Do bumblebees sting?, My experience with John Forbes and his "Speed and Custom Shop" Options

[Superhawk996]

Cease and desist order? Buyout?

4 or 5 Vallium with breakfast OJ? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/w00t.gif)

Don't mean to be poking fun at a bad situation (well maybe a little - humor humor helps ease the pain). You've got a really bad situation on your hands.

Guilt by association isn't right especailly to the point of violence. I had a period where I didn't speak to my father for years and it was over a whole lot less than that. Had that happened to me I'd probably have then walked over to my fathers and beat him.

[CodyBFR]

Cease and desist order? Buyout?

4 or 5 Vallium with breakfast OJ? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/w00t.gif)

Already did the buyout in 2014, have a signed contract. Also have one from when we separated in 2017.

As for the second option... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/stirthepot.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beer3.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol-2.gif)

[Superhawk996]

Already did the buyout in 2014, have a signed contract. Also have one from when we separated in 2017.

In all seriousness my wife used to work for a seriously wealthy guy. He never bought or sold a business without the following:

If buying - a non-compete clause with whoever he was buying. Usually free for the asking since he was buying distressed businesses.

If selling - a non-compete clause. In this case he was usually selling the business from a strong postion and was then getting paid anually or in lump sum to not compete with his old business he just sold.


In your case it's worse, he's competing and taking advantage of proximity. Second buyout with an appropriate non-compete clause?

[Unobtanium-inc]

It sounds like Cody is having the same problem everyone else is, John's word doesn't mean much, he will promise to do something and then change his mind. I don't think any amount of signed paperwork will change that. Most signed documents are essentially Gentleman's Agreement's, meaning both men must be honorable.
I don't envy the situation he is in, the blurred lines are crazy.
In a perfect situation he would move, change the business name, and try to put as much distance between him and his father as he could. Except all that costs money, and owning a small business means money is not always flowing, especially not in a way to make a move like that. My guess is Cody plans to run out the clock with his dad, and let time take care of things. I wish him the best.

[iankarr]

Wow, Cody. That's some intense shizz.

If it makes you feel any better, when I read "little boy mechanic" I didn't even consider that he was making a reference to you/John's son. I took it as an inexperienced young tech. But hearing your story about someone coming to your house and hurting you??? Wow. I'm so sorry that happened. Ugh.

[Superhawk996]

Most signed documents are essentially Gentleman's Agreement's, meaning both men must be honorable.

That is the Cease and desist part. The courts exist to handle contract violations. Generally speaking, they are pretty good at it. However, a poorly written contract is indeed a gentleman's agreement that the courts will have trouble with. Previouly mentioned business guy was definately lawyered up and always had at least one on staff.

However, now we're talking about lawyers and more money for a guy like Cody. I go back to it all depends on what the hidden costs are. Sometimes they are far higher than you might think. Lost business that could have potentially materialzed or business that simply avoided you is a hard thing to measure. I've done that analysis before and at best it's educated guesswork.

I suspect you're correct on your overall assessment of the dynamics at work here though!

[CodyBFR]

Let's be real here... It's easy to talk about legal action etc on a forum, but in the real world would any of you actually be ready and willing to sick a lawyer on your own father?

[mepstein]

Cody - Thank you for the explanation and we wish you the best.

[JRust]

Let's be real here... It's easy to talk about legal action etc on a forum, but in the real world would any of you actually be ready and willing to sick a lawyer on your own father?

Man I have been there. Had to fire my own mother years ago & a brother just last year. Rough stuff but I can't believe the $hit your having to still deal with. Plus the guy coming to your place. I hope that son of a bitch did some time for that. That is ridiculous

[billh1963]

What amazes me the most is John Sr has, apparently, been screwing over people for years....at least since Cody was young. However, he has apparently been able to keep enough business coming in to earn a living.

One would have thought his reputation would have caught up to him by now. Yet, people have been recommending him on this forum and other Porsche forums since I've been a member. I don't know if that means he can do some jobs well but gets in over his head on others or if some people have lower expectations and are easily satisfied.

[Unobtanium-inc]

What amazes me the most is John Sr has, apparently, been screwing over people for years....at least since Cody was young. However, he has apparently been able to keep enough business coming in to earn a living.

One would have thought his reputation would have caught up to him by now. Yet, people have been recommending him on this forum and other Porsche forums since I've been a member. I don't know if that means he can do some jobs well but gets in over his head on others or if some people have lower expectations and are easily satisfied.

There was a guy like this in the parts business for decades, he was slick, he didn't rip everyone off, probably every 10th person. So while there was a long long long line of people he had screwed there were enough he hadn't screwed to sing his praises. He is now out of business, finally got bought out by someone else. The really funny thing is as soon as he got bought out a long line of people showed up trying to get money out of of him, one guy even waved a pistol around. The new owner had to dodge that waving pistol. True story.

