My simple warning here to new folks is: If you pay full price for something that isnāt in stock up front and are told itās going to be 3+ months until you get itā¦ walk away.
Run away if you were under the impression that the product was in stock.
This is the crux of the argument. It's legitimate sometimes to pay some or even all up front. You make a deposit to hold a product, get a spot in a queue, have custom work done, maybe to have someone buy tools or materials.
There are reasons why this would be more than 3 months. A wait list, like a custom bike frame or guitar, can be years. The lead time for a custom Four Wheel Camper is about 3 to 6 months depending on what you order and time of the year. The key is they tell you up front, have a history of delivering and rarely take more than an earnest deposit. Proffitt comes to mind. If he asks for material costs upfront and tells you it's gonna be a few months that's a fair request and low risk.
The unethical part is taking money, partial or full doesn't matter, for a good or service then using it in a different way. It may not be intentional. One the oldest mistakes a business gets into is booking future work and taking payment to cover past or existing shorts.
The problem hits when "just this one time" turns into a pattern and soon a forensic accountant appointed by a bankruptcy court is giving your books the fine tooth comb. At that point hope they don't find you intentionally tried to defraud anyone.
That's how most of these overland companies seem to get into trouble. They have little to no seed capital and aren't using income to re-stock, so a cash flow hiccup sends them into a financial spiral. The responsible thing is to pause new sales but the ego (or greed) that I can juggle it almost always wins in their mind.
That's giving them the benefit that they didn't do it intentionally. I've known a few bike frame one-man shops over the years that screwed people. Some are just because they're a welder and not business savvy while some were just assholes exploiting cyclists in a market that's always seeking new and unknown craft makers. I'm sure there's more than a bit of that in #OLAF. Dishonest people exploiting a popular market.
I had that happen with Rhygin. Christian delivered my frame but had gone into the wind (he took some people's money and never delivered a frame) when a few months later I needed repair work. He did beautiful welds but apparently wasn't too precise with his miter so a bead of filler was flapping in an air gap. Crack! I got very lucky that James at Black Sheep was local and able to cut and weld in a new top tube. This was on a Metax stainless tubeset, so it required some way to do a purge that most frame shops weren't set up to do. If they did titanium they could in theory but otherwise usually not. Gunnar and REEB OTOH were all upfront, did what they said, when they said, handled repaints, etc. When Gunnar/Waterford wound down they gave people a couple of years head's up, stopped taking deposits for new builds, warned everyone to get in mods and fixes and made sure to fill all their orders. A major difference was Rhygin was long distance over the phone while Gunnar and REEB were face-to-face or using a local rep.
happens sometimes and these are the consequences. Happened plenty of times before and will happen again. Some of these people disappear and some continue to do business under a new name with little to no fall out.