No Knife :-(

You say you have a contingency plan with funds to back it up. If so and you cannot deliver, plus you have taken a customers cash, you should send them a refund.

Your original ad says sheath included, that implies the knife ships within two days. Your ad however does not show the sheath. it appears you listed the knives for sale before the full product was finished.

 

Well crap. It seems there are so many of us in the same boat.

I truly hope you do get better. It would be sad for you and custom knives in general for your career to end. You know how much I love your work.

Problems with the spine (for those that are healthy) are all encompassing. Nothing I've experienced has the capability to utterly shut your life down like spinal issues. I just had my third surgery (third spinal fusion with cages) and I'm in the process of applying for permanent disability. I have no other choice.

I'm glad to hear that you have a plan in place to handle a situation like this. I was very fortunate to have just enough time to finish all of my outstanding orders before going under the knife.

From my experience I can say that Ian is a good guy. I'm glad to see that this situation seems to be working out.

 

Maybe you should read Ian's post about the sheath...

He clearly explains the 'Sheath' issue.....

Most people that end up in the GBU in this context deserve your post, However, maybe you need to head back to page 1, read ALL of it, and settle down.

If you see anymore to this than what you read there at this point, then you're just reaching for something.

The man has explained his situation very clearly and has not excused himself entirely of fault.

Maybe this will all turn into what you hope it is, BS. However, until then, maybe show a little bit of what makes us human.

 

When I bought a knife from Ian last year the sheath wasn't done because he wanted to give the buyer the option for the sheath they want. No added cost and I got to choose the sheath I wanted. Seeing a knife you love but the sheath isn't designed to your liking can turn a buyer off. Took more than a few days to ship but I was informed about the sheath needing to be built during our first correspondence after "I'll take it".

Perhaps it could have been posted in the add that the sheath is included in price but not yet made so the buyer can pick how he wants it. Hindsight...

 

Well said.............:thumbup:

 

Edited, due to the disappointing direction this thread has taken.

Hopefully, all will be resolved, for all parties involved.

 

I commend the both of you for taking this approach to the situation. And good for you Ian by responding to the 'shot across the bow' in the right way, and not letting it produce the knee-jerk reaction that we see too often :thumbup: I hope this works out for the both of you.

David

 

Ian,
I'd like a refund or I'd like the knife I ordered sent out Monday please. You initially told me the knife was already made, and that there would be no shipping delay, then a 1-2 day delay in shipping to have a sheath made. I heard nothing for 2 weeks, emailed you, and you said you would get tracking info to me. It's been another 2 weeks with no communication from you. I'm sorry you're going through a rough time. I'm currently going through a divorce, and $200 is a lot of money for me right now. You can even send the sheath at a later date if you want. FTR you seem like a standup guy, and a very talented knife maker. Hope things work out for you. Thanks- Jason

 

I'm a little confused about the two weeks thing, because I see us exhanging several emails as recent as 5 days ago, between Aug 1st and Aug 3rd.

I looked back at our conversations, I wanted to make sure I got this right, so I went ahead and looked up what I said:

"I am slightly backlogged due to ongoing back problems, but this piece is already finished, and I am starting a leather run in the next 1-2 days, so I don't expect any notable delay in shipment"

I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough. I would be a starting a leather run, which means working multiple sheaths at once or in succession, which would be a several day process. When things are running normally, I try to do this approx every 1wk-1.5wks so that it minimizes the delay for anyone who purchases a knife in between.

This fits in with my 7-10 day target for completion when I am healthy and everything is going reasonably well. I would consider 2-3weeks questionable, and 30 days+ as poor, which is where we sit unfortunately.

Just let me know if you really want a refund, or you really want the knife, and I'll make your preference happen.

Edit: I feel for you on the divorce thing. I'm sorry you're going through that and I understand this is a big investment for you.

I may have been falling apart pretty bad for a while now, but that doesn't mean I won't make good on my business. You'll get a knife or your money, just as the OP will. I'll leave the decision in your hands, as I did for the OP.

