Bad Experience With Smoking Pipes

[sasquatch]

I've noticed a trend in the pipe and also the cigar world, and that is, if people order something monday, they want it tuesday, and ANYthing that makes it not occur is a train-wreck totality - dead children, burned buildings kind of disaster. I saw someone blaming cigarbid for a box that was a little mangled up by USPS and they were furious that they had ordered tuesday, it shipped Wednesday and they didn't receive the box till next Tuesday. OH THE HUMANITY!
These guys made a mistake on their site, told the OP so as soon as it was recognized. Could they have shipped the pipe? Yeah. Are they obligated to? Hell no.
When did it become... adversarial... to order something?

 

[ashdigger]

George and Sas are spot on here.
I actually can't believe this thread is still going.
We're talking about a pipe here folks, not some fundamental flaw in the human dynamic.
I shop a lot online and believe glitches happen. My bigger question is this, has all this hand wringing been worth it?
Did you get called a "conquering hero" for trying to stick it to the man?

 

[hugodrax]

Do you feel ripped off that you weren't able to rip them off?

 

[pappymac]

It seems to me that someone at smokingpipes made a mistake. It wasn't an attempt to get you to spend more money and they did the right thing by stopping the order and telling you why they cancelled the order. Should you be disappointed? Yes. Life is full of disappointments. On the other hand, they offered you a 15% discount to make up for the your disappointment. They also didn't keep your money.
I've seen worse on eBay where the pipe that gets purchased is no where near what was advertised and the seller refuses to do a return or refund.

 

[trouttimes]

Americaman, I get you are disappointed at not getting the pipe, get over it. People make mistakes. You never have? Did people throw you in jail for it? SP is a good company and they tried to offer a solution. Don't be and ass, accept it. It's a pipe dude not an airplane. I have bought a lot from SP and they have made mistakes but they have always done their best to make me happy. I will continue to use them for one of my primary sources. If you don't want to buy from them, don't. Simple solution seems to me.

 

[jaytex1969]

I feel we have flogged the angry man well enough. I'm sure half of it is blowing steam. :evil:
Group hug and smoke 'em if you got 'em... :nana:
Happy Friday, y'all!

 

[gerryp]

OP was being angry? Yikes! I'm glad I didn't show you guys the emails I sent about my botched order!

Anywho...I think it's a good thing to share our experiences, good and bad, that we have with vendors. Having this information helps us consumers make informed decisions when buying stuff.

 

[jaytex1969]

If i sounded mean or judgemental, that was not my intent. We've all been on both sides of this situation at one time.
I just don't want this (fairly) new forum member to feel like he's under a dog pile.
Hug and smoke still available... :D ::

 

[jpmcwjr]

Right on, Jay.
I love the juxtaposition of Dave's post, being right after Shane's.

 

[americaman]

Hey guys, maybe I should have been clearer in my opening statement, and in my closing. I like Smoking Pipes. They are the best website for purchasing pipe products and I would direct any new pipe smoker to their website.
For the record, the customer is NOT always right. I am a pure capitalist, and when someone mentioned how shipping items that were mispriced could hurt workers’ wages I thought that was a good point. Smoking Pipes was under no obligation to ship me the pipe, nor do I think there should be some law that forces a business to ship a mispriced item. I think that I am just too used to brick and mortar stores selling items for the wrong price when they make a mistake. But the tobacco industry is much smaller scale, and I lost sight of that.
I am a new pipe smoker of about one year, I have no idea what an “author” shape is (as someone mentioned above), and I am new to the forum. I have seen people post actual rants against online stores on here, so I figured a story about my recent experience would be fine, but apparently some people don’t think so.

 

[canadianpuffer]

I appreciate you sharing you experiences. Helps us better get to know all sides of our hobby. As a site sponsor and really one of the best, if not best, customer focused vendor we have - people seem to get a bit defensive of it. However they did make an error, and Shane will get it fixed. Happy ending for all. Let’s move on!

 

[warren]

Having this information helps us consumers make informed decisions when buying stuff.

