The 3 Wildest Times Police Were Called To Our Auto Repair Shop!

Added: 2026-06-07

[00:00:00]All right, guys. Today we're gonna talk about the three times that I had the police called on me and almost went to jail. Let's get into it.

[00:00:10]When you're in business, eventually you're in the service business. I guess this stuff could happen. It's happened to me three times in my career. Well, three times in my Yeah, three times in my career. All of which when I own the shop, I guess. Well, there was that time that Neil talked about that, you know, the guy threatened to, you know, come down and me. Remember that that video?

[00:00:34]We're not going to talk about that on this one. That's another that's a different video. We already did that one. This is three times that evidently the client and I just had a little misunderstanding and so they called the police. I we're going to go way back in the in the in the way way back machine. We're going to do the oldest one all the way up to the newest one. The newest one was probably gosh, when was that? Sure.

[00:00:58]>> Six years ago.

[00:00:59]>> Six years ago, probably. Let's go way back. This one was probably when I first opened the shop up. So, probably about 1996, maybe 97. I can see this like it is like it is yesterday. I can see where the car was. I can hear myself on the phone. The whole deal. This was I believe the car was a Chevy Celebrity. I believe we did put an alternator on the car. I remember that. And person authorized the work.

[00:01:28]Let's get it done and got the work done on it. And then um I don't know what happened. We always gave the price, you know, at that well back then we didn't always give the price up front, but I know we gave the price up front on that one. There were very there were a few people where we didn't give the price up front. We've had a video on that before, but this particular person almost everybody would get a price up front. So, he got a price before we did the work. When we got the car done, we gave him a call. It's ready to go. And there was some issue. He didn't want to pay for it. He didn't like the price of it. I don't know what the situation exactly was on his end.

[00:02:05]All I know is he wasn't going to pay for it. Now, today, we would deal with that a little more uh politically correct, I guess, or we would deal with it a little more uh calmly back then. I mean, I was just starting off. I mean, I had no money. I didn't I didn't start this business with like a bunch of money in the bank. I started this business with literally the first car I fixed was the first money I put in the bank. And so, we needed every every single job that we did, we needed the money for it. It's it's a tough it's a tough deal right there. And so, I'm sure that I got a little, you know, hey man, you're going to pay this you're going to pay this bill. It doesn't matter. You're going to pay this bill.

[00:02:40]But I went back and forth and at the end of it he said, "I'm coming down there to whip your you know what."

[00:02:49]If somebody says that to me on the phone, especially back then, that was I was way younger back then. Somebody says that on the phone to me, it's like, "Oh, that's the end of this conversation.

[00:02:56]You're going to come up here and we're going to do what we got to do at that point." And I that's what I told him. I said, "Okay, I I'll see you in a few minutes. Come on up. I'm ready for you."

[00:03:04]And I hung up the phone.

[00:03:07]And I remember going out and I was, you know, was waiting for him to come up there. And the next person to show up wasn't him. It was a police officer.

[00:03:18]Again, this is going way back. We knew most of the police here. Most people in the in the in the town knew the police.

[00:03:24]It was a a small town. Everybody knew the police officers. They were normally very good, very friendly, you know. Um, he showed up. I can't remember the officer's name.

[00:03:35]And he just walks up to He's like, "Sure, you know what's going on. You know, this guy says that you threatened to to whip his you know what." And I said, "No, no, no, no, no." And this is long before recorded phone calls and all that, obviously. I'm like, "I didn't say that. He said that. I just said that that's what he's going to do. I'm ready.

[00:03:53]Come on down. Let's go." He's like, "Okay, well, what's going on with the whole situation?" I told him about the car. There's the car sitting there. It's ready to go. Needs to pay me.

[00:04:03]Now, there's some some deals with that today that maybe I don't know that held true back then, but today this could turn into a way bad thing for a auto repair shop. And but in that back then, the police was like, "Okay, let's let's, you know, we're going to work this out."

[00:04:20]About that time, the guy pulled up, gets out.

[00:04:24]He's not saying anything. I mean, he's back over by the, you know, he's probably about, you know, 30 or 40, I don't know, 50 ft right away. He's going by his car. I've got the keys to the car. And officer walks over to him, talks to him, and comes back and he's like, "Okay, well, he said he'll pay the bill, and you know, he's going to he's going to take care of it. He's going to give you a credit card." I said, "Nope, I don't want a credit card from him."

