BEWARE Chris Taylor, Taylor Rotorsports

[sherwood]

I purchased a FA wing advertised on APEX using Payapl on Aug 11th. After many phone calls, e-mails I finally ask for a refund or a tracking number or I was going to put his name on APEX as a A---hole

This was his response:

Mark, I'm sorry but like I told you before I've been doing a lot of travelling. Since I didn't have a box the wing would fit in, I dropped it at a pack-n-ship that at one point a few years ago I was spending a thousand dollars a month at -- they've either forgotten or changed management, and have dropped the ball EVERY TIME I've called. I'll stop by tomorrow when I get back and figure out what the deal is, or pick it up and get it shipped.

I would advise against posting anything on apexspeed unless you want neither the wing nor the refund. I've never had a complaint with anyone I've ever done business with, but I'm running 3 businesses right now and moving 2 so things are a bit hectic. Again, I'm sorry for the delay, but there hasn't been much I can do other than phone from hundreds or a thousand miles away.

I'll get it solved by tomorrow.

Chris

This was also posted on APEX looking for the same wing...

August 19th, 2012, 8:30 PM

when do you think the wing will arrive at Livernash motorsports ?
thanks scott

I hope this will help someone from dealing with a less then honest Apex member

Mark Sherwood

[flat tappet]

Mark......any joy from PAYPAL when a situation like this occurs?Hopefully, they can shut that person off.

[sherwood]

No, It has been to long , that's what I get for being a nice guy..... Everyone here on Apex has been great ! Except for this tool

[flat tappet]

No, It has been to long , that's what I get for being a nice guy..... Everyone here on Apex has been great ! Except for this tool

Just went to his website.Seems like just so much horsesh*t!! Can't even tell what his products are.....LOL.

[sherwood]

Yea , maybe someone from Texas can shed some light on this guy....

[Rob Leonick]

I purchased a exhaust header from him and have not received it. No e-mail response from him. Same story, he dont have a box. I would like a refund too.
Robert Leonick

[sherwood]

Sorry to hear your also out $$$$$ , I am in Dallas next week , not sure how close he is to Dallas, he would think he saw a ghost when I walked in his shop asking where my wing and Robs headers were...

[dc]

His user account here shows he hasn't made an appearance on ApexSpeed since late August.

Call PayPal and see what they can do... you might be surprised.

[F five hunj]

Always always always use a credit card through paypal, not your actual bank account. American express does not tolerate this kind of ****, and they love to go to bat for you.

[sherwood]

Already tried Paypal, they said it was to old , and referred me to the FBI white collar crime unit

Mark

[F five hunj]

If you know his name and address, you can find out an awful lot about him by doing some research in the county clerk's website where he lives (mortgages, marriage license, DBA's, deeds, many of which will have his DOB). Take said information and relay it and your situation to the local PD/Sheriff's office and you might be able to get something done.

[flat tappet]

Already tried Paypal, they said it was to old , and referred me to the FBI white collar crime unit

Mark

Mark(and anyone else on here stung by this guy).....He has an active facebook acct under taylor rotorsports. I just saw a posting as recent as 9/24. Go there and humble the **** out of him. He seems to do business off facebook so you might hit him where it hurts most.

[flat tappet]

Mark(and anyone else on here stung by this guy).....He has an active facebook acct under taylor rotorsports. I just saw a posting as recent as 9/24. Go there and humble the **** out of him. He seems to do business off facebook so you might hit him where it hurts most.

He also has a facebook page in his own name and lives in Elroy,TX if you are planning a drive by.........LOL.

[BWC54]

I am in Dallas next week , not sure how close he is to Dallas,

His website says he's around Austin. That's about 200 miles one way.

[Mark_Silverberg]

his web site shows he is just about across the street from COTA - better get there before traffic gets bad.

[Daryl DeArman]

Might want to avoid visiting somebody you don't know in an open-carry state....just saying...

That's not a veiled threat in any way at all. Just speaking from some 2nd hand experience that hit very, very close to home. The whole scenario that developed over a few years of ripping people off on ebay, craigslist and various forums, escalated...threats and visitors coming from every direction. The life he had dug for himself had become too much for him to handle. Eventually he took his own life, tragically he took 5 other lives just a few hours before. No need for anybody here to be one of the next 5.

[Lewis Tanner]

Yea , maybe someone from Texas can shed some light on this guy....

I'm in Texas. I can shed all the light you want. That abortion was the "cage" he tried to install in my car.

