Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

fishslapper wrote:I do find it interesting that they are so against people trying to do them a service by giving a heads up about what is going on.....

If we can save someone else months of their lives and thousands of dollars then i would be very happy.....

It has nothing to do with bashing New Zealand people.. We have not done any name calling just information giving..... Heck i did not even post any pictures of mel scantily clad !!!

It is hard to say nothing has been done wrong when it involves 20 people plus GST,PST, B.C. supreme court, V.S.A...... the list goes on and on... And folks.... We cannot tell you everything yet...... There is more still.....

I agree with above.
I think it's up to our community to spread the word as much as possible
There will still be victims, but at least people who will do their homework SHOULD be able to find out the scoop on these people
that said,
In motorcycling "world" a few years ago there was a huge uproar over a proprietor of a certain local business, who was caught dealing with countless stolen then chopped motorcycle parts.
He was caught, prosecuted, found guilty and liable to repay ICBC lost money etc.
It was huge, rumors were flying for months, and some people were incredibly offended for anyone saying ANYTHING negative about this "good guy" ..

Even after he was found guilty and liable, and after RCMP announced operation HE was a part of accounted for something like 30% of motorcycle theft in Lower Mainland, some people STILL supported him, and do so to this day, because he "made a mistake" and "should be given a second chance"
I say bullshit to that. That's not a "mistake" that's consequent, repeated, premeditated behavior which continues for as long as it is profitable.
Different set of circumstances, but same premeditated, ruthless pattern of selfish behavior leading to very negative results for the community as a whole.

When stuff like this happens, it is incredibly hard to convince some people that someone they did business with is a crook...
Successful crooks are usually very crafty liars, and charismatic people who hide their ugly sides quite well.

This kind of stuff drives me nuts.
Selfish, dishonest behavior of this kind just boils my blood like (almost) nothing else.

We can at least help to make sure these people never do business in this part of the world ever again.

How is everything going with this?
Have somebody managed to contact them?

They own me 2000$ which I never will forget about!

Please send a PM if somebody got any information, email, phonenr etc

I'm sorry for your loss, but it seems like you're SOL...unless of course you'll travel down to NZ, and knock on their door with "couple of guys" standing behind you...not that I condone that kind of thing.

James was making noises of "straightening this out" and all that, however since they left the country, we(the forum) heard not a peep from him.
THe website is down, and if you check his profile, you'll see he last logged in on Feb 6th, which was shortly before they took off if I remember correctly.
Of course that doesn't mean he doesn't check the forum, but since their website is down, they left in what seemed to be big hurry, and made no effort to this date to straighten ANYTHING out with the community, or more important with their customers, the only logical conclusion, after 2 months, would be that they lost interest in doing business in Canada all together.

I just home there is some kind of federal database where their names can be flagged, just so they cannot pull the same thing in another part of the country in the future...

The only good thing about all this mess in my opinion, is that this whole mess with JDM so far seems to be a stand alone incident. Majority of importers in BC -especially those active on Delica.ca seem to be solid people- and that's why this was so shocking when it happened, at least to me.

Here is some other info that I just stumbled across that show how many pies they have their fingers in:

Voluntary liquidation: JDM Wholesale closes

Company: JDM Wholesale Ltd

Directors: Deborah, Iain & James Robinson, Bucklands Beach

Liquidation: 7 December

Applicant for court-ordered liquidation: Provide Cars Ltd

Liquidators: Lynda Brockliss, Panmure

Directors’ other main interests: Iain & Deborah Robinson are also directors of Greenworld (Pakuranga) Ltd, Greenspoint Ltd, JDM Wholesale Canada Ltd & RF Imports Ltd. Iain & James Robinson are directors of RF Marine Ltd and James Robinson is a director of Fiji Water Ltd, JDM Wholesale Canada & RF Imports.

Also I see on the Ih8mud forum they are still selling cars to clients in the USA:

I don't think I'll need a plan B. I'm in the U.S. My truck is shipping directly to the States and not going through Canada so it shouldn't be tied up in this whole VSA situation. I'm essentially doing business with RF Imports in New Zealand and not JDM Wholesale in Canada. I think I'm OK.

