Alright Paintballgear.com...I'm calling you on this one!

[Phil]

I get really tired of customers sometimes. They expect everything to be perfect all the time and if you should do the unthinkable and make a mistake, well, you had better kill yourself trying to kiss their "aft section". If you run a huge shipping business it is not unreasonable for there to be a lag in their reading emails from customers. They have to pay an employee to read the emails. They are trying to make a profit. A company as big as that probably gets alot of emails from people who cant successfully order what they wanted or just want to correspond. I have had nothing but good service from them and will order from them again. I dont see your gripe in this situation.

[thecavemankevin]

I am on cphils side on this one. I must admit that i have never had a problem with them (i have only ordered once). But I have heard way too many horror stories far worse than this over the past year for me to ever do business with them again.

I also am interested in the cover cphil. So if you want to sell it, just let me know. What color is it, and what type is it.

No offense though cphil, you should have known better, after all the horror stories that have been posted hear in recent months...what were you thinking?

[meanelvis]

Chef, that's word for word one of the exact problems I had, though their prob with my order was that the ship address didnt match with the billing address, which caused them to place my order on hold. Thing is, THEY NEVER TOLD ME THEY PUT MY ORDER ON HOLD! I had to call a full week later to discover they had placed my order on hold, they LIED to me OVER THE PHONE about sending an e-mail to me about it, then told me that they would ship right away and acted like there was nothing wrong with how they handled it.

I'm not some 13 year old kid on a vindictive rage here. I, along with some other people obviously, had some bad experiences with PBG's customer service. We choose not to order from them anymore, and cphilip was the guy brave enough to speak publicly about his experience. ANY good store, online or brick-n-mortar, will reconcile a mistake with a customer, whether it was their fault or the customer's silly mistake.

I respect that you guys have had nothing but good experiences with pbg, but they DO have MAJOR probs with customer service, and I know that now 'cause my 2 incidents werent isolated (thx to cphilip's post). Continue shopping with them, but please dont call cphilip stupid for making a silly mistake such as speeding through an online order. He might have made the first mistake in his order, but as far as he, myself, and a growing number of others are concerned, PBG made the FINAL mistake by not valuing our experience with them and fixing what was (and is) wrong.

[Archie]

One thing.

https://www.copaintball.com

never had any trouble with them!

[Cardinal_Biggles]

they're fine in my book...

I have heard of other people getting their orders lost or messed up in the huge volume of transactions they do an hour, which is why when I ordered my mag from them I made sure to call on the phone. I even made the guy repeat my order back to me three times to make sure he had it right . I use the phone whenever possible, if for no other reason than that it's easier to change if you're talking to a person. By the way cphillip, if you have a 68 and you accidentally ordered a 48/51, it should still fit the tank, just a lil' snuggly. I have an 88 cover on my 110.

[manike]

Is this my cue to start ranting about UPS...

manike

[alany]

I just thought I'd add my recent experience with PBgear. I've ordered from them before with no problem, but this last time was a problem. I ordered several items online. One week later I got an email saying that one item was out of stock so the order had not shipped. It clearly says to email or call. I emailed saying to ship everything that was in stock. One week later, nothing, so I called. They said it would ship tomorrow. Another week later, nothing. So I call. This time the guy says the order has shipped today. I ask for a tracking number, and he says I'll get an email. Another week goes by, nothing, so I call. It still hasn't shipped. Finally this time they actually did ship it and I received it. Throughout all of this I sent 5 emails. I never received a reply to any of them. They should not tell you to respond by email if they will not read it and reply. And they should not lie and say something has shipped when it hasn't.

[cphilip]

OK keep em coming I can take it!

FYI I said this before and will repeat I gave them six total days to correct it now and they have responded only once and that last one was Monday. So I gave em all I could. So I am not whining prematurely. They said to use email not me. If they do not intend to monitor it then DO NOT try and run a E-tail business. Tooo many folks want to run the one end but cut corners on the customer service. They did. Claiming you are lazy and just don't have time is not an excuse. Customers make mistakes and you can get a life long one by fixing it one time.


Tomorrow I will share the exact emails with you so you can see how cordial and prompt I was at dealing with mine and how inactive and non responsive they were. You shall see.

I order from Cabela's all the time. Have made changes after ordering and they always do exactly what I ask and respond within an hour or two. They make a living don't tell me it can't be done. They are on top of everything. No emails sits very long.

To the fellow who says he hates customers...you sir need to get out of retail. Tell me where you work I don't want to do business with you.

But lets keep talking about customer service and E-Tail business and such. I find the hostility very interesting here. And odd.

[XspyX]

Hey Phil, you end up getting that .243 after all?

[AngelBoy]

I have had awful service from them. I have ordered almost everything from them, and well, I can honestly not think of one time I have ordered from them and nothing has went wrong. I always check the cart, and its always right. Actually they did get one order right, I ordered a cocker, and it came, it just wasnt timed at all, and when I sent it to WGP twice they didnt time it either! I order a P&P back block, they send me a KAPP front block... I order a chrome KAPP grip frame, they send me a black benchmark frame... thats just to name a few. One of my friends got a bushy from them, and it didnt work, so he sent it back and just asked them to send him a different one or fix that one, they sent him the same one with nothing done to it. They have a nice selection, so find what u want on their site and then order it from ur local store if u have one. Just my thoughts on the matter. And Phil, sorry u got screwed.

