Holy ****. That is pretty wild. Obviously the guy has had some problems getting orders out over the past 5 years so I hate to say the writing was on the wall, but I'd never order from him, and never will if this is all true.

It's crazy how many times this exact thing has happened to the offroad community through other businesses.

 

It's sounded like a small business in a cash crunch for quite awhile.
Too bad for someone making a good product, worse for good people out hard earned cash and delayed adventures.

 

Appreciate you taking the time to post all the details.

 

“Gunsmiths.”

“Fabricators.”

“Custom Knives.”

Seems to happen fairly frequently.

 

 

That’s great! Except for the “shoe guys” part WTF really?

 

Well, that’s really good to know. I was debating on ordering a V2 bumper next month but I won’t be doing that now. It sucks because his bumpers are really awesome.

 

Yes that REALLY Sucks.

 

Sad.....I waited for 11 months and ended up canceling my order and getting my refund.

 

Sorry to hear about this and thx for sharing. It both sucks when we trust others online to deliver goods we pay for, and instead they make off with the money, and also when a business providing a product in demand cannot keep it straight and goes under.

It really seemed like a lucrative business startup with a good set of products and demand...

I ordered a custom LED grill back in 2017, felt like I got ghosted after payment until I said I was going to start a dispute, and then received an apology similar to the above, some time later, the custom grill, but never got another response when I had questions.

That V2 bumper was really rather nice.

 

and another thread that's gone off the rails...

 

Yup, sorry, just got 'triggered' by the blanket condemnation ...

Sad ending to the Resz Fab story ... I don't have any of his products, but liked the look of some of them. The quality of the welding on a few parts I saw on-line was cosmetically very nice, but I don't know if that represented the typical workmanship.

 

Wow this really sucks! I love my ResFab DIY bumper! Shame, dude did good work. But screwing people like this is unacceptable.

 

I placed a order with him two years ago.

he quick to make the sell but after six months of waiting and emails not answered i filed with paypal for my money back. got my money back and went with demello sliders at much better price for what i got.

 

I haven’t been here since the beginning, but do remember some of our very own favored “Forum Vendors” having gone rogue in the past...

It can happen to anybody, I guess - you’re one of the “good ole boys” until you’re not.

 

Glad I saw this when I did, was getting ready to order a set of rear links from the website. Guess I will keep looking.

 

MetalCloak (who creates the DuroFlex joints) are making the rear links now. No issues (I'm a customer)

 

This has been going on for over a year and people knowingly continued to send him monies. It will resurface again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Got any witnesses or video of "Mike" supposedly breaking back into this shop and vandalizing it?

He's being reached out to by another member on here and hopefully we can have his side of this story.

 

I'm curious about this as well. The guy who posted that video on FB isn't the most fair & unbiased person (based on his personal FB page) - so it would be good to hear the other side.

 

Resz Fab has an “F” with the BBB and numerous complaints online. The video of the damage to the shop really doesn’t matter to consumers, that’ll be between him, the landlord and possibly local law enforcement or the courts. But what is important, is the poor customer service and business practices. Sadly it seems to happen with a lot of small individual businesses that might have talent for the work, but have no business sense.

RESZ Fabrication INC. | Complaints | Better Business Bureau® Profile

View customer complaints of RESZ Fabrication INC., BBB helps resolve disputes with the services or products a business provides.

www.bbb.org

 

That’s just great, I ordered a bumper about nine months ago. Any suggestions what I should do?

 

Depends how you paid. Credit card, do a charge back. PayPal, open a dispute. When Explore Overland went rogue, some guys got upwards of $15K back from Paypal surprisingly.

This thread (and others you will find Googling) may help - you can share the info with the companies if they ask for more info.

 

What could Resz possibly have for "his side of the story"? I've wanted one of his front bumpers, have spoken to him and *almost placed an order a handful of times, only to remind myself of all the horror stories over the years. Happy I went with my gut. If it looks acts and sounds like a grifter, it is.

 

pretty sure that's about the vandalism claim (at least it is regarding my comment) - certainly looks like a woman's handwriting on the carpet damage from here. 🤷
- good looking bumpers, though, for sure.

 

Sounds like he owned up to running out of money and not being able to provide any sort of restitution to outstanding orders. Very sad.

Dear RESZ Fab Customers and Toyota Offroad community

There's so much I want to say and touch on, but first and foremost I'd like to apologize to the Toyota off-road community and above all, our customers. Those that supported us and trusted us with their hard earned money to build and provide quality products for their rigs. It's a hard pill to sw...

docs.google.com

 

I guess that's worth reposting in its entirety here (in case it's deleted?)

