Will a Camillus Club Refund be forthcoming ?

G

george r

Joined
Jun 22, 2004
Messages
2
More help needed, please. I've tried emails and telephones to no avail. Is there anyone there? Will we get a refund for our Life Membership fees for magazines, etc. we haven't received this year? Is there any chance of getting a response from the Club? I have now written a letter from the UK today - so I'll see what happens. What is the situation in the USA when you pay for a service and don't receive it? Rules are different in the UK, by now I would have received some response. Is Rick Rooney still there? I disenchanted life member :mad:
 
I am not sure if the club is on vacation, but I kniw the factory is on vacation and will be back to work on Monday the 18th of July. I hope this helps. John
 
I can understand if there are problems with getting the newsletter and catalog out. What I don't understand is why Camillus will not respond to emails or posts. The club is a company club. A marketing tool. A life membership cost a hundred dollars. I know there are at least twenty seven life members. That is at least $2700 Camillus collected. Give or take for a few free vip memberships. The least Camillus could do is let us know what is going on. I could have bought a pretty nice knife for my $100. Camillus has not been responding to my emails since May. No newsletter or correspondence of any kind so far this year.
 
Back in the 1980's my wife and I published a small magazine that was used by service clubs to find small time entertainers and lecturers. At a certain point it was obvious that the decline in club membership combined with photocopy piracy of our material was draining the profit from the enterprise. We decided that we had to shut it down. The how of shutting it down was a concern. If we stopped taking new subscriptions and advertisements and just let the business run down we would have no revenue stream for printing costs, less material to put in the magazine, and circulation would drop to the point where we wouldn't qualify for bulk mailing rates. In the end it was easiest one day to simply announce that we were closing down the business and to mail out pro-rated refund checks. For annual subscriptions that was simply the annual subscription fee times the number of months remaining divided by 12. For advertisers it was the number of months fees that they had paid in advance. For "lifetime" registration fees for non-advertisers we looked at historical data and decided that the practical lifetime was 10 years. We ammortized those refunds based on how many of the 10 years had already been used. I wrote out hundreds of refund checks, but at least we were free.

If the Camillus Club is not making economic sense it would be the easiest on all parties concerned if you just bail out and issue refunds. It sure is a great feeling to get something like this out of your busy schedule and off your conscience.
 
It certainly would make more business sense than what they are doing right now, which is NOTHING. I myself have become very disenchanted with Camillus, and I am sure that I am not the only one. I wonder if this may even constitute mail fraud, if people sent in their dues by mail and did not receive the product and service that they were purchasing? No explanantion is what is the worst part of the whole scenario. When people lay down $100.00 they should at the least get an explanation of what is going on and what is being done to resolve it. They are really hurting their reputation, at a time when they probably need loyal buyers more than ever. Trust and loyalty works both ways. I am truly baffled at the lack of response. :barf:

Dan
 
Dan,
I meet with the folks at Camillus this week and I inquired about the future of the Camillus Collectors Club. They are reviewing the situation and they will have an answer next week. I will be out of town until the end of this month and I will post an update on BladeForums on August 1st.

Tom Williams
 
Please note, guys... Tom is no longer an employee of Camillus, he is retired from the company. Thanks for going the extra step for us, CAMCO.

Camillus has made some fascinating and excellent knives over the years, and they really should be more 'collectible' than they are. It would be a feat to simply assemble one of each of every knife Camillus made for the US military. I hope to see the Club re-energized, revitalized. You could say I don't have a dog in this fight, 'cause I don't belong to the club and am not out any $, but I do have an interest, since the fall of Schrade, in seeing all US knife companies prosper. And certainly, to see their past products archieved.

Phil

(proud owner of 14 different Texas Toothpicks made by Camillus over the years)

ps, Jeff Clark, you certainly did find an honorable way out of your own situation.
 
I contacted Camillus today and there is no news about the future of the Camillus Collectors Club. I will call again and hopefully I will get an answer.

Tom Williams
 
I've belonged to a couple of clubs that went under and there was no refund of life memberships.
 
The Camillus Collectors Club is a company ran club.

Tom, Thanks again for your efforts. :)
 
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