The Peterson POTY midnight release went quicker than a Boswell's Monday 2000 drop. ?
The Peterson 4AB POTY Is Coming!
- Thread starter JimInks
- Start date
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I managed to snag a sandblast, #299. I didn't expect to get one at all, so I wasn't haunting the site waiting for them to drop. I got the email, and decided to see what was there. All sandblasts and rusticated by the time I got there.
My guess is that they will make more of them.
I'm a 'double-sold' victim.
Bought two consecutive number Terracottas, then got an email this morning telling me one had been double-sold. As a retired software engineer, I can almost guarantee you that this is impossible. Items aren't necessarily locked while in carts, but are absolutely locked during payment. This was true ten years ago when I was programming systems. If a problem like this had occurred with a system I was responsible for, I would have been fired.
I called SP customer service and, as SP always does, I got "sorry. nothing we can do." which means, "we don't care. go away". I asked if I could be put on a list if more became available, and got: "no. we have no mechanism for that." This was very typical SP customer service - polite, but no effort is ever made to to actually take care of an issue.
I don't see how this could not have involved human intervention;e.g-someone with an 'in' with SP missed the pipes and called this morning and were given mine. If this legitimately happened last night, due to faulty 'item lock' software, then it's happened before, and SP would be ready with a few back-ups to handle customer issues. There were no back-ups. I honestly don't think they could care less about customer issues or return customers - they sell everything like hot-cakes anyway.
Very disappointing. If I had thought there was any possibility of this happening, I would have gotten up early and bought one at SP EU.
Bought two consecutive number Terracottas, then got an email this morning telling me one had been double-sold. As a retired software engineer, I can almost guarantee you that this is impossible. Items aren't necessarily locked while in carts, but are absolutely locked during payment. This was true ten years ago when I was programming systems. If a problem like this had occurred with a system I was responsible for, I would have been fired.
I called SP customer service and, as SP always does, I got "sorry. nothing we can do." which means, "we don't care. go away". I asked if I could be put on a list if more became available, and got: "no. we have no mechanism for that." This was very typical SP customer service - polite, but no effort is ever made to to actually take care of an issue.
I don't see how this could not have involved human intervention;e.g-someone with an 'in' with SP missed the pipes and called this morning and were given mine. If this legitimately happened last night, due to faulty 'item lock' software, then it's happened before, and SP would be ready with a few back-ups to handle customer issues. There were no back-ups. I honestly don't think they could care less about customer issues or return customers - they sell everything like hot-cakes anyway.
Very disappointing. If I had thought there was any possibility of this happening, I would have gotten up early and bought one at SP EU.
Absolutely not, as they are numbered.
This was really a cluster-f*** the way they handled the entire thing. Late sell, sold in the middle of the night, too many blasted and rusticated and not enough smooth, and the grain hidden on most of the smooths they offered (crappy briar? like sardines in mustard sauce?), no 'Naturals' for the U.S. market, pipes sent to shops in advance, who will just sell for a profit on ebay (already happening).
...and the dubious double-sells.
And quite frankly, the 309/modified stem clones we've seen are closer to the original in design. But thanks for trying.
Yikes. Fortunately, mine have shipped. Not sending them back!
Even if they didn't do another "limited" run, which they probably can't having committed to 500 but wouldn't bother me if they did, it would be nice to see a some 4ABs show up in the Sherlock line, maybe as Christmas Sherlock offerings or something semi-permanent now they figured it out.
You have my sympathy - not that that sorts your problem out. I also worked on some very early eCommerce applications back in the 90's. Same here; we did loads of testing to make sure such things couldn't happen and if they did in a live system I'm pretty sure that as project lead I would have been given my marching orders pretty quickly.
It may - may not - make you feel better about not going to SPEu; I was on there when the feeding frenzy opened. Only saw 2x terracotta, 1x heritage, and 1x Natural. I immediately clicked on the Heritage and it was sold just as I clicked on the add to basket. The others had also been sold by the time I went back to the list - they did have a 9mm filter terracotta for a few minutes longer.
I didn't count the number of pipes available on SPEu but I'm pretty sure they had less when they dropped at 10:00 GMT than SPC had after been open for 2 hours!
I should add that I did order 1x rusticated and 1x sandblast on SPC this morning (assuming no problems with stock control) but they were not what I was really after.
All told a very disappointing start to December.
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What are they going to do, recall all the n/500 pipes and over-stamp the '500'?
Peterson could make a second series with some difference or even make an unnumbered version as part of one the standard series; but they will not suddenly add to the numbers to this limited series. And why should they? It's SPC who have managed to oversell pipes not Peterson.
I'm very sorry to hear that. Since there were no Naturals at SP US, I assumed there would be plenty at SP EU.
I had something happen similar to what you describe. I also quickly grabbed a Heritage and put it in my cart. I then went searching for a Natural, couldn't find one, so got a couple of Terracottas and added them to my cart. There were so many of each in the first minutes, that I assumed I was safe. Got to my cart and the Heritage was gone. But I was happy enough to get consecutive-number terracottas. So there were no locks on the shopping carts, which is a bad policy but some out-dated software still has that problem. But no lock at payment time? That's unheard of, and I think impossible.
I saw those few Rusticated and Blasted ones this morning, and thought about buying one. But by the time I got the 'double-sold' email from SP, all pipes were gone.
But some good has come of this SNAFU - we're getting to bond with other victims!!!
Not something I'm interested in, but I just did a scoot round the UK sellers. They largely seem to have sold out - however GQ has heritage, sandblasted, & rusticated - the prices look to be a bit lower, which should offset the postage some for those abroad.
Hope that helps a bit for anyone who's feeling disappointed.
Hope that helps a bit for anyone who's feeling disappointed.
Thank you. I just ordered one - around $175 USD for a Heritage, which I missed out on last night after putting one in my cart, then finding out it was sold when I tried to pay.
Yes, very much so! The price was great, and I apparently got the last one they had.
(I still hate the Laudis).
Yes indeed.
Some people probably don't understand why a few of us are so upset about, not only the double-sells, but also the entire process of the release;i.e-not enough smooth pipes, almost zero Naturals, time of night, too many given/sold to 'friends & family' of the Laudis, etc.
But you have to understand the background - some have been lobbying for the 4AB shape literally for years. So this was a really, really big deal for us. I did everything right - sitting on my computer, logged in to the SP site, credit card saved, etc., waiting, hitting 'refresh'. After all of that, a pipe disappears from my cart, there are no Naturals in the US, and I get told WAY TOO LATE that one of my pipes has been given to someone else.
That's the story, reasonable or not. Fortunately there is nothing else I will ever need from SP or the Laudis, so I can safely ignore them for the rest of my life.
I'll always be loyal to the old Petersons, but the new stuff and the new management just plain sucks. The pipe quality and customer service is a travesty to the Peterson's name, and they should be ashamed. We can only hope that they continue to F everything up, and a new owner eventually comes in and turns things around.
I'm sorry to hear about the "double sold" pipes. I just rec'd shipping info, so guess I got lucky.
Congrats. Hopefully they are good quality and you enjoy many great smokes from yours.