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

[TallBoysWRF]

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]

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

 

[mccbrothers]

Gay block

That fix looks limp anyways I wouldn't pay 50$ for that machined piece. Quit jumping your Explorer on to flat ice, they are not meant for that type of abuse. Should of sold the kit back to Mike and then you wouldn't have to be crying on this forum, you sound like a real baby.

 

[powderrushsh]

Any deals I have had with Mike have been 100% solid.
Man of his WORD in my eyes.
His reply sounds correct to me.

 

[buffaloHAWK]

i dont want to be in the middle of anything but...

thanks for the buffet at Ponderosa, i owe ya one 877!

 

[Dobber1]

That fix looks limp anyways I wouldn't pay 50$ for that machined piece. Quit jumping your Explorer on to flat ice, they are not meant for that type of abuse. Should of sold the kit back to Mike and then you wouldn't have to be crying on this forum, you sound like a real baby.

Thanks, saved me from typing all that.

 

[fastcat1!]

Is this the same @#$( head from before?

You have got to be kidding me. You would have thought after the first time you admittedly bottomed out your suspension jumping a WR you would have got a clue to either #1-stopping jumping #2-respring for jumping, or #3-get rid of that piece of crap and get something worth jumping.

I have been jumping explorer kits all season and have seen on earlier models what you are talking about where the original style cones would loosen up and bend. I welcomed AD Boivins response to this problem, actively redesigning and most importantly intentionally trying to destroy these before released to the public. The update for these I would say is solid.

While your attention to this area was important, the jack@$$ way you went about drawing attention to it is apalling. (EXplorer beware) Now I can't be silent after you pull this same BS again. You want to talk about a rip off. Your ripping off good forum space for people that give a crap.

Mike Comisac has been nothing but an upstanding guy. Heck...he offered to buy the kit back. Thats pretty darn upstanding. Do you really think is makes sense for a company to put their entire future in your design idea without testing themselves and then have you go out, bottom your forks again and polk your eye out with the flying shrapnel!

My suggestion is to limit your designs to finding ways to pull your head out of your @$$.

(I apologize to all for my rant, I just couldn't sit back on this one!)



****A little common sense goes a long ways...on the other hand you can't engineer that now can you!

 

[mccbrothers]

Fast Cat hit the nail on the head

Wow, that was great Fast Cat, you sound like a guy that knows whats up, thanks for getting that out there, hope you get to western, wa someday and rip it up with us, would love to meet you.

 

[poacher]

Warranty

simply we buy these toys to abuse them some people think since target and other places will have a no ask return policy we all should. The abuser should take responsibility.

i just read this again. $105.00 all this over $105.00 The medication probably cost more than that. It may be time for a refill.

 

[TLKDPROD]

Modify at your own risk using your own money, that's my philosophy !

TallboysWRF,

If I tried to get my money back from all the modifications I made on my Hawk to make it work right. I'd be at over 750$ this season only I think. That includes : Walbro fuel pick-up modification, adaptor to get rid of TLS... then Chain drive system (will be on tomorrow), swignarm pivot relocation/footpeg brackets, engine mount torque limiter bracket, carburetor bracket to keep them from hitting the driveshaft, removal of the reducing sleeve in the Jaws 600 stigner pipe... ans the list goes on and on and on...

There's one thing you need to be aware of when you decide that "you've got a better solution" to a problem : you do it at your own risk and with your own money. I don't expect ADBoivin to approve what I do and way less to give me money back on R&D I did to cure some problems the Hawk's got... I understand your situation is a bit different but still...

Besides, I did let ADB know what I did about the Walbro fuel pick-up tank brackets mod (probably the problem I (& WhistlerHawk) cured that's the "least acceptable" of all : while at 1/3 or less of gas in the 45L tank going uphill, the Hawk runs out of fuel because fuel goes to the back of the tank and line pick-up is at the front) I wrote a full email with my procedure & pics, never heard anything back. Not even a little, "thanks for the time you spent on that..."

 

[cwh]

If Mike said he'd pay he ought to keep his word. You got a copy of the PM? But I agree, you gotta pay to play. If nobody else is breaking parts one might look at thier riding style.

my 2 cents,

cwh

 

[TallBoysWRF]

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

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!

 

[TallBoysWRF]

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:

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

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.

 

[jr. hawker2]

?

Why so serious man? lawlz

 

[TallBoysWRF]

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

 

[Ex-Member]

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.

Okay, neither mfgr or vendor would warranty any design/upgrade, doing such things generally voids manufacturer's warranty ("Warranty void if this sticker is removed", etc) since their engineers and design team never reviewed the upgrade. Sounds like both mfgr and vendor did what anyone in their situation would have done, offer to remedy the situation as they saw fit. When the client refuses and modifies product, that deal is off the table, the warranty has been voided. Why would the client continue negotiations with the vendor, not the manufacturer, when the vendor has no business relationship in the matter aside from being a vendor to the manufacturer?

For a vendor to shout "blackmail" and threaten lawsuits is a bit low if you ask me. For being $105, most any court is going to tell you to f*ck off considering offers by mfgr and consequently vendor as summarized above. Also, "Slander" is the term for blackening a company's name like this. Went through that at my last job dealing with an investment banker who intended on bankrupting the company.

Appears to me that both sides need to grow up. Client needs to eat the cost of their design and requisition of the part to modify the assembly, vendor needs to relax and realize anyone can put anything on the internet.

Let the red rep flow.

 

[buffaloHAWK]

mike ripped me off too...well sort of

he told me he would come to somerset,pa(his backyard) and race the GNCC with me....he stiffed! missed a great race too!!! the explore would have doen well in all the mud and rocks down there!!!!!!!

lets put this off till next winter...havent you takin off the explorer kit yet and started ridin with wheels again?

hope everyone has a fun and safe summer on 2 wheels!

 

[TallBoysWRF]

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.

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.

 

[Ex-Member]

True story. So the on my 900. Sunk more time and money into this thing than I would have imagined when I bought it.

tl;dr: Bolt that $105 part on your machine and be happy with what you have, then quit b¡tching online about it. I really don't see how he stiffed you, even by your previous reply.

 

[Ex-Member]

And if you want to get rid of it that bad, I'll take the kit off your hands for what it costs to ship it here. I'd love to get one on my 525.