Your dollar is worth more than a dollar (to us)!

[madglf3]

I've experienced great customer service, after recently purchasing a set of coilovers and other odds and ends. They responded at what would have been first thing in the morning for them and the response was very well written and helpful.

[Big_M]

I've ordered a few times from ECS now and have touch wood not had any problems what so ever.
Thinking of a new order sometime soon too.

[mikinoz]

I feel that I should make a small post here on the experience I had with ECS tuning over the last 3 months - which affected not just myself but 4 other forum members who were in part of a group buy.

In noticing that ECS were a forum sponsor, I contacted Chris who was at the time the person who was posting here on VWW. I was looking for a set of new bumpers for my MK1, front and rear and sent a message to Chris requesting a price. Promptly he responded saying that he would look into it for me. A few days later which was a reasonable time frame, he returned with a price. This was a really sharp price as I had been looking around a bit.

Once I had that price I started a quick EOI on here to see if anyone else wanted to get a pair. This was both to support ECS as the price was good and returning some good will to them for their effort, and the other to help the members here get a better price. It turned out that I had orders for 4 sets.

I returned to Chris and he got me to place the order online. I was contacted by ECS orders department to say that the order was placed and that the shipping was $XX - which was 4 times the amount quoted. I was pretty upset about this and contacted Chris. I did make contact over this and then he adjusted the shipping costs to reflect the price he quoted me. It was at this time I was advised that the items are actually not in stock and would be 8-12 weeks from the supplier in Europe. Being keen to get them and in no hurry, I said we would wait and I told the other buyers.

After 8 weeks, it appeared that the rear bumpers were in but not the fronts. So I then asked Chris to split ship the rears and then the fronts when they came into stock. He agreed that was a good idea, and amended the order into 2 shipments and charged my card. Some days later after not receiving a shipping consignment number, but having had my card charged over US$1000 - I made contact to see where they were and how to trace them.

A few days later I was contacted to say that there has been an error in the shipping quote I was provided;

Michael,

I don't know how to tell you this, but I'll just be straightforward with it all. We are not able to utilize UPS small package for the bumpers. The girth and weight exceeded UPS small package limitations for international shipments. This is entirely my fault as an individual for not cross-referencing the rate from UPS with their limitations table. I made the mistake of assuming the rate quoted from UPS was accurate for all packages, but it is not possible to ship the bumpers for anywhere near the rate we agreed upon. I tried to get the shipping manager to override the difference but it is such a drastic price difference that we cannot send the shipment. I completely understand if you want to cancel your orders. Between this shipping debacle and the wait/inventory issues I don't blame you. I would hope you don't take this out on ECS as a whole since this was my personal mistake.

My apologies, would you like me to cancel your order?
Chris

...continued below...

[mikinoz]

...from above...

At this time I was pretty upset. My card was charged for the purchase, we had an agreed price, and I had people over here waiting for these items. I returned an email outlining my my view a quoted price is a quote and in Australia a business is held to that, and that if ECS were willing to charge my card for the order that is clearly contractual.

That is a really bad piece of news to receive. I am sure it is not easy news to have to deliver either.

So the situation that I am now in is pretty awkward, so I will outline it all in a pretty straightforward manner as I think that you need to know how it is going to impact me on a number of levels, and subsequently ECS as well.

To start, I appreciate the willingness to try to help me with this purchase from the outset. In itself, it is great to find someone willing to assist people overseas, and that is a credit to you.

When I originally enquired about the bumpers, I went out to a number of vendors and with your service level and willingness to show some flexibility and creativity in shipping the items to me, I was more than happy to spend money with ECS.

As you will remember, I then went and expanded the amount of people who were going to take this offer on, which was I thought going to work well for both you getting more revenue and some others here getting a great deal.

As time went by, we had the back-order delay, the splitting the orders etc etc. In all it has been about 6 weeks now since I first made contact with you.

After the confusion over the order the other day where I questioned the email from the sales team that stated that the shipping price was going to have to increase, and then you stated that was incorrect and that it was going to remain the same, I was quite relieved. Unfortunately today we now find ourselves back in the same situation.

