Worst Deal on a Meer?

[dnietosi]

I posted before on Giving up my terrible experience getting a Meer on ebay made by Strambach. Well here is the end of the story. The ebay retailer contacted me and asked me to send the pipe back to him, I did.



David,

Thank you for your update on your item purchase. I apologize for not responding to your initial inquiry right away, i was uncertain on how to proceed without hearing from the maker. I am not sure what the cause of that smell is as i have not had feedback about chemical odor before. I will send it to Austria for repair or replacement for you. If they are not able to do anything with it, i will swap it out for another one for you.

blessings,
After that I actually got a second reply form Robert Strambach:
Dear Mr. Nieto,

I regret extraordinarilly that I cannot help you.

The piece of teflon cannot be the reason because it doesnot reach the meerschaum head where you put in the tobacco. All our materials were carefully tested before we selected them for our pipes and we never had troubles or complaints in 30 years.

********************************

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards

KommRätin Edith Corrieri
Robert Strambach
I m really going to try this on my own job. Next time there is a problem I will tell my boss: "Well, I have done this a 1000 times and there has never been a problem so I m not going to do nothing about it, I m just going to regret extraordinarily that I cant help you". I wonder how is it going to play....
Anyways, I tried to contact the ebay retailer a few times and got no answer. I dont know if the pipe got lost or I have just been fooled.
Bottom line, DO NOT buy a Strambach!

 

[cortezattic]

Why not post Robert Strambach's email address so all of us can tell him that

we will not buy his pipes because of the lack of service he accorded to you.

Just give us enough info to let him know that we're talking about this incident.

When he learns that he just alienated every pipe smoker at PipesMagazine.com,

he may change his mind.

 

[teufelhund]

Super lame dude... Just create a bunch of random emails and spam send bad reviews on their products to deter anyone else from buying. That's the beauty of the internet; you can have a thousand votes on the matter if you only have the time.

 

[foggymountain]

What is it about meerschaum that attracts most of the thieves, liars and low lifes in the pipe business? I bet he still says he never had a complaint in 30 years. If you want a good meer get a Peterson. No teflon, which is a poor material for tenons, and good plumbing. The stem fits into a socket made of the same material, and may be removed very easily for cleaning. And no heavy wax taste. I wonder if wax can be the cause of the problem with the taste. Different waxes have different tastes. Some of them are pretty awful.

 

[dnietosi]

Well, I m thinking that I should just move on with this. Maybe the ebay seller will reply someday, if not... well, he is definitely not going to enjoy the pipe as it was "unsmokable".
@cortezattic Thanks for the support man, but I dont know how good of an idea is for me to post someone else email. it is easy enough to find...
@foggy I will love to get a Peterson meer but they run kind of expensive and I m staying away from ebay for a while, or at least i intend to

 

[peter70]

Hi folks,
I am from Vienna, Austria and I know Strambach. They are are a small manufacturer, and have nothing, what you know as manufacturer warranty towards end customers. You were conversing with the boss, who btw is a she, as far as I know, the daughter of Robert Strambach, who has long passed. They never sell to customers directly, so they have no exchange procedure, except, via the reseller, you got your pipe from. Another thing is, that they sell also pipes made from pressed meerschaum. They are usually not making a secret out of it, and it's the only way they can carve themselves as nowadays no uncarved Meerschaum blocks may be exported from Turkey. I suspect, you got a pressed Meerschaum pipe, which is easily detectable by very tiny dark speckles on the surface, and that you can taste the binding agent. I have 3 Strambach pipes, which are all pressed and they smoke ok, but on yours something obviously went wrong. To be honest, I was never impressed with their stem work either. Actually I'm surprised, that they are still in business, but this might be related to the fact, that there are no other Calabash producers anymore.
Best regards,

Peter

 

[bentmike]

I hope you don't give up on owning a meer dnietosi. They are great pipes and I love mine. I'd follow uber's advice from your other post and seek out a quality meerschaum. Several of the sponsors offer very nice ones for sale. Save up some funds and get a new one so you can enjoy the coloring. I got mine from smokingpipes.com.

 

[dnietosi]

Yeah... next time I will do a whole deal of things in a different way.
What can I say? I guess thats how I learn...

 

[jah76]

Sorry this didn't work out better for you D.
But thanks for passing on the info to save other people the same hassle. You *may* have gotten a bad pipe (1 in 1000), but IMO it could have been handled 10x better on their end.

 

[locopony]

SMS is a good meer pipe maker that is not wildly expensive. All of mine that did not crack are sms and you can get them near a hundred bones. I hate internet swindlers. He will get his come upins. The wheels of fate and fortune turn slowly but they will grind your bones to dust.