Chris@SPAS12.com BEWARE

[DaCapster]

Well This one I'm puttung on the If I ever see him in a dark alley list.

12/8/2008 I odered a stock bushing.

2/09 I email and get a responce saying it will ship soon. Next day I get
a USPS shipping form saying billing info recieved.
This tracking number didnt ever change.

3/09 After many repeated attempts to contact this seller I get returned emails and no contact what so ever~

There may be more to this than a simple 30$ rip off I will dig into this a little more.

[brewskzilla]

See, I've always felt that this website could be the "headquarters" for internet superheros who hunt down villains like this Chris@SPAS12.com guy and kick the crap out of him...

[DaCapster]

I checked into it further, I used a CC through Paypal. Ill get my money back someday but I believe this is the source of fraudulant activity that caused me to cancel my card.

[drine]

Look for more of the Aholes as the economy gets worse. Some folks just won't work for a dollar.

[Old Jimmy]

That is why he charges $70.00 if you pick it up and tells you its easier to ship.....
I wanted to get a new buffer from him since it is just up the road in Dayton and I am glad I didnt order it yet.

[okie shooter]

Modified some content, even in jest, let's try though to keep it on the recovery of goods and or monies, from those who are unscruplious, not a revenge or such against those who are dishonest. There are other routes if you are actually criminally wronged, thus not the Militaryfirearm websites job to extract the lb of flesh. Other than that, its always a good idea to see what is said about others out there.

[WildBillCody]

Woah, what the??? What's wrong with what I said, I didn't mention physical harm, Pay them a vist is just that, " Hey, hows it going, My buddy bought something from you but can't seem to get ahold of you, he's wondering when your going to send it"

That kinda thing....
I've had two people do it for me already, it shakes some people up to know that they aren't invisible in the real world like they are on the internet.

[weasel_master]

I don't advocate ever making a run by someone's house, even if you don't stop. ;)

[WildBillCody]

But your scary and can get away with it...

[Planning]

i had a guy on another site that kept giving me the runaround on some stuff we were trading. i had his address and sent my stuff to him, but he kept jacking with me on shipping the stuff he had traded to me. this went on for a couple weeks, so i got on the internet and googled his house from space and made a copy of it and sent him an e-mail with the picture. i told him i was going to post his name, address, phone # and the picture of his house on the sites for everyone to see. i got a quick response from him that very day and he said he would ship it priority mail the next day.
i got it in 2 days.:icon_biggrin:

HEY! I JUST NOTICED THAT I MADE CAPT.

ron

[Planning]

I don't advocate ever making a run by someone's house, even if you don't stop. ;)

several years ago ( mid 90's) i had a gunsmith build me a custom pistol, i was going to deer hunt with it. i sent him the money and nothing for months. then it turned into a year, still nothing. i would send him a letter and sometimes he would respond, sometimes not. then it was 18 months. i sent him a letter and nothing. so i asked a friend that lived near him if he would go by his shop and make an inquiry about my pistol. when he got to the shop it was closed up, no one there. he had had some tax issues in the state he lived in and had moved to the next state over, while he was leaving a little old lady asked him if he was looking for the guy and he said yes. she knew where he was and gave him the address. the next day Tiny ( 6'6" 300#'s) and a friend of his ( bigger than tiny) put on there black sunday suits and went over to his place and made a visit. they asked about the status of my custom pistol. they were nice, non-threating, just an inquiry that's all. and they left. i got a phone call that day , it would be shipped very soon and i got my pistol in a couple of weeks. it is still in the box, i never fired it.

[nevada]

Maybe "Tiny" should start a business of many Tinys making friendly visits in the states.

[thbirdrock]

Just curious here,
If I understand your post correctly you had to cancel the CC you used for payment to seller due to fraudulent activity- and the fraudulent activity occured AFTER the PP transaction- this leads me to think this bozo had some way to hack into PP and retrieve your CC info- that's pretty darn scary as PP is "supposed" to be "secure". I've had a PP acct. for years but haven't used it in several months.
Would be interested to hear how PP is responding to your problem.

[DaCapster]

Update:


This guy is a thief, he charges through paypal, tells you that there may be a 45 day wait on parts....Paypal has a 45 day window to get your dispute resolved.......My CC has a 120 day window so Im screwed.

Paypal say he has a bunch of funny stuff going in with them~
He has still ducked my emails and phone calls.

A real winner here.


Stay away from this thief.

[Noskov]

Sorry to chime in so late but sadly its one of the reasons I've put off buying a SPAS 12 since few if any people make the crucial buffer replacement.