I am sure you can see from the chain of events that it has become frustrating for me to say the least. I am now been placed in a position where I am being told that I am not going to get the items I wished to purchase, have to liaise with and gently let down 3 other people here in Australia and tell them that I am no longer able to assist them with the orders of bumpers that they wanted. That is not great for me personally as I value my word and when I say I can deliver something I will do all I can to make it happen. However, I think this is the real issue - My credit card has been charged a number of days ago for large sums of money to cover these orders, of which I now won't receive the component that founded the order.

Let me deal with the principle of the matter before I get into the details. In short, I understand that there has been a mistake made, and that I appreciate is simply how it is some times. What I am not really clear on is that I have received from ECS a quoted price, I have accepted the quotation and then placed the order for the items and shipping as quoted, ECS has debited my credit card for the order amount, so you as the vendor have charged me for those items so they are paid for, but now I am being told that it is not possible for it to proceed at all. In Australia, at the time the vendor takes payment the contract is binding, which is why the situation to me is most confusing.

I appreciate that you are letting me know that there is a 'significant' shipping cost difference - however I really am at a loss to see how that should now be impacting me as it was clear I was trying really hard from the outset to make sure you were satisfied that everything would be double checked along the way that we would get this across the line. In short, this is an insulting outcome to the whole predicament.

The issue surrounding the charges to my credit card now really bothers me. I have a total of 4 charges made against my credit card by ECS over the past month. These are;

2 reconciled payments

27.08.10 - ECS TUNING INC 03308256601 OH 814.50 US DOLLAR - AU$919.51
27.08.10 - ECS TUNING INC 03308256601 OH 173.11 US DOLLAR - AU$195.43

These have attracted international transaction fees as well

27/08/2010 INTNL TRANSACTION FEE $5.77
27/08/2010 INTNL TRANSACTION FEE $27.13

and 2 further pending payments

15/09/2010 PENDING - ECS TUNING INC WADSWORTH OH AU$314.76
14/09/2010 PENDING - ECS TUNING INC WADSWORTH OH AU$750.21

These charges will also attract International Transaction Fees, but I am unsure of their amount.

This is a total of AU$2212.81 + further fees.

So you can see by the payments made on the 27.08 that the rate to convert was US$0.8857/AU$1.00 so we have another few hurdles to achieve if I simply want to forget about the whole thing and have you refund me my money, as I am not willing for you to simply refund the US$ amount at today's exchange rate, but I would expect that I am refunded at the original converted AU$ amount as the US$ is now significantly weaker against the AU$. I would also expect that the fees that I have been charged will be refunded as well, as a cancellation was not by my choice.

In short, and I am really not sure that this is going to be possible for me to simply let this go and cancel the orders. The simple situation for me is that ECS must accept that they as a company have to be responsible for the errors made by their staff, and at no time have I made any error in this transaction. I have been patient and willing to accept the delay on parts for the expected positive outcome. If ECS had not charged my card for any balance, I would have been willing let this matter go. As there has been a significant amount of money charged to my card, I firmly believe that at the point that ECS is willing to take the funds from me, it is now up to ECS to honour the order that payment was against.

I think I am a pretty normal and reasonable sort of guy, probably very much like yourself. I have a regular job, family, and a passion for an old MK1 Golf. I ask for you to place yourself in my position and ask how you would feel right now. ECS is a large company and I am sure that this error will cost them some money to rectify, however, the other side of that is the loss of goodwill that this situation will cause, if it is not resolved, may outweigh the extra freight. At a minimum the 4 people wanting these bumpers, myself included, will be left with a pretty average memory of this. Simply put, I don't believe the mistake should be made my concern.

Please take this email and the above outlined situation to your senior management and see what they are willing to do. I am at the point now where all I want is for my parts to be shipped as agreed, and the distress I am now feeling is really not what I had anticipated at the outset. It is also hard due to time zones etc, being international. And I really don't want to have to go through the complex discussion about reimbursing me if this is all cancelled.

