Prodigy Customs ripped me off

[navyflyer72]

I have been in comms with the moderators both here and at Lateral-G.net. I was given permission to post again in order to clear my name. Although I deserve a public apology for the final post that all but calls me a liar in the last Prodigy posting I wonder if I will get one. That post had 10,000 views in roughly three weeks, so its a shame that a victims integrity would be called into question in the final post and the thread locked. Especially for the reasons I found out this happened.

So what follows is the truth as far as I can tell. I can only tell you what I have firsthand knowledge. Anything I relate that I got secondhand will be annotated as such.

I was told that someone had called the moderators and claimed that my story was incomplete.

I was told that this person was Michael Serafine, Franks son, who was also the President and manager of
prodigy (per the publically available court documents)

I was told that Michael made a number of claims regarding my post, like, I had missed several payments,
Frank had to put my Camaro into storage, my wife tried to sell my Camaro while I was deployed, these were
the ones I was told about.

This call was enough to prompt the moderator of lateral-g.net to take down a support thread and post a one
line thread explaining that information had come to light that needed to be verified before the post would be
returned to the forum. Here on PT.com the thread was locked with a final post from a moderator that makes
me look like a liar.

I stayed up last night until 4 am, forwarding over 30 emails and email chains to garickman (who is a retired
disabled-in-the-line-of-duty Police Officer) to review the communications between me and my wife and Frank
and Lisa at Prodigy over the 5 years my car was in Franks possession.

I had over 104 emails in my email between me and Frank. 69 of those were initiated by me, 28 were
initiated by Frank, 7 were from my wife to Frank. As you can see, most of my emails were not responded to.

The rough timeline looks like this:

Dec 2008 first contact with Frank regarding taking on my car for mods

18 Jan 2008 Frank picks up my Camaro from Maryland and takes it to Fl and $500 (rough date)

4 Apr 2008 Frank receives $4800 credit card payment

5 Apr 2008 Frank receives $3800 credit card payment

7 Apr 2008 Frank sells wheels/tires/rear, engine and subframe off my car and gets $7367 in cash these are parts that were sold on PT.com, and you can read this in my build thread as I sold many parts to forum members, I will include a price breakdown later in this post when I show the rest of the money.

18 Apr 2008 Frank emails that he is starting work on my Camaro, he had it since Jan, but he told me then it would be a while until he could get it in to the shop due to other builds and lack of space.

21Apr2008 Frank sends a 2 page invoice and that shows parts bought (totaling $23,927.30) and money received to date totaling $16,467.


I am deployed this time and the Navy had screwed up my pay. I hadn't been paid in two months and a bonus I was expecting was late. My wife (despite being angry that I told her that the Prodigy work would only be around $10k) was coordinating the work on my behalf in my absence. I have sent her emails to garickman. She explained the pay situation with Frank and she had a plan to get him paid off for what was owed still and Frank was good with the plan.

between the end of April and June she send Frank a $2500 payment

2Jul2008 My wife send him the final payment of $7000 credit card payment

as of 2Jul2008 Frank had $25,967 in cash. The parts had been $23,927, there was $2000 paid towards the labor already completed.

Frank had estimated $6000 for labor (he was charging me $50/hr which he said was his rate for military) and I had paid $2000 of that at this point. based upon what I picked up last week, 90% of this labor never happened.

In 2008 Frank sent me 10 emails

In 2009 Frank sent me 5 emails

In 2010 Frank sent me 6 emails

In 2011 Frank sent me 1 email (I originally thought this was zero, but I found one email in another account)

In 2012 Frank sent me 3 emails

In 2013 Frank sent me 5 emails, they were all in the last three weeks coordinating for me to pick up what was left of my Camaro.

I will attach to this post a picture of the two page invoice that Frank sent on 21Apr2008, my credit card and debit card statements showing payments on the above listed dates of the above listed amounts to GPSUPERSTORE, which was Prodigy's parts charge name.

In the years that followed I received one Frank initiated email. Every other bit of communication was initiated by me. Most of those were not responded to. I grew increasingly frustrated as the years passed and the excuses continued and the deadlines proposed by Frank came and went without a call or email, and I would email him and he would not reply and when he finally would reply he had another (usually compelling and seemingly true) excuse, that I would buy and give him slack. He was a con artist.

