W B Sign Studio George Kise Failure to produce custom sign Syracuse, New York

I, unfortunately, encountered his scam this past September while visiting the Guilford, CT Fair.  We had just recently moved into a new home and were looking to purchase a beautiful hand-crafted sign for our front door.  We came across George Kise, W B Sign Studio (Syracuse, NY), and his display at the Guilford Fair and fell in love with his work and the price was reasonable.  Since the price of the sign was going to be $100, we decided we would charge it to a credit card.  George had something about his machine being "down" at the time and could only accept cash.  Not having that kind of cash on us, we borrowed it from my in-laws.  George assured us that the sign would be done in 8-12 weeks as the attached receipt confirmed.

I sent a series of emails to George (dated 1/9/12 and 2/28/12), to which he actually took the time to reply to a couple, and have had no response since the last one. We have become victims of a larger scheme.  I attempted to call the phone number recently and the voice mailbox was full.  I was suspect of that and decided to look for any additional info. about this man and his business online.  I discovered the two links below from the Ripoff Report and Upstate New York BBB.  It is apparent that he has done this same thing to many people from places like Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Connecticut to name a few.  Unfortunately, we will most likely never see our sign or our money.