The response was pretty much as you would expect - nothing we can do for you. There are quite a number more emails, but I have simply condensed it here for this post. Pete, I know you took over from Chris when he left, and I appreciate the assistance you provided in getting me the money back from this debacle - so this is not directed at you - but ECS and their unwillingness to honour an agreement when one of their staff made a mistake.

In the end I had the money refunded, and there was about $150 difference that I lost out in the exchange rate conversion as out dollar strengthened plus fees - which I eventually got turned into ECS credit which I still have to use.

I don't write this post easily, I am not the kind of guy to slander anyone - but this is all based on facts and I leave it here as a form of both me expressing my discontent with how I was treated by a forum sponsor and also to highlight that there is an element of buyer beware in any online transaction.

If ECS or the VWW admin wish to contact me about this post, I am more than happy to discuss it in more depth.

[Maverick]

They have not responded what-so-ever?? PM me details of your issue and I will look into it myself.

Sent you a PM and an email with all the details.

[Stalker]

That would have to be one of the best written posts I have ever read, not because of the subject matter, but the way you have explained the situation in a calm and straighforward manner is to be admired. I'm sure this situation caused you more than a moderate amount of frustration and I think you handled the situation perfectly. Well done.

P.s. Just for the record, I have already and will again, use ECS to acquire goodies for the R32.

[Maverick]

I've experienced great customer service, after recently purchasing a set of coilovers and other odds and ends. They responded at what would have been first thing in the morning for them and the response was very well written and helpful.

As did I but it was when I first raised an issue they stopped responding. I spoke to them via the online chat system on a Friday morning around 1am and questioned the freight price as being too high, they checked and found they could do it for ~$60 (and could do an extra hatch kit for that price) but they had to enter the order. I told JP I'd get back to him shortly as I wanted to see if someone else wanted to buy a hatch kits and early in that morning put an order through. I had an email arrive soon after with a freight price of ~$80 so emailed them back to query. The order shipped soon after and I receive an email saying that he needed authorisation from the freight manager to discount as UPS had put their rates up after I enquired. Since then around 8 emails to JP and the sales and esales queues have been ignored. So I'm stuck with a hatch kit that I can't pass on to the guy that was buying it, a hatch kit on my car that doesn't work, $20 extra in delivery and some faulty pens. Buying the bumpers locally isn't an option as they will cost as much as the hatch kit. All up I spent nearly USD$500.

And the only way to get a response was to take it public which is pretty disapointing as it seems their customer service is good until you pay for the goods and after that they don't give a damn. It's been nearly two weeks since I placed the order and over a week since the order arrived so it's not like I was expecting an immediate response.

[Big_M]

That would have to be one of the best written posts I have ever read, not because of the subject matter, but the way you have explained the situation in a calm and straighforward manner is to be admired. I'm sure this situation caused you more than a moderate amount of frustration and I think you handled the situation perfectly. Well done.

P.s. Just for the record, I have already and will again, use ECS to acquire goodies for the R32.

Here here.

Sorry to hear of the situation you found yourself in.

I hope I never have to bring a report similar to the table. Always something thats in the back of mind when ordering.

[triode12]

I had a similar issue with shipping quotes as well with ECS.

I purchased a Votex lip for my GTI and their online shipping system quoted $92USD for shipping. After paying online, I got an email from ECS stating that they could not ship for that price as they had to use UPS and not USPS because of size restrictions. The revised price was $300 to ship the item via UPS. They then offered me the choice of getting my money back.

I was after much stuffing around and threatening to do a write up on this here that I got to speak to Josh (one of the managers). He agreed to honor the mistake made by their system and he said he would look into fixing the bug.

I checked their system again a few months after the fact but nothing had been done to fix the bug in the system. So shipping costs for Australia may still be inaccurately calculated by their online retail system.

It sounds like the problem is ongoing which is a pity because, I think their prices are pretty good comparatively.

