Mail order sucks.

[MadCow_Guy]

Re: Mail order sucks.

[quote author=Rush link=board=Offtopic;num=1073073317;start=0#18 date=01/05/04 at 16:47:48]Sir, your business is not desired. If you wish to return the mic kit for a full refund, that is still an option. Please go ahead and ship it back to us. You exhibited a sincere lack of professionalism when you posted an incendiary remark on a public website 3 days before calling to try to resolve the matter verbally. You posted your remarks on Jan.2, in full knowledge that we were on vacation, and three days went by, with one patron after another (114 up till now) reading your malicious words on DVXUser.[/quote]

What was malicious? I posted facts, exactly as they occurred. I previously discussed this kit with you and the kit offered by another dealer.

I expected that I was getting something based on the fact you assured me your kit was the same being sold by others, and when I didn't get what I was expecting, voiced frustration over it. I expressed the facts of the situation.

I even stated several times I was going to call on Monday to get it worked out.

What this looks like to me is a very juvenile attack on me for being upset about an order that I am fully justified in being upset with. Nothing in the tone of my posts was deserving of the completely juvenile responses you have made on this subject to date.

Your infantile bashing and personal insults don't say much for you at all. That and you lied to the people on this forum when you stated that you spelled out what I was getting. Obviously if you had spelled out what I was getting, I wouldn't have a reason to complain now would I?

Perhaps you would like to carry your assinine ranting into claiming a conspiracy on my part to smear your company name? Then maybe you should haul yourself over to the hardware forum here, look under the sticky thread which has hardware links for the DVX and notice the comments I left about EVS there before you continue to make a fool of yourself in public. I told people that you guys were an exceptional source. I see now that I was quite wrong about that.

You never called until Jan.5, after it was too late. That, sir, is the behavior I am most concerned with. You fired first and asked questions later. Would you be able to call all 114 of those people and tell them that maybe you were just angry, and didn't mean to say what you said, instead of holding on until Monday to discuss the matter verbally on the phone? You see, sir, you can't take the written words back now, and there are consequences.

Are you going to call all 114 people and apologize for your unprofessional personal attacks? Yeah, didn't think so.

You want to see consequences? I'm on most of the DV forums around here. Just wait until I get done posting about how unprofessional your behavior is and how you resorted to personal attacks and insults instead of making any effort to resolve the issue.

One of which is the fact that we no longer desire your business. And we are great people, so that a loss for you. We handle our customers with great care, when they give us a chance.

Am I supposed to consider this a loss? After your personal attacks on me you can be sure that not only do I not wish to buy from your establishment, but you can bet that I will make sure a lot more than 114 people know about the horrendous service and hostile nature exhibited by you.

I don't know if you have ever owned or operated a business, but you still have no concept of the amount of damage that you have caused.

You went out of your way to libel and attack my reputation. In a public forum. If your company has suffered any damage it is from you acting like a complete jackass here.

What strikes me as most unfair, is that unless a friend at DVXUser brought this matter to my attention, you would never have. I wish you would have at least had the fortitude to do that.

You know what, You are a liar. Plain and simple. You lied about the kit, you lied to people here. And you are lying now. I made it quite clear it was my intent to call first thing monday. 114 people saw exactly what I said.

I was well within my rights to be upset and express it. If you look at any forums, you'll see tons of threads where people complain about problems with a vendor, and many of them are far more harsh than anything I said.

And for someone who is supposed to care about the Community, I see it took a problem for you to contribute anything at all. And what contribution? just a lot of garbage.

Good riddance.

Next time I'll know better than to RUSH into a buying decision.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

Re: Mail order sucks.

Ouch.

This is getting ugly so allow me to intervene. I can personally speak for both parties here.

EVS has treated me right in 2 transactions. Rush, incidentally sold me my DVX and it was exactly what was stated and there were no hidden costs that we often hear about. I will be ordering again from them (in fact this week) and until I'm given a reason not to I see no reason to change.

Steve does not strike me as an unprofessional at all and in fact, he is one of the guys in here that I regulary look forward to 'chatting' with. Not only is he a plethora of information and knowledge, he seems like just a cool guy.

