Vince n Marylou Traven at American Auto

Please take a moment and read this to its entirety.

If my dad has ever made you smile, or didn't make you pay for your part, or talk to you when he was on vacation with us and my mom got upset with him, or he loaned you something and didn't even think twice or if you didn't have the money for something and he said get me back when you can, give them a little something back because that's what he would do.

They are also unaware I'm doing this for now:::::

Everyone who knows my wonderful father, Vince Traven, and his pride and joy, American Auto Towing and Salvage...

He is the type of man who would give you the shirt off his back. If you are unaware, he is fighting stage 4 prostate, bone, neck, and back cancer and has been bedridden for 7 months now.

This all started to happen the day after he decided to lease his business of 44 years. He started from nothing, to be a successful operation that made him able to raise his family and give me, my brother, and Mom the life we had.

He retired by leasing the property to Melvin Wayne Martin III, or Mel Martin, for 5 years. My parents have never received a full payment from this man.

6 bad checks, 2 checks that the bank wouldn't even accept, and maybe a handful of cash worth a few thousand dollars in a year and a half or so.

He will try and say that two of those checks weren't cashed quick enough, and that is because the bank told my mother, "Don't bother, that money isn't in the account." And even if that was true, that is still two checks for a year and a half, which doesn't even touch the amount he is behind.

In the meantime, Mr. Martin has scrapped almost the entire property (11 acres) of everything that wasn't buried in the ground and even some stuff that was. We talked to one of the places where he took the scrap, and they told my parents that he has turned in over $500,000 worth of scrap (to that place) while he currently owes my parents almost all of the current rent of a year and a half plus that money itself.

Every attempt to collect this money has been one excuse after another. Everything from "I get it, I'm trying" to "I had an employee that robbed me" to "I'm really working on it." Always having the next big idea to take care of things, or the next excuse to why it isn't being sent... only to leave my parents still waiting.

This was my parents' retirement, this was our eventual inheritance, this was my dad's dream and life's work, and this man stole it from him and us. We are told there's nothing we can do to get that money back.

We could sue him civilly, which means he will just still owe money that we will never see. Or we can maybe charge him criminally for theft, which still doesn't help them.

Today we were awarded the property back from him, but it does not cover the loss that he sold. The entire property has been stripped of cars and scrap, all 11 acres including the buildings and inventory. Leaving us with a giant empty lot that we aren't even sure we can sell because of the EPA restrictions.

He is one of the worst humans I have ever met in my life. To steal from a dying man and his wife in their later years, where they planned to relax and enjoy the years of hard work that they put in, to rob them of any type of comfortable life in their later years is horrible.

He made over $500,000 off my father's property. And that's only what one place has told us. We are getting an actual figure tonight through email from that location, and I will update, but I'm sure he took it to many more scrap yards because that company quit dealing with him 6 months ago for multiple grievances against him, including wrecking a vehicle that he did not possess a CDL to drive and wrecking it, costing the scrap company $15,000 to clean it up.

My father, Vincent Traven, has been a pivotal, upstanding member of this community for so many years and loved by everyone.

I have never met a single person that, when finding out he is my dad, has said something to the effect of, "Man, I love Vinny. He helped me out so many times!"

My mother is killing herself trying to take care of my dad with the little bit of money they get from Social Security that isn't even enough to touch what they are going through.

2 years ago, my dad caught someone stealing scrap that he had hired, and he was kicked off the property. The result of that was arson to his other pride and joy, his at-home garage with his '69 Charger, his 1980 Camaro, and his '67 Chrysler 300, his slide-back tow truck, my grandfather's Ford Explorer that he left to my mom, along with his and his father's tools that they have been collecting for generations. That was the second love of his life, and the insurance has still not even taken care of them from that yet, and what they are planning to pay them doesn't even remotely come close to what everything was worth. The cars were completely not a part of the claim at all because we thought that since the building was insured, they would be covered, but they were not. The two classic cars had around 10 to 20,000 miles on them in mint condition, and they are just gone with everything else from another person just like Melvin Martin.

My dad is such a good person that he let this go on for so long, believing him that he would take care of it and he would get caught up. As well as in the last year and a half, he has spent at least 4 months in the hospital, so they weren't able to accurately keep track of what was happening behind their back.

They literally had people that love him and saw what was happening telling them that they could have it taken care of, and they refused to stoop to anything like that because they are such good people.

All he did was make my parents feel bad for his bad luck that he was going through until we found out how much money he turned in and how empty the property is now.

I am reaching out to the community that loves him and my mom and doesn't want to see them hurting like this. I want to show them that all their hard work isn't just gone and they are left to figure it out on their own. I want to show them that there are so many people not like those two guys in the last 2 years that have destroyed their livelihood, and I want to ease their pain and see a smile on their faces again because this isn't right, and I don't have the means to make it okay on my own.

I at least want the money for the lawyer they had to pay to get this man off of the property and I have no unrealistic expectations to fully compensate their losses but I just want them to feel loved.

I'm setting the goal at the money he cashed in off the property I originally had it at $5,000 but after thinking about it they deserve what they lost and if it's able to happen that would absolutely blow my mind

They are good people and have done so many good things for so many people during their lives including myself and my brother and they don't deserve this.

Please share this with everyone.