A roofer had his truck towed to a Grand Prairie auto repair shop for a $900 engine diagnosis. But when the truck owner was told that the repairs would cost nearly $9,000, he balked. He wanted his truck back.

Larry Duncan, owner of Einstein Transmission Repair, refused to give it back to him for the $900 diagnosis charge. He said he wanted several thousand dollars for dismantling the engine, towing and storage for a couple of weeks in the shop.

So the roofer hired a lawyer to call the repair shop on his behalf. The lawyer, H. Charles Hamm III of Fort Worth, called Duncan and tried to negotiate a settlement. Things did not go well.

Hamm describes the phone call with Duncan as “20 high-strung minutes.” He recalls that Duncan told him, “Maybe we should have a face-to-face meeting or we could even handle it around the corner in the alley.”

A frustrated customer of Larry Duncan's took this secret photo of him and published it on the Internet.

I called Duncan a few weeks ago. He cursed at me and said, “I don’t care what you write.” Then he hung up. For this report, I sent him an e-mail describing the facts as told to me by the lawyer and his client, roofing company owner Scott McCall. Duncan has not responded.

In September 2011, Watchdog Nation reported how Duncan told another vehicle owner that he had to pay $2,500 in cash or by cashier’s check to get his truck back. Duncan originally promised a $1,500 repair job, the vehicle owner said. (Read “Transmission repair deals too good to be true.”)

In a brief interview in September, Duncan said he sometimes has to face angry customers, but that’s part of doing business.

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Promises and untruths

As readers of the Dave Lieber Watchdog column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram first learned, in this latest case, McCall has been without his work truck for more than a month. Before going to Duncan, McCall got a repair bid from another shop for $7,000. But McCall’s father found Duncan on the Internet, where Duncan attracts many of his customers, and Duncan promised a $5,000 price for the repair, Scott McCall said. Duncan’s business also goes by the names Transmission 33 and Transmission/Engine Shop.

When Duncan told McCall later that the repairs would cost $9,000, McCall asked Duncan where his shop is so he could deliver the $900 and pick up the truck. But he said Duncan refused to tell him the address, which does not appear on the invoice for the diagnosis. McCall says Duncan told him, “I don’t meet with my customers.”

McCall found the address — the shop is in the 1800 block of South Great Southwest Parkway — on a website that lists numerous complaints against Duncan. He visited the shop, and Duncan told him he could get his unrepaired truck back for $2,700.

Later, Duncan placed a mechanic’s lien against McCall, increasing the cost of returning the vehicle to $3,700.

A week ago, the lawyer and his client sent by courier a letter demanding the return of the truck. The letter included a $900 cashier’s check. But a shop employee told the courier, “We know your tricks,” and refused to sign for it, Hamm said.

When McCall called the shop again, Duncan told him, “Now I’m going to play hardball because your lawyer is involved and you’re wasting my time,” McCall said.

On Duncan’s transmissionshop.biz website, he says his business is accredited by the Better Business Bureau. That’s not true. The BBB website says the business is not accredited and shows that his shop has an “F” rating. The state comptroller’s office also lists the business as “not in good standing” because it is not up to date on a business tax.

Larrry Duncan's website claims his shop is BBB accredited, only it's not.

The fallout

McCall has been borrowing a truck from an employee for his roofing business and driving a rented Toyota Corolla. He went to the Grand Prairie police but says he was told that this is a civil matter and police cannot help him unless there is an argument or a fight on the premises.

McCall says he will never shop again based on price alone. “I’m going to research the heck out of people,” he said. “Anything involving substantial money, I’m researching now.”

If he had, he would have seen Watchdog Nation’s September report on the Internet describing Duncan’s business. These days, it’s not hard to steer clear of business owners who may want to settle expensive matters in a back alley.

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A preacher who claims to have attracted thousands of North Texans to a moneymaking investment has been promoting a new plan that he says will bless the poor.

Donald Wilson of Tampa, Fla., founder and CEO of TeachingU2fish, which offers his Bless 7 program, was selling $15 raffle tickets for a Ford Edge that he said was donated by Park Cities Ford. The winner was supposed to be chosen this month.

But he does not have the car, and there has been no drawing.

Donald Wilson, founder and CEO of Bless 7, part of TeachingU2Fish

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As readers of Dave Lieber Watchdog column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram first learned, this investment program started off with a bang (“The Story of Bless 7 and TeachingU2Fish.com”) and began fizzling out (“Investors in Bless 7 financial program start complaining.”)

Unfulfilled promises seemed the norm in the Bless 7 program, which promised members that they would get paid if they brought others in. Some have been paid, but many say they haven’t.

It costs $25 to join, though some paid much more to enter at higher levels. Then members — including preachers, small businesses and nonprofit organizations — start recruiting others. When they bring in the first seven, they have completed their first mission. That’s where the name comes from.

They get paid — or blessed — for each recruit. Wilson has promised that as members move up levels, they can receive up to $5,000 a day in gold and silver coins. Members get paid when people use the program’s Web browser to search the Internet, and they are supposed to have access to discount shopping.

Some investors have demanded their money back. Wilson has blamed problems on computer glitches, saying the program was in its early stages.

The raffle came about after Wilson ran into Debra Elise Turner at the breakfast bar of a motel, she said.

Turner said Wilson heard her talking on a cellphone to a friend at Ford Motor Co. After her call, he introduced himself and asked about her relationship with Ford.

He explained that he was involved in a ministry that included a program that helped poor people get cars. She said Wilson eventually introduced her to his Bless 7 Fort Worth manager, Pastor Elgin Pringle Jr.

Then, she said, Wilson asked her to organize a car raffle. Turner introduced the two preachers to the managers at Park Cities Ford. The managers said that they could not donate a car because they didn’t want to appear partial to any religious denomination but that they would gladly sell him a car at a reduced price.

Wilson told them that the proceeds would go toward buying more cars for people in need.

Wilson said Turner told her that he would pay her $15,000 to help set up the raffle, though she said she has not received any money.

Raffle ticket

She said she paid for an advertisement in the Dallas Voice newspaper. She said she was careful not to say in the ad that the dealership was donating the car.

Dallas Voice ad

Wilson wasn’t as careful on his website, teachingU2fish.com. He promoted the raffle this way:

“Thank God for Park Cities Ford for donating the 2011 Ford Edge to bless the body of Christ.

“Raffle Tickets $15.

“Last day to purchase tickets is Nov. 15, 2011.

“Raffle will be held Nov. 19, 2011 at Park Cities Ford, Dallas, Texas.”

Turner said she kept asking Wilson to remove the word donating, but he did not.

Bless 7 members sold tickets for three weeks.

But on Nov. 19, there was no drawing. Wilson told his leadership team that it was postponed until early December.

Chad Lower, the Internet sales manager for the dealership, told me: “Park Cities Ford has not donated a car. Wilson inquired about purchasing a Ford Edge from us. It was actually supposed to be purchased Monday, on Nov. 14. That didn’t happen.”

Fortunes O’Neal, the Dallas dealership’s general manager and partner, told me that the dealership agreed to sell the car at a discount because it likes to help worthy charitable endeavors. Wilson called to postpone the purchase, citing “a couple of scheduling issues.” He left a number for the dealership to call, but it didn’t work, O’Neal said.

O’Neal said: “I am absolutely shocked. This is terrible. It’s over. There’s no more. We’re not doing business with him. We won’t be associated with him.”

I called Wilson at his Forest Hill motel to ask about this. He listened to the information I had been told and hung up on me.

State law requires that charities selling raffle tickets be in good standing in Texas for three years. Religious-oriented charities must be in operation for 10 years. Bless 7, which is not registered in Texas, has been operating for less than a year.

The law also states that if a prize is not awarded within 30 days of a drawing, everyone who bought a ticket must get a refund.

 State Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, told me that he has complained about Bless 7 to the Texas attorney general. “I am totally offended and upset by this,” he said. “The faster you can get this sort of thing broken up and get people to know it’s not legit, the better.”

 An attorney general’s spokesman told me that failure to comply with the state Charitable Raffle Enabling Act could result in a raffle being classified as illegal gambling.

“This is definitely something to take up with local law enforcement,” the spokesman said.

Fort Worth police said they have received no complaints.

After I contacted Wilson about his raffle, he sent an e-mail to his Bless 7 leaders that he wanted all tickets sold immediately.

Then, in another e-mail, he wrote that he wanted to start a new project: “I would like to go meet with a Mercedes dealership and pick out a vehicle for next month … and get the tickets moving as [soon as] possible to give more people a better opportunity to ‘WIN’ this Mercedes!” (He put the word win in quotes.)

On Tuesday, he sent another e-mail to his followers:

“I do want to give notice that I am leaving the Texas area in a day or two and will return next year sometime in February or so to help you. … We have so many places that are pumped! New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, several areas of Florida and Jamaica, and we must make this happen to bless you all.”

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Read previous Watchdog Nation reports about this program:

“The Story of Bless 7 and TeachingU2Fish.com”

“Investors in Bless 7 financial program start complaining.”   

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In Arlington, Texas, a quiet rebellion in the fall of 2011 stopped the city’s plans to launch a more rigorous recycling program, with mandatory rolling carts and two price increases in the coming year. Residents squawked to their city representatives that they didn’t have anywhere to store the carts, which they believed would get blown over and be difficult to handle.

Instead, city leaders considered a pilot program to begin in January 2012, but that idea was scrapped, too.

Even though a household’s monthly trash bill went up by almost 30 cents Oct. 1, 2011, Arlington residents get to keep — for now — their twice-weekly unlimited trash pickups and their little recycling bins.

Moneywise, that’s good news for Arlington residents, who have one of the least-expensive trash plans in the region. That’s because Arlington didn’t follow suit as some other cities did when they converted to once-a-week pickups, with trash and recycling restricted to the provided bins.

Arlington residents still pay about half of what Fort Worth residents pay for a single weekly pickup, with trash limited to a rolling bin.

But as readers of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Dave Lieber Watchdog column first learned, there’s another part of this quiet rebellion that could easily be missed. It’s about a penny on each monthly bill. Doesn’t sound like much, but that penny signifies a whole lot more.

The penny became an obsession for one resident, Richard Weber, a former city employee who is now probably Arlington’s biggest gadfly. To understand why the penny matters, it’s probably best to understand Weber, a 55-year-old part-time postal worker who these days delivers mail in Kennedale.

Until 2005, Weber worked 20 years for the city as a computer programmer. Then he says he complained to management about waste in City Hall. He was facing a demotion, which he appealed. In the end, he resigned and felt “a little bitter,” he says. But even before he left, he started sending newsletters about city problems to a small group of friends.

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After he left, he ran for City Council three times: 2006, 2007 and 2009. Lost all three. But he also started covering City Hall as a gadfly journalist for his expanded newsletter, Arlington Spectator, a weekly that he e-mails to 400 city residents. In three years, he says he has published about 175 issues.

His reports diligently share City Hall happenings in his personal style. His most-remembered line came in one issue when he called a council member a “political prostitute” who “came into the evening session with no manhood, sporting his tightly clad mini and six-inch heels.” No surprise, he says, that council members pay little attention to him.

Here’s where that penny comes in. After City Hall released news of a 28-cent trash increase with Republic Waste Services, from $11.94 to $12.23 a month, Weber went home and did the math. He quickly realized that the increase was 29 cents instead of the 28 cents the city reported.

Weber believed that meant the bill should be $12.22 a month and not $12.23. A penny isn’t much, but multiply 100,000 residential accounts by 12 months a year.

Weber stood up at a council meeting before the vote on the trash increase and complained, but the council approved the increase anyway.

Then he started writing city officials. At first, he didn’t get a complete answer. Then city budget director Mike Finley met with Weber. It all comes down to a rounding problem. This year the increase is actually 28.35 cents, but when sales tax and a franchise fee are added to each bill, the final amount was above the half-a-cent rounding mark. So the bill was rounded up to $12.23. But Arlington residents shouldn’t feel bad. Last year, the final penny was rounded down.

Even though council members may pay no heed to Weber, city officials did. Interim City Manager Bob Byrd wrote to him, “I apologize for any confusion.” Byrd told me, “A penny means a lot to everybody in this day and age. The lesson we took away is we should have provided more information to council, and more information to Richard.”

Budget director Finley said, “Richard’s a pretty smart guy. He’s looking at this stuff. We could have done a better job putting in the details.”

Weber told me, “I just get more and more confident that I’m asking the right questions.”

He now turns his attention to expected increases in recycling fees. He doesn’t question the need for recycling; he questions the costs. As he told council last month, “Please do not try to tell me this is only a little increase. This council continues to add little increases that continue to add up.”

A penny here. A penny there. At least somebody is paying attention.

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Something about Doug Stouffer’s story sounded all too familiar. He took his truck to a transmission shop because the deal offered by the owner sounded good: a low $1,497 for repairs, a two-day turnaround and the work guaranteed.

But when Stouffer got his truck back five days later, he had to pay $2,500 (cash or cashier’s check only). The original problem wasn’t fixed, he says.

Yes, The Watchdog had heard this story before, but that was about a transmission repair shop in Denton, Texas. This happened at a Grand Prairie, Texas transmission shop.

As readers of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Dave Lieber Watchdog column first learned, turns out that the same owner is involved — Larry Duncan. Duncan, 58, moved his Denton business to Grand Prairie. The Transmission and Auto Shop is in the 1800 block of South Great Southwest Parkway.

I first talked to Duncan in 2007 after a 22-year-old woman told me that he promised her a $1,000 repair and a two-day turnaround. Three weeks later, she had to pay $2,600 in cash to get her car back. It still didn’t work, she said.

After her story appeared, Watchdog readers reached out to her. One reader donated money for her repair. Several transmission shop owners offered to repair her car for free.

Duncan’s business has operated under other names, too — and Transmission/Engine Shop.

A frustrated customer took this secret photo of Larry Duncan

When someone calls the Grand Prairie shop, a taped message from Duncan promises, “We have a two-day turnaround on transmission work.” There are no qualifiers.

In a recent phone interview, Duncan told me: “Let me explain something to you briefly. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this because this is crazy.

“The $1,497 price is providing everything is rebuildable. The man had things that were not rebuildable. He had to pay for those things. He clearly understood that.

“So for the two-day turnaround, when things are not rebuilt, we have to order those parts. It takes time for the parts to arrive. Of course, he was told that.”

Duncan sometimes faces angry customers, he says, but that’s part of doing business. He denies Stouffer’s claim that the transmission in question wasn’t properly fixed.

Although Duncan doesn’t explain all the details to customers when making his pitch, his paperwork that he asks customers to sign fully explains the rules in 46 lines of fine print beneath the vehicle information.

Stouffer says Duncan assured him that any added costs would increase the bill by a few hundred dollars. Turned out to be a thousand. Duncan says there’s no way he can know what the real price is until his techs take apart the transmission. “I’m not a messiah, so I can’t know what’s wrong with a vehicle.”

When Duncan called Stouffer and said the bill would increase by $800, Stouffer said, “I reluctantly agreed and actually felt like I didn’t have a choice.”

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What to do?

What can a vehicle owner do when facing a major repair?

The Better Business Bureau suggests getting bids from multiple shops. That’s smart advice that I now follow. Twice in the past year, I got bids. For one job, the original quoted price was $1,700, but I found a shop that would do it for $325.

On a second repair, I was given a $1,200 written estimate from a repair shop, but when I took it to a second shop, I was told that nothing was wrong with my car. When I returned to the original shop and explained what happened, I was told that the technician who made the estimate had been fired. So getting estimates for those two jobs saved me $2,600.

When it comes to a transmission repair, two readers shared what to do.

Robert Graves of Fort Worth taught me that a service department at a new-car dealer that specializes in that make of automobile is more likely to make an intelligent diagnosis because the techs know the vehicle. If a quoted repair price is too high, shop around for a better deal.

David Fusco of Arlington told me that if a car needs a transmission repair or other major work, the first stop should be a dealer to learn whether there has been a parts recall by the manufacturer. That might pay for part or all of the bill.

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Are you tired of fighting the bank, the credit card company, the electric company and the phone company? They can be worse than scammers the way they treat customers. A popular book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, shows you how to fight back — and win! The book is available at WatchdogNation.com as a hardcover, CD audio book, e-book and hey, what else do you need? The author is The Watchdog columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Visit our store. Now revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

As the owner of an Arlington, TX gun shop and a neighborhood bar, Jill Fuller considers herself a savvy businesswoman. But when she was trying to get a mortgage to buy a foreclosed home this year, she walked into a troubling and costly situation that she can’t get out of.

Even though she says she has good credit, she worried that she would have trouble getting a loan because she is self-employed. So she went to Chase Bank in Arlington, where she keeps her accounts, and asked a business banker for advice.

“I wasn’t in front of him for more than five minutes, and he was flipping through a Rolodex or something and calling someone for me who he said specializes in self-employed loans,” she recalls.

“This is the guy you need to talk to,” Fuller recalls the banker telling her.

A bank spokesman explained to me later that Fuller said she was in a hurry and that the bank couldn’t move on a loan for her that fast.

The banker printed out a map for her to get to the office of Romel Carlton of LightHouse Realty Services in Arlington. Carlton banks with Chase and knows the personal banker, Carlton told me.

At his office, she filled out a form. Carlton, who says he specializes in loan modifications, couldn’t help her. But he said he knew someone who could and walked her down the hallway to another office, where he introduced her to Mike Nwanju.

Mike Nwanju

Nwanju looked at her application and saw that she owns a gun shop. He joked that he better not make her angry, she recalls.

Well, he did.

As readers of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Dave Lieber Watchdog column first learned, she says she assumed that Nwanju was a loan officer or a mortgage broker because that’s what she was looking for. Nwanju says he never claimed to be that. He operates credit repair and home buying counseling programs but says he told her he would connect her with a loan officer who could get her a mortgage.

“We are not a mortgage company,” Nwanju says.

Fuller recalls: “He told me that I had to bring $4,000, and some of it would get put down as a down payment, and the rest would go to closing costs. And if that didn’t exceed the closing costs, I’d get a refund.”

She signed papers and later paid the $4,000.

A couple of months later, still waiting to get a mortgage approved, she found out that the papers she signed were not for a loan but for help obtaining one. And seven months after signing the papers, she says she still hasn’t been able to get her money back.

Nwanju told me in an interview that the $4,000 is held in a trust so that when Fuller gets her credit repaired, she gets the money back for a down payment. That’s how his Home Team Program helps struggling buyers obtain home loans.

Fuller says she didn’t need credit repair.

But she made a critical error: She admits that she didn’t carefully read the papers she signed.

Nwanju sent me copies of forms that Fuller initialed. The agreement states that the funds deposited in the “Reserve account” are the property of the client and are “100 percent refundable should the client decide to withdraw from the program at anytime.”

Nwanju says he didn’t do anything wrong. He says she can have her $4,000 as soon as she signs the proper refund papers. Fuller says that she has already signed the papers and sent them to him but that he is putting her off.

Fuller provided The Watchdog with copies of several cellphone text exchanges between Nwanju and her in which she demands a refund.

“You stole my money!” she wrote.

He answered, “Stealing is when you force and take what doesn’t belong to you. Is your money! We will have the statement sent to you and send you a refund.

“Again am sorry we have taken so long Miss Fuller. I am doing everything I can to resolve this issue. … Hope we can still do business in the future.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she wrote back.

Nwanju says he is the one being treated unfairly. He says he has helped many families fix their financial history so they could purchase a home. He also teaches seminars through his 40 Homes/40 Families program.