I am updating my review that I made on 11/23/2014 in response to the Owner's Comment to my review that they made on 2/22/2017, because their potential customers need to know the truth. I still stand by my original review (please do read that one) that describes how: VMS was not able to fix the issue that the boat was brought in for, did extra things to the boat that we did NOT ask them to do and then charged us for them, and did not handle our boat with care. This update comes after reading the business owner's dishonest reply and seeing some potentially fake reviews that were added the same day. It turns out the business owners will also make blatant lies on a review site rather than do good and honest work to improve their reputation.
1. The boat owner and his father did not give different information to the business and never "argued" with each other in the showroom. In fact, in the fourteen plus years that I have known them, I have never seen them argue with each other.
2. VMS claims that when the boat comes with a cover, they will recover it when they are done, and argues that the boat was brought in with a tarp that was too tiny to cover up the boat. The truth is the boat came in with an oversized tarp that was wrapped with rope all the way around the boat. When VMS returned the boat, the oversized tarp was found bunched up on the left side of the the rear passenger compartment.
3. On the same day that VMS responded to my review (2/22/17), two new reviews popped up on Yelp. It makes me wonder if VMS added two fake Yelp reviews to further manufacture their reputation, again rather than doing good and honest work to make their reputation better. It looks like the Yelp algorithm caught this and the potentially fake reviews did not make it into the Recommended Reviews section. Instead, these reviews ended up in the "reviews that are not currently recommended" list which you can find by clicking on the link with that description. I went on to search this business on various review sites and found a recurring theme of people being upset about unauthorized charges. There were also positive reviews, but I now have to question how many of these positive reviews were generated by the owners at VMS.
If you have never used VMS before and are now feeling concerned, you should be. They have not been honest people and you don't want dishonest people working on something you care about. If you have used VMS before, please do share your honest experience so that people can have a good collective picture of who VMS is and whether they should entrust VMS with their property. If VMS did in fact add fake reviews, my hope is that if more previous customers take the time to review this company, the honest reviews will shed light on who they really are.
Note: I would like to add that about a year ago, a previous VMS customer that I did not know sent me a private message via Yelp, because they had a similar experience with unauthorized charges from this business. Unfortunately the person did not add their own review on Yelp. I noticed this person was not a regular Yelp reviewer and probably did not understand the importance and usefulness of sharing their experience publicly. Below is what they wrote me, unedited:
I am filing a small claims suit against Valley Motor Sports for unauthorized repairs they made on my boat and stumbled across your yelp review stating the same. This was the second time they did this to me and it crossed the line. It is a clear violation of state law. Here is an excerpt of an email I just sent them if you'd like to reference the same statute.
"I would encourage you to reference 2014 Minnesota Statutes Section 325F.59 "Repairs" prior to my arrival tomorrow. I'm repeating it below and is accessible here: revisor.mn.gov/statutes/...
325F.59 REPAIRS.
No shop shall charge for unauthorized repairs. No shop shall perform repairs it knows or has reason to know are unnecessary to the restoration of a motor vehicle, appliance, or dwelling place unless the customer authorizes the repairs after the shop informs the customer that they are unnecessary.
After reviewing the law in MN on this subject, I'm inclined to bring in the previous issues regarding the engine rebuild and estimate as well, as it is clear your practices are not in line with State Law I'm also linking to that statute for your review here: revisor.mn.gov/statutes/..." read more