BulletHead
Village Idiot
Kina, aka Thurston Twigg-Smith III aka Cruiserland aka North Country Land Cruisers is a scam artist and a thief, sleazy individual. Dont fall for his "bait and switch" business model. Avoid dealing with him at ALL costs, total scumbag and tries to be very evasive! Here is what happened. There is a lot more to it and I have many pieces of evidence I will show in small claims court.
This is an excerpt from my Paypal claim:
I dropped off the 2 vehicles (62s) 8/22/2014 at your house and shop to swap over drive train from one to the other, and the estimate at that time was $2000-2250 because you charge $25 per hour and estimated ~80-100 hours for the engine swap and that you would use the same engine mounts. Later you alerted me that the engine mounts were no good and you have to get new ones, ok fine, I paid for new ones to be fabricated and shipped to you.
You alerted me that you can't get to my project right away, maybe ~1 month, which was ok with me, but you failed to communicate via text or phone calls. The last convo was in person when I dropped off. The first time I heard from you since then was 1/19/2015, 5+ months later. At that time you alerted me of court proceedings against you and my vehicles being in jeopardy of seizure by the town because of alleged illegal business practices and that it will take a long time for you to get to my vehicle but the only option I had was to agree with your request since you already had my vehicles.
There was absolute no communication on your end, you would not return any of my calls or texts. The next time you contacted me was 6/6/2015 for a statement for the court so I can prove the vehicles are mine, and obviously I had to reply to protect my property. What was my option here? You alerted me 1 day prior to the court hearing, that was not enough for me to even get my vehicles out of your "property", maybe that was by design. So I did comply and wrote you the email for the court to prove my property was indeed mine and the crushers wont take possession of it, all of this was extremely stressful as you kept me in the dark and I wish you had disclosed of your personal issues so I would have found someone ELSE more reputable and transparent to take on my project. I wonder who else you have scammed with your sleazy tactics. Are all those vehicles other projects you have not touched and seized? Probably.
You also alerted me NOT to go on your old property because of this court case. You would not disclose the address of your new property or business location upon multiple contact attempts by me.
After that point in time, there was absolute NO replies from you. I was afraid of the worst and upon multiple visits to your old house and shop I was unable to find you. People at your old house wouldn't disclose of your new shop and I had to jump through hoops with town and people who know you to figure out where you had moved to. Your cronies helped me here actually of disclosing your new shop address.
Roughly 2 years later, after finding out where you had moved to and visited you 6/20/2017. You got my vehicles in the shop within days after that unannounced visit. The only reason he started the work is because I found out where his shop was and made an unannounced visit which had him a deer in headlights look and was scrambling on his cell phone to call someone, not sure why he became so nervous, maybe he thought I was there to pickup my vehicles.
You kept texting on a weekly basis and demanded partial payments or else the work would not continue and that you had bills to pay and feed the kids blah blah blah, and kept sending the guilt trip as if no one else on this earth has bills to pay or has kids to feed, just you, and you felt it was necessary to do this because everyone ELSE pays you weekly. But we never discussed this payment plan, only what was required for the total job and payment was to be made upon pickup and completion of the project. What kind of a tactic is this? Dude, you're SUPPOSED to feed your kids, do you feel special? dont make it sound like you are desperate, starving and needy and only my $ will allow you to feed them. Do you feel like you are entitled to payments before completion and the threats to cease work is a good business practice? Major red flag among many.
9/24/17 you tell me its complete and instead of the $2200-2500 estimate to swap over, you now state it is $6210! This is a case of the bait and switch model often used by sleazy business owners which I did not expect you to be.
You now state that you charge $90 per hour because you have a brand new shop and that it took you a long time to complete my project because you had to move your shop, and aren't that good with electrical work, which to me shows incompetence for someone who is supposed to know how to work on vehicles. We had an agreement at the hourly rate and a solid estimate and now you impose an unreasonable increase in the cost because of various reasons which are absolute irrelevant to our agreement. In fact you probably would still have my vehicles sitting in your yard if I had not made the effort to find out where you had moved to with my property and lack of communication. You also failed and refused to give me a receipt for the work when I picked up. We had an agreement of hourly rate at the time of drop off, if certain matters forced you to move, you could have alerted me so I could have removed my property promptly, instead you removed them and refused to disclose where the hell you had moved them to, that's very evasive of you.
