SysTech Stainless Works and its founders Jason and Amanda Spurrell are accused of defrauding at least half a dozen of customers, which had paid down payment for a new brewing system, which they never received. Five breweries, which lost deposits anywhere from $29,336 to $51,750, filed complaints with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and one brewery filed a breach of contract lawsuit in Stark County Common Pleas Court.
The company started in the basement of the couple’s Jackson Township home in 2014, where Jason Spurrell, a former electrician and subcontractor assembled home brewing systems with components from China for online sales. The company grew quickly and moved soon to Wadsworth and later to Canton, where allegedly all components were fabricated locally. In 2015 SysTech already employed 16 workers, including welders, fabricators and an engineer.
The boom in home and craft brewing also helped SysTech to find new customers, which had to pay down payments for the ordered equipment. In mid-September this year, the company went suddenly out of business, telling customers that their deposits were gone.
Former customers not only complain about lost deposits but also about bad quality of the equipment received. “We bought from SysTech specifically to avoid getting Chinese equipment and since they represented themselves as being made in America,” one customer was quoted as saying. The equipment didn’t come “as ordered or advertised,” another customer said.
In April 2017 Jason Spurrell opened a home brew supply shop, called Final Gravity, stocked with everything , which is needed for brewing its own beer. Since then he has centered all his activities around the new venture.
