Ron Williams of Raw Performance Scammer and a THIEF !

[graeme_mcfarlane]

Well I didnt see this comimg

When I was looking to get my new engine built I did alot of research and came down to contracting Ron Williams of www.raw1performance.com to build my new engine. I know people with his engines in their cars and I know people who have bought parts from him without any problems and all the feedback I could find on the net was about 99% posative

lots of emails and phone calls back and forth, lots of information etc etc passed and he was happy to let me pay up my engine build due to my unforseen engine failure back last October.

Anyways by the 5th of June my engine and Cosworth dry sump system are fully paid for and my engine is shipped to me at the start of August minus the dry sump from Cosworth as they are "waiting for the last of the parts to be machined"

So I now have my engine minus the sump so I contact Cosworth asking them what the lead time was going to be on my sump on the 11th of August and didnt receive a reply from them so I send an email to Ron on the 12th August as can be seen below

Graeme

to ron

show details Aug 12

Alright Ron

Hope the racing is going well. I picked the block up last Thursday I have had a look at it and it seems undamaged. I have not had a chance to do anything with it yet as I have been busy working.

I emailed cosworth via their " contact us" section of their website a couple of days ago to try find out the lead time on the sump but suprise suprise I have had no answer.

Will drop you another line if I ever hear from them

All the best

Graeme

Sent from my iPhone

ron@raw1performance.com

to me

show details Aug 13

Yeah' date=' Kyong told me you had contacted them. The parts shipped from Cosworth early last week but I was already gone to Ukraine and I missed them so they went back. I've sent an email to Kyong explaining that I will be home around the 17-18th and that they can resend anytime after Monday the 15th.

You have 2 weeks from the day you picked it up to claim any shipping damage, so just keep that in mind. But if it looks OK at first glance, chances are it's OK.

Ron[/i']

a few days later we hear that he has been involved in a horrific car crash

taken from another forum

Hello' date=' this is Colleen, Ron's wife. It is with great regret that I am letting you know that Ron was in a very bad car crash earlier this week in the Czech Rep. He is in a hospital somewhere near Prague. As far as I know, he has a broken back, broken pelvis, and both his right arm and right leg are also severely broken. From what the police have told me, this happened sometime either late Monday or early Tuesday and they found his phone in the car on Thursday evening and called me. I have no other information about the crash at this time. I will be flying to Prague very soon and staying with Ron until he can come home, whenever that may be. I was told that Ron has not been awake since the crash. Once I get to Prague and am able to speak with him, I will update everyone about the situation.

Thank you, Colleen[/quote']

then later his wife posts this

This is Colleen. Here are pics of the car after the crash. Ron says he's doing a little better and says thanks to everyone. He is in Jicin Czech at a private home being cared for. We do have health insurance' date=' but not sure as of yet if they are going to help with the medical bills because the crash was not inside the USA. The car had UK insurance, but the medical was minimal and already that is all gone through. He does not have daily access to a phone or computer, but is trying to get a phone going. I am heading over on September 2, so at the very least he will have my phone once I arrive to him.

[img']http://raw1performance.com/bmwcrash/bmwcrash1.jpg

I have no reason not to believe this so send hime a get well soon email to which I got this auto reply

hey its ron

im sorry but everyone is gonna get the same return email i only have use of my left arm and hand and i have over 600 emails in my inbox

if u have not heard i crashed a car in eastern czech rep and was hurt pretty bad im not sure whats going to happen from here on out but my wife colleen is coming here on sept 3rd to try and help me with everything

if you recently sent me an email looking for an engine or parts sorry at this time its just not possible

if you emailed me asking about your current build its probably in the same state it was when i left for ukraine at the start of the month sean is no longer with the company and i have no idea what he completed or did not complete in my absence all new stg 2 block orders should have been shipped or so sean told me he shipped them all all other orders are in the works

