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I think you shouldn't be allowed to gripe until you have at least 100 useful posts. 
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Emerson Customer Service
- Thread starter Lou Castle
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I'm not entirely sure why people continue to post about how they carry EKI's or how much they love them. I sleep with mine by my bedside but I'm not about to use that as a response right now.**
Starting my post off, I'm going to say yes you have a right to be this pissed. Thats my opinion I don't want to take any crap for it either guys, I'm not even an active member of BF so please just save your time. It's more important than mine anyway.
**The fact is he screwed up on a custom order, BADLY. I'm a huge Emerson fan back on USN, but I stop by here for some change of scenery from time to time and if this thread is true, even if you agreed to pay in full yourself, the man could have easily replied to you and refunded you literally a decade ago.
Lou, I am behind you all the way, but him paying a sum of money isn't going to leave a great feeling either. Trust me, you think me hauling a piece of shit TV back to Fry's and getting my money back left me feeling satisfied? No it didn't. You getting interest is not going to make you feel better. You getting a great *ucking knife and showing it to us will. I don't know how long it takes for him to make one start to finish though so we might have to wait for that.
I say, you call Mr. Emerson again, stop mentioning this thread because even if you are right, it's makes you sound erratic as hell and I'm sorry but thats just what I think, make sure he knows it's you, and just order another goddamn knife. If he charges you anything remotely close to FULL PRICE understanding what he's already done to you, I will find a way to fit a job into my busy college schedule and pay the damn thing off myself. If he refuses, then have the thread locked and go to sleep knowing you're right and many members here will have to agree with you and I don't have to bust my ass.
I'm ChrisHimself on USN. I have no source of income and go to school on aid, but I will stand behind what I just said.
This isn't because I love Emerson, EKI, his customs, or anything, this is because I want to believe a man who made a living for the past 30+ years off his bare hands and says his customer service is the shit will accept the one challenge he has to make to finally make a few naysayers re-believe in what he has to say.
*edited*
You know what, if he offers you the knife free of charge to make you a happy customer, I'm going to find a way somehow to purchase my own custom from him because he'll make a new customer for life. Again I'm broke as **** and if you don't believe me, ask anybody who's been in a trade with me. I had to kindly ask them to pay for their shipping which is like 5 bucks.
I seriously doubt the money is important to you considering you just sold HIS knives to someone who has a positive view on his customer service.
Starting my post off, I'm going to say yes you have a right to be this pissed. Thats my opinion I don't want to take any crap for it either guys, I'm not even an active member of BF so please just save your time. It's more important than mine anyway.
**The fact is he screwed up on a custom order, BADLY. I'm a huge Emerson fan back on USN, but I stop by here for some change of scenery from time to time and if this thread is true, even if you agreed to pay in full yourself, the man could have easily replied to you and refunded you literally a decade ago.
Lou, I am behind you all the way, but him paying a sum of money isn't going to leave a great feeling either. Trust me, you think me hauling a piece of shit TV back to Fry's and getting my money back left me feeling satisfied? No it didn't. You getting interest is not going to make you feel better. You getting a great *ucking knife and showing it to us will. I don't know how long it takes for him to make one start to finish though so we might have to wait for that.
I say, you call Mr. Emerson again, stop mentioning this thread because even if you are right, it's makes you sound erratic as hell and I'm sorry but thats just what I think, make sure he knows it's you, and just order another goddamn knife. If he charges you anything remotely close to FULL PRICE understanding what he's already done to you, I will find a way to fit a job into my busy college schedule and pay the damn thing off myself. If he refuses, then have the thread locked and go to sleep knowing you're right and many members here will have to agree with you and I don't have to bust my ass.
I'm ChrisHimself on USN. I have no source of income and go to school on aid, but I will stand behind what I just said.
This isn't because I love Emerson, EKI, his customs, or anything, this is because I want to believe a man who made a living for the past 30+ years off his bare hands and says his customer service is the shit will accept the one challenge he has to make to finally make a few naysayers re-believe in what he has to say.
