Built Rite Victim
My story starts back in October of 2017, so a little over 100 days. I won a convenience store that is really struggling. I had a good customer come in and pitch me on a BBQ program. He convinced me that with my location and the amount of truck traffic we could do very well for ourselves with adding in a BBQ program since nobody around us was doing a BBQ program. In the 3rd week of October I gave my BBQ guy the go ahead to find a smoker. By the end of the week I was being shown smokers from multiple builders. At the end of the week I fell in love with the smokers that Built Rite has on the website. I had my BBQ guy reach out to the folks st Built Rite. I was told by my BBQ that the dude had 2 full time drivers who did nothing but deliver smokers. During this time I was also looking to have a concession trailer built for a rental that I already had someone for. After some discussion with my BBQ guy I let him talk to Mr. Boston about a concession trailer as well. Mr. Boston told my BBQ that if we would let him do both builds he would match the price of a competitor on the concession trailer and give us a $500 discount on each build. I called Mr. Boston myself to verify what he was building and to make sure he understood that I had a previous trailer built. After we were told that the smoker would take about 2-4 weeks and the trailer would take about 4-6 weeks to build we decided that we would choose Built Rite because they offered the best turn around time.
October 30th, 2017 a wire was sent from Tennessee to Florida in the amount of $10,500. That was a 50% deposit on the smoker and a 30% deposit on the trailer. Once the wire was completed Mr Boston and I texted back and forth about what I needed exactly in the trailer and I asked for blueprints to the trailer. The local health department requires a plan before approval would be given to operate. After being assured I would get it the next day I assumed we were on a good build timeframe.
Of course no blueprints or auto CAD designs have been provided as promised. Multiple promises have been made and deadlines have been broken. I have been told on multiple occasions that the smoker is almost done and will be at my location in 2 weeks max.
In late November I had 2 rows of product removed from my store and a false wall built in the store. Wall was built so we could legally serve the BBQ in the store. My BBQ quit his day job 10 days after we order the smoker because he knew the smoker would be at the store shortly. I even sent a text to Mr. Boston asking if the smoker would be at my store by Thanksgiving so we could sell smoked Turkeys. Mr. Boston said he would try.
January rolls around and no smoker has been delivered and since my BBQ guy quit his job to be a full time BBQ dude he could no longer pay his electrical bill or his rent. I had to personally loan him $1,000 to just pay his back rent since we still hadn’t received the smoker. Middle of January finds my BBQ guy living on his sisters couch because he has no money to pay rent.
In the 3rd week of January I had heard enough excuses and had seen too many missed deadlines and I called my bank. I explained everything to them and they forwarded me to fraud services and suggested they do a reversal on the wire. My bank is the one who suggested this course of action since they believed it could be considered wire fraud due to Mr. Boston misrepresenting his company’s ability to produce a product on a timeframe he quoted.
January 24th Mr. Boston’s Nancy sent a refusal to my bank due to funds not being available for the reversal. They advised my bank that I should contact the authorities. I got the message from my bank about 5 days later and a night after Mr. Boston sent me a nasty email. Apparently his bank had locked him out of his account. Mr. Boston told me in his email that since his account had been frozen he wouldn’t work on either of my builds. He claims my deposit is in the frozen part of his account so according to him I have no deposit on record and as such no build with him.
I chatted with my local attorney and he advised me to talk to my local police department. He also advised me to contact the city or county where the wire transfer was sent. Neither departments were helpful and really didn’t want to do much even though we are talking about a significant amount of money.
I have asked on multiple occasions for my money back and been told he will