[Superhawk996]

Let's be real here... It's easy to talk about legal action etc on a forum, but in the real world would any of you actually be ready and willing to sick a lawyer on your own father?

I feel for you, I really do - you are in a difficult situaiton of being a stand up guy and trying to protect your business.

Short answer - yes I would.

Backstory. I grew up in a dysfunctional family. I went into the Military at 17 just to get the hell out of that house.

If my father were in a postion where he was disrupting my income stream I wouldn't hesitate to take legal action but that's just me. Each family is different. Each person is different. I'm not passing judgment on you. Just sharing my situation.

Great book: Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. Henry Cloud. I only wish I had read it at 17.

[simonjb]

John...So sorry to hear all of this.

A small token of similarity with our spouses...(I don't scream-I just become very, very intense- though my wife calls it yelling)

I tell her I am passionate...but I get the same reaction..

[JOEPROPER]

It's tough to do business with family. 1st hand experience. There seems to always be issues that are more difficult to resolve.

[76-914]

To John Jr.: You sound to me like an upstanding member of the community. It takes determination & courage to jump into a Gauntlet brimming with angry customers. You've clearly separated yourself & business from your Dad yet (IMG:style_emoticons/default/stromberg.gif) continues to wreak havoc upon your reputation. I won't forget this story and in the future should someone slander BFR I'll post a link to this conversation so that they can separate the wheat from the chaff themselves. BTW, sounds like you live in Porsche Heaven. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[SteveL]

Cody - you need to change your name here from "JohnBFR" to "CodyBFR".

[naro914]

^^This

[sixnotfour]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

[Jamie]

Cody - you need to change your name here from "JohnBFR" to "CodyBFR".

This was my first thought suggestion, to creates some difference between the 2 Johns.

[CodyBFR]

Re: the replies about my fathers tendency to screw people over:

From my point of view there's several factors, and it's never seemed to me to be purposeful. He gets in over his head on jobs and then has to cut corners to finish them. It's definitely been a thing that has grown worse over the years, and frankly no matter what in any business there will always be unhappy customers. In 1985 it was probably a tiny percentage of unhappy VS happy. In 1995 it was maybe 10%. In 2005 it was more like 20% and enough people were starting to have issues that it was having a serious effect and he knew it; he moved to NC at the behest of one of his friends from the 1980s who remembered the 'old john' and thought he could help do a reset and get back to the way things were. In 2008 my father was sitting at an intersection in a customer's 1971 911S and a teenager who was late to return a rental car came over the hill and rear ended the 911 so hard that the seat itself broke in half and my father hit the rear window. Ever since then he's had health issues that have slowed him down, but a) he won't actually revise his work habits to accept he can't get as much done, and b) he fell into using various health issues as a constant excuse for why he isn't getting things done, when in reality he's just wasting more time then working, but won't/can't acknowledge that. I'm certain that some percentage of it is legitimately that he's 70 and having been wrenching since he was 20 his body is just falling apart, but at the same time I see him doing other things that aren't productive with the time he does spend working. I belive that when he tells someone he will do xyz he believes he can and will, but then fails to put in the effort required or fails to accept that he doesn't actually have the money to do it. He absolutely 100% fails to understand that things are more expensive in 2020 than they were in 1985. In 2015 he quoted a customer $25,000 to buy a 914, 5 lug convert it, color change the body, install flares, color change the interior, AND INSTALL A 6CYL WITH A/C. He believes that a cheap paint job is $300, a good paint job is $1000, and you should win Amelia Island with a $2000 paint job. A donor 911 6cyl engine should be $1000, and a rebuild won't need new everything because it's not worn out because a 3.2 is "the new one", rather than understanding that it's a 35 year old antique with 200,000 miles. No amount of telling and showing him that's not the case seems to break through.

I knew Ians car's paint was crap because it was mentioned to me that my father found this new "awesome" painter that will paint a car for cheap and I was curious to see the result in case I needed a cheap paint job on a Chump/Lemons car or such. When it came back I went to look at it and it looked pretty decent, then a couple of weeks later it started bubbling. At that point my father has fucked himself and Ian over because now the car needs another paint job, Ian sure as hell shouldn't pay for it, and my father has no money to pay for it. It was his fault he didn't first quote Ian* what a reputable painter would charge, and it's his fault he didn't use a reputable painter, but now everybody is left unhappy. The same MO applies through the whole deal: each and every piece needed ends up costing far more than my father believes, so before long there's no money left and only half of the parts have been purchased and/or shitty Chinese/used parts are left. He doesn't set out from a place of "hmm how can I screw this person for a profit", he means well, but for fucks sake he can't learn that that ends up screwing everybody over even worse.

* - I don't have any knowledge of any dealings between Ian and my father, I'm just assuming from past experience that my father under quoted the job