Signature is evil

[OHAEDO]

Some of you might remember me.  Back in 2019 Signature over torqued the front gear of my brand new Acclaim Ultra and refused to pay.

5 years later, I face them in court tomorrow.  They are risibly stating using a huge boom was not an issue and that it’s my fault.

I haven’t cowered.  

I covet your prayers.  These guys are nasty.

On better news, I now fly a Honda Jet.  This is more accountability than anything else.

Cheers, tail winds, and Gods overarching presence to you and yours.

Edited May 27 by OHAEDO

[Ragsf15e]

13 minutes ago, OHAEDO said:

Some of you might remember me.  Back in 2019 Signature over torqued the front gear of my brand new Acclaim Ultra and refused to pay.

5 years later, I face them in court tomorrow.  They are risibly stating using a huge boom was not an issue and that it’s my fault.

I haven’t cowered.  

I covet your prayers.  These guys are nasty.

On better news, I now fly a Honda Jet.  This is more accountability than anything else.

Cheers, tail winds, and Gods overarching presence to you and yours.

Good luck,  I wish you the best! Typically they have cameras looking outside on their ramps.  I’m sure you’ve been down that road, but I would have thought that would be definitive evidence either way?

[OHAEDO]

Of course they just show the tow on the ramp, not over torquing her out of the hangar

Edited May 28 by OHAEDO

[PeteMc]

And I hope you have pics from that day with the Limits clearly marked on the nose gear. 

 

[DXB]

16 minutes ago, OHAEDO said:

Some of you might remember me.  Back in 2019 Signature over torqued the front gear of my brand new Acclaim Ultra and refused to pay.

5 years later, I face them in court tomorrow.  They are risibly stating using a huge boom was not an issue and that it’s my fault.

I haven’t cowered.  

I covet your prayers.  These guys are nasty.

On better news, I now fly a Honda Jet.  This is more accountability than anything else.

Cheers, tail winds, and Gods overarching presence to you and yours.

Good luck - what a miserable experience - glad you finally get your day in court!!

[PT20J]

I'm curious what the repair cost?

When Atlantic screwed up mine and refused to pay or share the surveillance videos, I just let my insurance handle it. So, I was out nothing but a little time arranging parts and repairs. It was a small claim and not my fault so it didn't affect my rates. Ultimately USAIG was able to get reimbursed by the FBO. Problem for me was that I couldn't prove it. Now, I take pictures. 

[PeteMc]

I had my nose gear messed up years ago with the same basic story that the FBO was refusing to fix.  A year or so later out of the blue I got a check.  Turns out someone I knew that had heard the story ran into the FBO owner "at the club" or somewhere and the story went that the owner was complaining about his ramp people being rough on the plane and OF COURSE that couldn't be true we train them!!!   So he brought up my plane and said, I know Pete, if he said your guys did it, they did.

So ya never know.  

[midlifeflyer]

Looking forward to the result. 

[Fly Boomer]

10 hours ago, PT20J said:

Problem for me was that I couldn't prove it. Now, I take pictures. 

Is the time and date stamp on a pic with your phone enough to prove who did it?

[Greg Ellis]

14 hours ago, OHAEDO said:

Some of you might remember me.  Back in 2019 Signature over torqued the front gear of my brand new Acclaim Ultra and refused to pay.

5 years later, I face them in court tomorrow.  They are risibly stating using a huge boom was not an issue and that it’s my fault.

I haven’t cowered.  

I covet your prayers.  These guys are nasty.

On better news, I now fly a Honda Jet.  This is more accountability than anything else.

Cheers, tail winds, and Gods overarching presence to you and yours.

It would be interesting to hear how screwing up your nose gear with a "huge boom" is somehow your fault when they were the one's towing the airplane.

[Shadrach]

1 hour ago, Fly Boomer said:

Is the time and date stamp on a pic with your phone enough to prove who did it?

It’s enough to prove the condition of the aircraft upon arriving at the FBO. One would need a subsequent pic of the damage before departing FBO property to substantiate that the damage occurred while being moved by FBO personnel.

[PT20J]

1 hour ago, Fly Boomer said:

Is the time and date stamp on a pic with your phone enough to prove who did it?

Probably it depends on the FBO. If I were a large FBO, my fear would be that someone with a damaged gear would fly to my location and then claim I caused the damage figuring I had deep pockets. With a date/time stamped photo, I can show that it was good when I arrived. Now, if they are just jerks and say, “so sue me”, then it wouldn’t help.

[redbaron1982]

1 hour ago, Fly Boomer said:

Is the time and date stamp on a pic with your phone enough to prove who did it?

I guess to be 100% valid proof you can email the photo to the fbo email address. Emails are 100% accepted as legal proof.

[jetdriven]

Signature is owned by BBA, which is the British company whose objective is to siphon money out of America. You never know why signature only operates in markets when there is a single FBO, they get all of the available space to lease and then they basically gouge people for it. it’s not normal supply and demand, it’s an  FBO with built-in monopoly and then gouging people. 

[whiskytango]

Signature plays hardball.  In my case, one of their ground vehicles was left unattended, rolled backwards and hit the engine cowling of my plane, which was tied down in a shadeport at the time.  I personally witnessed this happening, as did a Signature employee.  Signature eventually paid for the cost of an inspection and repairs, but only after I signed a release that said they disputed my description of the incident (in spite of the photos I took that showed their vehicle in contact with the plane), and they had no responsibility or liability whatsoever in the incident.  Good luck!

