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Myself, I'd like to see BF's input on things at this point.
I'd like to see their response to the "guide you through it" possible (hopefully) misunderstanding and how they intend to resolve it.

Eric

Agreed... unfortunately, they haven't posted in this thread recently, although hopefully that means they're just dealing with Kurros directly (as he hasn't updated, either).

MajorTom11 wrote:I don't blame you for making that assumption though, unfortunately that is the way it works in a lot of places... I did not write the above to admonish you or make your arguement seem foolish, merely to give a few facts that would hopefully change your mind.

I like this moderator.

This is how Kurros' thread affects me. Right now I got money to burn, but literally no time. Right now I'm frequently spending $100 here and there on trinkets a couple of times a week just to keep me from going insane. Right now I was thinking about getting a Battlefoam bag, because I really like their foam creator tool, customability of it all, it's a superior product and all, yada yada yada...but mostly because I need (no...make that want) a (cool transport) bag for my stuff. For over a year now I've courted the idea of of buying a Battlefoam bag...a year ago $200-300 was out of my price range (amazon and priority mail boxes from work were not), now not as much.

But this headstrong and run around attitude that Kurros is receiving over a $5 part is astounding. How superior is a product when you have to spend weeks fighting over what's essentially lunch money? As a potential customer who's sitting here, reading and watching this thread, I'm really taken aback. And after all this crap, even if Kurros gets his part shipped to him it's a bittersweet win. Who wants to go back and forth for weeks like this? This really makes me want to spend my hard earned cash with Battlefoam /sarcasm.

I'm liking just about everything RiTides posted in this thread. A part that Battlefoam would sell for $5 probably cost them $2.50.

And for the record, if my $300 bag broke, I wouldn't take it to the cobbler for some glue job - I would expect the broken part to be replaced with a factory part - so that cobbler/luggage guy better have received it from the company. And also for the record I probably would have just caved and bought the part. Kudos to Kurros for seeing this one through. Good luck buddy.

I'm also a potential customer who HAD been considering Battlefoam for my army transport needs - and right now, I can pretty much guarantee I won't be bothering to consider Battlefoam any longer. It's bad enough that Kurros is getting the runaround like this when he's a USA customer - as an Australian, I don't even want to think about the rigmarole I'd have to go through if I ever needed to claim on the warranty.

Even if BF are sticking to their stated policy, the whole way this issue's been handled is very, very offputting to me.

Best of luck to Kurros in getting this resolved in a satisfactory manner!

@MightyGodzilla:

For what it's worth, I've had my 1520 for over a year and I've not exactly been kind to it. It's held up perfectly in spite of it. The wheels and feet are worn on mine, but that's to be expected from use.

Ok guys, I have allowed our customer service to deal with this for over a month.

I am stepping in to just put this to bed. At the end of the day our customers are our most important part of our business.

Having someone this upset does no one any good.

At the end of the day we have been dealing with the customer directly. We have offered many options but that is not the point.

There are also points here that have not been made and facts that have yet to be discussed. Again, water under the bridge.

I simply ask that the customer email me directly at romeo40kradio@battlefoam.com and I will personally handle the situation.

If that is not an option please PM me and we will send the parts needed.

Sure its not our policy, but at this point the situation is also not common. We don't have this type of problem and we don't have threads that turn into this.

With that point I do ask the original poster to handle this with me and the problem will be solved.

Hope that helps.
Romeo
Battle Foam

Kurros hadn't updated here, I didn't realize this was still unresolved, 2 weeks later...

Good of you to step in to resolve it, I'm just surprised it's been this difficult to get such a seemingly small matter taken care of.

I also didn't read the OP's posts as being upset, just disappointed (his phrase). I was more surprised than anything else... but again, I'm glad you're planning to resolve it for them, although I just can't picture why it would have needed to get to this point / have taken this long...

Sounds like more of the same with BF. My own customer service problems weren't resolved until Romeo stepped in. After that, smooth sailing. (I won't go into the problem again, but if you care just look under threads started by myself). There's at least one guy there that knows how to run a business.

