Jan Quintrall: Long trail of trouble leads to federal arrest

About three years ago, two businessmen entered the Better Business Bureau office. You could sense there was a problem on their minds. Their thick Cuban accents coupled with their agitated state made the discussion a bit challenging. They were right in the middle of a really bad day, and they wanted the bureau’s help.

What was their beef? They had purchased quite a bit of freight-salvaged heavy equipment from a Spokane firm months before this day’s visit to Spokane, and they had yet to receive any product in return.

The company they transacted with was no longer answering calls or e-mails. The men were mad and wanted their product. What got them to Spokane? Well, out of frustration, they took matters into their own hands and booked two plane tickets from Miami to, well, Seattle! The day went downhill when they found that Spokane was not Seattle and that to get here, they had 300 more miles of driving ahead of them.

Armed with a rental car, they found their way here and drove directly to the company’s address on Division Street, expecting a huge yard full of salvage equipment, a large office building, or something impressive, because the company’s Web site made it seem like Spokane was the grandest office of them all. The only thing they found was a private mailbox rental company, with the “world headquarters” of this multinational company squeezed into a little postal drop box along the highway.

That was when the staff at the mailbox rental facility sent them downtown to us.

This was not our first complaint about this firm and was not to be our last. Because of the amount of money involved in their transaction and the multiple states and countries the company supposedly serviced, we contacted the FBI and the Washington state Attorney General’s office. Because of the potential losses, we issued an alert to media.

With time, we received more complaints, some answered, some not. The dollar figures were always large, and the money had often left the buyer’s control. Our report and Web-posted alert slowly began to impact and erode the company’s “integrity,” so they hired a top-floor Spokane law firm to “clear up” this little misunderstanding. We still had some problems with the way the company represented itself on its site, so I decided it was time to meet with this company’s attorney.

As an organization, we remain neutral and only base our statements on facts, pure and simple, so it is a real pleasure to meet with attorneys over such matters as these. In this particular case, when we talked about the company, what had been resolved and what had not been resolved, I let the attorney know that we still had some serious concerns with statements and representation made on the company’s Web site. Here were our red flags:

■ The company claimed offices all over the world and headquarters in Spokane, with no corporate registration in any state it claimed locations.

“When doing business with the company, the majority of the funds had to be paid upfront with a percentage sent to a non-U.S. bank.

“We had a difficult time locating a good address or telephone number for the firm in any state.

“We still had a pattern of complaints about nondelivery.

Simple issues, merely requiring clarification, right?

After our meeting, the attorney planned to try to nail his client down on these and other subjects. I felt his lawyer was a bit surprised by the way this fellow did business, if that is what he was doing.

Well, last week we heard some great news. The good guys had won one! A federal agency picked up the owner in the Midwest. He is in jail awaiting extradition. In addition to his business transaction problems, it turns out this guy was also on the radar of other state agency investigators and will have to answer to additional charges.

Once again, doesn’t it pay to be honest? For when questionable ethics are suspect in one area, the person will usually go downhill in other areas. A leopard can’t change its stripes, or something like that.