My absolute nightmare experience with John Stultz and Bearpaw Wilderness Designs

[rmeurant]

Sacré bleu!

[John Brewer]

Man…thanks for posting that Link. Looks like John at bearpaw has been getting away with this for years. One look at my product and I knew right off the bat this guy couldn’t care less about his customers, and he offered no resolution. I have never felt ripped off before with any gear I have purchased from anyone else, with Bearpaw I was ripped off. Incorrect specs, incorrectly built. I have no clue how this guy is still in business.

[Matthew / BPL]

omg the tent in Link’s link is le fugly

[JCH]

At the risk of this feeling like “piling on”…a friend ordered a BPWD net tent about 2.5 years ago, primarily because he was checking out the whole tarp/net-tent/bivy thang and the price was much less than others.  You will not be surprised to hear that the product design and quality was quite unimpressive.  Not as bad as what @jbrewer received, but decidedly shoddy (my opinion).  My friend slept in it one night…in perfect weather…and immediately sold it.  Sad thing is the entire experience totally soured him on that shelter configuration.

A manufacturer offering 3rd rate quality and non-existant customer service may be able to eek out an existence selling to first-time buyers and/or those who have not done their homework…but most likely the business will eventually disappear.

re: purchasing quality, I think a BPL’er once posted “buy once, cry once”.  Truth!

[DGoggins]

Wow…what a totally different experience with BPWD than other cottage manufacturers. For example…..EE, or zpacks. EE will take back a quilt if you find any stitching/construction problem, and pay for return shipping, and apologize profusely, and send you a new one right away. (the cosmetic problem quilts are sold from their “warehouse” for a discount). Or zpacks….they take pride in their build quality and even the smallest issue gets sold for a discount in their bargain bin. They also have prompt customer service and are really flexible with customers.

[John Brewer]

That’s why I love supporting the “little guy” and buy mainly from cottage manufacturers, because the innovation, quality, and service is usually amazing. Bearpaw is the only company I have had an issue with ever. I have had great experiences and purchased quality products and received amazing service from every other cottage company I have purchased from in the past including Mountain Laurel Designs, Hyperlite Mountain Gear, Six Moon Designs, Zpacks, Simply Light Designs, Dutchware Gear, Warbonnet, Enlightened Equipment, Zimmerbuilt, Cascade Craftworks, and Hammock Gear. All of these companies stepped up if I had any issues at all. I am a very reasonable man, but I am honestly blown away at the absolute crap that I received from Bearpaw and John’s total lack of caring about the matter. I wish nobody ill will, but Karma comes back to you. I have posted this on other sites as well, to warn others and John has refused to respond.

[John M]

I inquired about a number of items with him and didn’t get a good feeling about buying from him.  My take away from the communication was you’ll get what I send you – its good stuff, if you don’t like it you’ve got a problem.   Glad I went with my gut feeling.

 

[Andrew R]

I really can’t believe this. I wish I’d have been a member of this forum prior to placing my $1200 order with John last week. I’ve tried cancelling the order through John but he flatly refused to do so. I’ve now logged the issues with PayPal and my credit card company. I want to cancel my order on the grounds of seeing this thread and the fact that a good friend of mine said that johns workmanship and ethics are very questionable.

[Monte Masterson]

Bearpawd products are all over Ebay now. With the tens of millions of shoppers browsing the site there will always be plenty of unknowing people who will purchase BPWD gear.

I bought a net tent with sloped ridgeline from Bearpawd a few years back. Oh man was that thing an abortion. I ordered it with a lighter .8 netting, but it was more like a 1.0. Weight was 3 oz over spec and the foot end was so tight I couldn’t even get my feet into it in a vertical position. Seams were offset as well. I didn’t try to return the net tent. I just cut the thing up and used it to make other gear. I couldn’t in good conscience sell it on Gearswap. Looking back it would have worked for a small person though. The workmanship was solid, but just ugly.

After the experience I thought to myself that practically any of us MYOG’ers with a fair amount of talent could make money producing cottage gear. Hell, if John can do it anybody can…lol.

[Andrew R]

My credit card company has stated that if I don’t accept the package it will be returned to the manufacturer they will then issue a refund. PayPal stated that they always stand by the customer. So if, when my order does arrive and it is sub standard it will be going straight back to John. I can’t believe I’ve fallen for it.

[rmeurant]

Check your purchase when it arrives very carefully. If Cuben, look carefully at each panel, and especially any tape (for unraveling). Check the sewing on the seams. Anything you are not sure about, you could maybe photograph it, post it here, and invite opinions. Good luck.

[Andrew D]

You can’t check to see if its substandard AND not accept the package… just don’t accept the package. Do not open it.

[rmeurant]

Can you do that? That starts to get unfair to the vendor, surely?

[Ben H.]

Can you do that? That starts to get unfair to the vendor, surely?