But since it's his business, if he wanted it to go smoother earlier in the process, it would, right?

I'll start out with the disclaimer first. I am posting the facts below and it is not an attack on the original poster or the following posts assuming information that was not posted.

Now for the facts that I have looked into since this situation was pointed out.

On 4/2/2011 The original poster put an order in with us at Adepticon 2011 (order number AD1067-1)

The P.A.C.K. 1520 was shipped a couple weeks later and arrived sometime in May of 2011.

The customer then used the bag for the duration of time until he approached one of our customer service reps at Adepticon 2012 this year. Since Adepticon was later in the month of April it was clearly past the 1 year warranty period.

The confusion for the customer seems to have been the order date and the delivery date. I'm sure he believed that his one year started from the time the item was delivered not the actual order date of 4/2/2011.

This is understandable and seems to be the main reason this problem even happened.

At Adepticon the customer approached our staff and asked about fixing the legs. I must say that our staff pointed out that he was extremely nice and seemed to be understanding of the policy and situation. Our staff explained to him how we would be able to help him and assumed everything was resolved.

By resolved I mean they told him he was outside his warranty time and that a $5 parts charge would be assessed for getting the replacement wheel and leg item.

Soon after Adepticon 2012 the customer emailed our customer service staff and expressed his frustration with the $5 charge for the part. (please keep in mind these parts are much more expensive but we simply provide them at what we have discussed as a reasonable price to still keep customers happy and not got too far in the red)

Our staff again explained that he was outside of his 1 year warranty as stated by his order placed on 4/2/2011 and the call came in on or around 4/25/2011.

Clearly this was simply our staff sticking to the letter of the law as stated on all of our products and policies.

I also must say that the original poster was friendly during these conversations and never really seemed upset, just questioned why he needed to pay $5 for the part.

Also, our staff was responsive and addressed all his needs based on our regulations.

Our staff works very hard and nobody here is to blame. It’s simply one persons view of a policy and our staff trying to explain it.

At the end of the day I personally trust our staff of 20 plus employees to handle these problems. They as employees make these decisions based on our written policies. It does not mean they are not doing their job or trying to be difficult. They are simply trying to do their jobs the best they can based on what the job and company expects of them.

With that said they do not bring these types of problems to management attention because they want to solve problems the best they know how.

Like any business we have employees, managers, and owners. The chain of command at Battle Foam is a great one and everyone does their part. 99.9% of the time things flow perfectly. .01% of the time we have a situation that needs to be escalated and resolved by me, Jama, or one of our other managers.

This is one of those cases. At the end of the day, an overlooked date turned into a debate about $5.

That problem is now solved because I have personally issued a replacement part to the original poster and customer.

I'm sure he will receive it in the next few days and apply it to his bag to take care of the situation.

The moral of the story is this. Companies have policies in place to help its customer and protect its bottom line. This was a special case that needed some additional attention and it was handled.

Hope this helps clear up the confusion.

Romeo
Battle Foam

So for future reference, will your warranties take effect from order date, or ship/receive date, since you do stock items with at times significant lead times? Might keep it from being an issue in the future.

I don't know, do most companies base warranties on when one pays, rather than when a product is sent/received? Again just seems like a good point to clear up, which I didn't see above. Appreciate the explanation, though.

We base it on the order date because it is a hard number. Custom orders may post things up to 2 weeks after the order date. This is one of those cases and is why the problem was resolved at no charge.

Pre-Orders are based on actual ship dates and do not factor in the weeks before the item is available to be shipped.

Wow, I just realized that sounds confusing.

Normal orders warranty - 1 Year on all parts from time of order.

Pre-Orders - 1 Year from time of shipping.

Normal orders with custom work that may delay the shipment - 1 Year from time of order but most orders go out in less than 10 days.

Again, keep in mind that we don't really have warranty issues like this. Popped stitches are easy to fix and we pay the full amount for repairs. No other company does any of this and my garage filled with ripped and damaged transport systems is proof.

I hope that makes more sense.

