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Abc gifts and awards! (1 Viewer)

Tham6165

Tham6165

Two Pair
Joined
Aug 7, 2018
Messages
407
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551
Location
Pittsburgh
Edit: For anyone reading this please disregard anything that I posted below. I can now say that I am a jackass that jumped the gun on a situation that I should have just given a little more time. Gene has been more than great to get the situation back in order. I didnt realize the immense workload he was carrying in trying to help all pcf'ers get chips at a great deal. I now know that and I am sorry to post so distastefully. If he would have told me to "F myself" after my post I would have completely understood. He didn't! I just want to say sorry and I will have a little more discretion in the future when considering to take the route that I did with this post.



I know many of you on here have had nothing but great things to say about Gene and abc gifts. However he has left a very bad first impression on his business dealing with me. I was one of the first ones to reply to the 8v thread when he put them up (Nov 13) I sent the quantity of each chip I wanted and also my desire to have him make labels that same day in private message. We had several back in forth messages in the early days of this.
Once I came up with somewhat of a design I was OK with I sent him a message with pictures (Nov 20). I also asked about possibly buying the racks he said he found (Nov 22) which I still never got an answer on.
I waited 8 days to get a response on which he finally sent one chip design and asked my opinion (Nov 28). I sent back what I thought could be changed with the chip in my opinion next morning ,but also asked his opinion since he deals with this stuff everyday.
Then yesterday (Nov 30) I get a message from him wanting to know what quantities of each chip I desired. I made it known twice via pm what I wanted. Asking 17 days later what I want? So he could pull it from inventory! And also to state that there is no red even though I had an order in right away. There might not be any green left but he would check. And hey btw, the grays will be gone by the end of the day also.
So still trying to stay cordial as I possibly can. I sent a message back about seeing what he thinks he can do. I also asked to see if we could compromise in changing the red chips to gray since they were spread between 50 cash and only 25 tournament.
I have not recieved a response from gene in almost 24 hours. This is by far the most frustrating / disappointing business transaction I have ever been Involved in. I hope that no one else has had to deal with this. Sorry for venting this long rant but I had to get it off my chest!

Tim
 
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Will jump in here...

This sale was intended to move old stock and priced to move fast (without to many fuss).
Gene and his crew are very busy and I think your expectations should be realistic.

Best way is to order the chips and pay them...then contact one of the many great artists available on the forum to create your dream artwork.
Proceed choosing the best vendor to have the labels made.

This is just my 2 cents, YMMV
 
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This seems to be an anamalous experience. He's been absolutely terrific to deal with. A couple times, I had to wait a day or more for a response, but that's understandable.

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you, but I'm not willing to carry a torch or a pitchfork for you on this one.
 
Let me clarify that I told him in the very first messages the quantity of each chip and that I would like to buy them. And then told him let me know what he wanted me to do with the design work.
At that point I can only assume a business man would set the chips aside. I never recieved an invoice even though he had my email address at that point also. But I didn't anticipate an invoice because he still was going to do artwork and label them. In which if figured I would get one in the end.
 
Being Thanksgiving/Black Friday and everything, I'm willing to give Gene a break on this, especially seeing the crazy amount of orders and re-ups some of us have put him through. Really sorry to hear that things didn't work out for you @Tham6165, but if this is the most frustrating business transaction you've ever had, I'd happily be trading places.
 
Just an idea...delete your topic/post for now and contact Gene...express your feelings, I'm sure he'll try to fix your lost confidence.
If it doesn't work out, you can still post this

And if you want feedback on artwork...this is the place to ask for it :)
Many members will help you out and build a great breakdown with what is available.
 
He didn't request payment either. So if you guys want to start justifying on genes behalf why I didn't get them feel free. But if you were in my shoes you would anticipate when you tell someone your going to buy something that you are going to follow through with it.

Its not like I stopped messaging him through this whole process and he felt that maybe I wasnt interested anymore and he could then release them back into inventory.
 
He won’t send you an invoice if your order is no complete. This includes artwork. If you’re talking to him about artwork, the sale isn’t complete.

Let’s say you walk into a chocolate store... you and the wife are staring at the truffles, and there are 5 left. So you start talking to a little helper employee about the truffles, ask how they are made, what the deepest flavor on them are, so on and so forth. During this conversation, somebody else walks in, tells the cashier that they want to take the last 5 truffles. Do those truffles belong to you because you had talked to an employee about them, but hadn’t paid for them?

