K8stingerstore.com terrible customer service story

[Silverstinger2122]

Whats up guys, I have never had to do this but I want to share my customer service horror story from K8stingerstore.com. I placed an order for a ark AWD midpipe from k8stingerstore.com back on 03/09. I waited a week, didnt get any shipping notification, so I sent them an email asking when it will ship. I will quote their response

my message "
On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 10:24 AM Jeremy A Monaco < xenozx@comcast.net> wrote:

Hey there I placed this order last week, and I was just checking to see if and when you will be able to ship it out to me? I dont show any shipping confirmation as of yet.

Thanks so much!

Jeremy Monaco

On 03/09/2021 9:1

Their response:

Thank you so much for placing your new order with us on the site. It’s very important when you’re ordering from us to make sure to read any lead time or back order information which is always shown right on the product page where you would be placing your order from.

We do have a note in red, lettering at the top of the description on the product page where this product is sold, informing customers of the timeframe on when the all-wheel-drive pipes will be shipping out.

This is the latest and most up-to-date information on the product.

Thank you,

David


by default I was like what ever I know how to read, I didn't see the red text, but I went to the site, and confirmed at least at that moment in time the red text did show but only after you clicked in a drop down and switched from a default of RWD to AWD. Maybe it was there when I ordered maybe it wasnt, not worth arguing over, but my brother did place an order for the pipe 2 days prior to my order and he has received his and we installed it together over a week ago. He is Cvenom2122 on here.

I waited another week, and sent them a response yesterday asking to cancel my order since I was able to get another midpipe off of ebay which has already been delivered.

I got a response back seemed semi friendly, with a slight ego undertone, about hey sure we will cancel your order, but we are charging you a cancellation fee.

I got a paypal refund for what appears to be 95% of my $500+ order. a $19 dollarish "fee" was not returned due to me cancelling an item they don't have in stock and cant ship to me for a few more weeks.

I sent another email with some emotion saying I have never been treated by a company like this, that I have other orders I have placed with them, my brother who also has a stinger who has placed $1000's in orders with them an if they dont refund me the rest of my money, I will be making a post here, and making sure they lose business from not just me and my brother but possibly others in the kia community for poor customer service and business practices. I waited 24 hours, got no response to that email so here I am. Mind you they responded to my cancel order email almost instantly.

I shouldn't have to pay a fee for a company who poorly designs a website, and allows orders to be placed for items not in stock and charging a fee when you eventually need to cancel said order. Terrible terrible terrible. I also shouldnt have to jump through these hoops to get the rest of my money back. Should be a simple agree to disagree and move on.

anyway, I promised to make this post and I live to my promises, I have also put a claim in with paypal, and just wanted to put it out here to maybe sway others to stay away from this company and purchase your dropship parts from other places.

 

[K8 Stinger Store]

Jeremy,

I’m really sorry to see that you decided to post this on the forum here, but since you have done so, I will share my side of the story and allow others to determine if they feel that we offer terrible customer service as you titled this post.

For starters, I’m the owner of the business and take pride in trying to offer the best customer service and making sure to update our website daily, to ensure that we have the most accurate information shown on each of the product pages of the website where we sell our items.

On March 8th, we were notified by the sales manager of Ark Performance that they were sold out of the AWD Downpipes, but that they had the RWD Downpipes still available and in stock. I personally went to our site and updated the product page to what is shown below:



We allow customers to purchase products while out of stock, so that they can preorder, and save their place in line, so that when the parts arrive back in stock again, they have their place in line reserved. (As many Stinger owners know, during COVID-19, many parts are constantly selling out & on backlorder)

On March 9th, you placed your order on our website, where it indicated that the AWD Downpipes were not in stock. On March 16th, you sent us an email letting us know that you placed an order last week and wanted to check to see when we will be able to ship it, since you hadn't received the shipping confirmation as of yet.

I replied to your email that same day, less than one hour after you sent it to us requesting an update. I informed you, as you posted here on the site, that we do make sure to list any lead time information or delays right on the product page where the product is sold, informing customers of the timeframe on when it will be available to ship out.

