Folks Of Interest Reputation rant

So what's the going rate for a friendship and/or reputation these days??

It's amazing how cheap some are willing to sell out for. My one buddy always jokes with me - that when he finally decides to bone me - he's gonna make at least make it worth his while!!!!!

 

"Yeah, meet me at the shop after hours..."

Sounds an awful lot like someone stole his car AND money.

 

Back in the day I sold my rough body good engine chevelle to a guy. Saw him a while later at a gas station. I asked him about the car. Accused me of selling him a bad motor - it smoked. After some intense questioning he admitted that he lost the belt and overheated it.

 

I agree with those that think the buyer screwed up and wants to blame someone else. I sold a O.T. motorcycle years ago. The guy came to my house and said he wanted to but my bike. It was a Jap enduro bike that I had put a lot of real offroad parts on. I had no intention of selling it, it wasn't for sale. He talked to me for a long time and took the bike for a ride. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse and went away with the bike. A couple weeks later he's back telling me that I screwed him....engine is junk. I asked what he had done to it and of cousre he said "nothing". What he didn't know was that i worked with his neighbor and he had told me the guy sat in the driveway revving the piss out of the thing a lot. the neighbors were actually complaining about it as the bike had an unbaffled expansion chamber on it! It was a rotary valve engine and right in the owners manual it says not to rev it up and down quickly in neutral. It will shear the rivets on the rotary valve. That's exactly what was wrong. I asked him about doing that and he said yes he was "tuning" it!! I told him it was too bad about his luck...
I did hear from a couple other people that he was badmouthing me, but they were laughing at the guy when he was running his mouth.

 

I have one guy out there now telling the world how displeased he is with an air bag job I did for him, even though it all works perfectly. It needed bushings, ball joints and tie rod ends when it came in, and it still does now. He claimed he'd take care of it. In hindsight, I should have refused the job without those parts.

 

Find out where he lives and get even. He don't even need to know who did it. You will feel better.

 

Word of mouth is a very big deal.

I would contact the guy and just explain to him that your reputation is valuable and remind him you offered a guarantee. So he doesn't continue to badmouth you to everyone else. I wouldn't threaten him or anything, just try to get him to see it from your point of view.

Personally if I heard that about you from a friend (not knowing you of course) I would avoid you right off the bat.

 

I've run my own shop for 30 years and I've figured out that you can't make all the people happy all the time. And when you don't, someone is gonna ***** to someone else. Anymore, I take it with a grain of salt. I'm still in business with my customer base in tact and I've noticed that most of the *****ers move around from shop to shop and (IMPORTANT POINT) have developed a reputation of their own.
Larry T

 

You hit the nail on the head!

 

Man I am telling you !! Even people you know, Have known for 35 years are like that. I have a buddy who is a carb wizard. An old friend has him do the tri power on his 348 chebby. We are takling one day and he starts bad mouthing my carb guy. I ask what is wrong? He says we hooked up the 2 end carbs and when you floor it the car just dies. I asked him if he checked to see if the end carbs were getting any gas?? He says he'll check. 2 months go by and we meet up again and I ask if he got his problem fixed? He says Oh yeah when I was putting it together I'd blocked off the 2 end carbs at the fuel log. I asked if he went and told everyone who he had badmouthed my carb guy about that it was his falut and not my carb guy?? He said Uhhh no. ****ing no balls ****head!!

 

You are not alone, happens all the time. Some people have nothing better too do.

 

Anybody who doesn't have one of these stories isn't really alive ! Aholes are everywhere . The problem is we can't make them wear uniforms to identify them.
Last summer I bought a toy collection from the lady behind me and told her that
I planned to resell them .I paid her asking price (more than I would have paid others)
And two weeks later she's out telling the neighbors , my bank tellers and my wife at the grocery store where my wife works that I robbed her blind !
I got even ! This spring She wanted our shared fence replaced and wanted me to pay
half . I respectfully declined .Funny how things have a way of working out !

 

Mike if you found money I can tell you for a fact it isn't mine. But I will give you a 10% finders fee.

Nope no Testarossa, anyone with credit can have one of those. Credit is like money I'm afraid.

I don't have enough of either, I probably even have a bad reputation in some circles. But I don't really mind, where my rep is bad its for all the right reasons.