To whom it may concern: regarding Fred Nelson

[FORDification]

(this is long...buckle up!)

There have been some posts in various Ford truck Facebook groups over the past few days regarding Fred Nelson, and I thought it's time to officially call this guy out for the scammer/thief that he is.

Fred contacted me several years ago about putting together a Ford truck show in his hometown of Anderson, MO as a fundraiser for the local children's choir group. He was interested in using the FORDification name for the show to take advantage of the name recognition in the truck community. After many phone conversations, I decided to take a chance on him. Let's just say that was a huge mistake.

Over the past few years in putting together the show, I've heard more and more complaints of his personal behavior and shady business practices. After each complaint, I immediately touched base with him to get to the bottom of it, and each time he assured me it was a misunderstanding and that he'd take care of it. Being the trusting person I am, I took him at this word...another huge mistake. I should have followed up with both parties to ensure that any transactions that were show-related were handled to the satisfaction of both sides.

I'd actually decided last year (prior to the 2018 show) that there wouldn't be another one because of the complaints that kept slowly trickling in. However, my wife got involved and persuaded me to give it one more chance, to talk with him and try to get to the bottom of it. I gave in...and have regretted it ever since.

Over the past few months the complaints have been rolling in even faster. Although most of the latest batch of complaints have had to do with his personal t-shirt selling endeavors that weren't associated with the website, I feel he was still using his association with the site to accept money from people, but not delivering the shirts as promised. That only continues to indirectly give a black eye to the FORDification name. And I'm most certainly NOT ok with that! Over the past month or so, as I've heard more complaints and I started following up on them, I've found an extremely disturbing pattern of behavior on Fred's part, including:

- Taking money for t-shirts and not delivering at all, or taking months to deliver
- Misrepresenting parts for sale
- Several instances of Fred selling parts to one person, accepting money for them, but then turning around and selling the same parts to someone else...but not refunding anything to the first buyer.

For those of you who have been to the show in Anderson the past couple years, you might have noticed the very cool lowered SWB that Mario was putting together. Not only was Mario an avid Ford truck fan and FORDification show fan and participant, he hand-made the trophies for two years for free and donated them. As the owner of a local restaurant, he also catered an after-show meal for the people who worked to set things up. I just found out a couple weeks ago that not only did Fred NOT pay him for the catered meal for 20-30 people, but Fred also pocketed a $500 donation to the show that Mario made, without even telling me about the donation. The icing on the cake was when after the show he sold Mario a vintage Ford Galaxie for $2500 on payments, but once the payments were completed and Mario inquired about picking up the car, he was simply told by Fred that he no longer had the car and didn't know where it was, but refused to refund his money. (EDIT: I've been contacted by the buyer, who tells me the car is now in Australia!)

Two years ago, I called Fred immediately after the show to talk and was informed that he'd neglected to give out two very large gift certificates that were donated by a major exhaust manufacturer for a complete high-end exhaust system. The certificates were due to expire before the next year's show and I was trying to figure out what to do...when Fred asked me if I wanted one of them for my own truck project. My immediate reaction to him was "NO, you idiot! These were supposed to go to the show participants!" He assured me he'd choose two random participants and mail the certificates to them. I will admit I failed to follow up on that to ensure that actually happened. In retrospect, I have my doubts it ever did.

So here's the bottom line....I will admit I was an idiot for ever trusting Fred Nelson. That's on me. He talked a good talk and I now recognize he's a major BS artist and thief, but I should have been less trusting and more diligent on following up on complaints. Many of the complaints, however, I'm just now finding out about.

I'm also finding out that Fred has been telling people I was making money off the show. Absolutely NOT! I've never seen a single DIME from anything related to the show, and in fact have paid out of pocket for decals and t-shirts.


So...effective immediately, any past association between myself and/or FORDification and Fred Nelson is dissolved. There will not be any further FORDification shows in Anderson MO. I'm contacting the McDonald County Chamber of Commerce and the Anderson Betterment Club to fill them in on Fred's behavior and business practices over the years, and providing screenshots of some of the complaints that I've received from Ford truck owners. I'll also be informing them that they (and Fred) are prohibited from every using the FORDification name in any capacity whatsoever.

In addition to posting this in my Ford truck groups, so it shows up in future FB searches for his name, I'm also going to be posting something about this on the site itself, so it will indexed by Google and show up on future Google searches if anyone decides to investigate him before doing business with him. And I highly recommend that everyone steer clear of any future business dealing with Fred Nelson.

...and Fred, if you're reading this: WTF? I trusted you, and you let me down. You soiled the good name of the site and you stole from a lot of good people for your own financial gain. That is NOT the behavior of a God-fearing man that you try to pass yourself off as. You're a thief and a con artist, plain and simple. If you've got a shred of decency left, contact the people you've sold t-shirts to but not delivered to and make it right with them. Contact Mario and make things right with him! You straight-up took advantage of him for more than $3000! Countless others have also fallen victim to your schemes. Well, it's over. Offer to make payments or whatever, but at least open a dialog with them. Man up and fix this!

To everyone else, all I can do is apologize. As I said, many of the complaints are just now coming to light, though some were from previous years, and I failed to follow up on them to make sure they were handled correctly. That's my fault...and I'm sorry. I sincerely hope that nobody thinks I had any involvement in any of his shenanigans, I absolutely did not, nor have I ever personally profited from the show in any way...unlike someone else apparently. I will do what I can to try to restore the FORDification name and undo any damage Fred Nelson has done.

[crazyhorse]

Mr Keith , I am sorry to hear this.
Thank you for the information.
I hope everything will work out for the best.
It is so sad to hear news like this.
Thank you sir for the Fordification site.
It is the best.

[FLASH 1]

Keith I feel your pain since we sent something to him for that show few years ago and NOT one single Thank You or saying they got it, etc. so just wrote it off..
Now as far as this next statement goes
Selling parts to one person, accepting money for them, but then turning around and selling the same parts to someone else...but not refunding anything to the first buyer or promise to ship when back on the West Coast and not doing it. At this past F-100 reunion in May, there is one Used Parts Vendor from out West that's is doing pretty close to that,++ when he first shows up a lot of good deals can be bought for 1/2 of what they should be, Oh yes great for the truck builders But not for the other vendors, then on last day clearing out his like 75% off so he goes back home empty. Also has promised other vendors parts when home and no show.. ++ heard him talking about how 6 sheriffs where at t his house investigating on these trucks being stripped. a lot more but will stop there
Bottom line is to watch who you buy from whether it be parts or a vehicle in person or on line since I have seen a lot of trolls on sites

[radioactivelarry]

There is a guy in Northern California near Sacramento that has the same MO. He is a shyster of the first degree. He calls himself "Fantasy Fords" Robert Mitchell and runs a parts scam and a repair shop scam working without the California State Bureau of Automotive Repair licensing using the club as an excuse saying club members are only working on their own vehicles which is not the case.
"THIS IS WHAT HE DID TO ME"
1. I let the club use my engine hoist (not a cheap one) and it just came up missing.
2. My truck was rear ended and the bed was screwed up and he told me he had a "cherry bed" for me for 600 dollars and his shop would install it for me for an additional 200 dollars.
3. They came and picked up my truck to change the bed and took it to their shop.
4. After they had it for over a month they called me to pick up the truck as it was ready.
5. A friend drove me down to get my truck but when I looked at it they put a dinged, rusty old POS of a bed that was worse than mine. He did a bait and switch on me so I went ballistic on the jerk. I managed to get 600 dollars back but the club mechanic said he was keeping 200 for labor. OK, just take off that POS bed and put my old one back on. Well, there's a problem, Robert sold your old bed to some guy. What, are you kidding me? I confronted Robert and he lied to me saying he cut it up and scrapped it. Either way I have no bed. So then, here is the kicker; the mechanic stole my brand new Bosch battery so I went looking for him and confronted him about the battery. He said they put their old battery in because mine went dead. So I told him to get his butt over their and put my battery back in. So he did, and it wasn't dead!
6. Bottom line, I am out the 200 bucks the mechanic kept and I don't have a bed for my truck! So now I have to find a bed somewhere which is difficult to find a decent bed even in California.

This guy sells Ford truck parts on craigs list, he dismantles trucks he buys then takes them apart and sells the parts. He doesn't have a dismantles license either.
If you ever run across this guy, run the other way, he will rob you blind!

[JoshT]

Larry if it's a long bed, get down to the for sale section. There are two greatness in Los Angeles California that m-mman is giving away if he hasn't scrapped them yet.

[timmytim]

Wow I haven't been on site for a few years. But I remember this guy and the show he put on every year. I actually planned on going once.