AJ6 and Roger B. have been extremely responsive, the turn around time for
the order was 10 working days and they worked with me on the ECU tranny mod
(at no additional expense) and my modified air boxes. They have helped me
with the troubleshooting of my car faxing info from the UK.
To: xj-s@jag-lovers.org, pub@jag-lovers.org
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 17:49:43 -0400
Subject: [xj-s] AJ6 severs links with Radford
CC: 101351.1414@compuserve.com
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Sender: owner-xj-s@jag-lovers.org
Since Roger Bywater of AJ6 Engineering is not a s*bscriber to these
lists, he has asked me to post this message on his behalf. I urge
all to read it carefully.
Some people may have heard that we no longer supply Radford
Engineering. To counter certain stories that may have been
circulated we would like to give our account of the events leading up
to this situation.
Radford Engineering were never our ‘authorized US distributor’. Paul
Wickre appointed that title to Radford without any consultation or
approval from us and without our knowledge. As far as we are
concerned Radford’s status was just that of someone who bought kits
from us in small batches according to our standard trade price list.
From the day that Wickre approached us, about a year or so back, we
made clear to him that an exclusive arrangement was out of the
question. We had a very bad experience when we tried that with
someone else a few years back and swore we would never do it again.
As we were interested to know what Wickre was doing and how he was
presenting our products we asked for a copy of his sales literature
and price structure. He was continually evasive on the matter so
eventually we asked Kirby Palm to get a copy for us, which he duly
did.
It was then that Kirby first alerted us that Radford’s literature did
not mention our name anywhere but copied our text shamelessly. Surely
an ‘authorized distributor’ would be obligated by contract to use the
product name? We like to think that our products have a good
reputation so why would anyone selling our product not want to
capitalise on that? Whilst we were uneasy about this we realised
that most people knew that Wickre was buying our products so it
didn’t concern us too much at that time.
Wickre claims that we stole customers from him but these were just
ordinary people (probably 3 or 4 in total) who saw our website and
placed an order. As there was no exclusive deal or indeed any
contract at all with Radford what can be wrong with that? In fact
when we had enquiries from the USA asking if we had an agent over
there we provided Radford’s details and gave them the choice ‘buy
from Radford if you want to deal with someone in the USA or from us
if you want to deal direct with the manufacturer’.
We are far from blind to the market potential of the USA so perhaps
one should wonder why we would want to back away from Wickre’s great
plans for a volume operation. It was becoming obvious that the
disadvantages of dealing with Wickre far outweighed any advantages
and being unconvinced that his way of doing things was likely to be
successful and finding him unwilling to listen to any point of view
but his own we sensed that the end was near. We know enough about the
business to have survived a lot longer than most and we have seen
quite a few others with big-sell ideas like Wickre’s come and go. We
know from his own admission in an unguarded moment during one of his
phone calls that he has not made any profit on his dealings so far,
his solution being to demand that we raise our prices.
Finally we found ourselves in the situation where Wickre ordered that
we should do everything his way or he would intercept our phone calls
and emails, put us out of business and copy our products, which by
this time, we realised he intended to do anyway. Sadly, Wickre does
not just intend to copy our products, he is also duplicating the
suspension kits of the respected Harvey Bailey Engineering who, like
us, will no longer supply him.
We did not start in business to be pushed around by someone like
Wickre so in the circumstances the only decision we could make was to
tell him we would no longer deal with him. His response was to
insult us and threaten us further, by email, fax, phone and telegram,
unless we relented. We therefore informed him that we would ignore
all direct correspondence from him and that he should write to our
solicitor (attorney) if he had anything of importance to discuss.
I have tacked on a couple of Wickre’s abusive emails and a telegram
to illustrate my point. These are exact verbatim copies.
Wickre has threatened to sue us ‘for breach’ but in the absence of any
sort of contract we don’t see what he can possibly think we are in
breach of. All we have done is refuse to take any further orders
from him as a consequence of his behaviour.
