Whatever Happened to Lancaster Arms?

It’s been a long time since I updated this blog, but I know some of you out there are wondering whatever happened to Lancaster Arms and Chet Durda.  Well, as many of you know, Chet Durda settled his case with the Arizona Attorney General’s office.  According to the Arizona AG, Durda was mostly uncooperative during the entire matter, stalling at every possible opportunity.  The court even had to issue a “Motion to Compel” because Durda would not provide the requested documentation concerning how he was running his business.

   

Nonetheless, he eventually agreed to settle with the AG, and to pay the State of Arizona $70,000.  Most of that ($67,000) was for restitution to his victims, and $3,000 was to cover court costs.

Apparently not knowing that Chet Durda’s word is meaningless, the Arizona AG agreed to let him make monthly payments until the debt was paid in full.  But according to the Arizona AG, Chet Durda never paid even a single penny of the judgment.  He immediately defaulted on the judgment, and that judgment was recently sent to a collections agency for further action.  Someone speculated in a previous comment thread that Chet Durda “got away with it”, but that is not the case.  The judgment against him was personal (i.e., the judgment was against him as a person, not against the business), so Durda still legally owes the entire $70,000.  And if anything, the collection agency is likely to be far more aggressive at collecting the money than the AG’s office ever was because…well…because that’s what collection agencies do. 

Of course, this judgment from Arizona is just one of Chet Durda’s many, many debts.  A cursory look at court and public record filings in Arizona reveals that as of 2012 he owed about $75,000 to a property management company called Estrella Associates, and $31,000 to the IRS in unpaid taxes.  As of 2011 he owed $8,000 to a Steven Delbarto.  As of 2010 he owed $6,000 to CMRE Financial Services.  Also as of last year (although I don’t know if the case is still active), Chet Durda was being sued in Federal Court by a former business partner, who alleged that Durda was guilty of “breach of contract, conversion and fraud”.  Durda borrowed $200,000 from Allen Myers and, predictably, never paid him back.  Hmm…I think I see a pattern here.  

And I could go on and on, because if you look at the Maricopa County Recorder’s office records, you’ll see that over the last two decades ole’ Chester Durda has made something of a hobby out of borrowing money that he never intends to repay.  Although I suspect that few of you reading this are even remotely surprised.   

As for Lancaster Arms, Chet Durda supposedly sold the business to a new owner.  That new owner unwisely decided to keep the Lancaster name (which is worthless given what Durda did to it), calling the new entity “Lancaster Armory”.  I don’t know whether this was a straight and legitimate sale of the business, or whether it was a “paper sale” only to get Durda’s name out of it.  I don’t wish to speculate too much in this regard, as if it was a legitimate sale than the new owner deserves a chance to rebuild the business.  

I do find it curious however that the new owner would choose to keep the name in place, since anyone who did even 10 minutes worth of research on the Internet would – I think – come to the conclusion that they’d want to change the “Lancaster” name as fast as humanly possible.  In the firearms world, and with AK-style rifles in particular, the “Lancaster” name has come to be associated with a fraudulent operation run by an incompetent hustler.  I can understand buying a business name for the associated brand equity, but in this case, I would say the “Lancaster” name actually has negative brand equity.  I suppose it’s theoretically possible to turn that around, but I’m not certain why a new business owner would want to start out in that hole to begin with.  Then again, nothing associated with Lancaster Arms ever made any sense, so…C’est la vie.

I will update this blog as necessary, and/or when anything newsworthy happens.  As for the new Lancaster Armory, I will take a “wait and see” approach.  I hope it’s legit, and that the new owner becomes known for running a quality company.  As always, actions will speak a heck of a lot louder than words.

Arizona Attorney General Sues Lancaster Arms and Chet Durda for Fraud

Well, we all knew this was coming. Today, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne issued a press release, announcing that the State of Arizona is suing Lancaster Arms and Chet Durda for fraud. The press release is as follows:

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

HORNE ANNOUNCES LAWSUIT ACCUSING PHOENIX-AREA GUN DEALER OF DEFRAUDING CUSTOMERS

PHOENIX (Monday, December 12, 2011) -- A Phoenix-area firearms dealer is the subject of a consumer fraud lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court by Attorney General Tom Horne.

The suit contends that Lancaster Arms, LLC, which is owned by co-defendants Chester and Marsha Durda, defrauded consumers by failing to provide promised merchandise and services to dozens of customers between February of 2009 and September of 2011.

“Protecting consumers is one of the most important jobs of this office,” Horne said. “Businesses such as the one named in this lawsuit cannot be allowed to make promises to customers and not deliver on those promises. The problem is made even worse when, as in this case, some customers made advance payments with the expectation that they would get either merchandise or services in return, and instead they got nothing. The legal action requests that the court order the business to make restitution, pay penalties, and prevent it from defrauding additional consumers.”

According to the complaint, Lancaster Arms claimed to consumers, some of whom worked in law enforcement and the military, and to some weapons dealers, on the internet and through personal contact by Chester Durda, that the company sold weapons, parts and accessories and that it provided weapon kit assembly services to consumers who sent their kits to the company. Additionally, Lancaster Arms represented that some of its weapons were subject to its “Limited Life Time Warranty”. The lawsuit alleges that Lancaster Arms failed to ship merchandise that consumers had paid for, failed to repair weapons under warranty, and failed to provide refunds. The lawsuit also alleges that Lancaster Arms failed to assemble weapons kits sent to it by consumers and failed to return the un-assembled kits to the consumers or to provide them with refunds. The complaint asks the court to enter an injunction prohibiting the defendants from engaging in any further unlawful acts, require the defendants to restore money and property to consumers, order the payment of civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, and to reimburse the State’s court costs and other related expenses.

The case is being handled by Assistant Attorney General Cherie Howe.

A full copy of the complaint can be found here.
---------------

In reading this, I find it a little puzzling that the Goodyear Police Department earlier this year stated that they couldn't find evidence of "intentional" fraud, when the Arizona AG now clearly says otherwise. Will the Goodyear Police now re-open their criminal investigation? And what does the ATF think of all this? Surely they now understand that there is no way this guy should have a Federal Firearms License.

I suspect we'll be hearing more on all of this soon.

Lancaster Arms Finished???

I got a tip in the comments section of the previous post that as of today, Lancaster Arms ’ website is no longer working. So, I checked online with the Arizona Corporation Commission to see if Lancaster Arms was still a going concern. Sure enough, as of November 16th, 2011, Lancaster Arms is no longer an Arizona corporation in good standing. It appears that Lancaster’s statutory agent resigned back in August, and Lancaster Arms failed to register a new agent in the allotted timeframe.

There could be several reasons this agent resigned. It could be lack of payment on legal bills (that’d be my guess), it could be that Chet Durda told this agent that Lancaster intended to go out of business (another good guess), or it could be that the attorney just decided he didn’t want to be associated with Lancaster anymore. Whatever the reason, as of this moment, Lancaster Arms is not properly licensed to conduct business in Arizona. I’m gonna put forth a guess here that Lancaster Arms is no longer in business.

If true, this should not come as a surprise to anyone. When the Arizona Attorney General and other law enforcement officials started looking into Lancaster’s operations earlier this year, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before Lancaster would close its doors. Over the last few years, Lancaster Arms managed to rack up an almost unbelievable number of complaints with the Better Business Bureau (63 filed complaints as of today) and Arizona Attorney General’s office. This unusually large number of complaints prompted the authorities to dig a little deeper, and what they uncovered at Lancaster was a series of “poor business dealings” that, in my opinion, were indicative of a business that just didn't give a damn about staying in business.

I truly feel bad for all the people who had the misfortune of being screwed by Lancaster Arms and its owner, Chet Durda. Just a few days ago in fact, someone complained to the Better Business Bureau that “[I] sent a rifle for warranty repair in August and never saw my gun again!” I suspect this individual is not the only person who is now out either money, or a gun for which they paid. Here too, I’m not the least bit surprised. To say that Lancaster’s business model (such as it was) was “unsustainable”, would be putting things nicely. Anyone doing business with Lancaster in 2011 was, in my opinion, accepting a huge risk that they might never see their gun or money again. This is why in several previous posts on this blog, I warned people to be extremely careful when conducting business with Lancaster Arms.

Of course, there are several lessons to be learned from all this. The first lesson is that we now live in a “reputation economy”, and any business that is willing to sacrifice its reputation in the name of making money, will find it difficult to stay in business. In the Internet and social media age, if you are not 100% honest and ethical in your business dealings, you can be certain that everyone is going to hear about it. Apparently Chet Durda never got this memo.

Second, whenever you are contemplating doing business with a company – especially for large dollar purchases - do your research first! Check them out on Google. Look-up their Better Business Bureau profile. Look at review sites like Angie’s List, Yelp, etc. to see what other people say about that business. And if possible, try to find a person (or people) you trust who have direct experience with the business and see what they say. This blog has been in the top 3 search results on Google for “Lancaster Arms” for almost two years. During that time, anyone who bothered to Google “Lancaster Arms” before doing business with them would have received fair warning that there were substantial problems with this business. (And it wasn’t just this blog they would have seen. A search for “Lancaster Arms” would have revealed a significant number of different links suggesting that this company had “issues”.)

Third, if you’re ever dealing with a company and you get a “gut feeling” that something isn't right, listen to your gut! Most of us have been around the block long enough to know when a business transaction is not going as it should. If this happens to you, start asking questions, start keeping notes of your interactions with the company, and start demanding some accountability. Most businesses are honest outfits that want to do right by you. But it’s an unfortunate fact that every once-in-awhile you may encounter a business like Lancaster Arms, where your satisfaction is the least of their concerns. If this happens to you, don’t be a patsy. Start asking questions. Along these lines, also be on the lookout for business practices or policies that seem odd or non-standard. For example, when Lancaster Arms stopped accepting credit cards a year or two ago, and would only accept money orders and cashier checks as payment, smart people should have asked themselves, “Why would a business that primarily sells $500+ products, not accept credit cards?” That fact alone should have raised numerous red flags to any thinking person.

Fourth and finally, if you ever have an unusually horrible experience with a business, let others know about it! Now, this comes with some caveats. I am not saying that if an employee of a business is rude to you on the phone one day, that you should run out and start bad-mouthing that business all over the Internet. Businesses, and the people they employee, sometimes have bad days or make honest mistakes. It happens. I’m also not saying that just because you “feel” wronged, that you should always complain. As I’ve found out myself in the business world, sometimes the customer is NOT always correct. It is up to you to be reasonable, and not trash a business online just because you had unreasonable expectations to which the business wouldn't cater. No, what I’m talking about here is when you have truly been wronged, and when the business won’t fix the problem after reasonable and adequate requests to do so. When that happens, you will be helping other consumers by letting them know what they might expect if they choose to do business with a particular company. I can only guess how many people were spared from having to deal with the pathological liars at Lancaster Arms because those people saw numerous bad reviews, and knew to stay far away.

If any of you have thoughts on all this, and especially if any of you are still owed money or a gun from Lancaster Arms, leave a comment below. I will update this post and this blog as I learn more information about what has become of Lancaster.

Lancaster Arms Investigated By Various Law Enforcement Agencies

On a few different Internet message boards, I've seen several people ask, "When is someone going to investigate Lancaster Arms???" Well, in fact a few different law enforcement agencies have recently investigated Lancaster. The following is the "official" response from the Goodyear Police Department Criminal Investigations Division. Any bold or otherwise highlighted parts below represent my own added emphasis:

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

"The following is the official response letter to consumers who have had pending business transactions (prior to 01/2011) with Lancaster Arms LLC, located in Goodyear, AZ .Lancaster Arms was investigated by the Goodyear P.D. Criminal Investigations Division in January of 2011, specifically regarding Arizona Revised Statues 13-2108 (Criminal Fraud schemes or practices). Goodyear P.D. could assert jurisdiction on this matter as a law enforcement agency and under state statutory authority which notes local law enforcement agencies are empowered to investigate criminal matters and then make the appropriate decisions, as to verify or collaterally identify whether any criminal act has occurred or not. If a criminal act has occurred then the practice of this agency would be to send the investigative findings to either the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for felony charges to be issued, or the City of Goodyear Prosecutors Office for misdemeanor criminal charges to be filed. The results of this investigation were as follows: (that) No criminal act knowingly occurred regarding, repairing, purchasing or other services provided to consumers, prior to January, 2011. If purchases were made after January 2011, this may be a criminal act. At present this department has not received any complaints regarding business transactions with Lancaster Arms after January, 2011.

In June of 2011, the Goodyear Police Department was made aware that the Arizona Attorney General’s Office of Consumer Fraud and Complaints’ also conducted their own inquiry into the business dealings of Lancaster Arms. The Attorney General’s Office has determined, thus far, that Lancaster Arms and its ownership have had non-intentional poor business dealings with some of their consumers, as a result of some non-criminal business dealings which reduced the ability of Lancaster Arms to fulfill some of their past orders. It should also be noted the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has also completed a recent inspection of Lancaster Arms regarding federal law, Federal Firearms Dealer Licensing Acts, and federal fraud acts concerning firearms and have concluded that no criminal violations have been committed by Lancaster Arms.

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office of Consumer Fraud continually monitors complaints regarding Lancaster Arms. You may choose to lodge your complaint with that office by going to their web site at www.AZAG.GOV and then following instructions to register a complaint under this division. It will be determined by the AZ Attorney General’s Office if Lancaster Arms would still be conducting on-line business after January, 2011, and if those acts are civil or criminal consumer-business fraud. At this point their office does not find any deliberate criminal or civil fraud regarding Lancaster Arms, but you are more than welcome to state your complaint in writing over the aforementioned manner.

Recovery of funds lost through poor business transactions ( if under $5,000.00) can be made through the local Justice Court which has civil jurisdiction on civil monetary recovery suits. The jurisdiction for the geographical area of Goodyear is the Estrella Mountain Justice Court and a claim can be made through them. You may reach this court, through the website at: www.superiorcourt.maricopa.gov then follow the link to Justice Courts and small claims.The U.S Department of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms website is www.ATF.GOV

At present this will conclude the Goodyear Police Department’s response and inquiry into Lancaster Arms incidents regarding business transactions with consumers prior to 01/2011. Transactions made after 01/2011 can be directed to the Goodyear Police Department. NOTE: This does not infer that if your transaction started prior to 01/2011 and is still pending with Lancaster Arms, that this is considered a new transaction because of reporting the issue. This is still considered to be a transaction occurring prior to 01/2011 and should be dealt with in the same manner as outlined in this response letter."

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

There you have it, folks. The authorities could not find any "intentional" or "deliberate" criminal behavior on the part of Lancaster Arms or it's owner, Chet Durda. They concluded that Lancaster did not "knowingly" commit any criminal acts.

To those of us who have followed Lancaster the past couple of years, these findings are a bit amusing. Over the last two years, this blog has documented several dozen incidents of Lancaster Arms telling people "Your rifle will ship tomorrow", "It will ship next week", "The check is in the mail", etc., etc., which I personally believe were quite intentional acts of deception on the part of Lancaster Arms and Chet Durda. Proving that such acts were "intentional" or "deliberate" is the key here. We're talking about a legal standard of proof that is quite high. In my own personal opinion, and in the opinion of many others, I think you'd have to have been born yesterday to believe that these acts (many of which I have documented extensively on this blog) were not "deliberate" or "intentional".

Still, all of this is actually good news. Because at this juncture, Lancaster Arms is very much on the radar of the Arizona Attorney General, the BATF, and the Goodyear Police Department. They are now aware that there have been "issues" with Lancaster Arms, and that these issues have been of such a nature that they felt various investigations, including a criminal investigation, were warranted. All I ever wanted was for Lancaster Arms to make good on its promises and commitments, and by these actions, Lancaster is now in a position were it has to make good on all of the orders it has received to-date. That is a good outcome.

As instructed above, if you are not satisfied with this resolution yourself, and/or if you ordered something from Lancaster and it has not been delivered to you on the timeline and in the manner promised, make your concerns known to the Arizona AG's office. It sounds as if they are now more proactively managing these issues which, again, is all I have ever wanted.

For those of you who are reading this blog for the first time, and are researching a potential purchase from Lancaster, take all of the above into careful consideration. And decide for yourself if, given the information above, you feel confident placing an order with Lancaster Arms. Speaking strictly for myself, I would never again do business with this company. I wouldn't even contemplate it for a second. I've simply seen too many people get burned by trusting Lancaster Arms. But if you're the type of person who believes that a leopard can change it's spots...by all means, order away!

Warning: Lancaster Arms Spiraling

OK, folks. At this point I am being inundated with messages and emails from people who ordered a rifle from Lancaster Arms in 2010 or early 2011 (or sent one back for repair), who still don’t have their rifle. (Keep in mind…most of these people were initially told by Chet Durda that their rifle would be shipped in 10 business days!) Such complaints have been fairly common over the last couple of years, but recently, the volume of those complaints seems to have increased substantially. In addition, complaints like this and like this are popping up on the Internet gun forums with increasing regularity. (Not like such complaints were exactly a rarity before.) It’s now getting to the point where anytime I see a new Internet forum post that has “Lancaster” in the title, I already know what the post is going to be about: someone complaining that Lancaster Arms took their money long ago, keeps giving them empty excuses and bogus promises (when that person can even reach someone at Lancaster), and won’t deliver a rifle. And of course the Better Business Bureau complaint log keeps growing, now with a mind-blowing 50 complaints filed against Lancaster.

In other words, whatever is going on at Lancaster Arms right now…it ain’t good.

Under NO circumstances should you send any money to Lancaster Arms unless and until you have received a VALID tracking number indicating that whatever you ordered is already in the hands of FedEx or UPS. Lancaster has recently been known to tell you to send money because your product is ready to ship…and then the product never ships. I have seen two different people complain about this practice.

It's also worth nothing that Lancaster has a list of “National Sales Dealers” on it’s website, who supposedly carry Lancaster’s products. But upon calling a few of these dealers, most of them claim they are no longer doing business with Lancaster due to “various problems”. It appears Lancaster should update that list. Then again, it appears Lancaster should be doing a lot of things they're not doing.

As always, caveat emptor.

P.S. Be sure to read the comments that posters have left on previous blog posts, too. It is in those comments that you really get a feel for just how many people have been having problems with Lancaster recently.

Lancaster Arms: 43 Better Business Bureau Complaints, and counting!

Wow. It was just last month that I was contemplating, “How on EARTH can a small company rack up 35 complaints with the Better Business Bureau? How does that even happen?!?” As I’ve written before, most people who have a problem with a company won’t actually go so far as to file a formal complaint with the Better Business Bureau until things get bad. Like, really bad. And usually, for every person who actually goes through the process of formally filing a BBB complaint, there are many others who have had a problem with the company who have not taken the time to file a formal complaint with the BBB.

So, in looking today, I see that Lancaster Arms is now up to 43 complaints with the Better Business Bureau. Let me repeat that. 43 complaints! That is an increase of eight complaints in just the last month alone! Or an average of 2 complaints per week during the last month. And remember, we’re just talking about complaints actually filed with the BBB! Lord only knows how many other poor people are out there having problems with Lancaster, who haven’t gone to the BBB yet.

And as one would expect given Lancaster’s BBB troubles, complaints keep coming in to this blog, and I keep seeing Internet forum comments, alleging that Lancaster won’t answer emails, won’t answer their phone, won’t return voicemails, won’t deliver products as promised, etc., etc.

I don’t know what to tell you folks, other than what I’ve been saying all along on this blog for the past 1 ½ years: Doing business with Lancaster Arms is a really, really, REALLY bad idea. If 43 Better Business Bureau complaints don’t convince you that something is seriously wrong with this small company, then nothing ever will. In any regard, at this point you’d have to be a damn fool to send this company any money. Just ask any of those 43 people…

Lancaster Arms Now Up To 35 Better Business Bureau Complaints

Well, you can’t say Lancaster Arms isn’t efficient. Unfortunately, the thing they are most efficient at is pissing off customers.

When I posted about Lancaster Arm’s shockingly high number of Better Business Bureau (“BBB”) complaints back in January, and their “F” rating with the BBB as a result of those complaints, they had amassed an amazing total of 28 complaints. (And keep in mind, these are just BBB complaints. Other complaints have been filed against Lancaster Arms with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and others.) There is no other company in the firearms industry of which I’m aware, that has such a terrible complaint history with the BBB.

While a reputable business might understand that such a high number of complaints was an indicator that they needed to make serious changes to their operations, Lancaster has apparently continued on with “business as usual”, and as a result is now up to 35 complaints…and growing. Apparently they are hoping to achieve sales by relying on the old P.T. Barnum saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Worse yet, the BBB states that Lancaster has not even responded to 31 of the 35 complaints. Anyone familiar with the ownership of Lancaster Arms would not be surprised by this. The owner of Lancaster Arms, Chet Durda, has an unenviable reputation in the AK-owning community. Which stands to reason, as the factual record (as documented on this blog and all over the Internet) shows that Mr. Durda has no problem whatsoever with, uh, “being less than entirely truthful and forthright” in his business dealings. This clown would be a fantastic used car or mattress salesman.

Sure enough, a sampling of recent Internet forum posts validates that nothing has changed at Lancaster.

In this forum post, a gentleman discusses how he ordered some receivers from Lancaster back in January, sent payment, had the payment cashed by Lancaster, and never got the receivers or his requested refund. If I had a dime for every similar post I’ve read on the Internet (Lancaster cashes a check, and then doesn’t send product in a timely manner, if at all), I’d be a rich man.

And in this post, a guy bought a milled Lancaster AK rifle, it had problems, and he got the standard Lancaster Arms runaround. After trying to get them to fix the problem, and Lancaster being unresponsive, he eventually just gave up on Lancaster. And as often happens in such threads, other people also chimed in with the same familiar stories: “I ordered something in November and it still isn’t here”, “they keep telling me the gun will ship soon or that they will rush the order”…but the gun or product never ships.

As always folks, if you insist on doing business with Lancaster Arms (and I can’t state strongly enough how much I would advise against doing so), NEVER, EVER send payment prior to your order being ready. And even then, get a firm commitment IN WRITING from Lancaster as to when the product will ship, and send only a money order or other payment that can be traced and refunded by the issuer if necessary. Do not send cash under any circumstances. And if you speak with Chet Durda about your order, how will you know if he's lying to you? Simple: His lips will be moving.

Failure to follow these instructions will only result in much frustration on your part.