Burned by Southern Style OffRoad!

I'd want to understand the terms of the ownership/management transfer before risking any money. At the moment, I don't understand the business case for what appears to be assuming a large amount of debt compared to annual sales volume. Is the value of goodwill really that high compared to just buying the IP in bankruptcy? Two things that especially call that into question are how long deliveries will be delayed, and how much of production capacity will be devoted to servicing those delayed customers before production on new orders. I've seen a lot of takeovers, but I haven't seen many that started off with a 4 month revenue delay and succeeded.

 

Logo can be installed or left off the bumper per one’s own desires.

Personally I can’t be bothered to impose a litmus test based upon someone’s political views before engaging in economic activity. To do so would also violate my own belief in capitalism!

 

Was next to a Tacoma the other day that had a roof rack where the logo looked like it was cut out by a water jet so no way to change it.

I bet your view would be different if it was burning cross or specific backwards Native American symbol stolen by some short fanatic with a stupid looking mustache in the 1920s. But hey if you know what your displaying for all to see go for it.

 

Based on what I read on TW:
You can't order anything from SSO's site now. No payment system in place.

There's no bankruptcy. It was a buyout.

If you have an existing order and do a cc chargeback, it reduces the new owner's obligation to fulfill the order, doing him a favor.

 

This is where it confuses me. When you buy a company, you take on there balance sheet, the debt doesn't just disappear. So technically, they would have to fulfill all orders or provide refunds?

 

It's confusing but my understanding of the buyout was assuming the debt of open orders.

 

We give too much power to symbols. I’m going to stop there as this will get political and I don’t want to take down the thread over that.

 

While I would also charge back the money gotta come from somewhere and it obviously isn't coming from the old owners. The new owners had to have figured this into their offer because once the official notice goes out you know there will be more.

I doubt they are going to file for bankruptcy at least not right away. The old owners should of done this if anything. If the new owners do this it will be a major red flag.

I guarantee they chose not to inform yet because the transaction is not complete. Looks like all the agreements are in place but selling a company doesn't happen in the blink of an eye.

 

This is the wierd part, if they are liable for fulfilling orders, then the same thing goes for refunding orders. They have been running a 20% off sale since APRIL and taking orders. It just seems very fishy to me.

 

Anyone know how the charge back process works especially for charges months old? Does the CC company eat it or does old owner or new owner have to refund to CC company?

 

On the bumper it bolts on.

 

Normally credit card companies allow up to 60 days to dispute a charge aka charge back. Some may allow longer.

Also some will allow you to extend the 60 days if you update them every 30 days that you may initiate a dispute

so check your credit cards policy and ask them how to handle it to safe guard yourself

 

It depends. Sometimes they hold money for x amount of time before releasing it to the vendor to safe guard the cc company and sometimes they eat it.

The reason to use a CC is to safeguard yourself. Use it if you can. I personally would not care if it hurt the new owner or not as there is no guarantee they will fulfill it as they have already said they won’t give you any money.

Maybe to new owner will send you something or maybe they won’t. Also if they send you something how do you know it will be good quality.

 

That reminds me of car dealerships in the 70s and 80s where they would drill holes to add their dealership badges. Or have it cut into truck bumpers.

 

Yes, I read that thread as well when it was linked here. What I mean is that I would have to see the numbers to evaluate whether I would do business with the new management in the future because I would have to convince myself that it was a sound purchase and has a decent chance of survival. By all accounts, SSO effectively ceased to be a going concern, so the new management will effectively be spend the next 4-6 months building and shipping product entirely out of pocket, whereas an investment in a going concern would at least overlap that some revenue. Is there really enough growth potential here to justify the cost of lost opportunity? Or is he throwing good money after bad and will come to grief regardless of good intentions? And will that happen while he's filling backorders, or not until he's working on new orders, so a different set of people gets burned?

 

They aren't taking new orders so just wait.

 

Went over this when Pelfreybilt folded: Chargeback causes the funds to be debited from the old company's merchant acct. If there isn't enough funds, the merchant acct's bank takes a hit. The bank then goes after the acct holder (old owners) and tries to recover whatever they used as collateral when they applied for the merchant acct.