I was contemplating buying from Chris but I skimmed over his website's forum and there were a lot of posts regarding "Sent payment but no product" etc.

If you look at his website now, the forum section is gone/disabled for the reason he's updating it.

On the plus side it seems there are a couple of people making new buffers, saw some on auction at gunbroker.

[brewskzilla]

It's never too late to chime in. I can't help but think that the "Tiny" idea would be a really good business. You could run a school for "Tinies" and teach them how to talk Brooklyn and sound kind of Luca Brazzi from the Godfather... Polite, courteous and scary as hell... They wouldn't refer to their client as their client, but "the boss". That would be, in my opinion, the most successful collection/recovery business in the country.

[Noskov]

Pardon my harsh opinion of the guy then again he seems to be a thief. It seemed like such an idiotic move for Chris to end up ruining his personal and business reputation. :nonono:

There is a market out there of SPAS 12 owners who would buy key components and parts since Franchi dropped all support for the SPAS.

[Noskov]

UPDATE: Might be some news for anyone who's been ripped off by Chris. He's recently popped back up again and is offering his parts for sale.

He's updated his site and has new stuff for sale so now would be a good chance to see if you can get a part or refund back.

If not then I believe some sort of legal action or law enforcement help is in order cause there is something fishy going on if a guy rips people off, disappears for almost a year then reappears to start selling again.

[brewskzilla]

Order some stuff under the name of "Lois Gambino"... LOL!

[Noskov]

order some stuff under the name of "lois gambino"... Lol!

lol...

[DaCapster]

My CC and PAypall bowed down and got my mere chunk of change back, I had to ditch my cc card for multiple fraud attempts.....all seemed to come form this transaction......I wonder if he had some tweaker working for him.

If anyone talks to him tell him I said the ol' foxtrot uniform~

[03rangerxlt]

Crap! I wish I had read this thread before I placed an order with him that totaled $118.95 after shipping!!!!!!

Its been 40 days since I placed my order with him for a stock hook, stock shock absorber, stock bumper, and o-rings. I have done some poking around and found some of his other websites, including one that lists a phone number. My last two e-mails have gone unanswered, so I sent one out today clearly defining what my next couple of actions will be. One will be to file a dispute with the PayPal resolution center. The other thing that will happen is I will file a report with my local jurisdiction (I live in a city with-in a county where I am five-oh myself).

I am getting angry about this, and hope it will be resolved soon. I was really looking forward to having these parts. But if I can't get them, of course I want my damn money back!

[Paperpuncher]

Makes you wonder how long someone can continue to do this before they are shut down...

[Norton]

Is this the site?

http://spas12.com/

[Noskov]

Is this the site?

http://spas12.com/

Yeah that's the site.


Crap! I wish I had read this thread before I placed an order with him that totaled $118.95 after shipping!!!!!!

Its been 40 days since I placed my order with him for a stock hook, stock shock absorber, stock bumper, and o-rings. I have done some poking around and found some of his other websites, including one that lists a phone number. My last two e-mails have gone unanswered, so I sent one out today clearly defining what my next couple of actions will be. One will be to file a dispute with the PayPal resolution center. The other thing that will happen is I will file a report with my local jurisdiction (I live in a city with-in a county where I am five-oh myself).

I am getting angry about this, and hope it will be resolved soon. I was really looking forward to having these parts. But if I can't get them, of course I want my damn money back!

Sorry to hear about that. I still don't know why he hasn't been arrested or anything because he's been ripping people off for years. I was going to buy a SPAS-12 early on and wondered about some parts I could replace. I ended up postponing any SPAS-12 purchase after finding out about that con-artist.

There is another guy on gunbroker, user name is HarborMaster and he makes new reproduction parts (hook, pistol grip buffer, receiver buffer). As for the O-Ring, you can use one from a Remington 1170 from what I've read/been told. I bought a few things from that guy and he always replies to emails and ships fast.

[DaCapster]

That's him.....

[03rangerxlt]

That's him.....

Harbormaster is also him or you are confirming its the spas12.com website guy? I ask because I already saw that harbormaster sells spas12 parts and sent him an e-mail today about what he might have in stock.

[03rangerxlt]

Small update already...
After sending him 2 e-mails without getting a reply, I sent him this e-mail to a bunch of his e-mail addresses:

Chris,
Its been FORTY days since I have placed my order with you for a stock hook, stock shock absorber, stock bumper, and o-rings. The order totaled to $118.95 after shipping, and payment was submit to you on May 5, 2010. The PayPal transaction I.D. for the payment is: BLANKED OUT.

