TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Claudia and John Sjostedt’s golf cart was flooded during Hurricane Helene.

They called Better Call Behnken for help, saying they gave it to a local repair shop for an estimate, but now the shop was closed, the cart was missing, and they couldn’t reach the shop’s owners for answers.

“The golf cart would actually turn on, but it just wouldn’t move,” Sjostedt said. “So the service guy that I had dealt with for a while said it could just be a module, could be just this and so on, so I said we’ll just give me a quote of what you think it would be to fix it.”

The couple said they called Big Time Carts to pick it up from their home and give them an estimate for repairs. This is the same shop where they bought the cart years earlier.

Then they got busy fixing the storm damage to their their home. A few months went by and then they discovered the shop was closed and phones disconnected.

An Apple air-tag on the golf cart showed its last known location at a home in Safety Harbor in November.

“I’m just speechless,” Claudia Sjostedt said. “I don’t even know what to say. You know, they just closed shop, didn’t tell us. It’s our property. We paid for it. I have proof.”

Consumer Investigator Shannon Behnken tracked down Delaine Brinks, who owned Big Time Carts with her husband, Chad.

She explained that the company did not survive two hurricanes that hurt business. She reached out to the former general manager about the missing golf cart and then said she would work to resolve this with the Sjosteds.

Brinks sent this statement:

Although I’m disappointed that we were only made aware of this situation through a reporter, I immediately reached out to the customers to discuss their situation.  I am actively working with them to reach a fair resolution.  To be clear, this was not unfair business. The employees were under the impression based on conversations with the customer, that they did not want the salt water damaged and completely totaled cart.  The cart was abandoned for 2 months with absolutely no communication from the customers, which was another reason the guys thought they did not want the cart. We look forward to resolving this issue with the customers.