To usacomplaints.com
I made the mistake of not investigating ExtremeScooters.com BEFORE handing them $1,000 of my money towards lay-a-way and now I'm in the process of filing a fraudulent transaction report with my bank as well as submitting a formal report with Better Business Bureau of Georgia since the phone numbers, post office box, physical postal mailing address, and business license given in their emails stems from the State of Georgia, however, I'll further follow-up with filing a formal criminal report to Honolulu Police Department Internet Crime Division, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and any other authoritative agencies I can think of, but first I'm submitting this quick report to usacomplaints.com to immediately warn others incase someone else is wise enough to investigate ExtremeScooters.com before making the mistake of doing any business with ExtremeScooters.com because of so-called unethical business practices by Dave Bergman and others of ExtremeScooters.com.
To begin with, Dave Bergman used to answer my initial phone calls and he also used to respond quickly to my emails prior to having any of my funds. Yesterday I called and left 3 phone messages and two of those were to his answering service but one particular woman quickly hung-up on me the moment I politely said I'm trying to get in contact with Dave Bergman who has $1,000 of my money on lay-a-way.
During one of our initial phone conversations that Dave Bergman and I had in November of Dave Bergman quoted over the phone as well as quoted in one of his initial emails, quote: Can do a price of $1450 Total includes Residential Shipping [to Hawaii] for the Sandy Gold Tank Touring Deluxe 150cc. He additionally quoted in his email: You can go ahead and put the 2008 Sandy Gold Tank Touring Deluxe 150 on Layaway anytime, or pay for it in full. We will only ship it after its paid in full. To Start a Layaway the minimum down payment is $200. We will accept payment by personal check or money order for $1450 for the 150cc Tank Touring Deluxe 150cc Scooter, payable to Extreme-Scooters. So your Total Including Shipping to Your [Hawaii] Residence is $1450. That's the only information he gave pertaining to lay-a-way and nothing else pertaining to lay-a-way was ever mentioned since November until today of March 1st when all of a sudden he tried to change the deal.
The basic price of the Tank Touring 150cc Deluxe Scooter itself is $1,300 and more than once Dave Bergman quoted the shipping cost to Hawaii as an additional $150.
So then in mid- December I made the mistake of sending ExtremeScooters a personal check for $1,000 to be placed on lay-a-way, however, since then I've had some new financial responsibilities and therefore I recently changed my mind and decided to purchase a cheaper model and have been trying to contact Dave Bergman for the past few days and I have also been leaving a few phone messages for Dave Bergman as well as an email informing him that I've changed my mind and that I will settle for purchasing a cheaper 50cc moped instead of the 150cc scooter and this morning I finally got 2 email responses from ExtremeScooters.com which starts off with Dave Bergman instructing me to sign the bill of sale for the 150cc model and then he adds, quote,
Also, Shipping to Hi has an additional overseas fees of $800
So Total With Shipping to Hi Residential Deliver with Overseas Shipping Fees is
$2250 For the Touring Deluxe. Also, all layaway are 30 days Interest Free.
After 30 days there is an interest of 21.99% and Layaway cancellation fee of 20% for all merchandise that was ordered and shipped to our wearhouse [warehouse] in the USA. He mentions nothing about my change of plans despite my email and multiple phone messages regarding my change of plans.
Then two minutes later after I received that particular email from Dave Bergman earlier this morning I also received another email from a John [Eline] at ExtremeScooters.com who writes, quote:
We Cannot Change a Layaway once it starts.
The Scooter, Touring 150 was already shipped in the Continental USA for $1450 to our wearhouse [warehouse] and is held for you.
This actually goes beyond mere unethical business practices but is rather outright criminal behavior altogether. So BUYERS BEWARE of doing business with ExtremeScooters.com. This is the first time I've ever heard of anyone offering lay-a-way business who then blatantly changes the deal after having received a substantial amount of down payment towards the lay-a-way, as well as later charging additional interest on funds held on lay-a-way and then also further charging a lay-a-way cancellation fee when they were already collecting free banking interest to begin with on the money they were holding on lay-a-way. Prior to my receiving today's emails from ExtremeScooters.com there was only one gut-feeling red-flag warning-sign early-on in November which I ignored but it did catch my attention when Dave Bergman stated in his initial email that he prefers payment be made to his post office box number instead of to his physical mailing address. The only psychological profiles I'm familiar with who would prefer doing business using a post office box rather than a physical postal mailing address are the criminal-minded, otherwise, all legitimate business that I can think of would automatically prefer to use their physical mailing address over a post office box number.