Repost follows:


There's so much I want to say and touch on, but first and foremost I'd like to apologize to the Toyota off-road community and above all, our customers. Those that supported us and trusted us with their hard earned money to build and provide quality products for their rigs. It's a hard pill to swallow and pains me very much to have to pull the plug on RESZ Fabrication, but things finally got to a point where I had no choice. While there are a multitude of reasons why(I'll explain the details further in), the primary reason is me. I failed. I've come to reason with the fact that I have terrible business management and organizational skills and I should have never attempted this venture on my own in the first place. I'm a self taught metal fabricator that came from a software / web development background, not a guy with a business degree or even any experience in manufacturing. What started off as a little hobby of mine grew WAY too fast and I was never able to catch up.



I know a lot of you are wondering about the outstanding orders. Over the last couple of months I've been working diligently with a couple of companies (one local here in Ohio and one in Florida) that were interested in taking over the backlog of orders in exchange for the rights to our product line so they could continue to manufacture the products, but under a different company. In the end, timing and numbers were just not in these companies' favor. While the company in FL is still interested in purchasing the designs at some point, that doesn't help get the backlog taken care of so I can "make things right" with our current customers. Unfortunately neither the company or myself have the means of refunding orders at this time. That doesn't mean I'm still not trying to make things right one way or another. I have 2 other companies on my list that I will be reaching out to in the coming days, but that obviously doesn't guarantee anything either. I figured out a way to keep the business afloat for 7 years and will do my best to figure out a way to make things right for those of you that paid for products, but haven't received them.



That's basically what's going on in a nutshell for those that don't care to read some of the details about how everything transpired.



I guess first let me tell you about myself - Mike Boresz. I'm a father of 2, own a small house (that I'm trying to keep from being foreclosed), taught myself how to weld 10 years ago and started RESZ Fab 8 years ago (6 years full time). Prior to that I was a software / web developer for 12 years. I've struggled with various mental disorders (general anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and ADHD) since I was a teen. Unfortunately I dropped out of high school due to those disorders in my junior year, but thankfully figured out a way to still get enough credits to get my diploma. That's it. Everything else was self taught. I figured since I taught myself several programming languages that running a small manufacturing business would be a breeze. Nope! Not at all! Especially with your own mental state constantly working against you.



I can't tell you how many times I wanted to pull the plug on RESZ, but hated the thought of screwing anyone over. Honestly I've always been the type of person that goes out of their way to help others. I'm not here to screw anyone over, scam people, etc… it's unfortunate but this mannerisms did have an effect on production too. If someone wanted the day off, sure that's fine. Wanted to take off early. Sure not a problem. Come in late. Worked on their vehicle. Had to bring their kid into work. Needed their pay early. Etc etc etc… Sure go right ahead! I very rarely ever said no.



With the above said, I've seen a LOT of hateful comments, emails, texts, etc claiming I'm "scamming" people. While I understand that some may feel like that's what happened, that's NOT what my intentions were. We've sent out thousands of orders over the years. Sure many of them took a very long time, but the products did eventually make it to the customer.



I mentioned "hateful comments" above and I'm not going to get into all of them, but do want to mention that I will NOT deal with threats towards my family. Thankfully there was only one instance recently where I had a customer send me text messages threatening to harm my 4 year old son if he didn't get his links or a refund. A report was filed and the local PD reached out to him. I understand everyone is very angry and upset, but don't drag my family into this. You want to make threats towards me. That's fine. I get it, but don't make threats to a 4 year old child. It's completely uncalled for.



Anyways back to what I was saying before in regards to taking a very long time… Ever since the beginning I've gotten a lot of crap for taking forever on orders. Which I suppose is totally understandable. I started building bumpers in my 2 car garage at my house. I used my FJ as a jig for probably the first 2 dozen bumpers I built. I had a welder, grinder, and table(which was a piece of ⅛" steel on top of an old wooden kitchen table. I was doing this while working a full time job and spending time with my family. It was more of a hobby initially until it wasn't. As demand and backlog grew I started paying some friends to help out. Then started buying more equipment to try to speed up the process. Within a year we already had a large backlog of bumpers and I decided to leave my full time web development job; which was the worst business move in my life. I did this with only a couple thousand bucks in my account. Which was absorbed into the business in no time. After a year of working in my garage full time with RESZ I had the opportunity to move into a larger shop (2700 sqft). Also a dumb move as the new overhead would become a problem. The larger space did somewhat help speed up production a bit, but it had no office so now there was a lot more back and forth between shop and home. At this point I had 2 part time guys that came in at various times of the week. Totaling about 30 hrs a week between the both of them. This went on for a little over a year until we moved a few shops down to a place that was 3600 sqft, but had 1000 sqft of office space. It was shortly after that move when I finally put my one part time guy on full time. So now it was him and I full time and a part time guy.



