Wow... Read stories like this all over the internet and the ending is usually always the same...lot's of stories but in the end no results. I too will bet the only reason the OP heard back from him is because he or someone close to him read this thread.He told the OP what he wanted to hear and still has no intentions of fulfilling his end of the deal. Either lawyer-up or time for a road trip to gather up your parts if they're still there,you can forget about the $$$,as was mentioned can't squeeze blood out of a turnip. Good luck to you all...:TU:
Yep, I've filed also a complaint with BBB El paso against PAE. $6700 is just to much money for me to loose. I ordered in june 2008 !!!! engine parts, a transmission an other parts for my riviera. He has not any intention to send them to me. I asked a refund, ...... till this day not seen the money. I'm furious and realy frustrated.
Herbert, unfortunately the BBB is not able to take any legal action themselves. I like the suggestion above of each of you retaining a lawyer, then having your lawyers communicate with each other. Good luck to all who have $$$$ involved in PAE.
Yes I know, but hey, every step counts to deal with J. Burek I'm realy thinking of taking this to court. Just has to find a reasonable good attorney who will defend my case. Anyone a good sugestion? The realy frustrating thing is that the frame needs the engine and tranny before the body goes back on, so I'm realy stuck here (for about one year, thanks to PAE)
If PAE is going out of business, then the BBB won't have much leverage. In that case, getting a lawyer would be a good quick move before any remaining assets are either dissolved or assigned to other creditors who may already be in line. I hope the books get balanced with this guy once and for all. And I'm sure glad there are other Buick specialists around we can still rely on.
Seems like the JB clients are coming more and more out of the woodwork! Why don't we run it in a Texas paper, Headline; The engine builder who survived the economy crisis... And the article ends with both the engine builder and his clients saying: The lawyers took all our money! :dollar: But the article continues, by saying: The engine builders customers, are now sleeping like a rose again, knowing that The engine builder is now working on an engine, that will be finished on time...cause his new Director is the Warden of the State Prison. :spank: I asked a Engine Builder ones; "Can you sue a lawyer?" No!, the Engine Builder replyed, But you can suck him dry!! ou:
I'm also a victim of Jim Burek but I think I'm one of the few that had some luck on his side ! In 2008 I had some engine damage ans needed new pistons, rings, bearings and some other stuff. At that moment mine friend and race buddy Opa had just ordered his engine at PAE and it looks a good idea to order mine engine parts there too. I phoned with Jim Burek and told him what I would need and he said that he could arrange that. Mine parts would be shipped together with Opa's engine. And then it started: parts weren't there, personal problems, moving his shop and a lot of other crap came !This bull**** from Jim Burek took almost a year but in the meanwhile Opa had contact with Jim Weiss and he would help Opa and me with the engine and parts. I had several phone calls with Jim burek and he constantly had some lame excuses, at the end he told me that he had no pistons ( this was almost one year later) when I asked him why he hasn't told me that earlier he couldn't give a satisfying answer at all. So I asked him to put the items he had in the crate together with Opa's engine and send that to Jim Weiss and the money that was left for the pistons he should transfer to JW his account. It was a gamble but I got lucky and the parts finally arrived at JW's shop and the money on his account. Jim Weiss did a very good job in this case :TU: It was a stressfull situation for Opa and me, we both have send money to Jim Burek and we didn't know if we get our money back or what, finally it came to a good end for both of us but. So guy's let's put it to a halt, Jim burek is just stealing money from us ! Frans
Yes we had luck getting some or all parts out of him. My damages are 3500- 4000 dollars at least, due to all the havoc he had done to new and just a week in his house TA parts. I got pictures of Jim Burek awfull work on all the parts. The shortblock was only good for a stock buildup, but even for that use it needed to be cleaned, honed, decked, bored all over again. The engine was bored without having the pistons in the house, cylinders were out of round, it wasn't sonic checked for coreshift and if he had build this engine for me with these parts it would have cracked one or more cylinder walls. The wall were very thin on a couple. It would have used oil like and old barge. It would have been a very low compression engine, due to pistonring blowby. And also due to the fact that no one valve in the brand new TASTG1TE head would seal up ever again to some of Jim Bureks valve and headwork. The shortblock / crank and oilpump housing wasn't cleaned or washed, it was full of rust and just sprayed with red or silver paint inside and on the outside of the engine to mock it up if it was a good as new piece. Even that paintwork was a shabby job, with the drips/drops runners and Jim Bureks fingerprint embedded in the dry paint. At least I have his fingerprint, he can't say I didn't touch that one.