Long version here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...condensed-version.567463/page-3#post-18677815

 

Had the same issue, I spent $1,600 on a bumper from pelfreybilt and since the it was over the 60 days. Most people are SOL, luckily they helped my out after TONS of work on my end. Not a fun time..

 

Bankruptcy is immaterial, because you were a purchaser, not a lender. If you plan to do a cc chargeback, do it within the time limit described in your cc's cardholder agreement for advance payments.

 

So hears the thing. Their business practice is you have an account to track the status of your order. When you order , and make payment that creates an "order receipt", which in my case is 6 months old and past the age of liability to the card company. When the order ships, they create a "Sales invoice"
BUT, when I requested the refund, the lady created the usual "Sales invoice" with a September 25 date, and notation that customer request refund. which puts me in the good, Well as good as it can get at this point.

 

But doesn't you cc company see the charge from 6 months ago?

 

Discover tells me my 2 Docs, are sufficient for a charge back.

 

Guess if you cc co is happy good to go right?

 

That what I would say.

 

I highly doubt they are stalling until bankruptcy, for the simple reason that an investor (usually) doesn't buy a failing company if they think it will end up being completely worthless.

Unless SSO had something of value to sell for parts (land, equipment, a team etc), then my working assumption is that the new owners are going to make a good faith effort to "right the ship."

For those asking about if it's worth it... well, keep in mind that most investors are looking for LONG TERM growth potential. Filling a year's worth of backorders out of pocket is not a huge cost to pay if you think the asset can be more valuable over a 10+ year timeframe. Many companies go through years of costly turmoil before someone turns things around and rebuilds the value.

Remember that in the 90's, Apple was on the very brink of bankruptcy... bailed out with a huge investment from MSFT... now the most valuable company that has ever existed in the known universe.

 

BTW, I'm also sitting on a long awaited order — rock slider and bumper package, ordered in April. I'm not thrilled with the delay, but am going to give the new ownership a chance to make good on the promise of better communication and filling orders. I bought it with Amex and they'll honor the chargeback if I request it, so I'm going to wait on it for now.

Getting chargebacks is a HUGE issue for any business, and it's a last resort for me. I won't tell anybody what to do with their hard-earned money, but I'd suggest keeping it as a last resort (unless you think your CC company has a time limit on charging back and you are at risk of missing it).

 

I am curoius on your thoughts here. This is what they said in the email

"Refunds:
Regrettably, we don't have access to the funds from past transactions, making it impossible to issue refunds. If we had not stepped in and taken over SSO, you would have received no refund or bumper from the previous owner. However, we have taken the initiative to invest in fulfilling every backorder."

So technically doing a chargeback helps them, but they are claiming they don't have your money and that would be one less order for them to potentially fulfill. Again, I really hope this works out everyone. But for me there just so many blank spaces.

 

If it were me (and it almost was since I was going to order from them recently), I'd honestly wait and let the new owner make good on fulfilling your order. Chargebacks may hit a dead end soon because of so many backorders (figure 600 x roughly $1k or more each = $600k+). That's a lot of money to hit the previous owner's bank and chase down from someone whose assets are most like shielded by the LLC that SSO was under.

 

What specifically is your question?

I'm not worried about getting the money back — Amex will refund me regardless of if they get the money from SSO (which they likely won't).

As far as chargebacks "helping" SSO, I guess it helps them to take an order off the books... but chargebacks are brutal on the business. It may be a penaltly that they have to pay before they can resume taking Amex... it could even lead to Amex refusing to deal with them or steeply increasing rates.

I mean, you're essentially telling a bank that you have no money to refund their customers — why would they keep letting people buy stuff from you using their line of credit?

 

that’s not how chargebacks work. If you can file a dispute with your CC and it’s covered under their terms of service you will get your money back. At that point it will be between the CC company and vendor on who covers it. The CC company will not tell you that they are out of business so you’re not covered. There are two agreements when it comes to credit cards. One is between you and the CC company and the protections they offer you and the second is between the CC and merchant. The status of the merchants funds has nothing to do with the agreement the customer has with the CC company.