A Word Of Caution Regarding Luke's Ultralite

It leaves me wondering if Luke sustained a head injury. If he has a brain injury, fine detail work requiring a lot of focus (visually) can bring on debilitating headaches. Pure speculation. Just made me wonder. Regardless, what LUL might consider doing (assuming they are reading this) is to A) Put a notice on the website that Luke has been injured and is continuing to have problems and that it is currently unknown when he will be back to work. B) Send an email out to every single customer with something on order and advise them that there have been significant delays due to this accident and that it is unknown when Luke will resume work and that if they want to cancel the order and get a refund that the company will assist them in that process.

The reality is that what customers remember most about a company is how they handled a problem. LUL has blown it up to this point, but it’s not unrecoverable.

I’ve always heard wonderful things about LUL, gear and service but with the backlog and before all this information I went elsewhere for rain gear.

What sticks with me is that he, Luke, fell on some difficult times and then seemingly abandoned his mates, his customers, so uncharastic of an Eagle Scout, military and outdoors person.  Wish he would speak up so we could send well wishes, support and love.

It’s good to have a data point for any company.  Historically, Luke has had a good reputation.  Time will tell if this is an anomaly for LUL or not.  My guess is that it is.

Sorry that the OP is dealing with this, but we don’t have all the facts and Luke hasn’t weighed in yet.  We don’t know if he sprained his ankle or had his leg amputated.

Either way, best of luck to Luke and the OP.

Something’s going on.  I placed an order for micro10 jacket and pants on January 16. Wait said 4 weeks.  I gave up after 6.   Asked for my money back. I did get it after a couple of emails with Mark

Emails are always a wait from my experience.

Hopefully we get updated and that everything is ok with Luke.

Interestingly their website, which as of yesterday said no orders until 3/25, now says “open for orders” with no indication of expected long waits

https://lukesultralite.com

I just got off the phone with Luke- he answered after a couple of rings.  What I was thinking was true.

1. LUL is overwhelmed with company growth.  One major contributing factor is that not many other cottage makers are still doing fully custom work and he is picking up all the work the other guys won’t do anymore.
2. His best seamstress has left LUL for an internship.
3. Finding someone who can sew as good as him is very difficult. He will not sacrifice quality by hiring a sub par seamstress to get more work done.
4. He got into a really serious car accident and nearly broke both of his wrists. Without use of his wrists and being in the hospital prevented him from answering emails, let alone sewing.
5. He is overwhelmed with emails and it is very likely some got lost.
6. He will not sacrifice quality, and will continue to do fully custom work, even if it means long lead times.
7. He said he doesn’t have time to even check the forums, and thanked me for communicating this message to you guys.
8. He is really sorry if he has made any of his customers upset, he is doing the best he can.
9. He will gladly refund anyone’s money if they can’t wait. He has his personal cell phone on his website, you can call him. He will answer.
10.  I will say it again because he kept saying it – he will NOT sacrifice his quality for any reason.
11. My order got pushed to the top, thanks OP.

Ben

Ouch, on so many levels. Hopefully Luke will ultimately be back on course.

Thanks Ben

Thanks, Ben. That is good info. More power to him for not sacrificing quality.

I still don’t have my refund so I guess I will try calling him since the last 6 emails regarding this matter must have been lost.

Wait.  You placed your order in December of 2017?  No wonder it has not yet shipped.

Joking aside, I hope Luke is well and that this current situation will be soon resolved.

Haha. Good catch. If only we could edit first posts…

Glad to hear the report.  I’m very pleased with the things he’s made for me (three so far) and have been contemplating another.  Hope things work out for him soon.

Hoping Nick got put at front of line for refunds now. Let us know.

When I joined BPL, a few of the big cottage gear companies would take on custom orders.  Many of them are waving off that work as they don’t have time for it any more.  I’ve also had to wait nearly four months for non-custom work.