 

I also bought and paid for a knife from that thread and haven't received it.
Paid on 6/13
Sent e-mails after 2 weeks, and then after 3 weeks, heard from wdtorque that he hadn't heard anything either.
Opened paypal dispute on 7/14.
Heard from Ian, he explained his situation, said it was just the sheath holding things up, asked me if I wanted the knife or a refund. I did (do) want the knife, so I told him if he thought he could get it done I'd be OK with more wait.
Ian contacted me on 7/24, asked for my address, and I immediately sent it to him, assuming it would be shipped soon.
8/3, I let the paypal dispute expire without escalating (hope that doesn't come back to bite me).
8/8, still hopeful, would love to hear something.
Ian, if the sheath's not done I'll take the knife without a sheath and take care of that myself.

 

Hi Dave,

You won't regret letting the dispute expire. I will not let anyone walk away without being made whole on their transaction, whatever that may require.

In fact, I had intended to handle most of the rest of this today, and drop off packages before 3PM (one of my post offices has extended Saturday hours).

Unfortunately I fell down the stairs this morning. I wasn't kidding when I said I was having trouble with the stairs (I'm smiling because I thought it was funny that it looked like a Nike logo, not because I don't take this seriously):



Somehow I managed not to hurt my back any worse, I ended up with a couple abrasions and I thought 2 broken toes, but only one is swelling up so I think I only broke the one toe.



I originally hurt my back in March as I said earlier in the thread. I hadn't finished any knives for a couple months, and I hadn't listed any here on BF in a while. I had about 2-3weeks where I felt I was on the mend, and I felt good enough to risk a small batch, which was the listing you all are posting about. That was the only new batch of knives I've completed since late March, besides a single knife in April.. I think not even a week after the listing, my back went to hell again.

Your sheaths are finished, it is more a matter that I am working through my backlog in shipping. I've been averaging about a half a dozen blades per shop day, which works out to about 10 blades a week at my current rate. I've shipped about 50 blades from my backlog, and I have about a dozen left including the ones listed in the sale ad.

I'm going to be setting up the folding table in a few moments, My process is that I print all of the labels, write the customer info on the tear-off side, and then place all of the knives and sheaths with their labels. I go through one by one and clean, hone, and prep for shipment. After all are ready and have had final inspection, I seal the packages up and call that a "shipping batch".

I'll be printing all of the labels from that thread after I finish typing this, so I will make sure to check back here and let everyone know that the tracking has gone out. I'll check back to this thread this evening and post pictures of all of the blades and their sheaths along with their labels and boxes.

 

Do.you have a transaction pending? If not, put your brown shoe in your mouth, and stop being a Hall monitor.

 

Labels have been generated for all buyers from the thread. Ritt should have tracking automatically attached to the transaction, wdtorque and 91wm6 were printed via usps.com; paypal didn't show address info for them.

I'm going to attempt to amend the transaction details with the tracking info for each of them, if you are unable to see it please let me know and I will make sure you get it.

Edit: paypal wouldn't let me amend the tracking to the transaction details, so I went ahead and emailed tracking directly to each of you.

I'll post the finished blades later this evening once I have everything set out. I have cleaning to do first.

 

Ian, have you considered Bond Insurance? I believe that may be helpful moving forward, although a pre-existing injury may pose a problem.

I've had 3 falls since surgery. Two were from standing too quickly and passing out. For what it's worth you are in my prayers. Your customers too. This is very serious business and I hope everyone can see it for what it is.

I'll bow out now as I don't have a horse in this race, all I can say is that Ian has gone way out his way to ensure that I was a happy customer. I'd bet money that he'll do the same for everyone involved.

 

Edit: Since I didn't get to reply to all, thanks for the kind words everyone, they probably aren't deserved, but I appreciate them nonetheless.

I don't have any grip left in my left hand, so when I lost my balance I couldn't catch the banister. I mean I caught it, I just didn't hold on to it. That is why I mentioned earlier in the thread, I've spent up to a week at a time sleeping downstairs because I'm so afraid of not making it up or down safely.

