Our lawnmower was under warranty and needed to be fixed. This was the business that was listed on the insurance to pick up the mower. They picked it up in early December. It is now May 11th. My husband called on at least a dozen occasions, and when they would finally call back or occasionally answer the phone, he was assured things like, "The part has been ordered." or "It's up on the lift right now." Well, spring came and the grass started growing so the urgency was growing as well to get this mower back. My husband started calling more frequently and was losing patience. He was told by a new employee that the part had never even been ordered. We were livid. My husband urged the new employee to please do his job and fix this mower as the timeframe was utterly ridiculous. Finally, on May 7th after an enormous amount of back and forth and false promises, the mower arrived. Ah, relief! No. The mower was leaking transmission fluid out of the transmission case. A visible crack that had not been there when we sent it in to have the seals fixed had formed. Upon calling, they claimed that we did it. Even though their repairman admitted that he was flying to our house down the bumpy road claiming that you have to go that fast so you don't feel the bumps. Even though we hadn't even moved it from the garage. So now we've had to call the insurance company yet again to have the new issue handled but of course that will take even longer and we can't go back to these hooligans because we know what we get with them which is a big fat nothing. I cannot believe they even exist as a business. We are appalled by our experiences with them and urge others to NEVER EVER entrust anything to them.
First off, this place does small engine repair, like lawn mowers and weed wackers, there's not really a category that fits. They also do knife and blade sharpening.
I won't call the owner a scam artist, because I don't think he's smart enough to be a scam artist. He has no idea how to handle money, when money comes in he will almost immediately find a way to spend it. Trying to come up with money to order parts was like pulling teeth, and customers would then get after me, the mechanic, because the work wasn't done.
When I first started there, one thing I was handed was a stack of invoices that were supposed to be claimed either under warranty or through a service contract company. The problem was, those invoices were extremely poorly documented, sometimes with incorrect model/serial numbers, othertimes with no unit info at all, and the the work and parts used were just as badly documented. Also, most of them were well beyond the time frame the manufacturers allowed claims to be entered in the system, some as much as 4 years old. I did get a lot of them to go through, through a combonation of research, fudging, and just plain bullsh*t. I don't even want to think how many hours I toiled over those invoices, guessing model numbers based on serial numbers, trying to find engine model/serial numbers, looking up part numbers, and not doing what I'd been hired to do, which was work on small engines. I handed him back the stack of the worst of them, the ones that were just plain completely beyond understanding or ones were the unit the work was done on was now out of warranty, so there was no way to fudge the dates. I figured they'd be written off. Not only did I not get any credit for the several thousand dollars I've just recovered from these invoices or the hours I've spent doing so, I got handed that stack of invoices back and told to try harder.
Later on, he hired an office manager/service writer, whose job it was to handle the phones and take care of these warranty and service contract claims. The first thing he does? Hands her the stack of unclaimable invoices I'd given him, which are now 2 years older. We set them aside, and I showed her, multiple times, how to use these stupid warranty and service contract claim sites. In the end, I give up on getting her to do the warranty claims, it's easier just to do them myself, I give her just the service contract stuff. Long story short, she doesn't do her job, I get all the blame.
He was absolutely horrible about managing money, I would need to put in a parts order for say $100, I'd be told to hold off because there wasn't money to cover it. The parts order would grow as more equipment came in needing parts. So now I've got dozens of units all in pieces needing parts he can't afford. Customers are getting after me about "where's my lawn mower", the owner's getting after me because the place is a mess, and I can't do a goddamn thing about it. When a few weeks later I could finally put in the order, which has now grown to more like $1000, and he's after me because it's so large, I'd spend a few days frantically fixing everything, trying to find parts that have gotten moved or lost when the unit was set aside to wait, and trying to get stuff fixed and back to the customers, and then get all the claims filed. Then the whole cycle would start over again.
He could never come up with money for a paycheck either, I don't think I got a full week's pay two weeks in a row the entire time I was working there. He would get $3-5k checks in from these manufacturers about once a month, put in a big parts order, take care of both the shop's and his poersonal mortgage/satellite/utilities bills, get himself a new air conditioner/generator/whatever he happened to want, take his wife out for a nice dinner at a high end restaurant. As time went on, this got worse and worse, to the point where sometimes I would get a $200 check, and then not see another for 6 weeks. At 17mpg with an 18mi trip each way to work, I wasn't getting paid enough to cover the cost of gas.
