Worst customer service - Cumberlandknives.com

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Nov 22, 2002
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I shop online for knives all of the time and typically get great service - thank you http://www.888knivesrus.com/, http://www.knifecenter.com/, http://www.newgraham.com/ and http://www.ctico.com/ (to mention just a few).

I have had the worst experience with http://www.cumberlandknives.com/.

Around Christmas time, I emailed a couple of companies to see who had a Benchmade 814HS (High Speed Tool Steel) in stock for a Christmas present for a friend. John from Cumberland knives was the first to respond that they had them in stock. I emailed him back to verify that they were in fact the 814HS part number. He verified that they had them. Since he was the first to respond to my email, I ordered two of them from Cumberland knives. When they arrived, they were in fact not the Benchmade 814HS but just regular 814 (154CM). The boxes that they arrived in had the part numbers cut off of the box and they charged me the extra cost of the more expensive 814HS knives.

I contacted them about the mistake and my dissatisfaction, returned the knives with a tracking number and verified that they received them back.

Since then, I have spent more than three months trying to get them to refund my money back to no avail. On at least three different occasions, they have promised it would be credited to my account and each time they failed to do so.

It has gone so far that I have filed a formal complaint against them with the Better Business Bureau in Tennessee.

All of this is over $157 dollars for two knives but it is the absolute principle of the matter.

I called www.newgraham.com because they were the second to respond to my original request and got the exact knife that I ordered for a fair price and it arrived in very short time - thank you!

I wanted to let everyone else know who to use and who not to use.


Best of luck
 
Hopefully you paid with a good CC. Visa, or the like, will do your fighting for you and should get your $ back in short order. Web merchants rely on CC sales to keep afloat. This seems quite strange, as I thought Cumberland enjoyed a good rep. I probably wouldn't have hesitated to use them prior to your post.
 
This is most unusual. I have purchased from John several times and never with the slightest hint of a problem.

I hope you are able to work everything out tshoot.
 
You might e-mail them of this posting. In the past I have noticed a faster response from vendors when thier failings on the Customer Services/ problem resolution side of thier business becomes public.

Good luck in the resolution. I too will avoid them.
 
I also have ordered from Cumberland knives many times, and always got excellent service. In fact, I bet a search of the G,B,U and it's Archive if it exists would turn up TONS of praise for Cumberland knives. They used to be a real hot dealer around here.....Now, I order exclusively from New Graham Knives One Stop Knife Shop and Knives Plus I like to get the "little surprise" from New Graham.
 
Greetings All,

I dropped the ball on this one, and take full responsibility. Here's a brief history of what has happened on our end.

Customer placed order for (2) BM-814HS

We shipped them the wrong items in error. I believe that we mistakenly shipped (2) BM-814BT, and someone in shipping opened up the boxes, saw a plain edge black model and assumed this was the right one, as they had, in fact, a missing area on the tag where the model number should be. We got them that way from a distributor as far as I know, I later asked them about this, but they didn't know either.

Customer takes delivery of the wrong items and contacts us.

We issue a return authorization number for the knives.

Customer ships them back to us.

There was some sort of holdup in accounts payable issueing the refund.

Customer contacted me regarding this.

I told him I would go right down there and straighten it all out.

I didn't...I got caught up in something else. I'm only human, but there's no excuse.

After that, I somehow had the impression that the refund went through ok, since I did not receive any further emails from customer. (I do not doubt that the customer sent emails, but I never got any...sometimes this happens for various reasons)

I have just gone over and made a refund in full personally to the customer's card, and will be sending a little something in the mail as a token of my personal apology.

I value our reputation as a dealer here and on the web and just wanted everyone to know of this.

I'm sorry about all this,

John
 
Well done John. You screwed up and are willing to take it on the chin for doing so. You're reputation here has been very good and your company should not be judged on this one mistake. I am sure it has been a learning experience and if we don't see more of these posts we will know that it has been taken to heart.

As you say, we all mess up from time to time, heaven knows I've had my share. It is how we handle the messes that will ulimately determine what people we deal with think of us.
 
Always nice to see an Ugly turn into something else. Good to hear it was resolved.
 
Pleased this one was resolved.

John's shipped stuff to me in the UK several times (where my Boa, Cuda EDC,MAXX5.5, and Arclite came from :) ) and I have recommended him to others.

His response here validates that feeling.
 
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