How Mike Comisac (aka 877snowhawk) ripped me off...

So a few of you may be familiar with me as I had my explorer kit break two sets of forks on my Yamaha WR400 and wrote a review about the design flaw my lack of service on AD Boivin's part. Well, the second time the kit failed on me, I was on my way over to see Mike at the demo he was doing in my town. (review can be read here) After looking at my bike and not getting much resolution on the phone with AD Boivin, he was nice enough to offer to pay to have a block machined, or so I thought.

On December 17, 2008 (after talking in person to Mike) I sent him an email saying "I have a design drawn up for a plate to replace the dowels on my ski. I just wanted to confrim what you said earlier today about getting something made and then you'll pay for it." To which Mike responded on the same day "yes i will pay, i hope its not too much, LOL" Well, I went and got some prices and the cheapest shop around my area came in at $105. I ran this by Mike and he said to call him and he would give them his credit card number over the phone. Well, as it turns out when I called, Mike didn't answer his phone so I paid for it out of my pocket. I guess $105 was too much. I picked up my plate on the 18th and since then (over the last THREE MONTHS) I have sent Mike numerous emails (I can count them if anyone wants the actual number) and numerous phone calls trying to get Mike to reimburse me. The response I always got was one of two things; I'm on the road and I'll get something out to you when I get back, or yes, I'll get something out (if he was home). Surprise, surprise nothing ever came, Not a check, not a money order, nothing. And on top of it all, lately, I can't even get a hold of Mike, he's just all together stopped returning emails and answering his phone.

I think three months is way more than enough time to get a check out in the mail or something. What a way to run a business! You tell someone you'll pay to fix their machine they bought through you, so they get it fixed, and then you stick THEM with the bill!!! I've lost all confidence in Mike.

I would suggest to any one who has Mike tell them he'll do something for them to think twice, or three times, about doing it if it involves you spending money out of your pocket.

Lets see if this publicity for Mike convinces him to keep his word.

877snowhawk said:

my word has been quite solid,,, i offered to buy your system back, because you think your a great designer and know more than AD BOIVIN. i support my product with AD BOIVIN parts, that block is not a part from us or anyone involving explorer kit and i will not pay or supply anything that is not released from boivin,,, that is a lawsuit waiting to happen,,, and your attempt to blackmail me numerous times have been reported to authorities as well as this post.


mike comisac AKA 877snowhawk

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Mike, now your a freaking liar!!!! Wow, I can't believe you wrote that!

I have the emails saved just for this reason...

On 12/16/08 at 10 :29 PM I wrote to mike:

Mike,

I have a design drawn up for a plate to replace the dowels on my ski. I just wanted to confrim what you said earlier today about getting something made and then you'll pay for it.

Also, on your Aprilia, what is the thickness of the support plate on that ski bracket, and what size bolts hold the support plate to the main center plate?

Thanks.

Tim

On 12/17/08 at 7:23 AM Mike responed with:

yes i will pay, i hope its not too much, LOL ... and let you know thickness,,, but same bolts are used


mike


Oh, and it's also funny how AD Boivin used my idea for their fix. I wrote to Dennis at ADB and Mike on 12/5/08 at 3:40 PM: (emphasis added)

Good afternoon gentlemen,

I took a closer look at the front end of my bike now that it's thawed out for the most part in the garage (still a little snow on it believe it or not). I believe I have identified the weak link that caused this failure. I believe it was the dowels that connect the ski plate to the caliper mounts. I'll do my best to explain my analysis, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll try to explain it better.

I took the broken piece of the caliper mount off the upper dowel and put it back in place where it broke from. This is shown in picture 2. Note how it is twisted, and how the upper dowel still lines up with it for the most part. This means that the caliper mount twisted with the dowel to a considerable degree before it finally failed. Picture 3 shows the upper caliper mount bolt; it is bent, but not severely. Also notice how the dowel deformed next to the aluminum plate as it was bent. A couple more views of the dowel are shown in pictures 4 and 5. I don't have a close up picture as I'm going to have to bend the bolt back or cut the bolt head off to be able to get it apart.

Picture 6 shows what's left of the lower caliper mount bolt. The lower mount being much more rigid, the bolt broke before any damage to the lower mount on the fork was caused. Notice in picture 7 that the lower dowel deformed substantially before the caliper bolt broke. Picture 8 is a close up of the lower dowel, and picture 9 shows the bolt that attached the dowel to the plate. The dowel being damaged to this magnitude tells me it also allowed the lower caliper bolt to also bend until it finally broke. I do not believe the lower bolt was completely sheared off alone, but rather it was a combination of shear and bending forces that broke it. Once that broke, all the force was applied to the top mount, bending that it until it broke.

To summarize, the dowels were too weak. They were not rigid enough allowing them to yield, and the resulting torsional stress created in my caliper mounts was a stress that they are not designed to handle. The dowels should have been heavier duty to keep from bending. Reduced to a shear type stress alone, the forces encountered should not have broken the caliper mount.


If anyone wants the pdf document that had the pictures I'm referencing in the above email, shoot me a PM with your email and I can send them to you as it's too big to attach.

Funny Mike, how you say "attempt to blackmail"... I guess you did get my voice mails and emails warning about writing this post if you didn't keep your word. If you had kept it I wouldn't have written this! It's nice to see you're too cowardly to talk to me too, you have to hide behind your email/voice mail/this forum!