The backlog continued to grow and customers were getting more and more aggravated with my lack of communication and the long wait times. It didn't help that my estimated time frames have always been grossly inaccurate. At the same time making changes to the website were also on the back burner as I was focused on trying to get as much done as I could. I was ALLLLLL over the place physically and mentally. I couldn't mentally or financially afford to move forward without some customer service help, as more and more customers were canceling orders or doing chargebacks on their credit cards. So a year into the new shop I hired on a part time receptionist. She was by far the biggest asset to the company. I FINALLY had a glimpse of hope moving forward and getting caught up on some orders. Several months later COVID-19 brings havoc. Any hope I had previously is starting to fade. Between local mandates, shutdowns, people getting sick, and supply issues the setbacks just kept piling up. We were continually taking 1 step forward and 3 steps back. I was determined to get through all this crap and then the crazy inflation hits at the worst possible time. I've got orders from almost a year out, the cost of steel is now 3 times the cost as it was then, and unforeseen setbacks continue to roll in.



At our busiest & strongest point in 2021 we had 2 full time employees, myself, the receptionist /office manager, and one part time guy trying to handle a couple hundred orders at any given time. We were never a big production facility like some of you may have thought. Maybe it was our web/social presence that made everyone think we were larger. I don't know.



Alright let's touch base on some rumors… We'll start with the most recent that I destroyed the shop upon leaving. That is 100% FALSE!



Another one is that the landlord "kicked us out for nonpayment". That is also 100% FALSE!



Ohhh where do I start.. So back in late June I started talking with a local powder coater about teaming up with them. They were interested in taking over the backlog in exchange for me doing some work for them and continuing / expanding the RESZ product line(that's a whole other story). While we were in discussions I told Butch (maintenance guy that collects rent) on July 1st that I may not be there the full month and would not be paying for a full month's rent. Told him I'd give him enough to cover the first few weeks and would let him know within a week if we were going to be there all month. This turned into a bunch of yelling and cussing (which is on camera).



Some of you may think "Wow that's kind of a shitty move.". Let me explain.. We were in this building for almost 3 years. 2 of those years I complained about the horrible leaks in the roof and flooding in the shop during heavy rains. They never did anything. At least 50% of the shop would be covered in water. Some spots over an inch deep. Seeing that mild steel rusts when it's comes in contact with water, it's damaged a fair bit of material and products over the years. Thousands of dollars worth to be exact. Of course they refuse to fix the problem or reimburse me for damages and I'm not going to put in insurance claim everytime we get a heavy rain. If someone stood on this section of roof they would fall through. The only thing preventing a skylight is the roll roofing. I decided I wasn't going to pay a penny extra for rent on a building the landlord doesn't give a **** about. In addition to the out of pocket expenses on lost goods, I've also spent well over $2k fixing the community forklift and countless hours/days fixing it so we could move around bumpers and heavy materials. When I asked to be reimbursed for that the landlord literally said "I don't give a **** about that thing. I'll drive it into the lake. Ask the other guys to reimburse you." Mind you Butch (the maintenance guy) uses this forklift as well. Is what it is..



Moving on.. I ended up paying for the full month of July on the 7th since we weren't going to be out before the end of the month. At the end of July Butch popped his head in and noticed we were packing stuff up. At which point I told him we were moving out. He asked if I'd have rent money on the first of August. I told him it wasn't happening. "Okay I'll let Mikey know." he said.



Becky (office manager/receptionist) and I moved that whole office and shop ourselves. With the majority being done myself. It took almost the whole month of August. On Monday August 29th I sent Butch a text stating I had some RESZ products left in the shop that I still had to grab, but everything else was out(except security cameras). He said okay thanks just leave the keys on the window sill when you're done.



I was tied up most of Tuesday morning, but did run up to the shop real quick to grab some electrical stuff and was going to grab a pallet of RESZ products while I was at it, but the forklift wasn't there. Figured I'd just grab it later when I came back. This is where it gets entertaining.



