Finger Lakes Marine Transportation Mike Reed, Shelby Reed Boat Moving Scam, Marine Transport Fraud, Syracuse, New York

The business owner, Mike Reed, lost to me in small claims court. He didn't even have the integrity to show up and sent his son in his place. I was awarded $700 plus court fees and the judgement was served against Mike Reed, the business owner, and his son.  What I can say is that his son was honest, forthright, did his best to present his case (what little there was), and made the payments the court awarded to me.  If he had not it would have been my pleasure to visit Mr Reed in person with his local police department and force him to turn over the money to me.  I have several choice words that could only be properly delivered in person as I hoped would happen when I traveled up to Mike's hometown of Syracuse, NY to see him in small claims court.

For anyone that might do business with this person be sure to do as much investigation as you can.  I later found at least 10 other people who have lost deposits with Mike Reed of Finger Lakes Marine Transportation.  His mode of operation is to be super nice, contactable and promise quick turnaround.  Once you prepay you will then find it more and more difficult to get a hold of him.  The dates will begin changing and once the lack of contact and changing timelines are too much, he will take your deposit and claim that it is your fault.  No exaggeration, you can find at least 10 documented cases of this through USHIP.com.

Should this business owner persist in his pointless exercise of making these claims that he had someone coming to get the boat, that I changed dates and cancelled, that he had bought permits, etc - all of which are 100% lies as shown in court.  I will upload the judgement from the court along with all information that it contains.  However, I would like to protect his son as I found him to be a very good and honorable person.  Here are a few emails sent to me from his son, whos name I will remove to protect the innocent:

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On Tuesday, August 6, 2013 1:09 PM, xxxxx Reed <xxxxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

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On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:43 PM, xxxxx Reed <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

I will start with the smallest points and work my way up to the most important fact here.  Bottom line is this guy didn't have any case at all to make in court.  They had no evidence, no receipts, no proof of any claims at all - literally, they were not able to prove anything that the owner claims in his rebuttal in this RipOffReport.  Subsequently, they lost and narrowly missed having to pay me some major supplemental damages on a technicality.  His son paid the $700 fine for his Dad and sent me two separate bank checks as required by the small claims court in Mike's home town of Syracuse NY.  I will not upload the copies in this response, but will do so if my version of events is contested again.

Now the specifics:

1. I was never ok with the dates changing.  Mike claimed he dropped his phone in a lake fishing with his son and that's why he didn't call for 4 days.  In court his son stated his father had never dropped his phone and he hadn't gone fishing with him during that time.  Lie #1.

2. I never cancelled the pick-up.  The guy was completely out of touch and that Friday we spoke and I told him they should still come and get the boat.  I had to pay extra fees at my marina because the boat was pulled out of the water with dock guys standing by all day long.  Mike never came, never showed up.  He stuck on this excuse as a way to try to cheat me out of my $700.  Look up his reviews across Google and you will clearly see Mike's mode of business is to set a low price and pick up date, then to continuously extend the pick up date.  Sometimes it works, but mostly he steals people's deposits.

3. Paypal never determined he was right.  Thats a load of BS from a guy who hardly understands what Paypal is.  Paypal ruled in my favor first.  Then, after he protested, they reversed the decision because Paypal does NOT insure purchases of services.  It had absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the case.  After many months and cancelling my account Paypal legal contacted me and gave me a $700 credit to my account.  This is a big credit to them.  Mike still thinks that somehow Paypal believes he was right.  He is delusional in this regard. 

4. Mike never got any permits, paid for gas or had anyone coming to get the boat as claimed.  I spoke with Paypal and went through everything and he never gave them any documentation.  Secondly, when his son came to small claims court he stated under oath that his father in fact had not gotten any permits, paid for gas or had anyone coming to get the boat.  No proof or documentation of any of these facts was provided in court because as his son said, they never happened.

5. Biggest thing here - after all of this Mike did not have the character as a business person or a man for that matter to meet me in person.  I filed a small claims case against him in his hometown, flew up there at my own expense and he sent his son instead.  I give major credit to his son.  He was a good kid and apologized a lot for his father's lies and actions.  I won in small claims court and his son sent me to bank checks for $350 each and paid me back the $700 his father took from me.

Bottom line here is that this guy is delusional.  He hides behind the phone and text messages talking a big game but didn't have the guts or self-respect to even represent himself in court and meet me face-to-face. It's easy to type stuff online and make claims, but showing up in person to prove your case, much less pick up a boat as contracted, is not something you can count on from this cheat

 This gentleman who hired us to move his boat was a tough undecisive customer from the start. We made arrangements to pick up his boat, we had to postpone the date due to some minor setbacks. We made sure to keep great communication with Greg, he was up to date and well aware of our timeframe throughout it all. We were on our way down to retrieve his boat when we recieved a call from him requestinga cancellation. We had already purchased all permits and paid for fuel to retrieve the boat at the marina. Greg submitted a complaint to PAYPAL who organized and managed the deposit, we then responded to his complaint with all proper documentation and proof of expenses. Payal ruled in OUR favor in such that all deposits are UNREFUNDABlE if the persons paying to ship the vessel cancelled with unreasonable cause. Greg was ok with the setbacks up until the day we were en route to pick-up his boat. Thanks - FLT