I'm a pretty easy to get along with guy. So when a customer contacted me to tell me they had a problem I offered my assistance.

They purchased a restored vault door from me back in 2016. We completed the work and shipped it out November 2017. It finally arrived within the last few days. Why so long you ask? Well I'm in St. Louis and the door is now in Namibia. The one in Africa.

He starts by telling me that my 2x4 broke the 1" steel shaft causing this handle to fall off. According to him the weight of that 2x4 was too much for that steel to handle:







I suggested that perhaps it was damaged as a result of mishandling during shipping. I suggested that either the door was dropped, laid on its side or face at some point, or perhaps had something heavy stacked on top of it. He says there is some paint damage as well which further indicates that somebody was too rough with it.

The crate was marked "This side up", "Do not stack" etc. I suggested that he file a claim with the shipper, send me the damaged piece, and I would have my machinist make a new piece at their expense.

Well it seems that he didn't want to pay extra for insurance, and the shipper told him to pound sand. Apparently it is now my fault and I should take care of all of these issues somehow. It's as if I should send one of my techs to Namibia at my expense to rectify shipping damage that he did not protect himself against.

I was still willing to work with him until he threatened to sue me. He's convinced it is my fault. I then told him to do what his shipper apparently told him to do. This is why I couldn't work for somebody else. I'd be fired my first day. Apparently I suck at customer service.

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Originally posted by a1abdj:
Well I'm in St. Louis and the door is now in Namibia.

Question for you.

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The one in Africa.

OK, never mind

Your ex-customer sounds like a real piece of work. Starts with a wild claim that a 2x4 broke steel, only when asked questions about shipping damage admits there is other evidence of mishandling, skimps on insurance, and threatens to sue.

I have a friend who worked for a pump manufacturer in Houston. PEMEX (Mexico's state oil company) is notorious for false shipping claims (improperly packed, empty crate was shipped, etc.) that they had to photographically document every single step of crating the pump, install shipping accelerometers in the crate, and put seals on the crate they built.

The photo/video documentation, accelerometers, and seals might be a future good practice if you decide to ship something like this in the future.

Now where is the prince going to keep the money till he can send me my share!?

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Originally posted by cas:
Now where is the prince going to keep the money till he can send me my share!?

Seriously dude, that was one badass slat you had there. I would have kept that one...

Cuss-tomer service indeed!

I think you need to apologize and shut down for a day of sensitivity training. Then tell him he is welcome to come shit in your bathroom and hang around your showroom with out buying anything. Anyways, I hear some top CEO's are using this approach.

I too was unemployable and had my own business.

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The photo/video documentation, accelerometers, and seals might be a future good practice if you decide to ship something like this in the future.

When I ship something I make sure it's insured. This includes when I ship it for a customer. In this particular case, mostly due to it being exported, the customer took care of everything. I simply restored the door and crated it.

All shipping arrangements, payment, and insurance (or in this case lack of) was arranged by the buyer. Lucky for me I take photos of everything, so I can prove its condition prior to his guys roughing it up. I don't know why he wouldn't insure it. It was going half way across the US, all the way across the Atlantic, and then up into Africa. If something was going to get torn up this was the trip it was going to happen on. Trucks, boats, and Africans. What could go wrong?

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Seriously dude, that was one badass slat you had there. I would have kept that one...

I have a few more laying around.

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I think you need to apologize and shut down for a day of sensitivity training. Then tell him he is welcome to come shit in your bathroom and hang around your showroom with out buying anything. Anyways, I hear some top CEO's are using this approach.

This is why I never finished college. I didn't want to end up like those top CEO's.

i don't mean to sound like you did anything wrong. But did you ever think it would get there in one piece? That would of been a miracle imho.

I fear this incident will negatively impact your Namibian Yelp rating.

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i don't mean to sound like you did anything wrong. But did you ever think it would get there in one piece? That would of been a miracle imho.

You really have to try to tear these up. It was laying on its back, framed, and wrapped in plywood. We ship them in the US this way all of the time and have never had a problem.

If somebody drops it, flips it over, or puts something on top of it there's nothing I can do to protect it. So long as it stays on it's bottom and they aren't doing anything crazy there's nothing that can really happen to it.

He said there was no damage to the crate but that doesn't mean anything. The crate was pretty stout. It could have been dropped high enough to damage the door inside but not the crate itself. Changing the orientation or stacking something on top of it wouldn't leave any external visual signs either.

What I do know is that my 2x4 didn't do that, and that's what he's claiming at this point.

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I fear this incident will negatively impact your Namibian Yelp rating.

In addition to the impeding lawsuit, he's threatening that as well.

That's one hell of a 2x4 there.

Where did you get it from?

Do you have any before/after photos of other restoration work? It would be cool to see.

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Where did you get it from?

Home Depot. They even had straight ones that day!

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Originally posted by a1abdj:

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Where did you get it from?

Home Depot. They even had straight ones that day!

Well now we know you're lying! HD hasn't a straight 2x4 in years!!!

Looks like water buffalo damage to me.

Tell him it comes with a 2 part warranty. If it breaks he gets to keep both parts!

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Originally posted by 1967Goat:
Tell him it comes with a 2 part warranty. If it breaks he gets to keep both parts!

I have made a note of that. I WILL find an opportunity to use it.

Looking at the unpacking photos, is your 2x4 going over the outer portion of the handle? If someone had placed something heavy on that 2x4, couldn't the leverage generated by the handle be a problem? Obviously the weight of the 2x4 didn't cause the problem, but to my layman's eyes, it's location over the handles look to be a factor in the damage.