I did not hear back from you after sending that email, until just yesterday, where you mentioned you were able to order this downpipe elsewhere, and would like us to cancel your order if possible. I once again replied to your email almost immediately, and let you know that I was confused because it’s sold out everywhere at this time, and that I could definitely get it canceled for you in accordance with our cancellation policy on the website. I explained to you that it goes over the transaction fees that we are not refunded if we need to refund the customer because they changed their mind about wanting to keep their order.

Here is the part of our website where it goes over the cancellation policy, where we explain how the process works:



What’s interesting, is you’ll notice that many websites have this exact same cancellation policy listed, as it is now common practice, since credit card companies no longer refund transaction fees. The owner of this website, this very forum, the KDM warehouse, also has the exact same clause in their return policy/cancellation policy as you can see below:



In closing, we realize that we can't always make every customer happy, even though we do our best to try and make sure that every customer we work with is happy and taken care of.

You did not reply to my email, but instead contacted PayPal right away and disputed the charge. For the record, it is 3.5% that we pay in transaction fees when you place your order on our website. This amount of money came out to $17.85, which I told you I would be more than happy to offer you a discount on any future order to make up for that amount that you paid.

I never heard back from you at all, and even made several attempts to contact you via telephone to try and remedy this situation, and come to an amicable resolution. However, you declined allof my attempts to speak with you, and instead, came right to the forum to make this post in an attempt to make us look bad, as if we treated you unfairly.

I am a very fair and reasonable business owner, and I always try and go above and beyond to help each and every customer I work with. At the end of the day, I’m very sorry that you feel that we offer terrible customer service. We do make sure to list our cancellation policy very clearly within the return policy on our site, and we also made sure to list that the product was not available at the time that you had placed your order. (It was in stock 2 days prior when your brother placed his order)

I'm very sorry for your experience and hope you can try and understand where we are coming from as well.

-David

 

[ScottM]

Glad to hear both sides.

 

[Silverstinger2122]

I respect your response and understanding PayPal hitting you with fees lightens the blows but no offense don't put yourself in a position to get canceled orders by allowing people to place orders for parts you won't have in stock for months and don't pass that cancelation fee on to the buyer when they make other arrangements for a dyno day they had scheduled.

I did respond to you and got no response. I re-forwarded the response to you i don't know why you didn't get it it was in my sent items and I never had any issues with people not getting my emails before. I stated clearly I wanted a full refund or I was going to dispute with PayPal and open a forum post. that email was ignored as far as I was concerned hence why I opened this post and disputed with paypal.

you did call a few times and I respect that but only after I opened the PayPal dispute. as a customer I am furious and honestly would have just snapped on you for the terrible experience and the way I felt treated and it wouldn't have solved anything . I work for a company where the customer is always first and I feel like last place here.

obviously we don't agree and I also respect agree to disagree but at the same time a simple full refund and none of this would have happened. I had to take extensive time to send you multiple emails and open a dispute and make a forum post and I got no item I ordered and charged a fee for it just makes me feel like I got the short end of the stick as a previous customer.

as far as the red text I can only say you did add the text before I purchased but I don't remember seeing it and it was so close to when you did update maybe it got lost in translation. regardless if I knew it was on back order I wouldn't have purchased and like the first paragraph shouldn't have been able to order and the rwd and awd parts should be separate listings to limit confusion.

 

[GTdsz]

I think offering the credit card charge as in store credit is more than fair. I see a lot of businesses charging the 4% charge ( uncle Sam always gets his). Blame the sales process not the middle man distribution. K8 is great

 

[K8 Stinger Store]

Thank you for your reply as well. I will try and outline a few responses based on your reply below:

I respect your response and understanding PayPal hitting you with fees lightens the blows but no offense don't put yourself in a position to get canceled orders by allowing people to place orders for parts you won't have in stock for months.

