VTI Customer Service Problem Rectified

halo

hearingimpared wrote:

Someone wrote quite a few times that she'll never get it. I think that is correct.

That'd be me Joe. She will never "get it" (except up the arse from now on thanks to her own stupidity). "eff her!

MSALLA

If the rack was shipped ups ,it takes 5 to 7 days to the tri-state area. When did she say it was shipped? I'm curious to see if you ever get it.

hearingimpared

SCompRacer wrote:

Until you get it, I'm gonna ask Justin to change your name to Rackless Joe.:D

That one rack has caused me to have to wait to hook up my rig!!!

hearingimpared

Halo wrote:

That'd be me Joe. She will never "get it" (except up the arse from now on thanks to her own stupidity). "eff her!

You are so right Bro. Read my next post!

hearingimpared

However, the spiked feet which screw into the bottom of the five 9" posts were not included in the shipment. I wrote back to her. . . I think she is going to tell me to use the spikes off of the defective rack. We shall see. BTW this is mine and her's last correspondance.


My email is as follows:

Hi Linda,

I've posted your emails concerning your solution to the problem. I think once I've received the rack you have shipped and let people know that I have received it, I think their view of the situation will change to one of a positive nature.

--
Thanks,

Joe

Her reply;

Dear Joe,

We certainly hope so. You should receive your frame these couple days.

VTI Manufacturing, Inc.
11015 Rush Street #4
South El Monte, CA 91733
626-585-1860

See in their mind this is still MY PROBLEM not theirs. . . we shall see.

shawn474

I know this was a long and drawn out ordeal for you and the forum . You should give credit to Ms. Fang and VTI for sticking to their word. I understand your frustration as a consumer, but also saw her point in this situation. She did everything she could to make this right (no matter how long it took or how many e-mails she got from us).

hearingimpared

shawn474 wrote:

I know this was a long and drawn out ordeal for you and the forum . You should give credit to Ms. Fang and VTI for sticking to their word. I understand your frustration as a consumer, but also saw her point in this situation. She did everything she could to make this right (no matter how long it took or how many e-mails she got from us).

Yeah like giving my an incomplete replacement rack. She did nothing to make things right. I had to go to her and beg and tell her that I would call off the dogs. She then turned it back into MY fault. . . not a manufacturing defect MY fault because I didn't open the box within 10 days of receipt. I could have opened it up the first day. . . she then would have ripped off the shipping company by claiming it was "dropped" in shipping. What is her point again????

Her point in this situation was that I couldn't remember the date that the rack was delivered and from that point forward I was a dishonest, unreasonable "only one" who was trying to get something for nothing.

She had no point! She still is claiming that it was a shipping negligence problem when I proved it was a manufacturing defect.

What about all the Christmas gifts I purchased for people in September and gave it to them on Christmas day. . . do they not qualify for a replacement part or whole product if there were a manufacturing defect because they didn't get the product until three months later on Christmas Day????

What is her point exactly Shawn??? She is a cheap lousy business person who doesn't give a rip about making her customers happy, it is just about the almighty dollar. In my business if you don't care about your customers you don't have to worry about the almighty dollar cause YOU AIN'T GETTIN' ANY.

Sorry, I ran a business for 9 years and ran whole Customer / Technical Support departments as a VP in IT for 35 years and I am sick of anyone telling me they see her point. The Customer is Always Right . . . period!!!

Tell me again why she should get credit Shawn. I took the defective rack which she said I could have and modified it and filled it with 30lbs of #9 shot and have made arrangements for a freind (whom I am going to pay) to make a shelf for it. I now have a useless replacement new rack without any spiked feet. . . without the spiked feet, one can't fill the rack with any damper plus one can't place the rack in its proper space. . . Tell me again why she should get credit!!!

EDIT: I'm mad as hell!!! I went out and purchased two more 25 lbs bags ($45) of shot yesterday in anticipation of the arrival of the new rack!!! Now I can't even fill the new rack because the bottom of the posts have holes where the spikes are screwed in. . . I really need to hear again what a great point Linda Fang had in all this.

Incase anyone has forgotten IT IS AN EFFING MANUFACTURING DEFECT NOT A SHIPPING ABUSE ISSUE!

shawn474

HI,
With all due respect, the e-mails that she has gotten have been responded to. I have had correspondence with her in regards to this defending YOU! However, if their policy with the freight company that they use is what she says it is and if it clearly states on the outside of the box that it MUST be opened within 10 days and inspected, then that's their policy. I'm not saying at all that she should be let off the hook for being poor in her customer service or blaming you or the shipping company. The fact remains that she received numerous e-mails from us that were not too kind; WE put her on the defensive after she made accusations against you. She does have a business to run and probably learned a great deal in humility and understanding from this situation.

