POOR customer service

After encountering high praise for Survive!'s sharp things on the internet in recent years, I pre-ordered a GSO 4.1 in August, 2015. At the time I knew nothing about their production and customer service issues, but their website explained the quasi-crowd-funding business model and made it clear that I should not expect delivery for at least a few months.

Over the next seven months, despite never having even seen one of Guy's knives in person, I caught the Survive! fever from this subforum and ended up pre-ordering seven more GSO knives -- partly because of their reputation for quality and value, partly because that seemed the only way to acquire the new models, and partly because I wanted to support a plucky young entrepreneur and his lady love.

Since then I have been following the progress of Survive!'s production schedule via their monthly updates, their Instagram posts, and the discussion on this forum. When they announced that GSO 4.1's were starting to ship I thought, "Finally -- I hope they're worth the wait!" That was four or five months ago. I have yet to see one.

Is this frustrating? A bit. All else equal I would much prefer to receive the items I ordered sooner rather than later. However, thanks to Chiral and Silver and others here -- all of whom seem to be acting in good faith and none of whom I know other than from their posts on this site -- I have reason to believe that Survive! is not a scam and that my patience will eventually be rewarded, even if the time frame is much, much longer than expected.

Yet there is a niggling concern whispering in the corners of my conscious mind that causes me to wonder whether Survive!'s business practices may cause the company to go under before my orders are fulfilled. Threads here describing unheeded requests for refunds, frequent broken promises, and chronic unresponsiveness to customer inquiries and requests all feed that concern. No matter how good their products or services, businesses that neglect customer service are not likely to ... well ... survive!

 

Did you get a full refund or was there some type if restocking fee? Im thinking with paypal, it was full..

 

So, S!K refused to issue a refund and PayPal got the customer his money back.

In addition to being liars, it appears that S!K either does not have the money to issue refunds or is simply unwilling to do so.

There is a lot more that could be said about the owners background and the company's terrible customer service track record. However, at this point, I think this incident is really all most buyers need to know. This is not the way "good" businesses or ethical people act.

Many S!K "fans" will continue to ignore this or change the subject and post about how cool and economical S!Ks knives are. It truly baffles me that members who seem to be such good people are willing to give S!K a pass despite the company's pattern of deception and terrible customer service...

 

Oh, man, do I have a solution for you! When you see a thread about poor customer service, requesting a refund, etc. very carefully move your mouse cursor (or finger if you're on a mobile device) AWAY from the thread title and scroll down. Problem solved! That way you don't have to read material you find tiresome AND it doesn't look like you're trying to silence valid criticisms of poor business practices.

No need to thank me.

 

All signs point to the company being way off on deadlines and it looks like they may have ran out of money or it just isn't available. Bad news, I'd say. The good thing is, using PayPal I think we are safe as far as getting a refund (correct me if I'm wrong).

Most of this is even worse because the people at survive really won't come out and get ahead of these issues. I think they really need to be more open.

Insipid - I think you have some issues man. I hope someday you find out what makes you happy and get it worked out. I actually have compassion for people like you.

 

PayPal claims are only good for 180 days / 6 months from the transaction.

Dragfree has ordered 8 knees beginning August 2015 and hasn't received 1 yet. That's like $2K. Can you imagine how much they owe in pending prepaid orders?

 

I can relate. I'm in for around $1120. I have a few days before I hit six months on my earliest order. I have a decision to make, take a chance and wait to see if a 4.1 second shows up or get my money back through a paypal dispute. Looks like trying to get a refund from the company might not work.

 

My wife's knee was $26,000. Glad we had insurance.

 

I ordered a gso factory second they told me 90 days. ITS NOW BEEN 194 days!!!! And Still no word.

I even asked if I could just switch to a regular gso knife they told me no. And that my factory second would ship on less then a month and it's been 90+ days since. I called a mouth ago no answer and been calling once a week since with no answer

 

Agreed I just posted my experience above. I think they stole my money. I've asked for a refund multiple times that they won't allow

 

So they haven't made that second yet?