[00:04:50]And he's like, "Well, you don't take credit cards?" I said, "Yeah, yeah, I take credit cards." I said, "But I'm not taking a credit card from him." him. I said, "All he's going to want to do is reverse the charge." He's like, "All right, well, I'll see if he's got a check." I said, "I'm not taking a check from him." He's like, "What do you mean he take a check?" I said, "He can stop paying on the check. Then I got to go try to go through the whole court system to get paid on that." I said, "I want cash. It's cash or you know, that's it."

[00:05:11]He's like, "Oh man, sure would. I can remember this. Sure, you're going to this is going to be make it really difficult. This guy's not going to have cash on for this thing." I'm like, "That's what I want. I'm sorry." They walk out to him. You could see the guy get, you know, a little irritated and officer walked back up, said he's going to go get the cash. Guy went and got the cash, came back, paid the bill, never saw the guy again. Hallelujah. Good job.

[00:05:30]Right. That was probably of the three that I've had. That was the easiest one.

[00:05:35]That was the one with no issues. What's I mean with no issues, the least amount of issues and probably could have been done. I could have been maybe a little more diplomatic on the phone. I was young and maybe could have, you know, made it not go down like that. Who knows? Maybe it wouldn't didn't have to have the police called, but when you're young and somebody says they're going to whip you, you normally like, "Okay, well, come on. Let's let's go." Before we get to the second one, which gets a little more serious, jump down there and hit that subscribe button. We're getting close to 500,000, so get down there.

[00:06:01]We're going to have a great giveaway.

[00:06:03]So, this one definitely got more serious. The third one got way more serious, but you would think they get easier over the years and I would learn.

[00:06:10]But I actually, no, I don't think either one neither one of these are are anything that we did wrong. This one 100% ties into the adage, no good deed shall go unpunished. I I hate to say that because we like doing good deeds.

[00:06:23]We like helping people. You guys know that. This one was uh was was rough.

[00:06:29]We had a there's a an entity in Camden County that is called Camden House and they help battered women. They do a great job. We we've always been a you know helped them and been a part of their mission and you know done what we could with them and they've got some people that are in dire need of help and these women generally come in and they don't they're not from here right they're they come in from way far away in some cases to get to get help to get away from bad situations.

[00:07:02]This particular one though, this lady uh came in and was part of, you know, the Camden House deal. And the Camden House asked if we could help her. She had a car that needed some work. Car came in.

[00:07:16]I don't even remember what kind of car it was. It was an absolute one of the worst train wreck cars I've ever seen in my entire life. And I have seen some train wreck cars.

[00:07:26]It it it really barely was even rolling.

[00:07:29]And we felt really bad for her. I'm like, "All right, we we did some work on it as much as we possibly could." I mean, you know, basically the old thing, you know, you're putting lipstick on a pig at this point. We're trying our darnest to get this thing where to just go for a little while longer. And um we told her, we got done with it. We don't don't charge him anything. We got done with it.

[00:07:51]She took the and we told her, "Look, this car is not going to last long. We don't know how long these these repairs are going to last. This car is falling apart. you know, something's going to need to happen. Okay. It moves on, I guess, about two months later, comes back. It's got another issue with it.

[00:08:06]Some other >> no longer at Camden House at this point.

[00:08:08]>> That that's a key to this. Thank you, Sherwood. She's no longer Camden House at this point when she comes back, which is unusual. Now, sometimes people are like, "Hey, they get on their own. They get up on their, you know, on their feet. They they don't have to stay there. They're not staying there forever, right?" But this was not the case with this one. She came back. We didn't know what the situation was, but she came back and had some more problems with it, and we're like, "Listen, um, it's not worth fixing at this point." I mean, I think something major was wrong with it, you know, more than than we can put into the car. Not worth fixing. All right.

[00:08:44]She had a local church that was helping her now. So, she had gone from Camden House and now we found out she had gone to this local church because we're like, "Let's sit with Camden House." I'm not with Camden House, father. Yeah.

[00:08:57]local church says, you know, they want to help her out and do some stuff. And we're like, well, this car is not worth fixing, blah, blah, blah. Let's see if we can't find her a vehicle. Let's see if, you know, we can do some some, you know, maybe we've got something on the lot that we can fix. I mean, we don't have like a ton of those cars just sitting around like to be fixed and give away or sell that. We don't do that.

[00:09:17]We're like, let's see what we can do.

[00:09:19]But in the meantime, this car is not drivable, not runnable. It doesn't run.

[00:09:22]It's it's at that point it is scrap metal and this goes back. Scrap metal was worth 100 the scrap cars were 150 bucks for a car. That's just how much you we didn't do that. We didn't have anything to do with it. We had a company that would come in. They'd pay 150 bucks and they'd haul the car off. All right.

