LVS Sales, Inc. Golf Car Parts Ripoff Miami Florida

Our local nonprofit club has a utility golf cart we use for work on the grounds. The engine went bad. The engine still ran OK but it burned oil.

We found this company in Miami that rebuilds these small engines. Since this was cheaper than buying a new one, we went with it. The company charges the price of the rebuilt engine plus they charge a fully refundable deposit ($350, and we have this in writing) that is returned when the old engine is sent back to them. A "bonus" of using this company was they offered 12 free air filters and 12 free oil filters with the deal.

The transaction went bad from the moment the company cashed our club check.

It took this company 54 days and repeated emails before they finally shipped our complete order. When the engine did arrive, there were no "free air and oil filters" included, a critical installation tool we ordered separately was missing, and the engine was missing parts and was damaged. The company was very vague about what they would do about the missing parts and damage. Then, after swapping parts from our old engine, we installed the engine. We found that this engine was also bad (it burned oil very badly).

We contacted the company and gave them the option of just refunding all of our money and ending the transaction. They never responded to this idea. If we had used a credit card, we would have stopped payment. Instead, they shipped out another engine promising to credit us $50 for our labor. When this replacement engine arrived, it was also missing parts. We swapped over some old parts from our old engine and installed the replacement rebuilt engine. This one seemed to run OK.

We immediately shipped our old engine back to the company expecting to receive the $400 ($350 + $50) core deposit in return. Our old engine still ran and it was complete. At the same time, we sent an email indicating that the engine was on the way and asking them how they wanted to get their bad rebuild back. There was no response from the company.

After not hearing anything for 10 days, we sent an email asking the status of the deposit. The company never responded to this email. We sent another email. No response. At this point, we had been waiting nearly a full month for this $400 deposit to be returned. With the company's poor performance to date, we became concerned that we would possibly be out the $400 core charge deposit. We sent a third email asking for the status of our deposit and this time, fearing the company would never return the deposit and being fed up with the shenanigans, we mentioned that we would report them to the BBB if they did not respond.

The company went ballistic. They immediately sent a very poorly written email full of personal attacks and profanity (the fast response to this third email means they were reading our emails, just not responding). Then they charged that they never received our old (core) engine. We immediately launched a UPS investigation that proved the engine was delivered to them and even provided the company employee's name that signed for it. The company continued to deny that they received the old engine. Unbelievable.

At this point, we had their bad rebuilt engine and they had our $400. The bad rebuilt engine had practically no value to us. We suggested that an escrow company would be a good way to go because, obviously, there was no trust between the parties. We even offered to pay the escrow company fee. The company never responded to our escrow suggestion and just continued to send the same poorly written and nasty responses and even threatened to "have the authorities come after us." Ridiculous.

Finally, after having our attorney write the company a "dear deadbeat" letter, the company sent a UPS pickup tag to have their bad rebuild sent back. In good faith, we sent the bad engine back. We even paid to have it crated. We figured the company might see that we were acting in good faith by sending the bad rebuild back and would send back our deposit of $400. WRONG!

Some time later, a check arrived in the amount of $80, $320 less than what should have been paid to our club. So basically, this company beat our nonprofit club out of $320.

We used the BBB (worthless), Florida Consumer Services (also worthless), and finally our attorney. We learned that the BBB logo means very little. All this company had to do to satisfy the BBB was respond. It did not matter what the substance of the response was. Once they "responded," the BBB dropped the case. Look at the BBB web site for this company ... it's clean as a whistle. How many other BBB listings for deadbeats are clean as a whistle? Bet there's a bunch.

Use credit cards folks! And if things begin to go bad, stop payment immediately and cut your losses.

Mark
Beechwood, Ohio
U.S.A.