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View Full Version : WARNING: Do NOT Trust pazza316 (eBay ID: xtremesystems316)



Heofz
06-04-2008, 07:52 AM
It seems I'm not the only one who's been having difficulties with this *****. He modded a mach 2 of mine a year ago and in December 2007 I think the compressor died, so I contacted him again to see what he could do. Turns out his 12 month warranty only covered parts he installed, and as the compressor was original it wasn't up to him to fix it for free, which was a bit cheeky as he didn't mention that before but he did have a point.

He said for £270 he'd replace the compressor for a more powerful & quiet 1/2 hp aspera one, replace the controller with a new Froster XE kit, and re-do the chilly1 head (& shorten the cap tube by 8cm as he made it way too long in the first place) as he did a crap job of sealing it to prevent condensation. This was back in early January, and he promised to have the unit finished and sent back by the end of January or early February.

I paid him the money upfront, and as soon as that happened he suddenly became nearly impossible to contact. He never answered his emails or his mobile, never returned missed calls, never responded to texts, and when ringing his landline, if he picked up he'd always pretend to be his brother instead of himself, if his wife picked up she'd take a message for him but he'd never get back to me, except for maybe one or two occasions when he logged onto MSN and chatted to me briefly, saying how everything was hunky dory and that I'll be receiving my brand spanking new repaired unit very soon.

He kept making excuses for his delays, firstly he said he had a big car crash & fractured skull yet he was making forum posts on a nearly daily basis all over the place during the time at which this car crash & hospital recovery was meant to be happening (and also it was his "brother" who told me on the phone that it happened). Next he told me that he finished doing all the work for me (i.e. replaced my compressor for the new one, changed cap tube length, redone the chilly1 head) but had a batch of faulty Froster XE units from his supplier in South America so allegedly he was waiting for a new shipment from his supplier that according to him took 2-3 months including releasing from customs.

Fast forward to last week, I got fed up of waiting forever and him not getting back to me, so I decided to hunt around for him on the internet to see what he's been up to online and whether he's been posting on any forums saying something like "hahaha I just scammed the hell out of this guy called Heofz" or something similar, and what I found was even more startling.

It turns out he's been selling units using these same Froster modules for the last few months; so essentially there was no "faulty batch", he'd been lying to me all this time, and I found him out. There was never any problem with the Froster modules and he should've done the work and shipped my finished unit back to me months ago.

When I confronted him about it (by email & text & eBay message; wasn't answering his phone as usual) he had nothing to say on the matter and I had to threaten to take him to court for £800 (he was selling units with 1/3 hp compressors for £600), as he had both my unit and my money. A few days later he texted me saying my unit was on its way. I asked him to include a receipt for my £270 and a 12 month guarantee of his work in accordance with our prior agreement, but he never replied to it despite repeated requests.

Fast forward to 2 days ago (Monday morning). The unit arrived and lo and behold it was in exactly the same state as what it was when I sent it to him over 5 months ago! He didn't even open the unit up to see what was wrong with it! Even the masking tape I used to hold down the loose wires was in the same place. In FIVE MONTHS! He did absolutely NOTHING!

The only thing that changed was that he replaced my carefully prepared packaging (i.e. huge load of bubble wrap & Air-Bags™) with a bunch of newspaper and empty cardboard boxes, and cello taped a cheque to my unit for £270 without so much as a note of apology for keeping my money for 5 months while doing absolutely **** all and lying to me about it the whole time.

So what did this ***** and I manage to achieve in just over 5 months? I swapped my bubble wrap for paper, and together we wasted about £40 worth of shipping fees in doing so. Oh, and I guess he got a free 5-month £270 loan out of it, of which I'm considering making a court claim against him for lost interest.

Anyhow, this leaves me kinda stuck with a unit whose compressor still wont start. The controller appears to function fine (LCD display gives correct status, i.e. "RESTART DELAY xx sec" and I'm pretty sure the compressor is all seized up or something because when it first went wrong it started making horrible loud clunking/banging noises, followed by horrible scraping noises, followed by complete failure & simply no starting up whatsoever. Though for all I know it could be the relay or maybe even the controller.