The last year I was there, I made a deal with him to buy a truck off him, basically whatever he couldn't afford to pay me, we'd take that amount off an agreed price for this truck. I would also be allowed to fix the truck using his shop after work hours. So, I "paid off" the truck - and he's lost the title. He also can't get a replacement title, because he never had the title transferred into his name, it's still in the name of the guy he bought it from bought it from. So I have basically written the truck off as a lost cause, if he ever finds the title, I'll fix it up and sell it, but until then it's more trouble then it's worth.
So, at this point, I'm barely getting paid enough to buy food and gas to go to work, my parents are covering most of my bills, I've spiralled into depression and should have left this shop about a year before this all happened, when I had a job offer but turned it down because the boss promised changes. I'm not bothering going to work most days, because what's waiting for me there? Talking to customers whose machines I can't fix, and not getting paid to do it? I've told the owner that once he can pay me a full time paycheck, I'll be there full time, but until then, what's in it for me? I come in a few days a week, usually after hours, diagnose everything that's come in, fix what I can, put parts for what I can't on an order that he can't afford. He decided he didn't like that, and fired me. I take that back, he didn't have the balls to fire me himself, he had the office manager tell me I was fired. Probably the best thing that ever happened, I ended up finding a MUCH MUCH better job.
Then he and the office manager start calling me, "What are you going to do with this truck?". At this point, I don't even legally own the truck, I have neither a bill of sale (despite asking for it many, many times) nor a title for this truck and nowhere to work on it, what am I supposed to do with it? So I told them I want my money back. That was apparently not the right answer. They start talking about having the truck towed to my house, at my expense, I've paid for it therefore it's my problem. There were some choice words exchanged, and I didn't hear anything more for a couple months. Then I get a text, they've found the title! And when can I pick up the truck? I told them that was great, they could sell it and pay me back, because not only do I still not have a place to work on it, but I don't really want it!
It's now over a year since I got done. I'm still owed $1500 for the truck, and another $860 in unpaid wages from 2014 alone. He did include both the value of the truck and the unpaid wages on the 1099 he sent me, though.
I really hope that before anyone starts working for Larry Plaisted at MMP Services they find my story. I spent 3 years of my life working for that idiot, I would have made more money and been a lot happier flipping burgers. Oh, and don't buy in to all his bullcrap about how "all this could be yours someday", not only does he give that spiel to everyone, it's hard to run a shop when you're living in a homeless shelter.
MMP Services, Inc. Reviews
Our lawnmower was under warranty and needed to be fixed. This was the business that was listed on the insurance to pick up the mower. They picked it up in early December. It is now May 11th. My husband called on at least a dozen occasions, and when they would finally call back or occasionally answer the phone, he was assured things like, "The part has been ordered." or "It's up on the lift right now." Well, spring came and the grass started growing so the urgency was growing as well to get this mower back. My husband started calling more frequently and was losing patience. He was told by a new employee that the part had never even been ordered. We were livid. My husband urged the new employee to please do his job and fix this mower as the timeframe was utterly ridiculous. Finally, on May 7th after an enormous amount of back and forth and false promises, the mower arrived. Ah, relief! No. The mower was leaking transmission fluid out of the transmission case. A visible crack that had not been there when we sent it in to have the seals fixed had formed. Upon calling, they claimed that we did it. Even though their repairman admitted that he was flying to our house down the bumpy road claiming that you have to go that fast so you don't feel the bumps. Even though we hadn't even moved it from the garage. So now we've had to call the insurance company yet again to have the new issue handled but of course that will take even longer and we can't go back to these hooligans because we know what we get with them which is a big fat nothing. I cannot believe they even exist as a business. We are appalled by our experiences with them and urge others to NEVER EVER entrust anything to them.
First off, this place does small engine repair, like lawn mowers and weed wackers, there's not really a category that fits. They also do knife and blade sharpening.
I won't call the owner a scam artist, because I don't think he's smart enough to be a scam artist. He has no idea how to handle money, when money comes in he will almost immediately find a way to spend it. Trying to come up with money to order parts was like pulling teeth, and customers would then get after me, the mechanic, because the work wasn't done.
When I first started there, one thing I was handed was a stack of invoices that were supposed to be claimed either under warranty or through a service contract company. The problem was, those invoices were extremely poorly documented, sometimes with incorrect model/serial numbers, othertimes with no unit info at all, and the the work and parts used were just as badly documented. Also, most of them were well beyond the time frame the manufacturers allowed claims to be entered in the system, some as much as 4 years old. I did get a lot of them to go through, through a combonation of research, fudging, and just plain bullsh*t. I don't even want to think how many hours I toiled over those invoices, guessing model numbers based on serial numbers, trying to find engine model/serial numbers, looking up part numbers, and not doing what I'd been hired to do, which was work on small engines. I handed him back the stack of the worst of them, the ones that were just plain completely beyond understanding or ones were the unit the work was done on was now out of warranty, so there was no way to fudge the dates. I figured they'd be written off. Not only did I not get any credit for the several thousand dollars I've just recovered from these invoices or the hours I've spent doing so, I got handed that stack of invoices back and told to try harder.