And now he even has cost me my sponsor. Due to I couldn't show up on a couple of events, and I couldn't be held on my word, when I said it will be ready at that date. I'm talking to my Sponsor right now, and I hope I can work it out with them. But the message I got today from them was a little bit harsh to say the least.
That is terrible to hear Robert ... there are 3 more things I will add to this thread and then I am done because I dont have a dog in this race 1) I can almost guarantee you he is reading this thread 2) Those of you who have come foward as being owed should stay in touch and start another thread under Buyer/Seller feedback titled "Jim Burek / PAE - Who does he Owe money / parts too ???" 3) Stick together, Strike while the iron is hot ... and never give up. I too was owed thousands by another individual for several years ... I never gave up and finally found a wedge to give me leverage. I didn't let it consume me, but I didn't let it get too far from my sight.
Tnx yes it is, still reflecting on our Buicks what this shop has done. And good Idea to post another tread in the buyer sellers feedback topic. I will make one this weekend for sure and will transfer some of the text from here to there. I might even post the pictures of the nice work PAE does on your parts. And Brian, yes I was getting really Mad again. To put my mind of it for a moment, here is something less serious. Look at this photo that is me..posing as Darth Maul from Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace. So its easy for me to think in Sithlord terms! :laugh: From 1999-2007 we very active in the SW community. We were even hired by 20th Century Fox a couple of times for big openings or releases of the Star Wars movies on video or DVD and of course also we attended the Movies Previews. And we did alot of Fan shows. Also we have met alot of movie characters from all kind of movies this way. Can tell you alot of storys about that. We and our group collected alot of money for sharity that way and had some fun also. We have met alot of great people this way, and some are close friends now. This is a picture of a Burn hospital center (people who got awfull burns get treatment here) This young fellow, requested Darth Maul, and somebody looked me up and we came to surprise him. The young fellow was trown out of a car due to a collision. He was in the backseat and wasn't wearing any restraints, he was trown out the rearwindow, and one side of his face and body was scraped on the pavement for about 200 yards. He is now 8 years older and I have seen how he is doing now, he has had 20+ operations and still there working on him to get him fixed up again. These are no Masks, this is my face with movie like grime work done to it. It takes about 2 or 3 hours at least to do make this the way it is. This is Ray Park who played Darth Maul, he is now playing the Tv series Heroes Custom made ATAT by the Belgium Garrison Some people hate Gun Control, this paper says that its forbidden to wear arms here. This also me..as The Joker, all costumes are home made. My two lady friends disagreed also.. I meet many ladies at these places, keeps me wondering why I still go there.. And we end up with a BAD MAN, ..who I was talking with nicely..untill he suddenly punched me in the face.. Gjeezzz..this France BAT MAN is really tiny...and wow that Dutch Joker is some what to Big. And this is my Face and look when I see a MOPAR driver coming towards me. And to keep it Buick related, this was our 69GS400 we tried to save it, after someone tried to total it and messed it up. The body was so rotten behind the front doors to the rear, it was like only bondo, and paint was holding it together. When I got it the whole front end was smashed up, there was no grill the driversside fender was blocking the driversdoor from opening etc. I had the frontend rebuild, new discs to. A friend was driving true town, and saw a 69 standing with his nose high in the air in a street. I knocked on every door in this street asking who car this was, cause it had a nice grill. He finally found the person, and he asked if he could have the Grill, yes the man said. Its going to be picked up and crushed today so take what you want. When he asked if he could have the car the man said no it going to the crusher parts you can have. My friend got the grill and some other parts, and phoned me to get a trailer or tools. We meth up with our cars so he could show me which street it was, it was a strange town for me so. When we got there the car the car was gone, we drove around to see if we could find the truck that was transporting this Buick and hit the local salavge yards there, but we didn't find it. It almost for certain was pickedup by a old iron/scrap seller. So I had a grill! Finally the motor gave up (it was rebuild 6 months and 1000 miles ago by a Chevy guy, the last owner had that done) there was some white nasty smelling smoke coming out of the breathers, compression was very low and you couldn't see a hand for your eyes inside or outside of the car. It smelled like it was burning coolant or ATF. I finally gave up, and sold it to someone who was just turning 20 and was going to restore it back to its former glory with his dad. I will not give up on this Jim Burek story, so I bought me some clothes and I am ready to go to Texas!