I'm absolutely sick of people trying to rip me off. I've already taken 3 other people/companies to court over disputes and every time I have won because I know my statutory rights and the people I've claimed against have never had a valid defence for their actions. Yet these complete and utter ****wits actually think they can keep getting away with screwing people over. I guess they rely on apathy but that **** doesn't work for me. Now that my exams are over, I've got nothing to do from now until October so I've got all the time in the world to sue any scamming ****s who try it on with me. :mad:

Is anyone able to recommend anyone who is actually trustworthy and can get my unit up and running again while actually keeping their promises about how long they are going to take, and can actually do a good job? As it turns out, this pazza316 doesn't even do his own units, he has to get his friend (with "30+ years experience") to do it.

I'm not exactly sure of what needs to be done with regards to compressor replacement but I imagine it involves discharging the gas, some brazing, and recharging the gas, which I can't do myself. There is a valve on my unit if that is significant. Also I live in south west London if that means anything. :up:

Heofz
06-04-2008, 08:27 AM
Oh and I forgot to mention, when I FIRST had my unit upgraded by pazza316, it took him 5 months to do that too. I did ask for a custom case job (for which he charged £130) and I did specify that I wanted it to match my brushed aluminium coolermaster case. What did I receive after waiting for ******* ages? A case made of steel, painted in metallic grey, with what looks like some of the worst workmanship I've ever seen. The only reason I didn't bother complaining was because I couldn't be arsed to wait another 5 months while he sorted his **** out.

Check out these photos:

http://i31.tinypic.com/20p7cx0.jpg

http://i31.tinypic.com/29mnllz.jpg

http://i29.tinypic.com/jv3r48.jpg

aspire.comptech
06-04-2008, 02:06 PM
At least in the end you did wind up getting at least the 270 pounds and the unit back.

weescott
06-04-2008, 03:26 PM
I'm not sure about his "friend", doing the work. I have spoken to a few UK builders about Pazza and know all to well about his work. All I can suggest is that you ask around at Benchtec UK for advice. I can't say anymore without pimping.

PhilippF
06-05-2008, 08:15 AM
I dont exactly know, if it is my place here to say this, but Cold_Ice has some issues with him also. As far as I know, not yet resolved....

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=156903

Heofz
06-10-2008, 11:24 AM
At least in the end you did wind up getting at least the 270 pounds and the unit back. Just found out today that his Cheque bounced.

Now I'm chasing him up for £270 of my own money :shakes:

Sly Fox
06-10-2008, 11:30 AM
I have nothing to do with this dispute, so I apologize if my posting is out of line.

Heofz, that sucks and I'm sorry to hear about all your troubles. Really goes to show that online... You can't tell for sure who you can and can't trust until it's too late sometimes.

I hope that you eventually come to a satisfactory conclusion, good luck!

b1lk1
06-10-2008, 11:56 AM
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/xtremesystems316

Heofz
06-10-2008, 01:33 PM
He's selling again!! I'm ******* disgusted.

BigDK
06-10-2008, 02:56 PM
I feel for you, and hope you get something sorted out with the joker, thanks for warning people at least, hopefully most people thinking about buying a phase cooler will have found XS and will have a chance to avoid him.

I've also got a phase cooler that needs repairing, I think I had a gas leak after a tube cracked.

Finding anyone in the UK with the experience is hard enough, but then its hard to find someone to trust, and then finding that person with enough time to work on your unit is near impossible.

I bought mine online and the original workmanship was awful, but graymole reworked it for me, and the online shop I bought it off refunded me enough to cover the work that was required to get it corrected, give that shop their dues, they then binned that builder 'could well have been the same guy you dealt with directly'

My mistake was to move the unit about whilst it was cold and running ,so it wasn't graymoles work at fault'

If you can get hold of him, then he is a top guy to trust and his work is great, I just think he's not interested in doing any work ATM for his own reasons.

