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10/7/08
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9 comments
'Cut-rate' stove sales place Glenburn man on hot seat
Owner's sting unveils MO of store manager
BANGOR, Maine — Police have charged a Glenburn man who they believe has been selling wood pellet stoves illegally from a Bangor retail store that he managed. About three years ago, the same man, Benjamin Tibbetts III, 33, was caught peddling discounted fuel from a stolen oil truck. Tibbetts was arrested in late September on a simple probation violation, according to Bangor police Detective Sgt. Paul Kenison. A further investigation, however, revealed that the man, a former manager at Sunrise Home & Hearth in Bangor, allegedly sold heavily discounted pellet stoves for cash and then pocketed the money. An arrest affidavit filed in Penobscot County Superior Court claimed that Tibbetts stole between $25,000 and $100,000 from the Bangor retailer in less than a year. So far, he has been issued a summons only for Class C theft, but that charge could be upgraded by the district attorney’s office depending on the amount of money involved. Tibbetts is scheduled to make his next court appearance on Nov. 7, although he is expected to be indicted by a grand jury prior to that, according to Deputy District Attorney Michael Roberts. On the probation violation alone, Tibbetts could spend more than five years in prison based on a July 2006 conviction for burglary and theft. Tibbetts and another man were found guilty of stealing an oil truck from a Milford company in 2005 and then selling fuel to customers for as low as $1 a gallon. He served nine months in jail on those charges and was ordered to pay back several thousand dollars in restitution. A bulk of his jail sentence was suspended, but if he’s found guilty of violating terms of his probation, he could have to serve the balance of the sentence or more than five years. The new Class C theft charge also carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The following details were obtained from the court documents related to Tibbetts’ recent charge. Shirley Bartlett, owner of Sunrise Home & Hearth on Stillwater Avenue, hired Tibbetts in January 2008 to manage the store. After several months, she began to become suspicious of his sales practices after receiving numerous complaints that he was taking money from customers and then not providing or installing any products. After consulting with her attorney, Bartlett set up a sting operation in which she convinced “secret shoppers” to try to purchase stoves from Tibbetts. One customer was approached by Tibbetts and told he could get a better deal on a stove if he paid in cash. The man agreed and bought a Vermont Castings pellet stove that retailed at $2,500 for $1,800, police alleged. Tibbetts gave the man a handwritten receipt that did not match the standard Sunrise Home & Hearth receipts. Bartlett then sent another “secret shopper” to the Bangor store. Tibbetts reportedly sold that customer a $2,400 stove for $900 in cash and, like before, he presented a handwritten receipt. The storeowner also told police that she discovered a bank statement from Tibbetts indicating that between mid-June and mid-July, he deposited more than $10,000 into his account. Police obtained a warrant to search Tibbetts’ home in Glenburn and found a stolen stove inside his basement. They also found alcohol at the residence, which was a violation of the man’s probation. He was arrested on the probation violation and charged with Class C theft related to the one stove found at his residence. The case involving the theft of money from the store is still under review at the district attorney’s office, and it’s not clear how many stoves were sold illegally or how many customers were affected. A Bangor resident e-mailed the Bangor Daily News recently indicating that he was a victim of Tibbetts’ alleged misconduct. He said he paid about $3,000 for the stove in the spring and was told it would be delivered in six weeks. The man said he heard last week that Tibbetts had been arrested and that he was under investigation for theft, but never heard from the store about the status of his stove. Several attempts to reach Bartlett within the last week were unsuccessful.
Comments
I am a "former" customer who never received the stove I ordered in June. I have to wonder Sunrise did a background check or reference check on this convicted felon. I also don't appreciate the stalling tactics told to me every time I called regarding the delivery of my stove, nor the fact that I was never contacted by Sunrise about any delay or delivery date for my stove. Sunrise Home & Hearth is as much to blame for this fiasco as anyone, regardless of any "sting" operation. Since payment was demanded the day I ordered the stove, I spent 4 months paying for a stove I never received and was forced to go elsewhere and buy another stove, thereby paying for 2 stoves until I received a refund. I also had to contact the store at least 4 times before receiving my refund. jma1722 i agree with you the store owner should have noticed something was wrong with it's books and inventory. I saw this guy trying to sell a stove to some of my family right after he "left" sunrise. My first remark to the family was that guy is a "con" I wouldn't trust him. They traded services anyway and still have no stove. I am just sick about this. My husband and I have bought a stove from this store in June and have yet to receive it. My mother read the paper and informed me about this incident. I have been thinking for months that something is obviously wrong, we too have contacted the store on several occasions with no luck. I usually like to try to give my business to the "mom and pop" stores instead of the larger companies, especially with the economy in the state that it is in. I should have stuck with my instinct and bail a long time ago. I am praying that I will get my money back. I have 3 young children to keep warm this winter, and having spent $2000 already, I am not sure what we will do if this money is lost. Ben, I knew you when you were a child. I grew up just down the street from you. You need to start praying for forgiveness and straighten your life around, otherwise you may spend eternity in a very hot place. I am not talking about Hawaii !!!!!!! I am very disappointed in you, and I am sure your family is embarrassed, Your grandfather would not be proud of this behavior, God rest his soul. I went in to Sunrise this weekend to pick up a couple sections of stove pipe. The stove parts were all in a big unorganized pile, so I needed help finding what I needed. There were probably close to 10 employees in the store, most of which were doing nothing, and no one offered to help. While I was waiting, I overheard a couple complaining at the counter with the same issues as jma1722 and bianmi3Ms. After hearing this and receiving no help after about 20 minutes, I walked out. What a joke. Wow...I went shopping for a stove this summer and that was the guy that talked to...thankfully I get a "indifferent" vibe from him and took my business elsewhere....Evergreen Home Solutions in Ellsworth, who are the type of people you WANT to do business with. I have no business relationship with them or am I related to anyone that works there...just a very happy customer. Why would you hire a guy with a recent criminal record to represent your company? Bangorian, I agree with you. You have to wonder if the owner of Sunrise questioned why Ben was let go by Granville Lumber not too long before they changed ownership? I saw him driving a white van for awhile, with a personalized plate on it. He claimed he was starting his own business, but the van disappeared one day, and not too long after that he was out at Granville and working for Sunrise. We went to Sunrise in September to look into buying a pellet insert. The owner was there but a young man was waiting on us but kept looking at the owner before answering any of our questions. She, then, came over to talk with us too. She told us that she could definitely have an insert for us in October but we would have to pay the full price for it before they could order it. (all of the other stores had just wanted a deposit; not full price) Now, we had been to a lot of stove shops before going there and they were all telling us that they could not have it for us until either the middle of Dec or Jan because the orders were all backed up. We liked their honesty. We asked if we could get our money back if the insert did not come in in October and she told us, "Yes, but that it would, definitely, be there in Oct. I asked her how many was on the list before us because we didn't want to pay for a stove knowing that all of the stoves that were, supposedly, coming in in Oct. were already spoken for. She couldn't tell us, she said, as only one person in the store had that information and he wasn't there. We, simply, did not believe her. None of it made any sense. What would happen if that one person should get killed or something; they wouldn't know who had ordered the stoves so how would they even be able to fill the orders. We walked out of there and decided, I'm sorry to say, that we would never do any business with Sunrise as we felt that we just couldn't trust the business. |
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