tool vendor problems, here?

[Dan Sheehan]

Please. I do not want to start a bloodbath here. I'm just offering a point for your consideration.

I know the frustration that can come with any sort of business, internet commerce especially. While I very much appreciate the tool recommendations that are frequently found on this site and the well earned praise for the usual vendors, I am just a little concerned by some of the posts that take an issue with a transaction public on this very influential forum.

Really, I'm divided. I appreciate warnings about products and services that are clearly fraudulent or at least dubious. I wish someone warned me about that used car dealership way back when. But having been on the provider side of business transactions, I know there are often two sides to the story. Sometimes there are circumstances beyond control that result in disappointment to one party or another. Or maybe the customer's expectations are not reasonable. Or something really can get lost in the mail.

In this age of e-commerce and virtual communities, I think it is a bit unfair to take transaction issues with vendors public except in the most flagrant violations of trust. It's like the newspapers that publishes something on the front page and then in two days the correction appears in a line on the bottom of page two. The damage is hard to undo. With search engines these days, the dings we give out never go away.

I could tell a few stories about my regrets in pointing fingers. But I think I've made my point. I suggest praise for the good guys and restraint when naming names for a transaction that seems difficult to resolve. Of course, I realize that I'm free to disregard posts too.

This could prove to be a topic people feel strongly about so please use restraint if you care to respond. All measured opinions are welcome though.

[Jim Koepke]

Dan,

I tend to agree with what you say.

I do like to praise those who offer good service and good value.

There are a few retailers who I do not support for other reasons that begin to border on the political. That is not appropriate for this forum.

There have been discussions that have "gotten out of hand" here and they end up being removed by the folks who moderate the activity here.

I recall a fire venting here a few years ago by a person who bought a plane off ebay that had some problems. The person had scheduled out their production based on this arriving in a ready to go state.

It seems we often set ourselves up for disappointment by expecting more than is practical from a transaction.

It reminds me of one person's philosophy to always expect others to be generally incompetent. That way he was never disappointed and often pleasantly surprised.

Expecting the most from everyone or everything leads to a lot of disappointments.

One of my favorite transaction analysis is the pricing conundrum. If a sales person asks how much a person has to spend, then the sales person will always hit on the high end or above the declared spending limit.
When the buyer asks how much something will cost and the seller responds with, "somewhere in the $800-1000 range" the buyer will only hear the "$800" and get offended at any suggestion above that point.

It seems a lot of retailers have learned this lesson and if you ask for a price on something they are not certain of, many of them will not give a "ball park figure" no matter how nicely you ask.

jtk

[john brenton]

As Jim said, you POV is shared by most of the forum. Public feedback is a huge deal, which we can clearly see with the ebay platform. The moderators here will absolutely correct a problem like this if the poster is not being constructive in their criticism and trying to tear the vendor down.

[David Weaver]

Fortunately, in the world of hand tools, there isn't nearly so much to complain about as there is in the world of large stationary freight-company shipped CNCs and Cast Iron stationary machines.

You'll not see too many complaints in general because the retailers bend over backwards to make sure customers are happy, from the immediate involvement from LV (and it occurs with LN, too, they just don't talk on the forums), all the way to suggestions from Joel that if you're not sure if you'd like one tool over another to order both, and send back the one you don't like.

And on the foreign side of things, I can tell Stu there's something I like in Japan, and quite often he can get it.

Plus, a lot of our retailers are enthusiasts with tools, and not just retailers. Ask Stu or Rob or Joel about something they have, and they tell you their thoughts, not thoughts that are written down in sales lit.

[Dave Anderson NH]

I tend to heartily agree with Dan. Forums, and the internet in general, can be and often are a 2 edged sword for anyone who sells. On the General Woodworking Forum here on the creek there is a prominent sticky at the top of the first page warning about rant threads specifically because of recurrent problems of the bashing of manufacturers. I have chosen not to have it posted here on the Neanderthal Forum beacuse with few exceptions over the years the crew here exists on a much more intimate level and is generally better behaved. The gist of the thread says to contact the manufacturer for resolution of problems before posting a complaint and if the complaint is not resolved, only supportable and documented facts can be posted. It also prohibits "piling on" by other creek members to trash a vendor. This policy was established to offer fairness to sellers and also warn people posting that if they post negative reviews of a seller or product that can't be supported by fact, they run the risk of being sued for libel. Since SMC started there have been 2 cases that I am aware of where legal action has been taken by a seller against a member who followed their personal agenda in a libelous way. Literally speaking, the jury is still out. What is always needed is a balanced presentation, and that is hard to achieve when you are unhappy with a transaction and personally involved.

Please note that saying something unflattering in a review of a product and offering it as your opinion, is not libelous. It is the hard core, "The widget made by Universal Widget is a useless junky insert profanity here and the maker is a nasty, mean, and useless ---------. and everything else they make is junk too " comments of this type that have to be avoided. With freedom of speech as with any freedom comes responsibility for your own actions.