Horrible Experience with Norwood Autocraft! Beware of Bob Norwood

No one with a brain would. The deal was dead as soon as Norwood confirmed the wheels were not as represented.

 

How is it "marketing genius" when the general consensus of the whole episode is negative for the company involved?

The basics of this entire thread can be boiled down to: "Come buy a car from us! Put down a deposit and if the car is not exactly as described, and you no longer want the car - Screw you!, we'll keep your deposit anyway!" - I'm struggling to see the genius there!

Based on your theory of "marketing genius", VW must be the marketing genius Grand-Masters because, just look at all the publicity they have been getting recently with their emissions cheating!

Sorry, but the old adage: "There's no such thing as bad publicity!" is a nonsense!

Had Bob Norwood and his company made every effort to accommodate the buyer in this case, and then, on the buyer wanting to pull out of the deal, simply refunded the deposit, then they would have come out of this whole situation looking like a great company to do business with, especially if they were legally entitled to keep the deposit but refunded it anyway.

Instead, they've persisted in claiming they've done nothing wrong legally or morally in keeping the deposit, and they're coming out of this looking like a bunch of shysters!

To allow things to escalate to a public slating of your company is not: "marketing genius" - It's business suicide!

The old adage that actually applies is: "Cutting your nose off to spite your face!"

Even now, rather than simply putting their hands up and saying: "We got this wrong - As a company we should have handled this situation much better!", members of the company appear to still be trying to justify their original position of keeping the deposit by posting that Paypal has agreed with them (a position made more confusing by the fact that the buyer has posted that Paypal has agreed he should have his deposit back).

bigred95: if it is the case that Paypal has upheld your company's appeal and refunded you $2K, if you think that is some sort of victory then I'd have to say it's a hollow victory and you (and the company you work for), haven't learnt a single thing from this whole debacle!

 

Bob Norwood and his retarded minions, what a gang of clowns... Wake up and smell the coffee!

Skickat från min SM-G928F via Tapatalk

 

You didn't hear the sarcasm in that comment?

 

That is pretty uncalled for to insult clowns and people with learning disabilities that way.

 

First panicked citizenry, then this thread.
It's hard out there for a clown.

Sinister 'Clowns' Are Scaring People In Multiple States : The Two-Way : NPR

 

It was meant as sarcasm. IMO, $2000 is cheap compared to the harm that Norwood guy has done here on a forum viewed basically by their entire target demographic. I really don't see any upside to them keeping the guys deposit but hey who am I to say? Perhaps this thread can be used as a teaching tool for other small businesses on social media and what it can do to you.

 

Athough it is impossible for intelligent people to understand, some would rather be right than employed, in business, respected, alive, etc.

 

I have a full time employee that deals with paypal claims.. We do thousands of Paypal transactions per month.

Its not that time consuming. Paypal will accept email correspondence and judge based on that. They dont need police reports or anything official.

 

Who cares what Paypal refunded or didn't refund. We the FChat Judges have already ruled on this case and that ruling is final !!!!!!

 

According the OP (who likes to refer to himself in the 3rd person????) .... That is correct.

The issues imo is what occurred AFTER the buyers realization that the wheels were not original. If this was simple .. BN would have simply refunded the 2K. BN doesn't need to steal someone's 2K. Why?

What's more plausible is that the OP continued to act as an interested buyer and BN was insulted, delayed, pissed (you fill in the adjective) on how the process was evolving.

Again, that said .... BN should have refunded the 2K and moved on.

 

Not sure I'd trade right for alive, unless we're talking in a war. But certainly, rather be right than employed by the wrong buy, company, or working with the wrong partner is not all that tough a concept. It's one I've passed to my kids, including the one who resigned rather than continue to take the blame for what his superiors were doing.

D

 

I don't know, it seems like it is more important to cyclists and pedestrians to be right than be alive.

 

Boy, ain't that the truth.

Pedestrians more than cyclists here in SW FL. No regard for reality, just assume that no matter what, the car that's barreling down the street will stop for them, simply because the sign says, "yield to pedestrians."

I don't know how many old folks we lose each year because of this, but I betcha it's plenty.

D

 

Wow! Away for a few days and then coming back to this.

I didn't think it was possible to dig a hole so deep. Good work Bob and Bigred. At some point I guess you'll resurface once you reach the other side of the earth.

 

Just read the whole thread...
This should be given to people taking any form of business school as a prime example of "DON'T".
and I'll gladly do my part to keep this relevant in google search for the world to see:

Horrible Experience with Norwood Autocraft! Beware of Bob Norwood Horrible Experience with Norwood Autocraft! Beware of Bob Norwood. Scam. Thief. Cocky. Greedy. Don't buy. Experience. Review. Yelp. Classifiedds . Replicas. News. Latest. Service announcements.

That should do it...

 

Wish I had seen this before I responded to your other posts so I wouldn't have bothered.

This thread represents so much of what is wrong with the internet. Lots of assumptions made here based on *very* scant evidence. Most notably missing is a description of the specific terms of the deposit from the viewpoint of each party. It's very difficult to tell from the few statements presented by each side, but it would not surprise me at all that the dispute over the deposit is down to a difference in interpretations of the terms of the deposit.