Thank you for respecting my response, but what? "Don't put yourself in a position to get canceled orders by allowing people to placed order for parts you won't have in stock for months"

For starters, we accept pre-orders for parts, so customers can reserve their place in line when a popular item sells out on the site. Items like the MBRP exhaust, Ark Downpipes, Injen Intakes, K&N intakes, etc. sell out on a regular basis here, and making it so that customer's cannot pre-order is silly. We provide them with the option and make sure to let our customers know if a product is out of stock and when it will be available, so that they can decide if they would like to wait for it to come back in stock, and reserve their place in line. (This is extremely common in this industry)

Parts you won't have in stock for months.

Don't pass that cancelation fee on to the buyer when they make other arrangements for a dyno day they had scheduled.

The product was listed as out of stock on the 8th of March & scheduled to be back in stock the 1st or 2nd week of April. (Not quite "months" as you put it, not even close)

I could simply reply back to the bottom part stating that you shouldn't schedule time at a DYNO, before knowing when the parts you ordered are scheduled to be shipped out.
We are not passing the cancelation fee onto the buyer, the buyer is responsible for those fees if they decide they want to cancel their order for no fault of the business or mistake on our end. (As clearly shown in our policy, as well as many other websites policies, including the forum store where we are communicating on now) Surely, they are not a "terrible business" to with "horrible customer service"

I did respond to you and got no response. I re-forwarded the response to you i don't know why you didn't get it it was in my sent items and I never had any issues with people not getting my emails before. I stated clearly I wanted a full refund or I was going to dispute with PayPal and open a forum post. that email was ignored as far as I was concerned hence why I opened this post and disputed with paypal.

I'm sorry, but I did not get a reply to my email I sent you at all. (This was just yesterday at 2:17pm PST) Nothing in our spam folder, and we have not experienced any issues with receiving emails at all. Also, we do not respond to threats or ultimatums, as that is not how we operate our business. We follow protocol and do things the correct way here, by the book. If you made a mistake and missed a note showing the item was out of stock, and then you requested that we cancel the order for you, why would you feel that we should be responsible for paying your transaction fees?

You did call a few times and I respect that but only after I opened the PayPal dispute. as a customer I am furious and honestly would have just snapped on you for the terrible experience and the way I felt treated and it wouldn't have solved anything . I work for a company where the customer is always first and I feel like last place here.

I did, yes, as I have found that in life we can get much further by having a simple man to man conversation where I say, I'm sorry for the hassle with this Jeremy, I am the owner of the company and I would be more than happy to discount you on your next order, and give you the $17.85 back and even more of a discount for the hassle. However, you were not interested in trying to resolve this matter at all. It was either do what you want, regardless of the circumstances, or face the consequences of you shaming us all over the internet. I do apologize, but in this day and age, the fact of the matter is, the customer just isn't always right. There are people out there that take advantage of that old motto, and feel that they can get whatever they want by taking advantage of the system. However, we do always try and put the customer first, so I'm sorry you felt that wasn't the case here.

obviously we don't agree and I also respect agree to disagree but at the same time a simple full refund and none of this would have happened. I had to take extensive time to send you multiple emails and open a dispute and make a forum post and I got no item I ordered and charged a fee for it just makes me feel like I got the short end of the stick as a previous customer.

as far as the red text I can only say you did add the text before I purchased but I don't remember seeing it and it was so close to when you did update maybe it got lost in translation. regardless if I knew it was on back order I wouldn't have purchased and like the first paragraph shouldn't have been able to order and the rwd and awd parts should be separate listings to limit confusion.

Yes sir, we can agree to disagree on this one, but please understand if we just gave a "simple full refund" to every customer that decided to cancel an order that was no fault of our own, we would be paying thousands of dollars a year in transaction fees, and we just cannot afford to do that. We are a very small business here, like many other vendors in this very small niche community, and things like this are what push the small business owners like myself away from wanting to work with the smaller communities. (Which is why there are only so much of us still around these days)

The note was there prior to you placing your order, and again we allow customers to pre-order parts that are sold out and in high demand, as it is only fair to allow those who want to pre-order to save their place in line.

 

[K8 Stinger Store]

I think offering the credit card charge as in store credit is more than fair. I see a lot of businesses charging the 4% charge ( uncle Sam always gets his). Blame the sales process not the middle man distribution. K8 is great

Thank you for your feedback here. I agree 100% and I was more than willing to work with Jeremy to not only offer him the $17.85 toward anything else he might want to order in the future, but I was willing to offer more of a discount for the hassle as well.