Upon numerous attempts to pickup, you state you aren't around and I had to change my plans, multiple times. I did pay you in full hoping it is a complete job and managed to get one of my vehicles out of your yard.
BEFORE I picked up my vehicle and sold you my red 62, you had already parted it out without notice to me and we never discussed what the agreed upon price was for it. AFAIK, you still owe me my red 62. In these threads here, you post all the parts from MY red 62. Now you will try to delete these threads below or have one of your cronies delete it, ha.
For Sale - fj62 scraps..more
For Sale - fj62 headlight doors, corner markers
I picked up on 2/2/17 and contacted you regarding the issues promptly and you did not return calls or texts. So yes, one of my moves WAS to make a claim since that was part of the payment. Dont worry, there are other claims headed your way.
There is a lot of work that is still incomplete. This will only cover part of the work that needs to be completed and the parts that are missing from my vehicle. I did pay you in full thinking you have done a good job and there wouldn't be any issues. There are numerous issues with my vehicle after you worked on it which I had not expected. I noticed most of this when I returned home, I couldn't really do an inspection with snow on the ground and NH February temps. I just wanted to pickup part of my property and be on my way since it had been ~3 years since you disappeared with my vehicles. I also didn't receive any compensation from you for parts inside and mounted on my 62 that you parted out. It is still my property, I want it back.
You owe me a lot more than $1200! Making up BS stories about me and slander isn't going to get you anywhere.
This is an excerpt from my Paypal claim:
I dropped off the 2 vehicles (62s) 8/22/2014 at your house and shop to swap over drive train from one to the other, and the estimate at that time was $2000-2250 because you charge $25 per hour and estimated ~80-100 hours for the engine swap and that you would use the same engine mounts. Later you alerted me that the engine mounts were no good and you have to get new ones, ok fine, I paid for new ones to be fabricated and shipped to you.
You alerted me that you can't get to my project right away, maybe ~1 month, which was ok with me, but you failed to communicate via text or phone calls. The last convo was in person when I dropped off. The first time I heard from you since then was 1/19/2015, 5+ months later. At that time you alerted me of court proceedings against you and my vehicles being in jeopardy of seizure by the town because of alleged illegal business practices and that it will take a long time for you to get to my vehicle but the only option I had was to agree with your request since you already had my vehicles.
There was absolute no communication on your end, you would not return any of my calls or texts. The next time you contacted me was 6/6/2015 for a statement for the court so I can prove the vehicles are mine, and obviously I had to reply to protect my property. What was my option here? You alerted me 1 day prior to the court hearing, that was not enough for me to even get my vehicles out of your "property", maybe that was by design. So I did comply and wrote you the email for the court to prove my property was indeed mine and the crushers wont take possession of it, all of this was extremely stressful as you kept me in the dark and I wish you had disclosed of your personal issues so I would have found someone ELSE more reputable and transparent to take on my project. I wonder who else you have scammed with your sleazy tactics. Are all those vehicles other projects you have not touched and seized? Probably.
You also alerted me NOT to go on your old property because of this court case. You would not disclose the address of your new property or business location upon multiple contact attempts by me.
After that point in time, there was absolute NO replies from you. I was afraid of the worst and upon multiple visits to your old house and shop I was unable to find you. People at your old house wouldn't disclose of your new shop and I had to jump through hoops with town and people who know you to figure out where you had moved to. Your cronies helped me here actually of disclosing your new shop address.
Roughly 2 years later, after finding out where you had moved to and visited you 6/20/2017. You got my vehicles in the shop within days after that unannounced visit. The only reason he started the work is because I found out where his shop was and made an unannounced visit which had him a deer in headlights look and was scrambling on his cell phone to call someone, not sure why he became so nervous, maybe he thought I was there to pickup my vehicles.
You kept texting on a weekly basis and demanded partial payments or else the work would not continue and that you had bills to pay and feed the kids blah blah blah, and kept sending the guilt trip as if no one else on this earth has bills to pay or has kids to feed, just you, and you felt it was necessary to do this because everyone ELSE pays you weekly. But we never discussed this payment plan, only what was required for the total job and payment was to be made upon pickup and completion of the project. What kind of a tactic is this? Dude, you're SUPPOSED to feed your kids, do you feel special? dont make it sound like you are desperate, starving and needy and only my $ will allow you to feed them. Do you feel like you are entitled to payments before completion and the threats to cease work is a good business practice? Major red flag among many.