[RaV3n_Pa1ntba||]

it works like this my friend...the more you complain the more horse**i* they give you.......I never have a problem with paintballgear.com though...I ordered a good amount of things from them and it always seems they are good to me. Great packaging not 1 thing broke..perfect. But i think its when you order small amounts of things from them they screw you over. Try ordering your small things from g3pb.com ....shipping is only $4 and there stuff is greatly priced. The best place to order period...

[striker]

This little mess is exactly why I ONLY order from www.countypaintball.com

Mike is an awsome guy, and he'll ALWAYS answer your e-mails within 12 hours. Awsome, Awsome customer service! Great prices, too! :)

[damageinc54]

Originally posted by cphilip
Claiming you are half assed is not an excuse.

So it is OK for the Mods to curse, but we cannot ???? I think you need to edit your own post. Once you realized YOUR mistake you should have just picked up the phone and called them. I deal with Jesse Valenciana at PBG all the time. He custom ordered my Red Centerfeed EMag for me. He was very helpful and kept in touch with me throughout and after my Emag purchase. I have not had any problems with him or anybody else I have delt with there. Next time just pick up the phone and talk to him.

[bornl33t]

Originally posted by manike
Is this my cue to start ranting about UPS...

manike

I'm gonna start in on tires plus.... aight?

[cphilip]

Sorry I never said that that was cursing. But if it offends you and detracts from my point then I will take it out.

Ok so here was a good example of a company that is perhaps understaffed to handle an online business to the point that they would not check their emails on Monday morning knowing they had not cleared them all before they left on Friday. Just in case one of their customers had notified them of a problem that they then could avoid. Now remember I placed the order at 3:26PM their time. I notified them at 3:27 and and again at 3:30 of my mistake. They close at 6:00 so they say so lets assume they drop everything and go home then. And I suppose they don't work on the weekend at all (I guess?). So perhaps placing an order on a Friday afternoon turned out to be a mitigating circumstance in their favor. I'll give em that.

Like I said I had bought from them before with good results. But then again each of those times I was a perfect customer and didn't make a mistake. But this time I did. And tried to correct it but it seems the way they suggest has a big hole in it all because they haad no policy or method to red flag a problem in this area. So in this case two wrongs makes a right.

Ok...some have reported problems even after using the phone. Some have said that was my problem. I should have called. Fact is all my communication right now becauseI used email is documented. One small area actualy hurts my argument when I was speculating on why I had chosen the wrongh item but no matter it turned out to be a false lead. I still do not know why it came up. So I am chalking it up to just a bone head distracted mistake on my part. Now where would I be if this problem presisted and I had phoned and they still sent me the wrong thing after me asking them to correct my mistake? Not that it would have happened but just suppose it did. Some of the others say it did to them. Where would I be? Just like the ones above. Just a story no documentation. So I should think people who take the tactic that the phone is better (somehow but the logic excapes me) than the written word I just do not understand. I have many times been confronted with people in denial about something they claim I never told them. But because I did it by email and printed it out and filed it they are quickly eating their words. Just an example why I think getting things in writing, whenever possible, is superior to phone conversations that some of you seem to think is the solution to all problems.

Now another point I was trying to make from this. Too many online retailers try to start up a business thinking the front end of getting the orders is all there is to it. Fact is sometimes people make a mistake. And they will need to communicate that to you. Is it so hard to check your email BEFORE you start shipping that day? Should you have a separate email addy for trouble orders? Perhaps! Not a bad idea right? I mean its up to them to tell me the customer what to do to fix my problem. And they did. And I followed it. To no avail!

Now from the order confirmation. They have the following instructions on it. I am copying and pasting it exactly except for bolding the important part:

Our Customer Service hours are 10:00am - 6:00pm Monday thru Friday Central Standard Time. Please direct any questions regarding your order to our office at 888-679-4327. We can also be reached via email at [email protected].
Again, thank you for using PaintballGear.com as
your source for supplies.


Now another point is how the only response I got from them was. Here it is:

"The order you were sent does have the 47-51 cover in
it. Most likely your order was processed before we
got a chance to recieve your email on Monday so the
change could not be made. If you need to exchange it
please call customer service @ 888.679.4327 and get a
return authorization number.

Now remember the emails I sent were on Friday at 3:30 so they had 2 and a half hours of their listed work hours to get them that day and then on Monday (again we are assuming they don't do any of this after 6pm on Friday and before 10 am on Monday). The Order confirmation seems to have been sent to me at 6:47 PM on Monday. So they had all of that day to read the emails I sent. So lets say then they had a little over 9 working hours to read their email. Part of one working day and all of the next. That was kind of my point in being a bit miffed about it failing to rectify my mistake.

So what I was thinking here is if your customer told you after the fact they had tried on Friday to correct the mistake what would you do? Me? I would go into my emails and see if they were telling the truth. And if they were I would have responded something like this:

Phil,

Sorry but we failed to check our emails and correct your problem for you. Lets work something out. I'll meet you half way. Send us back the one you have as soon as you get it and when I reieve it I will send out the one you wanted at no extra shipping charge. Since we both were in error I think its fair we share the cost of fixing it. Here is an RMA # for you to use if you want to do that. Mark it on the package and put a note in as to which one you need to remind us of the situation.

Thanks for your business.

Joe Blow


Wouldn't that simple gesture have been enough? For me it might. Any comments on that?