[drg]

I know many of you have a presence on DiscoWeb and I'm certainly one who wouldn't like to see a lot of the crap that sometimes goes on over there to migrate to LRO, so I've not really wanted to mention anything about this here. But I think I have to send out a warning to people, because a problem that seemed to be in the past is cropping up again.

Kyle Van Tassel, who operates RoverSolutions.com, making custom roof racks, bumpers, and Hi-Lift mounts, has been taking deposits on custom fabrication and then disappearing. It had appeared that he simply fell off the face of the earth, but a thread on DiscoWeb leads me to believe that he is STILL taking money from people:

http://discoweb.org/forums/showthread.php?p=161695

Please, if you intend to buy something over the Internet, even if it is someone who appears to have a community presence, don't agree to pay up front unless you use some kind of fraud-protected funds like credit card.

And more specifically, beware of Kyle and RoverSolutions, as there have been and continue to be allegations of fraud (including from me... the whole story is complicated and I won't repeat it here, but you can search the archives on DiscoWeb for 'KVT' and 'roof rack' and get the gist).

Incidentally, Kyle is one of the administrators of DiscoWeb, and apparently he's the one who physically manages its servers. I have a suspicion (though absolutely no direct knowledge) that KVT is indirectly related to why LRO exists in the first place, and for that I say thank you Serg.

 

[RageRover]

Wow...isn't what this guy Kyle, is doing illegal? That would piss me off if someone pulled something like that. Do you know how much this Kyle has gotten from certain people?

 

[roverX]

Sorry if you fell victim to that but it is actually old news. Very old news and I am surprised people are still falling for it.

 

[keptin]

Kyle Van Tassel, who operates RoverSolutions.com, making custom roof racks, bumpers, and Hi-Lift mounts, has been taking deposits on custom fabrication and then disappearing. It had appeared that he simply fell off the face of the earth, but a thread on DiscoWeb leads me to believe that he is STILL taking money from people:

This has been happening for a long time. Ive followed the several 300-post threads on him. He takes the money and then doesnt do the work....or it takes him months to finish it. There have been people that ordered and paid for something to recieve it so far down the road that they have already sold thier LR.

 

[RageRover]

What a load of crap! Either does the work in a few months instead a few days, or doesn't do it at all! He's pretty lousy!

 

[RageRover]

I hear you, I apologize, a point had to get through.

 

[rmuller]

Sorry if you fell victim to that but it is actually old news. Very old news and I am surprised people are still falling for it.

Honestly, for the most part.. people are not still falling for it.. drg, amongst 90% of the other people complaining on Discoweb are part of a group that have placed their orders over a year ago.. back when Kyle was actually producing and delivering.. people trusted him, because way back when, he was trustworthy... I've seen the backpack racks in person, some of them made their way out.. it was just one day he decided to stop doing everything. Most of these people have no way to get their money back.. he insisted on high downpayments through Paypal, who has a limitation on their fraud protection, and that has since expired...

Kyle has always been nice to me in the past, but unlike JC, I have no quarrels with posting his personal information for people to try to collect on their lost money. This doesn't stand in the business world.

 

[02disco2]

I disagree, I think that if someone got ripped off by a fellow Land Rover person, then they have ever right to relay that information to other owners as a precautionary measure. I have a HUGE problem with people who are lacking in the ethics department. If it were legal to burn people at the stake, I would suggest that be the punishment for people who prey on fellow automotive fanatics, especially when or IF they run the very forums where these people reside.

*DISCLAIMER, I have no intimate knowledge of any of the people mentioned on the thread, nor am I trying to imply guilt to any one party or group. Enough of the legal mumbo jumbo already

 

[RageRover]

Amen to that.:drink1:

 

[rmuller]

no hard feelings at all... I've just known (and known of) kyle for over 3 years now, and he'd have no problem bringing things to the public eye. This isn't a one off person he's ripped off.. he's ripped off at least 10 people in the land rover community... people who we all wheel with on a regular basis. A lot of us have to bite our tongues on discoweb.org for the fear of him coming online and banning us.. but I don't see any problem exposing it here.

Yeah, I know what you're saying about LRO being a happy place.. but hell, you can't have happy when members are being ripped off by someone. Some people are too reluctant/shy to take any action against someone if they are ripped off, but if the community comes together, hopefully something will be done.

I hope that everything is okay with Kyle as I feel he has been a strong asset in the LR community and is a genuinely nice guy from what I hear.. but he needs to make this right as soon as possible.

He needs to take out a home equity loan, pay back all the deposits, and then shut his business down. Amen.

 

[01001010]

:drink1: Point taken. Changes made

 

[roverX]

He needs to take out a home equity loan, pay back all the deposits, and then shut his business down. Amen.

Now there is an idea!

Yeah, Kyle really is an asset. He knows a lot about rovers. He needs to go above and beyond to get his rep back.

 

[RageRover]

I should hope a guy with a lot of knowledge of the Land Rover would go back to the top. I would.

 

[Muddy Oval]

Kyle did good work- and had a stellar reputation which abruptly all came to a halt. It's sad, because I think something 'bad' happened in his life- but I think all he had to do was communicate with people and whatever the results of the situation dictates would have been workable for all involved.
I think a "real" business should operate using it's own credit card services- PayPal is a really cheesy way to operate and should serve as a warning.

 

[Series 3 guy]

That dude is a Bum!!!He better hope no one gets hold of him. D-Web should distance themselves from a guy like that or they might get a bed rep.

 

[Hank]

I'm kinda split 50/50 on this. For some reason, I don't think the "real" story has hit the fan yet. Kyle has always been a stand-up guy. He has always been upfront, and never "beat around the bush". For that, he made many enemy's, but, If you ever go back and look over what Kyle was trying to say, he really did make sense.

Kyle has others views as to what a rover should look like and function. His views follow along the same lines as John Lee and Ho. Not everyone is going to agree with Kyle, John, or Ho on this, and not everyone is going to understand why they do what they do. Yet, for these views, they sometimes get there asses wiped on these BB's. In return, they whip us back and it leaves a bad taste in our mouth.

Kyle has made people mad, and for that they don't "like" him. So, I think this starts up this whole "What a jerk Kyle is" type thread.

With that said, I don't know whats up, but I think it really stinks! Kyle had something to offer that a lot of people liked. Kyle knows a LR in and out. Kyle has always been up-front and tells you like it is, which is a "lost trade" in the market today. Whether he's out of cash, unable to work, or whatever, I really hope he pulls through it.

Thats not to say what he is doing is not wrong. But, I don't think anyone know the whole story. I mean, why are these people not involving the cops/feds/whatever? Why are these people not talking more aggressive measures? I don't think these people are out of their money, their just receiving some **** service, and even shittier customer service.

 

[roverX]

You make some good points there Dan. Kyle does know his stuff. He, John, and Ho have always had great advice but, like you said, not everyone has agreed with them on how a rover should function. I like their rover ideas. Yes, sometimes their delivery sucks, but it is what it is. I think if he said "Hey look guys, it's personal and I'm having a hard time right now," I think people will be more understanding. But until he takes care of his personal business, he needs to stop his rover dealings. I, for one, hopes he gets back on his feet, b/c he does give stellar advice.

 

[drg]

Kyle has made people mad, and for that they don't "like" him. So, I think this starts up this whole "What a jerk Kyle is" type thread.

Hank, I had no idea that Kyle was a jerk before I did business with him. In fact, when I did my due dilligence search on him before buying (I found the RoverSolutions.com site first, then DWeb), my searches on "KVT" and "rack" always showed people happy with what they got.

Maybe there are a few of us who got there the way you described, but for me and several others I've talked to, getting mad was a result of his behavior, not the cause for the dispute. It's only after he started disappearing on me that I went back and saw what an ass he's been to DWeb people who disagree with him.

A lot of non-customers have joined in to give their two cents, but every thread about this that I've seen was started by someone who was owed something by him (a different someone in every case, and this is the only thread I have started myself).