The last communication I received from you about my order was twenty-five days ago on May 20, 2010, regarding my order being on hold because of the stock hook not being in stock with you. I have since attempted communication with you two times via e-mail, but have gotten no response.

I am fast running up on the "point of no return" with PayPal and my ability to file a dispute with their resolution center. Like I said, its been forty days since I have placed my order, and PayPal only allows forty-five days to file a dispute over an order.

Because of a lack of communication from you, and a lack of shipped product, I feel I have no choice but to file a dispute with the PayPal resolution center. If I have not heard from you and received a satisfactory reply by Thursday, June 17, 2010, I will be filing a claim with PayPal regarding this issue. If it comes to this in the next couple of days, I will also be filing a police report with my local jurisdiction pursuant O.C.G.A. 16-8-4 for the charge of Theft by Conversion.

Chris, this is not the route I want to take, and I am not trying to threaten you. I would prefer to simply do business with you, and receive the items I have ordered. But, I don't think I have a choice but to pursue the actions I have laid out if I don't receive the items by June 17, 2010.

I am eagerly waiting your reply so that we may attempt to resolve this issue,

D/S J. Battersby 565

Cherokee County Sheriff's Office

Uniform Patrol - Bridgemill Precinct
Special Operations - Strike Team

And here is the reply I just got from him:

Hi,

I can offer two options. I can refund just the hook and ship the rest of your order. When the GD hooks arrive, you can order one without a new shipping charge. Or I can refund your entire amount.

Chris


Now I need to figure out what is more important to me. Getting these parts that I REALLY REALLY want, or getting back my money.

[Noskov]

Harbormaster is also him or you are confirming its the spas12.com website guy? I ask because I already saw that harbormaster sells spas12 parts and sent him an e-mail today about what he might have in stock.

That's what I'm wondering as well. I have the contact info for HarborMaster and his name is Dan Worthington. If that really is Chris then that has to add to more fraud charges. I do know Chris goes by the username DrMemory667 on youtube.

One of the reasons I felt HarborMaster wasn't Chris (aside from the name) was the fact the buffers are different between both of them.

Chris's buffers are his own homemade version where you have to use a screw to set it into the receiver.

Harbormaster makes an exact replica of the original Franchi buffers.

In this day and age there's a lot of fraud and fake identities but take everything with a grain of salt.

[Noskov]

Small update already...
After sending him 2 e-mails without getting a reply, I sent him this e-mail to a bunch of his e-mail addresses:


And here is the reply I just got from him:


Now I need to figure out what is more important to me. Getting these parts that I REALLY REALLY want, or getting back my money.

You mentioned a bunch of his email addresses. I was only aware he had one, the spas12.com email. How many does he have? If I were in your position, I'd take a full refund; I don't see any good in letting that guy keep any customer's money just because he replied after law enforcement would get involved.

I looked through my old emails from HarborMaster and he usually signed his emails with

Cheers,
Dan
HarborMaster

:icon_neutral: I'm confused right now.

[03rangerxlt]

I am mostly sure Dan the Harbormaster is NOT Chris of Spas-12.com. I think I am going to request a full refund from Chris. From my little bit of research, here are the various e-mail addresses I can associate with Chris just from poking around his websites:

engineering@cat.cc
cc@cat.cc
sales@proxypro.com
webmaster@hkp7.com
info@pengun.com
chris@chris.cc
support@cat.cc

[RandyCOG3]

Small update already...
After sending him 2 e-mails without getting a reply, I sent him this e-mail to a bunch of his e-mail addresses:


And here is the reply I just got from him:


Now I need to figure out what is more important to me. Getting these parts that I REALLY REALLY want, or getting back my money.

And he's STILL got you up against that 45 day wall. I'm sure he's thinking "what's he gonna do, nuke me before he even finds out that I couldn't ship it until day 46?"...

You've given the bozo too many chances to let it get closer to the 45 day limit, I'd blow the transaction right out of the water, you owe him no further explanation, since he ignored all of your emails up until now. Might be nice of you to inform him, if you so choose, but, I'd nix the transaction *right now*, if it were me, given his history. I don't know the answer, so this is just a question, but, what if you get a tracking number, and the package arrives after the 45 day limit, and it's not "as described", are you still screwed?

