| Negative | rose_campion
(1 review) | On Sep 8, 2016, rose_campion Seattle, WA wrote: I ordered some replacement parts for an ARS pruner through Gemplers recently. I had high hopes, because the prices seemed good and other online reviews for them were almost uniformly excellent. I carefully ordered the parts I needed directly from the numbers on a Gemplers-supplied parts diagram, linked from the pruner's online ordering page. Understand, Gempler's had clearly labeled the diagram "Parts - ARS 6 foot pruner". Since I had an ARS 6' pruner, I thought I was golden. Wouldn't you?
However, when the parts arrived, they were the wrong size - for a shorter pruner instead. The Gemplers customer service people (who were all pleasant, btw) admitted that "yes, looking at the website, we can see why you would have thought you were ordering the right ones". But they then blamed the manufacturer ('It's just their generic parts list"), and then _me_ (for not calling their technical support line before ordering). Um, sorry, but I missed the memo about making a confirmatory phone call when you order something online that's clearly labeled as what you're looking for. It's not 1993 any more, folks.
Okay, mistakes happen, that's fine. I really expected that Gemplers would have admitted their own website was confusing (or just flat out wrong), and would have been willing to make it right, or entertain meeting me halfway for pointing out the problem. But they weren't. Not even a little. Not an smidgen or an inch. Their _only_ offer was to "allow" me to return the wrong parts (at my cost) then buy the right ones from them at full retail - and pay full shipping all over again. Of course, I could've done all that *anyways*, without even contacting them, for any reason or none at all, by just sending the parts back with the return form. So they were not offering to give anything to me I didn't already have.
Understand, I wasn't looking for the sun moon and stars - I just wanted to get right parts, but thought it wasn't right to have to pay for shipping 3x because of a website error. (I would have even been happy paying *again*, full price, for the correct part and keeping the wrong part, if they'd been willing to ship the new one to me at lower or no cost. Nope - "that's not our policy and we cannot change it".)
I guess I'm really surprised when not even the tiniest olive branch is extended by a retailer to make things right. I might be old-fashioned, but that' something I'd expect to happen even when the store is not at fault, but _especially_ when they are. There are other online retailers I will probably choose from first in the future, rather than Gemplers, because of this But hoping if you do order from them, you have a better experience. |