What has been ignored by the lynch mob is the fact that a few people have come forward to say that they have had good dealings with Mr. Norwood in the past, while the only bad things I recall reading in this thread were incoherent rants from one person who could only type in caps and offered absolutely no specifics.

What has also been ignored is the universal praise for James Patterson, who bought part of Mr. Norwood's business and now operates it independently as Norwood Auto Italia. Mr. Patterson has gone on record in this thread as saying that he has known Mr. Norwood for 35 years and has never seen him intentionally mislead anyone. Since most, if not all, of us here have little to no personal knowledge of the two parties involved shouldn't we give substantial weight to the fact that the highly respected Mr. Patterson did not have anything bad to say about Mr. Norwood after knowing him for so long, as well as the fact that this thread has not uncovered a bunch of other dissatisfied Norwood Autocraft customers?

I've been around Mr. Norwood before but I've not done business with him so my impression of his business practices is neutral. I have no knowledge of the OP, so my opinion of him is neutral. Neither side has presented enough of a case for me to reach any judgement regarding who's right and who's wrong, if indeed there is even a right or wrong here.

Yet so many here have chosen to draw conclusions about Mr. Norwood’s business practices without any firsthand knowledge of them, and with only a single complaint against him as opposed to more than one positive comment from people who actual do have firsthand knowledge.

Should Mr. Norwood have returned the deposit? Probably, but at this point the only reason I would say that is because it would have been lots simpler to just to make it all go away. But since I don’t know how Mr. Norwood viewed the terms of the deposit, I have no way of knowing what his reasons are for holding on to it. Neither does anyone else. I wish Bob would have taken the time to give us more of his side early on, but perhaps he had his reasons and at this point I don’t blame him for not wanting to wade into the middle of this crowd.

Bottom line—I don’t have a horse in this race so the outcome doesn’t affect me in any way, shape, or form. But I suspect there’s more to this story than those of us on the sidelines realize, so it troubles me to see so much vitriol directed toward someone most posters haven’t even met.

 

And that was exactly the sort of right I was referring to.

 

INTERNET FOR BUSINESS 101:

1. In cases with any ambiguity, PayPal and credit card issuers will typically side with the customer.

2. eBay Motors deals are non-binding, benefitting the customer.

3. A hint of bad business results in a "piling on" scenario, harming the business.

4. Reputation remains a primary business asset.

 

I would add that I expect people to read the whole thread and as a consequence also note the positives taken from it.

And as several people have already stated (and that's the reason o didn't bother to recap it all) it's not the specifics that made this an asterisk to their name. It's the Rouge mechanics (mostly) and bob's handling of the matter in this thread I find horrendous.

When I read the op I kind of felt it was ****** move, then in jumped to the last page to see if the issue had resolved it self and found out they had a "war of words" in the thread and decided to read it all.

For me there were no winners in this case, just two parties tearing each other down in a matter of a few hundred words.

It's Sad as a matter of fact.

Edit: i see how in my previous post I might come off as an ass, but as stated, this is for me a gold example of business "don't", and the tag words are meant as search tags and NOT a recap of the situation.

 

Nice to make a plea for neutrality and objectivity. That said, the only part of the "contract" that is relevant to Norwood is the "once you come see the car and you don't like it" part. Norwoods guy admits they misrepresented the car, even if unintentionally so. OP from that moment on, in the interest of justice, had every right to question anything and everything regarding that car and the deal before jumping on a plane to go see it. He decided not to go see it. Suggesting that he should have been obligated to go see it and decline the car in person in order to be refunded his deposit is wholly unreasonable. That's why Bob Norwood et Minion have meen crucified here. They (Minion) have not disputed any of the facts and have only come out repeatedly to state they are entitled to keep the deposit because they tried to make it right and OP never came to see the car. The latter is what has knocked the last few nails in their coffins.

 

People just don't get this. If someone creates confusion in a contract it is their problem not the other persons.

 

Fair enough but by the OP's own admission, the series of events went like this:

Deposit made to hold the car, THEN the OP carefully studied the ad, THEN the OP came to the conclusion that the ad was misrepresenting the car. Remember, the grievance was not only regarding the wheels but the entire car. All the while the car is being held.

There must be some onus on the OP for missing so much of the details before making a deposit that had clear stipulations regarding its refund. Furthermore, what if the ad clearly stated NOT REFUNDS? Or IT'S THE BUYERS RESPONSIBILTY TO RESEARCH THE FACTS BEFORE MAKING A DEPOSIT? Would the OP still be entitled under the same circumstances?

How many others do you think were confused? I doubt Norwood was in the business of collecting deposits on fake cars. I also doubt no one else picked up on the apparent discrepancies before forking out a deposit.

 

you couldn't be more wrong. If someone tells me something is original, it's on them. It's not up to me to figure out if they are full of BS. What the hell! Now if they say that they don't know for sure, then it's up to me to verify. If they state it as fact then that's the sellers major problem. I truly feel basic principals of law should be taught in grade school, but the lawyers would take a big hit financially.

 

Exactly!