I gave Jim $4200.00 and never got anything except for a string of emails saying "should be done in a few weeks". That was several years ago and the emails stopped in the fall of '09. Yeah, he's got a reputation all right but it's more of a conman than anything else. I'm out the money!
I agree that you ALL need to start a thread in the feedback section here. I bet there are several people that he owes money to that don't even read this thread since Burek's name isn't in the title. There is power in numbers!
People like this think they can get away with being a habitual rip off artists over and over again. His reward will be no business to speak of, lost income and quite possily the best reward of all from an irate customer who's money he stole, the azz kicking of his life. A lenghty hospital stay may cure his bad habit. If that was my money, i'd be sending flowers to his hospital room. Maybe this site should start a "$hitlist" to warn people of the scumbags out there.
This isnt about JB but I too had issues with a local engine builder. it took 10 months to get my engine, and at that time my skylark was my daily driver. i kept pestering him and pestering him. eventually i got it back, he even delivered it to my house in a sign of good faith because it was late. but, the 1st week of driving around i kept losing oil pressure and scoring the pump housing and gears. when i took off the oil pan to investigate, what did i find? yes a rag in the damn oil pan. sucked up into the pickup and was bypassing the screen sucking in gritty oil. i was so pissed. went back to give the guy a piece of my mind but of course he denied it. what could i do? aside from kicking the guys ass and probably having legal problems after that i didnt have a leg to stand on. i suspect the guy thought i was a dumb ass and would take the engine back to him for the repair. i had to tear the whole motor apart and recheck everything. luckily no further damage from the oil pressure loss. you just cant trust anyone any more. its a shame. this particular place was Brookfield Engine, in Brookfield IL in Chicago suburbs. he was no longer in business a short time after my saga.
todd, your best bet is to find a running doner car that you can swap the motor into for your move. see what the difference is between the doner car and how much to ship yours. as far as your dealings with that jerk that has been screwing many people would be to confront him personaly. e-mails and phone calls make it easy for him to blow smoke up your a$$. it $ucks that you are moving soon but what is it worth to go and get your investment back? you probably won't get any $ back but get your parts back. find other stuff in the shop that he has that will cover some of the money owed, after all YOUR money paid for his possesions. i would thenm find a local fed ex to pack it up and ship it back home. this sounds rash but would you rather be out thousands of dollars. wouldn't you like to see the look on his face when you show up there with a rental pick up truck. this tread should be a lesson also, if you are going to do a long distance transaction with an awful lot of money involved look for any other negative feedback, even if others have defended him you have to question it an do research on him. good luck with what ever you do.
Paul, I agree in what you are proposing to Todd, but the big problem was that before this posts (januari 2010) nothing could be found on the net about Jim B. having a bad reputation. I've searched the internet back in 2008, found nothing but positive respons about his work. That's why I ordered my parts at PAE. Man, I'm so frustrated :rant: knowing that my riviera 67 is standing here without an engine and transmission for about 1 year and more than six months. I'm still hoping that JB will pay me back the refund so that I can make a fresh start. herb.
Jim Lore, Can you offer some general advice for all of the Buick folks caught in PAE's trap? I find this unthinkable, how someone can steal from someone else, in plain sight, and get away with it. Jim Burek - either you make good on your evil-doings, or I have a feeling you are going to get a visit from Moose and Rocco.. Didn't a handful of people have similar problems with Brian Earick?