I grew up in a house with stairs too, and as far as I know, I can't remember falling down a single time unless I was playing around as a kid. Kind of embarrassing.

It sucks to hear you're going through this too. I think the worst part for me, is how close I came to wrapping all of this up without having anyone bring it to paypal or the feedback forum. I have plenty of customers that give me more loyalty than I probably deserve, but if I can't get better, making and selling knives while knowing there is a risk of this happening again, is completely unethical IMO.

These last couple weeks have been rougher than usual. We unexpectedly found out Robin was pregnant the week before last, so now I'm looking at being a father that can't even provide for his own child. We lost the last one, and so now she is high risk, we had three appts. last week alone at the baby doc. One of the appts. I had to wipe my face before going into the waiting room, because I was tearing up from the pain on the drive over to the office.

Thursday morning one of my irrigation pipes burst, and so I spent the entire day trying to get that handled because everything takes me 10x longer than it should. Luckily I was able to get someone out in time to keep all of the plants alive. You only get like 2 days here in the desert, and we already water minimally because of the drought.


Up until a few weeks ago I was actually keeping things well under control... but communication is the golden rule for custom knives, and I broke it, even if temporarily.

 

May I make a suggestion:
Maybe telling those who order or wish to order that you cannot promise a delivery date because your health has you at less than 100%

Health issues suck but they are not reserved for just knife makers. Many of your buyers have health issues and the money they send you was hard to come by because of health issues. It is NOT only you in a transaction, it takes two!!!

 

He does have a point though. Items sold on the Exchange should be complete and ready to ship. If not, it needs to be clearly stated in the FS ad. If the sheaths aren't completed to give buyers a choice, it also should be clearly stated in the FS ad.
If hes not able to produce the items in the agreed timeframe, he needs to be vigilant on his communication with his customers. Noone likes to send prompt payment and then have the craftsman not answer his customers concerns in a timely manner.
And as Wolfmann stated...it might be a good idea for him to mention he isn't working at 100% at the time of sale.

There is much one can do to mitigate/remove these type problems with a bit of forethought.

I do commend Mr. Halls responses here and his honesty in trying his best to work things out with his paid order customers. I wish him well and relief...I know all too well pain, spasm and numb fingers/hands. I'm not too far from disabled myself and have a wife who is disabled due to a car accident.

 

These are all samples from my 2015 sale ads (I think there's a dec 2014 in there somewhere):

I think nearly every single knife I have ever sold on this forum has had similar wording to the above. I picked randomly from a "posted threads" search on myself and I think if either of you do the same you'll find that is indeed how I normally do things.

I'm not sure why the ONE ad on BF where I end up having health problems, I forgot to use that wording for god knows what reason. I suspect it is because I have been posting on IG a lot and may have copied the wording over while posting on my phone or tablet. Things are done a little different over there because nobody reads the descriptions.

If you look through my sale ad history over the past couple years, you'll find that the overwhelming majority of my listings use the wording "made to order" in the description.

I've made and sold hundreds of knives at this point, and I think that maybe two or three had pre-made sheaths. It just isn't how I have done things, because I feel customers deserve a chance to choose their sheath.

I know there's a lot of typing in this thread so far, but somewhere back there are quotes informing customers about my health issues, in fact it was mentioned in the first sentence of the sale thread in question (although in that mention should have been with more specific emphasis in the wording maybe?).



Either way I don't disagree with either of you.

 

It does not matter much what the Ad says if conversation via phone or E-mail say something else.

If you say the knife is ready, make sure it IS 100% done and ready
If you say it will ship in a few days, ship it in no more than a few days
If you need time to make the sheath, take photos of the completed knife so your buyer knows his knife is completed.
If you get sick and cannot deliver, COMMUNICATE that to all with knife orders.
Communication is the key to a smooth deal. Bad communication can make one appear less than honest.

Deals go south when the Maker says the knife is ready to ship and does not ship..............................................