Wow... that's interesting.... because I'm in the middle of a BAD deal with the owner of that company. Since it's not over yet, I'll try not to flame too much, but here's the story so far:
1 - I bought a restored grille for my 1970 Cuda clone from the owner (I think) of Classic Resto, Melvin Benzaquez. I paid $2250 via PayPal. The money went to Mel immediately, and we communicated via email a couple of times.
2 - In our email conversations, we both agreed that a 1970 Cuda grille was a rare and fragile piece, and would need to be packed in an extraordinary manner to avoid being destroyed by the shipper. I offered to send him an empty container, or pay extra for supreme crating. He graciously offered to build a sturdy wooden crate, and I accepted.
3 - The grille arrived in a timely manner, via Fedex Ground (green logo truck) in a massive plywood crate that must have weighed 100 lbs.
4 - Inside the crate was the remains of a grille that had been utterly smashed, and a few of pieces of bubblewrap measuring about 36" x 12". The bubble wrap appeared to not have been attached to the grille with tape at all. Here is what I saw when I opened the crate:
and a couple more...
As you can see, the heavy parking light assemblies were not removed from the grille, and since these weigh more than the grille itself, they acted as counterweights, tearing the grille apart as it bounced around inside the crate, "protected" by the small amounts of bubblewrap that you can see in the pics. I've had no less than three grilles shipped to me with no problems, and they were all in flimsier crates than Mel made, BUT they were all wrapped in a giant hotdog of bubblewrap that took a half-hour to unravel after getting it out of the crate.
I contacted Mel about the trashed grille, and I just assumed that he told the guys in his shop to build a crate and ship that grille, and some inexperienced employee thought that the grille would be fine like that. He was bummed, and didn't act sketchy or anything, so it WAS probably just that, a newbie employee.... But he DID say, "It's insured, I'll make Fedex pay for it."
I told him, "I doubt Fedex is gonna pay for it, since the shipping container was intact and undamaged. It looked like the items weren't secured correctly inside the container, and that's not Fedex's fault." Diplomatic, yes?
He filed a claim with Fedex, and they issued a call tag to send the grille back to Mel. I removed the parking light assemblies, and bubblewrapped them individually, and secured them inside the crate so that they would do no further damage, and then carefully gathered the shrapnel that used to be a $2000 grille, and bubblewrapped what I could, secured it, and Fedex came and got it, and left me with a little call tag slip, and no airbill.
After a while, when I emailed to see if I was gonna get a refund to my PayPal account, he said that he never got the grille back! I know I didn't write his address wrong, because I didn't write it down at all! HE generated the ship-to-address by issuing the call tag, so I didn't even get to fill in and/or verify his correct address! Fedex shows that the package was delivered, no signature verification required, to an address in Tempe, AZ (his grille restorer, perhaps?). I don't know why Mel would have issued a call-tag with an incorrect address, but all I know is that:
1 - Mel has my $2250.
2 - I have no grille.
So I don't know if anybody's ripping anybody off here, and I don't really care. It's in the hands of my business managers now. One day I'll get a call from them telling me that they got my money back, or that Mel's out of business, or that it really WAS a Fedex screwup, or some such garbage. I bought a perfect grille for $2000 at Spring Fling, so I'm all set for grilles anyway...
So, that was the last thing worth more than a couple hundred bucks that I bought on eBay. Now, if I buy something and actually receive it, it's like Christmas!
Crap like this is why my next car is a 2006 Ford GT instead of a 1970 Challenger convert.... with the $100k clone cars, VIN swappers, and junk like this ruining the hobby, I'm finding that I'm not getting much entertainment value for my Mopar dollar these days!
Sorry to be bitter, and no premature condemnation of Mel and Classic Resto intented, but judge for yourself. If someone paid you $2250 for a 35-year-old piece of fragile plastic that was six feet long, would you have personally supervised the packaging of this piece, and would you have packed it like these pics show?
So, yeah, pick your restorer carefully alright....
Topic: Ouch! Hemi Cuda horror story...pick your restorer carefully! (Read 2156 times)