Just like James Frank Serafine- Franks father who was charged and found guilty in 1987 for a similar scam using Mustangs- Frank was a scam artist as well. He was talented and engaging and had a big personality, but he was a liar. He built amazing cars, big name cars, SEMA cars, cars for Shaq, he ensured people whose opinions in the community never had delays with him (moderators on this site and other sites for instance, per their own admission in my last post). These are tactics of a con artist. Look at Bernie Madoff, he was a Ponzi scheme con artist, but he made millionaires in the process, because they spread the word and got him more business. Frank got the word out by building big name cars off the backs of the regular joe's he was screwing over to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars.

guys like Hard2Core and I essentially lost $100k or more. Hard2Core sent Frank a '69 Camaro and $100k, he got back some parts and a shell of a '69 Camaro. I sent Frank a finished '67 Camaro PT machine that I had spent around $100k on over 7 years (bought her in Nov 2001 - Frank picked her up Jan 2008). Let me list out the parts Frank has on the invoice that he says he purchased, and let me tell you what I received from that list:

This is on the invoice I will attach from 21Apr2008:
$6400 Forgeline wheels/tires
$6400 DSE hydroformed subframe/w coilovers, rack&pinion and swaybar
$379 DSE minitube
$175 DSE through body weld-in subframe connectors
$660 DSE billet hood hinges
$1600 G Bar rear suspension
$2500 Moser 12 bolt (shortened)
$3500 Wilwood brake kit
$1900 TKO600
$276 shipping for wheels/tires
$16.50 shipping for shocks
$120 press off axel bearings for brake brackets and new bearings

Total - $23,927 (this is on front age of invoice) of this $23,514.50 is for parts.



Here is what I received from that list:

mini tubs and SFC's, totaling $554. So I am missing $22960.50 in brand new parts! Where are they? In their place is the rusted junkyard running gear from a mid-60's car. Rusted 10 bolt, rusted leaf springs, Rusted spindles and springs up front, rusted partial drum brakes, steel wheels with two lug nuts each.

Parts that are just plain missing off my Camaro that were never supposed to be sold (this is an incomplete list as I am not done going over the car, I am sure this list will grow)

Aluminum Be Cool radiator and fans
drive shaft
aluminum spindles
hotchkis subframe connectors
headers that I had bought with the 383 Engine from Texas
most of my accessories, though these may be sitting inside my Camaro, but I haven't had time to get inside, since the lock knobs were removed and the doors locked and I didn't receive the keys to my car.

All of these parts were never to be sold off and I don't have them. This is roughly $3-4000 in parts, simply gone.

I will gladly send all of the emails that I sent to garickman to anyone who wants to verify my story. I am attaching the invoice and credit card statements to this post, I have proof of everything I have stated. Which is why I am so bothered by this situation that I stayed up all night proving my integrity. I am a 23 year Mustang Naval Officer, Pilot and Intelligence Officer, I am a father, a husband, and a brother to 4 military brothers (one passed away) and one military sister and I do not lie. I have deployed to Iraq twice, Afghanistan 7 times, Somalia, and several other more sensitive areas, I have worked with Special Forces in the ground for the last 8 years, to have my integrity questioned because Michael or Frank Serafine says I am lying is both a slap in my face and beyond acceptable. Frank has been convicted in court and Hard2Core has $136k in judgements against Frank, as well as a ton of court costs. Do you think he will ever see any of that money. I'll tell you the answer, no. The Canadian millionaire that invested in Prodigy placed liens on everything Frank owns, so that option is out. Look at the number of people who posted on my last thread talking about the parts they never received or that took over a year to receive from Frank. He scammed so many and yet if they say something their word is taken over ours? What gives?

I want to point out that 27 year old Michael Serafine is now running another muscle car business in Orlando (Altamont Springs I believe to be more accurate), I believe it is called Muscle Car Dynamics. Can anyone tell me why/how the President/Manager of Prodigy would have another business after he was named in the lawsuits against Prodigy, and he has this place less than 18 months after Prodigy closed up shop (I think even less time, but not sure exactly)? He couldn't have qualified for a business loan? Where did the money, tools, equipment, parts etc come from? I don't know. I am simply pointing out something that is fishy and all this information is publically available. PM me and I can send you links.

Yet my integrity is questioned.

I posted to warn everyone that no matter how big a builder is, or how highly recommended they are on these forums, you too can get screwed. If the mods would repost that thread you can re-read my posts and you will see that there is nothing in there that this - more detailed- thread doesn't bear out to be true. I never lied, I never asked anyone for anything. My sole purpose was to warn others, especially the younger enthusiasts on these forums.

