A number of ex-employees and a very angry customer of Hennessey Performance Engineering (HPE) are reportedly accusing the famed tuning company of engaging in a “litany of deceptive business practices”.

The crew over at Jalopnik released a very detailed report on HPE’s business practices, including the case of All Ahmad Ali, a Qatari client who made a down payment of $75,000 to HPE in March 2013 for a Corvette C7 complete with a serious upgrade kit which he says he never got.

Ali, who has been fighting HPE to get his money back for the last couple of years, decided to go public with his story. From Jalopnik’s report:

Numerous ex-HPE employees told Jalopnik that Ali wasn’t alone—that the man and his famed tuning company are engaging in a litany of deceptive business practices.
(…)
The ex-employees’ corroborating accusations included misusing company funds, using one customer’s deposit to build another one’s car, passing off subpar parts and components as exclusive and top-of-the-line equipment, using underhanded tactics designed to prevent clients from getting refunds, and consistently failing to deliver certain customers’ cars—especially when they were foreign buyers.

When asked for a comment on the specific allegations, Hennessey sent this statement:

Hennessey Performance (HPE) has always had a high standard of excellence and meeting the expectation of our clients. Recently, HPE experienced disruptions in its operations due to management issues. HPE has implemented a change in its management and operational structure which it believes addresses and corrects the disruptions.

HPE is aware of some of the issues raised and has been in direct communications with its clients to address and resolve any issues that arose prior to the management and operational restructuring. HPE believes that it is well on the way to resolving past issues and providing the level of service and performance rightfully expected by HPE clients.

Ex-employees said that failing to deliver cars destined for foreign customers was something regular inside the company, with a minimum of five cases of this to have happened. Jalopnik’s Jason Torchinsky spoke to several of these ex-employees who made a number of allegations, including deposits from foreign clients used to fund other projects and/or builds, customers’ cars sitting in the shop with little or no work done on them even for months and the story goes on.

However, one former employee, Vinny Russo, who was the only one not to request anonymity, told the website that while John Hennessey is not perfect, he was a “stand up” guy and that “he wouldn’t be around doing this for 25 years if he was doing business that badly,” and that he “can’t be all bad and have that much success.” Instead, Russo placed blame on Don Goldman, Hennessey’s ex-partner and previous CEO of the company, with Jalopnik saying he couldn’t be reached for a comment.

There are a lot of details in the original article, including the emails exchanged between Ali and Hennessey about his refund, so if you are intrigued and want to know more, I suggest you head over there and have a good read.

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