- Joined
- Dec 9, 2005
- Messages
- 2,402
Well, I was lucky enough to get my order in for the 1 of 50 Benchmade Rift in CPM M4 steel. I really like the design, as my standard model has great fit and finish, a very thin edge, and the 154CM tested at 61 RC, which explains why it is such a good perfoming knife. I love CPM M4, so the design and steel together was great to me. I got #45 of 50 delivered to me on 12/7, and to my dismay when I open up the box my early birthday present has vertical blade play and a stiff Axis lock bar and stiff opening blade. I call Benchmade and their customer service was excellent as they set up for UPS to pick up the knife and overnight it to them to try to get it back to me by my birthday on 12/15. While I sent it I asked if while they were fixing the blade play they could get it to swing as smooth and freely as my standard Rift and most any other Axis lock I've used, thin the edge angle to save me time when I rebevel it, and to put in torx thumb studs to make it quicker for me to remove the thumbstuds for when I sharpen it. On Monday I called in and they said the replaced the liners and the Axis lock and it was nice and smooth with no blade play. They said they also sharpened it and put in the torx thumbstuds for me. They said it was going out overnight so it would arrive on my Birthday Tuesday, 12/15. I was elated and extremely happy with customer service.
Then comes 12/15 and Fed Ex. My wife is a stay at home mom, and after helping out at my daughter's school in the morning by 11:45 she was home and my Father in law came over to hang out for the afternoon. USPS had dropped off a priority package that is a present for my daughter, but no Fed Ex. She smokes and goes out the front door to do this every 1/2 hour or so, and never saw a package or heard a knock or ring of the doorbell. My wife did leave from about 2-3 PM to buy food for my Birthday dinner, but my Father in law was there the whole time. When I got home at 4:15 I called Benchmade to check on the status as the knife wasn't there, and it took about 15 minutes to get a customer service agent that tracked the package on the Fed Ex site for me only to say it was due to be delivered 12/15. I asked if she could please e mail me the tracking number so I could track it myself later if Fed Ex didn't show up, but I just figured I must be at the end of their route. I had a great birthday dinner and forgot about the whole Fed Ex thing until about 7:30 when I started to get worried.
At 7:30 I tracked the package online and saw that it had been supposedly left at my door at 12:52 PM, when my wife and Father in law were both there. Why didn't the customer service rep at Benchmade tell me that piece of the info, as she had said she was electronically tracking the package and I know she saw that note, but all she said was that it was due that day. I would have called Fed Ex immediately to check on it. Anyway, I called Fed Ex and got out the flashlight to look around everywhere in front of my house and each adjacent neighbor (the place to the right of mine is vacant). The Fed Ex guy said sometimes they leave these packages that require no signature with nieghbors, so while on the phone with Fed Ex I talk to my next door nieghbor to my left that I'm pals with and he said no package was left at his door, and no one was home around 12:52 PM. Now Fed Ex says the best they can do is have their driver retrace his route and call me in the next day. After that I went to the nearest side street with the number 3 in their address like mine, and he reported nothing being left at his place.
It now appears I am screwed. Maybe Benchmade figured no signature required would allow me to get the knife for my Birthday on time if no one was home, but in this case it may have allowed a bozo driver to either give someone else my 1 of 50 knife that can't be replaced or kept it for himself. If the knife doesn't turn up I don't want a refund, I want an M4 Rift. I hear Benchmade keeps the first 3 of any run, so they have 3 replacements. For the great price that blade was had for I sure as hell don't want credit as I don't want any other Benchmades right now. I love the Rift and I really love CPM M4, and getting money back for a knife I bought and had in my hands but had lost in transit due to Benchmade's QC being bad is unacceptable. The only other Benchmade knife in M4 I bought was a 760 which had a blade so far off center that it was hitting the handle, so I have had bad luck with the QC on Benchmade's M4 knives. My standard Rift is flawless, and it looks like the other 1 of 50 M4 Rifts were very good, but I was the unlucky sap to get a bad apple Rift. I really hope Benchmade finds a way to offer a replacement M4 Rift, otherwise I might not be buying from them again. I realize this was a Fed Ex error on delivery (though signature confirmation is something I like), and that production knives will not all be perfect, but on a 1 of 50 run how does a knife leave the factory with vertical blade play and a very sticky lock? I also put in the notes to the vendor in my order to check for QC issues, especially blade play, but they said it was so busy that day they must have overlooked the note. Oh well, we'll see how this shakes out, but this is deflating. I thought I'd have a happy birthday with a knife I've really been looking forward to and I only got a continuation of my bad luck. I was hospitalized for 4 days with pnuemonia, and missed 2 weeks of work due to it as my lungs were still pnuemonia riddled and partially collapsed for over a week after I got out of the hospital. Then last Friday night I step on one of my daughter's very expensive toys (at least we were able to glue it back together) that she had covered with stuffed animals and got two good sized gashes in my feet with fat coming out of them. Then they had to spend about a 1/2 hour digging around in my foot to get a piece of the toy that was lodged in my foot out of there. Needless to say that is not feeling to good right now. Then the knife I wanted so bad, and actually had in my hands for a short while disappears. It has been a rough few weeks for me, I really hope they can cheer me up be finding this knife or replacing it with another one.