That being said, I am a business owner and know the value of word of mouth and customer service both of which are two different monsters. I hate to dumb this down, but it seems as if this is merely a case of a transaction going FUBAR. Can't say I blame anyone really in this matter.

I think it's important for the Sales Representative to not only listen to the customers needs but also probe deeper to really get an understanding of the customers needs. Both parties should walk away from a pending transaction 100% sure of the responsibilities and expectations of each. I'm sure Rush can remember me grilling him for a hundred questions during the DVX sale

Sounds to me if this wasn't the case on either side. I hate to think this relationship has gone completely sour. I hate to think of the 'word of mouth' after reading the last 3 posts.

Which leads me to suggest taking this matter out of the forum (albeit no fun for us) and hopefully matters can be straightened out. Rush, I do suggest in the future not coming into the forum and pointing a finger although I respect the need to defend your company. One thing I know as a business owner is:

The Customer is always right no matter how wrong.

Anyway. What a bummer for both parties here. I will be ordering this week from EVS (I've had nothing but positive experiences). We are all men here, let's shake hands and quit acting like a bunch of girls.

 

[MadCow_Guy]

Re: Mail order sucks.

John,

thanks for a well reasoned response. Unfortunately I think there is little chance of that happening. The responses here and the accusations being hurled that I am intentionally trying to smear their reputation indicates absolutely no interest in being fair or honest on their part.

I have said my part on this. I told them what the other kit had. Item for item. I told them what dealer had it and for how much. I was told they had the same kit. That is why I ordered it. It should have been a simple transaction. It certainly seemed to me that I was quite clear about what I wanted, and it isn't unreasonable to complain about not getting what I ordered.

I have seen far worse comments made here and at other forums for far less. I was rather surprised to see the scathing and unprofessional response here this morning. I would expect a bit more maturity and professionalism from a company than what I got from them. I find it absolutely pathetic that they completely refused to take my phone calls to try to resolve it. Rush says send the microphone back for a refund, but they are too immature to even accept a phone call to get an RMA from them.

That just isn't acceptable behavior from a supposedly reputable dealer, there is just no excuse for it.

I'm not at all bothered by this other than the continued personal attacks and infantile behavior coming from EVS. I clearly made the right decision in going with another vendor for future business.

I have little interest in supporting a company that condones and behaves as unprofessionally as EVS has, and I certainly have no interest in working with anyone who flies off the handle and insults customers, belittles them and makes insane accusations over something as small as this was. This industry is difficult enough as it is without having vendors who think they are doing me a favor by being there.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

Re: Mail order sucks.

Well put. I too was surprised to see it.

 

[Zoomforce]

Re: Mail order sucks.

Well.. I wonder how long ago a normal forum woulda locked this thread off.. not gonna happen here.  This is the way normal people talk.

Here is my take on things... I think we have two very strong minded people here, either of which are not even close to backing down. Honestly, I don't think its over an accessory case anymore.
I dont want to talk to much about the he-said she said because I dont know really what was said at the initial conversation.

It kinda puts me sitting on the fence though, As we have Steve who is a very valued member and contributes daily helping people out here. He takes alot of time to give detailed accurate information and that is invaluable.  On the other, we have EVS, who although I have never personally dealt with Rush, I have always received excellent service from Cody.

Cody at EVS is the one who I talked to for at least a few hours way back when when I was gonna buy a camera, and he pushed me towards the brand new DVX.  If it wasn't for him, I probally woulda bought the XL1.. and this site probally wouldn't exist. Him spending that much time on a pre-purchase decision I will never forget.
 
So, either this is gonna get really heated, trickle out and be forgotten, or you two can try and find some sort-of common ground and find a resolution you both can be happy with.

 

[MadCow_Guy]

Re: Mail order sucks.

Jarred,

I would have been fine with resolving this issue this morning with however they wanted to handle.

I wasn't expecting the kind of juvenile personal attack I got.

I lost several days of work that needed to get done, because I didn't want to actually use the mic in case they wanted me to return it for exchange or something. I would have been sending back a completely brand new unused and unopened microphone.
Even though I was angry at losing the weekend, I was trying to be thoughtful of others by not using the mic.