I invite those who read this document to form their own conclusions
about the truth of this unpleasant matter. It might also be worth
considering who has the depth of knowledge to provide proper support
of the product - the originator or the plagiarist?
Roger Bywater / AJ6 Engineering.
Sender: DCWICK@aol.com
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Message-ID: dca4bbf7.37033d7a@aol.com
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 04:33:46 EST
To: 101351.1414@compuserve.com
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Send your e-mail
Bear in mind what I have said,
and take into consideration, the far reaching ability I have to reach
your
phone line through BT, AND stop every IP transmission into the states.
You
stop the practices I find offensive, or I will take every measure to
halt
your
commerce, as I find your trade offensive.
Buddy, you do not want to go up against me. I am sitting in Washington
DC
and
have been for quite some time. Trade, Telecomunicaions, the State Dept,
Department of Commerce, NTIA, things that you have never heard about, US
Customs, Port of Baltimore, Dulles Airport etc, etc, etc.Your comfy
family
business will go.
You fix it, deal with me, or I will turn on every spigot I know.
And if you think I m kidding, let’s play
Personal contacts…,…
Don’t be a fool, you will be shut off on Intl trade, If you think I am
kidding, I will show you a small display soon. We have and old saying
here,
“get along and go along.” Turn your adversary into your best friend, or
risk
your worst nightmare.
The offer is for mutual trade and profit, failing that, I will build
everything here, or we form a mutual accomodation to both our
prosperity.
You
English are like mules.
I have sent over trade proposals, now is the time that you send me one.
I
will
give you 72 hours or put out intercepts. Respond now. The Americans
learned
scorched earth from the Russians.
I am now waiting for your reply, and I want you to personally know, I
have
spent one year planning for contingincies. I am 4 miles from the British
Embassy, and have your trade records. I will not hesitate to do what I
have
to
do.
72 hours.
Do not mistake my resolve, or my efforts
Fix the problems or suffer in commerce
Resolved, this day, by our Seal, of the Hand of Two United States
Corporations, and a Limited Partnership under the Great Seal of the
First
State, Delaware.
By my hand and Seal,
Paul K. Wickre
Sent electronically to Moira Shea: US CONGRESS
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From: RadfordEng@aol.com
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Message-ID: 712b2ce9.243ad41f@aol.com
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 23:06:07 EDT
Subject: what’s up
To: 101351.1414@compuserve.com
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Reply-To: RadfordEng@aol.com
So what do you want to do??
My Mom says Blow you off, you don’t understand business and volume
My girlfriend says Blow you off, you are tossers
My Mistress says you are wankers
Well that’s three agianst AJ-6
I’m turning over the Enterprise to my councelor tomorrow, suggest you
enter
into
a dialog with him… You are becoming fools in the first rising market
since
1988 in the US for V-12 cars.
Ta-Taa
Fill my orders or I will sue you for breach, here and in the UK. And IF
YOU
THINK I AM KIDDING, JUST MISS ONE ORDER.
Best Wishes-- Keep your Enterprise, you are local boys… Harry Suissa will
call you
You should not have pushed me–
Bye-
Paul
INTERNATIONAL TELEGRAM.
From Paul Wickre.
To Roger Bywater / AJ6 Engineering.
UNTIL YOU RELENT WE WILL CONTINUE THIS COMPETITION FULL STOP
STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU RELENT FULL STOP TRANSATLANTIC CABLE TELEPHONE AND
INTERNET POSED FOR FULL INTERVENTION ON YOUR PARTS FULL STOP
STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU GET IN TOUCH WITH COUNSELORS FROM U.S. CALL HARRY
SUISSA AT U.S. 301 - 589 - 1600 FULL STOP UNTIL YOU RELENT WE WILL
CONTINUE BOMBING FULL STOP OUT
– Kirbert | Palm’s Postulate:
| If anything is to be accomplished,
| some rules must be broken.
| – Kirby Palm, 1979