Fraud at Ciener
Ciener, who makes 22 conversions, arrested for fraud. Anyone have any idea?
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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November 4th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
I’d heard of the reliability issues, but competition is fierce in the .22 conversion business, and this may be a case of a competitor getting all friendly with the Brevard County DA to add two and two and come up with five.
Not real familiar with the consumer complaint process in FL, but I hear such things are taken seriously there because of all the vulnerable geezers in the population, so maybe this is more of a failed-guarantee case?
November 4th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Riverdog’s thesis is not implausible.
But neither is that Mr. Ciener might have defrauded someone.
Far too little data to say anything more, at this point.
November 4th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
It’s hard to tell with Ceiner. You’d have more trouble convincing people that he DIDN’T commit fraud given his history and reputation in the business but I haven’t heard any details.
November 4th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
I have his glock and AR kits, and both work great. Will they increase in value now?? If so, I’m taking offers!
November 4th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
I bought one of the AR kits a while back. I remember the order taking an amazing amount of time to be fulfilled, something around 7 or 8 months.
My Father was wanting file a formal complaint since no emails or phone calls were returned. Then suddenly, it just shows up on the door step.
After a few thousand rounds, no trouble with it at all. I can’t speak positively about his business, but I really do love the kit I bought.
November 4th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
http://donotbuyciener22lrconversions.org/
November 4th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Maybe all of it just caught up to him.
November 4th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
I know you lurk at subguns. How could you not be aware of what kind of guy Ceiner is? He’s two steps above Dana Reed, maybe.
November 4th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
He’s notorious for taking orders & money and not delivering for months. It’s hard to find a thread about him/his products that doesn’t mention it. He is also notorious for abysmal customer service when it comes to refunds for things he can’t deliver. Somebody with connections probably got tired of waiting.
November 4th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Can you be convicted for felony douchebaggery?
The man makes decent conversion kits, but as others have mentioned, he’s not well known for his timeliness nor for his warm and helpful customer service.
But fraud? I’m scratchin’ my head over it. Maybe he took too long and pissed off enough people with enough clout for the DA to get involved. I suppose if you took someones money for a product to be delivered, and then failed to meet the delivery date AND refused to deal with them or refund their money, that might meet the legal standard for fraud. But I’m no lawyer.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
November 4th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
He looks about exactly as I would have pictured. Needs a gold chain.
And also, the SNL v-neck video has scared me for life on vnecks. Ugh.
November 4th, 2011 at 10:45 pm
I ordered one of the AK kits he promised for a Galil I owned way back when.
A year later, I had to threaten him with an internet jihad to get him to refund my money. He told me to not bother to order an AK kit from him in the future.
He never did produce that bit of vaporware.
I’m pretty sure a large customer finally got tired of his crap, and put together a credible fraud case.
November 4th, 2011 at 10:47 pm
I take that back. He finally did start selling them. Heh.
November 4th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Or did he?
Did anyone actually get one, ever?
November 5th, 2011 at 9:04 am
Kristopher, I’ve seen a few AK kits for sale on the various gunboards along with a few people reporting they had one. But then there was just as many people reporting that they had order one and had been waiting 6 months-year for theirs. I steered away and got a used AKT98 .22 LR AK.
The problem with Ciener’s orders is that he charged 25% for canceling it even if it was months later.
My Dad had a problem a few years ago with a rear sight on his Ciener 1911 kit, he called him and had it fixed in just a couple of weeks. He is the only person I’ve seen that has had positive customer service experience from him.
It honestly would not surprise me at all if he finally got in trouble for his long wait times/non-deliveries. It seems the times lately of some people waiting for kits have gone up to a year or more without a delivery date in sight.
November 5th, 2011 at 11:48 am
Ciener’s customer service skills are… rudimentary to say the least. He’s reasonably personable until you suggest that something may be wrong with his merchandise, or disagree with him.
It’s like he’d graduated from some Anti-Dale Carnegie course, “How To Lose Friends And Alienate People”.
Given that, it was only a matter of time before he pissed somebody off bad enough for them to make a legal case out of it.
November 5th, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Complaints about his customer service and poor business model have been around for years. I’m surprised it isn’t more circulated. This guy requires service complaints and follow ups to be via written letter. Not email, not phone call, or fax. Snail mail. AND he requires you include a $10.00 payment if you expect a reply which could take as long as it does to get his products. Really? $10.00 for a status report on a months long wait for something you’ve already paid for? $10.00 for a complaint about the wait, service, or some other issue including defects? Then, when you’re finally fed up with the lack of everything you would expect to see in any business, you cancel the order and he keeps 25% of the cost as a restocking fee for something he probably hasn’t even made yet! This guy is a World Class Douchebag of the highest order. I sincerely do not understand how he has remained in business this long. His product isn’t that great and there are plenty of other companies that make a better product for a comparable price. It’s just sad really.
Disavowed With Honor
November 5th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
There is a simpler explanation. If you pull out a 1911 and only put a .22-sized hole in someone, they have every right to feel defrauded.
November 6th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
I’ve met that guy in person. He’s a dick!
November 7th, 2011 at 1:34 am
Judging from what turns up on the web, his production problems seem to relate to his inability to retain machinists at his company. Has permanent want ads posted, looking for them. Apparently, this has been ongoing since he started the business. Shame the family wasn’t able to keep him in the R+D section, and away from production. His patent(s?) have expired recently, according to one commenter. If so, he’s going to be in trouble due to competitors, now.
November 7th, 2011 at 11:10 am
We can get fairly spoiled in dealing with dead level honest people in the shooting community, but there are exceptions from time to time.
In all of my dealings with buying guns online, I have only sent 2 back (a Colt Python Elite and a Colt 70 Series National Match, neither of came in the condition they were advertised).
The gun dealers were reputable, but they were a little ambitious in how they graded the finish on the 2 Colts.
I still feel comfortable when I scrape up the money to buy a gun online based on my purchasing history.
But Ciener sounds like a bad egg, to put it charitably.
I will never buy any of his products based on what I have now read.
Several years ago, author and collector R.L. Wilson went to Federal prison for selling museum quality firearms and pocketing the money.
He may have had a few equally brilliant side scams, but he went to the joint and his reputation is now mud.
I have several of his coffee table picture books and would like to someday get the rest of them, but he is a crook.
This came as a complete shock to me, because he played at the top end of the gun collecting community.
November 7th, 2011 at 3:07 pm
The fraud had to have been claiming his stupid $%(&*#$ kit actually works
November 7th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
Was hoping the company name was a typo for sienar, a in fleet systems
November 7th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Wouldn’t charging a “restocking fee” for something that wasn’t ever shipped or produced BE fraud?