Pelfreybilt Information Release

If that doesn't pan out and you have less than $5G on the line small claims court is another relatively easy option.

dont be stupid and get your money back now!! Or be stupid, wait for the bankruptcy and someone will go to Fiji with your $5G

 

Just for some context if your brokerage company went bankrupt you'd be an unsecured creditor and would most likely lose all your money (your stocks are not held in your name, they're held in street name so you are not even the actual listed owner of the shares).

Also, while the communication has been a let down to most I feel we need to support the small community of Toyota parts manufacturers and distributors. You all have various ways to re-claim your money in the event of a worst case scenario unless somehow you paid in cash.

 

I hope vendors of off road bumpers have a quicker turn around time for their bumpers. Waiting 3-6+ months for a product is ridiculous. Are these small fabrication companies running on very tight margins that they need your money first to build a single product??

If there is a hot product to sell like a Tacoma rear bumper why can't Pelfrey build as many rear bumpers as they can stock up and sell them fast. Taking money from a customer and having them wait for 6 months is not good business practice. How much is the raw material to make a rear bumper for a Tacoma? Less than $500? They should be charging you for a deposit of the raw material not the full price.

I really hope Pelfrey new business approach will have a better turn around time for future customers. I am in the market for a front and rear bumper but holding off until what is in the future for Pelfrey.

 

Maybe they are already building them as fast as they can. There is a lot of time and labor in making a bumper. If you're a business, why take on more overhead to get lead times down if customers are still ordering your products despite the wait? You're adding cost for no gain. That's not smart business. And yes, the margins are small.

 

Yes I agree with you, but if they already so busy and building bumpers as fast as they can why are they continuing expanding (i.e. 5th gen 4runner Bumper, etc) their product lines to make them self even more busy? This seems like a snow ball effect for failure, unless they hire more people and expand shop, buy better equipment, etc than they should not expand their product line since they are having difficult time providing CURRENT products to their customers.

 

I'm sure someone here is named Chad, works in a law office, bangs only 10's and drives a lambo. I wonder if that Chad has a Pacer account to log in a view court cases

 

Yeah most of these fabrication vendors stay small. Look at all the ones on Tacoma world.

There are probably many things that account for this. Growing too big causes growing pains, more overhead, more equipment, the need to sell more etc. These pieces of work don't just make themselves. Finding skilled labor is harder than one might think.

While their business practice of charging full payment up front is probably not the best way to do it, their product is always one of the best. All these vendors seem to hit a "road block" at some point in time. It happened with relentless, brute force fab, etc. Being a small company anything can happen and can drastically turn the tides of your company. The ones who make good products are usually not always the best business minded people.

 

I can't answer specifically for another company (obviously). We design new products to hedge against sales declines. Not all products stay popular forever. You have to keep designing products in hopes that you find one that sells well. Even with a popular product, as you gain more sales your market to sell to gets smaller (i.e. everyone that wants a bumper already bought a bumper).

 

The first 10 builds should be the toughest, by then you should have all the kinks worked out and be able to cut and weld them in some sort of a streamlined fashion. If Henry Ford operated like this......

 

Come on. You're just stating obvious stuff. The vendors are pretty smart and good at this. The products still take a long time to make for relatively small profit even after you work out the "kinks". We are operating with huge investments and large bulk orders. You can't count on investing to build 10,000 bumpers as fast as possible because you don't know those orders will come. We are talking about large scale manufacturing here. It's closer to custom work than assembly line production.

 

I have such a great respect for a vendor that's a builder backing another builder and not painting the picture that they are a horrible company as others have claimed Pelfreybilt out to be.

These are custom bumpers. Kinks will not be figured in 10 orders. Think auto manufacturers figure out kinks in the first 10 vehicles.

@jowybyo seriously thanks for the positive input

 

Well said. He knows the nature of the business. I own a small shop (not truck parts) and I know how things go. Maybe I'm just optimistic, but I'm sure something will work out at some point .

Worst case, someone else gets the money that I hopefully get back at some point. We are talking about toys bolted onto my toys after all.

 

Ya...that's not the worst case. Worst case is you don't get your 5k back. Wish I could be this laid back about $5k...

 

There's a reason all my purchases are on a credit card.

For real though. In 2015? I purchased a bog standard regular pelfrey rear bumper. No swing out, no hitch, nothing. Order was processed, service was handled by Satin herself, and it was delivered on schedule.

In (very early) 2017 after destroying my other bumper, I ordered a regular, hidden hitch, swingout rear. Communication was downright bad. Bumper was delivered 2 months behind estimated schedule.

This year I asked a few simple questions about parts that held up poorly in the salty winter and it took a month to get a response.

 

That's brilliant! Pretty sure it can be done . . .

Another TL;DR

I don't have a dog in this fight, but going to throw in my 2 cents anyway, having been involved in some acquisitions on both sides: While it is not fair to leave people hanging, keeping the finances stable while the investor goes through everything is expected. It is typical for things to go silent like this. They have to determine assets, contracts and liabilities, look at the potential order backlog (although likely shrinking at this point) to determine the appropriate investment amount and the stake they want for that investment. The investors are probably well aware of the potential damage going on, but these things do take a little time. It seems they put Satin as the sole director, which may have been a move to make it a woman-owned small business to make it easier to get a business loan. Not uncommon.

While they are working through this, whatever the reason, it is wise for them to not share too much or promise anything since the details are not known. It appears that they are trying to keep things going, and I am sure this is not how they wanted things to be. If they got to a point where they couldn't make payroll, letting employees go is the only choice they had until there was in influx of funds, and there may be some agreement to bring them back if they get the investment money. I was once let go by one company and hired by another company the same day (a Friday afternoon) to do the exact same job using the exact same equipment and office. Just ordered new business cards on Monday.

