Just trying to answer all the questions people have posed. He offered his. I offered mine which is to make me whole in terms of shipping $$$$ as well.

 

Well I guess you made your case....I am sure Adam at Alta will make things right by you. Update us when you get this cleared.

Did you send the part back???

I own and operate a custom paint shop and I pride myself on my quality and customer service and there have been times when mistakes do happen and a customer has to let me know. We always stand by everything we do I am sure they will as well.

 

Although I have never purchased any of Alta's fine products, I have heard only extremely postitive things about him and his company. But as some of you have said, something negative can and will happen, with either the reseller or the customer at fault. Glad to see that these issues are getting sorted out though! Please update us with what happens!

 

I just got the return authorization from my credit card company this afternoon (Just before I posted my message). They managed to get through to Alta and got the number on my behalf. I could not send the part back w/o that number. I will try to get it back to them tomorrow. We are supposed to get hit with a lot of snow.

I have let them know many times (via e-mails only to make sure I have a record). My credit card company has let them know. Adam did post his reply to this message but he has not agreed to the refund of the shipping charges. He has not gotten hold of me yet. He knows my personal e-mail and my telephone number from previous contacts and a conversation. I really hope he will give me a full refund including all the shipping of same defective part. My point is that if it is my issue, I will pay for the shipping. If it is theirs, they should do the right thing.

 

Slinger688 and lxjose9xl are expressing frustration with expectations not met. From what I had read in the past regarding Alta, their service was very good, but in both examples given it required multiple emails or calls to Alta without a representative taking charge and stepping forward to resolve the issues. With slinger688, he probably would have appreciated that before a product was boxed and shipped to replace a defective product, that it was inspected. The same could be said for lxjose9xl; although its great Adam is stepping in to give an explanation of the manufacture's problem, it would have been better if Chris after hearing about a potential problem had gone to the shelf and opened a set of the same laminx covers to see what was up rather than put the burden of proof on the customer. Damage control is not the best customer service, neither is not following up when the reason for lxjose9xl's problem is found and the answer is only posted on an online forum and never relayed to the customer directly.

I myself returned a pulley-tool rental after two calls and two emails to get an RMA and the part arrived back at Alta on November 24. After not hearing anything I emailed Christina on December 2 to give her the tracking information and she said "Thanks for keeping me updated!" but I have yet to receive any further correspondences or refund.

Adam, thanks for chiming in so quickly. It is appreciated that someone is paying attention, but all issues stated are one's that could have be avoided.

 

UH m..... I think you need to re-read Christina's e-mail that you quoted above.

WE will pay for the return freight on the defective parts.

WE will refund all of your money.

WE agree the parts were not ALTA quality and apologized profusely in e-mail and phone conversations.

I honestly think we just need to get the parts back and get the card credited. Trying to read into what you are saying, it appears you attempted a chargeback on the funds. My guess is because you felt we weren't willing to do the refund. We have ALWAYS been 100% ok with the refund (again see the e-mail you quoted in your main post at the beginning of the thread. Also read the posts from other NAM members.)

You should not be responsible for the freight on the defective parts. No issue at all. Sounds like there may have been an interpretation issue on the e-mail correspondence.

AS I said above there is no reason to drag this any further! Simply get me the information on the order in a pm:

Your e-mail address

Inv#

Best daytime telephone number to contact you.

That's it! End of story and lets move on. Why spend the extra time and effort on here. If you wanted additional attention from ALTA you got it and I am now publicly saying the same thing as was mentioned in the e-mail!

I truly hope to get a PM from you soon with the necessary information to get this handled ASAP.

Thank you again for choosing ALTA!

 

Being involved in this one, I can say there was a fair amount of finger pointing coming from Lamin-X (trust me not their finest moment!) and that added to the time frame. It boiled down to the parts (ALL) being pulled from the shelf brought to my desk and I manually sorted them making the corrections as necessary. We could have made another phone call or e-mail to keep you in that loop, but the outcome would have taken the same amount of time. I understand your concerns and take it seriously! Thank you for your business and I hope to help you again in the future.

Thank you! Appreciate it!

Nicely put! How does the issue equal a business closing!? Makes no sense and thanks for pointing that out! Let me know if I can ever help you!

I agree! Damage control is far more complicated then handling it properly to begin with. I know we hear of all these companies folding, and losing revenue etc. While not an excuse ALTA has grown TONS again this year. I just hired another full time CSR to help keep up with the business. At the same time we have weekly meetings on ways to improve and tune the levels of customer service and correspondence.

Moving forward we are in the process of updating the website, and our accounting software to better integrate the flow of information from order inception, shipping status, backorder, to delivery. In the meantime we have changed how this information flows and the time it takes for clients to become aware of the status. This has some human input and repetition but it is worth it to keep you all informed.

Can you kindly e-mail me the RMA#? Then I can see exactly where things are at. I agree the time frame is too long. This week we changed the tool rental slightly to keep you from having to even call for the RMA. It is now generated on the invoice and the packing slip, so when you are done, you can simply place it on the box along with the address and send the item back. My personal apologies for any delay. But please send me the info so I can trace it!

Finally, tomorrow we are unlikely to be open due to local inclement weather. If I can get into the office and I have PM's / e-mails from the affected clients above I will gladly address them. Otherwise, I will simply reply and say we will get to it on the first day back in the office. But that does NOT mean I am not shirking the responsibility of taking care of it ASAP!

