After reading that thread on 505, it makes me feel much better that I do my own work. Yikes! To give someone like that money is literally like flushing it down the toilet.
After 5 years of working in the custom car industry, you would be amazed at how many shop owners and managers that I've met that are addicted to drugs or are alcoholics. I know...I worked for one. Only it wasn't drugs my old boss was addicted to, it was gambling. It's a cash industry, and when they get that large sum of money up-front, sometimes they get a little crazy. That, or, they're just bad business people and have no sense of time management, inventory, or customer satisfaction. I have seen countless cases of this. Once they've got your money, it allows them to buy parts for the other projects in the shop that are behind schedule. It's like a never-ending Ponzi scheme. So when I read these kinds of stories I always wonder how these people remain in business. I think it rests mainly on the nature of good people willing to give them the benefit of the doubt - only to be burned in the end like everyone else.