*edited*
You know what, if he offers you the knife free of charge to make you a happy customer, I'm going to find a way somehow to purchase my own custom from him because he'll make a new customer for life. Again I'm broke as **** and if you don't believe me, ask anybody who's been in a trade with me. I had to kindly ask them to pay for their shipping which is like 5 bucks.
I seriously doubt the money is important to you considering you just sold HIS knives to someone who has a positive view on his customer service.
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myright
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Really? I'm sure that is on the top of his list. I actually like that he's not getting in to a pissing match on a forum and will deal with it on a one-to-one basis.
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You know what, I got in touch with him. He's handled it to the best of his ability. Maybe you just didn't.
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Somehow I missed this post from Chris. Sorry for the very late response.
Thanks for this.
It would go a long way to showing that Mr. Emerson is truly trying to make amends for the way he and his staff treated me.
I wonder, if Fry's had given you $500 on top of your refund would that tend to make you a customer again? I know that it would go a long way with me. But your comparison is really apples and oranges. Fry's didn't make the TV so the fact that it turned out to be a POS is not on them. Your complaint is with whoever manufactured the TV. Let's make this closer to apples and apples. Suppose that the TV manufacturer required that you obtain their authorization before you could make the return. Now, let's have them refuse to accept your phone calls and emails and when you spoke to someone in person, they said that they'd get a repairman right out to your house, only to have him never show up! Do you think that you'd be a satisfied customer? THAT situation is much closer to what happened to me than your original hypothetical.
I'll disagree. At the time of my last letter to Mr. Emerson (April 2005) the accrued interest on the money that I'd given him was $470.13. The interest on THAT amount would today be an additional $362.73, bringing the total to $832.86. Having Mr. Emerson pay me that sum WOULD make me feel much better.
If Mr. Emerson wants to make amends in that fashion, I'd also feel better. But I'm not gonna hold my breath waiting for either to happen.
You said that you were only an occasional visitor here but I really look forward you to pointing out to me where I've been "erratic as hell."
(Refer to Chris' comments in my next post)
I'd like to believe this too. But as we've seen from Mr. Emerson's contribution to this thread he's far more interested in defending his customer service than in doing right by me.
No, Chris, you're wrong. I haven't sold the knives. The offer for sale (actually "the offer for abuse") was done in sarcasm. The offer (actually a counter−offer from Stabman) which was accepted, was for him to pay me $200 for the knives which I promised that I would NEVER ship. You might think about rereading those posts.
Thanks for this.
It would go a long way to showing that Mr. Emerson is truly trying to make amends for the way he and his staff treated me.
I wonder, if Fry's had given you $500 on top of your refund would that tend to make you a customer again? I know that it would go a long way with me. But your comparison is really apples and oranges. Fry's didn't make the TV so the fact that it turned out to be a POS is not on them. Your complaint is with whoever manufactured the TV. Let's make this closer to apples and apples. Suppose that the TV manufacturer required that you obtain their authorization before you could make the return. Now, let's have them refuse to accept your phone calls and emails and when you spoke to someone in person, they said that they'd get a repairman right out to your house, only to have him never show up! Do you think that you'd be a satisfied customer? THAT situation is much closer to what happened to me than your original hypothetical.
I'll disagree. At the time of my last letter to Mr. Emerson (April 2005) the accrued interest on the money that I'd given him was $470.13. The interest on THAT amount would today be an additional $362.73, bringing the total to $832.86. Having Mr. Emerson pay me that sum WOULD make me feel much better.
If Mr. Emerson wants to make amends in that fashion, I'd also feel better. But I'm not gonna hold my breath waiting for either to happen.
You said that you were only an occasional visitor here but I really look forward you to pointing out to me where I've been "erratic as hell."
(Refer to Chris' comments in my next post)
I'd like to believe this too. But as we've seen from Mr. Emerson's contribution to this thread he's far more interested in defending his customer service than in doing right by me.