Later on, he hired an office manager/service writer, whose job it was to handle the phones and take care of these warranty and service contract claims. The first thing he does? Hands her the stack of unclaimable invoices I'd given him, which are now 2 years older. We set them aside, and I showed her, multiple times, how to use these stupid warranty and service contract claim sites. In the end, I give up on getting her to do the warranty claims, it's easier just to do them myself, I give her just the service contract stuff. Long story short, she doesn't do her job, I get all the blame.
He was absolutely horrible about managing money, I would need to put in a parts order for say $100, I'd be told to hold off because there wasn't money to cover it. The parts order would grow as more equipment came in needing parts. So now I've got dozens of units all in pieces needing parts he can't afford. Customers are getting after me about "where's my lawn mower", the owner's getting after me because the place is a mess, and I can't do a goddamn thing about it. When a few weeks later I could finally put in the order, which has now grown to more like $1000, and he's after me because it's so large, I'd spend a few days frantically fixing everything, trying to find parts that have gotten moved or lost when the unit was set aside to wait, and trying to get stuff fixed and back to the customers, and then get all the claims filed. Then the whole cycle would start over again.
He could never come up with money for a paycheck either, I don't think I got a full week's pay two weeks in a row the entire time I was working there. He would get $3-5k checks in from these manufacturers about once a month, put in a big parts order, take care of both the shop's and his poersonal mortgage/satellite/utilities bills, get himself a new air conditioner/generator/whatever he happened to want, take his wife out for a nice dinner at a high end restaurant. As time went on, this got worse and worse, to the point where sometimes I would get a $200 check, and then not see another for 6 weeks. At 17mpg with an 18mi trip each way to work, I wasn't getting paid enough to cover the cost of gas.
The last year I was there, I made a deal with him to buy a truck off him, basically whatever he couldn't afford to pay me, we'd take that amount off an agreed price for this truck. I would also be allowed to fix the truck using his shop after work hours. So, I "paid off" the truck - and he's lost the title. He also can't get a replacement title, because he never had the title transferred into his name, it's still in the name of the guy he bought it from bought it from. So I have basically written the truck off as a lost cause, if he ever finds the title, I'll fix it up and sell it, but until then it's more trouble then it's worth.
So, at this point, I'm barely getting paid enough to buy food and gas to go to work, my parents are covering most of my bills, I've spiralled into depression and should have left this shop about a year before this all happened, when I had a job offer but turned it down because the boss promised changes. I'm not bothering going to work most days, because what's waiting for me there? Talking to customers whose machines I can't fix, and not getting paid to do it? I've told the owner that once he can pay me a full time paycheck, I'll be there full time, but until then, what's in it for me? I come in a few days a week, usually after hours, diagnose everything that's come in, fix what I can, put parts for what I can't on an order that he can't afford. He decided he didn't like that, and fired me. I take that back, he didn't have the balls to fire me himself, he had the office manager tell me I was fired. Probably the best thing that ever happened, I ended up finding a MUCH MUCH better job.
Then he and the office manager start calling me, "What are you going to do with this truck?". At this point, I don't even legally own the truck, I have neither a bill of sale (despite asking for it many, many times) nor a title for this truck and nowhere to work on it, what am I supposed to do with it? So I told them I want my money back. That was apparently not the right answer. They start talking about having the truck towed to my house, at my expense, I've paid for it therefore it's my problem. There were some choice words exchanged, and I didn't hear anything more for a couple months. Then I get a text, they've found the title! And when can I pick up the truck? I told them that was great, they could sell it and pay me back, because not only do I still not have a place to work on it, but I don't really want it!
It's now over a year since I got done. I'm still owed $1500 for the truck, and another $860 in unpaid wages from 2014 alone. He did include both the value of the truck and the unpaid wages on the 1099 he sent me, though.
I really hope that before anyone starts working for Larry Plaisted at MMP Services they find my story. I spent 3 years of my life working for that idiot, I would have made more money and been a lot happier flipping burgers. Oh, and don't buy in to all his bullcrap about how "all this could be yours someday", not only does he give that spiel to everyone, it's hard to run a shop when you're living in a homeless shelter.