as of today sunday aug 29th im not sure when i will be back friday i had a follow up with the doctor and he said all was good so i was making plans to come home sept 16th last night my right ankle got as big as a basketball and turned purple im now back at the hospital and waiting for the doctor to tell me what they are gonna do

if you are waiting on your parts or engine to be completed i can not give you any updates until i get home and see what sean did or didnt do that may not be what you wanted but its what i can give right now and im really very sorry for any inconvenience its going to cause

if you cant wait and want a refund i can try and sort that out for you but im not sure what i can do over the phone or via internet if you paid by credit card i ran that through my paypal account and i cant login from here due to their security measures

i will update this again once i know whats going to happen

and again im very sorry for any issues this is gonna cause but its all i can do at this moment from here

ron

So I leave it a month to let himself get back to the States and start recovering before asking him about the sump as his health is more important than a sump. I am just about to go to bed this morning and decide to see if I can find any information regarding Ron and his recovery before trying to contact him and I found this thread had been updated somewhat since the last time I read it' date=' my heart sank!!!

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1970473&page=8

I contacted Sean who used to do contract work for Ron helping to build engines etc etc by email and I quickly got a response due to it being 0130 AM here and tea time over in the States asking me to call him which I did.

my worst fears were confirmed that Ron had done a runner with at least $70,000 of customers money who had either paid for engine builds or ordered parts in the previous couple of months to Ron leaving to go to the Czech Rep that had contacted him since all this came out. I also found out that Ron Williams wasnt even his real name and that it was Mike Strubberg AND he had never been in a crash. It turnes out that he had got in trouble with the Police as a kid (early teans) and was on parole and wasnt allowed to leave his home state so he supposidly cloned his step brothers identity and so Ron Williams was reborn.

Sean had been working for Ron off and on for 3 years and the other year there he was asked amongst others if they could provide a character referance for him as he was applying to the courts or something to get a passport (was late and was in shock) and this is where we find out his real name was Mike Strubberg, anyways the conversation goes on and a pretty poor picture is painted.

At the same time Rons wife is posting pictures of a crashed car she is also selling off all the items out the house and their vehicles and buying plane tickets. It turnes out form other sources that Ron met his family in Dublin a few weeks ago and has supposidly paid for a years rent in a Villa in Spain that is just about finnished being built.

So going back to my first Quote in this post I phoned Cosworth USA this evening (due to time difference) and ask to speak to Kyong. Kyong did not want to discuss Rons account with me. After I explained the situation he informed me that they do not have any kits in stock and they did have 2 kits reserved for Ron but these were never paid for and that Ron had never received or was sent any dry sump kits from Cosworth so it looks like I have been stung for the best part of $3000 (approx £2100 - £2200)

Sorry for such a long post

Graeme

Edited September 30, 2010 by G.Mac

[Gumball]

Really sorry to hear this has happened Graeme !! shocking story

Did you pay by credit card? Is there a way with CC that it is insured? I think there is.

[scooby222]

gutting for you mate, cant believe a tuner as well known as this could do a runner!

thank god youve got the engine, now over to a spanish scooby site to try and track the b*****d down!

[graeme_mcfarlane]

All Payments were made through Paypal, about 50% of the funds ($5000) was put on the card back on the 4th of December, the rest was funded through paypal from my Debit card. All monies were sent for the purchase of goods and not gift. Phoned paypal this morning and they say there is nothing they can do

Graeme

[Baz man]

Feel it for you mate.

[wrxmania]

Bad news

[dipsy]

http://bbs.22b.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=006030#000002 .Gutted for you .

[colin_ross]

Can't really believe what I'm reading but having went through the NASIOC thread it's hard to argue with the facts.

As some people may know I have an Axis built motor in my car and based on the product and the support I got from Ron I always spoke highly of him and his work. In fact when Graeme asked me about buying from him I said I would do so myslef if I ever needed another engine.

I understand Ron may have his own problems but there is no excuse for this sort of behaviour. If indeed there was no accident and this was a premeditated plan then that is inexcusable.

