My experience with a rude South Afican knife maker.

[KELAMA]

I have the full email chain. Andre sent it to me. At no time was Andre short or rude to the OP by e-mail. that is the reason that the OP cannot show written evidence, as there is none.

The e-mail chain shows that the OP's order was placed and accepted on the 2nd of May and he was quoted a 6-12 month lead time. On the 21st of June he began harassing Andre about when his knife would be complete.
That's 7 weeks later with the Blade Show in-between........ Andre's biggest show of the year! The OP then called Andre at night on his cell to harass him about when the knife would be complete. Andre then got upset and told him that the order was cancelled.

No swearing or ranting just that. The OP feelings and ego were bruised and he decided to get his revenge any way he could.

Andre's communication is very to the point. You won't engage him in long discussions about orders. Its usually just a few lines about which model and materials you want but he is very civil and professional.

It's clearly evident, that the OP's sole purpose for joining BladeForums, is for revenge.

I just wanted to add this, Steven: Since joining BladeForums, I've seen you around posting in a few of the various sub-forums. I rarely post in these other area's (I prefer reading). I've always admired and respected your knowledge, as well as the civility you've displayed here. You're clearly here for the Brotherhood, as well as for your passion, for knives.

If anyone should be here commenting in this thread, it should be the people (like you), familiar with the custom knife scene/maker's in your home Country of South Africa, the S.A. knife guild, along with the OP's reputation for behaving in such a pathetic, childish manner. You owe nobody here, any explanation's, simply because you happen to be good friend's with the maker in question here. Being an avid custom knife hobbyist in South Africa, I would expect this to be the case!

The fact that the OP was the customer does not give him license to harass anyone at night 5 months before the minimum time elapsed for his knife to be built. Sometimes the customer is wrong.

^ NAILED IT!

He is my buddy. I don't tolerate fools either but I always try and be civil. The two are not mutually exclusive.

^

I feel I have to weigh in here and state a few things

1st of all the Op lives in South Africa. He does not speak Afrikaans nor any of the African languages thus his 1st language is English so trying to hide behind comprehension and vocabulary for using the word unethical is nonsense. I actually find it very ironic that he uses unethical here. He is the same person who wrote a bogus email to Kizer knives complaining how a knife was off center and such nonsense, which it was not and it was not even a new knife but 2nd hand. He then pestered them so much with his lies that they sent him a new knife. He then tried to spin me a tale about how he bought it wants to sell it again. Now that is unethical, telling lies to get a knife for free and then try and sell it. This is the same person who has a pilot friend, flies him knives into South Africa, avoids taxes, vat and duties. That is also unethical. But enough about ethics. Let's move on.

It is not just Andre that snubbed this person with orders. There is quite few South African makers who won't accept an order from the OP. Main reason being that he pesters you, always wants to argue about the price and then changes his order more than I change my underwear.

The OP is also the kind of person who would post on IG on the makers post how the knife is too expensive and then later try and contact the maker and order a knife? So publicly he likes to moan but then personally still wants one? I do not understand that one but can anyone blame a maker or makers if word about an individual like this spreads and they then don't want to take their orders

One last point. The OP kept pestering Andre, numerous emails and even phoned at odd hours demanding an A2 in 7 weeks. When Andre then sent him away, because of the constant pestering he contacted the guild. After the 1st guild contact did not give him satisfaction, as his claims are bogus, he contacted a 2nd and 3rd. The 3rd person he contacted then made contact with Andre and after hearing both sides the guild decided not to get involved as Andre was It in the wrong at all. This was based on both sides of the story with relevant information provided where needed.

It is clear that the OP does not realised that it is his behavior that caused the cancelation and the so called rude behavior. By contacting a maker, then 3 of the guild leaders and then finally coming here to voice his opinion it should be clear for all to see that the OP has an axe to grind. He has gone through the correct channels, it was found that Andre was not in the wrong and then in to here.

I am not a knife maker, still learning, but even I have blocked this individual on my phone. He will pester you to death, I have 1st hand experience about this and I am not the only one. I know quite a few of the bigger collectors in South Africa and all of them has blocked this individual.

I know this seems like a rant on my side but I had to comment when I saw a makers name being dragged through the mud when the did nothing wrong. All the maker did was cancel the order after being pestered constantly and I do not blame him

Thank you for weighing in here, & welcome to BF's!

