The Story Of The Stolen BBQ Guru's

[fishtail-99]

Anyone who purchased a BBQ Guru Competitor through the Kamado company back in the middle of 2005 should be aware that your Competitor was stolen from the BBQ Guru company and that the BBQ Guru company never received a penny for your Competitor.

Several years ago, Kamado offered BBQ Guru Competitors as an option on their cookers. In essence, Kamado was now a dealer for BBQ Guru. Here is the announcment from the Kamado web site: http://www.kamado.com/discus/messages/4/13764.html

So here's how it worked:
1) You order your cooker and a BBQ Guru Competitor from Kamado, sending payment for both to Kamado.
2) Kamado sent your information to the BBQ Guru company.
3) The BBQ Guru company shipped a Competitor to you.
4) At the end of the month, the BBQ Guru company sent an invoice to Kamado.
5) Kamado would pay the BBQ Guru company for all the products shipped by the BBQ Guru company.

At least that is how it was supposed to work. Everything worked smooth as silk until they got to step number 5. Surprise, surprise! Kamado never paid the BBQ Guru company for any product that was shipped. After about 3 months, the accountants at the BBQ Guru company noticed they still had outstanding invoices and contacted Kamado. Kamado refused to pay. The bottom line damage: $10,000. Yes, Kamado collected money from their customers in payment for BBQ Guru merchandise and never sent any money to the BBQ Guru. The BBQ Guru company finally wrote it off when Kamado refused to discuss any sort of payment terms. And of course, once Kamado was out of the country, the BBQ Guru company really had no legal recourse.

Now, of course, the following statement from the announcement by Kamado in their forum makes perfect sense: "At this time we want Kamado customers to buy their Guru products from Kamado. " Of course! Kamado will get paid, Kamado will keep the money! That's easy money! And since Kamado had just moved to Mexico, they knew that the BBQ Guru company couldn't touch them once they figured out the scam!

As a side issue, after this arrangement fell apart when the BBQ Guru company finally figured out they were being scammed, the owner of Rock's Barbeque (the company that makes The Stoker) was contacted by Richard Johnson about setting up a similar arrangement. (Well, Richard didn't tell Rock about step number 5.) Fortunately, Rock had the sense to ask around and he was vigorously warned off and he was smart enough to listen to the warnings. Kamado has fortunately never again sold the products of other companies.

(If anyone doubts this story, they could call up the BBQ Guru company and ask to speak to the owner. Just mention "Kamado" and "Richard Johnson" to him, and he'll tell you the whole story without you even having to say another word. If you do talk to him, you might buy something from him to compensate him for the bother.)

[bdonson]

The Guru people are pretty easy to work with. I had a cook coming up for a wedding reception and my remote quit. I called the Guru people and they overnighted me a replacement. I sent my non working remote back in the same box. The cook came off perfectly and all I paid for was return shipping on my remote. Funny thing is I'm sure looking back that it was my fault the thing quit working in the first place. Guru Rules in my book.more shame on richard

[tcoliver]

Fred called me to discuss this when it happened as he had heard that I had also been scammed so this story is definately true. I actually had never heard wheather or not Fred ever got paid. Now I know (As if I ever had any doubt).

[fishtail-99]

The story was obtained first-hand from Fred. Nope, never paid. RJ probably gave Fred the same BS "I'm old and penniless and about to die and my children have left me, so unless someone buys the business from me for a trillion dollars, we all are going down together, so don't bad mouth me or no one will ever bail us out" story.

[Johnnyboy]

RJ must have had the same idea with me a couple years ago when he asked if I would make his K covers. He only wanted to offer one or two colors so I requested he order 10 at a time to get cost down, but all he wanted was for me to build one at a time as he sold them and collected the money.

Glad I didn't take the leap of faith.

[Nemesis]

Your wallet is glad you didnt take that deal.

Just curious, what was the timeframe of that offer? It sounds like he has had serious cashflow problems from the start.

[Johnnyboy]

Nemesis,

I've had some sleep since then; can't remember exactly how long ago without going back through old emails, but been a couple years.