Whatever happens my purchase will certainly demonstrate what type of businesspeople I'm dealing with. James has guaranteed me that I will get my truck and it won't be tied up in the Canadian problems. I believe him. (Maybe I'm foolish in doing so?) I think that they fully intend on getting my truck to me and if they do I think it will be good PR for them.

It does show the old adage that "A sucker is born every minute" is alive and well!!!!

JDM took Provide Cars for about $200,000 and people here in Canada for about $100,000

I work for Provide Cars in Japan. I can confirm that between the debts of JDM Wholesale (NZ) and JDM Canada, we were taken for a large sum of money. I cannot remember the exact amount now, but about $175k would be accurate if my memory serves me.

We used a debt collecting company called ICMS Credit Systems in NZ, and it was at our request that this their NZ branch was liquidated. Unfortunately, after about 18 months of working on this with our liquidator, legal advisors and consultants, we were advised that there was no reasonable expectation of being able to get our money back. At this point we decided to stop our pursuit. Knowing that their Canadian operation was still in action, I considered contacting the relevant authorities in Canada, but I did not. In retrospect if I had this could have prevented further escapades in which a number of you suffered loss, but after a year and a half of working on this I was ready to put this debacle to bed. I'm sorry now that I did not pass the warning on.

You can contact me at us@providecars.com in Japan if you wish to verify my comments here.

This provides an interesting study where due to our efforts to not offend a few, we may do a disservice to many. While some people may have had excellent experience with a seller, many others may not have. So which experience do we defend? I can appreciate not convicting people without due course. And everybody should get their opportunity to explain themselves. But that should apply equally to both sides. I can appreciate not wasting this space with gossip and bitching, but there are people being ripped off by vultures who are taking advantage of this import trend. I've heard too many stories lately and the same names popping up. I'm not suggesting we post a list of possible bad guys but it gives me an icky feeling to stand by and see the bullshit fly from certain sources. Yet I feel icky calling somebody out. Welcome to life I guess.

JMK wrote: Also I see on the they are still selling cars to clients in the USA:

I'm the guy on Mud that your post references. To imply from my experience that they are "still selling cars" isn't exactly accurate. My purchase was negotiated and paid for in mid-January of 2008. The VSA hadn't stepped in and seized JDM Wholesale's assets at that point as far as I know. i.e. The shit hadn't hit the fan yet at that point. My purchase can't be pointed to as proof that they are continuing to sell vehicles into the U.S. A more accurate way to describe it is that JDM Wholesale is shipping a vehicle that they sold to me in January.

FWIW, my truck is on a ship to me and should land in the U.S. on August 9th.

Rufus,

As James and company had been out of the country for a few weeks when the VSA stepped in, you must have been dealing with them while they were in New Zealand?

Curious as to:
- Why it is taking 7 months to get your vehicle?
- Why you find it so important to be a cheerleader for JDM at this point?

As you saw in the early threads of this post there were those that were willing to give James the benefit of the doubt and wait to hear his side of the story. Nowadays there aren't too many around that have much sympathy or the same degree of patience with claims that James is really Mary Poppins who's broomstick fractured.

If your vehicle does arrive on Aug 9 you should hop in and drive it off into the sunset because at this point while you may find some members of your fanclub still in denial in the New Zealand forums, I doubt you will in Canada.

LMAO!!!!!!!!

My vehicle is due to arrive 9 Aug???? You're a funny guy, wanna buy a bridge???????

In the MUD forum I believe that Rufus agreed he would post a copy of his waybill and shipping insurance certificate with his personal details blocked out to show he is legit. By now he should have these documents.

I have those documents. They are in TIF format though. I would need to convert them to something I can post to the web like a JPG. However, I'm going to think about posting them for a while until I can be sure that there's no way that these documents can be used to seize my truck as part of the bankruptcy or VSA proceedings. There's a lot of people that have been screwed over and I could see one of them trying to take action against my shipment to reclaim some of their losses at my expense. Maybe this is just me being paranoid, I don't know but I'd rather be safe than screwed at this point.

I'm certainly not trying to be a cheerleader for James and Mel. I'm only trying to correct the facts surrounding my purchase when others feel compelled to use me as an example and do so inaccurately. I'm not out there saying that they are great people, only that they have been fair with me and from what I can tell have not lied to me at all along the way.