Would you by any chance, be able to post any evidence, substantiating the OP behaving in the manner you stated? That would be very helpful.

And FWIW: somebody made a comment up above, in reference to: "the customer always being right."

That may have been the case, back in the good ole days, back when men behaved like men, shook hands with a firm handshake, prior to entering into some type of business deal...

Those days unfortunately, are long gone!

Now with the advent of the internet, and the anonymity it provides, some people (like the OP) enjoy places like this as their own personal playground. In this case, his goal is revenge, & to destroy a hard working craftsman's, reputation that he's worked long and hard to build.

If all the member's on this forum, lives, were held under a microscope, and they had to be held accountable for every single action, every single day 24/7.... (draw your own conclusion).

As for Andre: major kudos to him, for having the wisdom, intelligence, and business savvy, to steer clear of problematic people like the OP.

 

[Steven65]

I feel I have to weigh in here and state a few things

1st of all the Op lives in South Africa. He does not speak Afrikaans nor any of the African languages thus his 1st language is English so trying to hide behind comprehension and vocabulary for using the word unethical is nonsense. I actually find it very ironic that he uses unethical here. He is the same person who wrote a bogus email to Kizer knives complaining how a knife was off center and such nonsense, which it was not and it was not even a new knife but 2nd hand. He then pestered them so much with his lies that they sent him a new knife. He then tried to spin me a tale about how he bought it wants to sell it again. Now that is unethical, telling lies to get a knife for free and then try and sell it. This is the same person who has a pilot friend, flies him knives into South Africa, avoids taxes, vat and duties. That is also unethical. But enough about ethics. Let's move on.

It is not just Andre that snubbed this person with orders. There is quite few South African makers who won't accept an order from the OP. Main reason being that he pesters you, always wants to argue about the price and then changes his order more than I change my underwear.

The OP is also the kind of person who would post on IG on the makers post how the knife is too expensive and then later try and contact the maker and order a knife? So publicly he likes to moan but then personally still wants one? I do not understand that one but can anyone blame a maker or makers if word about an individual like this spreads and they then don't want to take their orders

One last point. The OP kept pestering Andre, numerous emails and even phoned at odd hours demanding an A2 in 7 weeks. When Andre then sent him away, because of the constant pestering he contacted the guild. After the 1st guild contact did not give him satisfaction, as his claims are bogus, he contacted a 2nd and 3rd. The 3rd person he contacted then made contact with Andre and after hearing both sides the guild decided not to get involved as Andre was It in the wrong at all. This was based on both sides of the story with relevant information provided where needed.

It is clear that the OP does not realised that it is his behavior that caused the cancelation and the so called rude behavior. By contacting a maker, then 3 of the guild leaders and then finally coming here to voice his opinion it should be clear for all to see that the OP has an axe to grind. He has gone through the correct channels, it was found that Andre was not in the wrong and then in to here.

I am not a knife maker, still learning, but even I have blocked this individual on my phone. He will pester you to death, I have 1st hand experience about this and I am not the only one. I know quite a few of the bigger collectors in South Africa and all of them has blocked this individual.

I know this seems like a rant on my side but I had to comment when I saw a makers name being dragged through the mud when the did nothing wrong. All the maker did was cancel the order after being pestered constantly and I do not blame him

Thank you for your insightful post. I suspect I know who you are and we discussed this very topic last weekend at the KGSA show.
I did not know about the Kizer thing. Thanks for sharing that.

I spoke to Andre last night about Imtiaz's language skills.
He does indeed speak English as his primary language and all his e-mail's to Andre display perfect grammar and syntax.
It is interesting than when one looks back over this thread that every time a member assumes and sympathises that he is not English speaking, his spelling, grammar and syntax deteriorate dramatically. He also makes no effort to inform everyone that he is a fluent English speaker.

It's clearly evident, that the OP's sole purpose for joining BladeForums, is for revenge.

I just wanted to add this, Steven: Since joining BladeForums, I've seen you around posting in a few of the various sub-forums. I rarely post in these other area's (I prefer reading). I've always admired and respected your knowledge, as well as the civility you've displayed here. You're clearly here for the Brotherhood, as well as for your passion, for knives.

If anyone should be here commenting in this thread, it should be the people (like you), familiar with the custom knife scene/maker's in your home Country of South Africa, the S.A. knife guild, along with the OP's reputation for behaving in such a pathetic, childish manner. You owe nobody here, any explanation's, simply because you happen to be good friend's with the maker in question here. Being an avid custom knife hobbyist in South Africa, I would expect this to be the case!