I've also been lucky enough to find another XS member who'll help me out, someone I've spoken to and trust, and someone who is respected and recommended here on XS, trouble is he's totally snowed under and unlikely to get around to fixing my unit for many weeks yet.

If when I get my unit fixed you are still in need of help, then I'll pass his details on to you, but for now theres no point as he can't help yet, I'll also need to check if he can help before doing so.

It seems there are so few good people in the UK, that they are just in too much demand, getting a new unit from a good builder takes time and getting a repair done on someone elses build takes even longer.

I'm in the S-East so not too far from you.

As for the joker you dealt with, its worth reporting him to ebay, but chances are they'll do nothing, but still there's a chance they'll kick his add off.

Charles Wirth
06-10-2008, 03:01 PM
I filed a complaint with ebay over the username being my company name and bad sales from that account.

Heofz
06-10-2008, 03:46 PM
heh not bad :)

I've sent him a warning via his eBay listing that his £270 cheque bounced and that he has until Thursday Noon to respond.

Otherwise it is time for court.

And to be honest I'm kinda hoping he does make the mistake of thinking that I'm bluffing. If this does happen I'm going to claim for not only the failed £270 but the rest of the unit he guaranteed to repair but didn't. Plus interest, plus court fees. Afterwards, the broken unit will be his to keep and up to him to arrange collection from me.

What will his total bill be? £895. And just as well too, as the custom case job was utter crap and I could always claim for that on top.

jabski
06-10-2008, 04:03 PM
sorry to hear of you troubles :(

teyber
06-10-2008, 05:10 PM
sorry if my posting is out of line, but im going to send him an email asking about a unit, then after he responds say you will wire a check to him... i think we might annoy him if we all do so?

damn man that sucks. If your court work comes out successful, please post tips to all the other people who have been ripped off by various builders.

regards

Heofz
06-10-2008, 06:20 PM
sorry if my posting is out of line, but im going to send him an email asking about a unit, then after he responds say you will wire a check to him... i think we might annoy him if we all do so?I don't think anybody should recommend that anyone else do anything weird like that to be honest. My goal isn't to annoy, but to simply get back what I am rightfully owed.

I paid several hundreds of my hard-earned cash to own a working unit that would allow me to overclock my pc a lot. Due to this single individual's greed, laziness or combination of both, I have been deprived of the above and effectively been robbed of this cash.

Therefore it is justifiable to claim monetary value for everything that this person has directly cost me. The guy owes me money, but I don't really want to 'annoy him' into doing what is right. If there is a shred of conscience left in his brain he will contact me before the deadline I gave him, say he's sorry for all the trouble he has caused, and wire me the money via bank transfer immediately. That is a reasonable thing to expect from him, and whilst on a personal level I very much doubt he has the maturity to do it, he should at least be given the chance without being annoyed by others.

Having said that, if you honestly do want to buy a unit from him and offer to pay by cheque then that is your prerogative, however speaking from personal experience I highly recommend you do not get involved with this person if you can help it :p:


damn man that sucks. If your court work comes out successful, please post tips to all the other people who have been ripped off by various builders. I certainly will do, should the situation present itself :)

In case you're interested, here is a link to a previous court case I documented: Click Here (http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17826475)

Edit: Typos

b1lk1
06-11-2008, 07:09 PM
check out his latest auction.......

Mjhieu
06-15-2008, 11:02 PM
Why don't you call the police for help? I will do that if somebody cheat me for more than 3 times. Anyway, I feel so sorry for you.

Heofz
06-16-2008, 02:34 PM
After threatening to claim for the full amount he got back to me and eventually paid me the £270 over the counter at a natwest branch on Friday :)

He has been reading this thread. I guarantee it.

KiD0M4N
06-16-2008, 03:14 PM
Just found out today that his Cheque bounced.