I also noticed that someone else's usacomplaints.com report also mentioned that ExtremeScooters, com does not accept credit card or debit card transactions which is actually another red-flag-warning-sign because I would normally expect a fairly large business such as ExtremeScooters would normally be authorized to accept credit cards or debit cards but for some peculiar reason they are not? Either their poor track record is not good enough to gain authorization by the major credit cards companies or most likely it's what another consumer mentioned about the credit card companies having a fraudulent department/division which ExtremeScooters would want to avoid.
Meanwhile, according to the terms presented by usacomplaints.com I am quite willing to be contacted by the media, a consumer advocate, lawyer or government authority to help further my cause or to help with any investigation, whether criminal or otherwise, against the business and/or individual (s) I am reporting and will gladly accept contact information from usacomplaints.com via usacomplaints.com if a lawyer is interested in my particular casefile or is possibly starting a class-action lawsuit against ExtremeScooers.com. The reason I completely expect to eventually receive back my full $1,000 from Dave Bergman of ExtremeScooters.com is because I'm fairly good at this sort of thing, in fact, I almost kind of enjoy doing this sort of thing of stumbling upon crooks and then having the evidence and the cause for turning them into the proper authoritative agencies.
This one almost sort of reminds me of when I had first gotten my first computer years ago and curiously investigated so-called free triple-x websites that mysteriously kept popping up on the screen and I eventually concluded there was actually no such thing as so-call free triple-x websites despite all the advertising hype and I was very careful to avoid any such paying-websites where they would automatically charge my debit card number, however, there was one particular website that managed to trick me by saying they needed my card number for proof of age only for a free tour but the moment I sensed I was getting tricked into entering a paying-website I quickly and immediately clicked on the close button within a mere tenth-of-a second or so. But sure enough they eventually charged me $40 for having spent approximately a total of a tenth-of-a-second or so on their website and then of course for several weeks thereafter they continuously gave me the complete endless run-a-round and meanwhile everyone else keep telling me it was impossible for me to get my money back from such a situation but eventually I gathered up all the evidence and submitted a fraudulent transaction with my bank and immediately got my $40 back just like I knew I would.
The more that people try to tell me it's impossible for me to get my money back then the more it only makes me laugh. I survive on a modest V.A. Pension and sometimes engage in various volunteer work but otherwise I have all the time in the world to pursue and troubleshoot these things whenever I happen to stumble upon them. The best part is reversing the stress factor, for instance, Dave Bergman and others at ExtremeScooters.com thinks they'll end up stressing me out until I get so fed up with them that I'll eventually disappear but I won't disappear and I won't stop troubleshooting this issue until they've received so much legal stress in return that they'll gladly give me back my $1,000 just to get rid of me while forever regretting having trying to scam me in the first place.
I don't go looking for crooks but I sure do enjoy turning them in whenever I happen to encounter them and what Dave Bergman and ExtremeScooters is doing to me right now is blatant criminal behavior, plain and simple. I'm their worse living-legal-nightmare but they just don't know it yet. Any legitimate business would've informed me up front at the beginning if they would be charging interest on holding lay-a-way funds, nor would a legitimate business likely charge a cancellation fee on lay-a-way funds, nor would they change the deal at the last minute by trying to up the cost by a surprising $800 more, but instead a legitimate business would have had no problem with accepting my change of plans to purchase a less expensive item.
And I don't believe for a moment that they would've ordered the merchandise ahead of time prior to having received full payment. And Dave Bergman foolishly ignored my change of plans and instead he responded by trying to instruct me to pay an additional $800. Legitimate honest business people don't behave that way, only the criminal-minded behave like that. He showed his true criminal psychological profile loud and clear by completely ignoring all my recent messages and then tried to instruct me to immediately sign the bill of sale for something he knows that I no longer want, plus his attempt to change the deal by adding another $800 to the original deal. Only crooks do that.
The sad part is that I would think there'd be a good amount of honest money to be made in the business they're in to where they wouldn't feel the need to resort to engaging in criminal tactics but I can see from all the multiple reports to usacomplaints.com regarding Dave Bergman and ExtremeScooters that they prefer to be criminal-minded about their business. They've made it quite apparent that they have all intent that we must go through life to where one of us has to stress out the other and to cause grief towards the other instead of doing mutual good business and they simply won't have it any other way.
Technically, they're in the business of stressing people out, and well, so be it, I've dealt with this type of criminal-minded people before and I'd have to rate ExtremeScooters as two-bit criminals in terms of their criminal expertise.in my personal opinion they've typically gotten away with such criminal behavior for such a long time that they've typically gotten sloppy about it.
