A Bad Vendor Experience!!
Hey guys,
First off I just wanted to clarify the situation and apologize to the poster (Sung) regarding what has occured.
Essentially what occurred was we dropped the ball twice. First on the availability of products and provided an inaccurate product quotation. To be perfectly honest, this does happen from time to time. Our sales team relies heavily on Quickbooks Enterprise for their inventory quotations. Sometimes inventory is off. Sometimes a rep is invoicing a product out while another rep is getting a phone call regarding inventory, the particular product will look like it's in stock, and all of a sudden disappear from the inventory. This does happen from time to time. When this occurs, it is our order fulfillment departments responsibility to inform the customer that these products are on back order. Apparently this did not happen either.
That said, I would like to clarify several points:
1. "Overcharging" - Retained Overcharges actually do not occur in our system, because the funds must to be applied somewhere. This is done by our accountant, and in this case your account would have had a positive credit of $700.00 (those who use Quickbooks would know this). What this most likely means is that at the end of the month the accountant catches the extra funds and asks someone in order fulfillment why these funds exist. If no explanation can be given, the money is automatically refunded. At the very worst case, you would have a store credit of $700.00 during this period and a refund can be issued at any time. Overcharging for us is a far more serious problem than a $700.00 issue - if we are audited and cannot explain a $700.00 charge the liability is potentially far greater - it is in our best interests to keep our books straight.
In your particular case the original $700.00 was charged on 1/30/06, and five days later you called to cancel your order. For some reason on that same day, a charge was voided for the difference of $700.00 minus the HFC. I believe the error occurred here, where the rep inadvertently thought by voiding the $460, the balance was squared. Since today is 2/28/06, the problem would have been corrected within the next few days (if you had not called today) as we would have to close out our February books. Our apologies for this.
2. "Hush Products / Discounts" - All of our sales representatives are under extreme pressure to ensure that our customers are as satisfied as best as possible. And they are also trained that when we do drop the ball (which we do on occassion) to take necessary steps to satisfy the customer. Sometimes this will includes product discounts, service discounts, etc. We offer this to our dissatisfied customers (assuming the mistake is on ourside) irregardless of whether or not the customer decides to take the situation public. Naturally we prefer to have positive publicity, but the bottom line is as a company we have nothing to hide. Therefore the discounted test pipe or other product was NOT given to "keep things quiet", it was offered because we dropped the ball and wanted to keep a satisfied customer (I'm sure other customers can attest to this). And if it was construed differently, I'm sorry for this also.
Sung you have my sincere apologies that this transaction didn't go as planned. I will be speaking to the entire sales team regarding this situation tomorrow, and potentially implementing new procedures to avoid this type of situation in the future.
That said, I must adamantly refute any claims that an overcharge was intentional - it was purely an oversight by the sales rep, and it would have been caught be accounting within the next few days if Sung did not call to ask us about his credit card statement. That said please keep in mind that we do service dozens of customers every day, and move tens of thousands of dollars. I personally write or sign close to two dozen checks every day. Mistakes will happen, and when they do, we will do our best to resolve them.
If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
Sincerely,
Gary Huang
Managing Partner
Gruppe-S Engineering LLC
gary@gruppe-s.com
First off I just wanted to clarify the situation and apologize to the poster (Sung) regarding what has occured.
Essentially what occurred was we dropped the ball twice. First on the availability of products and provided an inaccurate product quotation. To be perfectly honest, this does happen from time to time. Our sales team relies heavily on Quickbooks Enterprise for their inventory quotations. Sometimes inventory is off. Sometimes a rep is invoicing a product out while another rep is getting a phone call regarding inventory, the particular product will look like it's in stock, and all of a sudden disappear from the inventory. This does happen from time to time. When this occurs, it is our order fulfillment departments responsibility to inform the customer that these products are on back order. Apparently this did not happen either.
That said, I would like to clarify several points:
1. "Overcharging" - Retained Overcharges actually do not occur in our system, because the funds must to be applied somewhere. This is done by our accountant, and in this case your account would have had a positive credit of $700.00 (those who use Quickbooks would know this). What this most likely means is that at the end of the month the accountant catches the extra funds and asks someone in order fulfillment why these funds exist. If no explanation can be given, the money is automatically refunded. At the very worst case, you would have a store credit of $700.00 during this period and a refund can be issued at any time. Overcharging for us is a far more serious problem than a $700.00 issue - if we are audited and cannot explain a $700.00 charge the liability is potentially far greater - it is in our best interests to keep our books straight.