Don't have time to elaborate and find the original timeline thread on that "build" now, as I'm at work, but this guy is a real piece of work, and your story sounds quite familiar to many in the motorsports community. I'll stick my head in later tonight.

[starkejt]

Just wow. You have to try really hard to make something that ugly.

[sherwood]

I was pretty hesitant about posting my issue , but i am really glad I did. Now this tool has been exposed ..

[Matt King]

Hey LT, fancy meeting you here! I thought I recognized the name Chris Taylor, but I had completely forgotten about your unfortunate experience with him.

[Lewis Tanner]

Found my old post - here for anyone who's interested.


A summary of my experience with Chris Taylor.

Section 1: Fabrication Skills

In August of 2004, I commissioned Chris to build the roll cage for my CMC car. After coming to agreement on the terms of the build, which included cash, costs of materials, and my 1985 BMW 325 in trade, Mr. Taylor (and I use that term loosely)picked up both the race car and the BMW in September of 2004. Over the following months, little progress was made on the project, and I even drove 180 miles each way one time to come and help out in order to get things moving. One day in early November, Chris sent me a note indicating that the main hoop was done, along with a couple of pics. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the hoop, but my concern regarding the time frame for completion was growing. The following 60 days led to several conversations relating to the cage design changing, apparently after the changes had been made, to the point where it was no longer legal for NASA racing. Chris was well aware of the class in which the car was to run, and had ample access to the rulebook for said class, so there was not any room for excuses in my opinion. After much back and forth between NASA officials and Chris, I came to the conclusion that the cage was not being built to specifications and issued a stop-work
notification to Chris.

On February 4th, 2005, Adam Ginsberg and I made the trip down to Austin late in the evening to retrieve my car and collect an uncashed check that I had mailed to Chris. When we got there, we didn't spend a lot of time sniffing around the car - just loaded it up and left. Once we were back in DFW, a close inspection of the work that had been done revealed the following:






All these and more can be seen in greater detail here.

Many of you have seen one or more of these images, and almost nobody knows the story behind them. They get tossed out every now and then as something to behold - a freak display of shoddy workmanship to be laughed at anonymously when the topic of cage construction comes up, displayed namelessly as if the images were just harvested from the ether for our amusement. No longer will that be the case. Spread these images free and far, and don't hesitate to attribute them appropriately. The little voice in my head that kept them locked away for the past 3 years finally said "****it" and now the story is out.

I feel better already, this is therapeutic.

Section 2: Integrity and Professionalism

Integrity is getting out of the shower to take a leak.

This section deals with something that I consider much, much more important than being caught up in someones learning curve on racecar fabrication and is the primary reason for this post. A man can learn how to cut and bend tubing. He can learn how to weld. He can learn structural design, craftsmanship, and even develop his skills into an art. Those facts are what kept the above images and story out of the public eye for as long as they did, as I foolishly believed that not embarrassing Chris by putting his ****-tastic work out for all to see was the right thing to do.

I was wrong.

The Cage Debacle

We'll get started with the aftermath of the above cage build. My net out of pocket on that deal was about $300 in materials cost, two trips to Austin (720 miles total), my BMW (not a gem, but probably worth $700-1000 and it had a brand new set of Tokiko race springs and shocks/struts on board), and the costs of a real fabricator cutting that thing out of my car and making the repairs necessary to put a proper cage into the thing. There was never so much as a token offer from Chris to make things right with me. I never asked for it, a fact for which many would fault me, but my belief is that I shouldn't have had to ask. In short, Chris' ineptitude cost me at least $1000, and I've stood by silently for three years without making so much as a wave about it. I still don't ask for anything to be done to make things right, and never will.

On Stickers and Such

This is another subject with which few of you are familiar, but affects many more of you than I believe is necessary.

Once upon a time, Chris took it upon himself to promote the site spirit and offer stickers for sale to the membership. For those of you that don't recall, that was in this thread.

The stickers were of unquestionable quality and Chris' service in getting them mailed to those that ordered them was second to none.

The total when the stack in my car hits the mailbox will be 108 people ordering a total of 436 stickers. Biggest single order goes to Tim G.

To rough things out, we're talking somewhere around $800-$1200 from the sale of stickers. Not a bad haul. After the costs of making the things, we're down to $300-$400 in profit. Even better.

To further the selflessness with which Chris was serving our fine site, he even went so far as to state the following:

Finally, let me say again, I am not making money on this. All proceeds go to The Guys, for them to do what they wish.

Outstanding! Not only is Chris working hard for the site, he's doing so out of his heart and will make sure that a few month's server bills will be paid off of the sales he generated. That's a gesture sure to offset the mistakes he made in his other business dealings, right?