So, I'm sorry, but I wouldn't think of backing down because frankly I didn't do a damn thing wrong. I'll leave before I'll back down from something I was in the right about. I've dealt with customers far more irate with a problem than I had with Rush, and even at the worst, I maintained a professional mannerism and didn't stoop to insulting the customer.

Frankly, if an employee of mine had posted remarks like this guy made he'd have been out the door in a heartbeat.

It's just a pity that sales people these days think they are the ones doing us a damn favor. And you know, overall they may be a good company. However, we form our opinions based on the actions of those we deal with, and I have never in my life been treated so abusively by a salesman before.

To be blunt, this guy should be wearing a paper hat and selling french fries. He has no business servicing customers in a professional environment.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

Re: Mail order sucks.

[quote author=Steve Rogers link=board=Offtopic;num=1073073317;start=25#25 date=01/05/04 at 19:30:15]
It's just a pity that sales people these days think they are the ones doing us a damn favor.[/quote]

Damn that is true isn't it? Customer Service is going the way of my grandparents generation.

 

[MadCow_Guy]

Re: Mail order sucks.

A small update here:

After having wasted several hours yesterday getting the gear I was going to order from EVS placed with another vendor, and realizing I don't have another week or two to waste on this mess, at 4:45pm last night I ordered the appropriate sized Pelican case for this microphone and additional accessories that my order was missing since it seemed obvious to me that EVS had no intention of actually giving me an RMA, even though the offer had been made here that I could send it back.

After dodging calls my calls all day yesterday so that getting an RMA was all but impossible, EVS calls me this morning with an RMA number. By this point, not willing to waste more time on this, I refused their offer and hung up. I had already spent close to 100.00 dollars to get the additional accessories, and further inconvenience just wasn't acceptable. Nothing quite like fixing the barn door AFTER the horse has left, Live and learn I guess.

It would be interesting for these people to have to spend a day in our shoes dealing with deadlines, and issues. Clearly they don't get that we often need things done now, not 3 days from now.

So to tally up here:

1. I lost several days of work because of this. Largely because I was trying to be honest and not use the gear in case they wanted it to be exchanged.

Time is money. I had two actors I needed to get voice overs from, and it didn't get done. One studio stayed vacant because I couldn't record. and children are notoriously hard to work with as it is.

2. I lost an entire day of work yesterday over this, while I looked for another vendor to order from, as well as dealing with the viscious personal attacks being made against me, the cutomer.

More time wasted, only this time I didn't even get to work with the two actors I needed to coach through this because I had to deal with this.

3. I spent almost 100.00 more than I would if I had just been smart and ordered it from the first vendor I talked to.

Bottom line, this 400.00 mic ended up being extremely costly. In lost time alone, over 1,000.00

Funny thing about all this, before I saw the messages here yesterday, I called EVS, and left a voice mail for Rush. I told him I needed to talk about a couple of items, one was the microphone that I wasn't happy with what happened, and that I needed to order some additional equipment.

This in stark contrast to the allegations being made against me here. My actions proved that I had every intent to work the issue out professionally.

There was no need for this to have been escalated like it did. I must say I am shocked at the absolute abusive nature of the replies from EVS, in my entire life I have never seen such an abusive response to a customer complaint.

And it's funny because if you read the various forums, ours and others, you are constantly seeing issues like this. Wrong items being shipped, used gear being shipped as if it were new, defective items etc. etc. etc. Bad orders are not the exception any more, they are commonplace.

And it is commonplace for people to comment on it.

I have 342 posts here. In NUMEROUS posts, I have recommended EVS to people asking where to get gear from. I have complimented them numerous times for how fast they were to deliver orders, I have commented on their prices and in the hardware thread I posted their link with the comment that they were an exceptional source for gear. How anyone could come in here and use dirty underhanded tactics, claiming it was my intent to damage their good name is just astounding and absurd. My previous posts are there where anyone can see that I had no such intent, no such malice against anyone. I was supportive of them and look where it got me.