^ NAILED IT!



^



Thank you for weighing in here, & welcome to BF's!

Would you by any chance, be able to post any evidence, substantiating the OP behaving in the manner you stated? That would be very helpful.

And FWIW: somebody made a comment up above, in reference to: "the customer always being right."

That may have been the case, back in the good ole days, back when men behaved like men, shook hands with a firm handshake, prior to entering into some type of business deal...

Those days unfortunately, are long gone!

Now with the advent of the internet, and the anonymity it provides, some people (like the OP) enjoy places like this as their own personal playground. In this case, his goal is revenge, & to destroy a hard working craftsman's, reputation that he's worked long and hard to build.

If all the member's on this forum, lives, were held under a microscope, and they had to be held accountable for every single action, every single day 24/7.... (draw your own conclusion).

As for Andre: major kudos to him, for having the wisdom, intelligence, and business savvy, to steer clear of problematic people like the OP.

Thank you for your kind words Sir. As I often say, the love and respect of decent, upright men is a treasure no amount of money can buy. Thank you for that Sir.

This will be my last post in this thread as I feel that I have said my piece.
Andre van Heerden is guilty of nothing more than not wanting to deal with an extremely difficult customer.
When forums like this are used as a tool of revenge and ire it is a sad day.

Lastly let me say again that if the Mods want the e-mail chain, with Andre permission, I am happy to forward them on, or explain in greater detail anything else I have posted.

 

[JJHollowman]

How this thread should have looked: OP: "Just wanted to let everyone know that dealing with Andre van Heerden was a most unpleasant experience. He was rude and short and generally unhelpful when responding to questions I had about an order." Maker or his BFF: "Sorry to hear that you felt that way. Give us a call and we'll do our best to make things right." OP: "Will do, thanks." Thread closed.

Or the alternate but just as closure-filled second possibility:

OP: Hi, It's been almost two months and not trying to rush you, just wondering if you've made any progress on my knife order, your money is safely stored in waiting.

Maker: I'm busy. Don't call me again.

OP:Well,you can cancel that order, jerk. Have a crappy day.

End of story, no post required. As everybody has pointed out here, tons of other makers, life is too short to worry about this as much as you have, just let it go, friend. Not everybody gets along perfectly with everybody. The guy may have been having a bad day. He may be one of those guys that considers a couple calls in two months to be excessive. Whatever. That's his perogative, as it is yours to tell him to shove it and find somebody else to make you something. if there's one constant in the knife game it's that you can love something now, but for sure you'll find something you probably want MORE later,lol.

 

[SharpByCoop]

SharpByCoop said: "The grammar and misspellings alone are enough to convince me of impropriety."

You're going to judge someone's integrity based upon their grammar? Shame on you, Coop. That's absolutely freaking outrageous.

@SpySmasher, I've stayed away from this thread, because as a professional it does me NO GOOD to see my name or opinion get blasted.

(BTW, I used the term 'impropriety', and you declared that as the term 'integrity'. Not the same at all.

However, after 17+ years watching GB&U my 'sense of direction' in the antagonists is pretty keen. Now that the pundits have all spoken and the protagonists have clarified... Was I really outrageous?? I was being clear and seeing things deeper.

I applaud your sense of standing up for him. I wish you didn't belittle me to make your point. We're good.

 

[GermanyChris]

I'm pretty sure I have heard somewhere, " If your in business, the customer is always right."

The customer is not always right as a matter of fact the customer is rarely right but the customer should always be a accommodated.

None of the makers we're talking about "need" the business especially if that business is going to be troublesome.

 

[Scrim]

For what it's worth, I've had several direct interactions with both Andre Thorburn and Andre Van Heerden. Each interaction was polite, professional and enjoyable. They've earned my respect (and repeat business) as makers, artists and honorable & appreciative businessmen. I feel badly about what appears to be happening these days in their home country, and I hope that they & their families are as unaffected by the situation as possible.

 

[katanas]

^^^Perhaps this political/social situation has much to do with a given days attitude. Often, it is obvious that the businessman is a jerk, please try (I mean this for myself also) to keep in mind that, if it is a behavioral anomaly, the person may be in a situation YOU have been in or may BE in which has stressed them too far. Be merciful if you can as you would wish for yourself. If it is longer term or repetitive, another story.