I don't know what's so funny about my truck arriving on August 9th. I fail to see any humor in that. Maybe I'm just dense.

As for the location of James and Mel at the time of my purchase, I have no idea where they were. I had all of my dealings with them via email. They could have been anywhere. I just know the date of my purchase and that it occurred before I read anything about the VSA's actions against them on various message forums.

Rufus,

I can't really see what point you are trying to make. It has been 7 months since you paid for your vehicle I assume. And it is presently on a ship. It takes about 2 weeks for the ship to cross the Pacific, where has it been the rest of the time? Presumably it was just shipped within the past 2 weeks so that tells me that they are still shipping to North America, no? What in fact is innacurrate? And why would such a nit-picky point such as whether technically they are selling vehicles to North America be of any concern to you?

And I thought that you are in the USA? How does that work then, are you getting the vehicle into the USA via the Canada backdoor route because it is not 25 years old as per US law? Is the vehicle 25 years old?

You don't want the VSA to notice you, but instead of flying below the radar you feel compelled to pop up in forums announcing to all that will listen you've got a vehicle coming from these guys.

It sounds like you may have done the deal before you had any idea of what transpired and therefore cannot be blamed for dealing with them, in which case you deserve every bit of empathy and our hopes it turns out well for you. Do you not have any concerns about this deal you have done in light of everything that has transpired, or are you in denial and just blissfully confident that for some reason you're the exception and you're going to get the vehicle of your dreams from these guys?

I can't really see what point you are trying to make.

The point is there is a difference between "selling" and "shipping". You used me and my vehicle as an example that JDM Wholesale is still selling vehicles into the U.S. I have no knowledge if they are or are not selling to the U.S. I merely aimed to clarify that the vehicle used as an example was sold to me in January. I don't know how to make this any clearer.

My truck was recently put on a ship from Brisbane, Australia. It's not being landed in Canada. I never said it was going to Canada. (It's no "backdoor" scam either. The truck is 27 years old.) I can assure you it takes much longer than two weeks for a RORO vessel to make its way through the various ports on it's way to the east coast of the U.S. If you don't believe me you can look it up for yourself http://schedule.2wglobal.com/AppSchedul ... eSearch.do.

There have been numerous delays in getting my truck on a ship. The original ship date would have had it arriving in the U.S. last week. That departure date was missed because the parking brake in the truck didn't work and the shipping company refused it on the docks. They had the brake fixed it and arranged to get it on the next vessel which wasn't leaving for another month. Two weeks prior to that departure date the shipping company bumped it to the next available. I think this would have been ten weeks of delay at this point. The arrival date for this scheduled shipment didn't work for me because I would be on vacation at the time so I requested that it be rolled to the next available ship. That ship left Brisbane last week.

And why would such a nit-picky point such as whether technically they are selling vehicles to North America be of any concern to you?

Because I was used as the "proof" that they are still "selling". If it wasn't me being used as the example I wouldn't have cared what someone was saying about JDM Wholesale.

Notice my join date for this forum. It's been a while. I joined only so I could get in touch with members here that were posting about the VSA situation when it happened. It was here that I first read any detailed information about the problems going in in Canada. I found this forum because someone from here posted a link to this thread on the ih8mud.com forum which I regularly read. I was desperately trying to get accurate info and contact information for the VSA. I thought I was screwed and out of US$8200. I was prepping plan B and plan C & D in case I ended up getting pulled into the VSA mess. (I never said I was trying to hide from the VSA. They are aware of me, I'm not trying to hide from them. In fact, I'm on the list of creditors if you've seen it.) Thankfully a couple of very helpful people here (fishslapper) pointed me in the right direction. I've been in regular contact with these helpful people ever since. If I was some kind of fanboy for the Robinsons I think I would have chimed in a lot sooner, no?

I however choose not to participate in the mob mentality that seems to have built up around this VSA situation. Around here your posts aren't welcome if you're not part of the angry mob. Yes, there are a lot of people that have gotten burned by doing business with the Robinsons. I will not dispute that fact and I'm not trying to. I'm sorry if that's how my initial post was interpreted. (I don't think there's anything cheerleader-like about it. ) But I will also try to factually represent my personal business dealings with them when pulled into the discussion even if indirectly.

I'm just someone that's still crossing his fingers that my truck will arrive as promised.