Now, for the rest of the story...

"The Guys" would have been grateful beyond belief were Chris to have kept his word on that deal and given the money to them for the continued free running of this site, but that didn't happen. "The Guys" would have been just fine had Chris taken a little something for his troubles and made a nominal contribution to the site, but that didn't happen either. "The Guys" never saw a thin dime out of that deal. In fact, the company from which Chris purchased the stickers in the first place had basically written off about $250 in outstanding invoices that Chris had not paid, and did not pay until some members of this site took action to ensure that it was. During discussions with the sticker manufacturer, he stated that Chris informed him that the money he was given by the CC.com membership was used to buy tires and he was currently out of work, so it would be some time before payment was sent. Upon resolving the issue, Chris' response was as follows:

just thought I'd let you know that I dropped a check off in the mail today. So, if the grapevine happens to mention

anything in the future, if you could tell them I requested that they suck a nut, I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
Chris Taylor

That concludes the presentation of the facts. I shall now move on to my personal commentary.


I was willing to let this filthy, mange ridden, foul-smelling sleeping dog lie, then Chris had to come along and make a statement about someone else being a "bigger man". That did it. You see, while I consider welding one topic on which Chris not qualified to speak, making judgements on the character of others is another issue altogether and one which I will not overlook, particularly when it involves an attack on the character of someone who I consider a close friend that has done much for the racing community.

For a long time, I regarded this issue dead. Chris had basically stopped posting to the forums, and I felt that was indication enough that he was either embarrassed or ashamed enough to have learned his lesson and I could just move on. That worked great in theory, but I never really felt that I'd gotten "closure" on the situation and to this day, it has bothered me. Over the past year or two, Chris has slowly crept back into posting on the site again, and each post he made just compounded my frustration. His user title: "Pisses Excellence" just made things worse, as there surely was no excellence to be found in the work he did for me, nor was there excellence in his character or integrity as an individual, as has been made apparent by his own actions. Still, I kept silent. Then this thread came along, a thread relating to a subject on which Chris has no business offering comment to anyone, and he chose to comment. The fact that his statement was technically correct and offers good advice is beside the point. It caught the attention of someone else that knows the story and, being Corner-Carvers, a word of advice was offered with the spirit of the site behind it, to which Chris decided to respond by attacking Adam Ginsberg's character. Wrong move.

[Lewis Tanner]

Hey LT, fancy meeting you here! I thought I recognized the name Chris Taylor, but I had completely forgotten about your unfortunate experience with him.

Howdy Matt! Nice to see you here as well! If there's one name I will never forget, it's Chris Taylor.

[F five hunj]

[ADMIN EDITED: People can find him on their own if they want to contact him directly. We don't need to broadcast it here. Please don't post personal information on the forums.]

[KenT]

Why do people do that with their hair? I am referring to the faux hawk thing. The pointy uppy nature.

I know, I know, I am old. I am in my mid 40's, but still. Why do people do this? Is everyone else reading the Italian GQ thereby seeing the trends long before I? Is that it?

[glenn cooper]

a TOOL, rhymes with FOOL and sounds like this guy is familiar with BOTH!

[DB4 Tim]

Great to get the word out on the "tool"

[rickb99]

Why do people do that with their hair? I am referring to ....the pointy uppy nature.

I know, I know, I am old. I am in my mid 40's, but still. Why do people do this? Is everyone else reading the Italian GQ thereby seeing the trends long before I? Is that it?

LOL I agree totally. That spike hair is 'common' among the new 'reality crowd' guys on TV these days. Sorta like everybody is trying to be a part of the warrior class.

[starkejt]

I'd say that guy looks like a world class douche bag, but that would be an insult to all the self respecting douche bags out there.

[dc]

Many of you have seen one or more of these images, and almost nobody knows the story behind them. They get tossed out every now and then as something to behold - a freak display of shoddy workmanship to be laughed at anonymously when the topic of cage construction comes up, displayed namelessly as if the images were just harvested from the ether for our amusement.

I have never picked up any type of welder in my life, and I'm fairly certain that I could lay down better welds right now. Those are repulsive welds that look like bubble gum stuffed into the joints then covered up with primer. Holy crap, man.

Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do from this end other than clamp down on his last used IP address and restrict his user account.

How did this kid end up selling a Formula Atlantic wing to multiple people?

[flat tappet]

Why do people do that with their hair? I am referring to the faux hawk thing. The pointy uppy nature.

