It sounded like a straightforward transaction.
Fifteen-year-old Jack Miller wanted a pitbike, and he found a Facebook site that appeared to offer customised bikes for a good price.
But over a year later and Jack doesn't have the bike, or his money, he's just left with learning one of life's tough lessons.
It was February 2019 when Jack made contact with a Facebook site called Goat Custom Pit Bikes.
The reviews seemed reasonable. The photos showed work underway on this specialised type of dirt bike. Jack made contact and spoke to the man in charge who identified himself simply as "Goat". Possibly the first warning sign, but Jack was too excited to worry about this.
A deal was struck, and Jack paid $900 into Goat's account before any work had commenced. At first, communication was good, they even got to the stage of discussing costs for transit from Christchurch to Upper Hutt, but then the messages dried up.
Jack could see Goat was still trading, there were items for sale such as a boat for $7000 and a scooter for $700. But he couldn't get any answers out of him about the pitbike he'd paid for.
Jack's Dad took over and called Goat who said he'd return the call in five minutes. Five months later still nothing. So Jack asked Fair Go to step in to try to get his bike or his money back.
There was little to go on. Goat's Facebook page described him as going to "The School of I don't give a Shit", and being from Las Vegas. The mobile number no longer worked. But he was clearly still active online.
Fair Go messaged him to say that under the Fair Trading Act Jack was legally entitled to either his goods or a full refund.
Goat did reply, giving a number of excuses that were either irrelevant, such as "I'm not a business", or untrue, such as "$500 was deposited back to Jack" and "Jack didn't get in touch for months".
He also explained that he'd been having a really tough time with various catastrophic life events taking place. We don't know if this is true, but if he was still working and still trading, it's no excuse for failing to deliver on a fully paid transaction.
Goat then said he would repay Jack $20 a fortnight, but that would take over a year. Understandably, that didn't sit well with Jack who was keen to get his $900 in one lump sum. However, Jack offered to meet in the middle and accept $50 a week, which would still mean waiting five months to be fully repaid. Fair Go put this suggestion to Goat but then the communication again ground to a halt.
So with a little investigation we discovered Goat's name, Jayden Ross, and his address in a Christchurch suburb, and we decided to pay him a visit.
We arrived at his property. The drive leading to his double garage was strewn with mechanical parts. Three people, including Jayden aka. Goat, were working there. But as we approached and asked to talk to Goat, the garage doors were pulled down and we were told in no uncertain terms to make our exit.
Later that night, Goat made contact by phone, agreeing to pay back the $900 in full by the end of March 2020. On March 28, he confirmed he had the money in his account all ready. But as April began, there was still no payment. His excuse this time was he didn't have internet banking and had to wait till Level 2 began to physically make the deposit. True or not, Jack patiently agreed to wait. Again.
But it's now a couple of months down the track and Jack's bank account is still short of that $900 he worked so hard for.
"Definitely a bummer" was Jack's take on it. He thanked Fair Go for trying to help, adding that he'd learnt "not to give my money away online before seeing the product, it's probably one of the biggest things I’ve learned in my life".
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