I think Romeo did the right thing here and also took a lot of time to explain the circumstances. I know everything won't be wrapped up til the deal is done and bag is fixed, but let's also give a bit of credit here too.

A few mentioned that it took long to get here, a few mentioned that they have to get to Romeo to get something done. I think the point to make here is that they DID get Romeo, and it is getting addressed.

I have had far too many instances in the past few years with all kinds of things from Sears fixing a washer to a baby stroller maker sending a replacement part where the road ended flat out at the customer service and nothing got done, ever. It wasn't even possible to struggle up the ladder. So ya, taking this long sucks, light at the end of the tunnel actually happening though? Pretty rare these days.

Agreed, Tom!

Once again, Romeo proves to deserve my opinion of him.

Eric

I wanted to quickly follow up on this matter (I apologize, I've not been around the last couple weeks).

I actually didn't talk to the Battlefoam guys at the Adepticon booth (the leg broke while I was leaving the event) although, I did buy a Malifaux bag, a paint bag and a bunch of trays while I was there. It must have been someone else.

Romeo is right about the order date but, I was working under the assumption that the guarantee kicked in when I received the product. In the future, this is probably something that should be clarified to the customer when they are making a purchase.

At any rate, I did receive a call and a private message from Romeo regarding this matter and they did end up shipping me the part (should arrive after the holiday weekend). It's unfortunate it took a month to play out but, I'm happy with the result.

As I've said before and I'll repeat again... while Battlefoam and I were at odds over the original response, every step of the way their staff was both polite and courteous. I'm happy with the final result and will likely continue to buy their products in the future. I realize Romeo is a busy guy and I applaud his effort to step up and take care of this.

Whether positive or negative, I really appreciate all the feedback this has received from the DakkaDakka community... Thanks everyone.

Cheers,
Kurros

Thanks for the update, Kurros! Good to see this finally be resolved.

I hate to derail this off topic, so if needed mods just delete and PM me.

A warranty on an item starts on something that doesn't even exist yet? I place my order for my bag and custom foam on Black Friday. I won't see it until after Christmas, based purely on my last experience. (disclaimer, I didn't order a bag, only custom foam, but this is all there to make my point). Anyway, over a month, maybe closer to 1.5 months, I finally see my order. My 1 year warranty is now an 11 month warranty, or a 10.5 month warranty.

Sorry, but that's just ludicrous. It is literally impossible for me to use my warranty during the time that I don't have the items! Battlefoam uses a trackable shipping method (UPS). The delivery dates are shown on their website when the tracking # is put in. How is that not a solid date?

Coming into this late, but my own experience with Battlefoam Customer Service has played out exactly like Romeo described above. I had a problem with a custom tray I ordered with a bag around the holidays, it took a while to get to me, and because of other things going on in life I didn't actually find out about the problem until a month or so after receiving it. I called and the person I talked to about it was very friendly, and asked if I could snap a picture (which I did) and email it and they'd take it to a production manager (or some title along those lines). About a day later they emailed me to tell me what exactly the problem was (the tray had some unaccounted for overlap in the tray creator and when it went to be cut one of the shapes was somehow shrunk). They said to design another tray and they'd send it right out. I did, and got the tray a few weeks later. Was very satisfied with this approach. Glad to see Romeo stepping in here with someone who didn't have such a smooth time of dealing with customer service.

Frankly, if anything in this thread has put me off buying from Battlefoam, it's the fact that the head of the company is happy bandying about detailed information of customer transactions on an internet forum in an attempt to score points on said customer.

Sorry, by no standard of behaviour is that acceptable business practice. Never mind the minutia of this particular case, never mind the idea that a product warranty start date can be a date -prior to the creation of the product- is pretty ludicrous, getting into a public back and forth with a customer who has a complaint is amateur-hour. If you must, post asking them to contact you(something that could have been done via PM), but if someone posts something negative about your product online, justified or not, just suck it up.

And before anyone white-knights to the defense of BF, I'd ask that you take a moment and imagine what the reaction would be if a GW employee, posting with an official and verified account, came on here and started arguing, however politely, with people in, say, a Finecast complaint thread. I suspect that "unprofessional" would be the -kindest- word anyone would use to describe such behaviour.