Thank you for the kind words...

 

[Silverstinger2122]

here is a screenshot of the email that I sent that you say you didn't get. obviously at this point you want to save face and make money I get it so your not going to say I am right.

I've ordered hundreds of thousands of dollars of items online from so many sites and never felt this way about any transaction I've ever had. as an eBay seller myself i get where your coming from but you seemed to have an attitude to me in all of our email communications. I prefer small businesses over big hence why I ordered from you in the first place, you say there was a note but in one of your responses it was like you were calling me blind or dumb or that I can't read. if I saw backorder and it was clearer let's use common sense in this case I wouldn't have placed the order. So maybe you should make it clearer and your right the customer isn't always right which is why I didn't use that statement but they should be put first. you refunded my payment immediately minus the fee with no offer of store credit or anything. had you done that first we wouldn't be here right now and that's the customer first I am speaking of.

 

[K8 Stinger Store]

here is a screenshot of the email that I sent that you say you didn't get. obviously at this point you want to save face and make money I get it so your not going to say I am right.

I've ordered hundreds of thousands of dollars of items online from so many sites and never felt this way about any transaction I've ever had. as an eBay seller myself i get where your coming from but you seemed to have an attitude to me in all of our email communications. I prefer small businesses over big hence why I ordered from you in the first place, you say there was a note but in one of your responses it was like you were calling me blind or dumb or that I can't read. if I saw backorder and it was clearer let's use common sense in this case I wouldn't have placed the order. So maybe you should make it clearer and your right the customer isn't always right which is why I didn't use that statement but they should be put first. you refunded my payment immediately minus the fee with no offer of store credit or anything. had you done that first we wouldn't be here right now and that's the customer first I am speaking of.

Jeremy,

I am not just saying I didn't get it, I absolutely didn't.

Also, the red note on our site doesn't appear or disappear based on the selection of AWD or RWD as you have indicated in that email you posted. The note is there regardless of what selection you make for AWD or RWD. I am not"saving face" as you put it, I am simply responding to the ridiculous claim that we are a "horrible company" offering "terrible customer service" because you didn't see the note on our site, or take the time to read the terms of service you agreed to when ordering & feel like we should pay for the change of heart you made about wanting to keep your order with us.

It is very easy to misunderstand tone through text, so I'm sorry if you felt that I had an attitude with you over the 3 or 4 emails in total that we exchanged. This is why I made a minimum of 4 or 5 attempts to call you over a 24 hour period, and left 2 messages letting you know that I would definitely be happy to offer you the $17.85 credit toward any future purchases, and that I would love to have a quick convo with you to resolve the matter. (Which you refused to do)

I respect that you want to continue to make it out like our site was not clear and it was our fault for selling an item out of stock, but I will respectfully agree to disagree with you on this matter. We do everything possible in our power to be clear and transparent about products being in or out of stock, but we cannot force anyone to read the information and the majority of our customers have no problem understanding our site as it is very clear in my opinion.

 

[StingertimeNC]

hate to see this kind of exchange, but I have to say K8 is being fair here. I have had a couple of experiences with K8 myself, one where the product was on backorder, but clearly explained on their site, and one where I received a partial shipment. They responded to all my inquiries within an hour or two, provided additional information, and ultimately delivered as expected. Personally my dealings with K8 have been more than fine. I do not think that "common sense" would dictate that a person does not order an item that's on backorder. In this day and age, get your order in and get in line, so you can get your product sooner than those that wait for it to be back in stock before ordering. I just feel like the Op is blowing this way out of proportion.

 

[SoCalSHO]

Too bad you had a disagreement.

They went out their way to get me a part I wanted, went as far as shipping it twice.

 

[nhcowboy28]

I vote the OP off the island.

