Buyer Beware: Agency Power

[cobrabyte]

[DELETED]

I spoke with the guys at Agency Power and they cleared-up the events that dominoed over this order. As I had suspected (hoped), it was a series of small things that lead up to a larger problem. I appreciate Vivid Racing passing on my contact information to Matt @ AP so that I could hear it from the horse's mouth. Matt: thanks for the phone call.

I've cooled off, moved on and am still very much looking forward to receiving the control arms this week.

Lesson learned: do not order drop-shipped products.

[vividracing]

Hey I just wanted to pop in a clear a few things. We work VERY closely with AP being in the same building. I talked with AP to verify a few things. Agency Power encourages stock orders for their vendors all the time, so there must have been a miscommunication there. They have several vendors stocking a wide array of their products. However some companies choose to use drop shipment for various reasons.
The control arms in question have not been in stock for a week or so, once they were finished being milled they were sent to anodizing, and from there to laser engraving. I am told your order was even rushed and sent without the laser engraving to save more time.
Obviously I am not involved with the transaction or privy to the communications, but being the board rep I just wanted to make sure and clear up a few things.
I do apologize, as do AP for the delay and confusion that these were in stock and ready to ship.
If you need anything else please feel free to contact me and I will do my best to aid in any way I can.

[cobrabyte]

I've ordered from you guys and appreciate the reply.

My biggest problem with this order: accountability. It seems that the guys within AP have no clue as to when they'll actually be able to ship a product. So, they just tell people it'll go out today. That's no way to run a business. Had I been told that the order would ship today (Wednesday), I would have canceled the order, got the refund and purchased another product (GTspec, Cusco, etc).

Oh well, live and learn. I sincerely hope they get their stuff together. Thanks again for the behind-the-scenes input.

[vividracing]

Appreciated, I was told that AP never gave a ship date ETA for these as the anodizing process, and laser engraving process for the amount of parts we send them can vary. The incorrect ETA may have simply been a miscommunication or misunderstanding by JMAR, I can't say. I deal with AP on an hourly basis for parts, and stock checks etc. I can assure you they do not give ETAs unless they have them, I beg for even vague ETAs sometime but they typically just tell me a window if the parts are in final production like Anodizing, powder coating etc. Having done this as long as I have I know that taking an ETA from powder coating, or anodizing etc should usually be done lightly, so I understand.

If you need anything else in the future, please let me know. I would be glad to extend a discount to help make up for the frustration of all this, unfortunately I cant help more at the moment.

[cobrabyte]

Originally Posted by vividracing

Appreciated, I was told that AP never gave a ship date ETA for these as the anodizing process, and laser engraving process for the amount of parts we send them can vary. The incorrect ETA may have simply been a miscommunication or misunderstanding by JMAR, I can't say. I deal with AP on an hourly basis for parts, and stock checks etc. I can assure you they do not give ETAs unless they have them, I beg for even vague ETAs sometime but they typically just tell me a window if the parts are in final production like Anodizing, powder coating etc. Having done this as long as I have I know that taking an ETA from powder coating, or anodizing etc should usually be done lightly, so I understand.

If you need anything else in the future, please let me know. I would be glad to extend a discount to help make up for the frustration of all this, unfortunately I cant help more at the moment.

I did think that maybe JMAR was misrepresenting AP's replies but they sent me the chat transcripts that they had with their rep over there -- just so I could see that it's not totally JMAR's fault. I hope I don't get those guys in trouble but it did help me to place blame where it was due.

Maybe it was a one-time deal... we've all had those sorts of orders that become nightmare orders and it's a weird series of small things that add up to one big failure.