G.Mac - I feel for you mate. Do what you can to recover the money, speak to the police and above all don't let it put you off your car.

[RA Dunk]

FFS Graeme that's s**** to say the least

At least you got you're block from him before he fecked off.

[braveheart]

Bloody Hell that is a ****ing disgrace all I have heard is good things about this guy, greame at Least you got your engine mate could of been alot worse, hope the ****er does have an accident and has no medical insurance and his wife is i'n the car too.

Rant over

[Gumball]

Get what you can back, go to eastern europe and smash his eggs with a piston

[graeme_mcfarlane]

I can assure you if I could find out where this Villa is in Spain I would be driving over there (with the van!)to get my cash plus expenses! what I want to do to the rest of his posessions cannot be typed on a public forum

[ciaranrb5]

Holly crap. All I can say is thankfully I didn't get him to build my engine.

Im amazed at this and sick for you graham. Friking ****er

[arch]

Graeme i have been stung myself and had the same paypal scenario. You will get the money back from your credit card contact them straight away, the money on your debit card mmm much harder, I now always try and pay by credit card as paypal are a waste of space outside ebay. gutted for you.

[Alastair]

That's really ********* *************, I can't believe these people get away with it, you do your research pick a site you think you can trust. Really gutted for you...and I can't believe pay pal I always thought they were among the safest ways to pay for stuff ebay or not. I'm glad you got your block. I just ordered some bits from the USA and stories like this just make you wary about ordering online at all.. Hope you manage to get more cash back in time ..........

[thebigfelly]

dumb question here have you tried searching the phone book for him in spain , both names?

Go to http://www.PaginasBlancas.es - Spain's "White Pages" online. There, you'll need at least their first name and last name And, the bad part is, you have to search by Province - one by one. You can't search all of Spain at once.

The above website is, probably obviously, the telephone white pages in Spain and all names found therein are those whose name is on the telephone statement - usually the "head of household" which, in Spain, is nearly always the man.

so youd have to search each provinece with ron williams , then if nothing came up try mike struberg,...

might not find anything at all , but if the guys been there a month or so , and maybe he has a land line, might be worth a shot ,

or i could just be making a numpty of myself for sudjesting this ....

but feel gutted for you like so much money gone especialy when theres a recesion on aswel doesnt help and now ur missing the money and a part for your car aswel ...

[Hightower]

gutted for you dude this is shocking

[thefastone]

Said this to you the Other night G, It's a lot of b******s.

Hope you get somewhere with your CC, but I can't say that I'm surprised about PayPal, I have never trusted them as far as I could throw them, and as Such, I've never had an account, and I've always been weary of using their card handling services (Which Brewdog used to use)...

Still, now that you know, you can get things sorted, and make plans to get the car finished!

[Richie Cross]

Really sorry to hear that Graeme. Gutted.

What a t3at.

[bobbyc]

Sorry to read about this Graeme you hear more and more about this sort of thing these day's, a sign of the sad times we live in, hope you can at least recover some of the cash good luck mate.

[arch]

Paypal only offeres protection for ebay items, anything outwith that you will not see a penny from them. If paying with paypal always use your credit card and never use your bank account or funds in your paypal account that way you will at least have the cc protection. I learned the hard way as well.

[sinny]

Feel totally gutted for you m8, really is a truly shocking story, what a w***er

[maddogsx]

wouldn't be that hard to find him in Spain, I'd be up for a trip across with you (a kind of like that sort of thing...not you being ripped off but going to collect what's owed)

[subarucraig]

this is a sad story read a bit about him when he had his alledged crash then you read later it was a scam to take everyones money cant believe someone so skilled would rip off his way of making a living seems all so strange feel for those who have lost money though !

[wilky]

Having sourced many parts through" Ron", sometimes via a 3rd party, and knowing the quality of his service I am pretty shocked by the above story, and although it's the truth I find it very hard to believe.

What the **** is going on?

G Mac goats rampage through your in box.