Now I'm chasing him up for £270 of my own money :shakes:

Isn't it a criminal offense to give 'bouncy' cheques?

Heofz
06-16-2008, 07:05 PM
Isn't it a criminal offense to give 'bouncy' cheques? I believe it is a criminal offense to intentionally give a cheque that you know will bounce, as that amounts to deliberate fraudulent behaviour.

In this case though I have my doubts on whether it was deliberate, as I think if he really didn't want to pay me he wouldn't have sent me the cheque in the first place.

But as for the truth? Well I guess only Ian Parry knows for sure. :)

BigDK
06-16-2008, 11:21 PM
Nice one on the refund.

If he is reading this, then he needs to ask himself why he started to get into phase coolers in the first place, was it to just rip or p*ss people off 'I doubt it'

If he's found he can't do the work to a good enough standard or just doesn't get the time, he should bin the whole thing and give the rest of us a break.

Heofz
06-17-2008, 01:14 AM
Nice one on the refund.

If he is reading this, then he needs to ask himself why he started to get into phase coolers in the first place, was it to just rip or p*ss people off 'I doubt it'

If he's found he can't do the work to a good enough standard or just doesn't get the time, he should bin the whole thing and give the rest of us a break.

Yeah I think he isn't that bad a guy, he's just either lazy, greedy, disorganised, or a combo of all 3, but because he is supposedly a big body builder, he doesn't mind pissing people off.

Lazy in that he doesn't get anything done and never keeps in touch.
Greedy in that he takes on more work than he is capable of, ignoring the delay his customers must suffer as a result.
Disorganised in that perhaps he thinks he can take on all this work but is too slack to do it in an efficient time.

TuKo
06-18-2008, 11:43 PM
I've sent my vapochill LS to pazza316 for modding a year ago and I've been really happy with it. He might be a bit lazzy, but if you can keep contact with him and ask him how the job is going, he'll do it quickly. He has a lot of work but he does a very good work.

I know he's testing a lot of hardware samples too, for DFI mainly.

Wellcomef3-a
07-18-2008, 02:00 PM
I used this very same guy several years ago when he was using the name "Xtreme Systems" on eBay. I was quite unhappy with the sloppiness of his work, for example the brazing looked like a piece of chewing gum had been stuck on there and wrapped around the copper tubing, the shape of the desuperheater coil was fouling against the suction line, etc., etc. The thing is though I delivered my unit to his home address and collected it from there as well so he could not **** me about any! The performance of the unit was good but as I say the cosmetic side of things was far from satisfactory for my tastes.

I questioned him somewhat and he replied that he had been taught to build Phase Change units (and cascades :eek:) by Chilly1. He's not a qualified HVAC Engineer which makes me wonder how he can acquire licensed refrigerants such as R402a.

Anyway, to cut a long story short my unit worked but looked like **** when I got it back. Another example of his laziness/sloppiness was using one of those electrical connector blocks (the ones which you connect 2 wires by means of a screw on each side of the block) instead of directly connecting the compressor wires to the controller!

I sincerely hope you get your money back, I would suggest taking him to the small claims court and have a county court judgment against him which would really **** him up for credit, etc.

Good Luck! :up:

Brave758
07-18-2008, 02:48 PM
Mate drag him over the coals.

weescott
07-24-2008, 02:11 PM
He was NOT a qualified HVAC engineer last time I checked in 2007! Any work he does with R402a etc is illegal in the UK from that period and subject to heavy fines.

I am somewhat sceptical that he may test for DFI, maybe he checks the capacitors for leaks. :rolleyes:

Bulldog14
07-25-2008, 01:31 AM
I know he's testing a lot of hardware samples too, for DFI mainly.


I would be VERY intersted to know how this is being concluded? There is only one person responsible for DFI Lan Party boards in Europe and that is myself. I am very selective as to who gets samples and who doesn't. Of course we have no control over unsanctioned reviews. In otherwords, those that are done by individuals who simply purchase a board at a shop and write up their own review. If for some reason a sanctioned reviewer is involved in dodgy builds I would like to know about it. So again ToKo if you have any direct evidence to back up your comment please PM me about it.

