Can one say it is SERVICE at all? Who will buy a knife from Darrel Ralph now...

Hopefully it ends well. Perhaps this new knife can undergo one of your HARD USE TESTS!

 

I'm a bit confused at the sudden change of tone, from refusing to speak outside of email to public apologies?

 

The best that can be said is that Mr. Ralph can be driven to do the right thing.

____________________________________________________________
First Rule of Holes: When in a hole, stop digging.

 

You forgot how DR completely ignored this post by the customer though. Kinda seems like a change of heart in customer service. Extremely weird to begin with, obviously not to mention the shady proposal...

 

"some" Folks in business do and say things sometimes in order to save their business.
Is the change of heart sincere or a business ploy; only time will tell.........

 

Well, that took some effort to find fault, but congrats.

 

Lesson learned: One single wrong move can completely destroy a long building reputation and it may take even longer to rebuild it.

 

I used to sit and listen when my parents had friends over. Dad and the guys would talk business, and they were all in very different businesses. They all focused on the same goal, though: keep the customer satisfied. Yeah, not always possible, but you can always try. Who knows, as long as you stay cooperative, they may think it over and come back later to work something out.

 

These issues have plagued DDR Knives, you're right about that. I'm glad to see that Mr. Ralph is doing what he can to make it right with this gentleman - it appears that he was shafted indeed and he deserves to be compensated.

Maybe I'll be next to get my a) refund for b) forum knife from Darrel. It seems as though he's trying to turn over a new leaf and not screw people anymore.

My point is, how many times do these horror stories have to come out until enough is enough? It's highly personalized, I guess...but I won't give a cent to that company ever again. I'm already out a few hundred without delivery of a product, and a big "oh well, sorry" explanation.

 

Now you guys went and did it, you got Kevin involved...

 

Spark atleast please watch the video before you comment...

 

Here less than a year and already making demands of the site owner...glwt

 

Your initial statement was just a timely and almost perfect lead-in to what seems to be happening in this thread as of late, not a concerted effort to find fault personally with you as an individual, as a fellow member. That same statement made by anyone else would have resulted in the same response from me.

DR certainly deserves the opportunity to attempt to salvage his reputation, his future and potential income, etc., but IMHO, he has clearly shown that he very much prefers to engage in 'damage control' only when publicly 'called out', as opposed to providing '100% customer satisfaction' as promised, when not under such scrutiny.

A reread of my post should clarify that.

 

I will chime in that selling the knife was on the buyer and should of went back to DR in exchange for the new knife. If any extra money should of been added it should only be enough cover the extra shipping costs resulted from the multiple exchanges.

 

Well, just a couple of comments and observations.

This should show all the value of Bladeforums beyond just the simple enjoyment of conversation about knives. It doesn't seem that DR had much interest in his commitment to customer service until this boiled up in front of such a large audience. While it seems that BF applied no pressure to DR to resolve this issue, this type of direct contact with other folks that would spend several hundred dollars has to be a targeted segment of his targeted clientele. No one wants to be exposed in front of an audience for bad behavior, poor product, and then real pettiness. (Really...? REALLY? A no tattling agreement?)

If any of you guys really want to see the close tolerances a custom knife can be made to on a repeatable basis, go to the traditional subforum here and take a look at some of the custom work there. Incredible, to say the least.

And Sharpe95, while you are complaining about mods and your treatment, you have no idea how lucky you are to still be here. Mods are people too and they have their opinion. And good days and bad days. While I don't post much here, I do read a lot. Some moderators are a great deal less tolerant than Karda has been on this thread.

I can say that in a lot of cases your language and choice of same along with your presentation directly aimed at some of the moderators would have either gotten you to your last warning, or outright banned. Karda has shown patience with you like I haven't seen him do in a while, but more even beyond that. In the subforum I frequent, you would have certainly been banned after your first, pointed rant.

On that particular forum, I had infractions issued for posting a picture incorrectly (apology NOT accepted by the mod), posting a link to another site to show a knife because I couldn't figure out how to post a pic, and another for linking to a non BF registered vendor. Never did I argue, sass, or be disrespectful in any way to them, and I corrected my errors as soon as I was told. That didn't make the infractions go away. For those mistakes, I was a step away from being banned.

Karda and the other mods have a difficult job to do sometimes, and I cannot personally imagine how time consuming it is for them. That being said, certainly their patience with you will run out. If you keep poking the dog, no doubt you will get bit.

Robert

 

Why in the world would the buyer trust DDR a third time?? What the buyer did with his knife (the 2nd shady one) is not relevant to this situation really.
The reason he posted here was that DDR did nothing to resolve his problems. I wouldn't want a knife from anyone who put me through a pile like that either.

How does a $1200 custom knife leave someone's shop with bad grind lines, off center, blade play, etc? How does it happen twice?
Who really even made the knives in question? Was it really Darrel or a flunky in his shop?

Doesn't sound to me like D even had a hand in making the knives ...... he certainly never explained that part. Would be nice if he could chime in on how his operation really works.