[PT20J]

Signature opened an FBO at San Jose CA well after Atlantic took over the San Jose Jet Center, so there is at least one airport where it’s not the only FBO.

[midlifeflyer]

24 minutes ago, PT20J said:

Signature opened an FBO at San Jose CA well after Atlantic took over the San Jose Jet Center, so there is at least one airport where it’s not the only FBO.

When Signature purchased TAC Air, there were three they divested because Signature was already on the field along with TAC. Atlantic picked those up. BDL, RDU, and OMA. 

[midlifeflyer]

There are some interesting exceptions. A fairly new pilot I work with wanted to go to ROA for some Class C experience. There are a few public tie downs the locals know about, but otherwise it’s Signature. Making a few inquiries, I learned that at ROA, Signature doesn’t charge fees to training flights, even if we stop, shutdown, and come inside.

[WilliamR]

2 hours ago, jetdriven said:

Signature is owned by BBA, which is the British company whose objective is to siphon money out of America. You never know why signature only operates in markets when there is a single FBO, they get all of the available space to lease and then they basically gouge people for it. it’s not normal supply and demand, it’s an  FBO with built-in monopoly and then gouging people. 

I'm sorry, there's a lot of mis-statement here. BBA hasn't owned Signature for many years.  They also operate at many airports where they are not the only FBO.

This is all public info.

I'm also sorry the OP is going through this. 

William

[Schllc]

For those of you that don't know, the plane had less than 100 hours, it was a brand new ultra, and the owner had a gear collapse taxiing away from Signature, where the damage occurred.

They used the wrong equipment, and people were either improperly trained or unsupervised, or both....

I sure hope the right thing happens here.

Best of Luck!

[Texas Mooney]

1 hour ago, jetdriven said:

Signature is owned by BBA, which is the British company whose objective is to siphon money out of America. You never know why signature only operates in markets when there is a single FBO, they get all of the available space to lease and then they basically gouge people for it. it’s not normal supply and demand, it’s an  FBO with built-in monopoly and then gouging people. 

That is incorrect and a misplaced insult towards the British.  Actually it is pure American Capitalism = GREED at work.  And it is all perfectly legal to monopolize local markets and "gouge people". 

• Signature is owned by a consortium of 3 Private Equity firms - Blackstone, Global Infrastructure Partners and Cascade Investment 
• Atlantic is owned by KKR
• Modern Aviation is owned by Apollo Funds
• Only Cutter is still owned by the family but that will likely come to an end when there is a disagreement between the heirs in succession.  The usual solution is to sell out to Private Equity for cash to distribute to the heirs that want nothing to do with aviation.

Private Equity is only concerned with producing an outsized return (i.e. above normal market returns) to their generally wealthy investors (for instance Cascade Investment manages about half of Bill Gates wealth).  They have no emotional tie towards preserving aviation nor towards the long term business or plight of its customers.  Their goal is to consolidate as many independent FBO's into their platform as quickly as possible and then to squeeze as much as possible out of the business (i.e. "customers" and suppliers) with the end goal (i.e. "Exit) to flip it for a big profit.  Go do a search on the first 3 Operators owned by Private Equity and you will see the torrid pace of acquisitions fueled by their large cash reserves.  For instance American Aero in FTW was just acquired last month by Modern/Apollo.

In aviation components and parts we have seen the same thing with the sale of Hartzell Aviation/Tailwind Technologies to Arcline Investment Management.  Lesser know was the Warburg Pincus funded consolidation of avionics at Extant Aerospace (then flipped to TransDigm Group).  Go try to buy an WX-500 or have it repaired now days - they are screwing the DOD also.

When Private Equity can't find someone to flip their investment to, they generally strip the company of assets and sell the near dead carcass to someone just before it falls into bankruptcy.  If you follow any recent news you know this is exactly what Golden Gate Capital did to Red Lobster.  Golden Gate sold off all the prized and valuable land and buildings raising Red Lobsters variable costs and changing the business model.  They flipped it to Thai Union where it fell into bankruptcy.  Golden Gate Capital made out well like bandits.

BTW - Can anyone tell me that the motives of the murky ownership of Wyoming based "US Financial Group, LLC" is any different?  We all know that they tried to flip Mooney a few years ago with no takers.  They are definitely not investing.  What exactly are they doing?

[GeeBee]

PEG only produces only one thing. Money. A normal business at least can point to a product or service that benefits its customers. PEGs cannot. A PEG has no customers, just self interest.

[N201MKTurbo]

As someone who currently works for a startup company, we would not exist without private equity. Most biotech startups are funded by private equity. 

Not everything they do is pure evil. They are hoping for a good return on their money.

FWIW, I am a private equity investor. In most cases this money is invested with considerable risk.

[GeeBee]

There is venture capital for startups, then there is PEG. PEG does not risk anything, they do what the Mafia calls "a bust out". See Red Lobster for example. For some it is a difference without distinction, for others venture capital is just that a foray into a market place. PEGs do not make forays, they simply bust out an existing company.

[hubcap]

In my experience, Private Equity firms are totally into slash & burn. 

They could not care less about the destruction left in their wake. Many solid former companies can attest to the same.