 

[Silverstinger2122]

I didn't see the red text when I placed my order maybe you didn't check a save button or something or a glitch occurred or what have you but I love how customer first for your company is assume i was in the wrong or I can't read. If I saw a big red text I would have never asked you hey when will this ship on March 14th. So either I can't read, your website didn't have the note yet, or it was very unclear and open to confusion. it's how you handled that and automatically put the blame on me that I have a problem with. Maybe I was in a hurry and missed the red text but you can't prove it just like I can't prove it was or wasn't there when I placed my order. I did tell you I didn't see it and rather than give me the benefit of the doubt and work with me you blame me and take money out of my pocket without giving me a thing in return.

I literally posted a screenshot of my email and instead of being like oh wow you did respond I sorry it's still you defending yourself and saying oh well I didn't get it. isn't that convenient you got my cancelation request just fine and canceled.my order and charged me a fee right away guess with your website glitching and your email maybe you should get that looked at.

I'm one the percent of customers who has a bad experience. I'm sure there's 10x as many people who had a great experience. as great as Amazon is I am sure they have wronged someone too at some point too. obviously you have lost my business and my brothers and anyone I ever speak too. if you never show someone their wrongs they never have the opportunity to improve. I believe you are in the wrong and your customer service was poor to say the least. if you went above and beyond I wouldn't be here still wasting my time. that's my experience and the whole purpose of this forum section.

this is my last post here's since it's all he said she said at this point but maybe this will help someone or improve their attitude and customer service going forward or at the very least some of the suggestions that have been made by me and others like an auto store credit for fees or something.

 

[nhcowboy28]

Merp.

 

[NS_Stinger]

I also see no fault of k8 in this exchange. I'd be happy I was offered the refund so quicky. Losing out on the transaction fees is totally normal as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Intelliburn]

hate to see this kind of exchange, but I have to say K8 is being fair here. I have had a couple of experiences with K8 myself, one where the product was on backorder, but clearly explained on their site, and one where I received a partial shipment. They responded to all my inquiries within an hour or two, provided additional information, and ultimately delivered as expected. Personally my dealings with K8 have been more than fine. I do not think that "common sense" would dictate that a person does not order an item that's on backorder. In this day and age, get your order in and get in line, so you can get your product sooner than those that wait for it to be back in stock before ordering. I just feel like the Op is blowing this way out of proportion.

I ordered my Jun BL secondaries from K8 not too long ago (2/21). The site didn’t say initially on back order when I ordered because they had just run out. I personally got a call from them when it was identified (right away). They explained the production process, apologized for any inconvenience on delay, that I was the first on the list and gave me time lines to expect the delivery. They under promised and over delivered. They beat their timeline. I was amazed on how quick I got the order once shipped. I used ‘Shop’ to track items. I could see my order coming from Korea and the site said it would be delivered in 2 days. I thought ‘no way’. Sure enough it got delivered to me in Ohio. I thought the whole process with K8 was outstanding and will use them again because of the positive experience. They are really an outstanding operation with careful diligence on the customer experience.

 

[WRXtoStingerGT]

I haven't personally ordered anything from K8-Store but what I have heard from other members or seen posted on the forums has been nothing but positive experiences.

OP perhaps this is just all a big misunderstanding and can be settled without dragging everyone into it publicly and creating a big drama.

We're all adults here...

 

[Jayphil]

My vote goes with K8 on this one as well. OP was to exited to read properly. Then because his body got his faster OP went on ebay bought anything that was available just because he could not wait two more weeks. Than he expect that K8 will pay for his mistakes eventhough the policy is clear.

Opening a paypal dispute only a day after an email is also showing how OP cannot control his emotions.

Hopefully Paypal dispute results will not be against K8...

Now OP move on, trying to drag down a fair business for 19 bucks, I am not impressed...

 

[nhcowboy28]

Op. You may want to try import shark if you think K8 has been unfair.

<giggles>.

 

[Buzzrush]

Holy crap! All this over 19 bucks AND K8 tried to rectify the situation by offering a discount on your next purchase?? This is what's wrong with social media. People would rather blast a company publicly than actually man up and get on the phone and rectify the situation directly with the owner. As an ex chef who dealt with crap customers from time to time...I absolutely despise these kind of people. You can't make them happy no matter what you do. K8 was completely fair here and from my experiences they're a well run company. Keep it up David...The Hives got your back