Dude_man

Doug for president

pewter99

finally a bit of good news in this thread.

CamaroDreams76

He did post factual information. I wish I took screen shots of the posts. It was right off of Facebook from real FSP customers and all the personal inform was blacked out. One of the cars he posted was a car I know very well.

Fortunately the only money FSP got from me was from a dyno day in February 2014. I hope very much that everyone affected gets retribution.

ksurfer2

I feel like I really dodged a bullet with FSP. Matt had done work on my car several times over the past couple of years and the work he did for me was top notch (headers, cam, ecs kit). I also recommended several people to him.

Back on August 13, I reached out to him to do a clutch swap and install a new starter on my car. I had a couple of different times scheduled to bring the car to him but he cancelled each time. I finally got tired of chasing him to do work on my car and went to another shop.

Funny part is....while I was standing in the other shop going over the work to be done, I got a text from Matt looking to schedule a new time to bring the car in. This was on August 31. Thankfully, I had not sent him any money in advance!!!!

PHEW!!!!!!!

oldnotslow

Surprised to see this happen! Matt and Rodney did very well with the mods I had them do. Can only say good things.....

chriswood

This is my first time seeing this thread. I purchased an ECS trans/Diff brace on 9/8/16. Matt text me the following morning 9/9/16 to inform me he would be unable to fulfill my order and that FSP was closing up. He refunded my payment immediately. Matt has tuned my car for me in the past and I have never had a bad experience. It's unfortunate to see people potentially loosing large cash deposits. On that note I don't see Matt or FSP leaving people hanging. I do believe with time he will make it right.

pewter99

never said he didn't I was speaking in general terms...I believe I saw one of those pics posted here no?

roader

I took them down because it wasn't my car and I didn't realize how far this was going to go and didn't want to pour salt in fresh wounds since I actually recieved work that was finished...just not correctly.

I just feel bad for everyone because of how many post were deleted to cover up for FSP on camaro5. People are still saying what a good shop and reputation because everything negative was deleted.

vettebuyer6369

Curious... Does camaro5 remove/ban all negative comments or is there something special about this guy?

schpenxel

Curious about that too.

pewter99

pewter99

nope, word is the Admin over there is friends with Matt.

don't know that as fact but that's what I was told....by another reliable source

FWIW I am friends with some vendors on here mostly an internet friendship, some I have met but I stay out of their disputes. I may send them an email or Pm to let them know one (a dispute) exists but I don't generally moderate them unless someone posts crap that isn't relative or its hostile. Friends are friends, business is business. If that is in fact happening over there its a sure way to lose traffic, members and dollars. I know some guys that hang out over there that live locally nice guys.

canuck9

Glad to see that you took it upon yourself to finally log in and contribute to the forum by name calling and making a very positive post!! Next time you want to call me a name, please do so by doing it to my face.

If you read my posts I made it clear that I felt bad for those affected...but thus far I had not experienced any issues...nor had any concerns based on the feedback I was receiving of my cars build progress.

7SECONDS

I spoke to my insider at the States Attorney's Office she says that first this would need to be reported to the local authorities and each get a police report. The more people that report it to the local authorities the better. Once that is done the next step is to give our documentation to an attorney. She has one that would love to represent as many of us as possible. Message me if you are interested in getting this rolling. The bottom line is we have to stop Matt from doing this to others. Yes he did Awesome work on my car. Yes he treated me very well up until he Stole from me. If you were one of the lucky ones I hope you are very cautious if you enter any deals with Matt in the future. My two cents is Once a Thief Always a Thief.

On a good note Doug at ECS was also very helpful for me today. I also verified that Matt never placed the order for my parts.

CamaroDreams76

They (the mods) usually remove and ban all negative comment(s) in regards to tuners and vendors. Camaro5 is pretty censored when it comes to negativity on a business. Doesn't matter the shop. I've seen many people banned for posting facts about different shops and then people banned for clearly slandering shops. I also know of people getting banned because they defend a certain shop.

pewter99

crazy...