In your particular case the original $700.00 was charged on 1/30/06, and five days later you called to cancel your order. For some reason on that same day, a charge was voided for the difference of $700.00 minus the HFC. I believe the error occurred here, where the rep inadvertently thought by voiding the $460, the balance was squared. Since today is 2/28/06, the problem would have been corrected within the next few days (if you had not called today) as we would have to close out our February books. Our apologies for this.
2. "Hush Products / Discounts" - All of our sales representatives are under extreme pressure to ensure that our customers are as satisfied as best as possible. And they are also trained that when we do drop the ball (which we do on occassion) to take necessary steps to satisfy the customer. Sometimes this will includes product discounts, service discounts, etc. We offer this to our dissatisfied customers (assuming the mistake is on ourside) irregardless of whether or not the customer decides to take the situation public. Naturally we prefer to have positive publicity, but the bottom line is as a company we have nothing to hide. Therefore the discounted test pipe or other product was NOT given to "keep things quiet", it was offered because we dropped the ball and wanted to keep a satisfied customer (I'm sure other customers can attest to this). And if it was construed differently, I'm sorry for this also.
Sung you have my sincere apologies that this transaction didn't go as planned. I will be speaking to the entire sales team regarding this situation tomorrow, and potentially implementing new procedures to avoid this type of situation in the future.
That said, I must adamantly refute any claims that an overcharge was intentional - it was purely an oversight by the sales rep, and it would have been caught be accounting within the next few days if Sung did not call to ask us about his credit card statement. That said please keep in mind that we do service dozens of customers every day, and move tens of thousands of dollars. I personally write or sign close to two dozen checks every day. Mistakes will happen, and when they do, we will do our best to resolve them.
If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
Sincerely,
Gary Huang
Managing Partner
Gruppe-S Engineering LLC
gary@gruppe-s.com
Last edited by Gruppe-S; Mar 1, 2006 at 01:07 AM.
Originally Posted by SKILMATIC
I am here to help people and save people from making mistakes. And if I can help people by investigating these crimes then I will do so. If the only way to stop them is by shutting them down then I will do so. Do I make myself clear? Or would you rather not have people like me around protecting and standing up for what is right and letting people take advantage of others?
BTW I would like to add (after re-reading all 7 pages LOL) that we did not charge a card AFTER the order was canceled, rather a mistake was made on the REFUND portion of the transaction. The actual charges were made AT THE TIME of the initial order.
From the customer's point of view I can see how it can appear vice-versa (as you get your bill later in the mail), but this is not the case. I can see how the mistake would be construed to be worse if we charged AFTER the fact.
Cheers,
Gary
Gruppe-S
From the customer's point of view I can see how it can appear vice-versa (as you get your bill later in the mail), but this is not the case. I can see how the mistake would be construed to be worse if we charged AFTER the fact.
Cheers,
Gary
Gruppe-S
Gary huang,
Hi, I am a concerned member here and how come a difference of 700bucks be overlooked when this order was canceled 5 days later after the purchase date which would make it the 5th of feb? And almost 25days later he still does not have his money? This is very disconcerting to me especially when you claim your books must be accurate or else your liability is on the line which I know it would be.
Now I had a feeling it was unintentional however, be that as it may this situation does not look good, and what is going to be implemented in the future to keep things like
these from happening?
I hope from now on I hear nothing but success stories with drop shipped orders and installations. All a customer asks is they get what they paid for while attaining good customer service. That is NOT hard to do. If a customer pays for something and the sales associate or representative gives them a ship date or a ETA when the product will arrive then it better be right! You arent the only vendor I am targeting I had to do this not to long ago with RnR.
I hope you will have a meeting with your entire crew and go over each entricacy and detail to alleviate every possible problem that occured there.
Please let me know what happens for the change in the future and the bettering of your business.
Hi, I am a concerned member here and how come a difference of 700bucks be overlooked when this order was canceled 5 days later after the purchase date which would make it the 5th of feb? And almost 25days later he still does not have his money? This is very disconcerting to me especially when you claim your books must be accurate or else your liability is on the line which I know it would be.
Now I had a feeling it was unintentional however, be that as it may this situation does not look good, and what is going to be implemented in the future to keep things like
these from happening?
I hope from now on I hear nothing but success stories with drop shipped orders and installations. All a customer asks is they get what they paid for while attaining good customer service. That is NOT hard to do. If a customer pays for something and the sales associate or representative gives them a ship date or a ETA when the product will arrive then it better be right! You arent the only vendor I am targeting I had to do this not to long ago with RnR.
I hope you will have a meeting with your entire crew and go over each entricacy and detail to alleviate every possible problem that occured there.
Please let me know what happens for the change in the future and the bettering of your business.
Originally Posted by SKILMATIC
Gary huang,
Hi, I am a concerned member here and how come a difference of 700bucks be overlooked when this order was canceled 5 days later after the purchase date which would make it the 5th of feb? And almost 25days later he still does not have his money? This is very disconcerting to me especially when you claim your books must be accurate or else your liability is on the line which I know it would be.
Now I had a feeling it was unintentional however, be that as it may this situation does not look good, and what is going to be implemented in the future to keep things like
these from happening?
I hope from now on I hear nothing but success stories with drop shipped orders and installations. All a customer asks is they get what they paid for while attaining good customer service. That is NOT hard to do. If a customer pays for something and the sales associate or representative gives them a ship date or a ETA when the product will arrive then it better be right! You arent the only vendor I am targeting I had to do this not to long ago with RnR.
I hope you will have a meeting with your entire crew and go over each entricacy and detail to alleviate every possible problem that occured there.
Please let me know what happens for the change in the future and the bettering of your business.
Hi, I am a concerned member here and how come a difference of 700bucks be overlooked when this order was canceled 5 days later after the purchase date which would make it the 5th of feb? And almost 25days later he still does not have his money? This is very disconcerting to me especially when you claim your books must be accurate or else your liability is on the line which I know it would be.
Now I had a feeling it was unintentional however, be that as it may this situation does not look good, and what is going to be implemented in the future to keep things like
these from happening?
I hope from now on I hear nothing but success stories with drop shipped orders and installations. All a customer asks is they get what they paid for while attaining good customer service. That is NOT hard to do. If a customer pays for something and the sales associate or representative gives them a ship date or a ETA when the product will arrive then it better be right! You arent the only vendor I am targeting I had to do this not to long ago with RnR.
I hope you will have a meeting with your entire crew and go over each entricacy and detail to alleviate every possible problem that occured there.
Please let me know what happens for the change in the future and the bettering of your business.
From the best I can gather, for some reason a transaction was voided for $460 on the day the customer canceled his order. When that occurred, I believe the sales rep inadvertently believed the refund was resolved and did not review it.
Our books are closed at the end of every month, and so an overcharge would not be reviewed until the end of the month.
Further to compound the problem we have hundreds of customers leaving high dollar deposits for special order products, so a $700 credit/deposit is not unusual (we have over 50 orders for JDM wheels at any given time).
While accounting does review the charges, failure to issue refunds will sometimes occur. This is naturally a simple mistake (to rectify) as any sales rep can instantly refund the transaction.
And in this particular case it is good that Sung called and the problem was rectified accordingly and immediately upon his phone call.
Cheers,
Gary
Gruppe-S
EDIT: Credit Card Refunds must be processed by the merchant provider and the providing bank. While we issue refunds immediately such transactions can take 24-72 hours. Therefore it is not reasonable to expect the funds back into your account the same day (assuming you are using a debit card).
Last edited by Gruppe-S; Mar 1, 2006 at 01:59 AM.
Originally Posted by SKILMATIC
I am here to help people and save people from making mistakes. And if I can help people by investigating these crimes then I will do so. If the only way to stop them is by shutting them down then I will do so. Do I make myself clear? Or would you rather not have people like me around protecting and standing up for what is right and letting people take advantage of others?
Way to go man!!! 
You are F***ING SUPER!!! 
Evolving Member
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 496
Likes: 0
From: Knoxville TN
Originally Posted by SKILMATIC
Gary huang,
Hi, I am a concerned member here and how come a difference of 700bucks be overlooked when this order was canceled 5 days later after the purchase date which would make it the 5th of feb? And almost 25days later he still does not have his money? This is very disconcerting to me especially when you claim your books must be accurate or else your liability is on the line which I know it would be.
Now I had a feeling it was unintentional however, be that as it may this situation does not look good, and what is going to be implemented in the future to keep things like
these from happening?
I hope from now on I hear nothing but success stories with drop shipped orders and installations. All a customer asks is they get what they paid for while attaining good customer service. That is NOT hard to do. If a customer pays for something and the sales associate or representative gives them a ship date or a ETA when the product will arrive then it better be right! You arent the only vendor I am targeting I had to do this not to long ago with RnR.
I hope you will have a meeting with your entire crew and go over each entricacy and detail to alleviate every possible problem that occured there.
Please let me know what happens for the change in the future and the bettering of your business.
Hi, I am a concerned member here and how come a difference of 700bucks be overlooked when this order was canceled 5 days later after the purchase date which would make it the 5th of feb? And almost 25days later he still does not have his money? This is very disconcerting to me especially when you claim your books must be accurate or else your liability is on the line which I know it would be.
Now I had a feeling it was unintentional however, be that as it may this situation does not look good, and what is going to be implemented in the future to keep things like
these from happening?
I hope from now on I hear nothing but success stories with drop shipped orders and installations. All a customer asks is they get what they paid for while attaining good customer service. That is NOT hard to do. If a customer pays for something and the sales associate or representative gives them a ship date or a ETA when the product will arrive then it better be right! You arent the only vendor I am targeting I had to do this not to long ago with RnR.
I hope you will have a meeting with your entire crew and go over each entricacy and detail to alleviate every possible problem that occured there.
Please let me know what happens for the change in the future and the bettering of your business.
I am also a concerned Evom member and i was just wondering where you get the right to question some one about something you have no part in?? Instead of you doing your buddies "dirty work" and questioning Guppe-s's credibility why dont you weasel you way back out of this whole convesation and stop trying to stick up for your friend who is obviously not responding because he is ashamed of what he started.. and you should also be ashamed for butting in and questioning a very respectable vendor when you have no ground to stand on. If you have not had a "bad" incounter with them then you have NO right to talk bad about them. Im ashamed just to be your fellow EvoM member. I believe i read earlier in the post some one said it was sad how immature some people are on this forum.. your probably one of those guys that just sits there waiting for some new guy to post a dumb question just so you can flame him first. your a discrace to this post (not the forum, im sure you do your share to help people also). you really need to know your place. trying to start a legal battle is NOT your place!! Once again Grupp-s is a great vendor, if this BS has strayed anyone from buying from them its there loss.. they sell great products at great prices with great salesmenship!!! keep up the good work guys... ill be ordering some more parts very soon
I'll have to back up Gruppe-S on this one, Because I had the samething happen to me, but it wasn't a big deal, I waited a few more weeks for the product, once the product came in, I tryed installing it, it didn't want to fit, or stay in place if it's life depented on it, so I gave them a call back, they took the item back, payed for all shipping costs, and take care of me, Gruppe-S is a great bunch of guys, great prices!.
Sounds like an honest mistake and their taking the heat. I recently had a transaction with them that involved a part getting lost in the mail and it took over a month to get it back in stock again. They handled my sitsuation in a professional manor and I would totally buy from them again because I know **** happens. Keep up the good work guys.
Dave
Dave
Admin Emeritus
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 2,239
Likes: 101
From: NR Reading PA
A billing error occurred and the vendor, albeit slow, offered a refund and additional discounts. Mistakes happen and the character of a company is often shown in the remedy offered. A refund and discount was offered; I'm not sure what else a customer should expect. And that is all that is here folks. In this case, the originator felt it was not enough and posted his experienced.
However, we should flag no account theories and ludicrous misinformation concerning credit card fraud and crimes. Some of you should sit on your hands before offering business ethics and law advise as you are embarrassing yourselves. I'm fairly confident that the adults reading this were more amused than concerned about Gruppe-S business practices relative to a few of the off the wall statements in this thread. Thread closed.
Speedlimit....
However, we should flag no account theories and ludicrous misinformation concerning credit card fraud and crimes. Some of you should sit on your hands before offering business ethics and law advise as you are embarrassing yourselves. I'm fairly confident that the adults reading this were more amused than concerned about Gruppe-S business practices relative to a few of the off the wall statements in this thread. Thread closed.
Speedlimit....
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