Yodhrin, it was a Battlefoam employee (Kyle) other than Romeo posting earlier in the thread, the owner (Romeo) only posted on this last page.

I have been pondering the warranty start date, too, though... I think Lormax makes a valid point for Battlefoam to consider. Should the 1-year warranty really start from the order date, particularly with the backlog that tends to happen due to the (awesome) annual Black Friday sale?

That could result in more stickiness down the line... so it really could be better to use the ship date. Might make it a hair harder to look up when dealing with a customer complaint... but you could just give them the benefit of the doubt if it's within a month of the warranty end date, too

I can understand all sides on this and I see where, as a businessman, Romeo would do it from the date the order has shipped as oppossed to when the order was recieved, but I am going to throw a what if here and forgive me as such, but what if the customer buys from a store and then has the issue. Are they garunteed from the date they purchased said item or from when the store purchased it, or in some cases not at all? Also I would tend to lean towards going off of when the item arrives, as I have ordered in the past for my own person and even in the off season (i.e not a holiday or big sale) and it took two to three weeks just to even post to me. Seemed rather odd being when I called the lady on the phone said it was in stock. In the end glad the guy is happy and this is just a bunch of things to ponder I guess for Battlefoam.

I am shocked that Romeo has posted customers order details!

I was considering buying some foam trays for starage but am reconsidering after that.

Yodhrin wrote:Frankly, if anything in this thread has put me off buying from Battlefoam, it's the fact that the head of the company is happy bandying about detailed information of customer transactions on an internet forum in an attempt to score points on said customer.

Yeah, I know, he totally offered up the date of purchase and the battlefoam order number. With that kind of information being release into the public he could totally have people uh... um... wait, what? I like my privacy as much as the next guy, but it seems like you're freaking out about nothing. Besides, if you're willing to 'out' a company in a public forum, then I think the company has all rights to display facts. They're anonymous, and it's given us basically what the OP already told us in the first post. Where is the problem?

Sorry, by no standard of behaviour is that acceptable business practice. Never mind the minutia of this particular case, never mind the idea that a product warranty start date can be a date -prior to the creation of the product- is pretty ludicrous, getting into a public back and forth with a customer who has a complaint is amateur-hour. If you must, post asking them to contact you(something that could have been done via PM), but if someone posts something negative about your product online, justified or not, just suck it up.

So it what you're saying is that this should be one of those one-sided bash fests like we get in here with Finecast so that the internet hate feedback loop starts up about yet another company? I'd personally rather hear about what the company proposes to do to resolve the issue. This also gives a good (and open!) look into their customer support procedures. The reason why most companies don't do this kind of stuff is because they're not as invested in making the situation right; they want to be able to step back and say "too fething bad" if the need arises. The fact that Romeo's willing to put his neck out in public is a GOOD thing. I feel like you're either not thinking this through fully or you have a chip on your shoulder.

Personally, I feel a little weird about the product ship date being the warranty date also, but how does anyone else do it for mail-order stuff? Call up newegg or Amazon, see how they do it. I'll bet it's similar for anything that doesn't have a confirmed delivery date.

And before anyone white-knights to the defense of BF, I'd ask that you take a moment and imagine what the reaction would be if a GW employee, posting with an official and verified account, came on here and started arguing, however politely, with people in, say, a Finecast complaint thread. I suspect that "unprofessional" would be the -kindest- word anyone would use to describe such behaviour.

Frankly, if they used facts, offered a path to resolution, and were polite? I'd be over-fething-joyed.

I have been in a company that sold parts (automotive performance parts). Our warranties started on the date or purchase, regardless of when the part was picked up or installed. I understand this. The reason you can't use delived date is even though UPS gives an estimated date, this is not a guarentee. We shipped UPS for everything and while most parts arrived on time, some were delayed. A date on the invoice is the simplest way of tracking waranties. From what I have heard from other companies, this seems to be a standard pratice.