Anyway, folks that have money tied up and that have dealt with delays have every reason to be upset. While this could have been handled better, I tend to believe the Pelfrey's are trying to do right by everyone. Hoping for the best for everyone involved, but in the end, it may not work out.

 

On the Tariff effect on Fabricator's I present this.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/steel-import-tariffs-effecting-dom.566823/#post-18633366

It's hard to run any business, not many are expert engineer's (in this case), welders while also being Financial Experts and on top of all the laws/ taxes that effect them (especially given CA location).

 

I wish more people understood how the business is. They are still a small shop and lead times will always be longer. I remember when relentless was a small little shop and it took a little while to get back to me. People complained about that and come to find out Eric was building bumpers welding grinding Trying to be active on social media and answer phone calls. This is obviously on a greater scale and they may not be doing the manual labor but a lot more goes on than them sitting by a phone awaiting ones call. When I helped Tyler out at the Texas Jamboree he was extremely appreciative a f asked my girlfriend my name. He came up and said I remember your order because your last name isn't common and I read through some orders to try and know the customers. I called his bluff and he knew and said things about the order that I specifically requested. They are great and great to me. Sit back and give them a few days to release the outcome

 

Yeah the Tariffs have nothing to do with what's going on here. Coming from a business owner that processes a hell of a lot more DOM then they do. The tariffs are not that large of a impact by any means to have the business in financial distress. Sure is sucks to eat up profit margins with higher material prices but it's not enough to cause this.
I do hope they figure this out as i wouldn't want this to happen to any small business owner and i consider the pelfrey's friends.

 

This situation is not good for anyone. By most all accounts great products, made by great people. The greater Tacoma community desperately needs these kinds of products and the folks who can build them.

But there ARE a few facts out there. Some of those facts beg questions at this point. These facts and questions might be "off limits" under normal circumstances, but that is not where we are. The legal organization of Pelfrey Off-Road Inc. DID change in April 2018. A few short months later, one might ask, why did Satin become the only Director in April (Tyler no longer is)? The company's behavior over at least the past several months and resulting current circumstances make this a relevant question.

Along the same lines, they have continued to take orders/deposits during a time when they (apparently) could/did not deliver product. Why? They have apparently disputed PayPal refunds of deposits for those products. On what basis did they dispute the refund? At least one poster here claims that he was encouraged to pay cash recently "to avoid the CC transaction fee". I really do hate to say it, but if true, under these circumstances, there is a word for this....

They have let their sales rep go, and perhaps most tellingly, had him sign an NDA. More than likely they paid him X (what he was due?) to get that NDA. Otherwise, why would he sign it? What don't they want us to know now? Remember this is reportedly a new NDA, not one intended from the start of the relationship to protect IP and the general inner workings of the company (suppliers, costs, sales volumes, etc.)

Quoting their own statement here: They are talking to potential investors "to secure funding for the near future to continue business operations". Their intention is to "right the ship within the next 45 days and begin taking new contracts to build cash flow". What is magical about 45 days?

Their ability to right the ship and continue operations are, "entirely contingent on the outcome of these discussions". Pay attention folks, that is the company's most open, direct and clear indication of the depth of the situation. If they can't right the ship in some way, you most certainly will loose the amount you provided to Pelfrey to finance the build of your product.

Over-all, at this point, their statement probably conveys more information than many here realize. And maybe even more than they realize. If there is a cash flow problem; clear and simple.....they spent the money for something else besides making your product.

There quite likely is not material on hand to make most larger products or they would delivering at least some items. Assuming of course they had fabricators. Maybe we are just not hearing about those deliveries? But if they are not delivering any or very little product, they likely no longer have any fabricators beyond Tyler.

They've said they have a cash flow problem. They can't pay fabricators or buy steel if they don't have cash or a line of credit. Clear and simply stated, they spent the money customers paid in advance for something besides making their product. Yeah, I know......that could be unexpected rent/insurance increases, medical, or any number of other things that any single customer might like to forgive. But the fact and the net result is the same.

If their ability to right the ship is dependent on discussions with potential investors, what do you think happens if they can't make a deal? It appears to me that any new investor would be buying a boat load of liability. Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars; maybe much, much more. That doesn't mean there isn't value in the IP if Tyler can/will be involved. His involvement will be complicated by Satin's interest/ownership. Even if he still owns an interest, as sole Director, Satin likely controls everything to do with the company and has since April. Of course that makes her liable for events during that time period. If I were Tyler I wouldn't sign anything not approved by a personal lawyer. Yeah, deep shit this is. An probably caused by events prior to March/April 2018.

Their intention is to make another statement soon. Since we are now a couple of days past the holidays that statement is overdue.

Going forward: What if Tyler either can't or doesn't want to be involved? Who owns the IP? This is relevant to open orders.

Yes, rumor and speculation will fill in any blanks not filled by the few facts the owners post. But any vendor ("family") that takes a few thousand $ of my money and won't or can't legally give me an explanation for what has caused the delay, and when I can expect delivery, simply must be crossed of the list of trusted sources.

That doesn't mean we don't all wish everyone well. A horrible shit show indeed. Anyone that

 

Bingo! Have him look at March, 2018 (people, not company).

*Edit - Reading this after posting, it read as gleeful - NOT intended. This is nasty stuff for all concerned. Real lives. If you've not been in something that could be viewed as a similar circumstance or been close to someone who has, you are blessed indeed.