I know, I know, I am old. I am in my mid 40's, but still. Why do people do this? Is everyone else reading the Italian GQ thereby seeing the trends long before I? Is that it?

He can afford to buy expensive Italian hair gel and shirts with collars that look like FA wings with the money he swindled all you folks out of!

[DB4 Tim]

He will get his...sometimes it takes a bit...but always happens.

[Rick Kean]

be a Hennessy Bizcool Apprentice.

Thanks for sharing, Lewis

Rick Kean

[Fatoldman7]

Many years ago I had a similar experience, I purchased some parts, used PayPal for payment, no parts, no response. I lived in NY at the time, the person I purchased the parts from lived in LA. Not much you can do when you live on opposite coasts. I asked a lawyer friend who lived in LA if there was any legal recourse, he said there wasn't much I could do for the $500.00 worth of parts that I purchased. BUT...he did know some folks in the bail bond, bounty hunting business, and they would do just about anything for a buck, as long as it's legal. So a deal was struck, and they sent one of there biggest nastiest dudes in there office to check on my parts. No threats...no intimidating, He just asked how my part order was doing. He goes to the the dudes house, well his moms house, knocks on the door, mom answers, gets her son from his room, and he loses all motor, and verbal control when he saw what was at his doorstep, and it was over some parts he ripped someone off over. Funny he refunded my paypal account the next day. In the end it cost me more than my parts purchase, but it was worth it, the guy who made the visit was the only one that had any regrets...that he didn't video his visit.

[sherwood]

It wasn't just my wing , it was also set of headers Rob Leonick never received. I know I am out a few bucks but reading this thread has cracked me up more then once . Looking at those pictures of those welds and then reading that this dude believes he pisses excellence just cracks me up..

[Daryl DeArman]

Might want to avoid visiting somebody you don't know in an open-carry state....just saying...

That's not a veiled threat in any way at all. Just speaking from some 2nd hand experience that hit very, very close to home. The whole scenario that developed over a few years of ripping people off on ebay, craigslist and various forums, escalated...threats and visitors coming from every direction. The life he had dug for himself had become too much for him to handle. Eventually he took his own life, tragically he took 5 other lives just a few hours before. No need for anybody here to be one of the next 5.

Many years ago I had a similar experience, I purchased some parts, used PayPal for payment, no parts, no response. I lived in NY at the time, the person I purchased the parts from lived in LA. Not much you can do when you live on opposite coasts. I asked a lawyer friend who lived in LA if there was any legal recourse, he said there wasn't much I could do for the $500.00 worth of parts that I purchased. BUT...he did know some folks in the bail bond, bounty hunting business, and they would do just about anything for a buck, as long as it's legal. So a deal was struck, and they sent one of there biggest nastiest dudes in there office to check on my parts. No threats...no intimidating, He just asked how my part order was doing. He goes to the the dudes house, well his moms house, knocks on the door, mom answers, gets her son from his room, and he loses all motor, and verbal control when he saw what was at his doorstep, and it was over some parts he ripped someone off over. Funny he refunded my paypal account the next day. In the end it cost me more than my parts purchase, but it was worth it, the guy who made the visit was the only one that had any regrets...that he didn't video his visit.

One part I failed to mention in my story was that some tough guys did manage to go pay the guy in my story a visit to check on their parts. He felt threatened and one of the tough guys ended up with a Glock pointed at his head...cops called and no arrests made. They thought he was a coward and a con...turned out he was very close to the brink and they were very lucky they left his shop with their life that day.

[Canadian Formula 3 Championship]

Apex having this big racing community, it would be very easy to warn others of such problems.

So why doesn't someone create and post a Blacklist of all the scammers, and people whom have swindled money out of another fellow racer so everyone on here can be aware of the potential trouble and to avoid it.

I know the Grand Am Series Manager keeps such a Blacklist for his own purposes.

[helipilot04]

I had the same thing happen a few years ago on Ebay.. Just kept calling and hounding the guy and his business till he refunded the money. I say spam the hell out of these sites.

Anyone using Apexspeed and cheating people should feel the pain.





[ADMIN EDITED: People can find him on their own if they want to contact him directly. We don't need to broadcast it here. Please don't post personal information on the forums.]

[glenn cooper]

Walt is Chris's dad.

[Swift17]

Vito and Angelo ............
A friend of mine is have a small issue in Texas;
.......... see if you can go down there and "correct" the problem !!!

[Wren]

I know the Grand Am Series Manager keeps such a Blacklist for his own purposes.

Do you have his contact information? I would love to share the facts about Jon Lewis and American Spirit Racing.