Yodhrin wrote:Frankly, if anything in this thread has put me off buying from Battlefoam, it's the fact that the head of the company is happy bandying about detailed information of customer transactions on an internet forum in an attempt to score points on said customer.

Sorry, by no standard of behaviour is that acceptable business practice. Never mind the minutia of this particular case, never mind the idea that a product warranty start date can be a date -prior to the creation of the product- is pretty ludicrous, getting into a public back and forth with a customer who has a complaint is amateur-hour. If you must, post asking them to contact you(something that could have been done via PM), but if someone posts something negative about your product online, justified or not, just suck it up.

Apparently, also "never mind" that the customer himself has already bandied about all of the information and Romeo's doing nothing but discussing things that the OP himself has already covered.

Yodhrin wrote:And before anyone white-knights to the defense of BF, I'd ask that you take a moment and imagine what the reaction would be if a GW employee, posting with an official and verified account, came on here and started arguing, however politely, with people in, say, a Finecast complaint thread. I suspect that "unprofessional" would be the -kindest- word anyone would use to describe such behaviour.

Pointing out inaccuracies in your logic is white-knighting, now? I'm hoping not.
Also, if I DID start a thread and put in all the applicable details -as the OP has- I'd have no problem with the GW rep discussing details just as openly. If you lodge a complaint in the public eye, expect to see it resolved in the public eye.


Eric


Automatically Appended Next Post:

optimusprime14 wrote:I have been in a company that sold parts (automotive performance parts). Our warranties started on the date or purchase, regardless of when the part was picked up or installed. I understand this. The reason you can't use delived date is even though UPS gives an estimated date, this is not a guarentee. We shipped UPS for everything and while most parts arrived on time, some were delayed. A date on the invoice is the simplest way of tracking waranties. From what I have heard from other companies, this seems to be a standard pratice.

So, if someone ordered a part & you shipped it 3 weeks later, the warranty started on order date and not date of shipment?

It's no secret I'm a BF fan, but I agree that the warranty should start on the shipment date, at worst.

Eric

daedalus wrote:

Yodhrin wrote:Frankly, if anything in this thread has put me off buying from Battlefoam, it's the fact that the head of the company is happy bandying about detailed information of customer transactions on an internet forum in an attempt to score points on said customer.

Yeah, I know, he totally offered up the date of purchase and the battlefoam order number. With that kind of information being release into the public he could totally have people uh... um... wait, what? I like my privacy as much as the next guy, but it seems like you're freaking out about nothing. Besides, if you're willing to 'out' a company in a public forum, then I think the company has all rights to display facts. They're anonymous, and it's given us basically what the OP already told us in the first post. Where is the problem?

Sorry, by no standard of behaviour is that acceptable business practice. Never mind the minutia of this particular case, never mind the idea that a product warranty start date can be a date -prior to the creation of the product- is pretty ludicrous, getting into a public back and forth with a customer who has a complaint is amateur-hour. If you must, post asking them to contact you(something that could have been done via PM), but if someone posts something negative about your product online, justified or not, just suck it up.

So it what you're saying is that this should be one of those one-sided bash fests like we get in here with Finecast so that the internet hate feedback loop starts up about yet another company? I'd personally rather hear about what the company proposes to do to resolve the issue. This also gives a good (and open!) look into their customer support procedures. The reason why most companies don't do this kind of stuff is because they're not as invested in making the situation right; they want to be able to step back and say "too fething bad" if the need arises. The fact that Romeo's willing to put his neck out in public is a GOOD thing. I feel like you're either not thinking this through fully or you have a chip on your shoulder.

Personally, I feel a little weird about the product ship date being the warranty date also, but how does anyone else do it for mail-order stuff? Call up newegg or Amazon, see how they do it. I'll bet it's similar for anything that doesn't have a confirmed delivery date.

And before anyone white-knights to the defense of BF, I'd ask that you take a moment and imagine what the reaction would be if a GW employee, posting with an official and verified account, came on here and started arguing, however politely, with people in, say, a Finecast complaint thread. I suspect that "unprofessional" would be the -kindest- word anyone would use to describe such behaviour.

