Ralph represented himself as being the owner of Bella Vista Window Fashions in Santa Ana. A day after a meeting with me, he started ordering shutters for us to manufacture. He claimed to be in the windows, window coverings, tortilla manufacturing, winery businesses! He asked for a very quick turnaround time, putting pressure on us to get the jobs manufactured in about a week. I had my staff working overtime to produce his jobs in a week.
Within 3 weeks, he ordered 8 jobs and only paid in full for one small job. On the other orders he paid a deposit and never paid the balances. He picked up all these jobs himself and was going to have his "installation team" install them. During the time that he was placing orders, he would stop by at the shop, make several calls, chatting with the office staff, being very friendly, in order to gain our trust.
The problems started when the bookkeeper tried to run balances and his credit card declined. At first he was trying to buy time, saying he was waiting for the designer to pay him. He avoided all our phone calls and would respond to my emails once in a while, making excuses about being out of town, etc. After that, the excuse was that there were quality issues with the jobs. I knew this was an excuse because he had picked up these jobs weeks ago and he would have let us know if there were issues. Regardless, I asked if we could go to the jobsites and assess and remedy whatever the issues were. Of course he didn't want us to do that, because there were no issues. He was basically stalling me.
There is no such company as Bella Vista Window Fashions. The business address in Santa Ana is a residence. Once I started researching him, I learned how he has been defrauding people for many years! I cannot believe that this man is still scamming people and hasn't been caught or stopped! He comes across as a genuine and honest man, when everything he said was a lie!
My guess is that he has approached another shutter manufacturer with the intent to defraud them. He will bring in a lot of jobs in a short amount of time, try to gain their trust, and then he will disappear!
He owes me a lot of money and I do plan to report him to every agency that I can. If anyone has any other information about him, please message me.
Ralph
Santa Ana,#2REBUTTAL Individual responds
Thu, July 02, 2015
I am Ralph Murrietta. I gave Wholesale Shutters several orders. I was very very kind to what turned out to bite the hand that fed them! I had nothing but problems with this shutter. I was mislead into thinking this was a quality product. It was inferior from the very first order. My installers and I spent many many man hours repainting and repairing these shutters. When Sabiha Patel was informed about these problems she said she had never had this happen before. That was a lie! I spoke with other dealers that were buying from Sabiha Patel and Wholesale Shutters in Beaumont, Ca. and they said the inferiority is a norm a Wholesale Shutters! Their shop is a run down filthy mess and I should have known better just by driving up to their trashy parking lot! And yes,,,, she is correct. I am a nice guy that's why I gave her chance after chance to get better and it never happened and they refused to go back and fix all of the many many problems we have had to fix! If anything Sabiha Patel and Wholesale Shutters should be ashamed of themselves for writing this report and asking for another dime for the lack of care, craftsmanship and professionalism they passed off on us at Bella Vista Shutters.