that people don't use a simple repair as an excuse to use them as their own personal storage facility. You can try and claim that because they didn't fix it until October(according to you) that gives you an excuse why you should be able to keep it there longer without fees. Even if(and that is a big IF) you were correct in October, it is now December and if they still have the watercraft any fees you are being charged would be justified.
One other item to note is that after a certain amount of time they are able to treat it as abandoned property. Once that happens they have the legal right to sell/auction off the item taking the proceeds to pay for any outstanding bills. You didn't say what happened to the watercraft, but since it is December you may already be past this point or it is approaching very quickly.
Flynrider
Phoenix,#6Consumer Comment
Tue, December 20, 2011
"I found it ridiculous that this company had the watercraft the entire usable season, and they call out of the blue stating that it has been done and are now going to charge me storage fees. "
They probably found it ridiculous that you did not inquire about your watercraft the entire usable season. Places like this have watercraft and motorcycles abandoned all the time, by people who either can't pay the bill, or just don't want the vehicle anymore. The storage fee is the kick in the butt that will determine if you really intend to retrieve your vehicle or intend to abandon it. The fact that you have done nothing in the two months since they told you they'd be charging storage fees would indicate that you never intended to pick up your watercraft, or that you are really rich and can afford $10 a day for watercraft storage.
Without getting into whether or not they called you over the summer, one has to wonder why you never called them over the ensuing months. Bottom line is that this shop is not your personal garage. They told you that they would charge storage fees two months ago and you still blew them off.
" I absolutely refuse to pay storage fees. "
Then why have you left it there for the last few months, knowing that storage fees would accrue? I understand that you have been busy, but you appear to have been blowing them off for the last few months. That's not nice (and is often expensive).