Thank you again to all our clients! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 

Thanks. I will PM you.

Just need to clarify since you brought up some points that I am confused about. I received a hand written note that Alta faxed on Nov 25 2008, 10:03 am to my credit card company and it was sent to me. It says: "Customer can return the part for a warranty replacement. They must cover the cost of shipping. Will replace the part but not give a refund..." If you want to see it, I can post it tomorrow when I get my scanner working.

 

I misread the date, it is dated Nov 26 2008 (bad fax). Also I read it again. The Note text typed into the Alta bill says "11/26 customer says tube is still too short. Customer has filed "prechargeback". Will respond to that with RMA number for 2nd tube. Will not refund. Will replace. signed "CB". I guess "CB" is Christina B. Hope this helps you.

 

I talked to Jeff for awhile today bout a bunch of stuff, he was super nice as usual and quite knowledgeable.

 

Adam I think it is clear to say you are stepping up and taking care of business. It would be great if we all lived in a perfect world.....good job

 

Yes, Adam did step up big time and I really appreciate it.

Adam, please no more inaccurate posts on this matter that I will need to respond to set the record straight. Lets deal with this via e-mail and phone. I already sent you the information you wanted. We can correspond that way. I just got the RMA number and will try to get the part back to you ASAP (today if possible). We are supposed to get 12" + of snow later today and some more snow tommorow so things may slow down.

 

SLINGER688 also steps up....sounds like a win win to me.

 

Even though the affected parties all appear to be singing "kumbaya" now, it still gnaws at me a bit that this thread title--originally conceived out of frustration--will live on in infamy within this forum, as they always do.

It's unfortunate that months from now, people are likely to draw erroneous conclusions about Alta's customer service because they're browsing this forum and happen to see the words "Alta is starting to tick me off" in a passing glance of thread titles. Who among us actually opens each and every one of these thousands of threads and reads through every gory post to get the "real" underlying story?

Too bad there's not a way of cleaning this up based on a satisfactory resolution for the sake of the vendors reputation(s).

 

+1
This last post wins

 

If you are a mod then kill the thread...I am a mod on another forum and it can be done. At least change the title...this would be the right thing to do

I am a vendor on a sister forum of NAM and this would have anready been fixed.

If there are any mods out there please correct this.

 

Thank you all! I do appreciate it! As I stated before we are NEVER going to be perfect, but we can always try. My apologies to anyone affected with less than ideal service!

slinger: appears I have a PM. If I can get to work I am all over this! Thanks again!

****MODERATOR**** if you read this can you check the posts made above and adjust accordingly? Thank you!

 

It is not finished as of yet. The conversation may be as the effected have taken this offline to resolve but until the OP reports that the matter is complete it stands as it is. Once it is reported complete then the OP can ask to have the title changed. I'd recommend adding (RESOLVED) to the title.

However unfair you may think it is to Alta it is just as unfair to the OP to close or change the title until this is fully resolved. Besides, while Alta and almost every other vendor does things right the majority of the time some things fall through the cracks. It is a measure of the business as to how they handle these things that really shows through.

 

MODERATOR, I totally disagree with changing anything in this thread. It sounds like censorship.

Let people read it if they want to. For this transaction only with alta, customer service does not change at an F but damage control was an A+.

Adam call me.

 

I disagree 100% I would think that this forum would do a better job protecting their vendors....Nothing is perfect and Alta has a great reputation. As a business owner nothing is 100% perfect and hurting the reputation of a solid supporting vendor is a poor decision on the part of NAM.

In these difficult times us business owners are already going thru a hard time and this could in effect hurt Alta's reputation and business. Makes me think twice about becoming a vendor here.

Why not start a new thread when this issue is resolved. Alta already responded for everyone to see.......this is not a company that just came on the scene...I think Alta has earned the right for their reputation not to be tarnished because of this.

 

I like this approach. Seems fair to all concerned.

 

Oh K! Wait! If you want to keep poking instead of moving to a resolution that is fine. BUT, lets not go there.

I appreciate the Pm you sent. As you should have noted, I have already replied and gotten the ball rolling.

The issue (now that I have your e-mail address to start tracing) is your assertions to an "f" for customer service. My professional nature is holding me back from making public the e-mail correspondence that I have alone that dates back to Sept 4th, and then abruptly ends on Oct 30th. This end is Christina and myself looking for a reply from you, that later was received in the form of an attempted chargeback from your credit card company, which was disallowed as the items had not been returned, or attempted to be returned.

I will leave it at that and not publish the mail.

As I said in my e-mail to you this morning, I will refund the purchase price, the shipping charges etc. we simply need to know where the items are now.

It is a free world and you can continue to publish and poke here all you want, but ALTA is 100% behind resolving the issue, not rehashing until the new year!

 

Red Bull, it is time to let Adam and I conclude this w/o all this pushing and interference. We might try to to the right thing after. All this does not help now.

 

I have the same thread which ended with me waiting for a RMA. I just got your RMA yesterday so I have no means of returning the part before today.

All this outside interference does not help. I have asked them to stop as you can see. I am not posting in this thread anymore until we are done.

 

And that will accomplish?

We have no issue marking this issue as RESOLVED in the thread title when it is fully resolved. Doesn't that say it all?

I think at this point it might be better to close this thread and ask the OP to contact me when it is resolved. All this back and forth by people that have nothing to do with issue but grandstand for their views does nothing to further this along.