Informed? Really? Perhaps I'm too cynical.

 

[p40warhawk]

I've used Smoking Pipes for years and generally, have always had great service, I usually purchase my Peterson's, Savinelli's and Tobacco from them and that's A LOT of Pipes!. Good service to be relied on. But as you deal with all companies over time, they make mistakes, Smoking Pipes seems to make less than the norm. But, each company has its own issues based on the company make-up. For instance, they have a great policy that says IF you get your order in by 3:00 EST, it ships and it does. UNLESS, UNLESS that Pipe is at their Low Country store, if that's the case, it will probably not ship till the following day. I learned this the hard way. So now, with that knowledge, I always ask before ordering, "is this in stock/warehouse or at the store".

I finally received my new Peterson, which was at THAT STORE and it had scratches and some minor corrugation inside the bowl, almost like they placed a diffuser inside for store display. They offered to replace it, considering the price and the fact that it WAS INSIDE the bowl, I could live with it. But, their customer service and time to reply was excellent. So good in fact, I just ordered a new IN WAREHOUSE Sherlock Holmes Pipe to add to my collection.

I agree that it would have been nice to have them send you the betterment, but few companies do that and a 15% cut is a nice way of saying I'm sorry... It would have been great if they decided to send me some free tobacco for my minor inconvenience, but you know what they say about free lunches!
Good luck and happy Pipe Smoking...

Dan

 

[alaskanpiper]

For the record, the customer is NOT always right. I am a pure capitalist, and when someone mentioned how shipping items that were mispriced could hurt workers’ wages I thought that was a good point. Smoking Pipes was under no obligation to ship me the pipe, nor do I think there should be some law that forces a business to ship a mispriced item. I think that I am just too used to brick and mortar stores selling items for the wrong price when they make a mistake. But the tobacco industry is much smaller scale, and I lost sight of that.

:clap:
It can sometimes be difficult to admit a change in viewpoint, especially after a long thread of people dumping on your OP. Bravo. It's nice to see a thread like this come to a reasonable conclusion based on some well made points amongst (mostly) open minded people. Sometimes when divisive threads like this get rolling it looks more like a bunch of dogs trying to kill each other at the dog park while a few humans look on frantically yelling at them.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

and eventually, all went good, my special thanks go to Mr, S.Irland at SPC, what an exceptional Young Gentleman, over the years I've been very pleased dealing with this 'world-class' company

 

[mso489]

I have had excellent service from SP, but I haven't shopped with them in more than a year because of a fading computer op system. I think you have to evaluate your experience by your own judgement. At this point, I'd shop with them, assuming this was just a blunder they couldn't afford to absorb. But if you feel it causes uncertainty about their service ongoing, take you business elsewhere. I admit, in your shoes, I wouldn't order any up-market pipes until they'd handled smaller orders properly for a year or two. Businesses have to be businesslike and also give the impression of doing so. When people close a deal, they expect it to go through.

 

[pappymac]

For the record, the customer is NOT always right

As someone who worked in management at a printing company for 10 years, I can tell you that there are plenty of times when the customer is not always right. And the loudest arguments I had was with salesmen who didn't want me to charge the customer for fixing their mistakes.

 

[pepesdad1]

I think this has been beat to death...and of course I had to get my .02 worth in. Happy smoking, we got bigger problems afoot!

 

[gerryp]

Informed? Really? Perhaps I'm too cynical.

Personally, I prefer the term "realistic" to "cynical". I remind the ol' lady of that regularly.
Somebody posted a story about a less-than-perfect experience with a vendor. A bunch of people chimed in and confirmed that the vendor, a pillar of the pipe smoking community, is usually very reliable. After further discussion, including an above-and-beyond appearance by a rep from the vendor, the situation seems to be resolved. Everyone's happy, and the vendor's reputation remains excellent.
Hurray! The system works! :clap:

 

[cigrmaster]

I have used SP since their humble beginnings. In all the years I cannot remember a time when they messed up an order. I would not expect them to lose money if they did screw up an order. I will continue to recommend to anyone that SP is the best retailer out there.