9/24/17 you tell me its complete and instead of the $2200-2500 estimate to swap over, you now state it is $6210! This is a case of the bait and switch model often used by sleazy business owners which I did not expect you to be.
You now state that you charge $90 per hour because you have a brand new shop and that it took you a long time to complete my project because you had to move your shop, and aren't that good with electrical work, which to me shows incompetence for someone who is supposed to know how to work on vehicles. We had an agreement at the hourly rate and a solid estimate and now you impose an unreasonable increase in the cost because of various reasons which are absolute irrelevant to our agreement. In fact you probably would still have my vehicles sitting in your yard if I had not made the effort to find out where you had moved to with my property and lack of communication. You also failed and refused to give me a receipt for the work when I picked up. We had an agreement of hourly rate at the time of drop off, if certain matters forced you to move, you could have alerted me so I could have removed my property promptly, instead you removed them and refused to disclose where the hell you had moved them to, that's very evasive of you.
Upon numerous attempts to pickup, you state you aren't around and I had to change my plans, multiple times. I did pay you in full hoping it is a complete job and managed to get one of my vehicles out of your yard.
BEFORE I picked up my vehicle and sold you my red 62, you had already parted it out without notice to me and we never discussed what the agreed upon price was for it. AFAIK, you still owe me my red 62. In these threads here, you post all the parts from MY red 62. Now you will try to delete these threads below or have one of your cronies delete it, ha.
For Sale - fj62 scraps..more
For Sale - fj62 headlight doors, corner markers
I picked up on 2/2/17 and contacted you regarding the issues promptly and you did not return calls or texts. So yes, one of my moves WAS to make a claim since that was part of the payment. Dont worry, there are other claims headed your way.
- Radiator output hose to engine is held on to frame by zip ties. Why zip ties you ask? Well Kina the special character that he is, removed the engine block in-line heater and put a piece of pipe in place, thief!!!
- The manual throttle cable is not hooked up
- Engine temperature gauge is not hooked up
- Tachometer is not hooked up, it was hooked up on the donor vehicle with the 1hz drivetrain via the IP and an integration module, you removed it, thief!!!
- Rear bumper is not hooked up, and you refused to hand over, thief!!!
- Snorkel I did not want swapped over but you refused to have it anymore and couldn't provide it upon my pickup, thief!!!
- Roof rack not installed, and refused to hand over, thief!!!
- Side steps not installed, and refused to hand over, thief!!!
- Winch is not hooked up and wires are missing
- Heat is not working and blower motor is not working or hooked up, maybe this is an issue with my heater motor, but you failed to mention
- The reverse lights and input signal from the transmission is not hooked up, good job amateur!
- The battery cables ends are held on by tape and very poor condition, nice attempt, what a waste of effort.
- Removed batteries, paid for, see below.
- There were 3 doors in the red vehicle which you seized ownership of and refused to have them anymore
- There was a cd player, amplifier and speakers/subwoofer in the vehicle, they are no where to be found, you again refused to have them
- There was 2nd set of stock wheels and tires inside the red vehicle and you refused to have them anymore
- Upon my unannounced visit, I notice you had loaded the inside of both of my vehicles full of your property and car parts, heavily loaded. This damaged my upholstery and there are rips and holes and damage all over my vehicle's interior.
- You also took out the extra clutch pedal assembly and refused to return it, thief!!!
- Propeller shafts, both of them, are held on partially by bolts and not installed properly, nice work!
- Battery trays are held on partially by bolts and not installed properly, again, nice work!
- There are missing screws, nuts and bolts throughout the body, amazing work!
- You replaced my 3rd members on the 62 with 60 3rds and now the ratio has changed from 4.11 to 3.7, WTF?! You thief!!!!
- The front marker lights (orange) were swapped out to different colored marker lights (red), again, you freaking thief!!!!!
There is a lot of work that is still incomplete. This will only cover part of the work that needs to be completed and the parts that are missing from my vehicle. I did pay you in full thinking you have done a good job and there wouldn't be any issues. There are numerous issues with my vehicle after you worked on it which I had not expected. I noticed most of this when I returned home, I couldn't really do an inspection with snow on the ground and NH February temps. I just wanted to pickup part of my property and be on my way since it had been ~3 years since you disappeared with my vehicles. I also didn't receive any compensation from you for parts inside and mounted on my 62 that you parted out. It is still my property, I want it back.
You owe me a lot more than $1200! Making up BS stories about me and slander isn't going to get you anywhere.
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