 

No they haven't. And I can't even get in contact with them anymore. I truly think they stole my money. And I really need to figure out how to open a dispute.

I've asked for a refund the first time around the 110 day mark. They told me it would be done in 20 days. Around the 160 days I asked for a refund they said they would send the knife in 2 days. Now 40 days latter still can't get an answer. I ordered the knife on 2/11-17 gso 4.1 factory second

 

I can only speak for myself, not anyone else. I know that you and I have both followed the company closely, each with a different perspective, and I have respect for what you say, even though I've sometimes disagreed with it. I've been trying to separate the actions of the company from my friends, the forum regulars. If the company goes down, a whole lot of my friends, and many other folks that I haven't met, are going to be taking a loss. Man I don't want to see that. My loyalty lies with my friends here.

This place has been one of a couple of my homes within Bladeforums. It's been a spot where I can put my feet up and share a few hunting stories and talk about what knives you were out with this weekend. And I've learned a lot and tried to give a good turn here when I'm able because the folks are easy for me to talk to and exceedingly generous. But then I read things like how confidence in some of us here has been a factor with folks ordering. Or what you mentioned above, that it seems a totally free pass has been given, and both of those things give me pause. I've hung in because even though the refunds were slow, they did always happen. Or the knife did finally get delivered. But this barrage of unanswered refund requests has me sick to my stomach.

I don't know where else I'm really going with this except to say that I will always come to the defense of my friends, whom I hope in some small way can be distinguished from the company. But that I feel about as low as a guy can feel tonight seeing more of these missed refunds.

David

 

^ Dave, I'm also on the same wavelength with you on this one although beside the one GSO-2.7 gifted to my Ex on her last BD (Sept 2016) I sold off all my other GSOs (whether previously ordered thru Survive! or the secondary market) along with the cancellation of all my preorders back in June of 2016 (GSO 6 and GSO 4.5). Throughout my dealings and orders which I had placed with Survive! including the cancellations, Ellie was always very friendly, cordial and swift with taking actions. When Survive! was running the Mondays sales efficiently, I received my F-2nd orders within 4-5 weeks max from the time I had placed the orders. I think my refund request took 3 weeks tops and even that was considered a bit too long at that time but IIRC that was the time that the Survive! Crew had taken a couple of weeks off to go to HI for a funeral for a few days and then Guy was moving his G'Ma in with them. I am sorry if I am not entirely correct on the chronology or the details as my memory of those events is a bit fuzzy ow that over a year has passed...

Just like you I have also met some great friends on here and in fact this is the subforum where I earned my wings, so to speak under the mentoring of none other than yourself at the very outset For the sake of repeating it again but not at the expense of coming across as boastful, I had defended Survive! against innuendos or blatant accusations of fraud, being Ponzi scheme, sham operation, etc. The old threads are still there and my stated opinions are also there. Gawd knows that I got lampooned, lambasted, ridiculed, decimated over primarily sticking up for the kind of kinship we had developed over here which in retrospect had caused clouded judgement about some Survive! practices which O was not initially aware of. It is worth noting that I never had any skin in the pre-sale, pre-order, start-up, yada, yada programs. I had never, ever owned a Survive! Knife before i stumbled onto here quite by accident and in fact had it not been for the friendliness and the camaraderie of this sub, I would've simply walked away...

I am going to continue in a new post just because I do not want to put up a serious wall of text all in one place and get the dreaded TL;DR

 

Dave, I am sincerely sorry to hear you are feeling this way, especially considering you are among the most decent and genuine folks that I have met here on the forums.
It is terrible to hear of the continued failed refunds and answered calls and emails, who knows where this could lead - whether or not the issue will resolve or continue to corrode...
But I hope the issues do work themselves out in the near future for the sake of all, both the customers awaiting knife arrivals and those who are trying to retract their sale. I hate injustice no matter the circumstances surrounding them, but keep your head up and remain hopeful that things work themselves out.