I hope this post illuminates the full and complete story, if anyone wants the emails to back this all up, PM me or ask me to post them. I have no problem posting them all. You can also go on my build thread and see exchanges between Frank and I on there. You will see he threatens to "air my dirty laundry" that being that my wife got pissed that I spent $25k more on a car I had already spent nearly $100k on already. OK, there it is, my wife was mad that I spent more money than I told her about, does that situation sounds familiar to anyone on here??? To address the claim that my wife tried to have Frank sell my car while I was deployed, she says not only is that not true, she sent me all her emails between her and Frank and one email even asks Frank if he could finish the car in the next two months so she can surprise me with it as a welcome home from deployment gift. Yup, I have that email too for anyone who wants me to forward it to them.

Or was my dirty laundry that I was without pay, while deployed to Afghanistan for two months because of a Navy DFAS pay issue? Oh, sorry Frank, I couldn't pay you for 8 weeks the final $7000 of the $25000 that I gave you for parts that I never received or labor that was never performed. Is that the dirty laundry?

I am an open book and I have the emails and phone records to prove it. So if you Frank, or you Michael have something that refutes this, bring it, post it and then tell me where $22,000 worth of my new parts are and also where about $3-4000 in my parts that were on my car that weren't to be sold are? Tell me that.

Because the bottom line of this whole thing is Frank and Michael and Prodigy are thieves. They took my money, they took my parts, the billed for labor never performed. I have the $5000 shell of a Camaro sitting in my garage as proof. I will repost the picture of my Camaro when I gave her to Frank and the pictures of what I picked up last week.

Now someone, anyone please question my integrity again, you know who I am talking to.

[navyflyer72]

Those were the before pictures (some were from right before and after I installed the Moser rear which was in 2005 before I packed her up in a U-Haul and moved from Washington State to Maryland) She only ever had a few hundred miles on her before Frank got her. The pics outside by the grass are from a few months before Frank picked her up. Here are the after pics. Note no bolts in the engine mounts, no shocks front or rear, rusted junkyard drivetrain, look at subframe connectors completely rusted, installed in 2010 per Franks emails.

[navyflyer72]

And here's the invoice from 21Apr2008. And the credit card and debit card statements showing the payments.

[navyflyer72]

My hope is to get into my Camaro this weekend and get a complete accounting of what is there and what is missing. I will be sure to post this updated list along with pictures over the weekend. I suspect the total loss of parts will eclipse $30k once I pull the receipts from my build folder for what is gone.

[DTM Racing]

I wish you the best of luck in resurrecting your Camaro. As a shop owner, I can't imagine doing that to a customer. I would hope that your tragedy reminds folks to do a lot of homework before passing off your car and a lot of hard earned money to a stranger a long distance away. I know most of my customers ask for updates quite often, and I try to post progress on the Facebook as much as possible to assure them that their money is going into their cars and no where else.

[garickman]

George, I am so glad that the mods here on PT.com, allowed you to post and clear your good name.

For those that don't know, I am the person who started the thread on Lateral-g to help George keep his dream alive. I can tell you that before it got derailed by some "new information" that was never verified, it was really starting to pick up steam.

I am not going to go in details about how many people and vendors were willing to help but I personally think we could have pulled it off. For the last several days, I have spent countless hours on the computer sending emails and PM's and dozens upon dozens of phone calls, first in an effort to help George with his dream and then in an effort to clear his good name. My emotions ran high about what George was going through and I said some things to people I probably should not have said this includes several moderators of both PT and Lat-g. I would like to apologize for that, but to be honest if I had to do it all over again I would.

In my wildest dreams, I never thought starting a thread to help a fellow man and what I consider a hero would actually ending up kicking him while he was down. So I will say this to George Hartwell on a public forum;

"George, although it was never my intention. I want to apologize to you for getting your hopes up again on finishing your dream. I really thought this was going to work. I want to apologize for whatever part I played in smearing your name and for that I am most sorry"

I would be honored if we could remain in contact with each other and once again thank you for your service to our country.

Lastly, I would like to point this out for those that don't know. Dante (hard2core) lost more money than anyone else. He lost $100,00.00 to Prodigy and another $40,000.00 in legal fees. Although he won a judgement against Frank and Prodigy, he will most likely never see that money. When Dante found out that I was starting a movement to help George (navyflyer) complete is dream car he never once said why George and not me. Instead when Dante found George did not have a place to store his car right now, he offered to pay storage for up to one year and he offered a cash donation to help rebuild.

It is men like Dante and George that make me proud to be American.

[Jon69RagTop]

I applaud the moderator of this board for allowing you to post this. It was the right thing to do first of all, and I hope to see a similar update on the other forum too.

Secondly, George your integrity was never in doubt with me. I believe your story and have no trouble finding negative posts about the previous builder.

I truly hope this incident does not destroy your passion for the hobby or the people associated with it. If Greg is able to put a plan together to help you, I'm in. Personally I want to "Thank You" for your services to our country and all the people's lives you have touched while in deployment. I hope as a community, somehow, even if its without sponsorship that we can help you in some way. I'm rooting for Greg to figure out the details.

Thank you again.
Jonathan.

[navyflyer72]

Guys, first off let me thank everyone who has supported me. Especially Greg and Dante for their unwavering support. I would also like to thank John Parsons here and Jody at Lateral-G for communicating with me and giving me the green light to post this up. I will copy this post over on Lateral-G tonight also.

I want you all to know that just being permitted to clear my name means a lot to me. I told John Parsons that losing this money does not define me, it is my family and my integrity and how I conduct myself despite being knocked down that defines me.

I could lower myself to the same level as Frank if you look at his responses to me in previous threads where I called him out on not responding to me and taking too long. He attacked me, blamed me and did anything but take any responsibility at all for my car taking 2-3 years at that point to get done, and it wasn't even done then. I tried to make it look like I was to blame, like my wife was conspiring to sell my car, when in fact she was emailing him when I was deployed to try and get him to finish the build to surprise me.

It is -in a sick sort of way- kind of humorous that Frank thought he could get away with this scam. As if he would be able to do this to people and he would still be considered a stand up guy.

Enough Frank and Prodigy bashing though. I need to put him and what he did to me and my family behind me and look forward. What I do now defines me.

I hope you all understand that no matter what I decide to do with my Camaro, I will always read about, come out to shows and events, and watch the shows about our hobby. I will support you all in one form or another, but I will never criticize you if you have been wronged by a shady scam artist. In this country we are innocent until proven guilty. In this case the wrong doer has been proven guilty in at least one civil case (Dante's case) in a court of law. I think that is why I was so angry last night when it felt like I was being made out to be the bad guy. I stayed up all night pulling emails, writing a summary of those emails and forwarding them to folks I was verifying my story with. By the time I was finished it was morning and time to go to work. I was pretty steamed at work also. I kept trying to figure out how I was turned into the bad guy. I mean, I'm the victim here. It was like blaming the bank for getting robbed.

Regardless, the mods have seen it appropriate to allow me to say my piece and present the verification of my story. I hope that the above post and attachments do that. If not I can just as easily start attaching the emails. They clearly tell the whole story. I sure hope there is no one out there who still believes that any part of what I have posted is a fabrication, or even a stretching of the truth. It is not.

Tomorrow I plan to go over my Camaro from top to bottom and figure out exactly what is missing besides the pieces I listed in the first post. I am afraid to find out, but I am estimating somewhere between $3000-$5000 in pieces missing that were not to have been taken off the car.

I will be sure to post up pictures of every aspect of my car, along with the comparison pictures from my photo archives.

Thanks Jonathan for your words of understanding and support. I'm still hoping to link up with Ryan and Steve here in Northern Virginia soon. I'll let everyone know when that happens, I am excited to see their builds, they both sound amazing.

More soon.

-George

[navyflyer72]

Here is a link to a thread I started when my car went to Prodigy. Pay close attention to the dates and realize that the long gaps in posts are when I was deployed. Then my posts #30 and #32 call Frank out for not moving ahead on m build in over 2 years. The he blows up and threatens to post me emails (go ahead, I will too, they support all my allegations against him) he says I'm $5000 behind in payument for labor. OK, let's do some math. If Frank is charging me $50/hour labor (military rate) that would be 100 hours. So far all he did was was halfway install SFCs and Minitubs, and that's all they ever did to my car, minus removing parts that they sold, or stole (see above post for list of these parts)

Here is the link to that thread:

https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/...rodigy-Customs

Regards,
George

[navyflyer72]