[00:09:38]And we told her that like listen you know it's is they're going to give 150 bucks for the car. You know at least it'll be $150 for you. All right.

[00:09:47]So we had them come in. They gave 150.

[00:09:50]They wrote us a check. Again, we're dealing with somebody who has nothing, no bank account, no nothing. And we're like, you know, I handed her $150, which what I did. Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done in my life, but trying to help somebody, right? I'm giving her cash so that she doesn't have to worry about trying to go cash a check and whatever she's got to do. Give her 150 bucks.

[00:10:13]Well, roll on about a month. Now, the church has basically said, "Yeah, we're we're done." Okay. She basically what's happening is she is um >> using and abusing.

[00:10:27]>> She's taking advantage of people who are trying to help her. That's that's what's happening. The church is done with her.

[00:10:33]Camden House is done with her. She rolls back in there about a month after she got the 150 bucks. And well, she doesn't. She's got the police rolling back up in there, right? Police come in.

[00:10:43]They're like, "Hey, this lady says that you guys stole her vehicle." And I'm like, "What are we talking about here?"

[00:10:48]So, we talked about it and you know, like I'm like, "We didn't steal her vehicle." This is what happened. We told them the whole story. I gave her $150, but I didn't have a receipt. I didn't have anything that says I gave her $150 bucks. I hand her 150 bucks cash. And she they're like, "Oh, she said you stole it and she's wanting I can't remember. She's wanting some I think it was like it was several thousand dollars, I think, or I don't know. It was something crazy." And I'm like, "Okay, this is nuts."

[00:11:12]And luckily, we have really good police in this county that I've ever dealt with.

[00:11:19]>> And we have a reputation. So, that's important, too. The relationships that we have.

[00:11:24]>> Yes. And they heard the deal and they finally went, "Okay." Um because I mean, they're coming in there like, you know, we stole a vehicle. Like, I stole a vehicle. I mean, that's a that's a major thing, right? And after talking to her, after talking to me, they finally went, "Yeah, we we get the whole situation.

[00:11:41]She's um Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna we're going to tell her to just go away and and be done with this, right? Like, okay, cool. And she did. All right.

[00:11:51]>> Again, never to be seen again.

[00:11:52]>> Never to be seen again. Okay, which which is fine. We're good with that, right? Hallelujah. The final one, hopefully the final one forever was the one that I actually had my rights read to me on this one. This one was a little bit um this got my nerves going a little bit. It's got my nerves going a little bit.

[00:12:11]Lady has her car towed in. What kind of car was that?

[00:12:14]>> Chevy Malibu.

[00:12:15]>> Chevy Malibu. Thank you. Gray. A lot of gray cars. Gray car. I remember. I don't know why I remember the color. She brings it in. She says the car won't start. Of course, we ask her like what happened. Oh, it just it just won't start. Okay. We look at it and determine that the starter is bad. So, she just says it was running and then it just wouldn't start. starter just is dead.

[00:12:38]The starter itself, and not that it will click, not it will do anything. The starter itself will do nothing. It doesn't engage into the motor. All right, pretty simple diagnosis.

[00:12:50]You need a starter on the vehicle. All right, that was not actually the true story that happened to the vehicle. Had we known the true story, we could have eliminated all of this. But she just said, "Nope, I just went out one day and it wouldn't start." All right, we call her up. We give her the estimate on the starter. I want to say it was uh 600 bucks. It was right at $600 for this starter. Installed the whole deal. Parts labor tax. She says, "Go ahead and do it." We get the starter on it. We go to crank it and then it goes, of course, now it's now it's the starter's engaging and it goes and the motor locks up. It spins a little bit and then the motor locks up.

[00:13:30]Like what in the world happened here? We start looking at it. This thing has she's run it through water is what happened and it ingested a bunch of water and then evidently they tried to crank it so much with the water in it that the starter burn up. That's the true story of what happened with this engine. So at that point it had to have an engine. There was no fixing it. We tried blowing the water out of it. Even with the water out of it would not start. The engine was no good. Okay.

[00:13:55]Always always always tell your shop what happened. Give them the real scenario.

[00:14:00]So, don't try to hide stuff from that doesn't do anybody any good. All right.

[00:14:04]Hey, call her up. Work up an estimate.

[00:14:06]You need an engine in it, you know. And she wasn't interested in doing an engine. Okay. The car sits and sits and sits and sits for a while. Then one day, she shows up and she's going to get stuff out of the car. So, our service adviser who's been dealing with her comes out and was like, "Hey, you know, the lady's here. She's getting stuff out of the car." I said, "Well, what is she doing with the car? She needs to pay us for the starter. What's going on with it?" I don't know. She just said she wanted to get her stuff out of the car.

