Hi Guys,
If the following ripoff sounds familiar to you I suggest you forward your contact information me. Yeah its a funny Ron thinks he can ripoff one or two customers a year and you can do nothing. LETS GET HIM ARRESTED!
Im gonna explain what happened to me and some of you are gonna realize it sounds very familiar to what you went through. After getting ripped off from Ron and/or Viking Marine Services I was mad so I went to the Lake County Florida Sheriffs Office in downtown Claremont, FL and after hearing what he did to me and others suggested I contact the State Attorneys Office in Lake County. Thats why I am trying to get as many past and present customers that have been ripped off by this FRAUD Yep guys if he does it as part of his practice its Fraud and he can be arrested for it. So please send any information you have so I can present it to the State Attorney. The Sheriffs Office told me that since the customers do not all live in Lake County Fl to use the State Attorney which is what Im gonna do.
Okay here we go!
I have used Ron at Viking Marine Services many times and never had a problem. I always paid him in cash and never thought another thing about it. Last February or so 2016 I dropped off my 192 Grady White Tournament with a 225 engine on it to be fixed as there was water in the tank. Since I originally had the boat stored in Winter Haven, FL where I lived at the time I couldnt figure out how it got water in the tank but it did so I dropped it off to Ron. In May 2016 I got a call from Ron saying my boat was ready bring $1200 with me and pick up the boat. When I got there Ron said that he had done the work but he hadnt put on the carbeurators, they were ready he just hadnt gotten to it. I said that was fine as we had just moved to Temple Terrace, FL and I had yet to find a place to store it.
Well about 3 months go buy and my son wants to use the boat and Ron said he still hadn't put on the carbeurators to give him a couple days. From there it was always one excuse after another, atree fell on my garage and truck, the weather, he was always out of town. Finally after 25 calls or so my son and I went to his boatyard in February 2017. The boat was way in the back and he had yet to put the carbeurators on. Well 1 month later he texts me and tells me the boat is ready but now I have a bad lower unit. Sound familiar. We get to his yard, my ignition switch is hanging down, he hand me a new one and tells me it has "spark". So Im mad I bring it to a marine mechanic who fixes everything that I hadc already paid Ron for and says it looks lie he was cannabalizing my parts. taking my good parts off and putting the broken parts from another customers engine back on.
I( call Ron, Text Ron, yes he has text but says he doesnt, Ron says he did the work I paid him for and wont pay me back. Sue him. Well I'll do that after the State Attorney gets him. Please help me, yourself and others and send me your story about being ripped off by him with your contact info so I can bring it to the State Attorneys Office
OH Yeah, I told him what I wanted him to do is funny, as Im good with words, contracts etc but couldn't tell you the difference between a screw driver and a wrench much less how to use them. Typical, blame the customer when you have no defense. Lets get this thug arrested. Money is nice but I really think jail would do him good. He knows that if you go to court it will take years and he thinks nothing else can be done. Lets Get Him His Due
Chris
Temple Terrace, FL
I was gonna include an email but they do not want that so hopefully you can send it to Rippoff Reports and they can forward it to me
Viking Marine Services
Polk City,#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Thu, June 08, 2017
Extortion doesn’t work in this shop. We have been in business for more than 40 years and have seen it all including the coming of the internet. The internet can be a great tool, but it can also be a place to slander, WITHOUT Distinction, anyone you like while hiding behind a keyboard.
This guy has been dragging this boat to our shop for years. It has never run right because he just wants to fix what is broken and refused to address problems that are “Going” to cause a problem. He needed the carbs done AGAIN by us because he pumped water into them and then let it sit for more than a year. He told me that someone who was MAD at him put water in the tank. REALLY, I can believe that! We checked the compression (which we always do before performing ANY work) and it was fine. We rebuilt the carbs and found it had no spark. Turns out the timer base was bad. We replaced the timer base and it restored the spark.
We did not charge for the diagnostics or the installation of the timer base, JUST THE COST OF THE PART. We NEVER touched any other parts on the motor so I have no idea where he comes up with the allegations about “Stealing” his parts. There is not one part on that motor worth stealing. When we went to start the motor it turned over very slowly. After further checking, AGAIN AT NO CHARGE, we found that the lower unit was FULL of WATER and bound up from sitting that way for years. He actually tried to say that we filled the lower with water!
This guy makes a living suing people and county/state agencies (Louisiana). This is nothing more than a LAME attempt at extortion and we will never bow to that practice. We would love to hear from the State Attorney’s Office, but to date have heard NOTHING (nor will we). I DO NOT text, but felt obligated to reply to the first couple of extortion demands. He started at $5000 and, at last text, was down to $1000. My last text was that we would not entertain his extortion attempts and to “Do whatever you need to do”. This guy has been through a GAMBIT of repair shops and has the SAME thing to say about every one of them, we are just the newest shop on his list. That is what happens when a customer doesn’t understand that a boat costs money to maintain and anything short of that will yield a boat with endless problem. There is a simple "Common Denominator" here. He is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, if I did what he said it is FRAUD, so where is the State Attorney? We have NOT EVEN received a phone call from ANYONE about this matter. AGAIN, we would be MORE than happy to answer ANY LEGITIMATE questions about this guy and his practices. I don't think he's having much luck finding other customers with the same problems because our customer appreciate a good shop and have found one here.
Feel free to contact us for a list of hundreds of satisfied customers, over 40 years, that continue to bring their boats to our shop.