No, Chris, you're wrong. I haven't sold the knives. The offer for sale (actually "the offer for abuse") was done in sarcasm. The offer (actually a counter−offer from Stabman) which was accepted, was for him to pay me $200 for the knives which I promised that I would NEVER ship. You might think about rereading those posts.
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Grim 62 wrote, "I'd be pissed too Lou.Can't believe Mr.Emerson has'nt responded yet."
And myright responded,
No pissing match is necessary. A real apology, (not a brush-off with a disclaimer and another boast of the quality of his customer service) and an explanation would suffice.
And myright responded,
No pissing match is necessary. A real apology, (not a brush-off with a disclaimer and another boast of the quality of his customer service) and an explanation would suffice.
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"He's handled it to the best of his ability?????" Chris perhaps you can tell us exactly what Mr. Emerson told you that he'd done "to the best of his ability?" And while you're here, please tell me what I could have done differently to get Mr. Emerson to live up to his promise to build me the knife that I'd ordered, that he'd agreed to build, and that I had paid for.
Since Chris says that he's not a frequent visitor to this forum (he does not accept PM's or Emails) I've left him a Visitor Message asking for a response to my comments to him. I'm especially looking forward to hearing what Mr. Emerson told him that he'd done in this matter "to the best of his ability" to resolve it and what I could have done better!
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Threads usually die a natural death when people get questions answered that they've asked. Sometimes they just lose momentum because people run out of things to say. Had I found the comments from Chris when they were made, I'd have responded to them then. Since I just found them, I just responded to them.
Chris raised some points that I wanted to address and he got a couple of things wrong. I'm still waiting to hear how I could have done things any better to get Mr. Emerson to build the knife he promised and that I paid for. Perhaps you have some suggestions?
The fact that this thread DIED back in January 2011, says it all: nobody seem to be interested in a problem with Emerson dating back to 1996. Rightfully so, I might add.
My suggestion to you is: let it go.
If any mod would be checking this part of the forum, they ought to close this thread, in my opininion.
My suggestion to you is: let it go.
If any mod would be checking this part of the forum, they ought to close this thread, in my opininion.
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So I bought a Roadhouse for my friend a couple months back and it looked like this after a week:
After some emails which were then ignored a while back, he decided to publicly post a thread explaining how 154CM isn't infallible rather than respond to my e-mails and how Emerson doesn't chase the latest supersteels because they use what works and what is best for the job and how it was up to me to take care of the steel, wipe it down, etc... this was just pocket jewelry, wasn't a real user... etc. I mean it cut dry cardboard and opened mail for a living.
He's very proud of his brand, and it shows, if I'm unhappy with any aspect of the way he runs his business, I'll just turn tail and go buy something else honestly.
It IS my fault since I posted my problem publicly on a forum before waiting for the reply, but it had been 3-4 days and I just wanted some honest information about if this was a common occurence since every other 154CM blade I've ever owned along with D2, has never fallen short of my expectations. I'm not new to knives either I've probably gone through about 20-30 in the time I've been into knives for the last 4 years. I was then subjected to some typical "oh those people should know to take care of their blades" comments which was somewhat demoralizing, but whatever it's the internet.
It wasn't my knife, but that experience left me a little bitter, I decided to let it go, I'm not sour about it anymore, but I sold off my entire collection (4 CQC's) locally at a loss that weekend just because I was a bit hurt by it honestly after a year of collecting Emersons at the maximum pace my income allowed and feeling like I was treated as 2nd class as soon as something wrong happened. I mean Benchmade fixes their stuff without even visual confirmation that there is anything wrong before agreeing to fix anything, but thats a moot point, I've officially removed EKI from my to-buy list for now which is a shame since I was going to purchase the new Journeyman.
I still respect Mr. Emerson and what he does for the troops and the knife hobby, but I'm going to let it go and move elsewhere. He'll always have devoted customers and I'm just one guy scratching nickels and dimes to buy his productions anyway.