I got back to the shop around 3:45 and the first thing I noticed was my front security camera was missing. I immediately knew my neighbors Jack and Dylan(aka Ray) in unit B were in the shop and stole my cameras. I've had issues with these guys since they moved in a year and half prior. Let me paint a picture for you. Jack literally lives out of his shop, has a bunch of junk cars out front without cats that he'll "fix up" and sell, shop puppy laying in its own feces in his crate while being left alone for days(yes APL was called), suspended license, and warrants out for his arrest. At one point he threatened Becky because she told him he needed to take care of his dog. He called OSHA to try to get me in trouble for false violations because he was mad that I might take over his shop if he got kicked out (this was over a year ago). He's intentionally parked in front of my bay door so I couldn't get anything in or out. He's also thrown roofing nails multiple times in my parking spot out front. Dylan(Ray) on the other hand spent over $2k bailing Jack out of jail at one point. Ray was mad that he wasn't getting paid back so decided he was going to break into the shop (that he left), but first decided to spray paint my back camera so he wasn't seen. Which was on video. He still tried to deny it, but ended up paying me for the camera - which was nice.



Needless to say I knew exactly where my camera was. Upon going inside I noticed boxes and junk thrown everywhere. We had boxes nicely stacked in the corner and junk that was getting tossed was in designated areas (corners or up against the wall on a large pallet so it could easily be moved). Once we walked through the office and into the shop area I noticed all of the bumpers and other RESZ products were gone. Roughly $13k worth of product. First thing I did was go next door to unit B and ask Jack and Dylan where all of the RESZ stuff was along with my cameras. While standing next to a 6 foot ladder randomly placed in the middle of his shop he says "I have no idea". After getting louder with him he says "Ohh your bumpers are in Butch's unit. Call Butch." So I call Butch on my cell while on speaker phone with the cops. He didn't answer at first. A couple of mins later he calls back with Mikey (landlord) on the line too. We couldn't understand anything they were saying because they were so trashed. Finally the cop gets on the phone and tells them they need to release my things or they're pressing charges. They refused to relate the items. Cops pass over the report to the prosecutor, but they can't do anything because I didn't have a contract with my damn landlord. So now it's a civil matter. They also couldn't do anything in regards to Jack or Ray being in the unit because Butch allowed them to go in to "clean".



At 5:15pm I was out of there. Picked up my son from karate and went home. After dinner I had my father come with me to the shop to get the FJ that was parked out front. I also had the cops meet us up there since I didn't trust Jack or Ray. I hopped out of my truck and into the FJ and left. Never went inside and never even looked inside. The next morning my buddy John was looking for the forklift and ended up looking in the window of the shop and saw a bunch of spray paint in the carpet. I immediately just assumed it was Jack and Ray writing something negative about me due to the previous night. Then he tells me it says "Hi Butch". Which immediately confused me, but then realized they were trying to set me up. Can't remember if it was later that day or the following day I received a video of the mess from a customer. It was at that point it was clear what those little assholes were up to. With that said, I had nothing to do with the mess and damages to the shop.



I guess that's about all I have for now. Everything mentioned above can be proven on my end with the exception of who exactly trashed the shop after I moved out. While I highly suspect it was Jack and Ray, I don't have any particular proof (yet).

 

Simple fix, refund the money for non-full-filled orders. Otherwise he's just a grifter, and deserves anything that comes his way...

 

Check your dictionary for the definition of a 'grifter' ... an intentional swindler.

I don't think Mike was an intentional swindler, he was an FJ owner and self-taught designer/fabricator who built some accessories for his own vehicle that people liked and asked him to make the same thing for them.

From what little I know (mostly garnered from this Forum) it seems like he had interesting design concepts and great fabrication skills, but he just didn't have the business acumen to successfully run a small business.

It's way more complicated and takes much more effort than you might think.

 

Sorry, if you take money and don't fill orders I don't have any sympathy.... Regardless of reasons (excuses).

 

Not suggesting that he's owed any sympathy ... just that his ambition was larger than his capability, and that his business failed as a result of it.

Everybody involved suffered a loss of some kind or another.

 

It’s too easy for people to file bankruptcy theses days. He could do that and no one gets anything back. Atleast he wants to make it right from what I Read. Ask me how I know. Local business in Dothan, Alabama screwed me and a lot of other people. Court claim of 5K dollars on my part and I got a whole 250 dollars distributed back to me because the Jacka$$ was a couple million in debit with his business and out living his income capabilities. To this day with bankruptcy….. he still lives in a different but very nice house and acts as if nothing ever happened with screwing people.

 

Thank you, eimkeith for posting that information. It really does help, to understand the situation Mike has been in. It is sad when a business fails, and especially so when it seems easy for others to 'monday morning quarterback' how they assume they could have done better. So many things were working against Mike (owner and creator of Resz Fab).

 

over the course of 45 years in the machining industry, i have seen several good machinists, a couple of them close friends, quit to "start their own business". every one of them failed. the lesson there is you can be great at something you do, but you need that "business sense" to make a company work. hopefully Mike finds a company capable of keeping his product and designs alive.