Very unpleasant experience with Six Moon Design (SMD)

"If someone can show me where we've broken a promise, let me know and I'll certainly make good." Ron Moak

Below is the email from your employee/family stating to expect a refund. That is a broken promise. Its in writing.

From: store@sixmoondesigns.com [mailto:store@sixmoondesigns.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2013 3:57 PM
> To: Yang Lu
> Subject: RE: Six Moon Designs: A couple flaws on my tent
>
> Yang,
>
> After we get the shelter in we can reimburse you for shipping costs.
> The shelter should fit nicely in a priority mail tyvek envelope and
> only weight 1 lb.
>
> Please send to
>
> Six Moon Designs
> 8250 SW Nimbus Ave
> Beaverton, OR 97008
>
> Thank you,
>
> Brandon Moak

I'm not sure how consumer protection laws are in the US, but where there is a defective product, the manufacturer should surely pay for return shipping. In a case like this, where the tent would not be fit for purpose straight out of the box (holes in the netting meaning insects could enter), the manufacturer should try to put the consumer back in the position they were in prior to purchasing the item. I don't believe any future intention should have any bearing on this.

I can imagine numerous different scenarios where the consumer would want to make an alternative purchase (time constraints, loss of confidence in original manufacturer etc) and these should not be precluded by the loss of money on return shipping because the manufacturer sent them a dud. SMD made the mistake, not the customer (though it could increasingly be argued that the original mistake was with the customer in purchasing from SMD)!

Ron, if the guy just wanted to change his mind, he should pay the shipping, but in this case you sent him a really amateur looking product and you should do the right thing and refund his money. You've blown any chances of selling him the Cuben version and created a little PR disaster for yourself here. I would be embarrassed to turn out a product like that. Geez man, the whole UL world is watching!

It's about good customer service and just plain common sense, not "promises." You can toe the line of your warranty statement all you want, but if you play absolutes it will only create ill will for your company.

Everybody in business screws up once in a while. It's how you fix your mistakes that makes the difference and you have passed up a prefect chance to be the hero. I chalk up the cost of business fixes to advertising.

And… poof! go Ron's two responses above (edited away).

Hmmmmm.

"The reason that Yang didn't get a refund on the shipping for the return of his items, is really pretty simple. I believe that in both his mind and in his conversations he was attempting to merge two different and incompatible transactions into a single one."

You were right that I indeed wanted to combine the two transactions. The reason I wanted to do that was because I cared about your business and offered to buy a more expensive product from you, and wanted you to make more money. I cannot believe you think about this negatively!

Forget about the cuben thing because I will never order anything from you. Now, the refund case was pretty simple: a seller sends a defective item to a customer, and the customer wanted to get refund. So who should cover the shipping cost? At the minimum shouldn't the seller cover the return cost?

Id really like to know what those posts by Ron said…. for my future purchasing decisions.

Paraphrased "He didn't like my net tent, and thought my stitching was crap. I'm emotionally damaged and upset. Screw this guy. I don't care what my kid said, I have a policy and that is that. NO shipping refunds for modified orders".

–G.B.–

–

This thread was fun.

pun intended.

Lets hope this means a refund is on its way.

This reminds me of a completely different experience I had with a small supplier of ultralight fabrics and materials – I had ordered some silnylon and was disappointed when the fabric that arrived wasn't quite the colour I had expected – I emailed to check whether the wrong colour had been sent but was told that the right colour had indeed been sent but it didn't quite match what was on the website. As a gesture of goodwill, the supplier offered to pay for the return shipping (contrary to their returns policy) from Australia back to the US! I was so impressed with the gesture that I decided not to chase it up further and would buy from them again in a heartbeat.

Given the uncertainties of purchasing goods over the web, where you have no chance to see, feel, try out the items in a physical store, it is such a reassurance purchasing from companies that have a proven track record in customer service.

A transaction is not completed until the purchaser has taken possession of their purchased goods. Up to that point, under law, either party can rescind transactions.

SMD NEVER delivered promised goods to the customer, because one part of a two-component system required to be used together was defective.

IMO, the customer has the right to rescind the transaction, being both dissatisfied with expected quality and service, and the shipping fees should have been refunded.

If it were me, Id probably do a charge-back and file a complaint with Visa or paypal.

At the very least, the VERY least the way a rational person would look at it, about half the shipping had to be refunded for the defective product. (16 oz net/18oz tarp) for the tarp. And thats if you consider them to be two separate items.

The question for me is did I make any promises that weren't delivered.

Absolutely not. In no way at all did Ron make any promises. His company via the word of his employees made a promise.

Does Ron need to keep promises he didn't make ? Nope.

But a SMD representative did write one out, and SMD should make good on it. Which is back to my first post. The SMD rep making promises that the company owner won't honor should cut the check and raise the issue with the boss.

That discussion should have been transparent to the customer.

Yang, thanks for posting your experience. You were not treated properly by Six Moon.

Six Moon screwed up. Then they compounded their error with poor followthrough and pissy online retorts. And some here manage to blame Yang? Ridiculous.

