Outback Trailers - Buyer Beware!

[San Diego Dave]

I am writing to tell people of the experience I’m having with Joost “Joe” Thoen and 1835724 Alberta Ltd. operating near Calgary, Alberta as Outback Trailers.
After months of figuring out the options and being reassured about both quality and delivery I entered a contract with Joost “Joe” Thoen and Outback Trailers to have a semi-custom trailer built. I wired him a $6113.38USD deposit on February 8, 2021. Delivery was contracted to be by June 7, 2021. June 7 came and went and I grudgingly gave him extra time, in fact, extending delivery until August 21, 2021.
Unfortunately I learned I would have to fly to the memorial of my Brother-in-law by the end of August and Joe agreed to move the delivery date up to August 12, 2021. I cannot get to Calgary after then because of work commitments and the fact that I live in San Diego. Mr. Thoen agreed to provide constant progress updates. This was about the 20th of June. Instead all return communication went dark in spite of many emails sent. Now the August 12 date also has come and gone. The trailer has not been even started and my deposit has not been returned. Mr. Thoen refuses to even communicate.
In essence my money has been taken and the obligations of the contract are not being met. I have a name for such actions. Is it criminal behavior? I’ll let you be the judge.
Buyer Beware!
PS: I am trying to organize others that have been taken by this guy. Please get in touch if you had dealings with him or know someone who has. I want to do something forceful to hopefully put an end to this. Please!

[Glenn Baglo]

https://www.bbb.org/ca/ab/rocky-view...097/complaints

[gordon2]

I hate to hear this.. again.
Perhaps some research would have reduced or prevented your losses. You can also find other unhappy customers who might join your efforts through some searching. Start here:
https://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/...ers-94682.html

https://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/...iew-84603.html

[Raz]

My impression is that Joe Thoen works on whats in front of him. People call or show up with issues and he helps them at the expense of other projects. There's a Slim Potatohead Youtube video where they replaced the floor and the frame. I not sure if he just showed up or had an appointment but I bet he jumped the line if he did. And the video seems to confirm this is a small operation. I think people who ordered a trailer sooner or later got one. In some cases they were happy, others not. There was another Trillium manufacturer suppose to start building trailers in Ontario but that hasn't happened so right now Outback is it for Trillium trailers.

[thrifty bill]

He has always been full of excuses. BBB rating speaks for itself.

The article below is interesting as this time they blamed a flood for not delivering. Of course, I did not see them blame the flood for not giving a prompt refund. Behind schedule and missing agreed upon deliveries, kind of OK. Refusing to refund hefty deposits, not OK.

[parmm]

https://www.amvic.org/wp-content/upl...n_Redacted.pdf

[jgilliam1955]

Sorry for your mess. We have been there. A few years ago lost a $10K deposit when Snoozy went out of business. We had been waiting over a year & finely given a March date for delivery in February. March 1st found out they were closed. We were very mad & soon found out there was nothing we could do.
Two days later we called Casita & ordered one fully loaded. At that time build time was 3 months. My advice is to move on so you can get camping.

[parmm]

Originally Posted by jgilliam1955

Sorry for your mess. We have been there. A few years ago lost a $10K deposit when Snoozy went out of business. We had been waiting over a year & finely given a March date for delivery in February. March 1st found out they were closed. We were very mad & soon found out there was nothing we could do.

You should not have lost your deposit. You should have filed a claim against them with the bankruptcy court. You may of not gotten it all refunded, but you would have gotten a portion.
Don't know about San Diego Dave deal, as he would be dealing with a out of country court.

[Jon in AZ]

I’m not so sure (about Lil Snoozy). As I recall, buyers with pending deposits were were included in the bankruptcy filing, but unsecured creditors were far down the list and ended up with nothing to speak of. You can probably find details on old threads. It was discussed pretty thoroughly at the time.

As to Outback, you’d have to retain a local lawyer, which carries some risk that you’ll end up out lawyer’s fees and never collect any settlement.

Very, very patient buyers do seem to be getting trailers from Outback, often a year or more later than originally promised. If you have the resources you could buy something else for now and continue to wait. As long as they don’t ask for any more money (which has happened according to one report, and would be cause to bail), there is nothing more to lose. You would of course have to pay the balance on the finished trailer, but only when there is a finished trailer. Then sell one or the other. At least as long as the current market holds, you should get a good price. Might be able to recover all or most of your deposit that way. There is some financial risk in this plan- the market could soften- and there’s also the time and emotional cost of continuing to deal with someone in whom you have lost trust.

[San Diego Dave]

A lot of you seem to be cutting Joost “Joe” Thoen some slack. He is as dishonest as they come. Signing your name to a contract is giving your word, is a binding agreement and should be enforceable by law. There are no valid excuses. Period!
Out of Country does not keep you from filing in the Provincial Court of Calgary. I am doing so. I have also filed a complaint with AMVIC and another with the Alberta BBB. I’m going further than that. I’m going to file a complaint with every state in the US BBB and in every province in Canada. I will also continue to post on Facebook and anywhere else I can. I’m also emailing every RV dealer I can find and asking them to file a flier in their office areas.
I am going to try to organize all or many of the people he has mistreated and in a lot of cases stolen from. You see to not keep your word on business agreements and keeping deposits anyways is really in my opinion theft. I don’t know if it’s a criminal offense but it should be, especially when there is a pattern of such behavior.
This guy should be put out of business so that he can’t hurt anyone else. I aim to try to do so. If you have had a bad experience with them please document it and get that to me. There is power in organizing, possibly enough to end this travesty. Please!

[thrifty bill]

Originally Posted by parmm

You should not have lost your deposit. You should have filed a claim against them with the bankruptcy court. You may of not gotten it all refunded, but you would have gotten a portion.
Don't know about San Diego Dave deal, as he would be dealing with a out of country court.

Bankruptcy laws protect the person/company declaring bankruptcy, not the customers.

A person with a deposit, regardless of size, is way down the list of who gets paid in bankruptcy. Highly doubt any money was left by that point. Snoozy had little to no assets, so the money is gone. Many times business loans have assets as collateral. Those assets go to the loan holders. Somewhere around $500,000 in deposits have been lost.

Chapter 7 bankruptcy spells out who gets paid, and in what order. Really a sad day for all those people that lost a lot of money.

Lesson remains the same, consider the length of time a company has been in business, their BBB track record, and the size of the deposit. In deposits, its kind of like the sign in many casinos "only bet what you are willing to lose".

Long term players in the molded FG business tend to have much smaller deposits that often are refundable.

Outback Trillium has a long record of complaints. Hopefully anyone ordering from them have considered those complaints before putting up $$.

[jgilliam1955]

With Lil Snoozy, the original owner took back the business. It is now Snoozy II.
The group of us who lost money found out we could not do anything. We were able to write off our deposit on our taxes. Live & learn.
We ended up with the Casita & realized it was a blessing we did not get the Snoozy. It is all-electric. With the Casita, we found out we use propane more than we thought we would. We spent last summer on the road with the Casita & had a great time. Planning a trip to Alaska next year.

[Janet H]

Folks - we are closing this thread. If you have an issue with a business please use the usual means to pursue a resolution. The forum is simply not equipped to handle these issues and these threads can result in legal action taken towards the forum itself. Thanks for understanding.