Mike
Then comes 12/15 and Fed Ex. My wife is a stay at home mom, and after helping out at my daughter's school in the morning by 11:45 she was home and my Father in law came over to hang out for the afternoon. USPS had dropped off a priority package that is a present for my daughter, but no Fed Ex. She smokes and goes out the front door to do this every 1/2 hour or so, and never saw a package or heard a knock or ring of the doorbell. My wife did leave from about 2-3 PM to buy food for my Birthday dinner, but my Father in law was there the whole time. When I got home at 4:15 I called Benchmade to check on the status as the knife wasn't there, and it took about 15 minutes to get a customer service agent that tracked the package on the Fed Ex site for me only to say it was due to be delivered 12/15. I asked if she could please e mail me the tracking number so I could track it myself later if Fed Ex didn't show up, but I just figured I must be at the end of their route. I had a great birthday dinner and forgot about the whole Fed Ex thing until about 7:30 when I started to get worried.
At 7:30 I tracked the package online and saw that it had been supposedly left at my door at 12:52 PM, when my wife and Father in law were both there. Why didn't the customer service rep at Benchmade tell me that piece of the info, as she had said she was electronically tracking the package and I know she saw that note, but all she said was that it was due that day. I would have called Fed Ex immediately to check on it. Anyway, I called Fed Ex and got out the flashlight to look around everywhere in front of my house and each adjacent neighbor (the place to the right of mine is vacant). The Fed Ex guy said sometimes they leave these packages that require no signature with nieghbors, so while on the phone with Fed Ex I talk to my next door nieghbor to my left that I'm pals with and he said no package was left at his door, and no one was home around 12:52 PM. Now Fed Ex says the best they can do is have their driver retrace his route and call me in the next day. After that I went to the nearest side street with the number 3 in their address like mine, and he reported nothing being left at his place.
It now appears I am screwed. Maybe Benchmade figured no signature required would allow me to get the knife for my Birthday on time if no one was home, but in this case it may have allowed a bozo driver to either give someone else my 1 of 50 knife that can't be replaced or kept it for himself. If the knife doesn't turn up I don't want a refund, I want an M4 Rift. I hear Benchmade keeps the first 3 of any run, so they have 3 replacements. For the great price that blade was had for I sure as hell don't want credit as I don't want any other Benchmades right now. I love the Rift and I really love CPM M4, and getting money back for a knife I bought and had in my hands but had lost in transit due to Benchmade's QC being bad is unacceptable. The only other Benchmade knife in M4 I bought was a 760 which had a blade so far off center that it was hitting the handle, so I have had bad luck with the QC on Benchmade's M4 knives. My standard Rift is flawless, and it looks like the other 1 of 50 M4 Rifts were very good, but I was the unlucky sap to get a bad apple Rift. I really hope Benchmade finds a way to offer a replacement M4 Rift, otherwise I might not be buying from them again. I realize this was a Fed Ex error on delivery (though signature confirmation is something I like), and that production knives will not all be perfect, but on a 1 of 50 run how does a knife leave the factory with vertical blade play and a very sticky lock? I also put in the notes to the vendor in my order to check for QC issues, especially blade play, but they said it was so busy that day they must have overlooked the note. Oh well, we'll see how this shakes out, but this is deflating. I thought I'd have a happy birthday with a knife I've really been looking forward to and I only got a continuation of my bad luck. I was hospitalized for 4 days with pnuemonia, and missed 2 weeks of work due to it as my lungs were still pnuemonia riddled and partially collapsed for over a week after I got out of the hospital. Then last Friday night I step on one of my daughter's very expensive toys (at least we were able to glue it back together) that she had covered with stuffed animals and got two good sized gashes in my feet with fat coming out of them. Then they had to spend about a 1/2 hour digging around in my foot to get a piece of the toy that was lodged in my foot out of there. Needless to say that is not feeling to good right now. Then the knife I wanted so bad, and actually had in my hands for a short while disappears. It has been a rough few weeks for me, I really hope they can cheer me up be finding this knife or replacing it with another one.
Mike
