I was solicited via e-mail by Cavalier Salvage around November 1999... I advised Ethan J. Platteborze I was not interested in what he was offering at the time. I am in the salvage business and he contacted me about a load of Sears Craftsman tools... He contacted me again in January. He claimed to have a load of shelf pull offs (still in mint condition) not 2nds - of Sears Craftsmans tools.
The entire load cost $9,000.00. If I was interested in the tools he'd knock off $500. If he could use our name on his web site as a satisfied customer of Cavalier Salvage. We agreed to purchase the load - he faxed us an agreement to sign and it had all his bank info. On it. (In our line of business it is common for us to wire transfer monies prior to receiving our load)- so when Ethan advised us to do this we wired the money.
He told us he would get back with us with the shipping info. Within 72-hrs. We waited 2-days and we called him back. He gave us a run around that Sears had not give him the shipping info. Or the release number for the driver to move the merchandise off the loading dock in Memphis, TN. Jeff told him we are only 4- hours from Memphis, TN and we had our own truck and he could go get the load. Ethan exploded and got very i-rate with us. We advised him we just wanted out money back. He stated if we cancelled out we would have to pay a restocking fee. We told him we'd take the merchandise but we needed to know when we'd receive the merchandise.
This went on for 3-more days... By this time we knew we had been had. We called his # several times and always got his answering machine... When we finally talked to him he said he could not do business with us - he was upset about our calling - and he said he'd refund our money... We'll we are still waiting... We have talked to everyone we know... We filled out a consumer Complaint form for the Oregon Department of Justice - We have talked to the FBI - we have talked to an attorney-... All for nothing... The detective with the dept. Of justice called us about a month ago, he had presented his case to the atty. General and they were not going to prosecute.
We know there have been at least 3-others that have contacted the atty. General office - we were told by the gentleman working on our case. We were told by the FBI agent - that even though $8,500.00 is a lot of money for one person to suffer a loss, it was not a big enough money case for the FBI to persue... This is borrowed money we are making payments to the bank on... This came out of what little operating money we had left on credit, so this has really hurt our business this year... We need someone to "help us get our money back", asap... If you can do anything for us our guide us in anyway - please let us know... Thank you for your help.
Jeff & Suzanne Milford
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