I would think you are ethically in the clear when you made an honest attempt to cancel the order before it ships.

 

[Alex Wallace]

BPWD’s return policy (from their website FAQ page) below. Whether or not they follow it is another matter. Also, they leave a lot up to their discretion. Steer clear of this joint.

Returns
For the first 30 days from date of receipt of product, we offer a no-question-asked full refund of any standard product with standard configurations(non-customed, no options, non-cuben fiber, and/or unmodified) purchased from us. If it is one of our standard products that has been modified by us, either one of our listed options, additions, or modifications, the return will be handled on a case by case basis. Return on any cut fabric or cordage will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Any product that uses cuben fiber in the floor or canopy has a minimum 30% restocking fee. On custom products and customer specified modifications, we normally do not take returns; however, some custom/modified products will be handled on a case-by-case basis. You are allowed to set up tents, tarps and bivys and even try them. However, any returned product must be in as-new condition, clean, and without any wear and tear. All items received with the product(s) must be returned. If seams have been sealed using seam sealer, then the product is not returnable (unless the product was only sealed by us). So before you seal the seams, make sure that you are happy with the product.

Please contact us either by phone or email before you return any product. When sending an item back to us, please send us an email with the tracking number. We recommend that you insure the package since we will not be responsible if the package is lost or damaged during shipping. You will still be the owner of the product(s) until we inspect it for wear and tear, damage, and use.

For products received with a defect, we will pay the return shipping charge. For products that are not defective, then the customer will be responsible for return shipping.

We want you to be happy with your purchase. We don’t want you to have a product that you do not want. We will try almost everything in our power (within reason) so that you will have only the highest quality product that suits your needs.

[Michael F]

You know what really makes me mad about this whole thing? Do you know how many people dream of making a living making backpacking gear? It’s a dream to a lot of us and Im sure many of us here would love to be doing that. And yet John cannot even be bothered to give a tiny fraction of a shit about his business and peoples hard earned money being wasted on his garbage. All he literally had to do was be a decent person who gives a damn about his work but he cant even do that. I really hope a class action lawsuit would get organized and put his ass out of business.

[Kattt]

^^^ while customers are getting a bad deal here…I don’t think anyone gets away with anything. At some point things will catch up with him, one way or another. I don’t envy anyone that makes a buck that way. I know this means little to those that lost money …

[Jerry Adams]

good point – Kharma

even if the person gets away with it, they will spend life worrying about people getting revenge, or other opportunities to cheat people

Actually, in most of these cases the person had good intentions but things just got away from them, running a business is difficult, many people struggle

Most people learn that if they can develop relationships where people feel good about each other, they will be happier

[Monte Masterson]

But don’t underestimate the power of denial and delusion in a person’s mind. John may be convinced that the gear he produces is just perfect and that those who complain are just wrong and therefore don’t deserve recompense. We often can’t see ourselves in the same light as everyone else does.

 

[Kattt]

I am not referring so much to Karma as I am to what hell one must be in to live with deceit. To cover one more has to be generated and relationships and friendships suffer and everything else too.  No money in the world makes up for that imo.

[Geoff Caplan]

The strange thing with John is that he can produce quality work. I know of someone who ordered a big shaped tarp and was delighted with the communication and with the workmanship. The customer was a guy who makes his own gear to a very high standard and who knows what good workmanship looks like.

On the other hand John Brewer’s experience can only be described as grotesque.

When you see Jekyll and Hyde behavior like this, you have to suspect an issue with mental health or addiction. The problem is, when things are rough many people simply don’t have the self-insight to understand that they’re not performing properly, and can get paranoid and defensive if they get negative feedback.

You’ve got to feel sorry for the guy – some of his designs are very imaginative and he’s clearly put a lot of work into building his operation. But the way things stand, it’s obviously not practical to do business with him.

There was a one-man operation in the UK that gave me great service, but then hit a glitch with his mental health and let some customers down very badly. But he turned his life around, made things right, and rebuilt his reputation. Let’s hope that John at Bearpaw can do the same.

[rmeurant]

A balanced view, Geoff.

[Jeff Cowger]

I ordered a cuben inner net tent for my hexamid tarp and then found this thread.  There was zero communication. After a couple weeks I had to email him just to confirm he even had my order. He did respond promptly and let me know that he was waiting on a cuben shipment and that it would ship the following week. I got it a week later and I think it’s well constructed. I’m very pleased with it.  So, other than the lack of communication I had a good experience.

[Carl Umland]

I had a similar experience with John Stultz at BPWD on a modification of my Shangri-La 2 to add no-seeum netting to the perimeter of the shelter. I can tell you that it was a crappy job and that when I called him on it he wanted me to pay him to fix it. Needless to say I’ll never do business with him or his company ever again and hope that others heed our warning, “Buyer beware of BPWD”

My $0.02

[Slate3]

Thank you. I was considering BPW for replacement of the floor of an old tent.

[Author]

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