Sounds like unfortunate timing all around but the fact that LUL will even accept custom work when they are this busy is impressive and rare these days.

Full refund received. Case closed.

For Pete’s sake…. what is more important?   A guy who has just been in a car accident and is possibly suffering serious injury or your custom backpacking toy?

I understand frustration but I read through that and was horrified that people seem to be more concerned with their things than they are with a person.

It is a cottage industry business with likely ONE or TWO guys schlepping out the goods.    If you don’t want to deal with that reality do business with REI.

Come on kevperro, you can’t blame op for wondering if he was being given the runaround. Better communication would have helped. It’s cleared up now so why  post some chastizing remarks here? It’s people doing business online not neighbors being unkind.

Did you read this thread, KP?  He was given the run around and though the accident was an extenuating circumstance that is not the problem.  The OP was very patient with Luke, but the only communication he received in return were promises that they had no capability of meeting.  And…. the deadlines were not missed because of the accident.  They were missed for business reasons: taking more orders than he was capable of fulfilling in the time frame still being promised on his website.

“Communication breakdown. It’s always the same.”

For what it’s worth, my order for pants, a jacket, and a shoulder pocket was put in about a month ago and I’ve e-mailed them telling to bump any orders that need to be fulfilled for a hikers upcoming thru ahead of mine if it means they’ll get it on time for their journey. I don’t start hiking anywhere long til late June – hope it helps someone get their order on time and alleviates a bit of pressure from Luke’s team, however little pressure that many be!

I really hope the guy is ok.  Give him a break for eff sake everyone, he could probably use it.

The OP’s issue may have been resolved but from the looks of the thread over on Facebook Luke’s Ultralight is still underwater. I tried to copy and paste it but was unsuccessful.  Unfortunately for LU the post appears to be made in an effort to control further damage. I hope that they are able to pull themselves out of it and that outstanding orders will be either fulfilled or refunded. Summarized in two words: caveat emptor.

Here is Luke’s Ultralight’s Post on Facebook.  Seems honest and contrite — I will still do business with them, with the knowledge orders are going to take a couple of months to get to me.  I hope Luke weathers this storm!

LUL update and status
I would like to start by saying that I’m extremely sorry to the customers that have, or had to wait extra time to get there order. The last few months have been very hard on me personally. The company had grown way faster than i ever thought and well….. got completely overwhelmed and honestly should have tried to hire more people. But I’m so so picky about my stitching that it poses a challenge getting the help i need.
The main Reason for the d<span class=”text_exposed_show”>elay, i was involved in 2 car wrecks within a 1 month period and my lead sewer left for a college internship. Right after this, Paypal ( Which i had done business with for a very very very long time) decides to not be our payment processor anymore, for reasons i am still battling. This posing all kinds of problems even and up to allowing me to print shipping labels. Any way! We now have a new payment processing system and are doing our absolute best to get things back on track. I sincerely apologize for the delay. if you cannot wait and would like a refund that is completely fine. Just shoot me a quick email and ill get your money back.
Overall the business grew much faster than i had prepared for and thus causing a few problems. I was completely overwhelmed with emails and production.
I hate being left in the dark and to those of you that did, i am sorry and will gladly give you a refund if you’d like.
We are just recovering from this little set back and wanted to thank our loyal customers.

Thanks for the update. Have been wondering what’s going on. I ordered a rain suit the first week of january and was told an 8 week wait. It’s almost May now and I haven’t been able to get them to respond to any emails. May just cancel my order since I was uneasy of the purchase from the start. A $300 rain suit that relies on an apparently very unreliable dwr coating.

One thing I don’t get, if he is still so overloaded from the combination of orders, emails, and injuries, then why is he excepting new orders again?

That’s all I need to hear. I would urge anyone reading this thread to exercise caution.

One thing I don’t get, if he is still so overloaded from the combination of orders, emails, and injuries, then why is he excepting new orders again?

A lot of refunds?