The greatest irony of it all? When you consider design + craftsmanship + price, Six Moon gear isn't that great. It's not horrible, but it's just barely this side of mediocre. If you're going to have to wait on an order, wait for something from MLD or ZPacks.

Yang, your post was very well written and I believe the email chain showed very clearly that you wanted to return the item and wait for the Cuben model and asked if a shipping refund would be given. At that point Brandon said yes. To me, this is cut and dry and SMD should take the hit for their employees mistake and move on. The cottage companies charge a pretty penny for their product and part of the mark up is to account for the inherent risk of their employees doing stupid things like ruining a product or sending a poorly thought out email. It is a shame that SMD not only dealt with this poorly upfront, but then came to the forums and communicated in a way that likely lost them more customers.

I wonder how much this $20 shipping charge has cost SMD today and how much it will end up costing them in the end? I am sure they lost the profit from Yang's future sale and I for one will remain skeptical of their business practices.

On a side note, many people rave about cottage companies on this site and for good reasons. I really value this feedback because it has helped me make great decisions on gear that I would have never known about otherwise (Zpacks, GossamerGear, MLD, Lawsons, Lukes, EE, etc). For this reason, I also appreciate the negative comments because I don't want to waste time ordering from companies that don't want to work with me, especially when spending the amount of money most of us put down for this high end equipment. I'm not saying I won't use SMD in the future, but this may make me more cautious.

Ron,
The solution is simple, regardless of who you think is right or wrong. Refund the shipping charges and exceed his expectations by offering free shipping on the cuben tarp when it is available.

I have been in sales for thirty years and have been the sales manager for a small family owned company for 17 years. Trust me, I have had to eat crow many times. I know it is easy to get frustrated with customers when you are overworked and tired. But most of the time you just have to suck it in and be nice to your customers ALL the time. I have learned that when there is a problem, resolve it as quickly as possible. Nothing endangers a successful resolution more than ignoring it or dragging it out. Regardless of your official policy, the key is to do everything you can to make your customer satisfied and wanting to do business with you again. As a rule, a company will die relying solely on one-time sales; it needs repeat customers to survive.

Within the BP cottage community I have had both good and bad experiences but fortunately most have been very good. Without naming names, I get really psyched when I buy a top-notch quality product and am treated with top-notch courtesy and service. Those two factors are far more important to me than price when it comes to buyer satisfaction.

Even though in my few dealings with Ron in the past I have found him to be rather curt in his communication style, I have been completely satisfied with my dealings with him in terms of both product quality and service. And I am empathetic with Ron because I too have a dangerous tendency to be curt. However, in Yang's case, Ron totally blew it! The product was defective. Everything in Yang's email correspondences showed courtesy on his part. And as has been stated, Yang waited a few weeks without resolution before bringing the issue to this forum. Especially because Brandon agreed to reimburse shipping costs, that should have been done promptly, regardless of Ron's official policy. For a measly $20, Ron lost a good customer and risked his company's reputation.

Having said all that, I encourage folks not to write Ron off either. SMD is not only a cottage manufacturer pioneer but is also one of the foremost innovators in our industry, especially so with the recent addition of Brian Frankle to his team. I just hope, for the sake of SMD, that Ron has chilled out some and learned from this unfortunate experience.

A) wow that's a lot of cash for shipping
B) I can't believe this discussion is actually happening over $20. It's not like he was ripped off a cuben tarp…

Yeah, could Ron have handled it better? Probably…but are we really going to throw away a whole company that just yesterday we liked a whole lot over this? I get curt sometimes too…

First Balls and Sunshine getting ripped off make us line up the pitchforks…now this? I think we all need to go take a hike. John, I'm with you on this one.

I know people are upset, but lets put down the pitchforks and torches for just a minute. There has to be a better explanation than Ron and SMD ripped off Balls and Sunshine. I can believe the allegations about the bad mesh, and loose thread. I can understand the return policy. But I draw the line at blaming him for taking the water as payback for being forced to return a shipping charge.

–G.B.–

What a

-1 for bad customer service and quality control

ha! Thanks –G.B.– for your humerous comment. Lighten the tone on this one. No more pitch forks please, Jen is right.
–K.G.–

"B) I can't believe this discussion is actually happening over $20. It's not like he was ripped off a cuben tarp…"

It's not. It's about a representative of the company indicating that a refund would be provided once the tent was sent back and then the owner of the company indicating that a refund would not be provided after the client had already returned the tent. It is the principal of the matter and makes many us question how the company would respond in a warranty situation and / or whether anyone at the company but Ron should be responding to emails because clearly even the employees aren't clear on the return policy.

That black van smd drives around in is awesome. But what goes on in there?

You have to sign a non disclosure to get in.

As to what is going on here. The usual. Bla bla, judge, bla, bla, $20,lynch mob, get serious, bla,bla, WTF!?! Now you are up to speed

Davey Jones, you said exactly what I wanted to say. Thanks.

And, to anybody who kept mentioning 20 bucks was not a big deal, all I can say is you and I have very different value systems. I judge my behavior based on right or wrong, not how much money involved. I post it here becasue I think I was treated poorly and I hope you have better experience than mine.