I sent him a message telling him what I wanted, and it was done. He sent me an invoice, then I paid.

This was a flash sale to move inventory quick. Everybody who paid got dibs. I don’t feel like this was a bad transaction on his part.
 
Tham6165 said:
So if you guys want to start justifying on genes behalf why I didn't get them feel free. But if you were in my shoes you would anticipate when you tell someone your going to buy something that you are going to follow through with it.
Click to expand...

I read these responses more of tips on how you can make this less likely in the future.

And you may have some unrealistic expectations of how smooth things go with custom products. Doesn’t seem like you’re out any cash. Good luck
 
I'll be back later on today after my sons hockey. I'm sure I'll have many more resposes by then. And I'll be glad to entertain any questions or comments. Don't think cause I haven't answered in a couple hours that I am surredering my position on this.
 
I don’t think anybody is asking you to surrender your position. I think it’s reasonable that you didn’t purchase them, so you weren’t entitled to anything, while people around you were purchasing the inventory.
Those that are paid for go out the door first.
 
I think you need to mange your expectations for forum purchases. It's not Amazon. This isn't BK. Take a breather and reconsider if this is the best avenue to resolve your issue. You're not out any money at this point. Maybe some opportunity cost.

Thank goodness you never had to deal with Joe at PGI!
 
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Tham6165 said:
But if you were in my shoes you would anticipate when you tell someone your going to buy something that you are going to follow through with it.
Click to expand...

Not justifying the situation here, but I can speak from experience with my own small business that this is absolutely not the case. Especially in these small custom niche markets, I would say approximately 30%-40% of the folks I've dealt with who have said yes I'm going to 100% place an order have backed out, even after getting price quotes and receiving hours of customer service. Its one of the reasons why many vendors require deposits up front before they really start working with you. It's unfortunate but to not do this is a great model for a failed business venture, unless you like working for free. Typcially the custom chip vendors require you to buy the chips first, then go through any artwork with them and if your artwork time goes beyond what's included its extra.
 
I'm sorry this happened to you, @Tham6165 . I certainly would have set stock aside if I got an order like this, but then again I don't run a business the size of Gene's, and it's not my business to tell other people how to run theirs. To protect your order, it would have been best to just buy the chips, and then discuss about artwork and labels after. Hindsight is always 20/20 from all perspectives.
 
Well, I’ll take a slightly different tone than what many have said.. If all you are saying is correct, then I think Gene probably made a mistake (but understandable given the huge amount of volume his business probably saw during that time)). Yes, if I’m talking with somone and say here’s my order, and I’d like to also order some custom labels for the chips...? If Gene responded and started to work out your customs labels for the chips you already indicated you wanted to order, I’d understand some expectation that the chips would have been pulled...

That said, I also think you might want to meter those expectations with the general tone of the flash sale... he clearly stated that these were old stock, and he was pricing them to move fast, with as little fuss as possible. He set the bar low on people’s expectations when he disclosed the color differences and said if you’re picky, this isn’t the sale for you. The chips were arguably priced 80% off... So, yes, I feel for your situation (it’s certainly disappointing), but given the nature of the sale and Genes solid rep and history with this forum, I’d caution against trying to rally the torches and pitchforks... I’d chaulk this one up to an unfortunate cooler... because if the chips are gone, there’s not much he can do. hope it all works out
 
Trihonda said:
Well, I’ll take a slightly different tone than what many have said.. If all you are saying is correct, then I think Gene probably made a mistake (but understandable given the huge amount of volume his business probably saw during that time)). Yes, if I’m talking with somone and say here’s my order, and I’d like to also order some custom labels for the chips...? If Gene responded and started to work out your customs labels for the chips you already indicated you wanted to order, I’d understand some expectation that the chips would have been pulled...

That said, I also think you might want to meter those expectations with the general tone of the flash sale... he clearly stated that these were old stock, and he was pricing them to move fast, with as little fuss as possible. He set the bar low on people’s expectations when he disclosed the color differences and said if you’re picky, this isn’t the sale for you. The chips were arguably priced 80% off... So, yes, I feel for your situation (it’s certainly disappointing), but given the nature of the sale and Genes solid rep and history with this forum, I’d caution against trying to rally the torches and pitchforks... I’d chaulk this one up to an unfortunate cooler... because if the chips are gone, there’s not much he can do. hope it all works out
Click to expand...
100% this.
 