I am rambling a little, but felt your post needed to be responded too because of the lowness that you're experiencing, I hate to hear that. Always remember, at this point; there is always room and hope for things to improve or at least for issues and neglect to resolve. Time will tell but either way I do hope your lowness dissipates and that your pleasant times decimates the negatives.

All the best

 

Continued...

Now onto present day after witnessing these threads popping up, time and time again every few weeks or so in light of the facts that the lag time on F-2nd deliveries have become quite horrendous (6 months or so? maybe more?) while the F-1st deliveries are approaching almost 2 years or more on certain GSOs in addition to refund requests which have become like a street fight scene! It was not up until my awareness of the most recent events with the fire which I found very illuminating and very telling as to why things when downhill so fast. Perhaps I should keep my mouth shut but my problem is that I am an opinionated person, although I try to remain fair in my assessments, even when I feel that my opinions are based more on speculations than facts or there lack of! IMHO, there is an elephant in the room in here which must be discussed:

Putting the jigsaw puzzle together, there is no doubt in my mind that the seeking process and the acquisition of that commercial property (the now burned down former hotel) sapped Guy's all crucial time and prevented him from staying fully focused on what should've been his primary goal, i.e, fulfilling orders on the backlogged orders while blasting away on ALL cylinders. I am not blaming the man for being astute, aware and on the look out to wheel / deal on a piece of commercial property to provide security for his and his family's future, becoming the mortgagor instead of throwing away money as a renter, collecting rent as an added income stream, etc... I am not even prepared to venture down the path of conspiracy, hearsay, illegalities, cross-correlation of different business entities and sources of funds, etc; although I am aware of some serious legal ramifications if different business entities were not set up properly leaving doubts and ambiguity when there are certain legal claims and actions on one business which can lead to investigation s and claims on other unrelated businesses which share the same owners. None of this in the last paragraph withstanding!

I must therefore place blame squarely on the person / people who run and operate Survive! for dereliction of their primary duty, specially since the customers funded the operation in advance of any products! None of this would've really mattered if the crowd had not funded the operation and the principals had used their own funds, bank loans, investors, hard money lenders, etc; or if the business was chugging along so smoothly that the owner wanted to expand his wings and ambitions into other projects and interests. In my 54 years of life and almost 35 years of those being involved in entrepreneurial ventures in one form or another, the most failures which I have personally witnessed and had experienced happened when someone / myself neglected the primary task at hand and got too ambitious for one's own good all the while abandoning or not fully sticking with the initial impetus of what put that person on the proverbial map in the first place.

I was hoping that perhaps getting the S!K lines rolling would help out the operation but I am increasingly becoming doubtful about this enterprise. I have said what I have fully when knowing that these are some damning words coming from me, but I felt compelled that it was the right thing to do after what I read last week. I had a conversation about this privately with a couple of other current / ex Survivors! and naturally opinions vary which I respect. In fact one of the best BFC friends whom I found on this very subforum who currently has about $1250 into GSO preorders told me privately that if Survive! fails, "he will have a great story to tell". Case in point: some people will literally get a heart attack and some like our common friend, who is not a wealthy man, have the ability to down a glass of Scotch (neat I hope) and utter "fark it, sh*t happens!". It all depends on one's perspective and intestinal fortitude. IMHO, sticking through with Survive! is no longer for the faint of heart.

Apologies for the longwinded piece

 

No worries! I stay happy by cleverly avoiding content I don't care to read and by exercising my razor keen wit amongst like minded folk! And, of course, when I buy the occasional sharp and pointy.

 

I'm friends.... that is very close friends with a disgruntled ex survive knives employee and I'm warning everyone here that is a customer waiting for products to ship, you better demand a refund ASAP. I scrolled through a couple of these threads and it's a shame that some people continue to want to believe in guy. I get it they make a great knife and they probably had good intentions from the beginning. This isn't the case right now. They owe a lot of people money not including just their customers. They screwed up big-time. Y'all do know he's a convicted felon and is currently being investigated for that fire? It's time for the owners of this website to shut down this thread for survive knives and accept the fact that they failed and their customers deserve better. Come on people open your eyes.