Never Satisfied

Yep, they protect any and all vendors who pay to advertise on their forum. Just like CamaroDreams, I've seen it over and over since I joined back in 2010. That's why they have lost a ton of knowledgeable members too.

All I would like to add is that I hope all or the vast majority of you who have been taken, see justice in some sort of fashion. I've been where you've been and it's a lousy feeling.

MileHigh2016

That idiot Mike Lee aka "MLEE" is so full of himself its absolutely comical. He thinks he is high and mighty with that site and everyone likes him, but at our local meets we just laugh at him. I have seen so many people get banned and vendors banned for actually stating TRUE facts. I know their are other moderators, but Mike Lee is the main downfall to that site. I been watching this thread and i feel for all you guys who lost money. Sucks to have ur hard earned money get taken away.

Their have been a lot of posts on Camaro5 altered or erased in that thread because of their inner circle with FSP. U guys who are looking into legal action can u also hold Camaro5 and the moderators liable for covering up factual evidence if this does end up as a criminal case?

vettebuyer6369

Holding moderators criminally liable. There's a concept.

Motohead279

I'm going to chime in here and give my .02. I've spent more money with them over the past few years than probably everyone else here combined. Matt has actually become a good friend of mine over the past few years. Here are a few facts that people need to know. First off for the statement that "Matt is running around at Bradenton Motorsports Park like nothing ever happened" is a stupid comment. They are still trying to finish the cars that they can and Matt has always at no charge helped his customers at the track after a build or tune. At no charge to them. Both Matt and Rodney are completely torn over this. Trust me on this.

There are several reasons to their downfall. Last year FSP decided to open up a fabrication side to the shop so that they could start doing it in house rather than subcontracting it out. Breather tanks, race parts, etc. They hired an in house fabricator, bought a bunch of fabrication equipment, which Matt pretty much emptied out his savings account to do so. Unfortunately the fabrication side of things never worked out, the fabricator did not produce and they paid him 3 - 4 times what he actually produced for them, and they let him go. They also lost their *** on the fabrication equipment trying to recover some of the money. While they had a ton of business, they were also not turning cars around fast enough for what they were charging. On top of that Matt was trying to do all of the tuning and handle all of the daily calls, texts, etc when they should have had an office manager to do all of that.

Just so everyone knows, with Florida law when filing for bankruptcy everything has to be handled by an attorney. I know Matt has said once the doors close they are going to sell what they can from the shop (lifts etc) to try to get as many refunds back as possible, but this whole mess is not going to be a quick thing..

I'm not sitting here making any excuses for them. The ship was sinking and like any business owner they tried to get it back on track, but they were too far in the hole to recover. This unfortunately happens to too many businesses, where they lose control due to unforeseen circumstances, bad management or both. I believe they had both. Pfadt racing is another example. FSP, For the majority of their customers they did great work, and were always there to help. Did they have some unhappy customers? sure. What business doesn't. But I can guarantee everyone here that this was not a planned "money making scheme" as I know both Matt and Rodney went weeks without ever taking a paycheck. But unfortunately "rumors" on internet sites like these run rampant with false accusations, just like "cars are being abandoned and left outside which was 100% false. Cars every night went into the shop, and were pushed out every morning so they could work on them.

I still have things that are not finished on mine as others on here. Again i'm not on here defending anyone, just want everyone to know some facts before jumping to conclusion like they are lining their pockets with cash. In my personal opinion they needed to have a office manager instead of trying to handle all of the customers themselves. I also believe they needed to be faster on the work IMHO. But that can be a double edge sword when jobs are rushed. Its impossible to be In a dyno room for 10 hours a day and properly respond back to customers in a timely fashion, especially with the amounts of texts he got every hour. This is where someone answering phones, texts etc would have made things run a lot more smoothly for them.

People who are out of money at the moment have every right to be pissed off, and I hope in the end everyone can recover their losses.