dreman

For all those who have gotten a retrofit done by Rich at customlightz and all those who supports Rich and his hard work, please read the front page on www.customlightz.com to learn the whole story.

btw customlightz is currently shut down.

Kim Jong Illin'

shit that sucks.

i've known richard since i was 4 years old, and he's always been honest guy. sucks that he had to deal with someone who was rather notorious for shady behavior.

SPAWN

damn....he definitely needs to stand up for himself and not let someone like that walk all over him.....i hate people that do nothing and steal all of the glory...or at least try too...sad to hear it happened to him. didnt know him, but sounds like a stand up honest worker...

El Negro

Does anyone know how to contact the owner, Richard?


Judging by his WHOIS information, he should be able to control his domain name customlightz.com and move all his data over from his current host to another host and prevent his crooked partner from accessing it.

I can show him how to do it or do it for him.

da-nteg

A lot of BS with very little truth. Everyone knows how this kind of thread is: ONE SIDED. Don't believe things til you see the whole picture. Thats how I will leave it right now until the other side chimes in. Moderators please lock this thread so the parties involved can resolve their issues.

da-nteg

Response taken from
http://www.8thcivic.com/forums/custo...-our-site.html

The Response

The Custom Lightz webpage was hijacked on Friday afternoon (4/24/2009). Since then, the foot soldiers of HIDIllusionz have infiltrated the internet, and created numerous threads to slander my character. In the past, I have not felt the need to dispute the allegations made on public forums made by Richard, and those posting on his behalf. However, in light of his unauthorized vandilaztation of my site, defacing the company, using my own site as an outlet to destroy my character, and locking myself out of my emails and webpage, I have no other option to defend myself other than posting on this forum. I am far from perfect, but I believe in treating people the way I want to be treated. I firmly believe that I have not done anything wrong to Richard Park, or his company. I am currently preparing a case, and have been advised not to state any sensitive information, but until this misunderstanding is solved I will attempt to answer the statements that Richard uploaded on Home - CustomLightz - The HID Retrofit Specialist. Please take the time to read my version of the story.


Response to Paragraph 1
Custom Lightz was indeed created in 2005. Initially, it was not officially a partnership, and I made less than half for quite a while. I was responsible for designing the webpage, answer emails, promoting the business on different forums, and helping with minor tasks such as making wire harnesses, taking headlights apart, and cutting shrouds and reflectors. In spring 2006, we officially made Custom Lightz a limited liability company, and we agreed to split the costs and income evenly, and we deposited equal amounts of money to start our business bank account. At that point, my responsibilities were the same as before, but in addition, I had to do the color projector modifications, metal cutting and shaving of projectors and brackets. Simply put, my job consisted of three main parts: customer service, projector retrofitting, and marketing. I responded to the emails, phone calls, uploading pictures of the retrofit, and billing, etc. I was also in charge of maintaining and uploading pictures to the webpage. As far as the retrofit process, I had to take apart the headlights and seal them, cut the housing (i.e. metal or fiberglass), symmetrically color mod all of the projectors, and make them rounded for an easier retrofit. Basically, I had to do all the prep work so that the projectors sat centered, and then Richard was responsible for bonding the projector to the reflector or bracket. I was also responsible for cleaning the headlights so they could be sealed. After sealing them, I was responsible for packaging all the parts, printing out a receipt, and shipping them off to the customer. Before I forget, I was always in charge of the headlight installation: drop the bumper, run the wire harness, secure the ballasts, and put everything back together.

In short, Richard’s task was to mount an already prepared projector and reflector/bracket, and mount the shroud in place, and he was also responsible for painting the housing if the customer requested that.

I would have mounted the projectors and shrouds, and painted the housings too, but this was supposedly a partnership, and therefore I left it up to Richard. He conveniently states that he gave me the partnership since I knew my way around web designing. Logically, would anybody agree to a partnership in projector retrofitting if the co-worker would only provide a webpage? I seriously pulled my weight for Custom Lightz and it saddens me that Richard completely downplays that fact.


Response to Paragraph 2
As the business grew, so did the amount of emails and phone calls that came in. Due to my responsibilities (customer service, projector retrofitting, and marketing) I approached Richard about dividing the emails. He was not too enthusiastic, but we started to tackle these emails together. Richard claims that I did not take the emails seriously, but to the contrary, I answered my emails as I always had, but Richard’s performance started to taper away. I remember on several occasions, when I had to get on him to reply to his emails, and he would then do a month’s worth in one evening. I do admit that balancing the emails with everything else was challenging at times, but it is completely untrue to make it seem that my performance went down, when I am the one who coached him to perform.

It is interesting that Richard would claim that he worked all day, when he would not get out of bed until the afternoon every day. His family would agree with this statement, and I would not be surprised if he is still a night owl. Many times, I would get to the shop right after school and still be there before him, and I would stay until the shop closed at 9.30pm, or even later at times. Most customers who came to us will recall that Richard did not show up until after lunch. I would normally greet them around 9 am, and keep busy preparing the projector retrofit until Richard would show up. During those days, I would be in the shop about 3-6 hours before him, and stay until we were done. I never complained.


Response to Paragraph 3
Both of us made equal amounts from Custom Lightz. On paper, Richard made much more than $500 in his first 5 months, which is different from what he claimed. The checkbook does not lie, but I will not get into the specifics. We also made money in cash.

