On about the 25th of November I was driving my 2003 Mini Cooper onto the entrance ramp of I-35 when it started buckling and making strange noises. I was unable to shift gears. I was able to steer the car off the ramp onto a side street. I knew the transmission had failed so when i got home and over the next few days I called a few places. Several mechanics said they didn't work on minis or that transmissions were difficult to obtain. I no longer remember the exact search terms but
when I did a specific search, I remember Transmission King's website (http://www.transmissionkingatx.com / and
http://kingcarcare.com/austin/index.php? Page=home) was one of the first to come up. I called and spoke to Joe Gaudette who seemed nice enough on the phone and said that he'd worked on minis before and my car would be no problem at all. I specifically told him that it was a 5speed. He even quoted me a price of $495 to perform the repair. (It appears they
have since raised their price on their web site)
He had the car towed to his place and then later that day called me to say that when we talked on the phone he "thought it was an automatic", even though I told him quite clearly it was a 5 speed. Anyway, he said that it was going to be a bit more complicated but he would have to pull it out to take a look at it. He either told me he would be able to fix it or get me a replacement (sorry I don't remember exactly what he said) and that it would cost me $2075. He asked for $1200 upfront. Either that day or the day after (Nov 30th) he came by my house to pick up the money which I gave him in cash. He claimed he forgot to bring his official receipt pad so he wrote me a receipt on the back of his business card
Several days went by. He told me at some point that the transmission he was planning on using was either no good or unavaiable (sorry again I don't remember exactly which) but that he had found a shop somewhere in Utah I think that had a mini transmission but it was going to cost $2550 including shipping and insurance. He said he needed to be paid for it
upfront before he would order it on his credit card. I had already given him $1200 so I gave him the remainder of $1350 on Dec 10th. I paid him in cash and again he wrote me a receipt on the back of a business card.
Several weeks went by. Whenever I called him which was at least every few days he always had some story about where my transmission was. Despite saying he would "call me back in the afternoon" or something, he never returned my calls. He claimed that the company had shipped my transmission to california and shipped him a 6 speed. After some more
time, he said that that vendor wouldn't be able to supply a 5 spd and that he was waiting for the refund to be applied to his credit card so he could order another one. When i called him a few days before Christmas he claimed a new transmission was about to be shipped out to him. Shortly after New years day he claimed the transmission was supposed to be in town but not yet at his shop. A couple of days later he claimed the transmission never arrived and he was getting his money back from this vendor. I was going out of the country on Jan 7 for several weeks. I called him on the 7th from London and he claimed that
he was just about to order my transmission from one of two vendors - he even gave me a couple of phone numbers. At some point I called him from abroad and told him that I was returning on the 25th and he better have my transmission and my car ready for me to pick up when I returned. He said there would be "no problem with being able to do that".
When I returned, I called him the next day (the 26th). That's when he admitted to me that he'd been lying to me all along and that there wasn't any transmission on order and that he'd given the money to his boss (Benjamin L. Jenkins). He told me he was planning on quitting Transmission King to start his own repair shop in Del Valle
At this point I knew I was dealing with scammers. I had the car picked up and towed to another transmission shop which is where it is now being fitted with a new transmission. Joe was still hanging onto several parts from my car which took me almost a week to recover from him. The mechanic at the new shop (Andy) also said that Joe or his mechanics damaged the
clutch in their attempt to remove the transmission and that it would cost me $700 for another clutch
When I last spoke to Joe (Feb 3rd) he told me that he'd actually used my money to pay the rent on their location at 816 Kramer Lane and that he no longer worked for Transmission King. He claimed that his boss had told him to do it, and that he has receipts etc. To prove that's where the money had gone. I asked him for his boss's phone number but he claimed to have deleted it from his phone and that i could get his # from the company's web site.
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