He has not always been a stand-up guy. He told the BBB, for instance, that I was taken care of, even though he had not contacted me and had not sent me what I was owed. Not to mention telling me (a stranger at the time) that he would finish my rack 4 weeks after my down payment, when it must have been abundantly clear that that wouldn't happen.

Thats not to say what he is doing is not wrong. But, I don't think anyone know the whole story.

You're right that we don't know the whole story, but that's part of the problem. I told him several times that I could stand waiting if he would tell me how long I have to wait, but wouldn't stand for him just disappearing. Yet, to this date I've received no communication from him since he told me my rack was ready and how much the last payment was.

You said that you don't think anyone's out money, they just have to wait longer. There are people who've been paid up for over a year, and he won't even talk to them. It doesn't matter if he thinks in his head that he'll 'eventually' deliver something. Nobody else believes it, and a court wouldn't believe it either.

In my case, for instance, all he'd have to do is send me the 8 mounting brackets. These are the same brackets that he uses on all of his racks... he should be swimming in them. But he neither sent them to me, nor sent me any kind of message saying they were coming. If he can't do something as easy as throw 8 brackets in a box and mail them out to one of the most vocal complainers, I can't see how we should assume he's doing anything else.

As far as the suggestion that we're not being 'aggressive' enough... that's a little offensive. Just a little, and I know you didn't mean it that way, but: it has been discussed, at length, that it would cost at least as much to chase him down as the money we are out. And that's assuming he has the money to pay us back. Since he's not giving any details, the general consensus seems to be that there's probably no money to go after in the first place. So what useful step should we take?

I've taken the only one that's sane for me: I've decided it's not worth it to worry too much more about getting what he owes me. But the flip side of that is making sure that other people know that doing business with him was a wholly unpleasant and unprofitable decision, and that I'm not the only one.


Just one last bit, though, that isn't related to Kyle's business problems, but to what you said about the people who dislike Kyle, John, and Ho. Let me give you a different opinion about why that is.

There's no question that they work hard to try to figure out the "right" way to build a Rover, and the "right" way to off-road. One look at the EE web site shows that John and Ho put a lot of effort into research. And Kyle is unquestionably a very skilled designer and fabricator (not that I'm happy with the workmanship on the rack he sent me, but the design is good and I'll assume that that's the exception rather than the rule).

The problem is that they don't know the difference between the opinions they form and God-given truth. They've become the kind of people for whom you either agree with what they say, or they tell everyone you're an idiot.

Every hobby has those people. Usually they know what they're talking about most of the time, because those are the people who put the most work into things, and they get a lot done. But sometimes they're wrong or shortsighted, and usually there's more than one way to do something. These kinds of people can't recognize when they're wrong or when there may be a different answer that works for someone else, and they so jealously guard their 'rightness' that they ridicule anyone who disagrees.

Those kind of people will either bother you or they won't. They bug the hell out of me.


Apologies for the rant, but having gotten that out of the way, I do believe I can probably move on now.

 

[DiscoTex]

Apologies for the rant, but having gotten that out of the way, I do believe I can probably move on now.

Why apologize? It's the honest to god truth. You know that if it was any other fabricator making things for a bigger audience (say, the Toyota, Chevy, or Jeep crowd), he would have been burned at the stake based on his customer service alone.

Yet, for these views, they sometimes get there asses wiped on these BB's. In return, they whip us back and it leaves a bad taste in our mouth.

Yeah, it's one thing to "whip us" with a decent rebuttal, but it' another thing to start banning members left and right and threaten to shut down the whole BB just because members either don't agree with them, or start talking negatively about them three.

KVT's poor customer service has been an issue for a long, long time. Hell, search through the old DWeb BB and you'll find threads about the same issue.

Maybe y'all should start a thread about this on PBB. By the time they're done, there will be a new term for getting ripped off: getting "Van Tassled".

Edit: I'm an idiot. There IS a thread about him at Pirate arleady.

 

[RageRover]

Wow.. that was a lot said.