Scraping the Sportster Project
Last year I did a post about picking up a Sportster project off of Craigslist. The package deal I scored was great. A 1998 1200c engine with title, a 1967 Sportster frame, and a 1973 set of motor cases with the top-end and title along with about a half a truck load of misc Sporty parts. I hauled it all home for $650 with all kinds of possibilities swimming around in my head.
After reviewing my options, I sold off the 67 frame and cases to get back my initial investment. I then went on a search for a sportster frame, for the 1200c engine.
Trying to stay on a low budget (plus I’m cheap) I found a deal on eBay for a custom built frame from an up and coming custom bike builder out of Indiana. It was a sweet deal for a custom built frame at a cost of only $550.00. Paughco frames go for around $800 bucks and as my dad always said “son you get what you pay for”. But I thought I’d give this kid a chance. He had a nice website showing the frames he’d built and some testimonials. He even had some biker magazine review articles and pictures from V-Twin, Hot Bike, Cruising Rider documenting his work.
I did my purchase through his eBay listing using PayPal and putting the charge on my credit card. The order was to take four to six weeks to complete. After contacting him when the payment went through he said he’d be getting back to me when he was getting my frame ready for the frame jig.
I waited five weeks, after not hearing from him I made contact, he responded, telling me there were a couple of frames ahead of mine and it would be another two weeks to get mine on the jig.
A red flag popped up and I thought it was time to check up on this lad. Going back to eBay, his feedback was starting to look ugly. Searching around using his name, popped-up some posts on a couple of motorcycle forums that were just starting to look ugly.
I contacted him again after the two weeks flew by (now seven weeks in to the deal). He came off with some excuse that I wasn’t buy’n. I mentioned the forum crap and bad eBay feedback, he had just falling behind and was playing ketch-up, he tells me. I’m just an easy going guy so I cut him some slack, he said he’d be getting to my frame next.
Next never comes and the posts on the forums get real ugly. His eBay account gets shut down, and I loose all contact with him. Six months have passed I have no frame and I’m out $550 bucks of hard earned money so I’m thinking I’m screwed.
Now I don’t get screwed to often by strangers and prefer to be on top. So I contact my credit card company and file a billing dispute. I had all the emails, and phone calls logged with all the information. This was the key to getting the full amount credited back to my CC account. On November 30th, seven and a half months after I had made the frame purchase I was issued the refund.
When doing the late back-ground search on this low-life lad, named Jeromy Hagemier, I found a couple of other guys getting screwed by him. One guy had over $1,100 dollars invested, he paid by check, as far as I know he’s out the $1100. Another guy was out about $800 bucks.
So after getting burnt-out dealing with trying to get a frame and then get my money back, I sold the 1200c engine the end of December and scraped the Sportster project.
I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. I’m thinking I’ll just stick to the “Big Twins”.
