ST. LOUIS (KSDK) - A man named Michael Christian is accused of cheating a number of churches, among other clients.
Christian makes signs, but the Better Business Bureau says while he's good at collecting money, he's having trouble providing the signs.
"So I think you got the wrong guy here," said Michael Christian as Five on Your Side's Mike Rush approached him.
Christian insists he's done nothing wrong.
"We're not cheating customers," he said.
But there are customers across the country who would disagree.
One of those is Baybrook Baptist Church, located outside of Houston. Pastor Joe Schwenk has a mock-up of the LED sign the church was supposed to get from Christian. Ordered in December, the graphic is all they have to show for the $3,700 deposit they put down.
A San Antonio church paid $7,500 with no sign to show for it. And it's a similar story at a third church in the Chicago area.
Enough complaints were filed that the BBB issued an alert about Christian and the companies associated with his name.
Five on Your Side's Mike Rush found Christian at his Earth City business called Adler Custom Signworks. He says Adler is nothing more than a vendor for the company at the heart of the problems, North American LED Signs.
Christian says he did not run North American LED and they have gone out of business.
But Christian's name appears on state paperwork showing him as the sole organizer for North American LED.
BBB Investigator Bill Smith says, "Our feeling about Michael Christian is that he is very much a part of North American LED."
Smith says Christian was the primary contact on the accounts and dealt directly with the clients.
"He has acknowledged the involvement and when we asked him if there was somebody else we could get in touch with and somebody else we could send complaints to, he said no, those should come to him," said Smith.
The community of Stonington, Illinois near Springfield did finally get a sign it ordered, but only after the police chief intervened.
"We talked to Mike Christian and we were getting the runaround," said Stonington Police Chief Travis Peden. "I told him that if we did not receive our sign or our money back that we would be filing charges."
The BBB says Christian hired a company in Canada to make the signs, but did not pay them.
The Canadian firm says it's holding eight signs until Christian pays the more than $57,000 he owes.
Meanwhile, the pastor at the Houston-area church says Christian contacted him Wednesday to say he's sending a portion of the sign and a partial refund.
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