All I'm saying is that she did what she said she would do; she sent you a new rack. Without the spiked feet - maybe it was a mistake or maybe it wasn't - give her a chance to rectify it before you come back to us and start another e-mail blitz telling her how incompetent she is again. You got the rack today and addressed the missing peices. Give her a chance to address it.

Fact is, from the beginning, she is not responsible for any of this because you bought it from an e-bay seller because you wanted to save money. The e-bay seller should be getting your wrath, not her. You chose to take it up with her and point your anger at her because she was accusatory to you. Fair enough. I just wanted to point out that she did what she said she would do. and if you have to use the spiked feet from the other rack, Is that not fair. Or maybe you could use the money that you saved from shopping on e-bay to purchase some spiked feet so you have two racks for tghe price of one.

hearingimpared

shawn474 wrote:

HI,
I have had correspondence with her in regards to this defending YOU!

And I thank you for that.

shawn474 wrote:

However, if their policy with the freight company that they use is what she says it is and if it clearly states on the outside of the box that it MUST be opened within 10 days and inspected, then that's their policy.

Shawn that is complete and utter **** . . . I am looking at both boxes right now and neither say anything about opening up the box in 10 days. I have taken pictures of the boxes and will post them when I can find my Canon Box which has been packed in my move. She is an effing lier about the box having anything "clearly stating" anything except "Audio Rack" and "This side UP" The pictures will prove her lie, just like the picture proved her lie about it being a shipping issue[/QUOTE]

shawn474 wrote:

I'm not saying at all that she should be let off the hook for being poor in her customer service or blaming you or the shipping company. The fact remains that she received numerous e-mails from us that were not too kind; WE put her on the defensive after she made accusations against you. She does have a business to run and probably learned a great deal in humility and understanding from this situation.

Humility and understanding my **** . . . she is still blaming the freight company which in actuality is blaming me. I have solid proof that it is a manufacturing defect.

Should she have received all of this bad press???? ABSO EFFING LUTELY Ya know why because she is only doing "the right thing" to get me to retract. . . This is her problem THAT SHE CAUSED with her horrible customer service (if that is what you want to call it) and she needs to resolve the bad press.

shawn474 wrote:

All I'm saying is that she did what she said she would do; she sent you a new rack.

NO she did not. She sent me an incomplete rack and there is not a snowballs chance in hell that you or her are going to convince me that the feet weren't left out for a reason.

shawn474 wrote:

Without the spiked feet - maybe it was a mistake or maybe it wasn't - give her a chance to rectify it before you come back to us and start another e-mail blitz telling her how incompetent she is again. You got the rack today and addressed the missing peices. Give her a chance to address it.

It was by no means a mistake. . . she has been emailing me more than I have posted using the new rack as extortion for me to call off the dogs.

shawn474 wrote:

Fact is, from the beginning, she is not responsible for any of this because you bought it from an e-bay seller because you wanted to save money. The e-bay seller should be getting your wrath, not her. You chose to take it up with her and point your anger at her because she was accusatory to you. Fair enough. I just wanted to point out that she did what she said she would do. and if you have to use the spiked feet from the other rack, Is that not fair. Or maybe you could use the money that you saved from shopping on e-bay to purchase some spiked feet so you have two racks for tghe price of one.

First off I purchased it from a VTI authorized dealer and how dare you make me out to be the culprit because I wanted to save money by buying something on ebay. Who the eff are you Donald Trump. I did not "CHOOSE" to take it up with her, THE DOCUMENTATION THAT CAME WITH THE PRODUCT HAD WRITTEN IN BIG BOLD LETTERS, "If you have any problems or questions with our product please call ****-****-xxxx" I did what her company who made the product told me to do.

Screw all your **** about ebay. I've received and gave a lot of merchandise this past holiday season and all but one product gave a number of the manufacturer or a number of the responsible customer service center. Do you have stock in VTI it sure sounds like it.

I'm done trying to be a diplomat with this **** company. She was supposed to send me a rack, part of the rack are the spikes. Case Closed.

shack

shawn474 wrote:

I know this was a long and drawn out ordeal for you and the forum . You should give credit to Ms. Fang and VTI for sticking to their word. I understand your frustration as a consumer, but also saw her point in this situation. She did everything she could to make this right (no matter how long it took or how many e-mails she got from us).

I have been dealing with customers for over 30 years in both retail and service industries. This statement is total BS. She did everything WRONG. The situation could have been resolved in a matter of minutes. The bad pub she received will cost much more that the few bucks she might have saved dealing with a "dishonest" customer. This is textbook bad customer service!

shawn474

Dude,
First of all, I was pointing some things out in defense of her (and admitting her shortcomings as well). I am quite sure that when you were a VP of CS, not EVERY one of your customers were giving you glowing reviews. SHE MADE A MISTAKE (A BIG ONE); WE ALL DO!!!!! Take a step back, take a deep breath and re-read my post - I supported you (still do) and agree that she handled it wrong all the way. All I was pointing out is that after five pages of people saying there was no way you were getting a rack and that she was full of **** - she followed through (with or without spiked feet). You waged a campaign against her and her company with an agreement that after you got the new rack, you would "call off the dogs". My post only reminds you of this and to give her a chance to send you the spiked feet before your emotions get the best of you. IT COULD HAVE BEEN A MISTAKE is my point!

Also, never made you out to be a culprit. Just wanted to relay the point that if an e-bay seller is advertised as honoring the maufacturer's warranty than your beef is with the e-bay seller. If they are in fact an authorized VTI dealer than it is a moot point and I stand corrected.

polrbehr

You have GOT to be kidding me.

You said it all before; the Customer is always right. Period!

I started reading this thread almost out of boredom a week or so ago, but

now, it's gotten me irritated. Can't imagine what its like for you, HI.

Yeah, like you need all this BS heaped on top of the stress of moving.

Far as I'm concerned, they are most definitely NOT off the hook, as this

seems to be a long way from being taken care of. I will wager anything that

the rack was shipped incomplete on purpose. The gloves should be officially

off now. I guess the next move is yours. BBB, CA Consumer Affairs? Got

nothing to lose, right?

hearingimpared

polrbehr wrote:

You have GOT to be kidding me.


Yeah, like you need all this BS heaped on top of the stress of moving.

I will wager anything that the rack was shipped incomplete on purpose. The gloves should be officially

off now. I guess the next move is yours. BBB, CA Consumer Affairs? Got

nothing to lose, right?

You hit the nail on the head Brother. I had become a bit docile on this whole issue figuring it would be over very shortly and I can really focus on the equipment to be held by the rack but got really pist off about it today. Well to hell with it all. I'm going to start getting my rig set up tonight. Tomorrow my buddy is bringing over my really good turntable/tonearm/cart combo and hopefully by Saturday night, I'll be listening to music. Now all that is left to do is to forgive Linda Fang which I pretty much did after my rant to Shawn. . .

By The Way Shawn sorry I came off so strong . . . I apologize! er a not for the points but for coming off so strong LOL. Buds again dude?

hearingimpared

SCompRacer wrote:

Until you get it, I'm gonna ask Justin to change your name to Rackless Joe.:D

Is that like Shoeless Joe Jackson? LOL:p

polrbehr

hearingimpared wrote:

Is that like Shoeless Joe Jackson? LOL:p

Careful, there. You don't want to find yourself "banned for life" from this
Forum, do ya?









Sorry. Couldn't resist.

shawn474

No harm done, man. I understand your frustration and am in total agreement with you on most of your points. I support you and readily agree that the customer service was and is ****. I try to play Devil's Advocate a lot in situations and tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. She may not deserve it, but just wanted to give her credit for keeping to her word despite the infinite doubt. (If in fact, she purposely left out the feet, all bets are off. She may come back and overnight you a set and apologize profusely.)

My only real concern is still with the fact that it was purchased through e-bay. Was this guy an authorized distributor? If I buy a polk audio speaker for 25 bucks and sell it on e-bay for 100 dollars and it doesn't work, who's responsible? I know Polk would do everything they could to make it right, but A LOT of companies would not. It is buyer beware.

You may not agree with me totally and I may not agree with you totally - the one thing we can all agree on is that she handled it wrong from the beginning by calling you a liar and questioning your morals. As a customer spending money on their product, you are owed that from the start. Judging from the response that you generated here, you must be a stand-up guy. The fact is she should have had the defective rack returned (at her expense) and a new rack shipped out immediately after your first conversation. I never disputed that.

SCompRacer

hearingimpared wrote:

Is that like Shoeless Joe Jackson? LOL:p

Or Rackless in Philly, 'cept you ain't there no more.:D Just a shot of humor in a tense situation....

Missing spikes, what a pain. They are an odd thread size too, IIRC.

PolkThug

hearingimpared wrote:

EDIT: I'm mad as hell!!! I went out and purchased two more 25 lbs bags ($45) of shot yesterday in anticipation of the arrival of the new rack!!! Now I can't even fill the new rack because the bottom of the posts have holes where the spikes are screwed in. . . I really need to hear again what a great point Linda Fang had in all this.

Incase anyone has forgotten IT IS AN EFFING MANUFACTURING DEFECT NOT A SHIPPING ABUSE ISSUE!

Why did you expect a second set of spiked feet? Won't the originals from the bent rack screw into the replacement rack?

hearingimpared

PolkThug wrote:

Why did you expect a second set of spiked feet? Won't the originals from the bent rack screw into the replacement rack?

I was waiting for your response to this. The rack was not bent!!!! The rack was welded incorrectly . . .PERIOD. It is a manufacturing defect not a "bent rack" caused by shipping abuse.

I wasn't expecting a "second set of spiked feet." She told me I could keep the defective rack, she said it more than once. The rack is the frame and the spiked feet, ask anybody on this site who owns one, without the feet the rack is useless, better still go here to see the racks. They are two separate parts but are one rack.

Why would I think any differently than the fact she was giving me the defective rack as some type of amends.

If you buy a single rack from VTI you pay in excess of $100 for the rack, the spiked feet are part of the . . .the spiked feet are part of the rack.

With all the BS I've had to go through with this VTI crap I did think she was acting in good faith and true to her word, "you don't have to send the rack back."

In the mean time figuring just incase she is holding onto the replacement as hostage for a retraction, I decided to have the defective rack modified so I can use it and have a shelf made for it.

Don't you think that she should have replaced the rack like she said she would??? She sure as hell wants me to fix her (VTI) public image but wants to stay on the cheep. . .I'm not playing her game anymore.

I still don't see why you are playing it out to be anything like my fault?

RuSsMaN

I certainly won't be buying anything from them, and I'll make sure my clan of audionuts knows the same. Lonestar Bottleheads, Houston Audio Society, Dallas Audio Club, and all the vendors / attendees at the Lonestar Audio Fest in May.

Want me to wear a 'VTI' shirt, with a circle and a line through it at CES in a week or so?

dorokusai

They aren't the only rack manufacturer around, get your crap, move along, lesson learned. Thanks for bringing it to the forums attention, let the Polkies decide on their own.

Russ - That would be funny, almost like us finding Brent @ Ethereal last year.

hearingimpared

RuSsMaN wrote:

I certainly won't be buying anything from them, and I'll make sure my clan of audionuts knows the same. Lonestar Bottleheads, Houston Audio Society, Dallas Audio Club, and all the vendors / attendees at the Lonestar Audio Fest in May.

Want me to wear a 'VTI' shirt, with a circle and a line through it at CES in a week or so?

ROTFLMFAO!!! I know Billy would wear a sandwich sign saying as much! LOL

hearingimpared

dorokusai wrote:

They aren't the only rack manufacturer around, get your crap, move along, lesson learned. Thanks for bringing it to the forums attention, let the Polkies decide on their own.

Russ - That would be funny, almost like us finding Brent @ Ethereal last year.

I will Doro, I just needed to blow my proverbial cork.

dorokusai

Dude, I know full well how you feel.

Demiurge

shawn474 wrote:

HI,
With all due respect, the e-mails that she has gotten have been responded to. I have had correspondence with her in regards to this defending YOU! However, if their policy with the freight company that they use is what she says it is and if it clearly states on the outside of the box that it MUST be opened within 10 days and inspected, then that's their policy. I'm not saying at all that she should be let off the hook for being poor in her customer service or blaming you or the shipping company. The fact remains that she received numerous e-mails from us that were not too kind; WE put her on the defensive after she made accusations against you. She does have a business to run and probably learned a great deal in humility and understanding from this situation.

All I'm saying is that she did what she said she would do; she sent you a new rack. Without the spiked feet - maybe it was a mistake or maybe it wasn't - give her a chance to rectify it before you come back to us and start another e-mail blitz telling her how incompetent she is again. You got the rack today and addressed the missing pieces. Give her a chance to address it.

Fact is, from the beginning, she is not responsible for any of this because you bought it from an e-bay seller because you wanted to save money. The e-bay seller should be getting your wrath, not her. You chose to take it up with her and point your anger at her because she was accusatory to you. Fair enough. I just wanted to point out that she did what she said she would do. and if you have to use the spiked feet from the other rack, Is that not fair. Or maybe you could use the money that you saved from shopping on e-bay to purchase some spiked feet so you have two racks for the price of one.

This is the point I was trying to make earlier.

Hearing --

She's wrong, and her company isn't getting any of my business ever for how she treated you. In the same breath it really wasn't VTI's problem, so much as it was the problem of the person you bought it from. They were the ones who should have been dealing with VTI. That said, you did make it their problem, and they should have dealt with this by taking it on the chin, and giving you what was going to make you happy.

Lesson learned is what you said earlier, but for the sake of your heart health, let it go, bro!

hearingimpared

SCompRacer wrote:

Or Rackless in Philly, 'cept you ain't there no more.:D Just a shot of humor in a tense situation....

Missing spikes, what a pain. They are an odd thread size too, IIRC.

I was looking around to see if they can be matched up. . . odd size is an understatement. I'm probably going to have to have them made at a machine shop.

Either way like Mark said, "lesson learned," in the pocket book too because it is costing more than the MSRP to have this all taken care of but ya know what I'm turning that dinner triangle of a rack into a really dead, dampened high-end tinkered rack.

I just placed the mono-blocks down and am going to start wiring from the ground up.

Rackless Joe:D

PolkThug

hearingimpared wrote:

I still don't see why you are playing it out to be anything like my fault?

Only fault you have is failure to inspect what you bought, which has already been discussed.

I don't see why you are still so angry. She replaced the defective part. You have all the parts for a complete rack, right?

If I buy something with multiple parts and a part is missing or defective, I don't expect a second full set of parts. An example would be Polk replacing the amps in the 202's.

hearingimpared

PolkThug wrote:

Only fault you have is failure to inspect what you bought, which has already been discussed.

I don't see why you are still so angry. She replaced the defective part. You have all the parts for a complete rack, right?

If I buy something with multiple parts and a part is missing or defective, I don't expect a second full set of parts. An example would be Polk replacing the amps in the 202's.

I don't know what the "202s" are.

I'm not angry anymore, I was when I first realized the missing parts.

I thought (and was wrong) that she was making amends by allowing me to keep the defective rack, a necessary part of the rack are the feet. I didn't ask her for the shelf for the rack . . . but I did expect the rack in it entirety. I already spent time and money on modifying it and am having a shelf made so that I could use it. I can't use it without the spiked feet and she knew that and didn't include the spikes because she is still spouting that this whole thing was a shipping issue which of course is BS. I'm going to bring one of the feet over to a machine shop to try to get duplicates made. The problem is that I filled the racks and rails with shot so, I won't be able to build my system until I get that one spiked foot back from the machine shop.

Once again I ask this did it matter whether I opened the box within 10 days or 10 weeks when it comes to a manufacturing defect? Her claim that it is clearly stated on the outside of the box that it must be opened within 10 days is bogus. I have pictures of the box and will post them when I get the Canon software installed on the computer at the new house.

I am a basically honest guy (and try to be daily) and will own up to my errors, in this case, this companies customer service was horrible despite the fact that I didn't open the box in 10 days. . . again I don't see the relevancy there when it comes to a manufacturing defect.

Rackless Joe

BlueMDPicker

Joe,

I tried wading through both threads, but came up missing the eBay seller's identity. Did the seller ever respond to you? I saw two "authorized" dealers on eBay today. One, Jason in California (jspht8338), is a great guy. The other (csnstores) in MA I've had no dealings with. I've purchased a ton of tubes through Jason and had excellent support with any problems. Please tell me it wasn't him you purchased from!

Demiurge

Once again I ask this did it matter whether I opened the box within 10 days or 10 weeks when it comes to a manufacturing defect? Her claim that it is clearly stated on the outside of the box that it must be opened within 10 days is bogus. I have pictures of the box and will post them when I get the Canon software installed on the computer at the new house.

I am a basically honest guy (and try to be daily) and will own up to my errors, in this case, this companies customer service was horrible despite the fact that I didn't open the box in 10 days. . . again I don't see the relevancy there when it comes to a manufacturing defect.

It does matter. Businesses have the right to define the terms of the sale on anything they sell. You can contact the BBB if they're doing something that directly contradicts their terms of sale, and you may have a legitimate case on the facts. From a business standpoint, she should have just taken care of your griping without question. She didn't, and this is the result. As rude as she was in responding to you, and as big of a fuss she put up over this -- they are not wrong on the merits of what they are saying. They're merely wrong for talking the way they did to a customer, and their belligerent attitude towards you.

I would question why a business puts a 10 day return & warranty policy on their products before I would question their right to do it. They have every right to do that so long as it's upfront.