[00:14:35]I was like, "Okay."

[00:14:37]I walk out. So, luckily, this is in our St. Mary shop. I can see right where this car is sitting on the curb on the side. There's cameras at the car that they're going to play a part in this later. There's cameras that are seeing the on the car, seeing the car. I walk out to her. She's in the trunk and she's taking, you know, basically just boxes out of the trunk and putting them on the ground. And I said, "Hey." I said, "You know, I'm the owner. We're just checking with you, you know, what's what's your plan on, you know, fixing the vehicle or what's your plan on doing, you know, paying for the starter. You know, obviously you said you didn't want to put an engine in it. I think the car is worth putting an engine in, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, it's clean car. And she says, "I got nothing to do with this car. It's not my car. This is my mama's car, and I don't want anything to do with this car."

[00:15:19]Really aggressively. And I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I've done nothing here, you know." And I said, "Ma'am, okay." I said, "So, you don't own the vehicle?" I said, 'Are you the one that authorized the starter? Are you the one that brought the vehicle in or is your mom? No, this this is my mom's vehicle and my mom's dead and I don't want nothing to do with this vehicle. And I said, "Okay, well, somebody needs to pay the starter. I ain't got nothing to do with this car. I got nothing to do with this car. It's my mom's car, and I got nothing to do with it. And and and and I ain't paying nothing." And I'm like, "Okay." And I'm getting a little bit, you know, my heart's pumping a little bit right now. You know, just really rubbed me the wrong way. She's really coming aggressively at me and we've done nothing wrong. Zero wrong with this. And uh finally I'm like, "Okay." I said, "So, and now I'm standing at the trunk.

[00:16:06]She's she's got the boxes and she's kind of putting them down over here and she's like right there. Here's the trunk.

[00:16:11]She's like part of it. I'm part of it."

[00:16:12]And I said, "So you're saying this is not your car?" "No, this is my mom's car and I got nothing to do with it."

[00:16:17]>> I said, "So not your car. You're not going to pay the bill." "Nope." I said, "Okay, well if it's not your car, it's not your stuff in the car." And I picked up the stuff and I went to put it back in. And as I went to pick up I got the first box in, it was like old VCRs or something which probably worth some money now, but old VCRs or something in this thing. And I went to go pick up the second box and I picked it up and she like boom came up on me and like rammed into me like that's my stuff, you know.

[00:16:41]And I'm like, "Well, it's not your stuff. It's not your car." And I shut the trunk down and luckily the keys were sitting on the seat. Grabbed the seat, locked the car up, done. She was livid.

[00:16:52]She was beside herself, mad.

[00:16:56]And she starts yelling at me and all kind of stuff. I said, "Not your car."

[00:16:59]And I walked back in the in the shop and she left.

[00:17:04]And who's the next people to show up?

[00:17:06]Police officer. Two police officers. A, you know, woman police officer and a guy, a man police officer, right? And what's funny is they walked in, we were in the back, you know, we're working, you know, service advisor up front, service advisor came. head police are here. Want to talk to you? I said, "Okay." Figuring this was going to happen, figuring she was going to do something. Walked up there and the lady police officer said, "Is there somewhere I can talk to you, you know, in private?" I said, "Yeah, we'll walk over into the waiting area over there with nobody over there." Well, Sherwood, the big guy, police officer, took him over and was questioning him. I had no idea they were doing that. He was questioning him. I went over and talked to lady police officer. And as we walked over to the waiting area, I'll never forget this. My heart's kind of going a little bit right now thinking about it. She says, "All right, I'm going to read you something." And she read me my rights.

[00:17:55]And I'm like, "Really?" She goes, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Okay."

[00:18:01]And uh she said, "Well, do you want to talk to me?" I said, "Yeah, I'll tell you what happened." And we were standing there and you know, I told her everything that happened. I said, "Now, let me recreate this." I said, I was picking up the boxes. I put the first box in. I went to pick up the second box. I stood up. I said, "Now," and she was standing right here just like the lady was. I said, you know, right? I said, all right. When I get the second box, when I get it up to about hip high, I said, I want you just to come at me.

[00:18:26]That's going to, you know, show you what she did. And so I did that and she was just like bumped into me. I said, "No, no, no, no, no." I said, "You need to come at me like you're trying to get your I'm taking your stuff, right? You need to come get it." And she' I'm actually just going to run you over. I said, "Well, that's what the lady did."