After some emails which were then ignored a while back, he decided to publicly post a thread explaining how 154CM isn't infallible rather than respond to my e-mails and how Emerson doesn't chase the latest supersteels because they use what works and what is best for the job and how it was up to me to take care of the steel, wipe it down, etc... this was just pocket jewelry, wasn't a real user... etc. I mean it cut dry cardboard and opened mail for a living.
He's very proud of his brand, and it shows, if I'm unhappy with any aspect of the way he runs his business, I'll just turn tail and go buy something else honestly.
It IS my fault since I posted my problem publicly on a forum before waiting for the reply, but it had been 3-4 days and I just wanted some honest information about if this was a common occurence since every other 154CM blade I've ever owned along with D2, has never fallen short of my expectations. I'm not new to knives either I've probably gone through about 20-30 in the time I've been into knives for the last 4 years. I was then subjected to some typical "oh those people should know to take care of their blades" comments which was somewhat demoralizing, but whatever it's the internet.
It wasn't my knife, but that experience left me a little bitter, I decided to let it go, I'm not sour about it anymore, but I sold off my entire collection (4 CQC's) locally at a loss that weekend just because I was a bit hurt by it honestly after a year of collecting Emersons at the maximum pace my income allowed and feeling like I was treated as 2nd class as soon as something wrong happened. I mean Benchmade fixes their stuff without even visual confirmation that there is anything wrong before agreeing to fix anything, but thats a moot point, I've officially removed EKI from my to-buy list for now which is a shame since I was going to purchase the new Journeyman.
I still respect Mr. Emerson and what he does for the troops and the knife hobby, but I'm going to let it go and move elsewhere. He'll always have devoted customers and I'm just one guy scratching nickels and dimes to buy his productions anyway.
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It didn't die back in January. For some reason the forum software didn't notify me that there had been another response. (or it got lost in the Internet ether). Had I received notice of the new post I'd have responded then, just as I did yesterday. The fact that this thread has gone on for eight pages and (your post) was #152 belies your opinion that "nobody seems to be interested in a problem with Emerson dating back to 1996." And "rightfully so, I might add."
Thanks for the unsolicited advice. Perhaps when Mr. Emerson takes responsibility for his actions, I'll do so. Until then, as long as people make comments that are inappropriate or wrong about this incident, I'll be around to correct them.
More advice of the same nature. I have no doubt that the moderators are as appreciative of your advice as I am.
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There's a significant difference between what happened to you; buying and receiving a product and being unhappy with it, and what happened to me; entering into a contract with someone, giving them money and then NOT getting that product.
I'm not sour about what happened to me either. I swallowed what happened to me for many years but when Mr. Emerson boasted about the excellent quality of his customer service, and my experience was quite the opposite of his boast, I decided to let people see the other side of the coin.
I wish I'd been treated like a "2nd class" citizen. I wish that I'd risen to that level. I see no reason that I should lose money on the rest of my Emerson collection, which includes some fairly valuable knives. I'll sell them off fairly soon as I've found something that I want more.
Me too. I just can't figure out what it was that I did to warrant this sort of treatment.
The fan−boy phenomenon is an interesting one.
In any case, I see that in spite of telling us that you're a rare visitor here, you're back. I also see that you failed to answer any of the questions that I asked. I wonder if you could take a few minutes and reply to this one please? You told us that you had "got[ten] in touch with [Mr. Emerson] and then said, "He's handled it to the best of his ability. Maybe you just didn't."
I asked,
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I would just drop the topic, things have been made right and you have no reason to ever order a custom again from him, there are plenty of other good knifemakers out there worth getting in line for man!
I lost the PM since it was months ago... but he did personally PM me after I made a thread addressing this a while back. Obviously I'm on a different side of the fence now, but my advice to you is to just drop it. The unhappy customers no matter how unhappy are going to be a small percentage. I was happy with everything just up until this one incident with stuff that wasn't even mine thats all.
