You never quite know where a Fair Go story will take you.
This one starts in Te Matau-a-Māui Hawke's Bay, with unhappy customers Janice and Marty Gair and Donna Johnson.
It also involves a firewood merchant who goes by John, and a Kiwi rapper who has worked with hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg. The issue is over firewood.
Quality firewood's been hard to come by in the Hawke's Bay. Merchants are still recovering from Cyclone Gabrielle.
So, when Hastings-based Janice and Marty Gair saw an ad online for 'ready to burn' firewood, they were stoked.
The firewood business they landed on was Primo Firewood Hawke's Bay and Janice said the man they spoke to was "professional".
The Gair's were quoted $650 for four cubic metres.
Another Primo Firewood customer Donna Johnson was quoted $600 for the same amount. She paid up front.
"He text me his bank account immediately," she said.
"It seemed legit. It's like how a lot of people pay 50% deposit before a service."
The Gair's paid up front too.
"I always have red flags when you have to pay for something up front but we have had a couple of merchants who expected the same thing," said Janice.
But firewood expert and owner of Ignition Firewood, Carlos Ter Huurne, said don't pay prior to delivery. He said you definitely want to check the firewood first.
"I would be looking out for a company that you can pay for the product when it's delivered.
"If you've already paid for it, you're in a bad situation. You've basically got to take the product and have an argument if you want the money back."
Johnson and the Gair's were promised delivery two weeks from the date of purchase. Johnson was expecting hers in June, but it never came.
"I text him and I said 'I understand you're busy, but can I please have an update on when we can expect it?'" she said.
Then after a month of no responses, the Primo Firewood worker called and apologised. He said their truck had been off the road getting a certificate of fitness.
"Which kind of sounded legit," said Johnson. "I said 'so will we have our wood by the end of this week?' and he said, 'we're doing our best'."
The Gair's were waiting too. They paid for theirs in April this year.
"Four weeks past and then we sent him a text asking where the firewood was," said Janice.
"He called, was apologetic and did say his computer had crashed and that he would make us a priority and send the wood as soon as possible."
After months of waiting, Johnson and the Gair's asked Primo Firewood for a refund. In the meantime Johnson did some digging of her own, because at this stage, neither she or the Gair's had any idea who from Primo Firewood they were even communicating with.
Comments on Primo Firewood's Facebook page were a clue. Other customers on the page said Primo and another Hawke's Bay business, Speedy Firewood Hawke's Bay, were owned by the same person.
But this was only speculation, Johnson needed solid proof.
A search on the New Zealand Companies Register showed the owner of Speedy Firewood to be Thomas Douglas Francis Macdonald.
With this information, it wasn't hard for Johnson to find Thomas Macdonald is actually Tom Francis, a New Zealand- born rapper, producer and entrepreneur.
In 2021 he appeared on Three's The Project to promote a song he worked on with legendary rapper Snoop Dogg. On the show Macdonald talks about his forestry and firewood work, and even explains how chopping and delivering the wood was how he got to Los Angeles to work with Snoop Dogg.
"But I think he forgot the delivering part," said Johnson.
He forgot the delivery to Donna anyway.
Macdonald's business Speedy Firewood has been reported in local papers as selling wet wood to customers.
While it was clear Tom Francis the rapper is also Thomas Macdonald the director of Speedy Firewood, connecting Speedy with Primo Firewood was going to take a lot more work.
"It's just been three months of stress over wood," said an exasperated Johnson.
The Gair's said it's been stressful for them too. They had to fork out another $600 for more firewood from another merchant.
Then out of the blue last month Johnson got a call. It was Primo Firewood.
"He said we're on the way to deliver your firewood, and so I asked, 'who am I talking to?' and he said 'John'."
When the wood arrived it was delivered by 'John' who Johnson identified as actually being Thomas Macdonald.
"If it's not Thomas Macdonald, he's got a twin," said Johnson who Fair Go showed a photo of Macdonald.
The product delivered to Johnson was "covered in mud".
"I picked up a couple pieces and said to him, 'it feels quite wet', he said it's rain wet, it was always gonna be rain wet, I've told you that'."
But actually Johnson said when she first ordered, Primo said it had dry firewood, but when it arrived "it tested between between 30 and 50% moisture".
Ignition Firewood's Carlos Ter Huurne said that anything above 25% is not going to put out optimal heat.
"A lot of the warmth from the fire is just going to be put into to drying the wood out."
He suggests ideally buying wood at least a year before so if it does get rain wet, it has time to dry.
Fair Go's asked Primo Firewood whether it could confirm Macdonald works for the company and who its director is and put questions to them about Johnson and the Gair's experiences.
A Primo Firewood spokesperson told Fair Go Cyclone Gabrielle had impacted it's business.
"This caused widespread disruption where we store wood, machinery issues, and complications in staffing support," the spokesperson said.
"Our customer data base was lost and we had to manually find each customer. We managed to track down and fulfil 300 orders.
"We have taken steps to implement improved communication and contingency plans."
Primo Firewood encourages its customers to buy their firewood early.
"We made it extremely clear to everyone buying wood that the wood during winter months was “rain wet” bearing in mind that we had weeks and weeks of non stop rain," said Primo's spokesperson.
"We heavily encourage people to buy firewood in the summer time but it seems to be ignored by most people until the last minute when its the middle of winter."
As for Johnson and the Gair's refunds, while Fair Go was filming with Janice, Primo called.
It was 'John'. He apologised to Janice for the wait, explained that he wanted to give her a refund but said he couldn't find her payment.
But after a few minutes of back and forth, Marty and Janice Gair had their $650 refund.
But it was the account that the refund came from that gave Fair Go the confirmation we needed. It came from a business called Black Market Enterprise Limited.
The owner? Thomas Macdonald. It's his record label.
On that same day we filmed with the Gair's, Johnson got a partial refund of $100 from Black Market Enterprise Limited too.
So while Johnson and the Gair's got their resolutions, Carlos warns others to be vigilant and prepare early when buying firewood.
"Getting your wood a year early is definitely the way to go," he said.
"You can get it a lot cheaper, you don't have to worry about it being dry, you can get it as wet as you like and dry it out yourself, and that way you're guaranteeing yourself dry wood for the following year."
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