As I've said, I've dealt with this type of criminal profiles before and one of the things that they all absolutely have in common is that they all have absolutely nothing of value to say to anyone. The only things that come out of their mouths is scams and rhetoric, period. They've already provided me with sufficient evidence to show their criminal intent and I do strongly suggest to other victims of ExtremeScooters to avoid wasting your valuable time trying to seek honest solutions through further encounters with ExtremeScooters but instead go straight to any authoritative agency that comes to mind.
In my own particular situation the most I did after receiving the crazy criminal emails from ExtremeScooters earlier this morning was to place another phone call to Dave Bergman's cellular phone number and then paged him to have him call my number and then I also left a voice message saying that changing the deal on lay-a-way at the last minute is wrong and that I'll be filing a fraudulent transaction with my bank as well as submitting a report with the Better Business Bureau. Of course I knew he would not respond by calling me back but my intent was to start reversing the stress by letting him know that I'm not about to let him scam me.
At this point he's had all day to return my call but instead he chose to ignore the paging and voice message. Although usacomplaints.com does communicate with some authoritative agencies it would be within your best interest to also make the personal effort to contact such agencies yourself rather than waiting and hoping for the next person to do it for you. And while it may be common sense for many of you to avoid writing angrily, I want to strongly suggest to others to calm down and let your anger subside before writing and submitting a report to any authoritative agencies.
Avoid speaking emotionally but rather present facts as a matter of fact so that it will be easier reading for the intended reader. If you try imagining putting yourself in their place you should be able to see what I mean. If your job was to read complaints all day long, day in and day out, the last thing you want to read about is another emotional angry complaint letter that might also be filled with angry profanity, etcetera. The more you can keep it as non-emotional as possible then the easier it is for the intended reader to accept what's written and the more likely the intended reader will happily have the willing desire to process your incident report.
If you make it easier for the intended reader then you ultimately make it easier for yourself towards obtaining the kind of legal results you seek. If the issue pertains strictly to unethical business practices then I recommend starting off with submitting an incident report to the appropriate Better Business Bureau who will in-turn contact the dubious business mentioned in the incident report.
More often than not, the problem tends to get promptly resolved within a timely manner whereas harassing the perpetrators with continuous emails, postal letters, and phone calls will usually only lead to more weeks or months of further wasting your valuable time. It's also important to understand what the BBB represents which is an impartial mediator for all parties involved which is what it should rightly be. It is not a so-called consumer's advocacy entity but rather its job is to provide a common impartial ground for all sides to meet on in order to resolve issues of complaints.
Having said this, For Your Information I just went to the Georgia Better Business Bureau website and wasn't surprised at all to see that based on BBB files ExtremeScooters has, of course, an unsatisfactory record with the BBB who has processed a total of 48 complaints about ExtremeScooters in the last 36 months.
The BBB report further mentions that on April 10, ExtremeScooters signed an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance with the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs Office and paid restitution payments totaling $11,781.
The BBB report also mentions that the Office of Consumer Affairs alleges that ExtremeScooters who also does business under the name of Extreme-Hobby has used unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of consumer transactions including:
1) Deceptively advertising, promoting, and soliciting business through its websites in violation of O.C.G.A. // 10-1-393 (a), (b) (5), (b) (7), (b) (9), (b) (10), and 10-1-393.5.
2) Offered for sale and accepted payment for merchandise of particular brands but instead delivered merchandise of different brands in violation of O.C.G.A. // 10-1-393 (a), (b) (5), (b) (7) and 10-1-393.5 (b).
3) Represented through its websites that certain merchandise was in stock when in fact it was not, in violation of // 10-1-393 (a), (b) (5) and 10-1-393.5 (b).
4) Accepted payment for merchandise but failed to deliver this merchandise or provide refunds, in violation of O.C.G.A. // 10-1-393 (a), (b) (9), and 10-1-393.5 (b).
[The Official Code of Georgia Annotated (OCGA) is the compendium of all laws in the U.S. State of Georgia.]
The BBB has also requested basic information from ExtremeScooters but BBB has not received a response and without this information the BBB may not have current information concerning such things as the company's management or its nature of business.
If you're reading this as a matter of investigating ExtremeScooters prior to doing business with ExtremeScooters then the ultimate decision is still up to you whether or not you wish to do business with Dave Bergman and John Eline of ExtremeScooters based on their given track records as presented with the Better Business Bureau, Office of Consumer Affairs, and usacomplaints.com, however, if you're reading this because you yourself have also been victimized, then again and in quick summary, I advise that you should not waste too much of your valuable time trying to contact the perpetrators but rather make the minimal amount of effort in attempting to resolve the issue directly with the perpetrator but as soon as it's obvious and you know you're getting scammed and being giving the typical scammer's run-a-round then stop wasting anymore of your valuable time and go straight to contacting authoritative agencies.
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