Anyway don't let it get you down and just spend the Specwar money on a custom balisong or something
I lost the PM since it was months ago... but he did personally PM me after I made a thread addressing this a while back. Obviously I'm on a different side of the fence now, but my advice to you is to just drop it. The unhappy customers no matter how unhappy are going to be a small percentage. I was happy with everything just up until this one incident with stuff that wasn't even mine thats all.
Anyway don't let it get you down and just spend the Specwar money on a custom balisong or something
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They have? Mr. Emerson enjoyed the use of my money, nearly $500 for about seven years while I was deprived of it for that same time. IF Mr. Emerson were to explain why he treated me as he did and IF he were to pay me the interest that I could have earned during that time and since, THEN I'd consider that things have been made right. But neither of those things is likely to occur, so I'll disagree with your assessment.
I agree. I think that I have a duty to those who are on the fence about making a purchase from him. As we've seen, just from those who have replied, several people have been dissuaded from making purchases from him. The fanboys will say, "Good, more for me." That is, until they receive the same or similar treatment that you and I have gotten. Then they'll change horses, as you did.
Do you mean that you made a thread addressing my issue? Or are you referring to your issue? In any case, I sure wish that he'd PM me!
Ironic, isn't it?
Of course. You can't make everyone happy all the time. But I'd bet that I'm the extreme case of abuse at the hands of Mr. Emerson that anyone has heard of. I think this balances out those who get great customer service from him. I've always said that "uneven" customer service is BAD customer service. I didn't ask for anything unreasonable, just a knife that he'd agreed to build.
And see how quickly you changed sides? I'm not the type to just let things slide, especially after Mr. Emerson spent quite a bit of time here telling us how GREAT his customer service is. Had he not made that boast, I'd not have said a word. I just wish that Mr. Emerson would man−up and give me an explanation of why he treated me the way that he did.
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As for holding your money, some people probably have waited nearly as long for a Randall custom... it happens. I'm fairly sure that if I know something about Mr E's character, he's not shady at all... clearly his forum presence regardless of context shows that he DOES indeed care about his brand and what he produces.
Just because I switched to other knives, doesn't make his knives worth any less, and I doubt people who have been fans for years are going to care about one sour experience anyway. It's just the way of the consumer and you have to let it go man.
He made a thread addressing my issue. This was only because he was busy at a show for the week.
You know, it might sound a bit crude but perhaps he just plain didn't WANT to make a knife for you, I'm never gonna know what that guy is thinking but for some of the custom bali's out there, you're sort of PICKED to buy one these days for some of the knives I've been into lately in the custom balisong world (Balibalistic, Terry Guinn, Dobruski, Korth). I'm on 2 waiting lists right now for custom balis, could be 6 months, could be sooner...
As for your money, I have never been aware of Mr E taking payment in full for a knife upfront unless it's at a show where it's all due at the table.
As for the Roadhouse, it doesn't matter, Blue Line Gear accepted the return anyway, bless them. They sold an SMF thanks to me for that kindness.
Just because I switched to other knives, doesn't make his knives worth any less, and I doubt people who have been fans for years are going to care about one sour experience anyway. It's just the way of the consumer and you have to let it go man.
He made a thread addressing my issue. This was only because he was busy at a show for the week.
You know, it might sound a bit crude but perhaps he just plain didn't WANT to make a knife for you, I'm never gonna know what that guy is thinking but for some of the custom bali's out there, you're sort of PICKED to buy one these days for some of the knives I've been into lately in the custom balisong world (Balibalistic, Terry Guinn, Dobruski, Korth). I'm on 2 waiting lists right now for custom balis, could be 6 months, could be sooner...
As for your money, I have never been aware of Mr E taking payment in full for a knife upfront unless it's at a show where it's all due at the table.
As for the Roadhouse, it doesn't matter, Blue Line Gear accepted the return anyway, bless them. They sold an SMF thanks to me for that kindness.
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Please lock this thread.
Esav Benyamin
MidniteSuperMod
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I think I'll leave that to the oiginal poster, who already commented on this: