Dan Jude a.k.a. Roadboy

[Victor Meldrew]

Avoid him like the plague

I have been reluctant to post too much about him until I managed to get all my issues resolved. Now I have, and I have undeniable proof of his workmanship and levels of professionalism or lack of.
He is basically a rip off merchant. I know some have had decent experience in the past but take a quick read through my resurrection thread in the general section and you get a more accurate picture of what he is all about. In the last year I have heard several other stories which I have no reason to disbelieve from other members regarding shoddy workmanship.

He is very lucky that the work he did for me was done on a verbal contract to which there is no proof of what was agreed. The lawyer I contacted was not hopeful that we would get a win if I did decide to sue him. Lesson learned for me. He took me for a fool and it has cost me thousands.

Disgusted at how someone I once considered a friend could do this. Don't even think about trying to make comment on this Dan to justify your actions, your credibility is gone. And good riddance to you.

[pete]

Must have been a lousy, lousy experience for you.

[Victor Meldrew]

Must have been a lousy, lousy experience for you.

It was a very difficult four years. He completely disappeared for around 8 months with no contact whatsoever. I was almost at the stage of contacting the police to report the car stolen.

[Mike Scib]

Did he ever try and explain it or justify why?

[Victor Meldrew]

Did he ever try and explain it or justify why?

He moved house and his personal circumstances changed. Thats about all I got for an explanation. I no longer care why. He was a good friend for several years but now he is dead to me.

I have been told that he is still active in the lotus community. My only hope is that nobody else ends up in a similar situation to myself in the future.

[tut]

Never had a problem with Dan but that was just with buying and selling a few items. However I recently put up four S1 front brake callipers in classifieds and he offered me £200 for them.

He asked for my bank details to put the money across, but it never arrived so I did not post them. pm'd him twice but no reply.

tut

[roadboy]

I've been putting off responding to this as I don't want to get into an argument but there's certain things I just can't let go.

Firstly, let me say that this was a complicated situation and one I got into trying to help John out as I did consider him a friend. Anyway, it was a mistake to the this on, certainly what we agreed. The delays and the length of time I had John's car were completely unacceptable. I am completely responsible for that and as such, I have apologised to John for this.

The only thing I take exception to is John saying I have ripped him off. We agreed to sell off the modifications from his car and use the money to rebuild the car as a refurbished, totally standard car. In hindsight this was an unrealistic proposition. John has all the figures from me now so knows what was sold and for how much and also knows what that money was spent on. He says he received back a pile of bits and yes the car was not finished but it had had a lot of work carried out. This included:

Full strip down to bare chassis
Full respray
Full suspension refresh
Many, many replacement parts

As John can vouch for, (as he has the figures) every penny made from the sale of his parts was spent on parts, paint or powdercoating during the rebuild. I put over 100 hours of labour into the rebuild and received nothing for that. Even if, entirely my fault I have lost out massively on this. I understand John was/is angry and has every right to be due to the timescale but I most certainly have not ripped him off or gained anything at all from the situation, only lost over 100 hours of my time when I should have been earning money or spending time with my family.

As I said, the length of time I had John's car was unforgivable and I have wholeheartedly apologised for this. I'm pleased John has his car back on the road and hopefully we can both move on from this now.

Dan

[Victor Meldrew]

I've been putting off responding to this as I don't want to get into an argument but there's certain things I just can't let go.

Firstly, let me say that this was a complicated situation and one I got into trying to help John out as I did consider him a friend. Anyway, it was a mistake to the this on, certainly what we agreed. The delays and the length of time I had John's car were completely unacceptable. I am completely responsible for that and as such, I have apologised to John for this.

The only thing I take exception to is John saying I have ripped him off. We agreed to sell off the modifications from his car and use the money to rebuild the car as a refurbished, totally standard car. In hindsight this was an unrealistic proposition. John has all the figures from me now so knows what was sold and for how much and also knows what that money was spent on. He says he received back a pile of bits and yes the car was not finished but it had had a lot of work carried out. This included:

Full strip down to bare chassis
Full respray
Full suspension refresh
Many, many replacement parts

As John can vouch for, (as he has the figures) every penny made from the sale of his parts was spent on parts, paint or powdercoating during the rebuild. I put over 100 hours of labour into the rebuild and received nothing for that. Even if, entirely my fault I have lost out massively on this. I understand John was/is angry and has every right to be due to the timescale but I most certainly have not ripped him off or gained anything at all from the situation, only lost over 100 hours of my time when I should have been earning money or spending time with my family.

As I said, the length of time I had John's car was unforgivable and I have wholeheartedly apologised for this. I'm pleased John has his car back on the road and hopefully we can both move on from this now.

Dan

Dan

Thank you for that. I will accept that as an apology and can now move on. None of these issues would have happened had you kept in touch through the rebuild. Had you raised your concerns around costs and hours we could have addressed these at the time and may have went a different route. You do however make no mention that the reason the decision was made to return the car to a road car was because you had dramatically failed to deliver a working car back to me at the time. The hours you put in I consider in part as rework to fix a car that broke down less than 200 yards from your unit.

Regardless of how you look at it, I have lost out on four years of Lotus ownership and enjoyment. You cannot put a price on that.

John