Trihonda said:
Well, I’ll take a slightly different tone than what many have said.. If all you are saying is correct, then I think Gene probably made a mistake (but understandable given the huge amount of volume his business probably saw during that time)). Yes, if I’m talking with somone and say here’s my order, and I’d like to also order some custom labels for the chips...? If Gene responded and started to work out your customs labels for the chips you already indicated you wanted to order, I’d understand some expectation that the chips would have been pulled...

That said, I also think you might want to meter those expectations with the general tone of the flash sale... he clearly stated that these were old stock, and he was pricing them to move fast, with as little fuss as possible. He set the bar low on people’s expectations when he disclosed the color differences and said if you’re picky, this isn’t the sale for you. The chips were arguably priced 80% off... So, yes, I feel for your situation (it’s certainly disappointing), but given the nature of the sale and Genes solid rep and history with this forum, I’d caution against trying to rally the torches and pitchforks... I’d chaulk this one up to an unfortunate cooler... because if the chips are gone, there’s not much he can do. hope it all works out
Click to expand...


I don’t actually agree with this. Mostly because what was said above is true. As a small business owner, so many words are spoken, and so many people cancel before payment. I would require a deposit, or payment before I set anything aside.

From everything I’ve read on the thread, gene pulled, and shipped anything that was paid for. Anything that was in the works is just spoken words.
It’s possible that maybe he should have said, ‘I need a deposit to pull this order aside and continue to work on artwork, because I’m pushing them out the door as soon as they are paid for’, but with the volume of the order, it’s hard to say that was ‘his fault’.

Just differences in opinions I guess. I do indeed you find a good deal still, and get something out of this order.
 
I really don't know what compels people to post this stuff until the experience is over. Just wait until you know the final say before trashing a vendor. It's totally understandable to be frustrated if he says so sad sucks for you and does nothing about it, but atleast give him a chance to make it right. After it's all said and done let us know what chip colors you werent able to get, the forum is very helpful and the issue will most likely work itself out.
 
Most (not all) businesses require a deposit or an order to be paid in full before setting aside product for you. Any assumption/expectation otherwise is unrealistic, especially when the title of the sale is "8V Compression Clay Blowout Sale". In general, until you pay for something, you have no claim to anything. Chalk this up as a learning experience.
 
I’ve done business with Gene and the other folks at ABC several times, and, in my opinion, they are batting 1000 in every possible scenario. I have to agree with everyone that is saying that the delay came in artwork not being provided. That said, I am sorry to hear about this, and I hope you can still get something that you want. All the best.
 
Sorry you came up short. I've only dealt with Gene once, but it went better than I would have expected, as he gave me an unbelievably good (lower than posted) price on chips (different from the 8v), just to get rid of them.

Given how fast certain colors sold out, and the frenzy it caused, I'd say Gene seriously under-priced the 8v chips for the same reason: just to get rid of them. Unfortunately, your order appears to have gotten lost in the shuffle and scuffle. Initially, Gene was keeping the site updated with amounts of each chip, but he quickly learned that was not possible as people made 2, 3 sometimes 4 different orders.

I can't say you should be happy with it - I've seen many times where people got bent out of shape because they didn't get the chance to buy some chips (ahem... Star Boat chips). This one thread is very tame in comparison. No need to delete it, as one disenfranchised shopper still has an opinion and a right to voice it.

You just won't find much sympathy though, when just one order out of hundreds goes sideways.
 
Poker Zombie said:
Sorry you came up short. I've only dealt with Gene once, but it went better than I would have expected, as he gave me an unbelievably good (lower than posted) price on chips (different from the 8v), just to get rid of them.

Given how fast certain colors sold out, and the frenzy it caused, I'd say Gene seriously under-priced the 8v chips for the same reason: just to get rid of them. Unfortunately, your order appears to have gotten lost in the shuffle and scuffle. Initially, Gene was keeping the site updated with amounts of each chip, but he quickly learned that was not possible as people made 2, 3 sometimes 4 different orders.

I can't say you should be happy with it - I've seen many times where people got bent out of shape because they didn't get the chance to buy some chips (ahem... Star Boat chips). This one thread is very tame in comparison. No need to delete it, as one disenfranchised shopper still has an opinion and a right to voice it.

You just won't find much sympathy though, when just one order out of hundreds goes sideways.
Click to expand...

Or 7 orders like me, all without issue.
 

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