Here is a thread from when was laid up in a Canadian Field Hospital in Kandahar injured in May 2008. This post shows that Frank knew about the Navy pay SNAFU and you can see from the above invoices that at the time of this thread Frank had $16,500 of the $23k for parts, he received $2500 in June and $7000 in July of 2008. If you read the post from Frank from the link in the above post you will see that Frank claims to have had to buy $20k in parts with his own money since I didn't pay him. In reality he had $16,500 when he started work, so even if he had bought the parts all at once the most he would have been out of pocket would be between $3000-$6,000. But based on the numerous stories of Frank never ordering parts, and taking months nd years to get parts, its a safe bet that he is lying here, and he never ordered the parts, if he did, well then, where are they?

https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/...tan?highlight=

[navyflyer72]

This is my post from Jan 2013 when I finally blew a gasket over how long it had been. I had spent months calling and emailing with no responses. I was getting ready to deploy again so I was in the work up cycle, but I still called and emaied nearly constantly for months.

https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/...!-!?highlight=

[kochevy67]

If I may I would like to chime in with a little advice. I am in Law Enforcment and I can tell you that this is a criminal offense PERIOD. It is fraud and / or deceptive practice. If it happened to one person I would say it would be harder to sell as a criminal offense, but now that there are multiple victims I can tell you I would definitely contact the Police Dept. or Sheriff's office of the county or city where Frank cashed or received monies from you to perform the work. I would also reach out to Hard2core and ask him if Frank was ever deposed under oath and if so inquire about acquiring a certified copy of the deposition. You may become very educated at what people say under oath. Unforunately there are thousands of these cases that happen daily and go unnoticed due to the fact that the victims are told it is a civil matter. If you do not get anywhere with local law enforcement I would contact the Attorney General's Office in Florida and ask them for assistance. Being that you are in the service they may be more inclined to take a look at this case. Which also makes me want to thank you for your service to the country. Good luck with this.

[parsonsj]

There's a thread somewhere that talks about Prodigy Customs being investigated by the Sanford FL police internet crimes task force. I don't know that we've ever heard what became of that.

[bret]

George and Greg...I am still on board with my original offer.

[sjaroslo]

John, I am pretty sure that thread was pulled and the reason given was something along the lines of the investigation was supposed to not be public and when the detective found out that it had been posted on an Internet forum, either he or the OP requested it to be pulled down.

[navyflyer72]

kochecy67 - Thanks, I have actually been researching if this meets the criteria for a criminal charge. This helps.

Bret - I appreciate your offer. I'll be in touch and I'm sure Greg will also.

John - My wife actually pulled the publicly available information on the Sanford POlice Internet Crimes Task Force. While neither filing criminal charges or passing my information to the investigator with the Internet Crimes Task Force is likely to result in me getting my parts or money, I'm still going to do it.

Regards,
George

[navyflyer72]

Here is another email that I pulled from the archives. This is an email from Frank in Jan of 2008, before he came to pick up my Camaro. He says verbatim:

"Even if your not ready $$$$ we could tuck it away until we are both ready. it will be a couple months before I am ready anyway."

Here's the email.

[navyflyer72]

Here's the email right after that one stating that his labor rates are normally $60, but for military he charges $50.

[navyflyer72]

Here's an email from Frank from April 1, 2008, in it he says that he has ordered all the parts on the invoice and they are in and that the only parts they are waiting on are the Wilwood brakes. If you recall from the above attachments, Frank had $7300 in cash from my parts I sold, and then he received $8600 in two credit card charges on 4 and 5 April.

[navyflyer72]

This email from Frank on 19July2008, (remember from above attachments that he had the final payment on 2Jul, so he now has all the parts money AND $2000 towards labor), in this email Frank he's not worried about the labor money yet, and he also says that as soon as he starts working on my car again it will go quick, so I need to be ready with the remainder of the money. Here it is cut out of the email:

"I will have Lisa do a review, but I think we are super close to even on parts. I am not to worried about labor money right now as it is not that much. We have some labor time in the tear down is about it, but I can have Lisa do a charge if you want and "put it on account"?

I want to go over the budget too as it is important we know all the funds are ready. This is not going to be a long time period of work nce we schedule you back in, so i do not want to be in a situation where we cannot be paid when it is done.

Give me a few days to gather myself after this 3 week thrash. And I can sit down and review everything. I have 2 huge projects fixing to pop, and once I get them out I can start looking at a realistic time we can get you back in the shop."