Complete payment, unfortunately for me. I thought I could trust '03 R-list member.
I guess, it's my fault at assuming that.

The whole story is kinda complicated, I will perhaps post it later.
For now, I just posted it as a word of caution for those interested in the kit as well.

 

Interesting....

https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...-need-one.html

 

Wow! Warren has been posting here for a LONG time. I would have trusted him too. Please post the story. Thats wierd that he was asking for one shortly after his for sale post.

Tarek still has his available if you want it. If so, let me know and I'll call him to let him know. He doesn't log onto Rennlist as much as he used to.

 

This kit is for a pre-'87 If you are interested, you might want to check with Rolf, who is selling a kit he bought for his '88 S-4. He hasn't posted it on the classifieds yet. It is an excellent deal

 

It is weird.

 

Wow...some people really are genuine scumbags.

 

Okay, here goes the story:

I was looking for a way of adding some extra punch to my project car, and when I saw this thread, I thought to myself: "hey, nice deal on extra 150hp". I then proceeded to contact Warren, received pictures from him and was generally satisfied with what I saw: brand new parts, not even installed yet, everything looked as described in the original post.

We then exchanged our phone numbers and e-mail addresses, and arranged payment and shipment details. (I have to mention here, that I live in Russia, and to avoid our silly custom fees, I have to use some professional car parts exporter/importer. Their US office is in New-York, so Warren didn't have to ship parts overseas, he only needed to ship 'em to NY. Jumping a bit forward, parts never reached NY in the end. I deal with this "intermediate" company for quite a long time and had literally a truckload of parts shipped to me successfully.)
Anyways, I had my people contact Warren, and they successfully got invoice from him and wired the payment. In the meantime I did some research on the subject and found out that I need S3 throttle body to run the kit on S4 engine. Since it's kinda hard (doh!) to get one locally, I then contacted Warren again asking to get one for me and place it in the same package with other SC kit parts. He agreed and found one for me for 175 bucks IIRC. I paid for it separately with paypal.

As of 05/03/2009, I got a confirmation PM from Warren that he received both the wire and the paypal and is going to get the TB and then pack everything up and send it to Brooklyn, NY.

From time to time, I tried to check the status of my purchase by sending PMs here and e-mailing Warren, but haven't gotten any response until 06/17/2009 (1.5 months), when Warren replied to my e-mail message, apologizing for the delay and telling me that he will send everything within few days. On 06/27/2009 (another 10 days) he claimed to have finally sent the kit and provided me 4 UPS tracking numbers. The package was supposed to arrive within 3-4 days. But, even after 10 days, my people in NY did not receive anything, except of small box, which contained:
-FMU
-Injectors
-S3 TB
-Intake hose

Tracking numbers on UPS website said that the shipment of other 3 packages never occurred. (Later, after filing them a claim, status correctly changed to "exception", so perhaps it was just a minor glitch?) I, therefore, asked Warren what happened, and as he supposed, the UPS has had either lost or damaged other 3 packages. But, since those were insured for almost 3 grand, it wasn't a big problem. On 07/14/09 I received copies of UPS claim forms.

But, I was not yet ready to give up, and since I paid for SC kit and I wanted to get one, not just lose cash on the shipment/"intermediate company" fees/etc, I asked Warren to just get the insurance compensation himself and source a replacement kit for me. (I was even ready to pay a bit more for another one, with whipple twin screw blower instead of original roots type.) He agreed to help with this (thus, this "WTB" post by him). This "search" went on and on and on, unsuccessfully. Last message from him on this subject reached me on 10/08/09. By then I already started to lose my patience and started asking for cash reimbursement instead, since the search didn't go too well. For another couple of months I could not reach Warren at all, all my messages seemed to be ignored, imagine how I was feeling then. But on 12/02/2009, I received a VERY weird message, that really alarmed me for real. It came from Warren's e-mail address: he was writing to me like he never knew me, or anything about whole supercharger deal. He then assumed that it was instead his "stray son", who contacted him in early 2009, and who really seemed to be his son (unknown before), and who then was allowed to help Warren with his business, and therefore had access to the mail account. I sensed a strong scent of bull**** (I'll explain later, why), but played along. So, this "real" Warren provided me with email address (but not the prone number) of his son, and I even received one message (12/14/09) from that "son", confirming that it indeed was him, and not Warren, but he can't send me compensation money just yet. After that, I had some unsuccessful attempts to communicate (didn't get any reply on few messages I sent), so the situation remains unsolved.

Now, facts that lead me to believing that the whole "son story" is made up:
- Obviously, I was in touch with a person here on r-list with account name Warren928
- Most of the PM or e-mail messages were signed as "Warren"
- The pictures sent to me clearly had name "Warren Klopsch" on SC kit packages, yet he later claimed that he never heard of it.
- UPS shipment to me was made by "Warren Klopsch" as well, claim forms sent to me also had that name.
- Bank transfer was also made in his name, IIRC.

My people also had quite a few unsuccessful attempts at contacting Warren on provided phone numbers, he never picked up the phone.

To be honest, I'm kinda puzzled by this whole situation. The first part of the story got me pretty confident that everything will end well, just slowly. Warren sounded friendly, helpful, willing to help, just a bit slow on communication, but that's understandable. What really got me worrying big time, was that "son story" and lack of any communication in latest few months. But now I kinda guess that this whole "niceness" was there to (successfully) delay me from taking some radical measures?

I do understand that I'm relatively new person here, and I'm accusing '03 member, but, for those wondering:
-I can back my story up with full e-mail and r-list PM history.
-I already have had some successful deal here (sum was much lower, around 500 bucks IIRC, but the payment was also sent in advance and everything went well).

And, for those patient enough to read up to here, a bit of whining.
Imagine how this all reflected on my motivation to continue my project car. At some point I was about to abandon the whole idea of building a nice 928.
And, to help you get a whole picture: not only I paid 3850+175 for the kit, I also had to pay:
2% for wire transfer
10% for "intermediate company" fees
That alone is almost 500 bucks.
Plus, the RUR/USD rates are way worse now, go figure: another ~10-15% lost only on rates.

So, even if I somehow will get those $3k from insurance, I still spent ~2 grand on basically a set of injectors. (TB is useless for me now, pretty much, as is FMU). Go figure - I guess it's the most expensive set of injectors in my life, heh.

Anyways, thanks for taking time to read this all, and apologies for any mistakes: obviously, English is not my native. Took quite an effort to type all this, too.

If you got any questions or suggestions of help, feel free to post or PM me.

Best Regards,

 

WTF... this is just theft.

 

Oh, and:
Fabio, Larry, thanks for suggestions, but I'm not really ready to start another "SC purchasing" venture after just having one end REALLY badly. Besides, my "SC fund" is spent, not sure when I'll be ready to try getting another one.

 

Man - thats messed up. Hope the 928 Gods rewards you soon or at least helps you get your money back.

 

No one knows this dude? He has never been at a meet?

 

Thanks for kind words.
928 Gods already helped me to get a nice '90GT that summer quite cheaply.
So I have a new toy to play with, while my project car is on hold...

2 Shark Attack:
I posted a thread asking the same question, apparently he wasn't really the "get-together" kind of a guy.

 

Wonder which new accounts were created on that date who post in the 928 forum.

The story sucks - sorry to hear 9x8 that you lost money.

 

Bummer if the whole story is legit.

Warren928 is "Back in Vermont" and visited a BMW forum recently (1/10/2010): http://wwww.bimmerfest.com/forums/member.php?u=124387

 

I thought 9x8 said his LAST name was Warren. Oh well.

Give us some more info and I guarantee we will track him down.