DFI Support Europe.

TuKo
07-25-2008, 08:12 AM
Dear Bulldog,

Unfortunatly, I don't have any direct evidence of it, only know that by chatting with him by MSN.

Regards

Wellcomef3-a
07-26-2008, 11:19 AM
I've sent my vapochill LS to pazza316 for modding a year ago and I've been really happy with it. He might be a bit lazzy, but if you can keep contact with him and ask him how the job is going, he'll do it quickly. He has a lot of work but he does a very good work.

I know he's testing a lot of hardware samples too, for DFI mainly.

I quite agree, when he modded my unit the temps were really good. Cosmetically, not good at all!
He told me that he tested for DFI too, (what does that stand for I wonder?...? Dunces Free Invite :rofl:
He also told me he tested for OCZ.
This is not his only line of work, I believe he is a personal trainer or so he told me.


I filed a complaint with ebay over the username being my company name and bad sales from that account.

That's the name he was trading under when he modded my unit, I thought there was an understanding between you both regarding the "XtremeSystems" title and that's why I used him.


hes also using Chilly1 name (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330218485269)

He told me Chilly1 had taught him how to build, etc....!!!! :shrug:


After threatening to claim for the full amount he got back to me and eventually paid me the £270 over the counter at a natwest branch on Friday :)

He has been reading this thread. I guarantee it.

Well done mate, did you threaten him with the Small Claims Court as I suggested? You deserve being treated and being recompensed much more than that! :up:

It's a long way back after losing so much respect and treating people like ****!

Bulldog14
07-28-2008, 05:04 AM
He told me that he tested for DFI too, (what does that stand for I wonder?...? Dunces Free Invite :rofl:
He also told me he tested for OCZ.
This is not his only line of work, I believe he is a personal trainer or so he told me.



Well like I said earlier it could very well be that the person buys his boards from the shop and does his own reviews. I can't imagine anyone I deal with directly, pulling such a stunt.

DFI stands for Diamond Flower Information btw. The "Diamond Flower" part is actually the Chinese to English translation of a girls name. "Diamond Flower" is a niece of the 2 brothers who own DFI. She was born at the same time they founded the company so they named it after her. That was in the early 80's if I remember correctly, so she must be about 30 by now. No, I do not know if she is still available:D

Wellcomef3-a
07-28-2008, 08:02 AM
Well like I said earlier it could very well be that the person buys his boards from the shop and does his own reviews. I can't imagine anyone I deal with directly, pulling such a stunt.

DFI stands for Diamond Flower Information btw. The "Diamond Flower" part is actually the Chinese to English translation of a girls name. "Diamond Flower" is a niece of the 2 brothers who own DFI. She was born at the same time they founded the company so they named it after her. That was in the early 80's if I remember correctly, so she must be about 30 by now. No, I do not know if she is still available:D

He didn't go into details concerning the testing of DFI boards however from what you earlier said I must conclude as yourself that he is an unsanctioned tester. The results then wouldn't stand for much or be considered valid, would they?

:) That chosen DFI abbreviation business was meant as a particularly apt joke/insult towards him. ;) :D I do know what DFI stands for Bulldog14 because I own 3 of their boards, (well 4 but 1 needs hotflashing). You cannot see from my signature because I'm waiting for someone to upgrade my Mach 2GT after pazza316 played around with it and I'm wishing and hoping that EVGA will pull their fingers out and get their HC-18 waterblocks into the retail sector so I can get my Expert up and running. My other DFI board the LanParty Ultra B is currently being equipped for watercooling. Phew, building 3 computers at once is taxing never mind expensive and when you don't have a regular job with lots of disposable income - well it takes time. Anyway thanks for telling me something I didn't know! ;) About the niece, such an imaginative name and a great punch-line! :clap: