Yet another newspaper arcticle.......
Medina biz owner accused of theft
by David Arny
BCC Staff Writer
Published June 12, 2008
Ty Lofstrom
Medina resident and owner of TLI Racing, Ty Lofstrom, 31, was arrested Tuesday, May 27, and booked in the Bandera County Jail on charges of felony theft between $20,000 and $100,000.
This was Lofstrom’s second arrest in less than three weeks on similar accusations. On Wednesday, May 7, investigators with the Bandera County Sheriff’s Office served him with a warrant out of Real County accusing him of theft between $1,500 and $20,000. Lofstrom posted a total of $22,500 in surety bonds and both cases await review by a Grand Jury with the 216th Judicial District.
TLI Racing is located at 13916 Highway 16 North. In a phone interview on Tuesday, June 10, Lofstrom said he planned to close his shop Sunday, June 15, due to his legal woes and the publicity generated by his arrests. He added that he feels a “moral obligation” to provide his customers with the merchandise they were promised.
“I’ve never been arrested before. I’ve never even been given a speeding ticket,” said Loftstrom. “I served 11 years in the Navy’s Special Forces and getting arrested was a very disturbing experience for me.”
Loftstrom indicated his difficulties had resulted from his having “tangled with the wrong customer.” He asked that questions regarding the specific nature of the charges against him be directed to his attorney Harold Danford of Kerrville. However, Danford did not return a call to his office by press time.
The website for TLI Racing currently features an impressive array of custom racing engines and services the company offers to customers worldwide. According to the website, Loftstrom relocated his business to Medina from Southern California in 2004 for “growth reasons.”
High-performance racing aficionados from Australia, Japan, South Africa and Norway, as well as customers from across the United States, have sent Loftstrom tens of thousands of dollars to purchase his custom-built engines in eBay online sales or after seeing them displayed on his website.
In a number of instances, however, those clients have waited over a year for equipment that was supposed to have been shipped in a matter of weeks. In addition, one buyer told The Courier the goods he received that were advertised as being brand new were actually used engine components.
In an interview, George Wintle, an investigator with the BCSO, explained the difficulty in prosecuting cases such as Loftstrom’s.
“In some cases, these individuals place their orders along with a large deposit,” said Wintle. “If they never get anything for their money, that’s considered theft. But once the customer receives anything, or work is begun on his order, it goes from being a criminal offence to a civil complaint.”
Several clients who allege being defrauded by Loftstrom credit Wintle with reviving a criminal investigation of TLI Racing. Previously, they had been informed by other authorities – including the 216th District Attorney’s Office – that their only recourse was to negotiate a possible refund from Loftstrom or to hire a lawyer and pursue the case in civil court.
“I was basically given the option of spending $15,000 on a lawyer and flying 1,500 miles to San Antonio and renting a car to drive to Bandera for every court hearing – all for the possibility of recovering some of my $7,000,” said a TLI customer who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The man requested anonymity because he claims he received a letter from an attorney representing Loftstrom that threatened him with a lawsuit for slander if he made negative comments about his client or TLI to others.
Additionally, the Better Business Bureau has given TLI Racing an “unsatisfactory” rating due to the unresolved complaints against the company.
According to their website,
www.bbb.org, a business earns an unsatisfactory record after it “has failed to resolve or respond to complaints, repeatedly failed to respond or resolve issues in a timely manner, failed to resolve the underlying issues for a pattern of complaints, or failed to honor their commitment to mediate or arbitrate disputes or honor mediated agreements or arbitrated decisions,” in addition to other BBB criteria.
The BBB Reliability Report notes that the consumer group “processed a total of seven complaints about (TLI Racing) in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total of seven complaints, three were closed in the last year.”