[00:18:41]And she's like, "Well, yeah." She said, "You hit her. You broke her nail." I broke her nail. So, I never touched her at all. I never hit her at all. She hit me. So I said, "All right." Or she said, "Okay, let me, you know, go talk." So the other police officer, I guess, I think they went outside and and you and I, Sher and I were sitting there, you know, talking like, "Holy moly," you know, and he questioned Sherwin and Sher basically, you know, told him the same exact story because that's exactly what happened. They walked outside, they talked, then they walked back in. She's like, "Okay, we spoke to her. You know, we got you guys' stories. It looks like, you know, what you guys say is what happened. We're, you know, we're going to tell her, you know, this isn't the end of the story, by the way, just so you know. Hang on. Hang on.

[00:19:27]We're going to remember I told you about the cameras. Obviously, you know, she said you broke her nail, but you know, from what you're saying, you guys' stories match exactly. You know, she's a little all over the place. She's telling this and that, and you know, it's her mom's car. We're asking her about that.

[00:19:40]And I said, "Yeah, but I said because it's her mom's car, but she brought it in, but she's saying her mom's dead.

[00:19:45]She's got nothing to do with I see. So the lady's story is just going all in circles, right? And the police generally can see that. They they can kind of pick up on that. At least our police officers can.

[00:19:56]And so the lady officer was like, "Okay, you know, it sounds good." And I said, "Yeah." I said, "Guys, I said, yeah." I said, "You know what?" I said, "I'm going to go look at the camera. I I just, you know, want to watch it happen." And she goes, "Oh, police officer." Oh, you got cameras on that. Let's go take a look. And I went, "Holy moly." Because, you know, you never I feel like what we told was the right story. I feel like what we told was the truth exactly what happened.

[00:20:22]But, you know, you're your heart rate's pumping. You're doing something. You're kind of dealing with this now. You don't police. You know, something going to be off where they like, you know, you don't know, you know. And I'm like, "Holy moly, sure. What in the world are you thinking?" So, sure was getting the face right now. It's like, we walked back into the into the server room and we pulled up the camera footage and we I'm sitting there, you know, nervously looking at it, you know, and and uh we get it pulled up and it shows exactly what we had said that happened.

[00:20:52]I mean, it literally perfectly how we said it happened is what happened. And so that was 100%, you know, vindication that what we said is true. The lady just was just trying to get something and trying who knows trying to get her stuff out of the car, which she couldn't even prove that was her stuff in the car. So, she never got anything out of the car either because it was her mom's car. So, she couldn't prove that anything in the car was hers and she never got anything out of the car. Sadly, what happened with that car because it had a lean on it. And we tried to get a hold of that company to try to get them to pay the the thing.

[00:21:21]And unfortunately, it was left out front one day and dog on if it didn't get repoed from us, we never got a penny out of that vehicle. The company who had a lean on it hauled the car off and we never got a penny out of that vehicle.

[00:21:30]But at least I didn't go to jail over it. Well, that's it, guys. Sometimes when you're in business, that's the kind of stuff that you have to go through.

[00:21:36]You never know when it's going to happen. Keep a level head. Make sure you, you know, know what's going on that you, you know, don't get too emotional.

[00:21:44]I know we all when, you know what, when you own a business, especially when you've had it for a while, it becomes like a child to you. So, when people start coming at you with stuff on the business, it does feel very personal.

[00:21:55]Just try to keep it not personal. Just try to keep a level head with stuff. And you know, at the end of the day, if you're right, you're right. And if you do something wrong, just own it. We appreciate you watching. You know what to do. Get down there, hit that subscribe button. If you like the story videos like this, leave a comment down below. Let us know. There's tons of them over almost 30 years in a in a month and oh, about two months almost. Exactly.

[00:22:17]We're going to be 30 years in business.

[00:22:19]So, I can't wait for that.

[00:22:20]>> We've been trying to kind of structure the videos now where Tuesdays kind of could be a general repair or general diagnosis. Thursday is some of our more complex diagnosis if we have that at that point. Yeah.

[00:22:32]>> And then, you know, the weekends being typically a Saturday, sometimes Sundays where we release the story videos. That way people can kind of know what they're looking for each time. But can't guarantee that, but that's where we're trying to get a flow.

[00:22:44]>> Can't guarantee it. Got to, you know, it's got to Yeah. But all right, you know what to do. Do it all. And while you're down there, hit thumbs up.

[00:22:53]Appreciate you watching. See you in the next one.