RandyCOG3

[RandyCOG3]

i had a guy on another site that kept giving me the runaround on some stuff we were trading. i had his address and sent my stuff to him, but he kept jacking with me on shipping the stuff he had traded to me. this went on for a couple weeks, so i got on the internet and googled his house from space and made a copy of it and sent him an e-mail with the picture. i told him i was going to post his name, address, phone # and the picture of his house on the sites for everyone to see. i got a quick response from him that very day and he said he would ship it priority mail the next day.
i got it in 2 days.:icon_biggrin:

HEY! I JUST NOTICED THAT I MADE CAPT.

ron


Congrats on making Captain, Captain Ron!

I see nothing wrong with a friendly visit to a vendor that has failed to perform. Might be doing the guy a favor on numerous levels, might save him some postage, for instance. Maybe the guy has a personal tragedy going on, i.e., somebody else broke all of his fingers and he cant type or tape up boxes, who knows?

To expand on your idea, Captain Ron, let's say somebody named Joe Xyz screws you over. One could, in theory, go pay a few bucks for the domain name "www.joexyzsucks.com", and THEN post the aerial view and roadmaps to his house on the website, perhaps submit the site to search-engines to speed up the ability of others that search for "Joe Xyz" to find that website. Lots of links and/or quotes to things other people have had to say about the transactions that they have had with him.

In case he or his lawyers think that this is "dirty pool", it might be done with one of those throwaway prepaid Visa cards, and hosted on some foreign server that doesn't give a crap about US laws... theoretically, of course.

I hope that I have not overstepped the bounds of the rules of this website by posting such things; if so, feel free to delete them, but I humbly submit that: 1) turnabout IS fair play, and, 2) the "standard" rate of payback is 10X, ymmv.

(I'm not a nice person, but I play one in real life, or "RL" as we used to call it on Usenet, when we went "RL" on some a-hole on the internet...)

RandyCOG3

[03rangerxlt]

Update!!!!

I replied to Chris telling him I was opting for the full refund. He replied explaining this is a busy time of year for his pyrotechnics business (to paraphrase him) and he would be issuing a refund to my paypal account. A short time later, the whole $118.95 appeared in my paypal account. I am glad I got my hard earned money back. As a LEO, I get paid dick and work crappy long hours for my hard earned scratch. Thank you Chris for the refund without further issues.

[Noskov]

Update!!!!

I replied to Chris telling him I was opting for the full refund. He replied explaining this is a busy time of year for his pyrotechnics business (to paraphrase him) and he would be issuing a refund to my paypal account. A short time later, the whole $118.95 appeared in my paypal account. I am glad I got my hard earned money back. As a LEO, I get paid dick and work crappy long hours for my hard earned scratch. Thank you Chris for the refund without further issues.

Good to hear. It's a bit sad in a way too though that maybe the only reason he actually refunded you was because you were an actual LEO. I can't help but think the other guys who got ripped off and weren't able to get stuff back or refunded. I hope Chris does the right thing and gives up on his shady business.

[03rangerxlt]

I know what you mean. The "little guy" doesn't have much of a chance. At least with my title there is the very real threat that I know what to do to bind his ass up.

[Paperpuncher]

Update!!!!

I replied to Chris telling him I was opting for the full refund. He replied explaining this is a busy time of year for his pyrotechnics business (to paraphrase him) and he would be issuing a refund to my paypal account. A short time later, the whole $118.95 appeared in my paypal account. I am glad I got my hard earned money back. As a LEO, I get paid dick and work crappy long hours for my hard earned scratch. Thank you Chris for the refund without further issues.

I think you did the right thing by requesting a refund, as that was the only sure way of receiving your money or items by the deadline and still having recourse with Paypal. Glad you made out ok with this...

[03rangerxlt]

Just a small update...
I got two parts in from Harbormaster on Gunbroker.com. So he isn't ripping folks off. +1 for doing buisness with him. I also found a guy from gunbroker who is going to sell me a reproduction hook, so I will be all set!

[19Charlie_84]

I ALMOST placed my order for SPAS parts. Old style recoil buffer, folding stock buffer and shock absorber, and two o rings. After reading this I cant see myself doing it. I emailed Chris a week or so ago asking if the parts were in stock and he said all of them were. I really want that buffer if its as good as he says it is but just cant get over all his bad press. Are Harbormasters buffers original, never installed ones that will deteriorate or new manufacture?

[Buddymack]

Hmmm it seems he is or was somewhat legitimate at one time, wouldn't it be kinda extreme to go so far as to pick a special gun, include drawings,website etc..?
something seems like someone either became unprofessional or greedy or something here... on another note I will have to look into what is so special about these guns...were is a good place to start?