I thought of a couple more things I thought I would say. First for the people that stick up for Mike with the argument of he offered to buy the kit back. What you don't know is that Mike didn't do it out of the kindness of his heart. He was basically told by Dennis at ADB that he was the distributer and that he should support the product and thus should offer to buy it back since they didn't seem to be able to make me happy with the kit. When I wrote the email I quoted above to Dennis (my analysis of why the front end failed) Dennis sent me the following email on 12/05/08 at 4:33 PM:

Hi Tim,

Mike Comisac will be in contact with you soon.

I spoke with Mike this morning regarding your file.

Regards,

Denis

It was after this email, that when I talked on the phone to Mike he explained what Dennis had told him and then offered to buy the kit back. I'd be VERY impressed if Mike were to actually uphold that offer, but $105 and a straight answer is too much to hope for... which brings me to my second point....

This is directed directly to you Mike, since you won't talk to me like a man, I'll just say it on here. In your own words:

877snowhawk said:

i support my product with AD BOIVIN parts, that block is not a part from us or anyone involving explorer kit and i will not pay or supply anything that is not released from boivin

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So my question is why haven't you sent me the OEM replacement parts that got sent out to everyone as the fix for the problem? I still haven't gotten my genuine ADB replacement parts that are supposedly out there (you never did send me the pictures you said you would) but even though I'm the one that blew the whole thing out in the open, I still haven't received my parts that are officially released from ADB. In this aspect, you STILL haven't supported the product you sold me. Where are they? Could it be perhaps because you knew I had a part made to fix the kit that you had already agreed to pay for? You finally sent me the technical bulletin on Feb. 1 that ADB sent out after I asked for it a few times (which I didn't even find out about until I talked to you on the phone and you said the stuff had already been sent out to everyone). In any case...I have yet to receive the parts I should have gotten since you don't support parts that aren't made my ABD.

And for the lawsuit comment you made...where were you screaming lawsuit when I first brought this issue to your/Dennis's attention? You were just complaining to me that I cost you sales because I felt I had an ethical responsibility to warn people about what had happened to me. You repeatedly complained on the phone about how I made the statement that someone could kill themselves. I would explain myself and you kept coming back to how I said people could kill themselves, over and over, which when you think about it if the front end fails and someone flips into a tree and get killed/maimed or are stranded out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the winter (as I nearly was), that could be a HUGE lawsuit. You weren't worried about lawsuits then, you were just worried about not selling a couple of kits. Now that I call you out, you flash lawsuit and the "authorities" around to try and try and save some face.

My last point is one of character. Mike could have been a jerk and sent me the replacement dowels and said that he had provided a fix to my problem and made me eat the $105. I wouldn't have been happy, but he would have supported the product from his end. What pisses me off more than being screwed out of the money when I was on a tight budget, is the fact that Mike didn't have the gonads to 1) pay up on his obligation or 2) tell me like a man that he was going back on his word and that I was going to have to eat the cost. I even asked him that directly (I can prove that with emails) and I never got a response. When I asked on the phone, I would always get something along the line of yes I'm going to pay, or I've been away from home, I'll get it out when I get back etc.

Seriously, in general if you made a deal with someone, you should keep your word, or at least be a man and admit that you're backing out. Don't drag it out for three months, and then just ignore and avoid the person you made the deal with. Oh, and then lie about it when they call you out on it. I don't think I'm the only one that views that type of behavior as being cowardly.

The frustration builds, and then I vent now and then. lol

Mule said:

Sonofab¡tch, had a big reply written then hit the wrong button. I think a lot of what I said has already been covered.

First, i've never met either of you, don't care, and have no say in the matter whatsoever. Will strip down names and summarize to elementary terms for sake of simplicity.

Few key points from reply the computer ate:
-AB is the manufacturer of malfunctioning product.
-Mike is the vendor that sells manufacturer's products.

-Client showed vendor a design for an upgrade to manufacturer's product, vendor liked it, vendor offered to pay for upgrade (Above and beyond vendor's responsibility to begin with).
-Manufacturer contacted vendor offering to reimburse a buy-back of the malfunctioned part, client refused.
-Client purchased upgrade, cannot contact vendor for reimbursement.


Let the red rep flow.

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Not quite, it's more like this:

-Client showed manufacturer proposed fix to malfunctioning product (and a few other things client saw as poorly engineered), no acknowledgment from manufacturer of problems other than "user error".
-Manufacturer had vendor offer to buy back malfunctioning part to get client off their back, but client wasn't ready to give up hope for product (and didn't want to incur additional shipping costs to return product).
-Product failed second time and vendor offered to pay to fix it quickly since manufacturer wasn't really responding with satisfactory solution
-Client paid for repair, never to be reimbursed by vendor for expenses incurred for retrofit part.
-Client also had to eat cost of destroyed suspension components as a result of poorly designed product failing, for which no compensation of any kind was offered.

Does that make sense?

Buffalo, I started to take the kit off last weekend. I've been away from home since January and the kit/bike has been sitting in the basement since February. Eventually I'll get it out in the dirt. As for next winter, I hope I don't have this kit anymore to have to worry about it.