Frankly, if they used facts, offered a path to resolution, and were polite? I'd be over-fething-joyed.

Nonsense. No company on this earth run by a professional gets into slanging matches in public; I've had disputes with Jenners, GW, Forge World, John Lewis, Argos, and a dozen other companies over the years, but not once has it occurred to me to consider that one of their employees might stumble across a thread on a forum where I was having a moan about those problems and proceed to post details -ANY DETAILS- relating to that dispute. You can make up all the excuses you like, but I find the idea that you'd be totally cool with a GW employee coming on here and, in their official capacity, getting into a back-and-forth with you in a thread where you had posted a critique to be laughable; it would be a goddamn nuclear apocalypse. As to facts, and a "path to resolution", tell me; is the PM function on this forum broken? No? Then there was no need whatsoever for any interaction in this thread. This isn't some monstrously unjust slander against the company, it's a legitimate complaint, and you resolve legitimate complaints with the customer, not by trying to minimise your liability in a public forum.

As for ship dates, Amazon don't take weeks to deliver what I order, I pay them money, and my goods arrive two days later, on the button, every single time. THAT's why they can get away with running the warranty from order date, running from order date for a custom made-on-demand product with a long ship time would be like Amazon running the warranty from the date that I put down a preorder.

MagickalMemories wrote:

Yodhrin wrote:Frankly, if anything in this thread has put me off buying from Battlefoam, it's the fact that the head of the company is happy bandying about detailed information of customer transactions on an internet forum in an attempt to score points on said customer.

Sorry, by no standard of behaviour is that acceptable business practice. Never mind the minutia of this particular case, never mind the idea that a product warranty start date can be a date -prior to the creation of the product- is pretty ludicrous, getting into a public back and forth with a customer who has a complaint is amateur-hour. If you must, post asking them to contact you(something that could have been done via PM), but if someone posts something negative about your product online, justified or not, just suck it up.

Apparently, also "never mind" that the customer himself has already bandied about all of the information and Romeo's doing nothing but discussing things that the OP himself has already covered.

My mouth is actually hanging open in disbelief that anyone can seriously put forward such a spurious comparison.

Customer, posting anonymously, complains about a company's customer service.

Owner of the company and other CS employee, identified as such, posts specific details about that order, in an attempt to cast the anonymous customer as being dishonest.

In your mind, these things are totally equivalent, and the latter is not a complete iron-clad validation of the initial complaint? Damn, if you ever start a business, remind me never to order from you.

Yodhrin wrote:And before anyone white-knights to the defense of BF, I'd ask that you take a moment and imagine what the reaction would be if a GW employee, posting with an official and verified account, came on here and started arguing, however politely, with people in, say, a Finecast complaint thread. I suspect that "unprofessional" would be the -kindest- word anyone would use to describe such behaviour.

Pointing out inaccuracies in your logic is white-knighting, now? I'm hoping not.
Also, if I DID start a thread and put in all the applicable details -as the OP has- I'd have no problem with the GW rep discussing details just as openly. If you lodge a complaint in the public eye, expect to see it resolved in the public eye.


Eric

When you get around to pointing out a flaw in my logic, let me know.

....It's no secret I'm a BF fan...

Nawwwww, go'an, I'd never have guessed.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, while I don't Romeo personally, the man makes a quality product and stands by it.

I'm not a huge fan of Romeo's confrontation nature at times.
However I will suggest many companies do not even offer a warranty for their product. Battlefoam does. I have minor concerns with the idea of a warranty based on a order date, not on the received date, as that is very deceiving to the consumer.

However, have to say. Romeo is only offering the nature of his understanding of the consumers complaint, which the consumer when on a website about a $5 part. Honestly if I was the consumer who already paid several hundred dollars, and the manufacture of the product said "hey i hear you, here's a $10 part, we'll give it to you to fix your bag for $5." My only response would be "thank you."

Lastly: Battlefoam, please get the order number out of your post. That order number is tied to a consumers name, address, phone, and likely email. Its not right to throw that out in the open.