When you read paragraph 3, Richard makes it seem like despite the hardship, I was living on caviar and champagne. Richard knows that I am a graduate student, and that I received stipends that cover my housing and utilities. This has been brought up by him on several occasions, and I have always explained that as a PhD student, I receive money on a bi-weekly basis. As most of you know, I am Swedish (hint: Bjorn), and as a gift from the family for completing my Master of Science degree, they treated me to Sweden to meet up with relatives who I had not seen for 10 years. As far as the paintjob, it was a $1000 paintjob on a 1998 Honda Accord that I had saved up for. I am not sure what Richard wanted to achieve with this paragraph, but I think he was trying to underline that I made money on the side in an unlawful manner. On the contrary, I was hurting financially as much as he was.


Response to Paragraph 4
Okay, so now we are getting to the more current issue. The previous paragraphs were designed to make me look like a sleazy leech, while the remaining portrays me as someone who does not abide by a legal contract.

Richard did retrofitting before Custom Lightz even existed, but both of us signed up for the business name and the brand. We can agree to disagree on who is the true retrofitter. Yes, I will never deny that he mounted all of the projectors, but my definition of a projector retrofit is not just the mounting of the projectors, but all of the prep work, disassembly, assembly, cutting, cutoff color modification, etc, etc. If the roles had been reversed, I would have loved to just do the mounting of the projectors and shrouds, and leave the rest of the retrofit, business, and customer service to someone else, and get half the pot. I have mounted projectors and shrouds since the split up, and found it many times easier and less messy than the cutting of fiberglass and metal. Mounting is not difficult.


In any event, even if Richard did ALL the retrofitting, and I was just the side-kick, the fact is that we both created Custom Lightz LLC. The issue of ownership became THE issue, when Richard wanted to re-route all the internet traffic from Custom Lightz to HIDILLUSIONZ, and state that the new Custom Lightz is now HIDILLUSIONZ. That is when I said that if that is the case, he would have to buy my half of the company. I also offered to buy his half of the company, since I wanted to keep the business to sell parts, and other services. Richard had no intention of keeping Custom Lightz, but wanted the foot traffic that it might bring for a few months before it was lost and forgotten.
Note that the timing in his statement is incorrect. It is not that he started his business in NY after I told him that he could not just walk away with Custom Lightz. In fact, the business was already established (without my knowledge), and he wanted Custom Lightz in order to bring in more customers.


Wow, I wanted to keep this brief, but this is becoming more detailed than my thesis.


Response to Paragraph 5
So let’s briefly talk about the three rules that I apparently broke.

Rule #1:
There is nothing on the contract that states that I cannot do retrofits. Second, I was supposed to recommend Richard as the only retrofitter on the site and run a banner linking his site on top of the main page, and I did. I never stated on the webpage or the forums that I was a projector retrofitter. So I never broke rule #1.

Rule #2:
This one gets me. Richard wanted me out of the business, yet I was given the option to bring in work for him for about $25 per customer, but ONLY through 8thcivic.com members. So I was given the opportunity to bring in more work for him through the civic forum. IT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY, and I was not supposed to be on a 24 hour watch. If I brought in work, I would be compensated, and if not, I would not get a dime, and rightfully so. So I did not break a contract rule by not bringing in any business from the forum. If I had been paid to perform and I did not, then I could understand where this is coming from, but I did not receive any money.

Rule #3:
The statement mentioned was never given to me on time. I was supposed to post this statement on September 1st and center it below the banner linking his site. Well, we never settled on a complete version until after September 1st. Of course, I allowed for the statement to still be on the page after it was supposed to be taken down on January 1st. Somehow that was conveniently not mentioned by Richard.

In addition, Richard blocked my access to emails, the server and the webpage during the late summer of 2008 in an attempt to re-route the foot traffic to his new site and prevent me from interacting with the customers.


Response to Paragraph 5
I have never claimed that I “Bjorn” completed a few hundred retrofits. I will say it again; I have not completed several hundred retrofits on my own. I will say that Custom Lightz (Richard and Bjorn) has completed several hundred retrofits throughout the years.


Response to Paragraph 6
It defies logic that I would let someone who is not legally bound to Custom Lightz have access to the domain registrar? I followed every rule in the contract, and did everything that was agreed upon.

Richard has hacked into the Custom Lightz webpage, destroyed tons of online materials such as content on the site and all of the emails and records. On top of that, he has written a nasty letter about me that is not true, and has gone out of his way to make sure everyone sees it too.

None of Richard’s accusations hold any validity. I have never responded to any of the slander that he has been spewing since the split, and I kept every single promise that was written in the contract. Why am I blocked out of my own webpage?

Personal message to Rich:
Just like last time, when you blocked me out of the server, webpage, and emails, I forgave you. If you decide to make it right again, and will act like this mess never happened, and you will not hear a word from me, like last time. I hope we can solve this as soon as possible, and honestly I wish you the best of success and health. Although, you have changed, I still look at you as the guy who I was working on cars with several years ago. Remember, we both had the same car, and we helped each other out back then. You spent nights at my house and me in yours. You knew my family and I knew yours.

There is a huge demand for projector retrofitting, and there are simply not enough retrofitters out there. I am booked for weeks, and I am sure you are as well. So why go through the process of shutting down my online store, and deleting my email account? What will you achieve by shutting down my business? A longer wait line?

This is not you Richie.

-----------------------------------------------------------------


If there are any threads targeted towards me that do not have this response, please “copy and paste” this response, and please contact me directly by phone.

Lastly, for those customers who I am currently helping, please call me directly if you have any questions, since I no longer have access to the email accounts.


Sincerely,
Bjorn