[thezoneR32]

Wow I bet ECS wish they didn't start this thread! I had a good experience with them, ordered some H&R sways, was quoted a shipping price by the online system, paid and the product arrived on my doorstep in 6 days from date of order! Maybe I was lucky, not sure. maybe the product I ordered was fairly "common" and by that I mean popular eg they probably sell a lot. To order more unique or large items may be a risk. I know thats not good enough if the on-line system quotes a product and shipping at a price, just trying to speculate. As mikinoz already said, online purchasing will always be a risk. I have had to send a few things back that i bought on ebay because they were not as described. There are some people that will just try it on and hope you don't notice. I don't think that ECS are dishonest just a bit disorganised. There aren't many retailers these days that offer much after sales service its the nature of the beast. I have spoken with Pete and he seems genuinely interested in getting things right regarding customer service but sadly when you work in a big company you cant change everything.

To sum up lets face it, how much product would they sell to OZ compared to US?

[Tim]

Im sure that ECS dont go out of their way to make peoples lives difficult. Getting product to Australia in a cost effective fashion is extremely difficult.

Having an automated checkout system that quotes shipping on bulky items is always asking for trouble as freight will be charged by its volumetric weight not its actual weight. Sometimes its impossible to calculate the volumetric weight of something until it is fully packaged as some items require more protection than others etc..

At the end of the day ECS are making a reasonable attempt to break into our booming market. The logistics of it however are not quite so simple. Expecting champagne service on a beer budget is always gonna end up in disappointment.
I dont think crucifying them for a few deals gone wrong is the way forward. So long as a learning process takes place and the logistics are nutted out I can see them taking a substantial market share here.

[triode12]

I am sure they don't either but they are not doing themselves and their reputation any favours if they do not fix up the bugs in their checkout system.

If Josh didn't sort out my issue, I would not have purchased any more items from them. And I am intending to purchase another lot of things from them shortly.

Im sure that ECS dont go out of their way to make peoples lives difficult. Getting product to Australia in a cost effective fashion is extremely difficult.

Having an automated checkout system that quotes shipping on bulky items is always asking for trouble as freight will be charged by its volumetric weight not its actual weight. Sometimes its impossible to calculate the volumetric weight of something until it is fully packaged as some items require more protection than others etc..

At the end of the day ECS are making a reasonable attempt to break into our booming market. The logistics of it however are not quite so simple. Expecting champagne service on a beer budget is always gonna end up in disappointment.
I dont think crucifying them for a few deals gone wrong is the way forward. So long as a learning process takes place and the logistics are nutted out I can see them taking a substantial market share here.

[Pete@ECSTuning]

Maverick - I received your FWD. Not sure yet what happened, but I have sent a copy on to our sales manager, as well as a link to this thread. I suspect I will know more in a few hours.

After Chris left, I was left with the unfortunate job of having to address mkinoz's bumper-order-catastrophe. I won't lie, between the shipping calculation errors and exchange rates back and forth - WOW was a headache for me, but not nearly as much as it was him. As it was apparent by the time I picked up on the case that there was a calculation error, I did everything in my power to provide him with the best options, and it was unfortunate I couldn't do more. I wish I had started this position a little earlier, perhaps I could have helped avoid that particular situation entirely.

Im sure that ECS dont go out of their way to make peoples lives difficult. Getting product to Australia in a cost effective fashion is extremely difficult.

Having an automated checkout system that quotes shipping on bulky items is always asking for trouble as freight will be charged by its volumetric weight not its actual weight. Sometimes its impossible to calculate the volumetric weight of something until it is fully packaged as some items require more protection than others etc..

Thanks, Tim. I will open a query with our shipping manager and website programmers to see what can be done about the discrepancies in our shipping calculator. Anyone who has had shipping errors in the past, if you would like to PM me with the items in question and the discrepancy, I will make note of them. I encourage anyone purchasing a heavy or bulky item to email or PM me for a more accurate shipping quote. Obviously you shouldn't have to inquire every time you place an order, but until I can say all our quotes are right, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I really am dedicated to customer service, and I welcome any of you to come to me with any questions, comments, or concerns.

[Buller_Scott]

mikinoz, you could have done the american thing and sued 'em.... yes, you would have had to pay significantly more in postage, but at least you'd have a couple of million up your sleeve

[Maverick]

Update: The hatch stop bumpers arrived today and now I finally have a fully functioning hatch pop kit.

And because of the delays I have also been stuck with a complete kit which is for sale if anyone is interested.